Storms and Fury

by Tilt (tilt@vol.com)

Archive: master_apprentice

Series: Considering calling it the "Storms and Fury" Series. 1. "Love Knoweth No Law" 2. "The Quiet Stars" 3. "An Unjust Peace" 4. "Storms and Fury"

Category: Drama Angst Action/Adventure Romance

Rating: PG-17

Warnings: Weird psychobabblish things ahead!

Spoilers: None, pre-TPM. Xanatos is mentioned once.

Summary: Obi-Wan deals with the aftermath of "An Unjust Peace". Confronting demons found on Eritralia. Reading "An Unjust Peace" strongly reccommended.

Feedback: Is greatly appreciated, avidly consumed, and saved for later gloating.

Disclaimer: Playing in the House that George built. His toys, his house, his game, his money, his lawyers. In short, George Rules. In shorter short, I ain't touching his racket with a ten foot pole.

References: More Edna St. Vincent Millay in this one....

Cool blue luminescence wove in scattered veils through the atmosphere of Vyrir, the auroral shifting through the solid white of a storm system in the northern latitudes of the small planet. The silver-white hull of the shuttle gleamed with reflected light from the planet as it descended from high orbit toward the continent below the aurora, diving through the storm system and levelling out beneath the towering banks of angry gray.

Qui-Gon Jinn looked over at his soulbonded mate and Padawan as the younger man flew the shuttle ever onward toward their destination. Obi-Wan Kenobi, nineteen years old, Jedi Padawan since the age of thirteen, soulbonded to his Master for almost a year. And only two weeks before, his mind taken over by the remnants of a dead man's psyche, his own self and memories suppressed beneath Ben tel-Sirach's overwhelming need to free his homeworld from the ethnic conflicts that ravaged his people. Freed, Obi-Wan was slowly recovering as the too-vivid memories faded. Qui-Gon had discovered a new nightly ritual: waking in the night to find his bondmate gone from the bed they shared, only to discover him sound asleep in his own room, curled once again in his own small bed. Invariably the datapad that held his journal archives would be near at hand, obviously dropped from strengthless fingers when he finally succumbed to sleep.

Qui-Gon understood, of course. Obi-Wan was trying to reestablish his own identity and sort out his thoughts regarding all that had happened. His Padawan's sense of self had been completely disrupted by Ben's invasion of his mind. It would take some time before Obi-Wan would feel truly safe again.

So now, Vyrir turned serenely below them as the shuttle swept over the shoreline of the greater continent and across the brief expanse of ocean to the smaller continent where they would be staying for the next six weeks. The Council could not manage to give them a true vacation but taking over for six weeks as protectors and keepers of Vyrir would be uneventful and light duty, a working vacation. The Vyrir duty was often used in this way for Jedi recovering from injuries that were not debilitating, or merely for rest or as a meditation retreat. Vyrir was a nature preserve planet, strictly off-limits to all landings save those few restricted scientific teams and the arrivals and departures of Jedi. There were only a half-dozen satellites in orbit as well, the barest minimum for weather monitoring and communications and early-warning.

"I've detected the beacon, Master," Obi-Wan said in the silence as the shoreline of the smaller continent swept below them. "Two hundred kilometers inland."

Qui-Gon nodded and flipped a switch on the navigator's console. A heads-up display sprang to life on the canopy of the shuttle, a line of bright yellow dots stretching away before them to the horizon. Obi-Wan turned the nose of the shuttle to follow those dots and there was silence again for a few moments as the apprentice flew the tiny ship. Qui-Gon let it pass. They would have plenty of time for talk in the next six weeks and he had no wish to rush any Healing his apprentice sought.

Obi-Wan brought the shuttle to a hover over the square of plascrete gridded off as a rough landing platform, easing the little ship down through the tossing evergreen trees to land with a gentle jolt. A broad dirt pathway carpetted with fallen evergreen needles curved off into the trees from the landing platform, winding through the granite bones of the ridge. The moment the ramp of the shuttle descended the lingering scents of woodsmoke and pine swirled up around the two. Eager to walk after a long flight, they tossed their cloaks on and shouldered their packs.

The other Jedi team they were replacing had left the watchpost cabin an hour before, meeting Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's shuttle in orbit. The pair of lovebonded Jedi had laughingly assured the Master and Padawan that the small cabin was stocked with food and firewood and water. Qui-Gon smiled at that, while Obi-Wan just nodded at the obvious glowing happiness in the other Jedi voices. As if the Padawan was not certain how he should react to the happiness of others so he had elected not to react at all.

They climbed up the pathway together, Obi-Wan a step behind more out of habit than real need on the wide path. Qui-Gon felt his bondmate's preoccupation and sighed. "Obi-Wan, you are woolgathering again."

Startlement, then faint shame along the bond. "Yes, Master. I'm sorry."

They came up onto level ground from the climb up the steep part of the path and Qui-Gon paused a step and Obi-Wan glanced up at him as the Padawan caught up to him. Qui-Gon looked over at startled blue-green eyes and smiled faintly, sending a surge of love along their bond. Obi-Wan bit his lip and looked down at the path, his braid tossing in the slight breeze.

They came around the bend in the pathway and a small lake opened out before them, ruffled by the breeze, overhung with willows and goruin trees. A wooden walkway, worn and weathered gray, stretched out some thirty feet into the lake. Above the lake the sky of Vyrir opened green and cloudless. It was early autumn, still warm enough during the day to swim in the lake. Insects sang in the underbrush around the lake and fish surfaced to send ripples wavering over the ruffled mirror. The pathway curved around the lake and they found the cabin fifty yards further along.

"No droids, no Initiates or Temple staff," Qui-Gon said cheerfully as they climbed the short stairway up to the wooden door. "We shall have to cook our own meals, Padawan."

"I'll leave that to you, Master. If it's more complicated than heating a pan of soup I'm lost."

Qui-Gon smiled a little at the listless attempt at levity as he appraised the cabin. Built of native wood, it was of generous size. There were two bedrooms on either side of a large bathroom and above the bedrooms was a loft, a flat expanse of floorspace upholstered in cotton-stuffed mats that could sleep ten easily. It made a convenient and comfortable place for meditation, scattered with pillows, tucked in under the slanted beams of the roof, dimly lit, warm. The bedrooms opened onto a large main room, airy, carpetted in fraying throw rugs, low furniture, a stone-hearth fireplace against one wall. An open doorway led to a small kitchen area, and at the back of the kitchen a utility room for the sonic wash for clothes. An alcove beside the kitchen held a dining table and chairs and opened to the back deck via a sliding glass door. Decorations consisted mainly of a few low bookcases filled with books and datadisks and the knots in the wood that made up the walls. Through the wide windows they could look out toward the lake through weaving trees.

Obi-Wan looked around the main room wonderingly. "Where's the monitoring terminal?"

