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Nothing in the Dark - continued

(continued from part 15)

Qui-Gon walked to the outer wall of the balcony. He gave no indication he saw Obi-Wan as he passed him, taking the scant few moments to steel himself before beginning.

"Padawan."

Come for me, my Padawan . . . In Obi-Wan's head, Qui-Gon's words were overwritten by his lascivious command from last night's dream. There were no longer any boundaries between his sleeping and waking nightmares. And when had Qui-Gon returned to the rooms?

A breeze on his face made Obi-Wan look to his right. They were not in the rooms. They actually were on the balcony. What was he - What were they doing on the balcony?

He had been leaving, had gotten as far as . . . as . . . the front door. After -

"Is he alive?"

"Yes," Qui-Gon replied.

Though his padawan's voice sounded unnaturally flat, Qui-Gon thought Obi-Wan would ask another question. When he did not, Qui-Gon directed him to come out of the shadows.

Obi-Wan took a few halting steps forward.

Subdued was a drastic understatement, Qui-Gon thought, though he quickly masked the shock he felt. Obi-Wan looked decimated. His face was haggard and slack, his eyes were clouded and deeply sunken. His proud shoulders sagged; his arms hung limp at his sides. His clothes were disheveled, the front of his tunics smeared with Mekall's blood.

Obi-Wan knew what Qui-Gon saw was troubling, even as Qui-Gon's expression smoothed out. He also knew that should probably worry him but it seemed . . . unnecessary. In truth, he did not feel much of anything. Shouldn't he feel something? Some curiosity about what was going on?

"What did he say?" Obi-Wan attempted to show a semblance of interest.

"Mekall need not say anything, Obi-Wan. Something not unlike a thermal explosion broadcast across our bond and there are ten finger-shaped welts on his throat."

His throat. Welts shaped like fingers. My fingers.

The image of his hands choking Mekall faded almost as soon as it began to form. It was supplanted by a peculiarly comforting fog.

"Have you nothing to say?"

Obi-Wan blinked slowly and looked down. What was there to say, after all?

Finding himself flooded by a barrage of emotions, Qui-Gon mentally contested Zhy's turn of phrase again. Subdued? Emotionally squashed, perhaps, intellectually amputated, personality-bludgeoned might describe the facsimile of his padawan with which he was presented.

Qui-Gon wanted to sweep Obi-Wan up and rush him to the healers. The only thing that stopped him was knowing he had Obi-Wan to himself only for as long as they were on this balcony - and that was purely through Mace's auspices. Once they left their quarters, the results of recent days and the management of their aftermath would be all but out of his hands. In reality, he knew he may well have lost Obi-Wan when Obi-Wan lost control of himself. There was a chance this would be the last time they were ever alone together; it was one final opportunity to get to the root of Obi-Wan's disintegration.

"Can you explain yourself at all, Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon asked, relinquishing his conflicting impulses to the Force.

Obi-Wan could not answer. What he had done did not make sense to him. How could he explain it to his master? He and Mekall were talking, arguing; he was packing. The next he knew, he was astride a senseless Mekall unable to account for how Mekall had come to be on the floor beneath him, unconscious. The survival mechanism which had impelled him forward through this entire affair had taken over, and he had picked up his bag and left.

Or had started to.

He had been leaving. Had gotten as far as the front door . . .

How had he ended up out here?

He had been met. Turned back . . .

Funny exiling him to the balcony. Did they think they were sending him to safety? He tried to breathe past a renewed wave of fear, then it was gone and he felt only dizzy and a little ill.

Be calm. All will be well.

Obi-Wan's forehead furrowed and a deep crease appeared between his eyebrows. He had heard the words in his own voice but they were not his thoughts.

Qui-Gon saw Obi-Wan's expression sharpen, then drift back toward oblivion.

"Obi-Wan?" Obi-Wan's eyes lit on his master. His breathing quickened and his face pinched in concentration.

What was happening? What was being done to him? Obi-Wan meant to ask but instead he found himself attempting to make a break for the exit. His limbs were oppressively heavy and clumsy. Qui-Gon was farther away, but he reached the door first, blocking Obi-Wan's egress.

"Please let me pass," Obi-Wan appealed.

"I will not." Qui-Gon's attitude hardened at Obi-Wan's renewed interest in escape. "And were you able to get by me, Master Windu and Knight Zhy are inside. I assure you, you will not evade them."

