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"Don't let them see me like this."

Obi-Wan's small, painful voice wavers on the thin edge that divides anxiety from misery. He's trying very hard to hold the shattered threads of his self-control together, but, like the rest of his feverish body, his voice is trembling so hard that I fear something is bound to rattle loose.

"Master, please," he implores. His gray eyes, bright with the stimulants still shaking his bones apart, bore into mine. I hold him against me as tight as I dare, mindful of the fresh lacerations that cover his back.

I murmur quietly to him, soothing words I hope, as I pet his sweat-damp hair. "Shhhhh," I whisper. "Everything will be all right." And even as the lie leaves my lips I release that guilt into the Force. I am already dreading the inevitable meeting with the Jedi Council even though we are still two days from Coruscant.

Without thinking, I rock back and forth as we sit together on one of the ship's hard bunks, using the motion to comfort myself as much as Obi-Wan. He is only slightly calmer now than when he awoke a short time ago, screaming and thrashing against invisible assailants, reliving the torture and violation of his body during his captivity.

My Obi-Wan. My sheltered, innocent boy. My light within this dark oppressive tunnel of existence. Long ago our Order turned away from the pleasures of the flesh to pursue a pure and perfect connection with the Force. We are taught to deny the flesh and venerate the spirit, to eschew any of the comforts that tempt this shell of crude matter. Our vow of abstinence is the very foundation of our training, and the punishment for breaking it is swift and implacable - expulsion from the Order. The names of the fallen are purged from the temple databanks and no Jedi will speak their name nor acknowledge them ever again.

I am perilously close right now to breaking my own vow as I seek to calm my apprentice and give him comfort. For years I have loved him as a son, as a brother, as my only kin. We are as close as two men can be to one another without compromising our vow. His joyful, luminous spirit called to me when I first took him as my apprentice, inviting me to travel with him in this lifelong journey, and since then our souls have shared the same song.

I grieve for his suffering, for the loss of his purity and for what is yet to come. The Order is our lives. It has been our mother, our guardian, our confessor and our shepherd. It shelters and feeds us and gives us succor and purpose.

Yet, I can't imagine my life without Obi-Wan. If the Order should banish him...

The tremors are lessening now. I look down at him, rigidly poised on my lap, pressed as tightly against me as he can be, as though I could protect him from anything... Anything. My eyes burn and fill with dry tears while the muscles in my throat constrict. I could not protect you from this, could I? My hands, my weapon, my words... All of my years of training and I could not protect you when you needed me to.

Even when I knew what might happen. I knew! I could see their cruelty. I could taste it on my tongue like bitter poison. Whenever we spoke to them I could feel their casual brutality reaching out like tendrils of cold slag, looking for a target. And yet, I did nothing. I thought it would be me. I thought... I was ready to protect myself. Force, why did it have to be you?

I take a moment to calm myself, to focus on the moment, and I look at him again. Peace over anger, I tell myself. His hand is still entwined in my robe, but it is not the white-knuckled grip it was.

I hold him close with one arm while my other hand strokes softly over his spine. I kiss his temple, smiling against the soft short hair at the small sounds of contentment he makes. Honour over hate.

His fingers slowly relax their hold in the coarse fabric of my robe and he leans forward against my shoulder, pulling my arm more tightly around him. His body throws off heat like a furnace as it burns away the last of the drugs they gave him. His skin is flushed and damp, and his heart is still racing like an overworked engine. I lay the side of my face against the back of his neck, naked and defenseless, and we rest that way for a while, sharing courage and strength and breath. I can still smell the reek of fear and pain, but beneath that is still the familiar scent of Obi-Wan, and it relaxes me as I breathe it. Strength over fear.

I know he is playing out the meeting with Council in his mind, considering the very real possibility of his being expelled from the Order.

"I don't think I could live without you," his broken whisper is almost softer than the hum of the ship's engines but my heart lurches as though the words were yelled in my ear. I inhale fiercely, trying to recapture the air that surprise has squeezed from my lungs.

"Nor I without you," I finally admit when I can speak again.

We sit in the quiet of each other's presence for a time before he pulls away slightly and turns to look at me. His eyes are troubled clouds of gray and the skin around them is creased with the new lines of hard lessons. He looks weary and for a brief second I see an old man staring back at me.

I cup one cheek in my hand and stroke the dark smudges under his eye.

"We will not be separated," I vow to him. I thought that offering to give up the only life I've ever known for him would be more difficult than this, but it isn't hard at all. In fact, it's all so laughably simple that I have to struggle to control the chuckle rising up through my throat. I've heard it said that when a great emotional burden has been lifted from one's shoulders, they feel lightheaded and giddy. And so it is now that the burden of fear has been taken from me. Fear of losing my Obi-Wan's love and
companionship.

I look into his face and feel the rightness of it. There is nothing in this life I want more than to be at his side, to share the rest of my life with him.

For the first time since Obi-Wan's rescue I see the light return to his eyes. "I will never leave you," he tells me, his voice and expression as solemn as any oath we've pledged to the Order. Perhaps even more, for I feel his words resonate within the shared depths of our souls, a vow that can never be broken, not by men nor by circumstance.

He leans forward, a little hesitantly, and brushes his lips against my own. As soft and as sweet as the warm caress of a spring breeze. And just as full of promise.

I know now that we will face the Council and whatever lies beyond with courage and serenity. There is nothing to lose and nothing left to fear as long as he is with me.