Master Apprentice
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Category: AU, Qui/Obi, Obi/other, drama, angst, mpreg
Rating: NC17
Archiving: M&A, others please ask
Disclaimer: George is the man. They belong to him; I only want to play with them for a bit, and return them in good working order. No copyright infringement intended; no profits generated.
Note: I do not work with a beta; thus, all mistakes are mine alone.
Feedback: Always adored -- on list or off.
Warning: Death of a major character (if you can't accept that, please do NOT read) - and some incidental het content
Summary: Dating from that infamous day in a Theed power station, paths diverge, promises are broken; then fate -- and deliberate mischief -- step in, and destiny thwarted takes its pound of flesh.
All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker or a prodigal
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!
- The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
In the more remote reaches of the galaxy, far beyond the argent glitter of the core worlds, vast drifts of darkness loitered in illusions of time suspended, scattered at random among discrete swarms of radiance, wells of blackest night where any light that managed to exist was insipid and fleeting, and the only suggestion of the existence of the starswarm of the galaxy was a faint band of pearlescence that only seemed to be visible from the corner of the observing eye. A turn of the head and a shift to direct focus served only to dissipate the illusory glow, simultaneously causing the darkness to thicken and flex and tighten its hungry grip on the senses.
The scope of such great stretches of emptiness was difficult for sentient minds to grasp; intelligence, somehow, seemed to resist the acknowledgement of something so vast and menacing, yet totally without purpose, and, over the years, the phenomena had taken on an aura of myth and legend and superstition, prompting lurid imaginations to populate the gigantic, looming darkness with interstellar versions of sea monsters and supernatural horrors. The legends and ghost stories grew steadily more gruesome and less pragmatic with every passing year, and were a source of endless inspiration for the fodder of holo-vids and pulp fiction.
The tall tales were -- mostly -- untrue and the monsters -- mostly -- non-existent, but no one ever tried to deny the legitimate concerns of those forced to venture into the voids, which remained mostly uncharted and strewn with spacial obstacles and nameless perils and pits of black matter that appeared and disappeared in a manner so random that any effort at mapping was doomed to failure. But while the metaphysical aspects of the danger were almost entirely the product of imaginations run rampant, the physical hazards were only too real. Thus any interstellar traveler finding itself stranded within the wells of darkness, relentlessly cut off from the comfort of starlight, had excellent cause for alarm.
Uncertainty and fear dwelled within the embrace of endless night.
And death waited with eager, fleshless fingers, to snag the unwary.
In the surprisingly symmetrical arrangement of the galactic spiral, the vastly disproportionate number of such voids in the outer half of the Tingel Arm was a mathematical anomaly which had inspired endless speculation and countless astronomical theories over the centuries, but, in the end, the simple truth was that no one could ever really explain the plenitude of black drifts scattered around and between the two major trade routes that terminated in the semi-civilized sprawl of the Corporate Sector. Because of the profusion of such navigational hazards, the earlier days of galactic exploration saw the loss of thousands of vessels in the dark, barren wastelands, and gravitic tides within the voids resulted in the gradual accumulation of ghostly fleets of gutted, demolished ships, forever drifting in formation, like partners in some macabre dance of death.
Over the centuries, those who made their livings plying trade routes -- both legal and not -- that skirted the dead zones christened them accordingly: Hangman's Knot; Poison Flats; Beggar's Wasteland; Smuggler's Doom; Sarl'cca Badlands; Skull Shoals; the Doldrums; Demon's Lair. These were the largest, the most notorious -- but there were dozens more, recognized by all who possessed a modicum of the common wisdom known as space savvy, as deathtraps, to be avoided at all costs in the course of legitimate enterprise -- and to be utilized accordingly in less licit pursuits.
For many long years, the loss of life and cargo and ships continued unabated, considered an unavoidable consequence of exploration and expansion, symptomatic of a frontier mentality. Vestiges of civilization developed only slowly in areas where the reach of law vastly exceeded its grasp.
Finally, inexorably, it was the Grand Republic that took measures to remedy a situation that had become unacceptable.
It took almost sixty Coruscanti years to complete the project -- and the cost was ultimately so exorbitant that the Senate elected not to compute the final totals; it was simply better not to know. But for those who adjudged the value of sentient life as being beyond simple monetary computations, the Sanctuary System was worth every daktari spent -- and every life lost in its completion. For lives were lost during the construction of the series of waystations that dared to intrude into the great darknesses -- lives and futures and vast resources but, in the end, eight of the huge, helical refuges were locked into stationary positions in the most isolated sections of the voids. Huge, autonomic installations generated beacons of hope in the emptiness, each installation capable of supporting upwards of 100,000 beings and providing tech support for dozens of vessels, with refueling and emergency repair capabilities, staff and equipment for deep space rescue operations, functional medical facilities equivalent to any to be found in a small city, technical and astronautical research labs, and housing for administrative and law enforcement staffs to augment those of any local or regional authorities -- a not so small city, defying the hostile environment of space.
