Master Apprentice Archive The Flame and the Salamander Quick search:

The Flame and the Salamander

by Qor-Ynn

Title: The Flame and the Salamander
Author: Qor-Ynn (qorynn@aol.com)
Archive: MA
Pairing: Qui/Obi
Category: drama, angst, hurt/comfort, first time
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: they belong to George.
Summary: A rescue mission goes astray.

Notes: First published in Living Force, vol. III.

Thanks to: M'ki - first, foremost and forever. Incredible editor, that's you. And to Nancy, Merle and M. Fae for encouragement, advice and proofing. And patience with my shortcomings.

"I am the Salamander, my skin's made of fire,
My hair's sparkling ember, my deeds Her desire.
Her fire's my heart, I'm Her seventh knight,
Filled by the blue spark of the Weaver of Light.

You and I, both of fire we're born,
But while you will destroy, I will transform.
Your touch draws blisters, while I burn out the wound,
For you cinder is death, while I see the field bloom.

You, Flame, cannot consume me, harken, it's true!
Your soul's color shuns me, red burns no blue.
Born to the one Force, chosen by the Light,
My fire burns fire, as day swallows the night.

While hate burns your soul to ashes and sand,
I burn with love in the cup of Her hand.
I am the Salamander, while you are just Flame,
I will endure—forever your bane."

- allegoric poem, author assumed an apprentice of Jedi prophet Uór-Omá Chinnóbi. Sith Wars era. Archives of Yavin Temple, XII.B.LV.DmV.

Chapter I
Of Fire We're Born

The earth groaned under the impact of the grenade.

The packed, frozen dirt under his fingers ran with cracks like splintering glass as the sides of the trench trembled wildly, showering him with mud and pebbles. Hands over his head, the knight stayed plastered to the ground, his muscles tense and ready for instant action should the walls give in—but it seemed they would hold one more time.

When he felt it was safe to move again, he crawled on, his knees aching, his swollen fingers touching ice and slimy mud and sometimes cloth and cold skin and other things he blanked his mind against.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had raised his mental shields as high as he dared, lest he become overwhelmed by the tortured outcries of dying minds on the battlefield—and the rage and Darkness lying over everyone who was still alive. He held just a narrow window open to the Force, trusting his intuition would guide him through the fire and to the Jedi he had come to assist and rescue.

That at least had been the theory.

Just a moment ago his comlink had gone off with a subsonic alarm, acknowledging what he had guessed already: his little scoutship had been destroyed and with it the only way—the only easy way—of getting away from Paledeen Prime again.

Obi-Wan's neat search-and-rescue mission had turned on him, and the other Jedi was the only source of Light left in this madness. He had the distinct feeling the rescue would be either a mutual effort or it would fail, especially as Obi-Wan had to admit that he had no clear idea how to get out of this mess. But two minds were better than one, two bodies stronger—and two Jedi enough to move the world, as the crown prince of Alderaan had said in his dramatic way when Obi-Wan had been his bodyguard for some weeks. The starry-eyed teenager had had a knack of spouting poetry at every turn and for the young dreamer, Jedi were like the heroes in his romantic novels, some kind of angelic powers, children of the All-Fire, as his particular faith called the Force. What had been his name for them? Salamanders. Firespirits. He had recited an old poem and had likened Obi-Wan to that Salamander. By-the-book Kenobi, the firespirit. His master would have loved that.

I am the Salamander, my skin's made of fire, My hair's sparkling ember, my deeds Her desire

The verses came back to him, sounding a lot like a prayer, considering his current position. Oh, his master really would have loved that—in the midst of a battlefield, under fire, Obi-Wan found nothing better to do than remember some lines of obscure poetry...

Flames cannot consume me

How I wish! Obi-Wan thought with a touch of bitter humor as a shell impacted nearby, drawing his eyes to the fountain of fire and dirt. He saw the trench collapse over a length of two-dozen meters, becoming an icy grave for the bodies he had crawled over just a moment ago—but not my grave, not mine, not this time... ah... Force help him, but even with raised shields it wasn't easy to avoid getting caught in the fear singing so noisily in every molecule surrounding him.

A high whirring alerted Obi-Wan to another shell aimed at his location and he ducked down as far as he could, shielding his head, his face touching coarse, stiff fabric, a round metal button pressing into his cheek with burning coldness. The earth shook like a wounded animal, the outcry of the tortured world audible even through the adamantine shields he'd slammed up around his sanity. Shields that protected his mind from the reality of what he lay in this moment, from the dead people in trenches ripped apart by shrapnel from archaic explosives.

Obi-Wan had seen scenarios like this before, but seldom to this extent. He had seen the results of total breakdown of reason, had felt bloodlust, rage, and hate like a cancer eating away once civilized minds and gentle hearts until there seemed no other goal left but unconditional subjugation, if not a total erasure of the enemy, of the other, the different, the monster.

Crouching in the foul stinking mud of a trench, huddled against a corpse, Obi-Wan's face screwed up into a mirthless grimace. How neatly he had managed to get caught in the middle of another mess! A mess that reminded him graphically of his apprentice days when he had been partnered with a sought after master-mediator, the best for ending violent conflicts—and if that failed, also the best at getting himself and his padawan out of it against all odds, through fire and ice and all the meanness sentient minds could think up.

The remembrance of the days past brought a short flicker of unwanted feeling and Obi-Wan sighed in frustration: the familiar admonishment he gave himself to concentrate on the Here and Now was delivered in his master's husky voice.

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth; he was really losing it if he allowed his mind to wander in that direction. With a mental push he turned his thoughts around and let the negative energies dissolve, focusing his mind on the situation he was in now, especially how it irked him that he knew so little about what and who he was up against.

His information was scarce—a few names, a very sketchy synopsis of the original mission. The encrypted message had become garbled and incomplete over the distance and uncounted relay stations that had been needed to reach him east of the Chat Tail nebula. There in the wastes of the outermost mid-rim, the young knight had escorted an ambulance ship, the Bothia's Nonsuch, coming out of famine-devastated Geshtapol and heading for Dantooine. The moment the plump ship had cleared the dangerous space, Obi-Wan had left it and headed out again, while trying to extract more useful information from the broken message. Unfortunately it was to no avail; but the order at the end of the message was clear and to the point: Go in and get the Jedi ambassador out.

Arriving on Paledeen Prime, eight days after the first and only call for help, Obi-Wan had wasted no time with protocol but had bullied his way into the subterranean command center that had been the location of the failed negotiations.

The assembled Hedjasi military had claimed not to know where the missing Jedi could be found and pleaded innocence about everything that had taken place right under their noses. They claimed their enemies—hell's ice on Elu Foga and the evil Libanu!—had planned the assassination and were in all probability holding his Jedi brother—long may he live!—as the sadly smiling General Hloree and his adjutant Prochech had put it.

Obi-Wan had known the general had been lying from the moment the cadaverous man had opened his mouth. Falsehood had clung to him like a cloak, that and something Obi-Wan had perceived as a shadow behind him. Feelings of anxiety had settled into the knight's heart from one beat to the next, forebodings of coming trouble a slow rolling drumbeat in the back of his mind.

Knowing he would find no help there, Obi-Wan had turned down their rather insistent invitation to stay. He had prepared to leave—only to find himself on the business end of two dozen blasters.

His answer to that kind of gentle persuasion had been the same, he assumed, as his predecessor's: tactical withdrawal. That is, fighting his way out and fleeing.

Right onto the battlefield, right into a very real version of the Hedjasi hell.

The ground became stable again and Obi-Wan heaved himself onto his knees, not daring to look where his head had rested. A touch to his sleeve made him twitch back in instinctive reaction, his numb fingers closing around his lightsaber.

The body he had been crouching over was moving. The white of panic-stricken eyes blinked up at him.

"Tai?" the soldier whispered in Libanu. Please.

Obi-Wan stilled his racing heart, coming back to his senses; as gently as he could, he disengaged the desperate fingers from his arm and held the bloody appendage between his hands, trying not to add new pain.

"Shhh, be calm, you're not alone," he soothed almost subvocally, automatically letting down a fraction of his shields to comfort the wounded. Oh, it hurt. Hundreds of voices babbled at him, in desperation or malicious glee, thousands of hurts assailed him, and each life becoming one with the Force felt like pinpricks to his brain, both red hot and numbly cold at once. He fought down his mind's automatic defense to slam his shields shut again and concentrated on what he felt from the one who was tightly holding onto his hands now. The man was radiating hope in shockingly high waves, a hope Obi-Wan couldn't share as his senses assessed the wounds, and he needed to fight down his gag reflex as the extent of the injuries became clear to him. There was nothing to do.

"Tai?" the man repeated and Obi-Wan looked up again to meet the bright eyes—and understood the man knew he was dying.

"Tai, Dina?" Holy One. The man thought him a priest? He asked a priest for a last blessing, for someone at his side when he made the journey into the Force, by whatever name he called it here. Obi-Wan couldn't save his life, but gentling him over the threshold, that he could do.

The knight made his frozen fingers work and painted a sign of blessing on the forehead of the dying man, the Force-rune, certainly not Libanu, but it would do. "Go in peace. The Light will be with you," he said in the man's tongue, hoping he got the words right, and let him feel the Force through his touch.

"Yes," the man whispered, his bloody lips stretching into a contented smile, beatific like religious epiphanies depicted on an old icon. Hard to watch, hard to watch how the man believed him totally, feeling the Force for the first time—and then the soldier let go, the overtaxed heart slowing down, becoming as sleepy as the mind. Obi-Wan trembled as he felt the man's life energy slip way into the bright eddies of the Force.

Closing the soldier's eyes, Obi-Wan threw a last glance at the smiling features and turned away to crawl on, his insides now filled with low-trembling desperation to find the only one who could understand.

After what felt like hours, he came to a bunker set deeply into the earth at the juncture of three trenches. A shell must have made a straight hit here; the wooden beams were splintered like broken twigs, a thin line of curling smoke winding from the wreckage up into the gray sky.

Obi-Wan paused, unsure if this was where his feelings had led him or if it was just an obstacle in his way. He was reluctant to enter the structure which was, without question, filled with more broken bodies. He had already seen enough death today, enough to last a hundred lifetimes. He decided to scoot around the shelter... a nudge and he let himself fall flat on his face—a grenade exploding just a second later, shrapnel screeching by, some of it so near he felt the icy draft cutting over the top of his head before it impacted with the wood of the bunker, showering him with splinters.

Breathing brokenly, Obi-Wan heaved himself up on his elbows, absentmindedly wiping the slush from his face. "I got it, your little salamander got it," he murmured, and steeling himself, he ducked low and stepped into the shelter.

The air was filled with the reek of burning circuits... and flesh; the stench of death hung oppressively in the closed room, even more strongly than in the open air of the battlefield outside.

At first he could see nothing in the gloom, the many flickering colored pinpoints of diodes a distraction to the eyes but of little use as a source of light.

There was only one dying ember of life here, he realized with nothing but sorrow. His muted Force sense let him move over to where some panels had fallen to the ground, a few displays still sending their warning—of a disaster that had struck long ago and to eyes which had no use for any more warnings in this life.

Crouching at the panel which was the source of the biting smoke he had already seen outside, he found himself unsure why he had come here first. There seemed to be nothing here for him to do, the sprawled bodies under his hands empty shells. Frowning, Obi-Wan turned back to check on the dying he now clearly sensed to his left.

A little light seeped through the broken roof on that side of the structure and he could see a man on the ground, propped against what looked like an overturned game table, pawns strewn. Little figures carved from wood, Obi-Wan catalogued absentmindedly as his hand fell on one and closed around it. He knelt down beside the man, his hands skimming over his body, registering an officer's insignia as the scarce light glittered on metal. His fingers hovered over a wound hidden by the heavy cloth while searching with his other hand through the contents of his belt pouches.

"Useless. Neck's broken. A living corpse," a grating male voice whispered from behind him.

Obi-Wan spun around and squinted into the shadows beside the smoking panel.

He hadn't felt the other one. Or had he? His instincts must have led him to that man first, but... one thing after another. Sensing no danger from the speaker, Obi-Wan turned back to the officer, checking for the correctness of the stranger's claim. The shifting bones under his fingers were answer enough as he probed the officer's neck. Sighing Obi-Wan sat back, too numb to be disappointed, just faintly relieved he was spared from seeing another pair of eyes break. He painted the rune on the man's brow, mumbling the words of hope to the spirit still there or gone already out of a body which hadn't yet realized it was dead.

"A kind soul you have," the stranger whispered to him, "but it's lost on Elu Foga, I'm afraid. He would have despised you for it."

Elu Foga. So that had been the intrepid leader of the Libanu Alliance himself. Too easy a death for someone like him, a stray thought, and Obi-Wan hadn't the strength to feel embarrassed about it, not after what he had seen today.

"A key," came the rough voice again. "Left inner pocket. There must... a key .. ." the stranger stopped and coughed, his breath wheezing in the biting smoke.

Obi-Wan couldn't have said why, but he obeyed the request and searched the uniform jacket. His fingers touched some sticky plastic chips and he extracted them, cleaning their red-smeared surfaces on Foga's uniform shirt before holding them up into the dim light filtering in from the broken roof. One was obviously some kind of ID card; the other was dark, with some illegible symbols engraved on it, symbols Obi-Wan had the feeling he'd seen before. That had to be it...

"That's it," the stranger confirmed almost inaudibly.

Clasping the key in his fist, Obi-Wan made his way to the other living being in the shelter, the one he had not Force sensed at all.

Seeing nothing in the total darkness behind the smoking displays, he moved forward until his outstretched hand connected with a cloth-covered leg. His senses overwhelmed by the smell and bite of burning cables, he cautiously felt his way upwards, finding a man propped up in the corner of the bunker.

"Where are you hurt?" Obi-Wan made himself ask aloud, the raw emotionless rasp of his own voice strange in his ears. Skimming his fingers over the other's body without actually touching it, his dimmed senses sought for injury—a cold hand grasped his wrist, and Obi-Wan didn't react to the firm touch as much as he wanted to: it was like being touched by a corpse, there was no feeling of living flesh, no feeling at all. Was this a... droid?

"Here," the deep voice grated, bringing Obi-Wan's hand up to the man's neck.

The back of his fingers connected with metal, burning cold metal, so cold nothing he had felt in the freezing trenches outside even came near. This was like the coldness of space itself, crawling up his arm with muscle cramping numbness, radiating evil even to his shielded mind.

Shivering violently, Obi-Wan let his fingers explore: a ring of forged metal, broad and raw, not jewelry but a slave-collar. Some kind of jammer. But Obi-Wan was certain he had never felt anything like this before, was sure he never wanted to touch anything so foul ever again, but forced himself to continue his examination. He turned the band around the other's neck until his fingertips found what felt like buttons, or diodes, or—

"Careful," wheezed the man and his breath fanned over Obi-Wan's forehead. Warm living breath.

Gathering his concentration, Obi-Wan started to open a fraction of his shields to probe the catch—

"And don't use the Force!" the man ordered in a harsh burst of sound, startling Obi-Wan enough to snatch his fingers away as if burned. He frowned in confusion, wondering how the stranger could have known what he intended to do, that he even...?

"Key... the key..."

"Yes, it's all right... it's all right," Obi-Wan soothed the agitated man, and did as asked, holding the plastic chip against the surface of the closure. One of the diodes flashed in red and the collar came apart in his hands. Before Obi-Wan could do anything more, the man reached up and ripped the band from his own neck in a broken movement, scratching skin in his haste. Obi-Wan flinched as a hot drop of blood hit his fingers.

The collar collided with something at the other side of the shelter and clattered to the ground, a diode on the open clasp blinking at him like a red eye.

A part of Obi-Wan registered it, registered also the key card melting in some built-in self destruct, and he opened his fingers absentmindedly, letting it fall to the ground.

But the rest of him was stunned by what blazed into being under his fingers the moment the collar left the other's hand. "Oh, Force," burst brokenly from his lips as emotions ran under his shields, emotions that enveloped him in a mental hug as strong as the one his arms were bestowing in a rush of motion, his face pressing into a softly bearded jaw.

An exhalation of hot breath against his temple, a laugh, a sob. "So glad to see you again," was murmured into his hair and Obi-Wan couldn't conceive of how he ever could have mistaken this voice, hoarse and broken as it was, for a stranger's. A big palm cradled his cheek, a callused thumb stroked over his lips in silent assurance and Obi-Wan basked in the Force aura of the other man, never having known how much he had missed it before it was flowing back into him, filling all the shadowed places of his soul. The Force must favor us, Obi-Wan mused. Because amidst death and war, it was his own, his Qui-Gon Jinn, he'd found and rescued—

This thought sent him back into his rational mind with the suddenness of a sleeper awakened by a clap of thunder. He hadn't rescued his master yet, and if he was allowing his heart to rule over his mind in such a situation, there would soon be nothing to rescue—because they would both be dead.

Sobered, Obi-Wan leaned back, disengaging himself from the embrace, pulling his professional self into place again. "Where else are you hurt?" he asked once more, his hands already busy with searching for injuries and breaking the bindings on Qui-Gon's wrists and ankles when his fingers passed over them. His hands lingered above a place radiating pain, hidden under layers of cloth, but before he could assess the gravity of the trauma his fingers were enclosed in a cold palm and removed.