"In the second bedroom there," Qui-Gon answered, gesturing to the half-open door. "There's a remote terminal here. The station itself is a little further down the pathway, about seventy-five yards through the trees. You can see it from the back porch. Solar arrays are out at the monitoring station too."

Obi-Wan slid his pack from his shoulder and left it by the door as he started poking about, exploring idly. Qui-Gon watched him for a moment, then retrieved Obi-Wan's pack and took it into the first bedroom with his own.

Obi-Wan drifted into the kitchen, checked out the cooler and the cupboards. Grains, beans, other staples. Fresh fruit, red and green and orange, even some gumpta berries. Three different kinds of cheese. Fresh greens and something that smelled like onions. Many different kinds of spices and seasonings. No meat, though.

"Are we allowed to hunt here?" he called back to his Master over his shoulder.

"Fishing yes, hunting no," Qui-Gon answered, joining him in the kitchen. He had shed his cloak and came forward as Obi-Wan guiltily closed the door of the cooler. Qui-Gon smiled and began tugging Obi-Wan's cloak off gently as he spoke. "I've heard of Masters bringing their Padawans here for the duty just to teach them patience by fishing."

Obi-Wan snorted a little at that and allowed Qui-Gon to take his cloak from him. "I can see that." After a moment he looked up into his Master's eyes. "Is that why you brought me here?"

"No. I brought you here because you need a rest, beloved." Qui-Gon tugged him forward and Obi-Wan sighed and leaned against him, safe in the circle of his Master's arms. "You need some peace and quiet and a chance to heal. A safe place to heal. I wanted to take you to Alderaan, but the Council couldn't spare us the three months I asked for. This tour of duty on Vyrir is the best they could do for us."

"You always do your best for me," Obi-Wan said softly into the warm silk of Qui-Gon's tunic. "I know you do. Thank you, Master. It's quiet here, and there's no distractions. I think...I hope I can use this time constructively."

"You will, Padawan," Qui-Gon replied in a soft rumble. "You will."

"Journal -- Date 4.15.25404," Obi-Wan dictated to his datapad as twilight fell softly over the lake. "Arrived today on Vyrir. Master and I are the only sentient beings in the northern hemisphere. Two scientific teams, one geology, one biosphere, are down on the south polar cap. They report in every night. There was a minor problem with one of the comm satellites earlier today but nothing I couldn't take care of with a little tweaking to the software. Master sent me out to look for mushrooms in the forest and made mushroom and onion soup for dinner."

The apprentice sighed and hit the Pause button on the recording, flopped over onto his back on the worn flat wood of the walkway in the lake. Water lapped softly at the walkway supports just beneath him, making an odd glumping sound. He sighed and stared up at the darkening trees and the green sky above turning to blue-purple in the twilight. So far so good. He almost always listed such mundane stuff for the first paragraph of his journal entries. That was the easy, almost emotionless part. Sighing, he tugged his braid out from under his shoulder and picked up the datapad again, held it over his head and hit the Record button again.

"I keep telling myself there's a reason Qui-Gon is treating me like spun glass," Obi-Wan continued, watching the words appear in amber letters on the small screen. "Sometimes I feel fine, just like myself, then it's like the bottom falls out of my mind and I'm confused again as to what I really think or feel or know. That's how I know there's something really wrong with me. There's quicksand in my mind, and it hides as solid ground. Grandmaster Yoda says this is a logical consequence of Ben's --passing. Ben's death. There's parts of my mind that were scrambled by Ben being in here with me, and now that he's gone I'm trying to live with those parts of me still scrambled." He shifted his eyes to the sky above. "I've got to admit it somewhere. I'm scared I'll never get back to normal. Whatever normal is. And if I can't, I can't go on with my training in good conscience. If I have this flaw in my head and I can't overcome it, I'll have to give up my training. A flawed Knight...I'd be like a flawed fire-gem. One good hard hit at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I'd shatter. Someone else, or lots of someone else's, might be depending on me. Then it's either the Healers or the Agri-Corps or the Artificers if I stay in the Order, and an unkown future if I don't. Not very hopeful prospects. So I've got to fix this. But as of yet...I have no idea how." He sighed, peering up at the amber letters and the pulsing cursorpoint, trying to think of anything else to say. "End entry. Save."

Qui-Gon woke as Obi-Wan gently moved his arm away and slid out of bed.

"Beloved?"

Obi-Wan stopped at the door of the bedroom and Qui-Gon could see him turn in the dark to look back at the bed. The apprentice came slowly back to the bed, slid back under the covers. "I'm sorry, Qui, I --can't sleep."

Qui-Gon warmed a little at the short-form of his name that Obi-Wan had used. He cuddled Obi-Wan close against him and kissed him softly, ran his hand soothingly down his soulmate's back. "Talk to me, Obi. Tell me why you can't sleep."

"How can I tell you when I don't know why myself?"

"You know why, you're just confused." Qui-Gon tugged the covers up around them as Obi-Wan sighed and nodded. "Think of it like the Clouds Passing meditation. Think of your thoughts as clouds passing through the sky. Can you see what each one is as it passes?"

"I never can think of my thoughts like clouds," Obi-Wan mumbled. "Goes too fast for that."

"Hmm. Point taken, beloved." Qui-Gon chuckled softly and Obi-Wan smiled a little. "So what's something fast enough that passes by like the clouds do?"

Obi-Wan sat thinking for long seconds as Qui-Gon continued to run one hand down his back in a hypnotic soothing caress, waiting for the appropriate image to spring to mind. "Starfighters."

"Interesting. Why starfighters, love?"

Obi-Wan shrugged a little and rolled over onto his back, staring at the oak beams of the ceiling. "They're faster than other types of ships. They're capable of great destruction. They're hard to catch or target, especially in space." Another small shrug. "They usually fight each other or other starships, and when they are destroyed it makes no difference to the leader of the battle because they're just pawns, just numbers."

Qui-Gon blinked a little, surprised at the cynical, bitter tone of his apprentice's words. As he'd hoped, Obi-Wan was taking the symbolism to heart, revealing more of his own inner conflict through describing the characteristics of the symbol he'd chosen. It was an old Jedi trick. "These things are true, yes," Qui-Gon said carefully. "But there are two sides to everything, Padawan. Starfighters are fast, elusive, yes. Able to change direction at a split-second notice, easily adaptable. Capable of destruction, yes, but in the Republic Fleet they are sworn to promote peace by using those weapons as little as possible and then only on aggressors, never on civilians. And remember how many battles in your Republic History book were fought strictly with starships, never escalating to ground troops or droid troops. They are more than pawns. They are the workhorse of any modern commander, the mainstay of his forces, the first line of attack."

"Mmmm-hmmm," Obi-Wan murmured sleepily.

"Beloved?" Qui-Gon asked softly into the nearest ear, nuzzling his soulmate's neck.