Challenging fate.
The eight were designed to address the needs of the individual areas in which they were placed, varying in size and form to fit required function. Thus the largest of them -- designated Deeps Haven 3 -- was anchored to the gravitational field of a massive ferrous globe, a lifeless rogue planet flung away from its exploding primary in a time lost long before the records of pre-history, that sat almost dead center of the Doldrums -- the largest of the dead zones, and, because of its position almost exactly half way between the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route, the most heavily traveled.
It was a huge construct, composed of curved sheets of cast durinium, polished to a hard, obsidian luster, interspersed with convex sweeps of thick transparisteel, and studded with reflectors and strobes and hundreds of thousands of lights, in thousands of shapes and forms and configurations, all with a single purpose -- to turn back the night, to defeat the clinging touch of darkness. It was continuously abustle with commerce and traffic and departures/arrivals and cargos shifted ship-to-dock and dock-to-ship, and space-weary crews plunging headlong into the swirl of the crowds, to locate and sample the delights and debaucheries of a liberty port, and passengers embarking and debarking and, occasionally, just standing with mouths agape, completely disoriented by the ever-escalating levels of confusion.
Within a very few years of its completion, it had become a focal point for sentient life, a microcosm of cultural diversity, a hybrid creation that combined the grandest ambitions -- and the most primitive appetites -- of the beings who gave it life. It was a home for dreams -- and for those who lived only to crush the dreamers. Drug lords, crime syndicates, smuggling rings, slave traders -- all had occasion to seek entry from time to time; even to find sufficient privacy and discretion to allow them to conduct their illicit affairs -- but none lingered for long. Petty thieves, pickpockets, pimps and prostitutes, and gamblers carved permanent niches for themselves in low-level habitat areas where station staffers frequently turned a blind eye to the kind of misdemeanor-level crime that was common to all pockets of civilization across the galaxy; the underbelly of the great beast was a thriving market of opportunity and opportunists, who were wise enough to recognize the prevailing limits of acceptable larceny. Those who took care to adapt themselves to the social balances of the station were grateful for the security of their existence and appreciative of being allowed to function without overweaning intervention from the ruling authorities; those, on the other hand, who chose to defy the established order and attempt to upset the existing balance, were quickly shown the folly of their actions -- and the exit.
The station was administered, in matters mundane, by a staff of Republic bureaucrats -- highly trained, rigidly structured, and nicely compensated, under the direction of the Station Governor -- but justice and security, along with other less publicly-acknowledged but probably more vital functions, were reserved to the command staff of the base.
Said staff members wore the deep gray and ivory uniform of the Republic Intelligence Service, and spent an inordinate amount of time studying and sorting massive amounts of data, gathered from thousands of sources from all over the galaxy, and co-ordinating it with information garnered from the data systems of the station itself. The incredibly complex system was unique to the installation, custom-designed by highly skilled technicians, working hand-in-glove with empathic bio-designers, in an attempt to achieve replication of sentient thought processes. The project was ongoing, constantly growing and evolving; it had not yet been declared a complete success -- but every day brought the team of scientists and technocrats closer to their goal.
The computer/info system staff spent much of its time walking around in a state of distracted euphoria, literally, on occasion, colliding with walls and unwary pedestrians; everyone else regarded them with indulgence, only rarely lapsing into annoyance with their absent-minded bumbling.
Base command, in particular, went to extraordinary measures to remove any obstacles from their meandering paths and to protect them from their own distractions.
All in all, the command staff was incredibly efficient, extremely intelligent, and totally dedicated, and, beyond the amazing proficiency with which they performed their tasks, there was nothing to distinguish them from any group of RIS operatives on any world of the Republic.
Except for one thing.
On average, less than one out of ten of them carried the obligatory heavy-duty blaster that was the customary weapon-of-choice for such RIS staffers, and even those who did, treated it as a secondary option; instead, they carried slender, cylindrical objects, metal-encased, individually customized and perfectly balanced for the hand of the carrier, and etched with cryptic runes and symbols, each slightly different from every other, affixed to their belts with thin strips of leather.
It was not something that was the subject of common gossip; it was not even something that was known to many of those who had occasion to visit the facility. But it WAS known to all who resided there -- and most who had cause to be grateful for interventions which had saved lives and property from the perils of the void.
It was the Republic which prepared docking schedules, and assigned quarters, and supervised cargo transfers, and requisitioned foodstuffs and supplies to maintain the station, who checked manifests and verified ship's registries and inspected immigration documents and co-ordinated humanitarian missions with philanthropic endeavors -- but it was the Jedi who monitored the identities and actions of those who passed through its portals and reacted to the cataclysmic events that sometimes transpired beyond its walls.
It was the Jedi who kept it safe.