"Nothing serious, I assure you. Exhaustion mostly," Qui-Gon said, squeezing his hand once before letting go.

Relieved, Obi-Wan sat back on his heels. A bomb exploding outside the bunker made the earth shake; dust rained down on them and Obi-Wan threw a doubtful glance up to the splintered timbers over their heads. "Then we should leave here, Master."

The shadowy head nodded and their hands found each other unerringly in the dark, and Obi-Wan rose to his feet, hauling his master up with him. The tall man stood slightly stooped under the low roof, the light filtered through the beams reaching him now and Obi-Wan was looking up into the pale, dirt-besmirched face framed by disarrayed hair. His gaze met much-too-large, black eyes that regarded him intensely.

A shell exploded near them, much nearer than the last, ending their idleness in a shower of dust and dirt as the ground heaved under their feet and the structure shook and groaned, collapsing almost to ground level in the corner where Qui-Gon had been sitting just a moment before.

A little bit shaken at the narrow escape, Obi-Wan looked up at Qui-Gon again and found the other man's features hard, his eyes on something behind the knight. Obi-Wan followed his gaze and saw the rigid body of General Elu Foga.

Glittering coldly, the collar that Qui-Gon had flung away lay beside his clawed left hand.

The older man went over and reached around the corpse—for Foga was really dead now, as Obi-Wan sensed—his hand returning with the unmistakable shape of his lightsaber clutched in it. After clipping it to his belt, the master bent down once more and using the hem of his robe collected the collar inside the cloth.

"This should come with us," Qui-Gon said, holding it in visibly shaking, white-knuckled fingers before he tucked it under his belt at the small of his back.

Ducking out of the shelter, Obi-Wan waited for Qui-Gon to crouch behind him, his eyes watering from the sudden brightness of the outside, gray and overcast as the day was. Following his feelings, Obi-Wan led them into the ditch to their left, trusting the Force to guide them into safety.

The trench they moved along was new and thankfully there were no bodies to crawl over. It ended abruptly, shovels and a broken drill-droid sticking out of the ground like gravemarkers.

A touch on his back. "The hills," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan looked up beyond the edge of the ditch to the steep tree-covered hillside and the low mountains beyond. As his eyes fanned over the mist-shrouded heights, he felt the rightness. He nodded his consent, turning to his master. "Yes, I feel it—"

There was a cold flick of warning the same second he found himself pushed onto his face and rolled into a small ball, Qui-Gon half draped over him, a large hand covering his head—and a shell exploded behind them, a big chunk of metal gracing the crown of the trench above, pelting them with pebbles and mud.

Flashing his master a wobbly smile when Qui-Gon let him up again, Obi-Wan took a deep breath and stretched up, daring a look for the best way to reach the hillside. It was approximately four hundred meters away—which could as well have been kilometers when having to run over open ground.

Qui-Gon was beside him and his hand was on Obi-Wan's back again, pushing slightly to make him move. Heaving himself over the edge of the trench and lying on his stomach, Obi-Wan waited for the other man to come up beside him. He saw the Go! in Qui-Gon's eyes and as one they gathered the Force around them, stood up, and sped over the open ground, reaching the first trees in only seconds—the same moment the ground behind them was ripped open by a deadly barrage.

Dirt and metal whizzing around them, he heard Qui-Gon gasp as they hit the ground rolling, pushed by the detonation's wavefront until the thick undergrowth halted them, crackling twigs and raining leaves all around them. Knocked out of breath, Obi-Wan lay as he had fallen, his cheek cushioned by the soft, wet smoothness of fallen leaves, senses reeling...

"Obi-Wan?"

"I'm all right," he coughed, spitting out dead leaves as he turned onto his back. Qui-Gon caught his reaching hand in midair and used it to heave Obi-Wan into a sitting position, the sudden movement making his head throb sickly.

Concerned dark eyes bored into his. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing," he answered automatically, not used to being the focus of anybody's concern anymore, breathing deeply against the pain, just a moment, just another minute and he would surely be all right again...

"You should not lie to me," Qui-Gon grated and leaned down to touch both of Obi-Wan's temples with cool fingertips; the throbbing lessened instantly.

"Nothing, you see?" Obi-Wan repeated, feeling strangely giddy at the other mind's touch.

Qui-Gon straightened and Obi-Wan leaned his head back, stretching his stiffened neck muscles. Grinning crookedly up at the hovering man, Obi-Wan stroked a strand of hair out of his eyes, the movement causing his hood to fall back onto his shoulders—and found his master staring down at him, eyes burning in their intensity.

"You are..." Qui-Gon began and reached down to Obi-Wan, his hand almost touching his hair—then stopped, his lips pressed together into a hard line, his eyes and hand falling away.

Heart suddenly pounding fast, Obi-Wan lifted his hand to—a near detonation made them both start and look to where they had come.

Before the echo had faded Qui-Gon was turning back to him and had reached down to yank Obi-Wan's dislodged hood back over his head. "Onward," the Jedi master ordered crisply and moved away, twigs snapping under his heels as he ducked out of sight under the low hanging branches.

Bewildered at what had just taken place between them, Obi-Wan stared after him before he jumped to his feet as well—and stumbled against a tree as a sharp pain flashed up his leg. Wonderingly, the knight touched his thigh and hissed in dismay when he found the cloth ripped and wet, his fingers coming away stained in red. It's only a flesh wound, he decided dismissively and pushed himself away from the trunk, hurrying into the mountain woods.

Chapter II
As Night Swallows The Day

The hillside was steep and tricky with its thick layer of dead leaves, wet and in places ice encrusted, sliding away under their feet as they made their way uphill as fast as they could.

They didn't stop on the first ridge to look back. Obi-Wan didn't need to, feeling the madness, fear, and blackness behind them like sticky ashes clinging to every part of his soul. And the Force was urging them on.

The light was dimming as they dared to stop briefly beside a small brook for a drink and share a of few bites of food, conjured out of the knight's belt pouches.

As Obi-Wan sat down on a suitable rock, Qui-Gon laid a heavy hand on his shoulder before reaching downwards and deftly flipping the wet robe away from where Obi-Wan had bunched it in his lap, revealing the blood soaked trousers. But instead of the half-expected words of reproach for not having said anything sooner, Qui-Gon just loosened his own belt and ripped his sash up with practiced efficiency. Crouching down between his legs, Qui-Gon silently cleaned and dressed Obi-Wan's thigh wound, while the knight rested his hands on the broad shoulders, marveling at how such large fingers could be so gentle.

As if he had heard his thoughts, Qui-Gon looked up at him, the pale face impassive but Obi-Wan thought he saw sorrow in the deep eyes and he bent his head, feeling even worse than when his master had lectured him. Too near to the Living Force, Qui-Gon would always feel too deeply for others, for him. Would always feel responsible for Obi-Wan's injuries. But this was different, wasn't it? What he thought he saw in the other man's eyes was a little sorrow that something might have come between them which diluted openness and trust and familiarity. But things had changed, hadn't they? He could not assume...

Qui-Gon rose, drawing Obi-Wan's eyes with him and stretched out his hand in silent offering, which the knight accepted readily, the large palm closing warmly around his. As he was hauled easily to his feet, Obi-Wan squeezed the strong fingers in thanks, and not just for taking care of him.

He stood aside as his master used the other half of the sash to wrap the collar in it. Deliberately taking his eyes and mind away from that thing, Obi-Wan listened to the cannon fire that echoed eerily through the narrow valleys. It was still much too near. "The fear gets worse," he murmured, feeling it like goosebumps on his skin.

Qui-Gon came to stand silently beside him.

"All of them are afraid of something," Obi-Wan continued, thinking of his meeting with the Hedjasi staff officers. "That General Hloree--all of them, but especially Hloree..." he trailed off in loss to describe what exactly he had felt. "He was twisted, power hungry--and at the same time mortally afraid. I had a bad feeling from the moment I landed." He hugged himself, shivering.

"Yes," Qui-Gon said pensively. "Fear permeated everything they said--or didn't say--a fear not connected to the war at all. They never were out for peace, Obi-Wan, everything to do with the negotiations was a sham from the start. They were playing a game, a game I don't fully understand yet. But Hloree and Foga were only puppets on the strings of a--dark player..." Qui-Gon hesitated, his brow creasing over some thought before he continued, "Someone unseen in the background holds the real power, is the one who persuaded them to petition for Jedi help, and who..." Qui-Gon trailed off, the sound of air pressed slowly through clenched teeth ending the sentence.

But the unsaid, and who gave them Force suppressors, was heard by Obi-Wan anyway. It added up to trouble. Big trouble. "That someone hunts for Jedi," he stated slowly, needing to say it aloud to feel its whole weight on his tongue.

"Indeed."

They shared a silent glance, and Obi-Wan knew by the look in the master's eyes that they were thinking about the same thing: the dark player everyone was so afraid of. They had felt it before--on a Neimoidian Trade Federation ship on the other side of the galaxy.

"He could not know we would come," Obi-Wan said at last.

"One would not think so. At least he might not know about you." Qui-Gon stared down at him, his dark eyes troubled, almost accusing in their intensity. Obi-Wan just looked back, his tongue frozen in his mouth, his heart beating heavily against the sudden coldness deep in his chest.

They didn't talk again while moving on through the night. The Force guided their feet where eyes could see little under an overcast sky that was ripped now and then by flashes of detonations. Obi-Wan despaired of ever hearing anything again but the staccato of cannonade and the drumming of his own heartbeat in his ears.

The smell of snow was in the wind when the next day began as gray as the one before had ended. Low hanging clouds obscured the hills before them, the air a foggy, cold, clinging wetness crawling through every seam, touching Obi-Wan's exertion-heated body with unkind fingers.

Shortly before midday it began to snow. Around the same time the sounds of war--after two ridges and three valleys reduced to distant cracks of thunder--became scarce and then ceased altogether in the late hours of the afternoon.

If that meant the warring parties had signed a cease-fire, or one of them had won, or there was simply nobody left to continue the fighting, Obi-Wan didn't know.

Casting his mind in the direction they had come, he looked for pursuers, but sensed no sentient life near them. In fact he felt little life at all in the hills around them. He assumed the wildlife had fled the sounds of war, escaping on the same paths they now trod.

Qui-Gon halted many times, his eyes closed, all his senses focused in such a complete way that Obi-Wan knew he had yet to reach. There was worry in every line on the older man's face, but the master never spoke, just nodded to him and walked on, even when Obi-Wan knew he must feel as well how the need to hurry was lessening with every kilometer they laid between themselves and the battlefield. The Force had urged them away from there, but where they were headed he didn't know and if Qui-Gon knew he didn't say.

Obi-Wan watched him with increasing concern as he climbed the steep slopes behind the tall man. There was something happening with Qui-Gon he couldn't explain other than as the residual effects of that cursed collar they had tortured him with. That collar which Qui-Gon now carried wrapped in cloth under his belt, and which had apparently depleted every reserve his normally energetic and strong master possessed. While it seemingly wasn't interfering with Qui-Gon's Force sense anymore, Obi-Wan had the growing suspicion it was somehow draining him still with the constant bodily contact, being inside the other man's aura, separated from skin only by thin layers of fabric.

His gaze on the stooped shoulders, Obi-Wan felt the seeds of dread settle in the base of his neck. Even if the imminent danger was falling behind for good, there was more to come. Not right away. But something, somewhere, somewhen was not right. This was not the end of the story.

And if the fighting, the slaughtering, was really over, wouldn't the victor at some point discover the Jedi weren't with the fallen? And after having tortured Qui-Gon and trying to capture Obi-Wan, would they just let them go? Not very likely. Not with a Sith breathing down their necks.

It was still snowing, not heavily but constantly, as the night crawled into the deep mountain valley they were crossing. At Obi-Wan's insistence, they took a small break beside a fast running mountain stream. Perched beside his master on a fallen tree, backs to the wind and driving snow, Obi-Wan mentioned to Qui-Gon that the urgency seemed to have ebbed away, curious about his master's interpretation of the currents in the Force.

"I'm afraid it is only a respite," Qui-Gon said. "I do not think they will give up on us, Obi-Wan."

The knight felt the same--but this flight into the wild, what advantage could they possibly have in the mountains? "But where are we heading?" he mused aloud, looking up to the cloud festooned peaks.

He felt Qui-Gon turn to look at him. "You don't know? What did your mission files say?"

"Mission files? Ah, you see, I didn't get even half of the files that were sent. Most were broken during transmission. We're very far away from everything here, you know." Obi-Wan spread his arms to demonstrate how far. "Had I not been near Geshtapol I wouldn't have been able to arrive here when I did." Almost too late, he added silently.

The master's eyebrows climbed upwards. "You didn't know you would find me here."

"No. No, I didn't."

Qui-Gon nodded to himself, as if it explained something that had him wondering. Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows questioningly, but when Qui-Gon didn't seem inclined to share his thoughts, he asked, "So where are we heading, Master?"

"There should be a Marine camp by now on the other side of this range. There was a second part to my mission, namely to establish contact with them after the set-up."

"There are Marines on Paledeen Prime?" Obi-Wan asked incredulously. "Whose Marines? Why didn't they help you?"

"It's just a few Corellian surveillance specialists."

"Ah. I understand," Obi-Wan said. Of course they couldn't help. But maybe they should have tried--he could remember days when the security forces of all Republican worlds had worked hand in hand with the Jedi, but there seemed to be an increasing reluctance to provide assistance now. The newly appointed Defense Minister, Major General Tarkin, was known to be... skeptical about the Jedi involvement in what he thought to be his responsibilities. With Palpatine still struggling to grow into his new position, mis-appointments had become rather frequent--and Tarkin was the supreme chancellor's protégé. But Obi-Wan was confident that Council and Senate would soon steer that bigoted young general into a better-suited position. The problem would be solved as always before, but in the interim, dealings with the Republican Peace Forces had become--difficult.

His misgivings aside, Obi-Wan was relieved to hear their voyage actually had a destination and that Qui-Gon had known all along where they were going. Maybe he should just stop worrying so much. "Do you think," he mused aloud, "they might have hot water there?"

Qui-Gon smiled down at him. "Oh, whole tubs full of it, I'm certain."

"Can't wait to get there."

The master slapped his knees and stood up, dislodging a layer of snow that had accumulated on his shoulders and hood. "Indeed. Then we should not sit here, becoming chilled, but be on our way again."

Obi-Wan looked up at the robe-shrouded figure, a stark shadow in the white around them. He knew how tired Qui-Gon really was, how heavily he was augmenting his strength with the Force already, even if the stubborn man tried to hide it. While Obi-Wan felt every kilometer they had walked in his bones and stiffening muscles which cried for rest--how must it be for his weary, beaten-up master, not to mention what that sithly collar was probably doing to him? He came to a decision. "We should stay here tonight."

"We cannot."

Firmly, "Master, with all due respect, what difference will one night make? There is no longer any danger behind us so why run on like fugitives with bloodshagas on their track? What good will it do us if we're too weary to climb, not to mention to fight if need be?"

Qui-Gon shook his head rigidly, denying Obi-Wan, his eyes staring into the distance, fixed on the shadowy hills that lay in their way.

"We cannot go on. Please, Qui-Gon, you're dead on your feet," Obi-Wan tried once more, this time allowing his worry to color his voice. For good measure he added, "And I'm weary, too."

The dark gaze lowered to search his face, finally resting on his eyes. Obi-Wan held the gaze steadily, hoping he looked as bleary-eyed as he felt.

"Obi-Wan," his master said at last. "You shall have your wish."

Obi-Wan suspected his master had been well aware of being manipulated--and had given in to him, nevertheless. I love you, too, the young man thought, smiling wistfully at the broad back as Qui-Gon led them to an overhanging rockshelf that was to be their home tonight. As he crawled in after his master, the world around them was falling asleep under a thick white cover; the wind stilled, silence fell around them almost to the denseness of white noise. A silence as loud in Obi-Wan's ears as the sounds of war had been before.

Qui-Gon took the first watch and Obi-Wan curled up against him with natural familiarity as if years had not passed since he had last needed the other man for naked survival. Huddled under their combined robes, his arms folded against his master's side, he was careful not to touch the metal ring tucked there. It radiated coldness even through the cloth it was wrapped in.

Obi-Wan tried to understand how Qui-Gon could stand that thing against his body all the time, and why he would not take his utility belt off for sleep, battle-preparedness no excuse.

It was no simple brainwave jammer, as he had thought first. They did not work for long on a Jedi, because even if they blocked the victim from the alpha state a Jedi perpetually lived in, there was a way around it to the Force. But this collar was different in a very disturbing way. And Obi-Wan had heard of these foul devices, long lost--until yesterday he had thought forever--and he tried to remember what he had once read about them.

The Sith had once captured Jedi with such Force suppressors, such Force modulators, or Blotters as they had called them, the old lore said. Blotters which cut the Jedi off from the Light--and flushed them with Darkness. Sometimes the Sith had released their victims afterwards, and what came back to the Order had been screaming madmen, caged forever in their devastated minds, beyond any help. Compassion had demanded their souls be released gently into the Force, where they could find peace at last.