"Hmm? Yes?"

"Remember this, all right? Meditate on it sometime soon." A half-asleep Obi-Wan was something Qui-Gon could never resist.

"One of these days," Obi-Wan said with a lazy grin as Qui-Gon ran a hand up under his sleep shirt and began tracing patterns on his chest. "I'll file it away for further study."

A smile shaped the lips that met his then, and fire followed his Master's hands.

"What shall we do today, Padawan?"

"Hmm," Obi-Wan said with a sigh, idly tearing the thick skin off a hroki and prying off a triangular section of the purplish flesh, regarded it in his fingers with some faint amusement before grinning and offering it to his bondmate. Qui-Gon gave him an answering grin and nipped the fruit out of his fingers gently. "Why's it up to me what we do? What's there to do anyway?"

"It's up to you because making your own decisions will help you, and there are several possibilities for amusement or learning here," Qui-Gon answered.

Obi-Wan shrugged a little, feeling cool morning air against his bare chest and back. He was dressed for the day in nothing more than short exercise leggings and the ties on his braid, looking considerably younger than his nineteen years as he proceeded to tear more sections out of the hroki fruit and alternately pop them into his own mouth and that of his bondmate. They were sitting together at the small table in the breakfast nook of the cabin, the sliding glass door open to the early morning air. Qui-Gon had made fresh bread for breakfast and Obi-Wan had snagged half a dozen different kinds of fruit from the cooler. He looked down at his hands as he thought how to answer his Master's question, wishing for once Qui-Gon would just make his decisions for him and let him follow. But he knew his beloved Master was right.

"Well, I guess we'd better manage to catch some fish if we want meat to eat today," he said tentatively. "And check in with the science teams. And check the scanners now and then. Our duties, such as they are."

"Naturally, Padawan."

"Other than that," Obi-Wan said slowly, at a loss now. "I don't know. What is there to do besides meditate and lightsaber practice?"

"You brought your lessons," Qui-Gon said. "And you could go exploring around the cabin here. You could swim in the lake." A smile threatened to creep onto the Jedi Master's face then. "I could teach you to cook..."

Obi-Wan snorted at this.

"Or perhaps a possibility will present itself," Qui-Gon resumed, sitting back in his chair. He too was dressed in loose, old exercise clothes, and he hadn't bothered to tie his hair back.

"Hmm," Obi-Wan said again, his eyes going distant and preoccupied as he fell once more into silence.

Qui-Gon glanced up from his datapad and smiled at what he saw. Obi-Wan was lying flat on the walkway in the lake, peering over the end of the walkway down at his reflection in the mirror surface of the calm waters. As the Jedi Master watched his braid began to slip over his shoulder and he caught it before the end could fall in the water, tossing it back again. The apprentice had been there for quite some time, looking down at himself silently.

[And what are you thinking, my heart, peering at yourself so intently like that?]

Obi-Wan glanced up and around to the mindvoice, saw Qui-Gon in one of the large wooden chairs on the back porch of the cabin, watching him. He slumped for a moment and frowned as his braid slipped over his shoulder and plopped into the water. He retrieved it and pulled the silken long end of it through his fingers to twist it dry. [I was thinking that my inside doesn't match my outside anymore,] he replied slowly. [I feel...older now, than what I look like.]

The bright sunlight glinted off the silver in Qui-Gon's hair as he tilted his head to watch his Padawan. [Because of Ben?]

Obi-Wan nodded and sent his affirmative. [Among other things, yes.]

[Ah,] Qui-Gon replied. A moment's thought and the Jedi Master got to his feet and stretched, then tugged his pullover shirt off and left it on the chair as he started out toward Obi-Wan, clad now as his apprentice was in nothing but exercise leggings.

[I know that look.]

[You do, love?] Qui-Gon asked as he came to the walkway and strode out onto it casually.

Obi-Wan swung his legs up and around to sit cross-legged, peering up at his soulmate as the big Jedi Master towered over him. "It's that look you have right before you--"

A gentle wave of the Force picked Obi-Wan up and tossed him out into the lake with a satisfying splash. A moment later Obi-Wan surfaced with a yell as Qui-Gon dived in beside him.

"Oh no! Oh no! Not that! Don't you --eeep!"

Qui-Gon surfaced in front of him with triumphant grin and tossed Obi-Wan's exercise leggings onto the walkway where they landed with a wet splat. A moment later, his own joined them. "Problems, Padawan?"

"N-noo," Obi-Wan managed as warm, large hands began caressing him under water, urging his legs to wrap around his soulmate's waist. He groaned and Qui-Gon pulled him close into a gentle kiss. Obi-Wan leaned into the kiss hungrily, twining his arms around his soulmate's neck. [Oh Qui...what's wrong with me?! Why can't I --?]

[Ssshh,] Qui-Gon admonished. [This isn't the time to think of all that now, love. Be with me. Here. Now. Laugh with me. Love me.]

[Always,] Obi-Wan answered fiercely, and told his higher mental functions to go take a hike for a while.

Hands roamed in the water, sweeping lightly over slick muscles, exploring what was ever new. Obi-Wan moaned and arched under the cold of the water sweeping in the wake of the huge hands that caressed him, molded him. So hot in the coolness of the water, fingernails trailing in gentle scritches up the back of his thigh, maddeningly ticklish. He squirmed against the thickness trapped between them, heard Qui-Gon's gasp in mind and body, felt the delightful friction on his own cock as he moved. Qui-Gon lifted him slightly, weightless in the water, hooking Obi-Wan's knees over his forearms and kneading the taut muscles of Obi-Wan's rear end. Obi-Wan gasped at this, squirmed as much as he could as Qui-Gon leaned forward a little and took a nipple into his mouth, nipping gently.

[Here,] Qui-Gon said then, turning them both to the walkway, moving the few feet needed. He caught hold of the wooden ladder rungs that descended into the water, anchoring himself with one hand and a foot on the ladder. The other hand stroked Obi-Wan's cock beneath the water as he urged Obi-Wan silently.

[Yes,] Obi-Wan agreed, and leaned into a hungry, breathless kiss, almost dizzy with desire. Limbs tangled with his soulmate's, he managed to raise up and then sank down onto Qui-Gon's stone-hard cock. A shuddering howl from both of them as flesh entered flesh, partly pain, mostly feral ecstasy. After the first few thrusts, even the pain was gone.

Obi-Wan's hand clenched hard on the wood of the ladder, the other looped around his soulmate's neck, gaining leverage to move with a foot on the ladder behind Qui-Gon's back. It was like making love in zero-gravity and all the more demanding for the change. Qui-Gon's free hand held him close, urging him on with moans and mental caresses, his head thrown back, lost in Obi-Wan's mind and fiery tightness. Obi-Wan opened his mind and heart, his eyes fixed to his bondmate's face, the look of rapture and the thrashing as he kept them both so screamingly close to the edge. It was one of the most erotic things Obi-Wan had ever known, and definitely the most powerful he'd ever felt, to be able to do this to his soulmate and Master.