"I'd never," Obi-Wan objected. He would never hurt Qui-Gon. He did not really want to leave anyway. He wanted to vanish.

"I would have thought not myself, as little as five days ago."

Five days. How, Obi-Wan asked himself, had this eternity been only five days?

"Who is Knight Zhy?" he queried. Had he been the one at the door?

"You're not acquainted with him. He was called when you . . . when your shields faltered," Qui-Gon explained.

'When your shields faltered.' Obi-Wan considered the dire implications inherent in that. How many Jedi beside himself, Mekall and his master had he tainted with his failure?

Obi-Wan looked desolate. His sympathy stirred anew, Qui-Gon sought to bolster his padawan. "You need not worry about that. No one else was hurt. Can you tell me what happened between you and Mekall?"

"It was my f -" Assigning blame was pointless. Taking responsibility? Just as bad. I wanted his ship so I could get as far away from you and the Temple as possible, Master. I tried to control his mind. Again.

"Mekall . . . was trying to stop me," Obi-Wan began again, "from making a bad mistake. The healers - I left. I came back here to . . . Mekall. I thought he would - but, he . . . wouldn't and I, I lost - I thought - It - It seemed . . ."

All expression left Obi-Wan's face as the unnatural peace encroached upon him. "What does it matter?" he asked listlessly. "There's no excuse for what I did." He went to the chairs, took a seat and stared off into space.

Obi-Wan had been having such difficulty that Qui-Gon did not want to interrupt him. Now, Obi-Wan's will was quashed before Qui-Gon could get an answer to his question. All Qui-Gon wanted, all he needed, was the truth. Finally on the brink of telling him, Obi-Wan was being muzzled.

How could he analyze these events if Obi-Wan were not allowed to speak freely? Qui-Gon had nowhere to vent his anger. Going inside to dispute the methods of the Shalonn Vittran with Knight Zhy would only shorten his time with Obi-Wan.

Perhaps a different line of questioning.

"Did Mekall hurt you? Did he strike you first?" Qui-Gon asked, seeking an explicable point of origin for the fight.

Obi-Wan heard the question as if from a distance. Was answering Qui-Gon's questions better or worse than giving in to the lure of the painless vacuum which wanted to usurp his mind?

He endeavored to focus on what Qui-Gon had said. Had Mekall struck him first?

"Why do you think that everything that's wrong between Mekall and me stems from Mekall? It stopped with Mekall. He -" A tremor coursed through Obi-Wan, impeding speech. He could not speak the truth. 'Mekall would've stopped me, so I tried to murder him.' It was barbarous, abhorrent.

"Would you prefer it if he had?" Obi-Wan asked instead. "Would that make what's happened explicable?"

"I am not the one who tried to strangle him." The blunt response stripped away whatever thin veneer of self-defense Obi-Wan's anger had granted him. "No," he said in a low voice, "I did. And today wasn't the first time. I tried to kill him on the Tavin."

Qui-Gon kept any emotion from crossing his face even as his mind raced and his hopes plummeted. Twice. Obi-Wan had tried to kill Mekall twice.

Mekall had begun telling him of it, Qui-Gon recalled, then shied away. There was a thing on the ship, as he had put it. After which, Mekall said, Obi-Wan had begun to decline. Qui-Gon had forgotten about it until now.

"What happened on the ship? Why did you want to kill Mekall then?"

Mekall told me he brainwashed me, but it was for my own good. That sounded obscene even in his head. Qui-Gon would not understand. "I can't tell you," Obi-Wan said in a constricted whisper.

Qui-Gon sighed without sighing. Was it Obi-Wan or Zhy denying him entry? He stepped in front of the chair and tilted Obi-Wan's chin up so that he could look him in the eye.

"Tell me about today then, this morning. Why did you leave the Archive?"

"This morning?" Obi-Wan repeated hoarsely, the madness of the day, the muffled din in his mind, the insanity of facing Qui-Gon in these circumstances all but overwhelming.

"Yes," Qui-Gon urged gently but emphatically, as if he could grant Obi-Wan clarity by force of will.

This morning. Last night. Trapped between them, Qui-Gon, Mekall, Dharuje. The bedroom. The ship. Perverse laughter. Pointless struggle.

"Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan responded instinctively to a note of supplication in the normally commanding voice. "Last night . . . This morning, that is, last night, I had the nightmare. I told you. You and Mekall . . ."

Even with the sedating influence at work, Obi-Wan could not say the words. The images were too close to the surface. And then the blankness started to creep over him again. This time he resisted it. He had to hold onto his thoughts. He had to.

"Afterward, when I was out here . . ." He took a deep breath and went on determinedly, "I almost leapt. I saw Mekall meditating and I couldn't - I can't. But then, I reached out and - You were there and you seemed . . . you were . . . you, and you were there and I thought . . . I . . . thought . . ."

Stop it, he growled at the alien sensation in his mind. He got up, hoping to use movement to gather and focus himself. He walked to the back wall.

I almost leapt. Qui-Gon replayed the hard-won comment. He strove to keep up a serene front although his heart was in his throat. He had stood in that common room, intending to respect Obi-Wan's privacy and provide him an opportunity to regain perspective. Instead, he had nearly given him the latitude to jump to his death. "I thought," Obi-Wan continued, "of all the times you've told me to be mindful of the present, live in the moment. Of your strength and your wisdom and your vision and how much I love you -" Obi-Wan was stopped by a staggering tremor.

It was out. The words he had dreaded saying were spoken. He was every bit as exposed, as laid bare, as he had feared on the Tavin, except it felt worse than he had anticipated. He had confessed one of his most intimately held secrets in this deplorable setting to the person such knowledge would wound most deeply. The admission seemed to break apart in the air before him, along with the last vestiges of his dignity, as Qui-Gon made no response.

The fight he had been fighting, the secrets he had been hiding, days and weeks of trying to hold onto the pieces of what constituted self, all to no end. For no purpose. Useless scars of a fruitless battle. All that he was, all that he had been, reduced to this dazed, staggering victim adrift in a wilderness of isolation. He was lost and he was losing his master.

Coldness enveloped Obi-Wan. His shaking grew worse as an all-encompassing despondency took hold of him. He felt as if a huge hole had opened at the bottom of his soul and was rising to swallow him feet to head.

What would be the point of hiding anything now? Pulling his tunics tighter around him, Obi-Wan slid down into a crouch. "What else do you need to know, Master?" he asked, sounding utterly crushed.

Sorrow stole Qui-Gon's voice. What a way to hear the declaration he had so longed for. "I didn't mean to kill Mekall today," Obi-Wan went on. "I only wanted him to come with me, but he wouldn't and then it seemed the cause of everything that happened was standing in front of me."

Relegating his sadness to the Force, Qui-Gon drew back strength to supplement himself and Obi-Wan. The energy he sent to Obi-Wan felt as if it barely penetrated his artificially augmented shields.

Qui-Gon went to one knee so that he was not towering over his padawan. "I too love you, Obi-Wan, and nothing you went through while we were apart will change that. You're my padawan. But I cannot protect you any longer if you won't me tell the whole truth.

"In the name of all we hold sacred, Obi-Wan, what did happen to you?" Unnerved by the rawness of Qui-Gon's entreaty, Obi-Wan could not look him in the face. "There's a lot I don't remember."

"Try starting with what you know for certain," Qui-Gon said.

"Getting shot hurt," Obi-Wan answered after a minute. He stood as he fought to circumvent renewed derailment of his thinking.

"Yes," Qui-Gon empathized as he too got to his feet, "as I recall, it does."

"Not compared to the beatings. The insurrectionists were tireless in their . . . enthusiasm."

Despite the content of the statement, Qui-Gon was glad to hear Obi-Wan revived enough to wield sarcasm.

"I had given up," Obi-Wan continued. "The Force inhibitor and the beatings. Your voice was like the Light itself. I tried to go to you, but, they, he, was there."

"He?"

"Dharuje," Obi-Wan explained, "the being who took me off Kiradian. When I came to I was on his ship."

Obi-Wan walked forward. Qui-Gon did not like him alone at the rail and went to him.

Qui-Gon could feel Obi-Wan's renewing horror seeping through his threadbare shields. As if the Force itself was responding, the wind gusted, blowing a stray lock of hair onto Qui-Gon's face. He brushed it away, saying, "Go on."

"Time was moving disjointedly," Obi-Wan said. "I'd lost all linear sense of it with my memory. I didn't know who I was or what I was, only that I was cold and wet and immobilized and . . . naked."