And now this hoped-for-forever-destroyed technology had found them again and the old stories of the Sith Wars were floating up out of the mists of legend into the bright light of day.

Obi-Wan leaned nearer his master, his heart aching for him, needing to know what went on in Qui-Gon's mind. Did he fight demons there or had Obi-Wan come in time to prevent the devastating effects from taking hold? He gently laid his hand on Qui-Gon's chest and looked up at him, his master's face a lighter spot in the shadows around them. "Tell me about that collar," he whispered.

Qui-Gon gazed down at him, his eyes dark smudges in the white of his face. His arm came around Obi-Wan's shoulder. "I'm all right, my friend," he said. "Thanks to you."

"Tell me."

Qui-Gon sighed, a long heave of chest under Obi-Wan's hand. "It was not so bad--they did not activate the collar."

"Activate it? I don't understand. It was activated, I touched it." Obi-Wan shuddered at the memory.

"Oh, no, it wasn't. It was quite effective as it was, Obi-Wan. That material itself is of the Darkside. A few more days..." Qui-Gon harrumphed. "Anyway, it could have been worse. I managed. I was in a trance most of the time. I... dreamt myself away."

Where to? Obi-Wan almost asked. Once he would have voiced the question without even a thought, asking to know the secrets of his master's mind. But now... things had changed.

"It's said these collars twist the Force--"

"They do. But if they had activated it, I don't think--I'm not certain that there would have been anything left..." The hand around Obi-Wan's shoulder tightened uncomfortably as Qui-Gon fell silent, his fumbling for words so uncharacteristic it hurt just to listen to him. Not certain that there would have been anything left... for me to rescue? In sympathy Obi-Wan moved his fingers over Qui-Gon's hand where it lay on his slightly concave stomach. The hand was trembling. Clasping it tightly, Obi-Wan was filled with the desperate wish to ease the other man's pain, knowing he couldn't, not anymore. Not without invitation. Qui-Gon had to fight his own demons, had actually done so for days, without hope of help, without knowing that the torture would ever end. And he had come out of the ordeal sane, not like in the tales, thank the Force. Regardless of what he said that downplayed the experience, he had suffered greatly.

"You are a very strong person," Obi-Wan said, his private thoughts slipping onto his tongue against his resolve.

A snort was his answer, Qui-Gon obviously not agreeing. "Please, Obi-Wan," he said after a while, his voice hushed and raw. "Let us not talk about it any further. I try very hard not to think about it. Not now."

"I'm sorry, it's not my place--"

"Don't be. Don't be, my friend. I'm warmed by your concern, but I'm just not ready to talk about it."

"I will be there when you are."

"You have a good heart, my Obi-Wan. Your presence comforts me. But for now, you must sleep. Will you do that?"

Reassured, at least somewhat, Obi-Wan nodded and after a split second of hesitation, dared to move a bit closer so his forehead rested against the side of the broad chest. But sleep was far from his mind as he listened to the heartbeat next to his ear, felt the deep chest move with each slow intake and release of air. He basked in a nearness he had thought lost forever, his place at this man's side a thing of the past. But now they were as close as if no intervening years lay between them, and they had slipped into their old working relationship as smoothly as if they were still master and padawan.

But when this mission was over, the danger behind them--would the abyss of time and space open between them again?

It was idle, if not dangerous, to concentrate too much on what the future might bring, so Obi-Wan turned his thoughts to his need to find sleep. With that Blotter right next to his hand--he could just imagine the nightmares it would cause. It would not do and if Qui-Gon couldn't be rational about it, he could.

Sitting halfway up again, Obi-Wan reached around the other's waist to undo his belt, ignoring Qui-Gon's inquiring grunt. He tugged the belt and its evil contents away and let it fall to their sides, carefully arranging it so that Qui-Gon could reach his lightsaber with a flick of his finger.

At last content, Obi-Wan pulled his hood all down over his face again and tried to find sleep, tried to ignore his throbbing thigh, his icy feet and the hard ground bruising his hipbone--

Callused fingers touched Obi-Wan's forehead and carded through his hair, warmth flowing from them, easing the ache in his thigh. His toes tingled comfortingly, and smiling, Obi-Wan let himself drift away.

Two nights later the highest ridge towered over them, snow-capped and gray against the darkening sky, it alone bare of any vegetation. They would reach the apex of the pass tomorrow and perhaps the other side of the hills would be easier to walk; maybe the snow would recede and just maybe the springtime Qui-Gon insisted was due to crawl into these latitudes any day now, would be waiting for them there. His master was optimistic and Obi-Wan kept to himself the disquiet knocking in growing insistence at his forebrain every time he thought about what might be awaiting them on the far side of that mountain ridge.

Apart from that unquellably positive outlook of things to come, Obi-Wan didn't know how Qui-Gon made himself go on, when the knight was exhausted to the point of falling down more than sitting down, when they'd crawled into their meager shelter of an overturned tree that night. His leg was troubling him still: actually, it was getting worse and he suspected the wound was infected beyond the help of the antiseptic patch he wore over it. Just another fiveday, Qui-Gon had said, another fiveday, at most, and they would reach the camp.

Other times, when they'd been out in the wild, he'd seen Qui-Gon sucking up the Living Force around them like a sponge--an ability Obi-Wan had always admired. For him it only came in that degree during meditation, not in just being there, as it was with his amazing master. But it didn't seem to be working this time. Even though the knight suspected he knew why, he still could find another answer if he wanted: maybe there was just too little life around them, animals scarce and weak and the plants deeply asleep. This could be the answer. It was a good answer. A good answer for peace of mind and a good night's sleep.

The alternative was disquiet, nightmares, icy foreboding--and a stark reality.

It was still early in the morning, the sun rising in a clear sky, when they halted on the crest of the pass and instead of finding a vista of lower hills, they looked down into a deep valley blocking their way, a steep-sided ravine, its bottom invisible through thick clouds of mist.

Obi-Wan didn't need to look at his master to know the man was as dismayed as he was himself. To cross the valley and move up the other side would cost them at least a day, one further day of difficult climbing when Qui-Gon was holding himself up only by his enormous will and the Force. But nothing could be done and after sharing one fatalistic glance, they walked on along the edge of the ravine, searching for a way down.

Obi-Wan didn't look forward to climbing into the clouds, could imagine all too well how cold and clammy it would be down there where the low hanging mist stirred and whirled like steam--the Force chose this moment to whisper something in his mind. Slowing, Obi-Wan frowned, his eyes scanning the clouds for a clue to his sudden feelings.

Steam.

He halted in mid-stride and looked more closely at the white clouds. Husbanding his strength, he had not looked farther than what his eyes saw, but now he reached out with the Force. Oh. "Master," he said.

Qui-Gon turned and looked at him questioningly.

He gestured down, "See." He watched as Qui-Gon turned his senses to where Obi-Wan's finger pointed. He saw the shoulders stiffen and the cowled head coming up. Blue eyes, filled with light again, turned to him.

"The Force is with us," Qui-Gon said.

Chapter III
In The Cup Of Your Hand

Their descent down the very steep, rocky hillside was anything but easy.

When they reached the clouds sitting over the bottom of the valley, the path became even more tricky, with rocks, bushes, and trees buried under thick layers of ice.

At last they came to where the mist began and snow and ice were left behind, the temperature far above freezing point, the rocks just wet now. The sudden rise of warmth made them short of breath and sweaty, their clothes becoming sprinkled with dew.

The feeling of safety was strong here and as Obi-Wan began to let down his guard the black weight that had been sitting on his heart lifted a little. His step lighter, he started to take an interest in his surroundings for reasons other than watching out for danger. A lively brook was babbling alongside them, moisture dripping from mosses and ferns at its bank, lush and green even at this time of year. The stones in the brook were overgrown with multicolored algae, dancing in the current like long flowing hair.

A patch of sun slid over them and looking up, Obi-Wan found the underside of the steam cloud not as opaque as it had appeared from above. The wind that grasped the clouds further up the ravine ripped open the thick layers and revealed large portions of blue sky. And in that moment, while he was looking up, the sun broke through again and showered Obi-Wan with blinding radiance.

Mystical! flitted through Obi-Wan's mind, for the first time, perhaps, really understanding what people meant when using that word: The white steam, swirling up from the pools of hot volcanic water, condensing higher up in the cold winter air and balling into wooly clouds that let every sunray tunneling through them seem like a focused beam of spotlight; it was as if the beam had singled him out, meant only for him. It was like living in a painting: the touch of a benevolent sun goddess so many cold worlds believed in and had described in their works of art.

Such places and such natural phenomena--and a good dose of overactive imagination--were they the promoters of religious epiphanies so many founders of cults had professed to have experienced? Obi-Wan supposed that such a scenario could help even the Blind to open their hearts enough to feel the Force, if only for a second.

The vision of a dying man's radiant face when touching the Force for the first time superimposed itself over Obi-Wan's philosophical musings. He was happy for the man to have had that one conscious glimpse of the Force before dispersing himself into it. Most people lived and died without even one true touching, experiencing forever only the pale reflection revealed in nature's beauties and wonders.

Intellectually Obi-Wan understood this, but he knew that even after all his travels and interactions with thousands of Force blind, he was far from understanding. To be without the Force was inconceivable. As far as his memories reached back he had always felt the Force; it was like feeling the air stream around him when he moved, like feeling his blood pulse in his veins--it just was there, always.

Looking at the tall man he followed, Obi-Wan felt grief for this highly gifted Force sensitive who had lived for days without it, had been cut off from everything, blinded to all sensations outside the five physical senses. How had he survived, feeling only what his nerves told him, touching only what his skin touched, seeing only what his eyes saw, being alone, a helpless prisoner inside his mortal shell? Again he longed for the answer Qui-Gon couldn't give him: how had it felt? How had he dealt with the panic that must have crept into his very cells?

As if having sensed Obi-Wan's thoughts and concern turning to him, or just wondering why Obi-Wan was lagging behind, Qui-Gon looked questioningly back at him. Obi-Wan threw him a reassuring smile and quickened his steps to catch up as his master turned and walked on. But after only a few strides of the long legs, Qui-Gon stopped again beside a patch of scrubby bushes--all thickly hung with bluish berry-like fruits, Obi-Wan registered with rising interest.

Qui-Gon picked a berry and sniffed it, then cautiously took a bite. His face lit up and with swift fingers gathered berries into his cupped hand. Obi-Wan's stomach growled at that mouth-watering sight, and he snaked his stiff hands out of his deep sleeves to pick his share--

"Here," his master said as Obi-Wan came up beside him, his warm hand taking hold of the knight's fingers. He cradled them in his large paw and tipped all of the berries into Obi-Wan's smaller palm, forcing the knight to bring up his other hand hurriedly to prevent the precious goods from spilling onto the stones.

"And remind me to never question the Force again," Qui-Gon added as he turned to gather a new handful, revealing with these words the same doubts Obi-Wan had started to harbor in the coldest hours of the previous miserable nights.

Obi-Wan hummed an agreement, the luscious fruits melting on his tongue... hmm, they were sweet! "This was what the Force was leading us to all the time?"

"Don't speak with a full mouth. And Nothing Happens Without Reason," Qui-Gon quoted one of his favorite sayings and suddenly grinned, transforming his tired face into a much younger and happier version of itself. "Forgive me. I know how much you hate me saying that."

Obi-Wan smiled back fondly, all too happy to tolerate his master's lapse into protective caretaker.

Qui-Gon's smile became wistful, the lines of his face softening. "Look around, Obi-Wan. Feel. Feel this place."

"I know, I feel it, too," Obi-Wan answered, feeling a lot of things indeed in that moment, charmed by that beautiful little smile lifting the corners of Qui-Gon's eyes and lips. A smile that now was becoming quizzical--Obi-Wan blinked and finished, "Safe, I feel this place is safe."

Qui-Gon nodded, then made an inviting gesture to the steaming green pool just ahead of them. "I faintly remember you wished for a tub of hot water?"

Obi-Wan's toes tingled at the sight and he sighed loudly, spreading his arms in mock surrender. "You'll make an Intentionist out of me yet."

"How I wish," his master replied, eyes twinkling.

They harvested all the bushes they could find and having nothing else to store them in, they filled their belt pouches to the brim with the sweet fruits.

With hunger stilled and one worry less, they settled down on the bank of the hot pool. Obi-Wan reached for Qui-Gon's shoulder, asking silently to be allowed to look at the older man's injuries now since Qui-Gon had denied him this request every night of their journey, insisting it was nothing.

Brows dipped down for a second but then his master just nodded and let Obi-Wan help him out of his clothes, not an easy feat, wet and dirty as they were.

The 'nothing' on the big man's shoulder turned out to be a large bruise, a green-and-yellow-ringed ugliness with a crust of dried blood in the middle. Qui-Gon bit his lip when Obi-Wan manipulated his arm and shoulder to get the clinging, snug undertunic off him and Obi-Wan winced in sympathy, instinctively trying to sooth the hurt with a burst of healing Force.

"Don't!" His master admonished him sternly. "Don't drain yourself."

But I can't see you suffer, Obi-Wan thought as he backed off reluctantly, halfway expecting to get lectured about the irresponsibility of depleting oneself by using the Force to heal simple scratches, that Healing without meditation was more draining than a whole day of hill climbing could suck out of them.

But Qui-Gon said nothing further, just touched Obi-Wan's fingers fleetingly in a gesture of reassurance that did nothing to quell his worries.

Obi-Wan helped the older man out of the rest of his clothes, restraining himself from doing anything more than simply looking over the other's injuries. The pale skin was mottled with colorful haematomas and scratches, making him look for infection, anything that might give him an excuse for further contact, but there was so much dirt and dried blood it was hard to say. His itching-to-touch fingers were drawn back to the contusion on the wide shoulder and he scraped at the crust--

Qui-Gon flinched away and shielded the spot from Obi-Wan's attention with a hand, half turning to glower at him. "Obi-Wan. Before you skin me, I should perhaps soak in the water first."

Folding his wayward hands together, Obi-Wan bowed his head in acknowledgment. Standing up, he held out a hand to assist if permitted, but Qui-Gon shook his head. "You go ahead. I think I'd like to meditate for a while, if you don't mind."

"Of course not," Obi-Wan agreed readily even though the rebuff hurt. If he was not allowed to help then there was really nothing that would do the older man more good than meditation. The deep connection to the Force would heal some of his mental exhaustion--and hopefully also the bruising Obi-Wan knew was there. He glanced over to where he had placed Qui-Gon's utility belt and his heart hardened. If he could only get his master to part with that collar! But Qui-Gon was a difficult man, had been so when they first met, was still so, and would hopefully always be that way.

Turning away with a sigh, Obi-Wan found something else he could do for his master. Scooping up Qui-Gon's clothes, he walked along the edge of the pond until he found a sufficiently smooth rock. He disrobed and had to peel the stained bandage from that damn cut in his inner thigh, unable to prevent the wound from re-opening again when the cloth was removed.

Slipping into the water cautiously, he gritted his teeth as his skin, used for so long to ice and snow, reacted strongly to suddenly being just this side of scalded. The slightly salty water stung his countless abrasions and his toes tingled uncomfortably when they touched the pond's bottom. Fortunately it turned out to be as even as the rocks lining it, age-old, water-rounded granite with a crust of multicolored minerals which made the rock's surface coarse but not enough to break the skin.

Obi-Wan dragged the pile of clothes into the water and soaked each item thoroughly before starting to scrub the grime out of the fibers as well as he could with the little bit of soap he had as part of the supplies in his utility belt.

The sun climbed up the sky while he was working. Every so often he looked over to Qui-Gon, who still sat on the warm stone, deeply immersed in the Force. The sunbeams that found him irregularly gave his pallid skin a warm color, letting him appear healthy and beautiful, and a pang of desire flashed down into Obi-Wan's groin at the sight. Astonished by his reaction, he halted in his scrubbing, eyes flickering back to the other man. So it was still there? Since meeting Qui-Gon again, he had felt many things, but chief among them was love. It had leapt up as strong as always with the first touch, perhaps even stronger due to their long separation. But physical attraction--he had thought he'd dealt with that long ago, had thought he'd dispersed it into the Force completely, as was required for a knight in the field.

But it was all coming back to him now, as if it had only slept, waiting patiently for its time to emerge again and demand its fulfillment.

Breathless, Obi-Wan made himself care for the laundry again, stilling thoughts with action, his fingers wringing out the cloth with white-knuckled concentration. But part of his awareness was still focused on that sweet clenching of his quickly beating heart, and even more so on that luscious warmth pooling between his legs. He should just make it go away and not wallow in the sensation--

Obi-Wan dared to look over again to where the reason for his predicament sat basking in a sunbeam, chest gently rising in the rhythm of peaceful meditation. Did he have to feel guilty that his eyes did not linger on the face but slipped lower to caress the smooth, hairless chest and the wide set nipples, his fingers tingling with the need to touch them? That his gaze rippled further down, over gently defined muscles and planes to the...? Moaning Obi-Wan dropped his head, his forehead coming to an ungentle rest on the wet cloth, and pressed his hand against his pulsing shaft.