[Now, Qui,] he demanded fiercely. [Come for me now!]

The mental command ripped away the last of Qui-Gon's control and he screamed his release into his bondmate's neck, clutching desperately at the body riding him, felt the explosion of Obi-Wan's own orgasm as the sensations threw him into sensory overload.

Obi-Wan kept them anchored with a foot hooked in the walkway ladder as they held each other through the aftershocks, entangled, the cool water soothing.

[Oh beloved,] Qui-Gon murmured to him in faint dismay. With their minds so completely open to each other Qui-Gon could feel his doubts and fears. [I will never let you go! Never! Why do you think you have to be absolutely perfect? No, my soul, no one is absolutely perfect and no one would ever ask you to be!]

[But if I'm not as strong as I can be I'll be vulnerable -- ]

[As I was when first we met?] Qui-Gon asked. [If I hadn't had you with me these last few years how many of our missions would have ended with my death? That was a vulnerability, to think I was better off alone. No, beloved. You will conquer these fears and you will be the stronger for it.]

[But what if I can't?] Obi-Wan asked and sniffled, only then realizing that tears were trickling down his face and onto Qui-Gon's neck.

[You will,] Qui-Gon corrected firmly. [They are obstacles, not walls.] His arms tightened around the slim body still wrapped firmly around him. [The memories will fade in time and you will grow around them and your mind will adjust. That is all it needs, beloved. Time and patience and care.]

Obi-Wan catapulted upright in the bed, gasping, clutching his stomach and chest, dragging air into his lungs in frenzied gulps.

"Beloved!" Qui-Gon was up beside him in an instant, pulling the violently trembling form into his arms, chilled skin against the warmth of his chest. "A dream, Obi, nothing but a dream, just a dream..."

Obi-Wan gulped down another breath and twisted to look up at his soulmate half-fearfully.

"There now, there," Qui-Gon soothed softly, stroking the soft spiky golden hair. "Another bad dream, love? You look so scared."

Obi-Wan nodded a little and burrowed into Qui-Gon's arms. The Master tugged him back down under the covers and curled around his apprentice protectively.

[It was just...just remembering Ben, when he -- took over my mind...the things I did on Eritralia before you found me -- us --him. Whatever.]

[I never should have left you,] Qui-Gon sent softly. [We should not have split up at the refugee camp.]

[We did what we had to,] Obi-Wan said in forgiveness. [For that matter, I should have called you when I went with the refugees to get that old woman, but you'd passed out from exhaustion and I didn't think I'd be gone more than a few hours.]

[It's in the past now,] Qui-Gon soothed. [Show me the dream, then?]

Reluctance threaded through the bond but then images began trickling into Qui-Gon's mind. The startled, fear-filled faces of Eritralian military men, bodies neatly dismembered by the flashing blue of Obi-Wan's lightsaber blade, screams cut off abruptly. The staccato sounds of rapid-fire slug shots in the night, the mists drifting through the forests and across ruined farmfields, the flashes of light at the muzzles of the guns as they fired. Luring a kill-squad to the edge of the minefield in the dark, then racing away as first one landmine and then another exploded under incautious feet. The open mass graves, dozens of slaughtered bodies rotting, the scavenger birds barely noting his sickened presence. Finally, Ben tel-Sirach's eyes boring into his own, the force of his determination to survive, helpless to prevent the invasion of the rebel leader's will, drowning under the weight of another in his own mind.

Qui-Gon gave a long sigh as the images faded from his mind, cuddling his apprentice as close as he could. So much for someone so young to bear! The nightmares would ravage him nightly if Qui-Gon's presence in his soul didn't give him some solace and a center.

The Jedi Master hadn't felt so inadequate since Xanatos turned to the Dark. But he carefully kept that thought from his soulmate and gave what comfort he could.

Eventually, Qui-Gon slept again. But Obi-Wan did not.

When Qui-Gon awoke the next morning, Obi-Wan was not beside him. The smells of fruit and bread drifted from the kitchen, obviously breakfast waiting on his waking, but his Padawan's presence was somewhat further away. Out some distance in the forest, to be exact.

[Are you well, beloved?] Qui-Gon whispered into their bond.

[Yes. Doing my katas. Running.]

[Ah,] Qui-Gon replied. [Shall I join you?]

A moment's consideration from Obi-Wan, then, [I'd really like to be alone.]

Qui-Gon sighed and nodded. [As you wish.]

Guilt came flooding over the bond then, and confusion. [I'm sorry, Qui, I just --I don't know what's wrong with me, why I'm acting like this...]

Qui-Gon sent his reassurance and love wordlessly, all but wrapping Obi-Wan's mind in warm cuddling thoughts. [There is nothing to forgive, my heart. Have you eaten, at least?]

A moment's pause. [No.]

[Then come back and eat, then meditate with me, and you can spend the day alone if you wish.] Qui-Gon slid out of bed stretching and yawning, listening to his joints pop and feeling the twinges in his back. [You cannot figure out who you are with other people constantly engaging your attention. Even me. It is natural to want to be alone sometimes to hear your own mind.]

[If I followed my own mind at the moment I'd be an anchorite on Cyrinx,] Obi-Wan snapped with some self-directed disgust. [Can't get much more alone than a frozen rock out on the edge of the Rim.] A mental sigh. [I'll be there in a moment or two.]

Qui-Gon dropped an old shirt over his head, pulled his leggings on, and padded barefoot out to the porch to watch for his soulmate's approach.

A flicker of pale gold in the trees far back in the shifting bars of sunlight lancing through the waving branches. Qui-Gon felt the Force flowing around him, felt his bondmate drawing it to him as he ran. The arrowing graceful form leaped, bouncing off a tree root in his path and somersaulting in mid-air, landed and ran on without missing a beat. Another bounce and he was cartwheeling and flipping in one of the acrobatic katas he favored. Qui-Gon watched with an indulgent smile, the lithe form flowing from bounce to leap to tumble to leap again to an overhanging tree branch, flip casually up to grin at his bondmate from a crouch on top of the branch before his momentrum swung him around to flip off again. Another leap and somersault and he was rushing up the stairs of the cabin and into Qui-Gon's open arms.

Qui-Gon mock-growled as Obi-Wan pulled him down for a kiss. "I see a force-field cage at the Coruscant Zoo in your future, Padawan, if you keep bouncing around like a wild primate like that."

"Then I'll be sure they give you the next cage over, my sandlion," Obi-Wan answered, running his hands through Qui-Gon's unbound and sleep-tangled hair.

This time Qui-Gon did growl and nibbled Obi-Wan's neck to illustrate his point. Obi-Wan giggled and tugged him into the kitchen.