Jedi Master Adi Gallia allowed herself a soft sigh, as she stood before the sweep of transparisteel that overlooked the Trilby-Crescent Sector approach to Deeps Haven 3, enjoying the deep shadowy ambiance of the executive office in which she stood, broken only by low level ornamental lighting located among urns of luxuriant greenery in opposing corners of the room. Despite the fact that there was very little of natural splendor to be found in the vista before her, other than the thick, impenetrable quality of the darkness, there was a grandeur in the view that brought a flutter to her heart. It wasn't exactly beautiful -- but it WAS a tribute to the tenacity and the determination of those who had dared to defy the odds and create this monstrosity in the void.
Her host would be along soon; her stern admonition to the Dock Supervisor had made sure of that. But she would take this one moment -- and allow herself to taste the swell of pride and the indomitable spirit of the polyglot of races that had produced this great achievement -- Grans and Bothans and Rodians and Wookiees and Quarrens and dozens of humanoid species and many more, from all over the known galaxy -- joined in a great army to battle the hostility of space -- and win. It was a great victory -- and the Jedi had been a part of it from the beginning -- as designers and contractors and engineers and technical advisors -- even, on occasion, as sheer muscle.
It existed now as testimony to the power of the will of the people.
She watched the approach of a sleek passenger liner with Corellian markings, and was silhouetted by the strobe of running lights as the vessel adjusted its approach angle to intercept magnetic moorings.
So absorbed was she in the silent choreography playing out before her that an unprecedented event occurred. She was momentarily unaware of the slender figure that materialized in the gloom of the open doorway behind her -- and unaware as the new arrival paused to reflect that time had been very, very kind to Master Gallia.
"The first time I saw you, I thought I'd never seen anyone so beautiful."
She spun to confront the speaker -- and fought, without success, to contain her smile.
He stepped forward quickly, and took her hand which he raised to his lips. "I was right," he murmured, "and I still am."
She resisted for a moment, before breaking into her trademark husky chuckle. "You're a fine one to talk," she said softly, reaching up to brace his face with her fingers. "You still take my breath away."
He smiled, but chose to offer no other response, other than a quizzical lift of one eyebrow.
She stepped back and drank in the sight of him -- and observed -- as in days long past -- what a lovely sight it was.
"Commander Kenobi," she said with a diffident grin, taking in the tumble of loose, ginger locks falling past his shoulders, the dark, close fitted slacks, polished black boots, and the silky creaminess of the long-sleeved shirt which was only partially tucked in and gaped open at the throat, revealing a well-muscled chest with a light drift of soft, coppery curls, "you're out of uniform."
"Well," he replied, drawling slightly, "it is the middle of the night here -- and you did tell my midwatch com.officer that you wanted to see me immediately."
The voice was exactly as she remembered -- warm and cultured -- and luscious, and those notorious chameleon eyes -- dark aquamarine in this light -- were moist, almost dewy, and somehow artless, like a child freshly wakened from an afternoon nap. She was instantly reminded of the description once whispered by Master Depa Billaba after sitting through a mission report delivered by Obi-Wan when he was still just a padawan learner, barely qualifying as an adult. "Deliciously edible -- and eminently fuckable."
Her grin grew broader. "I expected to catch you in a dressing gown."
"Sorry," he replied, almost winking. "I wasn't asleep."
She moved to take a seat in a chrome and leather easy chair, crossing long, elegant legs and allowing the rich raw silk of her cape to fan out around her, as she studied his face and tested the air around him, observing that, at this wee hour, he certainly should have been sleeping -- unless he had been engaged in something a bit more athletic. Inhaling gently, she noted a hint of Corellian brandy clinging to him, a lingering trace of some sort of spiced soap, a barely-there suggestion of polished leather -- and a surprisingly distinctive nuance of pure Obi-Wan Kenobi, the very same scent which had distinguished his physical presence for as long as she could remember -- but not the slightest hint of male musk, so, whatever she had interrupted, it had probably NOT involved a sexual partner; at least -- not yet. She resisted the urge to take a deeper breath, recalling a remark once made by the young Jedi's Master, that his padawan's natural scent was superior to anything from a bottle.
She focused on his eyes then -- and was surprised to note that he was performing his own discreet inspection.
"You really look wonderful, Adi," he remarked, "though not very Jedi."
Her eyes were huge and shadowed. "Looking Jedi isn't always a good idea these days."
He nodded. "Yes. I know."
She braced her elbows on the chair arms and clasped her fingers as she studied his face, noting that while time had done nothing to dim the classic masculine beauty of those perfect features, something else had touched him. There were faint vertical lines on his forehead, and pale shadows beneath his eyes. "Yes. That's why I'm here, you know."
He moved to a small console behind the freeform sweep of his desk, and removed a crystal decanter and two small snifters. "That's not very informative," he said softly, as he poured dark, fragrant Corellian brandy. "I find it hard to believe that the Master of the Jedi Intelligence branch would come all the way to Deeps Haven 3 for advice on how to dress to avoid detection."
