Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, You're My Only Ho - cont'd
(continued from part 29)
Qui-Gon had left Obi-Wan to shower in peace and gone back to his rooms to fetch them both a change of clothing. The blood that flecked his Jedi robes had dried to a reddish, disreputable brown. He needed a wash himself, but didn't want to spend much time away from Obi-Wan; the Healers would release him soon, and Qui-Gon had to be certain Obi-Wan came back to his quarters with him. He paused long enough to grab a data recorder so he could begin composing messages to his old friends and contacts across the Galaxy. He didn't know for certain yet what they would do, but he had faith in the Force that something would present itself.
He had just got back to the Dome when he felt a disturbance across their fledgling bond. By the time he reached the showers where he had left Obi-Wan, he could feel intense suffering and sadness pulsing from Obi-Wan in waves. Rushing into the bathing suite, he found Obi-Wan leaning against the tile of the shower wall.
"Obi-Wan?" Pale eyes looked up at him, red from weeping. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, but was still dripping from the water. "What's wrong?"
Obi-Wan looked at him as if he didn't comprehend the words Qui-Gon had spoken, then he shook his head. "I - I don't know."
Qui-Gon put another towel around Obi-Wan’s shoulders and rubbed his arms and chest dry. After a moment he realized he was becoming aroused by Obi-Wan's nearness, his state of undress and the feel of the flesh under his hands. He clamped down on the bond between them, sensing that a sexual response was the last thing Obi-Wan needed now. "Let's get you dressed, and then we can talk."
"It's okay, Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan whispered. "I'm not broken. I like knowing the man I love wants me."
Qui-Gon smiled and moved the towel up to Obi-Wan's head, tousling his hair and drying it at the same time. "Still, there's a time and a place for such things," he said, smiling gently, "and a public shower in the Healers' Dome isn't it."
"S'pose not." Obi-Wan grinned and led the way out.
Once they were back in Obi-Wan's room, Qui-Gon gave him the clothes he'd brought and looked away while his lover changed. It wasn't that he was feeling bashful, or even protective of Obi-Wan's privacy. He had glimpsed the edges of nasty bruises, and he feared that seeing the marks on Obi-Wan's body would refresh the uncommon rage he'd only just begun to master.
"All clear," Obi-Wan said with a note of teasing in his voice, once he was dressed. Qui-Gon turned to him and smiled, gathering him into a gentle embrace.
"That feels better now, doesn't it?"
Obi-Wan nodded. "I don't know what came over me. It wasn't memories -- it didn't even feel like me at all."
"What do you mean?" Qui-Gon sat on the edge of the bed, and Obi-Wan sat beside him, taking his hands.
"I'm not angry," he said after a pause. "And I'm not sad." He lifted Qui-Gon's large hand to his face and kissed the palm. "Far from it. I mean, I'm not saying I'm happy about everything that has happened in the past ten, but things are looking up."
"It's okay to be angry about what you’ve been through," Qui-Gon said. Obi-Wan was brave and amazingly resilient, but he wasn’t going to let him deny his feelings. That way lies madness, as he had all too recently discovered. "Allow yourself to feel it, and release it to the Force."
Obi-Wan smiled. "I know how to do that, you know. I've been doing it a lot, just lately. I don't think this was me."
Before Qui-Gon could ask what he meant, the door opened and Healer Phol came in.
"Qui-Gon, have you seen Knight T'Crion or Knight Chun?"
"No," he answered. "Not for hours. Chun was with me when we brought Obi-Wan in, but he left. I haven't seen Xanatos since he went to have midmeal with Healer Tand."
"They've just found Tand tied up in his private office. He said Xanatos attacked him." Phol looked tired and anxious.
"He's not here," Obi-Wan said evenly.
Phol glanced in his direction, but continued speaking to Qui-Gon. "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
"No." Qui-Gon thought back to the last time he'd seen Bruck. "But I think Knight Chun went after him."