He realized he had never had the opportunity to just look before, never with arousal pulsing in his veins, and what he'd seen simply unmade him, his diffuse yearnings blossoming into wanting between two hasty lungfuls of hot, soap-scented air.

The sharp odor slapped his brain online again, and another emotion rose behind the first and he did feel guilt. He was gaping at what was not his to look at uninvited, snatching an eyeful like a thief, gasping at the sight as if he were a brainless adolescent. Shame filled him because his lust-clouded eyes hadn't seen how thin Qui-Gon had become and how bruises and scratches stuck out colorfully in the bright light, accusing Obi-Wan of shallowness.

Oh yes, there was absolutely every reason why passion of this kind should have no place in a Jedi's life before they had reached a certain mastership over themselves, something he seemed to be very far away from at this moment with his indiscriminate thoughts. Passion blinded any higher brain function, and really, he had forgotten for much too long a while where he was and why he was here and about a world outside that had tried to kill him--and the man who triggered the whole cascade of sensual reactions in him.

Opening himself to the Force, Obi-Wan let the feelings go and his breath and heart quieted into deep calmness in his chest. And it took only one thought and his penis slipped out of his palm, once more soft and quiescent.

Taking up his task again with new vigor, he scrubbed on with burning fingers, too busy to think and feel, whereas the rest of his mind went back on watch, holding a mental finger to the pulse of the Force, a sentinel against any danger approaching in their little sanctuary.

A short while later Obi-Wan decided he had done all he could: he wrung out the last shirt and smoothed it out over the heated rocks along the shore of the pool, hoping the sun would decide to stay a while and help the drying.

Moving back into the pond until the water reached his chest, he used the cleaned bandage to bathe himself. The warm water made it easy to wash away the grime from his skin, much easier than it had been from their garments.

The brackish water still stung in the countless abrasions and cuts, especially in the one on the inside of his thigh, but the feeling of getting clean again, of letting the memories of how each stain came to be drift away in the clear water, overruled any discomfort he might feel, the psychological effect stronger than the physical.

Dunking himself under to wash off the lather from hair, beard, and face, Obi-Wan allowed himself to float for a moment, letting the gently swirling currents carry all his weight, basking in the pleasure of water running freely over his scalp as his hair fanned out around him.

Needing to breathe, Obi-Wan surfaced silently and stripped the moisture from his face. Automatically he looked for his master again and found the other man had finished his meditation and had just stepped into the water, scrubbing ferociously at his hair.

Obi-Wan wondered if Qui-Gon might welcome his help to untangle the long strands--but as his own reactions had already gone too far, he was quite hesitant, unwilling to just swim over and ask. The other man would call if he needed him, he told himself and turned away. Limping to the shore, he heaved himself up onto a flat rock and sat at the edge with his calves and feet dangling comfortably in the hot water. He wrung out his hair and flipped it on his back, shivering when the water ran along his spine with icy fingers, making him aware of how much colder the air seemed now against his heated, wet skin.

Cautiously he bent his left leg and looked at the cut that had made itself known so strongly while in the water. It was not even a handspan long and not really that deep, the muscles were only scraped, as he knew from running around with it for days. The salty water stung his raw flesh, but his worries were for the more deep-set hurt and radiating heat of infection. He cautiously dabbed at the wound with the wrung out bandage, the cloth reddening quickly as he attempted to still the bloodflow so he could have a better look.

"Let me," his master said from nearby, startling Obi-Wan out of his preoccupation. Annoyed with his second lapse in one hour, the knight looked up to find Qui-Gon standing before him in the deep water, eyes on the inflamed cut, one large hand now on his knee, bending it more to the side. Obi-Wan sat up straight and let the washcloth fall too casually over his groin.

Qui-Gon prodded first with tender then with more insistent fingers at the wound, clicking with his tongue as the blood mixed suddenly with pus.

Grinding his teeth at the pain, Obi-Wan managed not to squirm as the cut was cleaned with a lot of water until his master seemed to be content with the result. One hand still on his knee to keep him from moving, Qui-Gon splayed the other one over the wound and instantly Obi-Wan's skin tingled, the Force pulse filling his damaged cells with energy.

"Don't--" Obi-Wan began, wanting to ask Qui-Gon to stop and remind him of his own words earlier on. But the energy level radiating from his master told him how enormously the other man had revived himself through his meditation. And though giving it all to Obi-Wan wasn't right, he knew his protest would be in vain: there was no arguing with this man in such a situation, as Obi-Wan knew from sixteen years of association with him. Qui-Gon's inborn need to protect would always overrule reason, the same way he would always dismiss his own needs. It was an integral part of his gentle heart. And even if Obi-Wan's younger self might have seen it differently, this character trait sprang solely from Qui-Gon's soul-deep connection to the Living Force--and therefore was beyond any reproach.

While Qui-Gon was healing his wound, Obi-Wan drifted on a Force-induced cloud of wellbeing, pleased to see that the healing extended to Qui-Gon's own wounds, too, the bruises fading. Leaning back on his right arm he watched the other man from under heavy lids, his self-consciousness for the moment forgotten. He was content to fill his eyes with the angles and planes of the bent face, the way he had done in the last few days whilst the other man had been asleep.

But watching now was different in many ways. This Qui-Gon was awake, his skin flushed from the water's heat, his face free of grime, his hair a clean, free hanging wet mass framing his face and tickling Obi-Wan's thigh as Qui-Gon leaned over it. This was a clean, flushed, focused, and very naked Qui-Gon, who stood between his legs, parsecs deep in his personal space, their body heat creating one large being, their auras mingling.

And Obi-Wan felt neither crowded nor threatened nor annoyed as he had so often with others who presumed too much, touched too long, came too close. On the contrary, this touching made his heart speed up, the deep-set yearning stepping forward again and--

His little bubble of bliss suddenly burst in a bout of self-consciousness as he felt his blood once more plunge into his groin, moving his flesh under the skimpy washcloth. Since he dared not use the Force himself, lest it interfere with Qui-Gon's concentration, he was reduced to covering up his problem with nothing but his hands.

I burn with love in the cup of your hand

Qui-Gon didn't seem to be aware of Obi-Wan's physical reaction. Calmly, he ended his healing-meditation and took his hand away, blessedly not commenting on the slight quivering Obi-Wan could not restrain. And he saw his flesh had sealed with only a thin red line marking the place of the wound, the skin around it pale and cool and healthy again. Obi-Wan sighed and would have voiced his gratitude if his throat hadn't closed up once more--Qui-Gon's hand had returned to his thigh, a finger slowly tracing the jagged scar above the new one. His master looked up at him, expression guarded. "What caused this?"

Forcing his quivering skin to still under the warm hand, Obi-Wan turned his mind gratefully to the question. "It's from a shuriken I was not fast enough to avoid," he explained a little bit breathless.

"Where?"

"On Ord Mantell."

"Ord Mantell." Qui-Gon frowned up at him. "You were sent into that pirate's nest?"

"They had kidnapped a senator. I got her out," Obi-Wan said cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood, troubled by the feelings his master transmitted to him through their touch.

But Qui-Gon didn't take the bait, nor did his troubled look change. Obi-Wan held still as the dark eyes left his to scan down his torso, looking and finding. The large hand covered the scar on his upper abdomen. "And this one?"

Obi-Wan was slightly distracted from the contact and it was difficult to find the breath to answer. "Moldoschai dagger. He regretted it. Very much."

Qui-Gon's hand fell away again and he looked down, his forehead creased.

His fingers faster than his brain, Obi-Wan reached out and brushed back the dripping strands of hair that had fallen into Qui-Gon's face, tucking them behind an ear. "What?" he asked, and seeing his fingers tremble, he entwined them back with those still resting in his lap.

Qui-Gon shook his head ever so slightly and looked up at him. "I just realized how much time has gone by. You living your own life--"

"You, too."

"Yes, of course. But..."

"But it's a strange feeling to realize the one who stood beside you for so long has been out on his own missions and--"

"--has been getting into danger--"

"--without you able to help." And protect--

"Yes. And living a life without you being part of it."

Obi-Wan knew so well what the other man meant. "I have often wondered what you were doing. I felt--cut off from you."

"We knew it would be this way."

"Yes. I have learned what you meant when you said Jedi led a hard life. As long as I was your apprentice it was mostly words for me. And now..."

"Now you have learned about the life of a journeyman knight."

"I have. I have. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret--"

Qui-Gon touched his knee again. "You don't need to say this, Obi-Wan. I know."

"Yes. You would. You always saw my heart much more clearly than I did myself."

"I can see an earnest heart, yes. And a lonely heart," Qui-Gon said, gazing deeply into his eyes.

Obi-Wan hastily looked down, chagrined that his longings had obviously been so clearly read by his highly empathic master. Anything else he thought he had seen in that look--he was deluding himself, letting his wishful thinking get the better of him. Qui-Gon had never given him any hope that his feelings were returned. He would only hurt himself if he continued to follow this way of thinking. Obi-Wan tried to steer the conversation to safer ground. "Did you get the letter I sent you for your namingday?"

"Yes, it caught up to me on Dantooine, last month."

"Last month? But--oh, that's wonderful. I did send it out on time."

"I know. And I thank you for it, Obi-Wan. I began an answer, but..."

"Things happened. Believe me, I know what you mean."

"It's not easy to stay in contact when we're literally on opposite sides of the galaxy for most of the time."

True. Much too true. Qui-Gon wasn't the only one he had lost track of over the past years. But sometimes it was like someone was plotting to keep them from meeting. Obi-Wan looked up at the patch of blue sky that opened above them that moment, thinking of the worlds that lay beyond it. They had near misses, damn near misses... "We missed each other just by hours on Bial'korat-Station two months ago, did you know?"

Qui-Gon let out a surprised sigh. "No, certainly not! You were on that ambulance ship coming in from Bial? I did have a feeling..."

"You, too?" Obi-Wan looked down again, his eyes caught by the silver highlights the sun was conjuring in the tresses falling over Qui-Gon's shoulders.

"I left at the insistence of the Council."

"One could think they're trying very hard to keep us apart."

"If the universe was spinning just around us, yes, it would seem so."

Obi-Wan took a deep breath and confessed in a whisper, "I was miserable when I found out on Bial'korat-Station. I had an argument with Master Windu about it."

"Obi-Wan? You did not?" Qui-Gon asked in a really strange tone, and Obi-Wan couldn't decide if it was concern or--amusement?

But he dared not take his eyes from the light fragmenting in the drops of water running down the soft looking hair. "I did. I accused him of keeping us apart, of never giving us the chance to catch up with one another. I told him he was a heartless tyrant, that he didn't know anymore what it's like to be alone in the field, not even allowed to meet once in a while with the one being you..." Obi-Wan snapped his mouth shut, horrified at what he almost had confessed, his eyes flickering up to become instantly ensnared by the intense gaze, much too knowing, much too bright--

"So. That was you," Qui-Gon said very slowly, his hands warm on Obi-Wan's knees, transfixing him with touch and eyes. "I, hm, I talked with him on the way out of Bial and he was very snappish. He... told me he had had enough of one complaining knight a day, first a lovesick fool ranting at him and now me--"

Obi-Wan felt all blood drain out of his face and then come back in a hot flaming rush.

The older man moved closer and Obi-Wan wanted to shrink back but was glued to the spot, the hands covering his groin tightening, the pressure of his pulsing flesh an unnecessary reminder of the full center hit. Qui-Gon was teasing him, and it was not like him to be so cruel, ever. Or was he teasing at all? Stunned by that thought he watched, like a rodent does a snake, Qui-Gon lifting his right hand and touching him again, right there on the puckering scar on his stomach. "Why did you keep it?"

"The same reason you never let them reset your nose," Obi-Wan heard himself say and just then realized it to be true. He dared reach out to run a finger along the broad bridge of said nose. "And as a reminder of something my teacher tried to bang into my head a thousand times: to be more mindful of the present. I got distracted with this one," Obi-Wan gestured to the scar on his leg, "and with this one." He laid his hand over Qui-Gon's, setting all caution aside, hoping his heart knew what it was doing. "And also to remind me that you weren't there anymore to save my hide. It reminded me of the times you were there to lecture me. It reminded me of your... voice."

Qui-Gon looked at him for endless moments, his eyes clear blue and piercing and reflecting the sun much too brightly and Obi-Wan forgot to breathe at what he read in them.

In one gliding movement Qui-Gon placed his hands so they bracketed Obi-Wan's knees and pushed himself up out of the water, noiselessly, effortlessly. His biceps bunched under his weight, smooth, water-glistening, and Obi-Wan wanted to touch them, to run his hands up and down the hard swellings. Transfixed, he watched as Qui-Gon leaned forward and placed a kiss on the scar on his stomach, the sensation a tingling combination of prickly mustache and softest lips.

Swaying, Obi-Wan had to let go his death-grip on the washcloth to stop himself from falling backwards. His eyes were drawn to the smile that creased the corners of Qui-Gon's beautiful lips, to the tiny laugh-lines adorning his eyes--eyes that turned into smoldering coals when Qui-Gon moved upward and came face to face with him.

Obi-Wan leaned blindly into the touch as his master rubbed his nose along Obi-Wan's cheek and jawline, nuzzling his beard, then moved down his throat.

Qui-Gon's wet tongue touched his left nipple, a spark of pleasure igniting simultaneously in chest and groin, and Obi-Wan moaned. It was too much, but the lips would not let him go, even as he gripped the other man's hair and tried to pry the exquisite mouth away. Realizing Qui-Gon would not give up and not willing to cause him pain, Obi-Wan let his fingers relax. The hot mouth was sucking his nipple into a rockhard pebble, while his heart thundered in his ears, his body quivered in pleasure, and his thoughts were driven more out of his mind with each wet caress.

At last, too soon, Qui-Gon blessed him with a last lap then kissed his way up to Obi-Wan's shoulder and trailed down his arm to nip at the wrist of the hand tangled in his hair. With a sob, Obi-Wan surrendered his hand, watching breathlessly as Qui-Gon placed a kiss in his palm.

When Qui-Gon looked up at him again, Obi-Wan tried to say something, seeking words other than the name he repeated again and again, while stroking the side of the beautiful face, his fingertips touching laugh-lines and eyebrows in reverence. Obi-Wan's palm curled instinctively when Qui-Gon turned his head and placed on it a wet, lingering kiss. His hand followed the retreating lips when the older man slid down onto his feet to stand once more between Obi-Wan's spread legs.

The dark blue eyes danced merrily at him through spiked lashes as Qui-Gon bent and used his nose to nudge the washcloth from Obi-Wan's groin.

Moaning with combined embarrassment and surging need, he watched his cock rising to stand hard and shining between them. Qui-Gon leaned in, but Obi-Wan caught his jaw and held him immobile. "No. You don't need to. You should not think I only... this is all I want from you..."

"Shhh," Qui-Gon murmured as he locked his eyes again with him. "I want to."

The long hair slipped through Obi-Wan's nerveless fingers as Qui-Gon bent his head, the damp locks spilling over Obi-Wan hips, distracting him momentarily. Then rational thought fled--hot lips made contact with the head of his penis, tongue licking, mouth opening to him, taking him in, a strong tongue swirling around him, pressing him against the hard roof of the suckling mouth. Obi-Wan moaned and folded down over the other man, his face buried in the crown of Qui-Gon's head, his arm around the broad shoulders, giving up all resistance.

Qui-Gon worshiped him until the rush gathered in Obi-Wan's balls--too soon, not soon enough--only to draw him back from the brink, and Obi-Wan's moans turned to sobs of frustration each time the expert mouth and fingers held him back from soaring. He actually keened when Qui-Gon abandoned his phallus to lick along his stomach and up his chest again, Qui-Gon's hands gently urging him to sit up.

Breathing irregularly, Obi-Wan looked down, watching as the yearned for mouth drew nearer, his nipples peaking in anticipation.

Qui-Gon's breath was hot and moist as his lips closed around Obi-Wan's left nub, tongue flattening under it, sucking hard. Obi-Wan lifted his hips when lightning hit his loins, blindly seeking contact, and groaned as his cock slid against flesh, gliding wetly along the other man's sternum, slicking a path over his lover's heart.

Humming deeply in his chest, Qui-Gon looked up, his eyes glittering with desire.

"Yes," Obi-Wan breathed and drew his legs up on the ledge, scooting back until his backside rubbed over hot, dry rock, never losing the other's eyes, eyes that watched him hungrily as he lowered himself onto his elbows and let his legs fall wide in silent invitation.

Qui-Gon's lips drew up into a tiny, lopsided and decidedly feral smile before he vanished from Obi-Wan's sight. He slipped under water and came up again in one smooth gliding motion, lifting himself out of the pond, water running from him in glittering rivulets. The sun conjured a halo around his crouching body, his wet hair and shoulders and legs glistening.

My skin's made of fire

Obi-Wan's eyes were drawn down to the shadows between the man's legs, fastening on the phallus so proudly erect between the long-muscled thighs, the smooth conical head suddenly catching the sun as the tall man shifted to rest on one knee. The trim body rippled in feline grace as Qui-Gon shook his hair out of his face, the water flying from him in a fan of sparkling diamonds.