Obi-Wan met his master's eyes but looked away immediately.

"When I woke up, I couldn't move. I couldn't think clearly. Each time I came around, I didn't know if it was real. If I was waking over and over again in the same . . . place . . . or if I only thought it had all occurred before. I couldn't judge if, or what, was hallucination or reality. Everything seemed fluid, unmoored. I couldn't tell . . . I couldn't control my fear."

How many times? How many . . .

"He liked to hear me plead," Obi-Wan added.

The cold slimy arm sliding along his skin as he blacked out on Kiradian; awakening blind on the huge being's ship; dawning awareness that he was stripped and on display, his limbs stretched taut; hearing Dharuje drawing close . . .

"Dharuje was Ecenian. Do you know the species?" Obi-Wan inquired.

"Large," Qui-Gon answered, "amphibian." And, he recalled, they were -

"Covered with spines," Obi-Wan verbalized his thought. "Everywhere.

"He raped me, Master. He - Over and over. I couldn't move - I couldn't stop it. He, he just, he kept . . . " Obi-Wan's head shook minutely from side to side as if the depravity was too large to adequately deny. "There was n-nothing I could - s-stop. Until I stopped . . . being."

Obi-Wan's strength abandoned him entirely. Qui-Gon enclosed him in his arms, half expecting Obi-Wan to back away. He did the opposite, leaning on his master heavily.

Qui-Gon smoothed Obi-Wan's hair and rode out the paroxysm of grief as his padawan's recalled agony took its course. When Obi-Wan had ceased convulsing against him, Qui-Gon helped him to straighten up. Leaving his arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders - Obi-Wan was still shivering terribly - he walked him indoors.

They had no sooner gotten through the door than they were met by Mekall, responding, despite everything, to the suffering which had leached through the scant channels of the soul bond Zhy, of necessity, had left open. Knowing what would represent safety, Mekall had brought Qui-Gon's robe from the bedroom.

The hand Mace placed on Keyden Zhy's arm was enough to hold him back, temporarily.

Qui-Gon accepted the cloak from Mekall and wrapped it around Obi-Wan's shoulders as he took him to the couch.

Obi-Wan did not look at the others. He let Qui-Gon settle him onto the sofa, shut his eyes and hugged Qui-Gon's robe about him. He was not cold - though he could not stop the damnable trembling - but the robe felt of and smelled like Qui-Gon. He wished his master's arms were still around him.

He had told him, but where was the absolution? When, he wondered, had he been naive enough to hope it might be forthcoming?

Well beyond exhaustion, Obi-Wan felt as if the life had been drained from him while leaving the Force in place. He could feel the Force keenly, as if the other occupants of the room were physically prodding him with their every movement, every thought. He sought the affirmation of his bond with Qui-Gon, but it was Keyden Zhy who hovered at the edge of his consciousness like a bird of prey circling the weakest member of the herd.

Obi-Wan attempted to shield against the zealous knight. A shield formed but dissipated as quickly as it had set, tearing away other extant layers of shielding as it went. It seemed as if his essence was slipping away through his pores.

Qui-Gon sensed Obi-Wan's increased participation in their bond as he sat down next to his apprentice, but, if anything, Obi-Wan looked worse. His breathing was uneven and he was sweating. Qui-Gon leaned in to wipe perspiration from Obi-Wan's cheeks and forehead, endeavoring to fortify his padawan as he touched him.

"Obi-Wan, how - " Qui-Gon began and cut himself short. "Do you - " Curse the inarticulateness seeing Obi-Wan like this was breeding, he silently railed. Get a hold of yourself, Jinn. "Have you told anyone?"

"Told Mekall," Obi-Wan panted. "Needed you, but I . . . couldn't. I . . . tried, Master."

Qui-Gon swallowed hard. His beautiful padawan, the light of his life, a broken wreck beside him. He wanted very much to be face to face with Dharuje.

The lack of verbal response coupled with the violent impulse caused Obi-Wan to open his eyes. "Master?"

Qui-Gon did not trust himself to speak.

Please no, Obi-Wan thought. Please, please, no. I can take anything else. Don't turn against me. "Master, help me," Obi-Wan pleaded, sitting forward.

"With every resource at my command and every fiber of my being, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon pledged, abashed that Obi-Wan was unsure of having his support. His lone consolation was that, at last, Obi-Wan had appealed for the help he so sorely needed. "I don't know what will happen, but whatever it is, we'll face it together."