"Journal -- Date 4.22.25404," Obi-Wan said to the datapad, looking out across the expanse of bright autumn colors below him. He sat crosslegged on a chunk of granite that hung on the side of the ridge high above the valley floor below. The air was cool and slid over the side of the ridge and across his half-clothed form. "Getting cooler now, especially at night here on Vyrir. The trees are changing colors. I can tell Master wants to tell me to start wearing more clothes but Qui-Gon the bondmate is enjoying the view. As I am of him. I may have no appreciation for art but I know what I like."

He sat back on his hands with a grin at this last thought, a grin which quickly faded as he got through the "easy" part of his journal. After a moment he continued.

"Still no real change in things. I'm almost ready to scream at myself, if that's possible. Qui-Gon is simply there for me, he's still not pushing things, still just being there if I want to talk or be with him, but he leaves me alone otherwise. I have to go to him if I want help, and even then he'll only help so much and no more. He's not going to just fix things for me, no matter how much I'd like him to. Or how much the bondmate side of him wants to. I know why he's doing it. I have to be my own person, I have to find my own strengths and solutions, otherwise the bond and our partnership as Jedi would become unbalanced. I have to be his equal or the relationship will become unhealthy for me. And the Council would have to take notice then and separate us. He must deal with this problem as Master Jinn. I know this, he knows this. It still hurts, to bounce off that damned endless serenity of his when I want him to just fix things. I know it must hurt him to have to do that, but he's keeping that to himself." He scowled down at the datapad, thinking. "It all sounds like some sappy psycho-drama holovid, doesn't it?"

Obi-Wan glared out over the valley, all the bright sunshine and fiery colors of the changing leaves shadowed by his continuing ambivalence and emotional instability. "Damnit, I'm tired of not knowing from moment to moment how I'm going to feel about something, I'm tired of the nightmares, I'm tired of not knowing who I am anymore. And all this grand glorious thinking I've been doing isn't helping at all. The only thing that helps is just doing things, practicing or running or wandering around the forest. But even that's bad because I'm running away from my problems. Qui doesn't say anything, probably because he knows I already know it." A long sigh then, a guilty frown. "My bondmate and Master is the wisest, most incredible person I have ever known. And he doesn't deserve to be tied to a quivering blob of goo. End entry. Save."

Qui-Gon sighed as he felt Obi-Wan's presence beginning to return, the subdued half-angry, half-anxious muddle that had persisted for the week they'd been here on Vyrir.

Obi-Wan was stuck in a loop of anger and contempt directed solely at himself. He needed something to jar him out of it before it went too far.

The Master stood up from the steps of the porch where he'd been sitting and retreated back inside the cabin. In the main room of the cabin were several sets of low bookshelves. There was a sort of unspoken set of codes and procedures and signs that had evolved over the years between the Master Jedi, sometimes tiny symbols left in places where only a Master Jedi would know to look. Sometimes it was something more concrete and elaborate. One of these was the practice of leaving messages and information for each other carefully hidden in places Jedi often frequented, most often warnings or information about the place itself. In a place such as Vyrir's watchpost, such information would be found in the second to last bookcase, bottom shelf, third datadisk from the left.

And so it was. He took the datadisk from the shelf and checked the label. The spinning-star icon inside a triangle. Yes. He hurriedly retrieved his datapad from the porch and popped the cartridge into the port on the side, then left the datapad on the small table beside the chair he favored on the porch. Obi-Wan would undoubtedly wander off into the woods again after lunch and he would have time to read then.

A cold breeze against the sweat on his chest brought Obi-Wan out of the half-trance of the Dancing Water kata. He opened his eyes and blinked in the sudden white-out as the sunlight flooded his eyes. A moment's adjustment and he could see again.

He was once again on the granite cliffs that overlooked the valley below, facing northwest. Beyond another, smaller ridge across the valley was a wide plain leading down to the skirts of a shallow river. Beyond that, more plains and mountains in the far distance. Behind the ramparts of those distant mountains fat thunderhead clouds were gathering quickly, the purple-gray shockingly incongruous in the otherwise cloudless bright day.

How very odd. He didn't recall seeing a storm system approaching on the weather satellite view this morning.

A moment's thought and alarms began shrilling in his head. He dropped instantly to the sun-warmed stone crosslegged, began the deep breathing cycles that would carry him into trance. The muscle tension of his exertions flooded out of his body, the Force came willingly to him at his call, tied him to the planet and opened his soul to the sky and stars.

The natural lines of the Force that flowed around and through the planet were disrupted, knotted. He could feel the snarl beyond the mountains as if it were a cramped muscle. The knot was manifesting in the physical world through a thunderstorm that was gaining strength with every passing moment. It was racing westward on a gale-force wind. He felt along the lines in the Force, wondering if he could untangle it himself. Saw he could not hope to, it was too complex and too quickly building to unravel in a moment's work. Weatherworking was something he had little patience for, it required a delicate touch and mental stamina he lacked. This would require his Master.

And if Qui-Gon couldn't unravel it in time, he'd best be under shelter when the storm hit.

He sprang to his feet, snatched his shirt from the tree branch where he'd left it, tugged on his boots and headed off into the forest again, back toward the watchpost cabin.

[Qui! Qui, where are you?! There's a Force-storm coming, you have to trance and unknot it! Qui?!]

Qui-Gon bit his lip and bowed his head, holding himself to stillness and silence in mind and body as his soulmate's call rang through his head. All his instincts and reflexes, as bondmate and Master, were shoving at him to respond to Obi-Wan's calls. Still he held silent against the urging, huddled under his dark cloak in the shadows of a tiny boulder-strewn ravine midway between the granite cliffs and the cabin. He was close enough to the pathway that he could hear Obi-Wan's running footsteps.

Shade and cold breezes rattled through the ferny coolness of the little ravine. With a soft sigh he settled himself back against the rock he leaned against and closed his eyes, slipping into his interrupted trance once again.

He only hoped this would work or Yoda would have his head.

"Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind, Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."

The long grumble of Force-induced thunder crackled through the air around him and Obi-Wan glanced behind him for a moment as he ran. He thought he knew the pathways through the forest well enough by now that he wouldn't get lost and anyway Qui-Gon's presence in his mind should have led him like a flare at night.

The trees all looked the same. He stumbled to a stop, gulping down air quickly and efficiently, looking around frantically. He turned a circle to look back the way he'd come, but it was the same. A twilight forest, the sunlight fading behind the purple-black clouds now bearing down on the ridge. A constant ice-edged wind. He reached to the Force and the disruption flooded into him from the storm. It was the worst possible thing he could do. A moment's horrible whirling disorientation and he fell to his knees retching violently as the wild Force currents ripped through him and played havoc with his own lifeforce.