My hair's sparkling ember

Obi-Wan gasped with desire and he could do nothing but watch in mesmerized awe as the older man approached him on all fours until Qui-Gon's knees touched the insides of his thighs. His master towered over his supine body like a living vault, dripping water on him, each bead a shivering explosion on heated skin.

Holding the other's eyes, Obi-Wan ran his hands up the strong arms, feeling the slick skin under his fingertips, caressing shoulders and nape before sneaking down the sleek body to fill his palm with the column of flesh straining so needfully for his touch.

Heat seared him; furnace hot steel snuggled against his fingers, moving with every deep breath the tall man drew, pulsing fast in counterpoint with his heart.

Fire burns fire

Qui-Gon made a guttural sound as Obi-Wan's hand closed around him, his head drooping until their foreheads met in a kiss of wet skin. Obi-Wan closed his eyes under the tender brush of hair against the side of his face, their beards bristling together, his master's breath wafting hotly over his goosebumped skin, and their lips met.

Obi-Wan surged up hungrily, his free hand tangling in the mane to hold the head down, not letting the sweet lips go, his tongue seeking its way into the other's mouth, sucking, licking, wanting so much, desperate to taste the other's spices.

Qui-Gon's arms closed around him, gathering him tightly against the deep chest. His hips rocked softly, sliding himself through the tunnel of Obi-Wan's hand, moaning low into their kiss. Obi-Wan reveled in the older man's abandonment and tightened his fingers rhythmically around Qui-Gon's flesh to heighten his pleasure, his tongue and lips mimicking the movement on the other's tongue, sucking hard.

Needing more contact, Obi-Wan wrapped his legs around his master's thighs, his fingers spreading over the hard-muscled buttocks, pressing the hips down until their groins met. The contact was sizzling electricity, their cocks grinding together, sparking pleasure up Obi-Wan's spine in ever heightening waves. Never breaking the kiss he rocked with his lover, their bodies fusing together, each slide of skin on skin stoking the fire that was growing into a blaze of all consuming heat. His heart sped to a crescendo, hammering in his ears as the pleasure devoured his loins, and he came, muscles rigid, pressing himself up against his devourer, all thoughts stilled for the eons of a few seconds. He felt himself pulse in hot spurts, reduced to elementary ecstasy of nothing but feelings, sobbing against the sweet lips that had stilled on his. Then Qui-Gon thrust against him once more, his hard length sliding against Obi-Wan's still pulsing pleasure. Obi-Wan held on tightly till his love shuddered in his own completion, welling hot wetness between them. "Oh... Obi-Wan. . ." breezed into his mouth on the back of an ocean-deep moan, and it was the sweetest sound Obi-Wan had ever heard.

Obi-Wan was enfolded in his lover's long arms as Qui-Gon rolled them to their sides. He held on, one leg hooked around the other's waist, not ready to give up the contact yet.

Feeling indescribably good, he nuzzled his way up the long face and kissed the closed eyes in silent thanks. Qui-Gon chuckled softly in a wet huff against his sensitive skin and burrowed his nose into the hollow of Obi-Wan's neck.

Cocking his head to gaze down at his master, he stroked the long hair out of the flushed face. "What?" he whispered, wanting the other to look at him, wanting to share.

Qui-Gon gazed up at him, his eyes shimmering azure. "I'm just happy," he said.

Obi-Wan let his head fall back, closing his eyes as he heaved a deep breath at the quiet joy tickling his heart. "Can you imagine, how long I've wanted to hear just that from you?" He looked up again, smiling into Qui-Gon's eyes. "You just being happy." He stroked his thumb along the beautiful lips, moved beyond words. And because of me...

Qui-Gon placed a lingering kiss on the pad of Obi-Wan's thumb, his eyes soft. The big hands were lazily drawing circles over his shoulders and chest, gently sliding over his soft nipples, mindful of their sensitivity.

"I never knew you felt this way," Obi-Wan said, leaning into the touches that had him purring inside.

"Perhaps I didn't know myself before..."

"Before?"

"Before I met this man, the most beautiful man I had ever seen, his soul's fire a bright flame, yet his light in the Force so poised and serene that I could not take my eyes off him again." Qui-Gon leaned up and his lips were cool on Obi-Wan's flaming skin as he was kissed between his eyes, on the mythical eye of the Force.

"You might not be aware of it, Obi-Wan, but you have grown since you left my side. You not only look different," Qui-Gon's eyes flickered to his chin before returning to his eyes, "you feel different, you shine--you feel like a seasoned knight."

Obi-Wan stared at him, unsettled by the compliments, the air for a protest already gathering in his lungs to righten his world into its humble tracks again. "I'm just a servant of the Force..." he pressed out against a lump in his throat.

"That you are," Qui-Gon murmured against his skin, his beard tickling him in counterpoint to the soft spoken statement.

Obi-Wan felt a hot welling in his eyes. He should perhaps have felt foolish to be moved by those simple words, but weren't these words the most meaningful confession of love possible?

"Thank you," he finally whispered, meaning a thousand things at once, too many to convey. Obi-Wan pressed his face into the prickly softness under the older man's jaw, his lips grazing the bobbing larynx. His fingers stroked the smooth chest, caressing the soft nipples, pausing over the heart, feeling the same heavy, slightly faster than normal beat under his palm that matched his own so well. "I love you," he said to the heart, caressing the organ with soft Force fingers, feeling it pulsing with welling emotions in his hand. The broad chest heaved with a long sigh, a large palm pressing his face even nearer for a moment. Then the breath quickened and the melted muscles of the large body stiffened into attention.

Obi-Wan looked up quizzically, finding Qui-Gon gazing up at the sky, a frown creasing his brow. And then he felt it, too.

"As difficult as it may be, my Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said, his voice raw with regret, "but I feel our welcome in this place has ended."

Obi-Wan stilled the protest of his heart and nodded. With the help of the Force he pulled his imaginary knight's robe around his wanting body and turned his mind to duty.

He was ready when Qui-Gon sat up and lithely climbed to his feet, drawing Obi-Wan up with him. But instead of stepping away, Qui-Gon's arms wound around him and held him tightly, his mouth taken in an all encompassing kiss that tasted all too much of a farewell...

Obi-Wan broke the kiss before he was swamped with emotions again and moved out of the embrace.

Reluctantly, Qui-Gon let him go and straightened his broad shoulders--and with this small motion he turned from lover into master right before Obi-Wan's eyes.

Still admiring the other's easy transition, he stood unmoving as Qui-Gon crouched beside their spread clothes and fingered his ruined shirt.

"They're reasonably dry," Qui-Gon commented and then looked up, his forehead furrowed. "Which is well enough. There seems to be weather brewing."

Obi-Wan looked up, too, following his master's gaze up to the still cloudless sky--and made aware of it, he felt the change in the air now as well. Just then, as if to underline his thoughts, the sun skipped behind the hills beyond the valley and he felt a sudden coldness in the wind. The steam around them took on a clammy note for all of its heat.

Stroking his goosebumped forearms, Obi-Wan was caught between the urge to go on and a sudden reluctance to leave this place. He turned to Qui-Gon but seeing him already slipping into his robe he dismissed his feelings and hastened to get into his own clothes.

Chapter IV
Touch Draws Blisters

The next day was a struggle through heavily falling snow.

Qui-Gon's 'weather' grew into a blizzard before noon and the daylight dwindled early, absorbed by the moisture laden clouds.

Obi-Wan wondered why the Force had made them leave the hot springs when they could have sat out the storm there quite comfortably---then a low ominous rumble filled the valley behind them and he turned around, his heart missing a beat, thinking of cannon fire again. He cast his senses back to where they had been and staggered at the implications of what he found.

Qui-Gon's hand fell heavily his shoulder and Obi-Wan looked up into the knowing eyes.

"Avalanches are quite common in the mountains," his master said.

Obi-Wan nodded, beginning to accept the somewhat demonstrative ways the Force chose these days---and it spoke ill for what might still lie before them.

The blizzard raged all through the night and into the following day, if one could call these different shades of white and gray so, Obi-Wan groused to himself. He had experienced cyclones, floods, and volcanic eruptions before, but a snow storm was a new one. The world narrowed down to just his immediate surroundings, like fog in a way but immeasurably more deadly. The strong wind was chilling the air to a degree that Obi-Wan thought he would freeze into a statue should he linger only one second too long in the same spot. So he walked on, the ice-crusted robe of his master all he could make out before him.

The snow soon lay piled up to their knees, in some depressions even to their hips, and around noon Qui-Gon admitted defeat by allowing Obi-Wan to take the lead and with it the more strenuous part of forcing them a path through sometimes chest high drifts. It was hard going, and Obi-Wan soon lost all feeling in his feet, becoming too weary to care about the icicles adorning his beard or how his robe had become as stiff as wood, the insulating quality of the material lost in ice-crusted fibers.

While shivering through the miserable night that followed that nightmarish day, staying warm only through the heat generated between their tightly pressed bodies, Obi-Wan prayed that their interlude at the hot springs had won them the strength to go on and get Qui-Gon down from the mountains before that damn collar killed him.

Drawing up his shields, Obi-Wan tried not to disturb the sleeper next to him with the dark emotions filling him at the mere thought of that thing.

He was irritated by Qui-Gon's stubbornness, his close-mouthed refusal to share his burden with his partner. On the emotional level the other man seemed to see him still as his padawan learner: the subject to unconditional protection. At least in the face of a menace embodied by a device like the Blotter, Obi-Wan amended, knowing for sure that there was at least one aspect where his former master deemed him his equal now. But the Blotter was a thread that threw its shadows right back to the reactor chamber on Naboo---where they both had---where Qui-Gon had almost died at the hands of a Sith.

The memory disquieted him. Using all his senses but sight, Obi-Wan turned his head to study the face resting on his shoulder, not knowing the slightest content until he felt against his lips the movement of Qui-Gon's eyes under their shielding lids as he dreamt, felt the other man's slow breath stir the hair on his cheek. The need to press his lover to him, to keep him safe, was overwhelming. . . Startled, Obi-Wan cocked an eyebrow at himself. Look who's talking. Obi, the blind mynock. Self-knowledge was to be sought when one dared to tread on the Way, the man in his arms had taught him. Looking into his own motivations and feelings, Obi-Wan found the Blotter brought forth the deepest fears in him, threw him back on the instinct to protect what was his as it had been on Naboo, when the Sith had almost skewered his master. Shuddering, Obi-Wan pressed a kiss to the temple of the sleeping man, willing the memory back into the depths of his mind.

Like master, like padawan, it was said. And they were so alike in some aspects, there was always the danger he was irritated over traits in his master that in reality were things he disliked in himself. And overprotection was one of them, it seemed.

Sighing with resignation, Obi-Wan nuzzled against the warm flesh under his nose, drinking in the unique smell of the man he loved, despite his faults and hang-ups---or perhaps because of them.

His irritation dissolved, the ever-present worry returned with new vigor. Naboo aside, the Blotter was real and its effects as well. Effects he wished he could counter somehow and again unearth the Qui-Gon he had met at the hot springs. A yearning to see his love as he had been at that place settled in Obi-Wan's chest, Qui-Gon in all his glory, shining from the inside out. He had been like a flame, restored by meditation, energized by their lovemaking---a flame that was now only an ever dimming, hidden gleam in the depth of those midnight-blue eyes.

It was that Blotter's doing, of course. The longer the contact, the fouler the effects---no need to study ancient texts for that bit of knowledge; Obi-Wan had had the living example walking with him all those days.

It had begun in that moment when Qui-Gon had dressed and fastened the collar under his belt again. Obi-Wan had watched, still bewitched by the flame's glow, still too filled up with his lover to make his eyes look elsewhere. Being open to the man, open to the Force, it had been as if a cloud drifted before the sun, the world inside and outside growing hazy and cold together. With sorrow he had watched as the flame became weaker, smaller and flickered wildly as they had to force their way through the snow, fighting for their lives---until all that was left was just a glimmer of the wick at the bottom of weary eyes. The weary, sad eyes that felt so vulnerable under Obi-Wan's lips which still lingered in soft caress of lids and brow.

And there seemed nothing he could do. Qui-Gon had resolved to take the Blotter to Coruscant and nothing Obi-Wan could say or do would bring the older man to allow his padawan to carry the thing for him, not even for just one day. His master meant to protect him from the Blotter, would protect Obi-Wan even if it meant his own death.

Shaken by the thought, he tightened his arms around Qui-Gon, holding the slightly shivering body as close as he could. "I want you to throw that thing away," he murmured into the soft hair under his lips.

Surprisingly, the arm around Obi-Wan's waist tightened minutely, revealing the man was not as deeply asleep as Obi-Wan had thought. But no answer came, only Qui-Gon's breath seemed to be a little bit more harsh where it puffed hotly against Obi-Wan's neck. Then, when Obi-Wan already thought the other man had fallen asleep again, a whisper against his neck. "I cannot."

Feeling impotent in the face of Qui-Gon's stubbornness, Obi-Wan felt as if he was right back at the beginning of his musings. To understand and accept motivations did not elevate feelings that had no part of reason and sense. Rubbing his nose and eyes wearily, Obi-Wan was unsettled by how much this was getting to him; and it was at that moment his worry changed into fear, the dread he had been feeling whenever he thought about the future choosing that moment of emotional vulnerability to assail him again, the Force tapping its little fingers onto his brain so that foreboding settled on him with the weight of a nightmare demon.

Shivering with more than the cold, Obi-Wan lay wide awake for the rest of the night, listening to the dying storm outside their shelter, thinking of a future he might not care to see.

Sunrise brought an improvement in the weather: it had ceased snowing, the storm had receded to occasional squalls, and most important, the temperature had increased to well above freezing point.

"Seems your spring has come after all," Obi-Wan commented, feeling his spirits lift alongside the temperature. He even found himself smiling as a chunk of melting snow fell from a tree branch and landed with a wet sound on his master's head.

Qui-Gon mumbled something under his breath and walked on through snow that wasn't even knee-high anymore.

Still smiling, Obi-Wan trudged after him, looking around to check their location. In the driving snow of the days just past, the world had always seemed to end just some meters ahead.

They were in a wide dale, surrounded by old, thick-trunked trees, most of them bare of leaves, and due to the wind also mostly bare of snow. Most fortunate, Obi-Wan thought as he felt another lump of half-melted snow sliding from a branch above and, hesitating for a second, watched it land directly at his feet.

After a short while they came to a deeply cut brook that ran along the valley bottom. Obi-Wan welcomed the sight, and not only because it didn't lie across their path. The knight was rather sure he had had enough of eating snow for the rest of his life.

"We should get some water," Qui-Gon said, voicing Obi-Wan's thoughts before starting down the steep slope---and stumbled as he stepped into a hidden depression, almost falling to his knees.

Obi-Wan frowned as he went quickly to the older man's side. Qui-Gon had been very slow to catch himself with the Force and it spoke ill for the level of his mental exhaustion. The knight hoped fervently they really could leave the mountains soon, find that Corellian camp and then get away from here, preferably straight home to Coruscant.

"Why don't you rest there," Obi-Wan suggested gently, gesturing back to a log lying beside their original path. "And I'll go down and get the water."

The flinty stare Qui-Gon laid on him made Obi-Wan aware of how disrespectful his words had sounded. But before he could apologize, the older man's expression changed into the dark sadness of admitted defeat. Then to Obi-Wan's almost horrified amazement, Qui-Gon did as asked, he shuffled up the hillside again and sat down on the log with his head bent, the large cowl effectively hiding his face.

Not sure what to do, Obi-Wan placed his hand on the stiff shoulder, trying to convey his gratitude as well as his regret. "I'll be back in a minute," he said hesitantly, a sudden nameless worry nagging at his heart and he felt strangely reluctant to leave his master.

With one last look at the bent head, Obi-Wan retrieved the folded container out of his belt pouch and hurried down the slope.

The wind was getting stronger again, singing with a high wailing voice around the boulders. It drove snow and fine ice needles horizontally over the ground, filling their tracks up quickly, and their self-made path had almost vanished altogether when Obi-Wan halted at the edge of the deep cut and looked at the vaulted ice shelf below. There was no way down but by jumping right onto the rippled surface. A slight push of Force cushioned his landing, the ice cracking but holding under the impact. A stray thought whispered, Qui-Gon couldn't have done this; but being right made it just worse.

He hunched down very cautiously and managed to reach the small opening in the shelf and fill the container with white foaming water without getting his sleeves wet.

On his way back up the slope he suddenly heard---

Voices!

Obi-Wan bit off a colorful curse and ducked behind the gnarled roots of a large tree. Why hadn't he felt anybody coming? Automatically checking his Force sense, he cast his mind out and instantly sensed dozens of little animal minds for a good kilometer, most of them sleepy and unaware of anything moving in their forest so shortly after sunrise. Nearest to him he felt three small beasts on a branch far, far up the tree to his right and a bird of prey perched in the tree next to his master's position, its sleepy mind focussing now on the commotion below. And of course Qui-Gon himself, clear and---his bright mind was suddenly hidden as strong shields slammed up, shutting Obi-Wan out from anything but a basic awareness.