She smiled as she accepted the glass, and watched the dark amber of the liquid swirl near the rim. "No, you're right. But she would come all the way out here -- especially if she just happened to be in the quadrant -- when her Sector Chief, who was placed on restricted duty status almost four years ago, suddenly assigns himself to high risk, solo missions."
She had to admire his ability to mask his emotions; none in the Order, other than Yoda, were as skilled as she was in the penetration of mental shielding -- and she was able to perceive absolutely nothing within his consciousness, following a very quick, barely noticeable grimace. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"
He dropped into his plush-padded desk chair, and propped his feet on the gleaming surface of his desk -- and she simply sat back and enjoyed the view. "These were executive judgment calls. I didn't think it justified . . ."
"Don't even bother," she snapped quickly. "I may not qualify as a Temple Babe any more, Obi-Wan -- but I'm certainly not senile. There was a reason you were restricted from active duty -- and you agreed to abide by my decision. You DID abide by it - until two cycles ago. Then -- out of the blue -- you take on three back-to-back undercover assignments -- without back-up. Sweet mother mynocks! Have you completely lost your mind?"
He avoided meeting her eyes, and lifted his snifter to his mouth. Quick as a striking serpent, she leapt forward and grabbed his hand as a fine tremor rose in his wrist and fingers and set the dark liquid shivering within the crystal goblet. "And this rather proves my point, doesn't it?"
He sighed, and paused to consider his answer. "It hasn't been so bad lately. And these missions . . ."
"Could have been designated to any of a dozen different operatives, every one of them more than qualified and competent to perform their assigned tasks." She fell silent, more bothered than she cared to admit by the stridency in her tone -- and waited.
But he remained stubbornly mute, any emotion that might have been visible in luminescent eyes concealed beneath a thick sweep of lashes.
She decided to change tactics, and made a conscious effort to release her anxiety and her irritation into the Force, and to infuse her voice with the intimacy and affection that had brought her to the outpost in the first place. "I thought you'd finally given up on finding a way to kill yourself."
She had the satisfaction then, of seeing and identifying the quicksilver emotion that flared in his eyes -- but it was hardly what she would have expected. He smiled, unable to conceal his amusement and the rise of his sardonic wit. "Funny how that never seemed to bother you when it was beneficial to the mission."
"Wrong, Sweets," she replied, finding it suddenly difficult to speak around the lump in her throat. "It always bothered me."
He was far too astute not to notice the inflection, but he chose not to address it, moving slightly in his chair, as if to embrace the shadows around him.
Time, perhaps, for a change of subject. "By the Force," she said quickly, "you've gotten good at that. Too good, maybe."
"Good at what?" The words were bland, but the smile in his eyes grew warmer.
She was startled into a burst of laughter. "You know very well 'what'. I can barely distinguish your Force presence -- and I'm sitting a meter away, looking straight at you. If I weren't, I doubt I could detect you at all. I'm impressed."
He shrugged, and the soft lighting caressed his profile with a soft glimmer. "A useful tool for intelligence work," he replied, obviously under-whelmed.
"Useful, certainly," she agreed, "but dangerous, I think. A source of over-confidence -- and we both know what a fatal mistake that can be."
He nodded then, and slouched a bit farther into his chair, but his eyes grew sharper, bringing to bear the considerable power of his concentration on his inspection of her expression. "Spit it out, Adi. What are you really doing here?"
"It should be obvious. I came to put a stop to . . ."
"You could have done that by com-link," he interrupted, "or even with a note appended to my regular orders."
Something soft, almost vulnerable, flickered in her eyes. "But you might have ignored that."
He thought for a moment. "I might have," he agreed, "but your personal visit doesn't preclude that possibility. When you go, I could still choose to ignore the order. It's a tired but true old maxim that isolated outposts like this tend to encourage a certain . . . creative interpretation of regulations. So -- why are you really here?"
She allowed herself a soft sigh. "Because I want to know why. Something's happened. Something has changed to set you back on this path that almost killed you four years ago. I want to know what it is."
With a jerky abruptness in marked contrast to his customary supple grace, he rose and moved to stand before the expanse of the observation port, and she was immediately sure that he spent a lot of time in that position, gazing out into the void. Instantly, a memory image flared in her mind. He had been younger then -- almost nine years younger -- but she'd never forgotten his response when she'd asked him if there was anything she could do to help ease his anguish, just after the loss of his Master and his own knighting.
"Sometimes," he'd replied, "the only thing you can do is stand still -- and let it hurt."
At the time, she had believed -- and so had he -- that the hurt would, eventually, ease to a bearable level, but now, as she noted the rigid lines of his body, she wondered.
It seemed that he was still forcing himself to 'stand still'.
Without conscious thought, she rose and moved to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her face against his back. She sensed something then, a brief brush of memory, and was instantly charmed to note that a faint blush was rising in his face.