Phol looked as if she would like to ask Qui-Gon how he could possibly know that, but instead she turned and walked out.
"I'm fine," Obi-Wan quipped to the empty doorway. "Thanks for asking."
Qui-Gon stroked Obi-Wan's hair and held him close. "Xanatos' condition represents a threat to the entire Jedi Order. Don't take her single-mindedness personally."
Obi-Wan looked down, biting his lip. "I think I'm entitled to take it a little bit personally, under the circumstances.”
“Fair enough.” Qui-Gon held him closer, placing a chaste kiss on his temple. “Now let’s see about getting you out of here.”
Bail had not looked at his commdesk for hours, and his personal commlink had been turned off since before his speech. He sat for a time, contemplating the view from his rooms, enjoying their comfortably appointed yet elegant interior.
Today had been a day of great personal triumph, wedded with some horror and more than his share of notoriety. He had known he would not emerge from this with any sort of public image intact, but he needed time to regroup before facing it. His public war of words with Palpatine followed by that terrible business with Kenobi... it had all been too much. Without Kenobi, he had no one to talk to, not that he would dare go near him now that Master Qui-Gon Jinn's intentions were clear. Who was Bail to stand in the way of true love?
Yet no one besides Kenobi had known of his secret before his revelations -- if you didn't count Palpatine, and Bail didn't. No one he could speak to without first explaining himself again, no one who would understand the choices he'd made, and the consequences of them.
He was startled from his reverie by the sound of someone at the door. Not just at his door, ringing the chime, but opening the door. He stood and grabbed the first thing that fell to hand, ready to swing his best bottle of wine like a club.
The person who entered was a small, pale humanoid, but it took Bail a moment to recognize him as Rasmir, a junior member of his staff whose full name he didn’t know. Rasmir entered and lurched away from Bail's clumsy swing.
"Begging your pardon Senator, but no one could reach you by comm," he said, rather calmly considering a rather heavy bottle had just passed within microns of his head.
"I shut them off! Can't you leave me be until tomorrow?" Bail disliked the weakness in his voice. He didn't feel as though he were on the verge of tears, but his voice sounded shaky and too emotional by half. He cleared his throat. "What is it that cannot wait?"
"Well, sir," Rasmir said, assuming his most formal and deferential tone. "Have you seen the news feeds?"
Bail sighed, and sat down. "What are they saying now?"
Rasmir's eyes cut toward the small vid screen by Bail's commdesk. "It might be best if you saw it for yourself."
"Oh, for the gods' sake! Just spit it out, man."
"The news feeds have painted you quite the hero, sir," Rasmir said. "After what happened with Kenobi and all."
Bail leaned back, resting his head on the cushion behind him. "What does that have to do with me?"
"There was footage of you outside talking with the Coruscant Authority, holding a blaster. They're saying that you fought off an attack on your lover."
Bail snorted, as unseemly a noise as he had ever made, followed quickly by genuine laughter. "That's ridiculous."
He had cared for Obi-Wan, yes, but he had only to see him in the arms of Qui-Gon Jinn to know that they had never truly been lovers. "Kenobi and I had a professional relationship."
Rasmir said nothing, and Bail knew that everyone would know by now just what Kenobi's profession was.
Bail decided to cut directly to the point. "Why did this warrant breaking and entering?"
"Because, sir..." There was something of the patient schoolmaster in Rasmir's voice, and Bail found the pause uncommonly infuriating. "You see, there is speculation in the press about you and Kenobi, and considering your announcement today and the fact that one of Kenobi's attackers was in Chancellor Palpatine's employ..."
"They think what happened to Kenobi was revenge for what I said about Palpatine?" Rasmir nodded, and Bail became thoughtful. "I don't think that is possible. He would have needed to arrange it before I made my announcement."
"That doesn't make it impossible, sir," Rasmir said.