Panting, he dragged a shaking hand over his mouth and slammed his shields up belatedly. If Qui-Gon had felt that he'd be frantic, all because Obi-Wan was stupid enough to reach for the Force right underneath a Force-storm. No. The only thing he could do now was keep running and try to find someplace to shelter until the storm passed and Qui-Gon woke up. That was the only thing he could conclude, that his bondmate had fallen asleep and was probably sleeping right through the storm. Hope the storm doesn't give him a nightmare, Obi-Wan thought with some concern. He has to put up with mine enough, he doesn't need his own.

Struggling to his feet, he spit out the last horrible acidy taste from his mouth and picked a direction and started off again. The growing ominous crackle of the clouds overhead tugged at his memory.

--the rapid-fire staccato of slug shot in the night, flashes of muzzle-fire --

Obi-Wan stumbled over a tree root and fell hard to his hands and knees, felt fire as one knee was scraped bloody, tearing a hole in the old practice leggings. He shook his head free of the afterimage before his eyes. He jumped back to his feet and kept going.

The sudden violent blue-white flash was so fast he didn't have time to react. A tree not twenty feet away from him exploded into shreds of yellow-white wood and blackened bark. The thunderclap a bare nanosecond behind the flash -- and he was at ground zero --

--the warmth of Qui-Gon's fingers entwined with his, the split-second of light flash behind them, then the shockwave blasting them to their knees, shrapnel slicing through his cloak and his tunics, a sliver of durasteel lancing white fire across his back and shoulder --

Reflex carried him then, reflex and blind panic.

A hissing rattle began somewhere close behind him in the trees, rolling up behind him on the icy wind. Then it overtook him and he was suddenly being pelted by hailstones dropping out of the Force-storm, driven to bruising force by the fall from the clouds and the wind that lashed the trees into a frenzy. They were huge, several centimeters in diameter, dirty white. He caught one as it bounced off his shoulder.

--cold chill white metal, gridded in fine lines, filling his hand with a satisfying weight. Calling the Force around him like the enfolding of his cloak to remain silent and unseen as he crept up to the kill-squad transport and pried open one of the intake manifolds and slipped the grenade under the tensed metal, carefully lowering the manifold to keep the detonator button pressed just so. Then moving away as quickly as he could, running when he reached the forest. A bare minute later he heard the roaring explosion as the transport exploded--

Another flash of lightning and the almost-instant deafening impact of sound. He couldn't see now, the world was thrashing tree limbs and screaming winds and the pain of hailstones driven against his back. He stumbled again and felt himself falling, falling further than he expected. Instinctively he caught himself with his hands as he fell stumbling down the tumble of jagged rocks, grunting with effort as he was thrown hard against the stones. His wrist twisted painfully on the slick wet stone before he could recover and he fell badly against the rough edge of the rock, bruising ribs and thigh. Catching his breath, he scrambled down the rocks, slithering in his haste. Rocks. Shelter.

He slid down head first off the rocks, tumbled in a flip and regained his feet on the uneven ground below. He knelt there for a moment, gulping down air and forcing himself to calm down somewhat. It's only a Force-storm, he yelled at himself in disgust. Stop running like some gods-be-damned Initiate who hasn't got two brain cells to rub together! You're a Padawan, stop panicking!

Breathe in, breathe out. Again. Again. Then he opened his eyes and looked around.

Another flash of lightning, and he saw the entrance of the cave behind him. Without stopping to think he scrambled inside --

--and found himself caught somewhere between memory and dream.

He looked down at his hands, at himself. Once more in uniform, his cloak the usual swirl of rust-brown wool wrapped around him, his hood shrouding his face. No longer cold from the storm, now there was a different chill in the darkness.

A nimbus of yellow light, a gathering of photons static in the air such as he had seen Master Windu make from time to time, floated over the muddy floor of the cavern a few feet away. Behind the nimbus stood a hunched figure completely shrouded in black tatters that might have been a cloak of some sort. A deep cowl completely hid the face.

Obi-Wan gulped and gathered his wits about him as much as he could. "Who are you?"

A moment's pause, then a voice like dried leaves skittering over stone. "Your guide."

"Where are you to guide me?"

"To your truth."

Obi-Wan blinked. " My truth? Truth is truth. It isn't mine or yours."

"There is no truth save what we find for ourselves. If you truly wish to see."

Obi-Wan was immediately wary . Another of his mental alarms was going off in his head. "What will I lose if I see?"

The cowled figure was silent a moment. "And what will you gain?"

Obi-Wan glared at the figure for several long seconds, then straightened and shoved his hands inside his sleeves and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, ordering silence of mind and body and soul. He knew it now for the test it was. As such, by tradition, it would begin when he began it, not before. As much calmness as he could gather came into his soul.

Lifting his head and opening his eyes again, he looked in peace to his Questioner. "I am ready."

A slow nod from the waiting figure, and reality shifted around him.

Shifting firelight and the chatter of voices, the squelch of mud beneath his boots, the beloved tall, broad-shouldered form just in front of him wrapped in dark wool. He smiled and reached forward for Qui-Gon's hand --

--but another form wrapped in rust-brown reached forward before his hand could catch his bondmate's, and he jerked around in surprise as his own hand seemed to pass right through Qui-Gon's arm without resistance. But he saw the other figure's hand twine in the long fingers...then saw the end of the Padawan braid slither out of the cloak hood...and he was seeing...

Himself. From outside of himself.

He stumbled back a step as the two Jedi, Master and Padawan, moved away in the midst of a group of men dressed in military camouflage.

Then the scene rushed in on him with the shock of recognition and he knew. Eritralia.

"Commander, I'm sure we can find some compromise that could benefit these refugees. Surely you must admit the conditions here are far from humane," Qui-Gon was saying in a neutral voice to the commander beside him.

A hissing, loud, sudden. The flashes, six in all occuring almost simultaneously as the warheads impacted within microseconds of each other, then the shockwave and noise and fury of flying shrapnel and debris. The two Jedi were thrown off their feet... From outside himself, outside the situation now, Obi-Wan could see that they'd been thrown easily three meters or more. He saw the shrapnel slice through the cloak and into the shoulder. At the time, he hadn't even been aware he'd been injured. Neither had Qui-Gon.

"Obi-Wan?!"

Qui-Gon's voice, rough with shock. The elder Jedi was shaking his Padawan by the shoulder, kneeling beside him. "Come, get up, we must see what we can do here for the injured..."

A weak, unsteady voice said, "Yes, Master, of course."

Obi-Wan turned to watch as the two Jedi in memory got to their feet and began wading into the chaos of the missile attack, gathering their strength and the Force to heal and help. Saw for a split-second the shaken determination in his own eyes.

Then the scene shifted and blurred and it was day, a gray muddy rainy day. He was standing amongst a group of refugees gathering at the side of a transport.