Daring a glance over the tree root, Obi-Wan saw seven, no eight, people standing there, all in heavy winter gear that obscured their bodies and faces. And not a shimmer of them to be found in the Force---

One of the beings leaned over Qui-Gon and he heard a throaty laugh. Then Obi-Wan knew what it had done there---all awareness of Qui-Gon left him as brutally and suddenly as if a hatch had come down between them and the backlash left him with a throbbing headache behind his eyes.

It was disturbing: Obi-Wan could still see Qui-Gon with his eyes, but there was no longer even a glimmer of him in the Force---just as it had been when he had come upon him in that bunker. To his betrayed senses he seemed no more real than a holo projection, no more real than the others surrounding him. Concentrating on the men, Obi-Wan had to correct himself: He did feel them. They were a disturbance in the Force. Speckles in the fabric of space and time that simply were holes, not there, unfilled, as if the Force shunned them, flew around them like water around a boulder.

Pressing his linked hands to his mouth, Obi-Wan stared at the men, his eyes burning as he tried not let emotion overcome him. But hutt and damnation, they were all wearing Blotters. They were each wearing a damn horrifying Sith collar---they had to be. By all the little gods of the galaxy, how many of those things were still around?

The man hovering over his master laughed again.

"Well, Master Jinn, this fits you well. It should end your little stunt. And now tell me: where is the other?"

As Obi-Wan knew he would, Qui-Gon did not react other than by opening his eyes and looking up at the speaker. "What other?" he said loud and clearly. Meaning: Obi-Wan, get yourself out of here!

But there was no way he would leave his master and Qui-Gon knew it, didn't he? Don't send me away, Obi-Wan thought wildly, just give me a hint how to fight them, give me an opening to step in and get you out...

"Oh, c'mon, how stupid do you take us for?" the man said patronizingly. "The other..." he turned with an impatient gesture to one of his men.

"Kenobi," he was supplied.

"Kenobi, right. Where is he?"

"Gone," Qui-Gon said slowly, his voice pitched low, which could be either in pain or regret.

"Dead? A Jedi? Oh, c'mon, Master Jinn. Don't tell me he froze in that blizzard?"

Qui-Gon quietly shook his head and Obi-Wan knew how earnest and unflickering his eyes would be as he misled them without ever saying one word that wasn't true. Oh, Qui-Gon was a master in letting others come to false conclusions...

"He's gone." Gone. Yes, gone to the brook. "And contrary to myth, we aren't immortal."

The man laughed at that. "No, you aren't. What a shame. And you lie very convincingly, old man."

"Jedi do not---" Qui-Gon began, but the leader spoke over him.

"We aren't stupid, old man. Leebit."

One of the other men stepped instantly forward. "Yes, Lieutenant Ahib?"

Ahib. One of the names from Obi-Wan's broken dossier. Elu Foga's second-in-command. So these were Libanu...

"And really, 'Jedi do not lie'? Nice myth," Ahib reiterated the common fable to Qui-Gon, who was still looking up to the man, his face closed.

"We found you here by infrared sensor. Both of you." The lieutenant snorted. "You disappoint me, Master Jedi." He made a gesture to his sergeant. "Find where the second Jedi is hiding, will you please."

Obi-Wan ducked lower behind his tree. Blast. He watched as the man waded back to the skimmer, obviously to get the scanner.

All right, calm down, Kenobi, you can do it. Obi-Wan shut his eyes and pressed his hands flat together in concentration, drawing into himself with the Force, inducing an emergency shutdown of his own bodily systems, pressing himself down into the snow to help it along. Almost instantly, he began to tremble, his body fighting what it perceived as a death threat, trying to pump hot blood into his fast cooling limbs. But he managed, ignoring or neutralizing the hormones his panicking body was filling his veins with.

Through slitted eyes Obi-Wan watched the man in the skimmer, and while the cold against his skin was seemingly receding, his flesh was becoming as numb and cold as the snow itself. Impossible as it was, he felt the sensor beam fan over him, an electric touch skimming over his goosebumped flesh, tickling the raised hair on his skin. Then it was over. The world was gray, sleep beckoning him, and it took a moment for him to realize what the voice was saying.

"Nothing, sir," the one called Leebit reported. "Nothing that fits the heat signature of something as large as a human. Only a few small animals, up in the branches and one there behind that tree."

That's me, Obi-Wan thought giddily, feeling as though sleep deprived, his mind becoming increasingly slow and foggy and yet at the same time being crystal clear. Don't look here, he wished several times before his freezing brain remembered that he couldn't possibly influence the soldier since the Blotter-induced Force invisibility worked both ways, shielding Leebit from it effectively. It was perverse, it was unnatural, to shield from what was life itself, didn't they know, didn't they know that...? Obi-Wan was trembling uncontrollably now, cowering low behind the bulging roots, fearing his movements would be detected by the man as he now walked back to the others---but Leebit did not look again in his direction.

Feeling the danger pass, Obi-Wan allowed his blood to warm up again and flow from his core out into his limbs, biting his hand to stop himself from groaning. Force, that hurt, it hurt. Rolled into a tight ball he rode out the pain of his reawakening body.

At last he dared a look, finding the situation unchanged, only minutes having passed even when it had felt like hours to him.

The men were discussing something in voices now too low for Obi-Wan to really understand and his eyes fell to the shackled man sitting upright against the tree log, his dark hair loose in the wind that whispered around his face. Obi-Wan needed so much to see his eyes, to see if he was all right... Then, as if Qui-Gon had heard him, as impossible as it was, heavy lids opened and eyes turned his way, finding his own unerringly. There was no accusation there, no masterly glower for his disobedience. Only sadness. And love.

His trampled-down heart flared to life again, filling Obi-Wan's chest with a pain much worse than the ones in his limbs. Somehow he knew Qui-Gon did not believe they would manage to drag themselves unscathed out of this situation. What did Qui-Gon know that he did not? What had they told him?

Obi-Wan was distracted from his master as the man who had provided his name pulled his jacket back to grasp his blaster and revealed a Hedjasi uniform. Uniform and face connected. Major Prochech. Part of the delegation Obi-Wan had talked to, right before they had tried to seize him. What was he doing here, at the side of Elu Foga's lieutenant?

Grimly looking the others over, Obi-Wan had one more surprise when the largest turned around: He was clearly a gamorrean, and by the look of the tattoo on his twitching snout, of the Fheco Brotherhood. Outer Rim pirate. Smuggler. Slaver. Bounty hunter. An inherent foe of the Jedi and anyone who wanted to uphold the laws of a more civilized universe.

The Fheco now walked up beside the Libanu lieutenant and started to speak to him in a loud urgent grunting that was hard to understand, so thick was the dialect. He wanted the lieutenant to give Qui-Gon to him now, Obi-Wan did get that much.

Only over my dead body, Obi-Wan thought but did not twitch a muscle as he cowered behind his tree, holding himself rigid by pressing himself hard against the trunk.

The Libanu shook his head impatiently---again an inconsistency: How was a backwoods Libanu to understand a gamorrean, an alien race their backwater world should never have heard of?

The Fheco said something Obi-Wan didn't catch, but the lieutenant scowled up at him and then nodded with a sour little grin. "All yours," he said, and made an inviting gesture at Qui-Gon.

All of Obi-Wan's senses concentrated on the gamorrean who now grunted at Qui-Gon in an impatient bellow. The Jedi master shook his head to indicate he did not understand. Fake of course, to stall for time. To give him a last chance to reconsider, to escape.

Obi-Wan felt a stab of irritation at Qui-Gon: the older man had to know he would never leave him. But he hopes you do, he wants you to be safe. He cannot stand to have got you into danger by your coming after him. He fears for you; he loves you, his heart added in a stage whisper.

His frown grew deeper, and Obi-Wan felt his face screw up against the raw bark of the tree. I would follow you into hell itself, Qui-Gon Jinn, he thought vehemently, a thought so strong it should have been easy to project along their bond... Obi-Wan's perspective canted for a second and then splintered into a wall of pain. He bit down a moan, his forehead scraping along the bark. They had a bond? No, they had no bond---but he had felt it, his thoughts had been running along it, till... till he had smacked head first into a stone wall of purest Darkness. Obi-Wan's head came up, his eyes refocusing on the scene on the other side of the glade. His forehead was throbbing outside and inside, his eyes watering.

Obi-Wan strained to hear what the Fheco said, but could not, not even---or especially not---with the Force. For a moment, he considered reaching out to the bird of prey in the tree above them, to hear through its sharp ears, but he would have to go into a trance, not having the natural talent to connect with every mind he brushed against the way Qui-Gon did.

He was saved from making the decision by the Fheco himself, as the big bulky creature straightened up again and spoke in a normal voice, as much as anyone could call his low grunts and squeaks normal, gamorrean mainspeak was not an easy language to understand even when spoken slowly and precisely, and not in such a street rat's accent filled with contractions and slang.

The bounty hunter laughed again in sharp little squeaks of malice. "I knew you understood me," he said and Obi-Wan watched as he reached into his parka and brought out a second collar and hung it over his forearm like an overly tight bangle. Then he took out something else he held up for his prisoner to see. Obi-Wan squinted, but could not make out anything in the large claw the Fheco waved in front of Qui-Gon's face.

"Recognize dis, my Jedi friend? Yes?" the Fheco chuckled as he hefted whatever he held in his fist. "Nice, isn't it? Such a fine gleam it have. Fine jewelry dis metal make." He held up his other arm and revealed a broad bracelet around his meaty wrist, its metallic sheen the same evil cold gleam as the collar's.

Aha. Obi-Wan's lips drew thin. There it was---he had been right, they were all wearing Blotters. Did that mean that things had no influence on non-Force sensitives? Or were their minds already that twisted that it made no difference...?

"Real nice treasure we found dere, eh? 'Don't use it too much' him said. Or it burn you brain right out you head when you bhat. But you know dat already, eh? You sweating, my Jedi friend. Dat laddy Foga and you had fun? Bad I wasn't dere, missed all de fun..."

Someone chuckled knowingly. "It was fun."

The Fheco grinned to Prochech over his shoulder before fixing his small eyes on the Libanu lieutenant. "Wanna see?"

"By all means, go ahead," Ahib answered, gesturing his acquiescence with a haughty sweep of his arm. "It will be interesting to observe what effect that... thing... will have on an almighty Jedi witch."

Obi-Wan saw Qui-Gon's shoulders stiffen in preparation of what was to come. What was it Qui-Gon had not told him about, had not found the words for? Biting harder into his hand, Obi-Wan reminded himself of his master's silent order to stay put. But how could he...

His thoughts were brought up short as Qui-Gon's magnificent self-command shattered before Obi-Wan's horrified eyes. The serene features of his master's face contorted, and a stifled moan escaped the tightly clenched jaw, breaking free against a will and discipline that Obi-Wan had seen withstand torture and pain before. To rip this man apart, what by all Siths' hells did this thing do to him? Obi-Wan tasted blood, as a growl forced its way up his throat. I must help him... I can't...

Ahib stepped forward then and leaned nearer to the shaking prisoner, his voice almost lost in the roaring in Obi-Wan's ears, "... burn his brain out, you said? Yes, witches should burn. Burn, Jedi..."

Something in Obi-Wan snapped then. Gathering the Force to him, he stood up and before any of them could do more than give startled glances, Obi-Wan came down right between them with a somersault, shoving them all back with a flicker of one hand, with the other mimicking a downward chopping motion, aiming the Force like an axe down on the Fheco's hand holding the control unit.

Grounding his body with thoughtless ease, Obi-Wan crouched low, holding his ardently humming lightsaber between the threat and his master.

"You should stop that," he said grimly.

"Ah, there he is. Hello, Knight Kenobi," Lieutenant Ahib greeted Obi-Wan as he casually stood up and batted the snow from his legs.

The others also scrambled up from where Obi-Wan's push had thrown them. Angry visages faced him.

The Fheco rubbed his wrist---a wrist adorned with a Blotter bracelet---making tsking noises as he grinned at Obi-Wan; showing him leisurely that he not only still could move his hand by rotating it provocatively, but also what he still held in his fist: a metallic gadget that snuggled in the large palm like a coin. Slowly the fist closed again, the Fheco's red eyes and his grin telling Obi-Wan the bounty hunter knew himself to have the advantage.

Gritting his teeth, Obi-Wan refused to feel frustration about his failed attempt to get the device. A device that could kill with the touch of a finger for all he knew. And by that arrogant grin on the gamorrean's face it was more than probably...

"Let's be sensible, Knight Kenobi," the Libanu's cultured voice broke into the silent communication, calling part of Obi-Wan's attention away from the gamorrean. "You should take a good---"

"Indeed, Lieutenant!" Obi-Wan cut him short. "Let's be sensible. I strongly suggest you give me that little apparatus and then you'll kindly loan us your skimmer. That way nobody gets in any trouble."

"Well, that's certainly an interesting proposal. But why should we take it? It seems awfully one-sided."

"Of course, why should you? Perhaps because I have the better argument," Obi-Wan said, holding his lightsaber a little bit higher.

There was an ugly smile on Ahib's face as he exchanged a look with the Fheco. "I don't think so," he said mildly.

Qui-Gon cried out in a tortured roar and swirling around, Obi-Wan saw the older man clawing at the collar with his shackled hands---and turned back to warn the men off as he felt them stir.

"One false movement and I'll kill you!" Obi-Wan said fiercely, underlining it with another Force push that made them stumble back a few more steps.

Not taking his awareness off the soldiers, the knight turned again and went to one knee beside Qui-Gon, his left hand gripping at the collar, trying to open it with the Force as he had tried before. There had to be a way---Darkness sucked him in, blotting out the Light, a giant wave of Dark Force coming down on him, screaming with the tortured voices of souls damned, black ice burning into his brain, the pain sickening, desperation and anger mixing into hate---and then it was gone, only an echo ricocheting in his mind, the Force quivering like a tuning fork.

Obi-Wan gasped for air, found his face pressed against fabric, the tattoo of a madly beating heart under his cheek. He looked up, finding himself eye to eye with Qui-Gon. He blinked at him, his eyes falling on the collar again, knowing now why it was called a Blotter---oh, Force---he wanted to grasp it anew, rip it from---and found his hand held fast in a strong grip.

"No," Qui-Gon said firmly, commanding even when his breath came in short little hitches that shook his whole body.

Obi-Wan couldn't take his eyes off the Blotter. "Let me try once more, I know now..."

"No! It's too strong!"

"But..."

"Padawan, obey!"

Obi-Wan's eyes snapped up, half by long habit, half in anger that Qui-Gon should still use this tone on him, an anger originating right there where the Darkness had nipped at him... but any dark emotion left him as he looked into Qui-Gon's eyes, white rimmed and bright with pain---but as steady and firm as his grip, asking him to be sensible.

Nodding brokenly, Obi-Wan sat up again, choking at whatever blocked his throat, licking at his stinging lips, tasting iron, his hands trying to work free of the hard grip his master still had on him.

Movement at the edge of his vision made him snap his head around, seeing Ahib stepping up to them---the other Blotter in his hand! This sight yanked Obi-Wan back into the outside world he somehow had forgotten all about in his frenzy to get his master rid of that thing.

Growling, Obi-Wan's hand snapped out of Qui-Gon's, his 'saber flaring like a flame in his hand as he turned and surged onto his feet, his lightsaber thrusting like a spear between them and the threat, screaming, "Back! Stay back!"

Ahib stumbled backwards a step as the 'saber almost grazed his throat. Obi-Wan's hands shook badly, causing the tip of the blue laser blade to waver unpredictably, the humming changing its frequency with each little movement. The Libanu met Obi-Wan's eyes above the glaring length, and his larynx bobbed, the first sign of nerves he had shown so far.

"Calm down, all right?" Ahib said---and suddenly flung his hand out and threw the collar over to the Fheco.

Obi-Wan stretched out his own fingers to snatch it out of the air, but to his utter frustration the Sith-made material deflected the Force and landed safely in the gamorrean's claws.

"Shut---that---thing---off!" Obi-Wan growled, but the Fheco still grinned at him with that insufferable arrogance, his snout twitching as if he was just short of laughing aloud. Taking his time, he fastened the collar over his arm and then hooked his clawed hands into his belt, mocking the Jedi with his nonchalance.

"Shut it off, I said! Or I'll kill him." Obi-Wan moved in the blink of an eye, his blade's tip again right beside the lieutenant's vulnerable throat.

"Don't be hasty, son," Ahib tried to appease him with upheld hands, his voice having lost all of his earlier condescension.

Staring at him unblinkingly, Obi-Wan took in the widening white around the dark irises and the suddenly very pale skin, together with a forehead dotted with pearls of perspiration. Come on, show nerves, give me an opening...

After a few fast breaths, Ahib's wild-eyed stare flickered away from the knight's. "Shut it down," he grated at the Fheco, who growled back a negative, shaking his big head once to the right.

Ahib's eyes fixed on Obi-Wan's again, then on the still shaking tip of the lightsaber only inches from his throat---a throat whose skin began to redden from the intense heat of the blue blade.

"Damn you, shut it down, he means it!" Ahib bellowed to his compatriot, more plea than order now; but the gamorrean was not to be swayed, blazing the panicking Libanu a disdainful look down his broad snout.