The words had the desired effect. Obi-Wan let himself sink back into the sofa.

Mace Windu had approached and was standing at a measured distance.

"I must speak with Mace," Qui-Gon said as Obi-Wan's eyes drifted closed. "I'll be right over there." Instead of going to Mace, Qui-Gon detoured to Mekall taking his arm in a vise grip.

"You knew he was raped," Qui-Gon accused in a hush little short of a growl, too close to the other man's face.

"Yes," Mekall said belligerently, yanking his arm out of Qui-Gon's grasp though pointedly not withdrawing. "And he's already dead."

"Who's dead?" Mace came between them, intentionally standing so close that each man was obliged to take a step back.

"The creature who held Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon answered stiffly.

"What happened to him?" Mace asked. It was essential that he know if Mekall, or worse yet Obi-Wan, had been his murderer.

"There were other people on Larral who thought a Jedi would make a good pet," Mekall answered. "Dharuje didn't have the Jedi and couldn't supply the answers they were looking for. We found his body when we were looking for Hilty."

"Hilty?"

"My partner. He was the one who located Obi-Wan."

At hearing his name, Obi-Wan opened his eyes. If by some stroke of mercy Mekall was still willing to stand with him, he was certainly not going to leave him to be cross-examined by his master and Mace Windu. Obi-Wan dragged himself up, leaving Qui-Gon's robe behind.

"There's more," he heard Mekall say.

Mekall, no! Obi-Wan shouted across their link. The surge of alarm he was experiencing had somehow re-enabled mental communication with his bondmate, but the connection cost him. Obi-Wan had to brace himself against the arm of the sofa to keep from collapsing back onto it.

As unnerving as it was to have the bond grow more active, Mekall did not let it deter him. He was through playing games. It was best to air all his dirty laundry at once and get it over with. Stalling and prevarication had gotten them to where they were today. He had little to lose and he was through hiding.

"You're going to find out sooner rather than later anyway. I do, or, I did, political indoctrination on Larral. I'd been out of that business for a few years. Obi-Wan sustained a lot of damage. I kept healing him, even after it had begun to harm me. I didn't know what was going on, just that I wanted him like mad and I was . . . losing control. I got scared."

"And?" Zhy prompted.

"I buzzed him."

"What does that mean?" Mace inquired.

"I was in the brainwashing business. I brainwashed him. I erased Obi-Wan's memories of his . . . mistreatment. I thought if I could get him on his feet, I could be rid of him. I wanted him out of my house."

"Did he know?" Mace asked.

Obi-Wan's firm "Yes" overlapped with Mekall's annoyed "Yeah, he knew," surprising almost everyone. Obi-Wan had not looked as if he would be able to stand up, much less walk over to them.

Mekall was not surprised. As the bond continued to reopen, Obi-Wan began to draw energy from it. Mekall did not think Obi-Wan was aware of what he was doing; it was not as if he could say anything to him in this crowd either way.

"Look," Mekall blustered, strong front more false by the second, "what do you think is going on between us?"

"That," Mace asserted, "is what we're trying to determine."

Qui-Gon, who was receiving part of what passed between Obi-Wan and Mekall thirdhand through the master-apprentice bond, sensed Mekall weakening. He caught him as Mekall's knees buckled.

"Might you like to see a healer now?" Qui-Gon asked as he helped Mekall to a chair.

I'll go if you make it stop, Mekall wanted to say, but he would not give him the satisfaction. Despite feeling that Obi-Wan was too many places at once, that he was smothering him, that the marrow was being sucked out of his bones while his brain was being stabbed with a hot poker.

"Maybe," was as close to a concession as Mekall got before his eyes rolled into their sockets.

Kneeling to take Mekall's pulse, Qui-Gon nodded in the affirmative to Mace. Mace went to the com to request a healer and gurney be sent to Qui-Gon's quarters.

From what Qui-Gon could tell, most of the draw on Mekall stopped when he lost consciousness. Now, Obi-Wan was coming over to them. Qui-Gon doubted it was a good idea for Obi-Wan to be in close proximity to Mekall in the present circumstances.