"You are certain the government troops have already cleared this? I don't want to get caught behind enemy lines, they'd be only too happy to conveniently forget their orders." Exhausted voice, strained with hours of constant use and the Obi-Wan in memory swept up to the side of the transport, cloak swirling as he swung up into the flatbed of the hovertruck beside the three men who had run up to him pleading to save their mother. The transport started off with a lurch and a rattle, heading into the disputed province, into danger.

The scene faded like shimmering heat haze and the Obi-Wan of the present stood again facing the Questioner.

The voice seemed to float from the very walls, from the nimbus of energy swirling between them shedding light onto the young Jedi's shivering form. "Why did you go to heal that woman?"

"She was sick and very old. When the colonist government troops came to roust out the natives from their village she was too sick to leave with them. I felt it my duty to help her." Obi-Wan hugged himself, hands inside his cloak sleeves.

"At the risk of your own safety?" the whispery voice asked.

"I am Jedi. My duty is to serve even at the risk of my own life," Obi-Wan said automatically. "It's the Code. Preserve and protect all life."

"Including your own."

Obi-Wan shrugged. "I was in no danger."

A chill silence. Then the black-shrouded figure shifted slightly. "Danger takes many forms."

Darkness descended again, and the nimbus of light vanished in the gloom. The familiar rushing whirring approaching. Trees loomed straight and tall above him, insects sang all around, amphibians croaking and galumping. There was a tang in the air that Obi-Wan now knew all too well.

A form moved through the trees some distance away, coming closer, moving from tree to tree silently. Obi-Wan watched himself sneaking closer to the road and memory grabbed him and shook him, and he started to turn away.

"Why do you turn away?" the whispery, rasping voice asked from all around him.

Obi-Wan clenched his jaw tight and resolutely started walking in the other direction, walking past the black-shrouded figure just behind him as quickly as he could. "I will not see this again. I will not."

"What is it you fear?"

That stopped Obi-Wan cold as effectively as if he'd been tangled in a force-shield cage. Fear. Yes, he was afraid. "Am I bound to answer you?"

"Would the answer be truth?"

"I see no point in rehashing the past." Obi-Wan clenched his hands around his forearms in his cloak sleeves. He could hear the transport's approach most clearly now, knew the Obi-Wan of the past was huddled in the underbrush beside the road, hoping to stop the troops and maybe hitch a ride...

"Then why do you persist in allowing it to live within you?"

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, felt his fingers digging into his forearms, felt his jaw clenching tight, felt the muscles of his shoulders drawing up painfully. The anger at the infuriatingly calm, whispery voice of the Questioner was a step away from the fury that had been born in this place. Without a word he whirled again and started toward the road. He stopped at the edge of the road, stood watching beside a tree not far from the figure huddled in the dark.

Headlights arrowed around the bend in the road ahead and the Obi-Wan of the past straightened and stood up quickly, looking toward the transport, then stepped to the side of the road and held up a hand. The rattling troop hovercraft squeaked to a stop in front of him, the glare of the headlights illuminating the lone Jedi Padawan as several of the troops within began getting out, guns at the ready. The Obi-Wan of the past stepped forward eagerly and began speaking. "You are the subcommander for this patrol sector? I am Jedi Kenobi, I'm afraid I need a lift back to the refugee camp at the north border --"

Raucous laughter and the clatter of the guns. "The Jedi brat!" the subcommander said to his compatriots.

Too late, the Obi-Wan of the past realized this was not a patrol.

The thick silence of the forest was shattered by automatic gunfire and the sudden snap-hiss-hum of Obi-Wan's lightsaber. The bright blue-white blade whirled and darted, vaporizing bullets. Then the subcommander called a stop and the gunfire was silent. The blue-white lightsaber remained alive in the Jedi's hands, eyes shifting warily from one scowling soldier to another. The subcommander barked an order in Eritralian to those still inside the transport. A thin wail of anguish as another of the troops clambered awkwardly out of the transport, one hand tangled in a fistful of long black hair, the other holding a handgun to the head of the teenage native girl he dragged out of the transport.

"You were given a choice," the Questioner said beside the Obi-Wan who watched.

"The girl's life or my own," Obi-Wan managed to growl.

"Yet you chose a third path. Why?"

"Because I felt there was another solution besides my death or that of the girl," Obi-Wan answered, eyes resolutely fixed on the scene before them.

"No. Again. Why did you choose the path you did?"

Silence, then Obi-Wan whispered, "Because I didn't want to die."

Light and fury and flashing movement, the girl screamed, gunfire rang out again. The blue-white blade of energy left streaks of light in the air as it moved faster than human eyes could follow, propelled by fear and anger and the Force. The hovercraft's engines whirred to life. The girl was thrown bodily by the Force into the shelter of the trees as the enraged Jedi leaped to the side of the hovercraft and plunged the lightsaber into the fuel tank, then blurred away in a Force-enhanced jump. The hovercraft exploded in a ball of fire, incinerating the two troops still inside.

The Obi-Wan of the past stood in the trees now, safely out of range of the burning hovercraft, his lightsaber still alight in his hand. The look of triumphant satisfaction limned in firelight and saberlight as he looked on the neatly dismembered bodies and destruction sickened the Obi-Wan of the present.

He didn't need to see anymore. He closed his eyes but the Questioner still stood silent beside him.

"I used the Force to attack," Obi-Wan said bleakly. "I felt fear and anger and hate. I didn't stop when I should have let the transport get away. I just...killed."

"Is fury to be your only answer in situations of this sort?" the Questioner asked.

"I hope not, I try not, but...I can't trust myself anymore not to react that way again. This was only the beginning on Eritralia. After this, I didn't really want to go back to the refugee camp. I stayed in the province to fight the troops." He straightened as the scene faded from his sight. "And that decision I will not regret."

"It is your duty to bring peace, not death."

Obi-Wan glared dangerously at the tattered, shrouded figure. "It is my duty likewise, by the Code itself, to protect life. Save it from itself, if I have to. Eritralia was as close to the Dark Side as I've ever seen. I knew my methods weren't exactly anything the Council or even my Master would approve. I was one man, one lightsaber, and the Force against an army. My best weapons were stealth and ingenuity, just like the rebels. I've been trained to think tactically and strategically. I made a decision, I chose a side, because I felt in my heart that what I was doing was right." He looked away then and continued in a softer voice, "Even if the way I did it was morally wrong."

"Do you feel that taking lives to preserve life was the will of the Force?" the Questioner asked softly.

Obi-Wan's blue-green eyes went to steel and fire then, and he had a hard time keeping himself from snarling the words. "By eliminating those kill-squads I saved possibly hundreds of lives. The -- gruesomeness of the killings I carried out put fear into the other government patrols and kill-squads who found them. Fear did some of my work for me. They started going out in groups of a dozen or more after that when they patrolled at night. Therefore their patrol area was cut down by half. This enabled the rebels to get more people to safety." He glared at the black-shrouded, tattered figure of the Questioner. "Yes. What I did was the will of the Force."