"No one knew the content of my speech besides me," Bail argued. "Not even my staff! You know that. I kept the speech and the supporting evidence on my personal data desk, triple encoded and kept on my person from the time I prepared it to the time I delivered it. Unless you think there is surveillance in my offices at the Senate, I do not see how it would be possible."
"There is no surveillance," Rasmir said. "We checked. But that isn't the point, sir."
"Then what is your point?" Bail's patience had worn thin three sentences ago, and Rasmir was already on borrowed time.
"We began monitoring transmissions from Palpatine's office shortly after the story aired."
Bail's jaw dropped. "That is illegal," he said slowly. "Besides, I'm sure he has the best counter-surveillance tech money can buy."
"He does in his regular offices, but his staff moved him to other quarters to throw off all the unscrupulous reporters hanging about." Rasmir smiled. "I happen to know one of his undersecretaries' personal assistants quite well, so I knew which adjunct offices to monitor – in order to protect your interests."
"So he was behind the attack on Kenobi?"
"Not exactly, sir, but I knew when I saw this that you should see it." Rasmir handed over a small data recorder with a holo pad, and the transmission began to play.
Bruck stared at the lumps of flesh on the shiny, blood-slicked deck beside him. His eyes burned, and the ‘saber wound on his right arm throbbed. Someone was touching him, calling his name.
Xanatos.
Bruck looked toward the sound and saw the man he loved, the man for whose soul he had done this detestable thing. He had heard but had not comprehended the words spoken to him, and now stared mutely into those midnight blue eyes.
There were hands on his shoulders, strong hands, squeezing hard. Bruck felt as though his head were wrapped in layers of gauze, stuffed with fibers from a pillow.
“Let me see your arm,” Xanatos said. This time the words soaked through, and Bruck turned so that Xanatos could reach the arm now hanging uselessly at his side. Looking down, he saw that it was seared through to the bone, the bicep severed. Instead of making him swoon, the sight of it brought him back, reminded him that he was still flesh and bone, traumatized but living. The other one, beside him on the deck, was not.
Bruck watched as Xanatos tore off the damaged sleeve and used it to bind the wound. Then there were arms around him, lifting him to his feet. His eyes itched maddeningly.
“I killed him,” he whispered.
“You’ve had to kill before, Bruck,” Xanatos said as he led Bruck away. “He deserved worse.”
“We have to take the pieces,” Bruck said. Xanatos frowned, uncomprehending. Bruck pulled away from him, and stumbled across to the blaster and Durante’s severed arm. He loosened the mechanical fingers’ grip on the blaster, and let it fall clattering to the deck. He placed the limb on the nearer half of the dead man. “I’m going to need a grav sled. Could you find me a grav sled?”
“No,” Xanatos said, bitterness leaking through the still restricted bonds between them. “Leave him, Bruck.” His tone softened, as though he were speaking to a child. “Just leave him.”
Bruck shook his head. “I owe him a proper burial – at least that much.” He felt Xanatos’ anger flare through their bond an instant before it clouded his face, felt in searing in the grip on his shoulders.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” Xanatos shouted. “How could you possibly owe him anything?”
Bruck looked down at the body, feeling repulsed not only by the man Durante had been, but also by what he himself had done. He simply stared and shook his head. He could not give Xanatos an answer, so he spoke the words that had been repeating in his head. “Jedi protect the helpless.”
“What is the matter with you?” Xanatos shook him, hard, until he thought his injured arm might break off and fall to the floor. “Think of all the innocents you may have saved – the truly helpless ones, like Fawks – by putting an end to this monster.”
An almost crippling wave of shame shuddered through Bruck; he couldn’t look Xanatos in the face, but he knew he felt it through their bond, as it slowly opened. Xanatos was using it to read him, and Bruck didn’t try to stop him. It was all but over now; he could accept that.
“What is the matter with you?” Xanatos whispered this as he felt along their bond. “What did he say to you to make you touch him the way you did? Tell me!”
“That’s not important,” Bruck said, weakly. “I don’t have to bury him. Let me burn the body. Together we can spread the ashes, ‘til there’s nothing left.”