They had been stranded on Ther'quit 4, following a rescue mission that had gone so wrong it defied analysis. Of course, once they'd figured out that the party to be rescued had, in fact, been an active participant in the original abduction, everything had become easy to understand, but not so easy to survive. So, when they had finally managed to escape from the terrorists' compound and make their way to a remote island where they were able to send a signal requesting extraction, the fact that they would have to wait several days for pick up had seemed trivial. With a sense of wonder and the exhilaration of having survived against overwhelming odds, they had set out to explore their little refuge, and been grateful for semi-tropical weather, abundant fresh water, soft sand and plentiful vegetation, and the bounty of the sea.
He had been just twenty-seven years old then, and, though his eyes had never quite regained their luminous quality after the debacle of Naboo, he had still been almost painfully beautiful -- and no less hormonally-driven than any other young human male -- Jedi or not. And she -- well -- she had certainly been older, but a long way from menopausal, and as eager for exploration as he.
They had succumbed to temptation on the second day, lying in the sand with the tide lapping at their bodies, and, on cold, lonely nights when her sense of duty was not quite sufficient to dispel the chill and ease her discomfort, she still savored the image of that strong, golden body, stroked with sunlight and caressed by the jeweled fingers of the sea, and the memory of the taste of his lips and the feel of his skin and the sensation of being stroked and, finally, filled with that glorious, thick, throbbing manhood. In the days that followed, she had confirmed -- and reconfirmed -- the conclusion that Depa's description had been absolutely accurate; he was indeed deliciously edible and eminently, exquisitely fuckable.
She smiled, sensing his physiological response to the same memory. "Nice to see I can still make you blush."
He looked down, allowing a drift of hair to cover his expression. "It appears you can still make me do . . . several things."
When he covered her hands with his own, she once more noted the tremor in his left arm. "But can I make you do what I want you to do, Commander Kenobi? Can I make you obey my direct order?"
His voice was barely more than a whisper. "Do you intend to actually make it a direct order?"
She stepped away from him then and moved to stand beside him. "Technically, I think I did that four years ago -- but, if you think you've found a loophole, let me assure you that I'll do whatever I must to close it."
She looked up at him then, and waited until he was forced to meet her eyes. "No more field missions, Obi-Wan. None -- no matter how you choose to justify it to yourself. Understood?"
She hesitated then, and was aware of a curious flexing in the Force -- a tremor that suggested that this was a critical moment, no matter how mundane it might seem, adding to a growing store of evidence she had amassed -- all of it circumstantial and/or subjective, but compelling nonetheless - which indicated that this young man had a vital role to play in whatever the future might hold -- provided, of course, she could convince him to stay alive to experience it.
"I understand," he replied finally.
"And?"
"I'll abide by your orders."
She sighed again. He had not added, "For now", but she had heard it anyway.
"Tell me what's happened," she urged. "I need to hear it, and I think it's possible that you might need to say it."
His eyes brightened with a gleam of speculation. "T'herra called you -- didn't he?"
She moved back to her chair, and dropped into it as if suddenly rendered boneless. "You are not to retaliate against him. Honestly, Obi-Wan, you managed to scare the shit out of your second-in-command. He thought you were going psychotic, or something."
He turned and stalked back to his desk -- and she could see the anger coursing through him, expressed in the tightly controlled economy of his movements. But he drew a deep breath, and managed to channel most of his resentment into the Force; it was a skill he'd learned at a young age, at the knee of his maverick Master. "He should learn to mind his own business," he muttered.
"You are his business, Hon," she retorted. "And you still haven't answered my question. I'm not going to just go away, you know. If I must, I'll drag you back to Coruscant and turn you over to Mirilent's tender mercies -- but I hope that won't be necessary."
He looked up then -- and she tried desperately to double, even triple, the mental shielding surrounding certain areas of her mind -- but knew it was futile as realization dawned in his eyes.
"She told you," he said flatly.
There was little point in denying it. "Yes. She did. But only me, Obi-Wan -- and only after she was convinced that it was necessary, in order to protect you. Even from yourself, if necessary."
Mirilent Soljan, Jedi healer and self-appointed mother-protector of Obi-Wan Kenobi since his earliest days in the crèche, had come to Deeps Haven 3 when the young knight had been retrieved, more dead than alive, from the hell-hole of Draegis Minor, a pestilent, lawless, violent, Hutt-controlled world where he had been betrayed into the hands of a vicious warlord, and tortured to the point at which death would have been a kindness. For three lunar cycles, the tiny Bimar healer had worked tirelessly to save his life and, once that was accomplished, to rebuild his horribly mutilated body. In the end, her efforts had been successful -- mostly. Due to his own fierce determination and his strength in the Force, he had managed to shield his mind from the torment inflicted on him, and disperse most of his agony into the Force -- but there had been, finally, just too much damage, too many wounds. The neural fibers of most of his body had been disrupted, even destroyed completely in some areas, and Mirilent's greatest challenge had involved restoring and even regrowing the tissues. The degree of her success had been remarkable -- but anything less than full and complete recovery had been regarded as abject failure by the healer.