"It was the will of Obi-Wan Kenobi, not the Force." There was ice in the voice of the Questioner now, and Obi-Wan felt the fingers of that ice threading down his backbone.

But the fear and doubt did not take hold. The tangled emotions and fears he'd felt growing in his mind since Ben's passing were clearing now, unknotting. Known and separated, one from the other. Comprehensible. Acceptable, if not perhaps something he could be proud of now or ever. "I will answer for my own actions, whether Force-guided or not. I will go on with my life."

The darkness shifted again, swirled, and he was looking down out of a ship's viewport at wings of starfighters sweeping past in perfect formation, turning with the impossible grace of spaceflight against the backdrop of the universe. They spun in precise formation and dove out of sight, then another wing appeared, barrel-rolled before his eyes, dove out of sight. Then another wing, and another. He recognized the small rounded-triangle ships, they were Republic Fleet first-strike craft. Beside him, the Questioner lifted an arm to indicate the dozens of fighters skydancing before them.

"When not in active combat, their weapons are locked off. Therein lies your answer."

The ship's viewport, the starfighters, the Questioner, all of it vanished with an abruptness that left Obi-Wan staggering backwards.

He was once again in the tiny cave in the forest of Vyrir, shivering in his old ratty shirt and exercise leggings, blood dripping down his leg from the skinned knee, his wrist throbbing painfully from the twisting he'd given it. Sunlight once more lanced through the dripping trees and glittered off the hailstones slowly melting all over the forest floor. Birdsong twittered noisily as he climbed up out of the cave, blinking and stunned.

[Obi-Wan?! Obi, where are you?!]

[Master!] The beloved presence of his soulmate was rushing toward him now, and Obi-Wan began picking his way carefully up the cliff to meet him.

Obi-Wan sighed in contentment as he leaned back against Qui-Gon's chest, looking up briefly to nuzzle his soulmate's jawline as the strong arms pulled him close in the stinging-hot water of the bath. Qui-Gon kissed his temple and hugged him for a long moment before gently urging his abused knee up out of the water to brush another healing caress over the scabbed skin.

"I'm all right, silly," Obi-Wan murmured drowsily.

"You're hurt." Qui-Gon nuzzled his neck and gently tugged Obi-Wan's arm from where it rested over his own. He wrapped his hand completely around the slight swelling of the wrist, careful not to squeeze too tightly as he sent healing Force into the pained muscles and tendons. Obi-Wan hissed in pain for a second then relaxed again as the Force numbed it away. "And you're tired and sore and need to be cuddled until your brains leak out your ears."

Obi-Wan smiled at that. "I can't argue with that."

"Good, because I won't let you."

The bathroom was dim with twilight approaching, cozily brightened with glow of a trio of candles Qui-Gon had found in the kitchen. Obi-Wan murmured a little in protest as Qui-Gon began scrubbing away the streaks of mud and sweat, reached for the washcloth and got his hand lightly swatted for his trouble. "Fine, spoil me rotten, Qui. But I think I can wash myself, y'know."

"I will spoil you rotten, and yes you can wash yourself but your arm hurts and I wish to make up to you for sleeping right through the storm." Qui-Gon's teasing tone vanished then. "I am truly sorry for that, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan shrugged a little dismissively. "I'm just glad you did. You're much more sensitive to Force-storms than I am. It would have made you horribly ill if you'd been awake to feel it." He squirmed around slightly, the hot water sloshing around them both, and pulled his soulmate down for a forgiving kiss. As they parted again he snuggled close. "Besides, you weren't really asleep, were you?"

Qui-Gon blinked and couldn't speak.

Obi-Wan sighed and slipped his arms around his lover and Master. "The only two people in the northern hemisphere of this planet, the only two Jedi on this planet, and a Force-storm shows up out of nowhere? The test, the Questioner, all of it. Force-storms rarely happen as a natural occurrence, Qui. And I don't remember hitting my head so don't try to explain it off as a concussion." He held the silent shocked Jedi Master and kissed the hollow of his throat. "It was you, Qui."

"Oh. Uhm. Well --"

Obi-Wan snorted a laugh and took the washcloth from his soulmate's hand, found the soap, and began washing Qui-Gon's arm and shoulder and chest. [I love you, my Master. Always forever love you, my wise and wondrous Master. No apologies needed.]

Qui-Gon choked at the wave of love and forgiveness and understanding that flooded into his soul then. He clutched Obi-Wan tight for long moments in half-astonished gratitude at his lover's understanding.

[You did what you felt you must,] Obi-Wan sent softly. [As I did on Eritralia.] The apprentice took the other unresisting arm and began working lather over the sun-darkened skin from fingers to shoulder, not looking up into his lover's eyes. [Speaking of which, I suppose you'd better start on the lecture.]

"No," Qui-Gon said at last. "First we get clean, then we eat, then we sleep --"

" -- Or something that ends with sleep anyway -- "

"Quite possibly, my heart, then we will talk in the morning." Qui-Gon's eyes twinkled down at his soulmate and one soapy finger tapped the end of Obi-Wan's nose playfully. "Tomorrow, when we are both rested, we can meditate on all you have learned and speak of it together. Together, my Padawan. I cannot allow you to bear this alone any longer. I will not."

Obi-Wan's small smile then as Qui-Gon firmly took the washcloth from him and began to wash his limbs with great care and efficiency. It felt so good, so incredibly relaxing, that he wondered he didn't just melt into a puddle of goop right then and there. "Actually, Qui, I'm not really inclined to deal with it alone myself anymore anyway. I've been neglecting you the last couple weeks since all this coil with Eritralia began. I've been so self-absorbed..." He trailed off and chewed his lip for a moment, then looked back up at his soulmate. "I'm sorry, Qui. You deserved better. I know you've been worried and --"

Qui-Gon put a hand to his lips to still the flow of regrets and apologies. "As you said, no apologies needed. You needed time and space to think on all that had happened. I only took action today because I felt you had gotten stuck. You clearly needed help, so I gave you a push in the right direction. The work will be yours alone, but I will do all I can so that you may do that work without hindrance."

Obi-Wan sighed and nodded and they leaned against each other for a minute, foreheads touching, just breathing together in peaceful silence.

[I am sorry for what happened to you on Eritralia, my heart,] Qui-Gon sent softly. [Force willing, it shall not happen again.]

[You can't promise that, Master,] Obi-Wan sent back with some weariness, the new depth of his mindvoice reflecting the shocks and stresses inflicted on his soul. [You can't promise I won't have to kill again, or that I won't kill in anger or hate again. You can't coddle me in cottonwool forever. You can't protect me forever, and you can't protect me from myself. You can only teach me what you know and trust me to figure out the rest for myself.]

Qui-Gon's long sigh of agreement then. [But I can be with you forever, my soul. And I will be. You will never be alone.]