Xanatos probed the bond more deeply, staring into Bruck. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you,” Bruck said. He had begun to scratch at the corners of his eyes, where the tears he could not shed burned like fire. “I owe him.”
Xanatos caught his hand and pulled it away. There were traces of blood under his fingernails. “How could you possibly owe this scum anything?”
Bruck knew this was the end; he could not keep the secret any longer, though it could destroy them both, and whatever it was they had together. “Were it not for Orima Durante, I wouldn’t be a Jedi.”
Xanatos’ face contorted with annoyance and disgust. “You’re impaired,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the Temple.”
“No, Xan. It’s true.” Bruck calmed his breathing, took a deep breath and spoke the words he feared would make Xanatos turn away from him forever. “Had this man not intervened, I’d have grown up in the Ipturan brothel where my mother died.”
Bruck watched the confusion on Xanatos’ face turn to comprehension.
“No.” He shook Bruck once more, then let him go. “It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
Bruck let himself fall to the floor, feeling nothing, saying nothing. It was too much. He hadn’t even the will to wish the deck would open up and swallow him. Then everything went dark.
On his way out of the Dome with Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon happened to see Tahl and Rensi also on their way out. Rensi glanced at Obi-Wan and caught Qui-Gon’s eye, smiling smugly. Qui-Gon could not help but smile in return. Rensi’s predictions had been right, and although he was too polite to point it out directly, he took obvious satisfaction in the fact.
Qui-Gon asked Obi-Wan quietly whether he felt up to meeting a couple of his friends. Obi-Wan blushed a little, smoothing the hem of his tunic self-consciously. “I’m hardly at my best,” he said. “But I guess they aren’t either.”
Squeezing his lover’s arm gently, Qui-Gon whispered, “This is the pair I told you about.”
Tahl saw them approaching and stepped forward to greet her friend with a warm embrace. “Tahl, Rensi,” Qui-Gon began. “This is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Ah,” Tahl said, turning her affectionate gaze on Obi-Wan. “You must be the mysterious lover we’ve heard so little about.”
“I suppose so.” Obi-Wan seemed self-conscious and uncertain. Rensi stepped up to clasp his hand.
“Don’t worry, dear fellow,” he said. “His head was filled with thoughts of you the whole time he and Tahl were freeing us. I’d have known you by that alone.”
Obi-Wan blushed again. Qui-Gon had told him only the bare facts of his abduction and subsequent rescue by Tahl, and of their adventure on Mallum IV. Qui-Gon sensed through their bond that he was thinking of Orima Durante, and the fate he might have suffered at his hands had Qui-Gon not intervened.
“I’m glad to meet you,” he said. “Doubly glad that you are all well.”
“We’ll be here at the Temple in guest quarters until the other Force sensitives are well enough to travel,” Tahl said. “Perhaps you could join us for a meal sometime before we leave?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Qui-Gon said.
“We have much to discuss.” Rensi’s handsome face creased with a broad, even smile. “Don’t we, love?”
Tahl only smiled in answer to her bondmate. Meeting Qui-Gon’s gaze pointedly, she said, “We are peculiarly well-equipped to offer advice and assistance to you both, should you wish it.”
With that, she took Rensi’s arm and they left.
Obi-Wan watched them go, the telltale line appearing between his brows. “What was she on about?”
“Tahl was a Jedi,” Qui-Gon answered, covering Obi-Wan’s hand with his, where it gripped his arm. “An agemate of mine who left the Order for love.”
“Oh.”
They walked on for a bit in silence, Qui-Gon careful to adjust his pace so as not to tire out Obi-Wan, who seemed to be taking in his surroundings in the Temple, enjoying the walk. When they were nearly to Qui-Gon’s quarters, he squeezed Qui-Gon’s arm.
“It’s really happening, isn’t it?” His voice was soft, almost awed. “You and I.”