Obi-Wan filed this interesting interaction away, his steady gaze commanding the Libanu's eyes back to his. "I do mean it," he acknowledged, batting away the tears the cold wind forced on him, reminder to blink now and then.

A slight touch against the back of his knee made him aware that he was all but standing on top of his master. Obi-Wan loosened his left hand from the 'saber hilt and reached down.

His hand was met instantly, his fingers squeezed in silent assurance. Hidden from sight by the billowing folds of his robe, he held fast onto Qui-Gon's cold fingers while his heart slowed down and calmness flowed into him again with each deeply drawn breath of cold air. Once again the Force became a peaceful sea, melting away all remains of the sudden hoarfrost that had befallen Obi-Wan the moment he had touched the activated collar.

Obi-Wan tugged at the big hand, wanting his master on his feet---

"Well..." the gamorrean pirate grunted, and Obi-Wan stilled, his eyes whipping around to the speaker. The Fheco still stood with his claws hooked in his belt, seemingly unconcerned.

"You see, little one, I don't care if you kill him," he nodded at Ahib, "but neverdeless, if you kill him, I will be forced to kill de old bhat." His claws tightened around the device in his palm---and the fingers in Obi-Wan's hand suddenly stiffened with spastic rigor.

His eyes snapped down, finding Qui-Gon clawing with his free hand at the collar again, his eyes wide wells of pure horror, the Blotter emitting waves of Dark Force so strongly it sizzled through their physical contact, racing up Obi-Wan's nerves like venom... he threw all of his mental will against it and the Darkness was deflected by his shields. Without them, goodness... oh, Qui-Gon...

Totally helpless, Obi-Wan held onto the convulsing hand, trying to send his strength, knowing he could not reach the failing mind of his beloved.

Obi-Wan snatched his eyes away and up to the Fheco, who watched them with an unholy pleasure, his eyes glowing red as if a fire burned behind them. The bounty hunter's massive chest heaved with laughter as he wallowed in the pain he caused just as his kindred liked to wallow in mud.

Obi-Wan suddenly knew that the Fheco would kill his master, would kill him just out of the perverse pleasure of seeing Qui-Gon writhe, of seeing Obi-Wan's pain and rage. He would kill him if... if...

His eyes on the gamorrean, Obi-Wan straightened, his chin lifting. The hand in his tugged at him, but he ignored it. There was a roaring in his ears, but it could not drown the sudden calmness of his mind. His eyes still locked with the red ones, he lifted his lightsaber.

His master's strong grip almost broke his fingers. "Obi-Wan, NO! I forbid!"

"Forgive me," he whispered as he freed his hand with a little Force tug and took a step forward.

With a defiant snarl Obi-Wan fell to his knees and threw his 'saber into the snow.

They didn't hesitate. The Fheco was before him in three long strides, collar in his free hand, the other still closed firmly around the device lest Obi-Wan tried anything foolish.

The Blotter closed around his neck, burning his skin with its malevolent coldness. Obi-Wan gulped, his eyes pressed shut, his hands bloodless fists as they were pressed into cuffs. Oh, Force... He thought he knew now what his master hadn't been able to tell him. How to find words for this? It was not just the brutal push out of an alpha state into what other people called the normal world, as a common brainwave-jammer did. It was much more, or less, just as he had always imagined dying would feel like: a drifting away from one's senses, a dimming of the surroundings as if a black cloud had suddenly veiled the sun, a bright day sinking into twilight, his eyes cloudy, the voice of his body only a dim murmuring, telling him nothing useful. And at the same time, getting stronger now, the feelings of discomfort: the cold snow biting at his knees, with the thin material of his trousers no barrier. The ice needles in his face, burning his cheekbones.

He automatically attempted to compensate, to lessen the discomfort, to pump blood where it was needed, to silence nerves whose messages were heard and now could stop, please---he might as well have tried to breathe in vacuum. It was disturbing, so much so that there was a little voice in the back of his brain gibbering in panic. The bright presence of the Force---and that no jammer he knew of could totally suppress---a presence he had always felt, as long as he could remember, that intellectually he knew had been with him since he was conceived, a union that was as intrinsic to him as breathing was gone. Gone. Gone.

He must have let out a sound, a gasp, maybe even a whimper; the Fheco laughed. An ugly sound, grating in his ears, at his nerves, finding its way unfiltered to his emotions.

A hand touched his back. He started, understood too late it was Qui-Gon, feeling horrified he did not know it was Qui-Gon, did not know he was there behind him, could not feel him at all...

The hand stayed, shaking badly but lending support simply through its presence. Can give nothing else, Obi-Wan realized. Oh Force, this is worse than dying---

Drawing deep breaths, he found the calming exercises he had learned since he was a child were working still, not as fast, not as perfectly, but a mind used to extended control could not be untrained so simply.

The Fheco laughed again. "Feel nice?"

Controlling his inner trembling, drawing a deep breath that seemed to contain no oxygen, Obi-Wan schooled his face to impassiveness, made his eyes open, and stared coldly at the Fheco. "Release Master Jinn now," he demanded---and did not see the hand coming that made his face explode in red pain, rocking his head to the side so abruptly that his neck muscles screamed.

"Ah, I needed that," Ahib said in gleeful satisfaction.

A hurtful hand in his hair pulled the knight's head around again, and he blinked up through watering eyes into the little beady red ones of the Fheco.

"Like to rephrase dat, my little bhat?"

What Obi-Wan would have liked was to spit into those ugly eyes but so far his intellect still ruled over his baser emotions and so he just said as neutrally as he could, "I did what you wanted, Fheco. Now shut it down." No reaction in the flat eyes. The Fheco wanted submission.

"Please," Obi-Wan added, not showing how much will he had to muster to get the word out.

The gamorrean snorted and let his hair go.

Obi-Wan watched as he stepped beside Qui-Gon, who stared up at the Fheco, his eyes bright with pain, his curled body shaking in violent seizures. Obi-Wan's heart wailed at the sight, damn, release him, you heartless bastard!

The Fheco relaxed his hand and Qui-Gon gasped aloud, sinking down into himself, the hand that had been a white-knuckled claw around the Blotter falling nervelessly into his lap.

Leaning down to Qui-Gon and looking intensely into his face, the bounty hunter said, "It's remarkable what dis nice little jewelry can do to a half-god like you, isn't it, Lord Jedi?"

Qui-Gon chose not to answer if indeed he could, but just gazed back at his tormentor, his pale face almost kind looking in its stillness, disregarding the tears still clinging to his slightly trembling lashes.

"I'm rather disappointed," Ahib said from behind Obi-Wan, obviously having found his balls and his old attitude again, now that the threat knelt in the snow before him. "I had heard so much of these Jedi witches. But to catch them was rather easy. Not to mention that pathetic show of saving each other. What fools."

The Fheco laughed at that, an ugly squeaking sound that made Obi-Wan's teeth hurt. That man laughed altogether too much.

Straightening up to his not inconsiderable height again, the gamorrean waved his claws depreciatingly, adding, "Dis old man is as weak as a newly hatched hutt, and was as easily caught. Jedi are noding widout deir precious Force."

Indeed, Obi-Wan thought grimly, fighting against the Blotter-induced headache that was crawling with icy little claws upward along his neck and distracting him away from the calmness he had held onto so desperately. Lose your temper and you will lose everything, he reminded himself, but his patience was wearing thinner with each beat of his heart, every electrical impulse speeding through his brain. Patience and serenity are Jedi virtues, but patience had brought him here in the first place, hadn't it? The voice of his mind pointed out what he had not been aware of thinking. Serenity---when he should have come down on his enemies without mercy in the moment he became aware of them. I should have killed them, whispered through his brain. Killed? Obi-Wan shook his head, surprised about that notion. No, he should not kill... why not? Why not, indeed. The end sanctioned the means, right? And he had had enough of serenity---it hadn't helped his master, had it? Looking behind him to the man Obi-Wan was here to protect, seeing Qui-Gon hunched over in the snow, his hair wild around him, one hand clenched around the edge of Obi-Wan's robe, a red fury boiled up in him, beating in rhythm with his headache.

"You prey on the sick and hurt only, Fheco-poodoo," Obi-Wan pronounced, his voice dripping icy disdain, "because you would shit in your pants if you were caught in a fair fight. Your clan mothers would pee on you in shame if they could see what a coward you are."

As intended, the gamorrean turned his attention from his master to Obi-Wan. But the ire he had hoped for was missing, letting Obi-Wan's fury run head first against a wall of indifference. Gasping voicelessly, Obi-Wan blinked in confusion. What... Letting himself get carried away that much, by the Light, what had he been thinking? He did not understand himself anymore, he knew better than to slander a gamorrean! Had he forgotten everything he learned...

As if to underline Obi-Wan's disturbed thoughts, the bounty hunter just grinned, showing off the broken ends of his yellow tusks. "I like you, stripling," he calmly confided. "You have fire. And a foul little tongue. Breaking you will be fun." The Fheco trained his eyes again on the kneeling man behind Obi-Wan, musing aloud, "My client said he want Jedi." Scratching his tattooed snout noisily, he cast a thoughtful look at Obi-Wan, then stared beyond him again, adding, "But he didn't say how many." Snipping away the dried flecks of skin he had rubbed loose from his nose, he reached down into his belt and withdrew a thin-bladed stiletto.

Obi-Wan's blood went cold.

"Man, what're you doing?" Ahib shouted angrily.

"Having a little fun." Grinning at Obi-Wan, the Fheco grabbed Qui-Gon's long hair and dragged him up until the Jedi was sitting against the log again. Without loosening his hold the Fheco bent back the master's head over the curve of the trunk, stroking the blade's tip along the prominently exposed throat, swatting Qui-Gon's hands away effortlessly as they came up to grab the meaty wrists...

"Nooo!" Obi-Wan jumped up from his knees and rammed his full weight into the gamorrean's legs. It was like hitting a tree, but his momentum was enough to make the giant take a step back and stumble over the log where he landed with an enraged squeak in a snow drift.

Obi-Wan rolled to the side to save his own head from smashing into the same log, and for a split second he lay beside Qui-Gon---their eyes met, and he felt as if they were saying everything to each other in this one, perhaps last look.

Then they were on him. But Obi-Wan was still a Jedi knight, with or without access to the Force. His skills were not magical gifts, but had been earned with blood and tears over the span of a lifetime. It was something most Force blind tended to ignore in their envy or scorn. It was a lesson these people were asking to learn...

Prochech's boot aimed at his head, but Obi-Wan ducked away, coming around and kicking up, splintering bone under his heel, and Prochech went down with a howl, clutching his battered knee. Obi-Wan rolled himself over the man into the opening his fall had created. But another man got a good grip on his robe and the yank he delivered brought Obi-Wan up short, bringing him and his attacker down in a tangle of limbs. Twisting in midair, Obi-Wan landed halfway on the Libanu, who howled as the Jedi's knees hit him in the chest. But he also got his hands around Obi-Wan's right leg, pinning him to the ground until Obi-Wan's fist broke his nose in a fountain of blood and mucus.

Freed, Obi-Wan rolled around and using his momentum once more, he came up on his knees and brought his fists up into the groin of the soldier before him. Obi-Wan used the crumbling man to haul himself to his feet, and for good measure, smacked his knee into the soldier's face on his way up.

Straightening, the knight found a blaster being waved before his face and Obi-Wan danced one step backwards, knowing he would not be fast enough---

"Alive, damn you!" Ahib shouted from somewhere and the man hesitated---

---and Obi-Wan kicked the gun out of his hand. It flew into the snow and vanished. Tactical error, he thought, should have taken the gun... he had no time to think further, as the four still standing were upon him. One he brought down with another kick and a well aimed elbow, but the men were no beginners either and Obi-Wan's advantage of surprise had reached an end.

Metal-studded knuckles connected with his jaw, ripping skin, and careened him around, where he ran into another fist aimed squarely at his solar plexus. Pain exploded everywhere at once as his enemies' brutal blows found their targets. His body wanted to fold into itself, protectively, but Obi-Wan didn't give in, could not give in... Give in, cajoled the voice of his headache sweetly.

Ignoring it, he blocked the next punch to his face with the short chain between his cuffs, kicking up with his legs, connecting with something, using his hands to grip the man's forearm. Holding on to it with all his strength, he rolled to his side and around, his legs shearing the other man's out from under him, forcing the soldier to roll with him. Obi-Wan turned around completely, without loosening his grip on the wrist or the bulky jacket---getting a glimpse of a familiar looking green uniform---and felt ligaments tear under his fingers, heard bones break, as the thin faced man went down beside him with an enraged scream.

Trying to get to his knees, Obi-Wan found his legs being kicked out from under him---new pain erupted in his side as a boot found his ribs. Tears blinded him as he struggled not to give in to the agony, to fight on. Give in. No, he could not give up, ever---the steel-tipped boot again connected with him, bruising his kidney.

This time his body did fold into itself, his hand trying to protect his side, excruciating pain all he knew.

"I'll show you, you Jedi scum," someone growled over him in what insanely sounded like a Corellian accent. A fist wound into his hair and hauled him upward, tears springing into Obi-Wan's eyes at that new cutting pain.

He clawed at the hand, not really knowing what he was doing any longer, his body screaming too loudly, his brain fried in a splitting headache that sucked the strength out of his bones. The pain was everywhere and somehow he could not turn it away, somehow the Force... left you. You are alone--- New pain exploded at the side of his face, and he would have spun around under the power of the fist's impact if the hand in his hair had not held him immobile. He tried to lift his arms to protect himself but they did not really respond... give up. You've failed... his wrists were grabbed and the shackles removed. But before he could even wonder about it, his arms were forced brutally up his back, almost ripping his shoulders out of their sockets, as his hands were coerced into the cuffs again. He heard himself moan, but for some reason the new pain brought his mind outward again, away from the throbbing voice inside his head that urged him to submit and beg on his knees for his life.

"You little piece of witch shit," was spit in his face, the speaker so near that Obi-Wan could feel the soldier's foul breath on his face. "If not for orders to bring you in alive..."

Obi-Wan blinked, trying to get his eyes clear of the hot fluid dripping into them, the tears he squeezed away turning a bright red. One more blink and he at least could see with his left eye, but the face before him was too near to focus on. His gaze slid sideways... finding Qui-Gon still sitting against the log, the Fheco squatting nonchalantly beside him, one claw in Qui-Gon's hair, bending his head back, the collar blinking evilly, the thin knife held tightly against his jugular vein. The gamorrean saw Obi-Wan looking at him and grinned, baring his fangs. No---

The hand in Obi-Wan's own hair wrenched his head around and an open palm connecting with the side of his face made his ear ring and his last thoughts splinter.

"Look at me, whelp!" Ahib bellowed into his ear. Obi-Wan focussed on the face, getting a good view of a smashed nose. Lightheaded, he smiled. Looked like good work...

"What're you grinning at? Ah?"

He was backhanded once more, the right side of his face becoming numb, which was not a bad thing at all.

"And you, gamorrean!" Ahib bellowed in another direction. "Why didn't you use that damn controller of yours? He almost got loose!"

A bellow. "It was too... amusing."

"Amusing! You find it amusing how he smashed up my men?"

Hm, smashed was a good word, Obi-Wan thought, his eyes still on that nose...

"And you!" Ahib turned back to him. "Think it amusing too, do you? I'll show you amusing!" A nova high pain raced like lightning up Obi-Wan's spine as a knee viciously connected with his groin. His brain blacked out---you failed him--- he wanted to roll into himself, his body slumping---and was brought up again, up to his very toes by an almost as searing pain in his shoulders as he slumped with his whole weight against his twisted arms---

A voiceless growl of fury wound its way into Obi-Wan's ears and on into his brain, a deep grating growl that shattered him to his marrow, letting his heart leap in fear as he recognized the owner of that voice---

Somehow he managed to open his left eye again and he saw his master fighting with the gamorrean. Qui-Gon was clawing at the pig's eyes, his ever-serene face a mask of blind fury. The Fheco squeaked and grunted as they rolled through the snow.

But it was over as soon as it had begun. Obi-Wan screamed in rage as the pig battered his master into submission, the sick and bound Jedi no match for a gamorrean three times his size.

The hand in his own hair tightened at his shout, and his arms were forced higher against his back, wringing a strangled cry out of him as he felt something give in his left shoulder.

That cry brought Qui-Gon around to him and their eyes met, the anguish in his beloved's face hurting Obi-Wan more than anything that could be done to him physically.

The gamorrean had once more placed the stiletto up against the pale neck, the metal glinting malevolently.

As if in slow motion Obi-Wan saw the edge of the blade sink into the soft skin... saw red welling up beneath it... knew nothing but a giant wave of fury erupting in him, blinding his left eye with red as well.

And he exploded into motion, kicking backwards, bolting his knee up in front, using his whole body to screw himself out of the hands restraining him, the hold on his arm suddenly gone. Pain flashed over his scalp as he freed his head and rolled forward, needing only a second to get his bound hands under his bent legs and up in front again.