He would survive. He would remain as completely Jedi as he had ever been. He would regain almost all of his abilities and his physical prowess, and his intellect and instincts and ability to access the Force remained intact.
But his left arm would remain forever subject to periodic weakness and some loss of fine motor skills, which would directly impact his dexterity with a lightsaber. He could -- and would -- learn to adapt to one-handed methods, but it would leave him vulnerable to multi-pronged attacks and unable to defend against energy weapons in the hands of multiple assailants.
His prodigious skill with his lightsaber had been one of the abilities that enabled him to perform the incredibly complex, invariably dangerous tasks assigned to him.
One of his greatest strengths had been transformed into an unacceptable risk.
Mirilent had spent days and then weeks in a state of perpetual, inconsolable mourning over her inability to give back the gifts that had been taken from him. It had been a measure of the relationship between them that, in the end, it had been the battered young knight who had provided comfort and solace for the healer.
And then -- she discovered one more thing, previously concealed from her -- and what had been barely tolerable was suddenly worse than anything she might ever have conceived.
The gruff little healer -- known throughout the Order for a horrible bedside manner -- ordinarily concentrated on physical trauma; she had little experience or expertise in emotional and spiritual injury. Thus, when she had stumbled across the dark, swollen mass that was buried deep in Obi-Wan's consciousness, she had been initially horrified that the wound might have been a product of the torture he'd endured - a product that she had failed to find in her preliminary examination. But, when realization overwhelmed her, she found herself wishing desperately that she had been right -- that it had been something resulting from his latest trauma -- something she might have found a way to remedy. Something -- ANYTHING -- other than what it actually was.
Not new. Not inflicted by cruel, vicious perverts who seemed to feed on the generation of pain. Not a result of external action at all. And, perhaps most terrible of all, not treatable.
Old and familiar and well-established.
The torn and still bleeding remnant of a soul-bond.
The tiny Bimar had reeled under the weight of the knowledge. All those years. How had he survived for all those years? The pain that he must have endured was beyond imagining; some would have said beyond enduring. The soul-bond, unique to those strong in the Force, was a thing of great beauty, greatly treasured, and very rare -- but it was also a harsh mistress. Those joined in such a bond were considered blessed by the Force -- but when such a bond was broken, whether through the death of one of the bonded or -- much more rarely -- through deliberate intervention, the results were devastating. Few survived the experience, and even those who did were frequently so traumatized that they lapsed into catatonic stupor, never to emerge.
Yet Obi-Wan had lived -- and functioned -- and, until this sad progression of events, concealed his psychic wounds from everyone, finding his own means of enduring what could not be cured.
Mirilent had confronted him, compelled to try to ease his suffering, but, in the end, she had been forced to yield to his logic. There was nothing to be done to provide relief, beyond the biofeedback methods he had developed on his own, and any attempt to bring in other healers, other advisors, would necessitate the approval of the Jedi Council.
He had knelt before the tiny Bimar and begged her indulgence. His duty, he'd said, was all he had left. If she went to the Order and reported her findings, they would recall him to the Temple, and he would have nothing.
In the end, she had found she could not deny him. She had loved him for too long, and much too well; she could not take away his last reason for living.
Obi-Wan smiled. "You didn't tell the Council. I'm astonished -- but very grateful."
"Well, don't nominate me for sainthood or anything. My motives were strictly selfish. I need you, Obi-Wan. You're incredibly good at what you do -- and I don't want to have to train a replacement."
"How did you get her to confess?"
It was Adi's turn to smile. "Mirilent only has one weakness, Hon. You. I went to consult her when I learned what was going on here -- and she was afraid that something had happened to aggravate the torn bond. So she told me -- and I think she went through the tortures of the damned in making up her mind to do so. So let's not waste her suffering, shall we? Tell me what's happened."
Once more, he looked out through the viewport -- but his eyes remained unfocused, as if he were seeing something much farther away. "Nothing's happened," he said finally. "It just . . . surges sometimes. Reminds me that it's there. And, when it does, it takes some . . . readjusting, before I can contain it again."
Adi regarded him in solemn silence, realizing that the moment was unprecedented. He had just lied to her -- and she didn't think he'd ever done that before.
Time to switch tactics.
"You know," she said softly, "we've talked about almost everything in our lives over the years. Everything we've done, everything we've believed. Our exploits and victories and disappointments. But there's one thing we never talked about -- and I think it's something we need to share. I need to understand you, Obi-Wan. Need to be able to put myself in your place, so I know where you are, and how you got there."
"Adi," he replied with a sardonic grin, "you're sounding very metaphysical -- and you're scaring the crap out of me."