As, evidently, did Keyden Zhy. "Padawan Kenobi," he began, making a straight line for Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon was on his feet instantly, putting himself in Zhy's path. Bad enough the man was in Obi-Wan's head. Qui-Gon watched Obi-Wan cross to Mekall out of the corner of his eye as he stared Zhy down.

Obi-Wan crouched shakily by Mekall. Taking his hand as though he would have liked permission first, he softly spoke his bondmate's name. Mekall did not stir.

Exasperated, Zhy strode away. He would not let himself be drawn into a clash of wills with the overemotional master.

Qui-Gon did not know if Obi-Wan and Mekall were worse off together or apart. As misguided as some of their efforts had turned out to be, the two men had nurtured and provided succor to one another through the aftermath of Obi-Wan's ordeal and his dismal homecoming. Mekall had evidently kept nothing from Obi-Wan; Obi-Wan had clearly told Mekall everything. Even now, Mekall's instinct was to protect and defend Obi-Wan. It was impossible to deny the validity of their connection. The soul bond had to be a powerful one to have sustained them: a true bond, one of the light.

But how to proceed? With Obi-Wan, with Mace, with the other Jedi before whom he would soon have to defend his padawan's choices, as well as his own. Qui-Gon permitted himself a long-delayed sigh and sat down near Obi-Wan and Mekall.

As serious as a situation had to be to necessitate the use of the Shalonn Vittran, Mace Windu had quickly come to find Zhy nettlesome. He quelled his annoyance as the persistent knight approached.

"Master Windu, I really must object."

"Noted, Knight Zhy. Though my inclination is the same as yours, I do not see the harm in letting Obi-Wan tend to his bondmate for the time being. The healer will arrive shortly. It will be easier on all of us if Padawan Kenobi remains compliant. They are soul bonded."

"Under extremely dubious circumstances. How can you condone Nower's actions?"

"I neither condone nor condemn them," Mace's reply took a reprimanding tone. "Are you questioning the will of the Force?"

"Certainly not."

"Then you would simply deny Obi-Wan an interval's respite."

"It makes no difference to me if Kenobi agrees to his -"

"Keyden, this is difficult enough without pursuing rigid, arbitrary strictures," Mace said. "A little compassion."

"With respect, Master Windu, that is not my job," Zhy declared. Sketching a bow, he withdrew, going to stand as close to Obi-Wan as Qui-Gon's stare would countenance.

Ignoring Zhy, Qui-Gon knelt next to Obi-Wan to take Mekall's pulse again. It was steady and some color had already returned to his face. The same could not be said of Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon did not like the intensity with which Obi-Wan was staring at Mekall. It would be like Obi-Wan to try to channel energy back into his bondmate, but at this point it was likely to do more harm than good. Obi-Wan's Force presence was dangerously diffuse, though he did not seem to perceive it.

"He'll be all right, I think, Obi-Wan. Life with you can be exhausting under ordinary conditions," Qui-Gon jested to divert Obi-Wan's attention from Mekall.

Obi-Wan appeared startled by the small joke, then smiled slightly, as if belatedly remembering the appropriate reaction to humor.

"I don't know how the two of you have kept going this long," Qui-Gon remarked.

"It was the . . ." Obi-Wan's words faded away.

"The soul bond, Obi-Wan. It's all right to say it," Qui-Gon said.

Eyes full of regret, Obi-Wan's attention shifted to his master.

"Let's get up." Qui-Gon stood and raised a hesitant Obi-Wan with him. "The med-evac will be here any minute." He did not want Obi-Wan to have to walk the halls torn apart and stained with Mekall's blood. "You can clean up a little before we go to the healers."

In the 'fresher, Obi-Wan had to sit down to merely contemplate being able to remove his boots. Qui-Gon could see the strain even that simple task was putting on him. At the same time, he could discern Zhy's Force aura mingling with Obi-Wan's as the knight increased his aegis over his padawan. But how could he protest? These were not the emotional restraints of earlier. Zhy was simply doing what he had been brought in to do, protecting the rest of the Jedi from Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan removed his outer tunic, saw Mekall's blood and froze.

"I'll bring you a fresh one." Qui-Gon quickly took the tunic out of his hands. "Be right back," he assured, resting his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder.

When Obi-Wan met his master's eyes, the warmth he saw in Qui-Gon's gaze was whole and unreserved. Qui-Gon gave Obi-Wan's shoulder a gentle squeeze. It was enough to return him to the task at hand as Qui-Gon left the room.