He jumped up, his instincts trying to gather the Force, the screaming part of him not understanding why it did not come, his eyes on the knife, the blood on white skin, so much blood. He launched himself at the pig, saw him turn into his attack, showing white around the eyes, the dagger swinging away from his lover's neck---

---and then Obi-Wan was on him, his nails connecting with flesh, grinding into it---

"Obi-Wan! NOOO!" roared his master's voice into his brain.

---the same moment white agony ground itself into his side, trying to find a way to his heart.

Gasping, Obi-Wan faltered and his opponent whacked him hard against the side of his head, blinding him. Obi-Wan felt his legs give out under him and he fell heavily, cold snow against his burning face. He had no coherent thought anymore beyond the numbness of half of his head, the pain in the other half laughing at him, laughing, and the burning in his belly that filled all of his perception.

A hand in his hair jerked him around and he was blinking against the brightness, trying to catch some gulps of air through the snow in his mouth.

"You li'l idiot of a bhat! Why'd you do dat?" the Fheco grunted into his face, shaking him with every word.

"Great," someone else said. "Now you've killed him! Fucking great!"

"He attacked me, man! Was reflex."

"They're worth a fortune! Alive! Both of them! You'll compensate me for that! And your client will not be pleased! You have a great fucking problem now!"

Obi-Wan's hurting mind drifted away from the shouting, down to a place where he could curl up and hide. Qui-Gon, forgive me, I failed you...

He dimly felt himself dragged face down through the snow and then dumped on hard ground. An engine started under him, the metal plate under his cheek vibrating so strongly he thought he could feel his brain jiggling loose in his skull. Then something slipped under his head, bedding his face on something a little bit softer and much warmer, insulating his hurting cheekbone and jaw from the worst of the pummeling. His pillow curled a little bit, the calluses shifting in a familiar pattern against his skin and it was the last he knew.

Chapter V
Ashes And Sand

It hurt.

It hurt right down to the marrow of his bones---the unmistakable feel and sound of a spaceship's hyperdrive assaulting all of his senses, scrubbing them bloody with its slightly off-phase pulsing. It puzzled him. Obi-Wan couldn't remember his Delta having such badly tuned, raw engines---and they didn't sound like them either---or did they? Subconsciously he tried to tone down the annoying sensations but it somehow didn't work.

Uneasiness stealing into his confusion, Obi-Wan grew more awake and tried to open his eyes---but they wouldn't, feeling as if they were sealed shut with lead. With a conscious effort he got his lids to move a bit but they scraped over his eyeballs like sandpaper and reflexively he shut them again, squeezing out tears that ran coolly along his temple. Shivering at the sensation, he became aware of how awfully cold he felt, and found it impossible to stop shivering again. He tried to snuggle deeper into the warmth of the bedding. What was wrong with him? While feeling cold was nothing new in space, this was absolutely not the usual way to wake up on an uneventful escort trip.

Something knocked at his memory with that thought, something that said wrong, wrong, but he didn't know why. No good. He forced his eyes open again. Not that it was of any use when he did---it was as dark outside as it had been on the inside of his lids.

He blinked and tears eased the sandy feeling somewhat; calmly he tried to ascertain that there was really nothing to see and his eyes weren't... damaged. But why should his eyes be damaged? The disquiet that had settled in his chest grew. He was confused over his disjointed thoughts and about the heat-wave crawling through his body that moment. Hadn't he been cold a minute before? Something seemed awfully wrong, but the Force was silent in his wool-stuffed mind. He must have a fever, he realized. He'd caught some alien influenza, that was it.

Still staring into the darkness he was distracted when his eyes at last did find something to fix on. A thin horizontal line of dim light of maybe a meter's width. Light coming through under a door? his mind supplied helpfully and yes, that was it. But his cabin on the Nonsuch had no door, it had a hatch... the uneasiness increased.

Obi-Wan lifted his head and let it sink again with a moan as pain speared him from temple to temple. So what was this? No cold had ever felt like this. A hangover then? He hadn't had a hangover in years. And he never had alcoholic beverages while on a mission---he hardly ever had any at all. And currently he was on a mission, on a ship, escorting the Bothia's Nonsuch out of Geshtapol. With light shining under a doorway.

All right, no hangover, he concluded. Hurt. He was hurt. Concussion? That would explain why the Force was so silent. But how? No memory came. Had something happened with the ship? A ship with doors.

The warm bedding under him suddenly moved. Just a small upward motion, and he moaned as new pain flashed through his brain and a dull ache began to throb all over his body, ruling out any thought. Something cool was splayed over his forehead and he flinched away from it, startled.

"Don't move," his master advised in a low voice.

His master? Qui-Gon! On the Nonsuch? No... Qui-Gon was... was---on Paledeen Prime.

And so was he.

Memory dropped in on him in a kaleidoscope of images, none of them reassuring---especially not the one with a knife slitting open Qui-Gon's throat…

Gasping, Obi-Wan raised his eyes to the lighter spots he could now make out against the shadows beyond, and he tried to untangle his hands from the blankets, moaning in frustration as his arms proved as uncooperative as his eyelids had been before. Freeing one arm, he reached up and found his hand caught in his master's cold one.

"Don't move, love. Everything's all right," Qui-Gon murmured soothingly, his cool fingers rubbing little circles on Obi-Wan's forehead, unerringly finding the pressure points on his temples and the bridge of his nose. "Just lie still and sleep on..."

Obi-Wan didn't listen. "He... your... you... knife..." he cracked, stopping, gulping, embarrassed about the nonsense that left his tongue. A tongue that felt like a paralyzed clump of swollen flesh in his mouth.

"Just a scratch. And here, I have some water..." Cold metal touched his lips and the water felt wonderful on the dry membranes right down to his stomach. When the cup was taken away, he tried to free his hand.

"Just a... scratch? But... I saw..."

Qui-Gon led his hand upward and his fingertips slid along short hair to end on soft lips. A kiss was pressed on them before they were settled on stiff cloth. A cloth around his neck, stiff with... blood? A scratch, just a scratch. He had been fast enough. Relief let Obi-Wan slump back into Qui-Gon's lap, holding his fingertips, still tingling warmly from the kiss, against his cheek.

After a moment of just concentrating on his breathing---somehow inhaling too deeply hurt---he could make him out now as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Qui-Gon was leaning over him, his hair hanging loosely around his white face, his eyes sunken hollows. Obi-Wan's eyes fell on the bandage of ripped cloth around the long neck, one side dark flecked. And sticking out from under its hanging ends, the dull sheen of metal.

Obi-Wan reached up and found the same thing around his own neck, the metal stinging like a thousand tiny needles under his fingertips.

'My client wants Jedi' a deep voice grunted in his suddenly clear mind and he heard himself saying, 'He could not know we would come.' No. No, the Sith didn't know they would come, or the slaver would not have tried to kill Qui-Gon. But he would be very happy to see them. What a lucky catch. But---but the Sith must never have them.

Obi-Wan frowned, confused, his thoughts fragmenting again, slipping away from him like water through shaking fingers.

If the Sith must not have them, why hadn't the Force warned them? Or had it? The Force... ow, thinking of it had made him reach out to what was not there anymore.

Obi-Wan shuddered, a shower of goose bumps running down his skin and automatically he tugged his legs up... and didn't know what had hit him as red, searing pain exploded in his stomach.

Qui-Gon let go of his hands and pressed his shoulders and legs down. "You must lie still! Love, please lie still!" he was implored, his master sounding choked---

Obi-Wan gasped at him, and he was trying, trying, not knowing if he could, his brain shorting out, the Force not coming---the darkness at the edges of his vision crushed in on him and he ceased to think...

. . . until he became aware of raging thirst. He must have voiced it, even if he could not remember, because he felt water on his tongue then, but only a dribble and he wanted more.

"No, my own. You must not drink too much." Must not drink?

"Master... please..." But the cup was taken away and he had not the strength to protest. He felt languid. Heavy. All his limbs felt heavy as stone.

There was a dull ache in his belly that flared up with every breath he took. Obi-Wan concentrated on inhaling with his chest only, to move his belly as little as he could, his hand pressing down on the center of the hurt, but it didn't help much.

After a time he noticed something hot and wet against his fingers and was puzzled. He tried to sit up to have a look, and gasped in pain, as the movement let the hurt in his belly flare up again to a sharp edge. He pressed his hand back down, instinctively trying to stanch the fluid that was sluggishly seeping through his fingers.

A big cold hand covered his. "Let me see, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon lifted his hand away and Obi-Wan brought it up to his face---had his arm always been so heavy?---and stared mystified at the darkish smears on his fingers. He was distracted by biting cold air on his torso, realizing Qui-Gon was opening his clothing, doing something on his hurting belly. Blood was running hotly down his side and it was a curious sensation: it itched... blood? His eyes refocused on his red fingers.

"I'm bleeding," he said aloud. "Why am I..."

The blade moved, red welled up at its edges... Qui-Gon... 'Noooo!' .. . white rimmed pig's eyes... the blade swinging around... pain...

"Oh." Understanding. A knife in his side. Gut wound. They had not bothered to give him...?

'Great, now you've killed him!'

"I'm dead," Obi-Wan whispered. Or as good as. Another kind of coldness took hold of him as he realized he was dying and he couldn't feel the Force, would not feel himself joining it. Would it wait for him on the other side? Of course it would---

'But how can you be sure?' a little black voice whispered into his brain, telling him, 'The Force is illusion.'

No! He knew the Force was there!

'But where is it now, when you need it? The Force will not take you if you die without it...'

. . . no? Maybe he would be alone, forever, lost in the Dark... no reunion with the Light, no reunion with his loved one... Fear ground itself into Obi-Wan's brain, its Dark little fingers stroking desperation into him with every fleeting touch, the collar around his neck humming maliciously.

Obi-Wan fought against the voice, clinging to the reality of the hands on his body, of Qui-Gon tending to him. Tending to him despite... did Qui-Gon know he was dying? Of course he did. But he didn't act as if... he had a plan, of course. Qui-Gon had a plan. Hope washed away the desperation and he looked up at his master.

"How... how will we get... away from here?"

The cool hand returned to Obi-Wan's forehead. "I have no idea," Qui-Gon said slowly. "We must trust the Force."

"The Force?" Obi-Wan reiterated. The Force? That was Qui-Gon's plan? He had no plan but... "The Force? I can't even feel it!" he cried. "I want to feel it! I want..." His fingers clawed frantically at the Blotter.

Qui-Gon pried him away from it, holding his fingers in a firm grip, not letting them go again. "Obi-Wan. Remember?" his husky voice implored, asking Obi-Wan to listen. "Remember each time we thought we could not go on? The Force rescued us. First, when it sent you to me." A kiss on his forehead. "Then it led us to the hot springs."

Oh, Obi-Wan remembered that. He opened his eyes, seeking the ones above his. "I love you," he gulped out, helpless tears welling up and running down his cheeks, stinging in the abrasions. He felt Qui-Gon's fingers tenderly wiping them away, their foreheads meeting as his master leaned forward, his skin so comfortingly cool against his own.

"I love you, too, Obi-Wan Kenobi," Qui-Gon whispered vehemently. "Force, how much I love you. It destroys me to see you suffer so." Qui-Gon pressed his hands almost painfully. "We must trust the Force."

Obi-Wan held on to the hands with all his strength and nodded, but there was no hope in his heart anymore.

Soon he lost consciousness again and was caught in dark, confusing dreams where he sought his master in a wasted, burned landscape, lost and alone. But he could never find him, and it wasn't long before his voice was raw from calling for him, his knees and hands bloody from crawling along endless roads pebbled with pumice stones, a malevolent cackling voice in the wind.

But sometimes he was awake, the laughing voice overruled by the one of his master and the feeling of familiar callused fingers on his lips. He heard his Qui-Gon talking to him, telling him funny little tales out of his own youth---but it soon became confusing and Obi-Wan thought he might have fallen asleep here and there, losing the story.

Once he imagined the door to their slave shed opening and someone saying, 'He dies so prettily.' But that must have been a dream again, like the one where he heard that bleating voice of the wind, laughing, mocking him, and once, when he turned to that voice, he saw a pair of yellow eyes staring down at him, leaking foul slobber down over mottled cheeks and lipless mouth to gather on a cleft chin before dripping on him; it hurt like acid wherever it made contact.

One time he thought to hear his master singing lowly to him and it was beautiful. But he must have dreamt that, too.

He drifted.

Far away overlapping echoes. Too far away to understand.

"... help me with him! Oh Force, he's slipping..."

Master? But the words were meaningless, drowning away in the hypnotic, low, rhythmic up and down swelling of a sleepy surf on a sandy beach---and he awoke.

He was sitting on a large boulder, looking out at the Sea. The wind was cool and he knew the glittering water would be warm. Now and then, a wave reached his outlook and a few drops fell on his feet like a tickling caress, like a teasing little touch, asking him to follow when the wave retreated back into the surf. He knew he would go with it. Soon. He would sit here just a while longer, a short while, looking out where the light wove sparkles on the deep blue waves and at the clouds, outlined in blinding gold with single sunbeams reaching down from behind them. Just a moment longer.

He smiled as he heard it.

Voices, far away, only faintly discernible over the wind, were calling for him. He just waited and one of the voices came nearer.

Obi-Wan felt a presence standing behind himself, felt a warmth, almost as beckoning as the Sea licking at his feet.

"It's so beautiful, more than I ever imagined," he confided.

"Yes," Qui-Gon breathed.

"I feared I'd never see it again."

"Yes."

Obi-Wan turned, looking with pleasure at the man whose long hair was flying freely in the breeze, dark brown locks highlighted in gold, untouched by age as was the face they surrounded. The unlined eyes looking at him were shining just as blue, just as brightly as the Sea, seemingly just reflecting the splendor they faced, but it was their natural color, a birthright of the most blessed.

"Have you nothing else to say but 'yes'?"

Qui-Gon looked beyond him at the Sea. His larynx was bobbing. "I'm rather... overwhelmed," he finally said. "I came... I came here to ask you to come back with me. To me. But now... what can I give you that would equal this..." He gestured to the Sea and Sky before turning to Obi-Wan, and the mirror of his eyes even seemed to brighten, reflecting white light. "You are luminous," Qui-Gon choked.

"You only have to ask," Obi-Wan said, hearing the distant voices again, calling for him, for them both.

Qui-Gon looked back to the Sea, then at him again, his eyes thirsty, his breath shaky. A lone tear fell free and slid down his cheek. Then he shook his head ever so slightly. "I cannot. I cannot ask you to give this up for me."

Obi-Wan smiled. Slowly he slid from his perch, his feet sinking into the wet, warm sand. A wave moved swishing up the shore, its foamy tongue kissing his toes.

Wistfully, Obi-Wan watched it playing around his feet, longer than it should. With a sigh of regret it retreated back into the Sea.

Turning, Obi-Wan held out his hand to the silently weeping man. "And that's why I'll come back with you."

Coming back hurt. He could not breathe, his chest was cramping, and pain was shooting down his left arm...

Then, suddenly, tendrils of blue-tingling coolness spread through him, touching his heart. The destructive anguish ebbed away, and the high frequency whirring in his ears slowed, lessening to a steady, steady pulse, vanishing again in the background.

Instead he heard loud voices.

His master was shouting. Someone else was, too. Hands were tugging at him, strangely hot hands, hurting too, they pulled him away from... No, let me be, he tried to protest, but he only thought it, the sound coming out of his throat was a mere croak. Familiar cool fingers replaced the stranger's and he clung to them in relief.

"I'm here, my love. Please, try not to move," Qui-Gon said directly into his mind and Obi-Wan really made the effort to obey this endlessly repeated wish, but it was hard to lie still as the searing hands now concentrated on the draigon nestled in his belly, hands there, strange hands everywhere. Coldness seemed to explode there in his center, where the fire had settled forever...

Obi-Wan drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he heard voices, but never shouting again, whispering voices speaking single words or fragments of sentences. He didn't understand them at first---they were too low, too far away, too disjointed.

With the passing of time, a sense of urgency settled into his mind. The need to comprehend grew stronger and impatiently he gathered the Force to help.

The rich blue flood filled his mind and he felt elated at its rising touch, but did not understand why he should feel so. He now heard his master's whispering voice near him but not near enough---

"... can't believe we stumbled right into that trap and..."

"... long planned, very long planned," a familiar voice said.

"We're closing in now. I feel this is it, at last." Still another voice, higher in pitch. He knew those voices.

"How long have you been on this trail?" Qui-Gon asked.

"For the better part of the last year," Windu's voice answered. "We got a tip about this Fheco, and we nearly caught up to him last month on Kessel. I'm sorry we did not get here any sooner, but..."

"No need, friend. No need, ever. You came just in time. If Obi-Wan had .. . I..."

"Qui-Gon, he will be all right," now Gallia's gentle tones joined in. "And you brought us what we need to finally make our move. This is no coincidence."

"What did the Fheco say to your proposal?"

"What do you think? All of these pirates are cowards at heart. He's trying to save his stinking hide. And after all, he's Fheco: he has no honor. Of course he said yes."

Nobody answered that, and Obi-Wan wondered what they were doing now. The Fheco, they said. He remembered the Fheco. He had said 'yes'.

"Yes to what?" Obi-Wan asked.

On to Chapter VI...