"That day," she said firmly. "That day -- in the Council chambers."
The warmth in his eyes died immediately -- and there was only the glint of blue ice in their depths. "Well, there's obviously no need for you to specify which day. That notorious day -- that's carved in stone in Jedi history. What do you want to know?"
"I think," she answered gently, "that I might already know more than anyone else who was present that day -- other than you and Qui-Gon, of course. Because I happened to be looking in the right direction, at the right moment. I think everyone else was watching your Master and the boy, but I was looking at you." She favored him with a loving smile. "Being female -- and human -- I opted for the better view."
The stern set of his features revealed that he was not in the mood to be amused. "And what is it that you thought you saw?"
She closed her eyes, to recall that poignant moment. "First, shock -- disbelief. Then, the pain of betrayal. And then, on top of that, a surge of pure rage -- all within the space of a heartbeat, And, finally, the determination that you would endure what you had to endure. You were Jedi, right down to the marrow of your bones, and you would not behave otherwise. Did I miss anything?"
Finally, after a moment of pregnant silence, he smiled. "Not bad. Although maybe not quite in the degree you probably expected."
She shifted in her chair, drawing a slender leg up under her for more comfort. "Go on."
He stretched out further and braced the back of his head against the neckrest of his chair. "I was shocked -- but only because of the timing."
"How do you mean?"
His sigh was very soft. "I'm not sure if I can make you understand -- but I'll try. After the initial sting of it, I wasn't really surprised -- because it was all part and parcel of the man my Master was. I won't pretend it wasn't painful -- and I won't pretend I wasn't angry enough to take him apart with my bare hands -- but, in the end, I was forced to admit to myself that I should have expected it."
She shook her head. "You should have expected him to toss you aside without a second thought -- to reject you with one hand and usher in your replacement with the other? I'm sorry, but I don't see . . ."
"No," he agreed, ""You wouldn't see it. No one could see it -- and understand it -- who didn't know him, almost better than he knew himself. It was who he was. When all was said and done, Qui-Gon Jinn was a tool of the Force -- and he believed with his whole heart that he was chosen to follow its will. The simple truth was that he didn't discard me -- not in his own mind. He simply -- stopped seeing me. When Qui-Gon insisted -- as he often did -- that focus determined reality, he meant it quite literally. He didn't just -- throw me away. He simply . . . forgot I existed. I faded into the background, when something more vital, more intense, grabbed his attention."
She tried not to stare at him in open-mouthed wonder -- but didn't think she succeeded very well. "And you just . . . accepted that?"
He broke into a lopsided grin. "Not exactly. After the session, I went tearing down to one of the more secluded training salles, and activated three Stage 7 combat droids, which I proceeded to reduce to piles of molecular rubble. Master Qyudarth -- the techno/quartermaster for that cycle -- still sends me a bill every year or two. So much for releasing my anger into the Force."
"Did it work?" she asked gently.
"I guess it did. I was able to resist the urge to reduce HIM to a pile of molecular rubble."
"And after that?"
"After that -- and a rather unpleasant confrontation on the landing platform -- I spent some time alone, trying to center myself. Trying to find it within myself to accept what I knew I couldn't change. Finally, after some intense meditation, I was able to accept the truth."
"What truth?"
He turned again to look out the viewport -- and she sensed that he had arrived at a critical memory nexus -- old and painful. "I came to Qui-Gon, when he first agreed to train me, bearing old wounds -- a fact I'm sure you're aware of. And I even compounded some of those wounds at various times during our association, but I did, finally, by the hardest, come to realize that I was a reasonably gifted padawan, that I was adequate for the needs of the Order, and that I was not a huge disappointment to my Master. Usually. And yet I was finally forced to admit, as we sped back toward Naboo, that I had always known that such a moment would come -- not because of my own shortcomings, but because I knew that, sooner or later, the Force would guide him toward a destiny that didn't include me. Occasionally, I'd had moments of precognition over the years -- which Qui-Gon always scoffed at, so I learned early to keep them to myself -- but they almost always proved to be accurate. So, when tiny little glimpses of future events flashed in my mind, and whispered that he would one day leave me, and find his true calling, I couldn't ignore the truth of it. Because of what he was."
"And what exactly was he?" asked Adi, her tone sharper than she'd intended, as she tried to swallow the surging anger that swelled within her. He sounded so unemotional -- so pragmatic, that she might almost have believed that he had been able to sublimate the hurt that must have accompanied his true seeings. Almost.
"Qui-Gon Jinn," he said with a diffident smile, "was a religious fanatic."
"Oh, please," she snapped. "You can't believe that. That's a miserable excuse for behaving like a bantha's ass."