Qui-Gon smiled, filling his heart and their bond with his love. Obi-Wan gasped and staggered a little, overwhelmed by the feeling. Qui-Gon stopped and steadied him with an embrace.
“I hope I never get used to that,” he whispered, looking up into Qui-Gon’s eyes. “I hope it always feels like this.”
They kissed, there in the corridor outside Qui-Gon’s rooms, not caring who might see. For a moment they were the only two beings in the Galaxy.
When they parted, Qui-Gon wordlessly palmed open the door to his quarters and they entered, still floating in a haze of shared sensation and love. The door closed behind them and Obi-Wan was kissing him again, the love and longing filling their bond suddenly tinted with an almost desperate need. For a moment, Qui-Gon was lost to it.
“Wait,” he whispered between soft, urgent kisses. “You need to heal.”
Obi-Wan had already divested him of his obi, clever hands insinuating under his tunics to explore the broad planes of his chest.
“Tell me you don’t want me inside you, and I’ll stop.” He whispered in Qui-Gon’s ear, punctuating his words with a gentle, suckling bite of his earlobe. Qui-Gon’s only answer came as a soft groan in his throat. “Nghh.”
Their bond was wide open now, flowing with love and need. Qui-Gon could have no more concerns about Obi-Wan’s willingness or feelings of indebtedness – none of that tainted the flow of energy between them. A hot mouth on his nipple shot a bolt of heat directly to his groin. Qui-Gon gasped, giving over to the sensation, the desire flowing between them. With his hand at the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, he urged that delicious mouth up to his, tasting it deeply.
“Too many clothes,” he muttered as he pulled the hem of Obi-Wan’s tunic over his head. The firm, compact upper body this exposed was nothing short of exquisite to Qui-Gon, though his eyes and fingers lingered over the bacta strips still in place over the worst of his injuries. Obi-Wan sensed his hesitation and grabbed his hand.
“Don’t let them take this from me,” he whispered. “Be here, now. I need you in this moment with me.” Obi-Wan pressed close, grinding the hardness in his leggings against Qui-Gon’s thigh.
“Not a problem,” Qui-Gon groaned. Obi-Wan pushed him slowly backwards onto the common room seating, his heart thumping in his ears. Deft fingers began to loosen the ties of his leggings; Qui-Gon could feel Obi-Wan’s warm breath through the maddening barrier of the cloth.
Then a sound broke through their passion, and insistent thumping that perhaps was not Qui-Gon’s heart after all. The sound came from the balcony door. Qui-Gon felt Obi-Wan’s annoyance through their bond before he could see it on his face. Obi-Wan rose up and they both turned toward the noise.
There, clear in the waning daylight, stood Bail Organa, pounding on the transparisteel.
“I suppose we should let him in,” Obi-Wan groaned. “He looks rather frantic.”
“Ignoring him doesn’t seem to be an option,” Qui-Gon added. “Though I sorely wish we could manage it.”
Obi-Wan grinned and peeled himself away from Qui-Gon, offering him a hand up from the sprawled position in which he lay. A few deep breaths and some impressive Jedi self-control techniques later, and Qui-Gon was opening the balcony door.
Bail pushed his way in from the windy balcony before he could be asked.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, Master Jinn,” he said. He made a point of not looking at Obi-Wan, a gesture that Qui-Gon supposed was designed to give the impression Bail no longer had any interest in him. It was a feint, of course, but Qui-Gon supposed he should appreciate the effort.
“The Temple has public entrances,” Obi-Wan said as he slipped his tunic back over his shoulders. “Several of them.”
“I’m the media’s whipping boy of the hour, and I thought this the best way to avoid them. I had to have an assistant sneak me out of my residence and drop me here.” He shivered visibly, though he tried to hide it.
Qui-Gon took in the Senator’s windblown appearance. “How long have you been out there?”
“Longer than I’d have liked,” Bail said, somewhat abashed. “It was not as brilliant a plan as perhaps I had thought. I have something you really must see. I’m sure it will be of interest to the Council as well.”