Boots removed, Obi-Wan rested against the sink as he attempted to rouse himself enough to wash his hands and face. That was all he needed to do, all Qui-Gon had asked. Clean up a little. Wash your face. Looking up, Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror.

That cannot be me.

Obi-Wan reached out to touch the image, to prove to himself whether what he was seeing was truly there. When his fingertips made contact with the mirror, blood blossomed under them. It ran over his reflected cheek onto his clothes. He touched the mirror tunics where a muddy scarlet trail snaked downward.

It's not real. If I look at myself, not my reflection, it won't be there. He took a moment to convince himself and another to collect himself, then tipped his head down.

No. No . . . it's - not - there . . .

But it was. He was streaked with oily sanguinity and it was spreading. A filthy, mottled coating of darkening redbrowngrey. It ran down his arms, seeped into the opening of his tunics, coursed over his chest and torso, spilled down his legs.

Remnants of acts he would not give name to oozed down the insides of his thighs.

Tearing ineffectually at his clothes, Obi-Wan backed away from the hideous, befouled wraith in the glass.

Qui-Gon went to Obi-Wan's room for a fresh garment, but Mace intervened before he could bring it to Obi-Wan. "The techs will be here shortly," Mace said. "You know Obi-Wan will have to be sequestered.

"He attempted to kill Nower," Mace added, not giving Qui-Gon leeway to voice the disagreement he read on his face.

"It wasn't really him, Mace. He was brutally abused."

"Qui-Gon, you know how I feel about him. If there was any other way -" Mace caught himself straying over the line between personal and professional opinion. There were procedures which had to be followed. He would carry them out. "There is no alternative."

As he spoke, Mace saw Keyden Zhy cross the room. He expected the knight to lodge a new grievance, but he passed the two masters and walked down the hall to the 'fresher.

Qui-Gon stepped away from Mace, easily outpacing Zhy in the hallway. As he approached the 'fresher, he heard water running, far too much water.

The sight which greeted him through the 'fresher doorway was unhappy confirmation. Fully dressed except for his outer tunics, Obi-Wan sat huddled against the back of the shower being pelted by heavy streams of water, awkwardly scrubbing at himself with his hands.

Qui-Gon stepped into the water puddled around the tub. Obi-Wan had not closed the shower doors.

"Obi-Wan," he said soothingly, "why don't you come out?"

Obi-Wan stared straight ahead, oblivious to his master, jaggedly running his tightly fisted hand over his arm. Qui-Gon reached in to dial down the water. Obi-Wan swiveled his head toward him in slow motion. Qui-Gon did not get the impression Obi-Wan knew who he was.

"Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan blinked rapidly a few times, then his eyes cleared. "Master?"

"Yes, Padawan. It's me. We're going to go where you can rest and get well."

"Rest? I can't rest," Obi-Wan sounded panicky. "He's there, when I close my eyes."

"I know, Padawan, but there's help now." There always was if only you would have asked sooner. "We'll make it stop. Please get out."

Obi-Wan did not.

The door chimed. That would be the healers.

Qui-Gon reached into the shower. Frightened by the movement, Obi-Wan jerked away, losing his balance. Qui-Gon both reached for him and extended the Force to make sure he did not fall. Obi-Wan grabbed onto Qui-Gon's arms for dear life. Thinking to loosen Obi-Wan's grip, Qui-Gon leaned in. Obi-Wan held onto him more tightly.

Knowing they had to get out to the common room, Qui-Gon maneuvered himself into a position where he would be able to pick Obi-Wan up. He thought Obi-Wan might fend him off, but Obi-Wan not only let Qui-Gon lift him but wrapped his arms around Qui-Gon's neck. As Qui-Gon settled him into place, Obi-Wan's head came to rest on Qui-Gon's chest. The master's heart was nearly wrenched out of that chest. Obi-Wan had never clung to him so, not even as a child.

Zhy had stood in the door frame watching the entire scene. As he stepped back to let Qui-Gon pass, he said, "I'm sorry, Master Jinn."

Qui-Gon went out to the common room where Mekall was being secured into an anti-grav stretcher by a med droid. A humanoid healer approached Qui-Gon with a stretcher for Obi-Wan. "I'd rather carry him," Qui-Gon said.

The healer glanced at Mace for approval before she agreed to the request.

(continued in part 17)