"I'm dead serious," he replied, maddeningly calm. "Oh -- not in the sense of bowing down to idols, or sacrificing virgins on a sacred altar. Not that kind of religious mania. But think about his absolute conviction that the Force willed the Jedi to act in certain ways, willed him to do certain things -- to follow certain paths. To be a willing instrument in the accomplishment of chosen destinies. Don't you see, Adi. Qui-Gon was the perfect vessel for the Force; he heard only its voice, and, under its guidance, he was incapable of feeling or seeing or thinking anything else."
She looked down quickly then, hoping he had not glimpsed the rise of tears in her eyes. "You loved him -- very much, didn't you?"
He grinned. "Well, that's certainly no secret."
"Did he love you?"
The grin vanished quickly. "As much as he was capable of loving anyone. Yes, I think he did."
"But not the way you would have wanted?"
His sigh was feather soft. "No. Not the way I wanted. That -- he was not capable of."
"You were lovers," she said softly. "What was it that you needed -- that he couldn't give?"
He paused then, searching for the right words. "Qui-Gon loved all living things. His compassion encompassed everything -- everybody. But he was never able to narrow that focus -- to devote the totality of his passion to any one person. Master Tahl was probably the one individual with whom he might have achieved it -- but even with her, there was something that always came first."
"That must have been hard for you, to . . ."
"Every man wants someone to burn -- just for him. It took me a long time to accept that, with Qui-Gon, it simply wasn't possible. He loved me -- when he was looking at me. When I claimed his focus. In the moment."
"And that was enough for you?"
He chuckled softly. "Are you kidding? I was a twenty-four-year-old walking hormone when we became lovers. Of course, it wasn't enough. But I learned quickly . . . that it would have to be enough. Anything more was just not possible."
"I'm sorry, Obi-Wan," she said gently, after a pause to digest what he'd said. "Did he . . . say that he . . ."
When he spoke again, his eyes were closed, as if he were reliving an old familiar memory. "He would look down at me, when I was propped up on pillows in his big bed, and trace my face with his fingers. Then he'd take my hand and lay it against his heart, and he'd say, 'BE with me, Obi-Wan. Be here, in this moment, with me -- and know that, in this moment, you are my heart.' Then I'd feel his mind reach into mine, and feel my heart slow and match the rhythm of his. And then he'd kiss me senseless, until I was nothing more than a writhing, boneless bundle of need, inflamed by the touch of his hands and the feel on his mouth on my body. And then, he'd claim me -- and he'd surge inside me, and fill me with his heat and his velvet hardness -- and my heart and soul would just . . .explode, like a supernova, until I was only capable of one thought. I could have lived -- in that moment -- forever."
"Force," she whispered, "you were just a baby."
"Was I?" For a moment, he seemed surprised by her observation. "I'd never thought much about it," he answered finally, "but, in a way, I suppose you're right. From my perspective, the Jedi Order has some rather . . . peculiar priorities. By the time I was sixteen, I'd killed at least a dozen beings, fought in countless wars, negotiated truces and settlements and border disputes, been wounded and patched up and wounded again more times than I could count -- but when it came to sexual experience -- beyond a bit of groping and a few clumsy kisses, I was ridiculously ignorant -- as naïve as a child, and easily manipulated, I guess."
He fell silent for a moment, as if considering some new revelation. "I think he wanted it that way," he said with a small smile. "He was Jedi, first and foremost -- but he was also human, after all -- and maybe -- just a little -- possessive. While he couldn't, because of his nature, focus on me, I rather think he liked the idea of me focusing on him."
"And that doesn't bother you?" she demanded, her disbelief obvious in her tone.
He didn't answer quickly, considering his response. But the response, when it came, was hardly surprising. "I loved him with every breath of my body, and if I had been told that allowing him to make love to me would cost me my life -- I still would have gone through with it. Without a second thought."
Abruptly, she drained the last of her brandy, set her snifter down -- a bit harder than necessary -- and strode forward to take up a position before the viewscreen, her movements sharp and bursting with restrained energy, appearing slightly disjointed due to a flickering show of light and shadow, created by a pattern of multi-colored strobes in the darkness before her, announcing the arrival of a T'hurgian freighter in the anterior dock. Her body was rigid with suppressed emotion, as she muttered something under her breath.
Obi-Wan watched her, with a small smile. "Anger leads to . . ."
"Oh, shut up," she snarled.
His face was a delicate relief etching of limned radiance against the darkness "Only if you speak up -- and tell me what you said."
"I said," she replied impatiently, "that I wish the big bastard was still alive -- so I could kill him."
He looked up at her then, and a sly wisdom, a cunning that was somehow out of place in those luminous eyes, revealed itself in a quick flare of emotion, just before he lowered his lashes. "That's a strange wish, for a Jedi Master, don't you think?"
She felt a heavy foreboding, a smothering stillness form around her, as she clinched her eyes tightly, making sure that her face was turned so that he could glimpse neither her features nor their reflection in the glossy sweep of paristeel.
He knows, she thought, with growing, horror-stricken certainty. Sweet goddess help us -- he knows.
Continued in Part 2