Obi-Wan’s irritation had not abated. “Could you not have sent it to them directly?”
“This is not something I could trust to the comms,” he said gravely. “I have proof that Chancellor Palpatine is behind the plot against the Jedi.”
Xanatos stared at the body of his unconscious lover, his creamy robes stained with blood from lying close to the remains of his most hated enemy. He didn’t want to believe that something so beautiful as Bruck could have come from something as evil and twisted as Durante. Yet, with the addition of that bit of information, so much that had been puzzling or unreasonable before suddenly made sense. Durante’s unusual feeling regarding Bruck’s braid, found among Xanatos’ things when he’d first been captured, the story Durante had told of his mysterious lover and their child, the cruel, deliberately deceptive games he’d played with Xanatos, taunting him with the braid, promising to leave him intact if he guessed correctly what Durante had done with his child.
He flexed the fingers of his prosthesis, feeling the touch of leather through its sensors and neural relays. Xanatos knew he was dissociating, stepping back from the pain of feeling into the realm of rationality. Under the circumstances, it was probably for the best.
Slowly, he opened his side of the bonds between himself and Bruck completely. Bruck had retreated to the Lentrebi place inside him, the one where Xanatos could not follow, yet he could feel the Light flooding into him from Bruck. Light tainted with guilt and horror at what he had done, yes, but Light all the same. He could feel the fear Bruck had felt at having Xanatos know the truth about him, believing it would be the end of the love between them. Perhaps it was.
Looking at his beautiful lover now, he felt disgust deep in the pit of his stomach. The white hair he had so admired once upon a time was now nothing but a reminder of the man who had brutalized him. Bruck was neither florid nor obese, but that hair! On Durante it was thin and coarse, seeming more the product of age than of nature, but Xanatos believed now that it had always been white, perhaps admired by lovers the way he had admired Bruck’s sleek, silvery braid. Since his merging with the Lentrebi, Bruck’s hair had grown long and wild. Xanatos’ thoughts kept skirting the question of love.
Could he love Bruck as he had, now that he knew? As a Jedi, one’s provenance generally mattered little, but how could this not be a blot between them? There in the midst of the blood and horror, Xanatos assumed a meditative position, filling his senses with the Light from their bond, siphoning it off Bruck’s aura like some mystical, Force vampire.
“Sweet Force,” he whispered, unaware of the tears running down his hollow cheeks. Though everything in him cried out for guidance, he cleared his mind, making it open, passive. He must accept all possibilities, and trust in the wisdom of the Force to guide his path.
Bail fidgeted impatiently outside the Council room. Master Jinn had graciously consented to take his evidence before the Council, but Bail had to wait outside until the Council was ready to hear his testimony regarding the holo recording, and how he knew it to be Palpatine. The hooded figure conversing with the smuggler Orima Durante had obviously been behind the Kleranom plot. “My Lord” did not seem like the proper address for the Galactic Chancellor, but maybe Durante had not known his true identity.
He hated waiting, but Bail had to admit he didn’t exactly have anywhere better to be. At least here he didn’t have to feel guilty about not answering his comms, which had not troubled him since Rasmir dropped him off on the now much too familiar balcony of Master Jinn’s rooms. Indelicate and inopportune as his entrance had been, Bail had not felt embarrassment because of it. Perhaps the part of his brain that felt shame had been desensitized by overuse. At least Jinn had been gracious in victory, having unknowingly demonstrated for Bail just how firmly he held Kenobi’s heart.
Somewhat to his surprise, Bail found he was genuinely happy for them.
The comlink in his pocket, borrowed from Rasmir, chimed once and he answered. “Yes.”
“Sir, are you still at the Temple?” Rasmir’s voice. At least he had remembered not to use his title – no telling who might be listening in. Bail grinned at how quickly complete and utter paranoia could be conditioned.
“Yes,” Bail answered. “Why?”
“I thought you might need a lift.” Of course he would. Bail silently blessed Rasmir for his thoughtfulness. Bail hadn’t considered how he might get back to his quarters. Certainly public transport was out, under the circumstances.
“I will, but I’m not sure when,” he said.
“I’ll keep checking back.”
“Thank you.” He said it with rather more feeling than he might have otherwise, hoping Rasmir would infer his sincerity. He’d found a rare loyalty in this particular underling, for Rasmir was one of the few Alderaani on his staff who was sympathetic to his situation. When Rasmir had said he knew one of Palpatine’s undersecretaries’ assistants quite well, he’d meant they’d been committed albeit clandestine lovers for several months.
Bail grinned. If he didn’t watch himself, before long he’d be prince of the homosexual underground. He chuckled for a moment, gradually sobering. Actually, as ideas went, that one wasn’t half bad. In most of the Galaxy, the gender of one’s lovers was not particularly relevant, but on Alderaan it was. The possibilities arising in his thoughts gave a whole new meaning to the idea of working within the system for positive change. The concept bore further study, at least.
The door opened and he was called into the Council room.
When Bruck came to his senses, he smelled smoke. The air around him was filled with a cloying, sickly sweet aroma; the sweat seemed to be pouring from him, rolling in beads down his face. He looked up and saw that Xanatos had built a fire in the center of the hub; on it burned the body of Orima Durante. My father, he thought, and felt his gorge rise.
“I’ve done what you asked.” Xanatos, little more than a black outline against the flames, spoke to him without turning. He had not fallen to the Dark, Bruck could feel that much. Their bond was alive with Light, but in every other way, Xanatos was lost to him. Distant. “We must be on our way.”
Bruck stood. His tunics were singed, torn and bloody, but he scarcely noticed this. His arm throbbed. “I’m not certain I can fly.”
Xanatos hesitated, but Bruck sensed nothing of his thoughts through their bond. “Come with me to my ship, and I’ll fly around to yours and tow it back with us.”
He turned and walked away from the fire. Bruck followed, numbed to the soul, content to let this part of the base burn. He paused long enough to retrieve Master Jinn’s lightsaber, and although Xanatos did not look at him, he waited until Bruck was near before leading the way back to his ship.
The path led them through a part of the ship Bruck had not seen, where the rest of the base’s residents had met their end. As the pressure door opened, two Kleranoms rushed them. Xanatos dispatched them easily, and without malice. When they reached the first of the still-living hosts, Xanatos paused.
“What-” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat before going on. “What should we do about them?”
Suddenly Bruck felt Xanatos’ turmoil, the conflict between the Light and personal demons. He resolutely refused to look at Bruck, and their bonds quieted.
“Medical emergency distress beacon?” Bruck knew they hadn’t the means to help any of them, and that most were dead already. “If your ship doesn’t have one, mine does.”
Xanatos nodded curtly and they moved on in silence. Bruck felt suddenly cold and weak – he knew well enough this was another phase of shock, though he remained lucid enough. He had to keep going, knowing that if he stumbled Xanatos would reach out to help him. Xanatos couldn’t bear to look at him, and Bruck certainly wasn’t going to force him to touch a person he found so loathsome.
“You’re not loathsome,” Xanatos whispered through the dimness. “I just can’t. . . ”
Bruck said nothing, for there was nothing he could say. Xanatos remained in the Light; that would have to be enough.
The flight back to Coruscant was not a long one in the ship the Chancellor had loaned him, at least not objectively. With Bruck lying in the back, needing medical attention, it seemed longer. He had no choice but to go back there and administer what aid he could, but it was painful for them both.
Xanatos couldn’t look at Bruck without seeing the other, even though the resemblance was so minuscule as to be nonexistent. The hair—just the color of the hair, neither its texture nor its length being anything like. . . his father’s.
There was the Light between them, and that was good, but he had to keep his feelings out of their bond, had to protect Bruck from the revulsion he could scarcely help feeling each time he caught a glimpse of white.
Even so, he still had the braid, once again around his wrist, hidden by his sleeve.
Perhaps they would find a way to ease their pain, once they were back on Coruscant. Maybe Phol would find a solution, a cure for the poison that crippled his midichlorians, to set them both free. After all they had been through together, all they had forgiven each other, the one thing that stood between them was something for which each was entirely blameless.
Bruck could no more control the circumstances of his birth than Xan could forestall the atavistic horror that welled up inside him at the thought of Durante. Perhaps it would pass in time, with meditation. Would the Force be so merciful, to show him the path back to the deep and beautiful peace their souls had known? Bruck had lied to him – a lie of omission, held back a truth he knew would separate them, however unfairly.
He put a fresh bacta pack on Bruck’s ‘saber wound, unable to look into those pale, pain-filled eyes. His hands were gentle, taking care not to cause more pain, though he heard Bruck’s ragged breathing and knew he was holding back sobs. Xanatos had restrained Bruck’s hands to keep him from scratching at his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Bruck’s whisper was barely audible.
“I know.” Xan patted his hand. “It’s not your fault. I just...”
Xanatos had no idea how he meant for that sentence to end, even when he had started it, so he left it at that. The patient seen to, Xanatos went back to the pilot’s seat and stayed for a long time in silence, watching the stars streak by.
Qui-Gon listened in silence as Senator Organa presented his evidence to the Council, glad for the moment not to be in that exalted circle. Obi-Wan stood beside him. He would not be made to stay behind in Qui-Gon’s quarters, stubbornly insisting that he had as much right to speak to the Council on such matters as Bail had. Now Qui-Gon looked at him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if standing there tired him. Through the bond he felt only that Obi-Wan was calm and listening to the proceedings more intently than Qui-Gon himself.
The Council watched in silence as the holo transmission was replayed for them, and afterward Bail explained that the coding on the transmission masked the whereabouts of both parties, but that the origin of it had been discovered through other means.
Once the details had been described to the Council’s satisfaction, Senator Organa was thanked and released. The man seemed glad enough to be going, though Qui-Gon wondered how he would be able to leave the Temple without being seen. He was the focal point of the media frenzy du jour, after all.
After his departure, Qui-Gon stepped forward and identified one side of the recorded comm conversation as Orima Durante. From the content of the conversation, it seemed obvious that Durante had found non-Force sensitive hosts for the Kleranoms, replacing those Qui-Gon and Tahl had freed.
The other person, for reasons Bail had delineated, was Chancellor Palpatine in disguise. “From Durante’s mode of address, it seems obvious he did not know he was speaking to the Chancellor of the Galactic Senate,” Qui-Gon said.
Mace frowned. “It is difficult to believe that Chancellor Palpatine would bother with something so illegal. Why would he be involved in a plot against the Jedi?”
“He wouldn’t,” Qui-Gon answered. “But a Sith Lord would.”
Yoda sighed, ears drooping. “Explains much, this does.”
“But how do we proceed?” Mace said. “We cannot denounce the Chancellor of the Galactic Senate as a Sith, and even if we did, many Republic worlds would not understand the gravity of the charge.”
“Yet we cannot allow a Sith to develop such poisons as those Knight T’Crion has been exposed to,” said Adi Gallia gravely. “We must act.”
“We’ve sent teams to Mallum IV based on the reports from Qui-Gon and Tahl. They should be arriving soon,” said Mace Windu. “Perhaps they will uncover some link back to Palpatine.”
“With all due respect, Masters,” Qui-Gon said. “That doesn’t seem likely. He has been very clever – much cleverer than we have been, so far.”
“Even so,” Mace admitted. “To confront him outright without evidence would be a mistake.”
“But how can we get the evidence we need?” Qui-Gon felt a heaviness in his chest. “He will be ready for us. No Jedi will be able to get close to him.”
“I can.” Obi-Wan stepped forward, pale and grave. “I can get close to him.”
Part 31
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