FicWad

Additional Author's Notes: 1) Please recall that lengthy italicized passages signify memories.
2) The extremely long scene that needed to be cut into two pieces pickes up immediately, below!







Obi-Wan blinks at her, clearly startled by her question and unsure how to respond, his mouth opening and then closing again twice before he finally attempts to respond, admitting, "Well, Master Simikarty and other such renown Jedi Masters - possibly even some Grand Masters - have, in the past, elaborated somewhat on the original tenets, but the Code itself - "

"Then the Jedi Code was not all written at one go?" she demands, raising both of her eyebrows this time as she cuts him off, refusing to yield and allow herself (or the argument) to be sidetracked, increasingly convinced by his attempts to either dodge her or else deflect their discussion down another line of thought that the point she is trying to make is an important one and that he needs to truly hear it.

"Well, no, but - "

"Then it was not complete at the time of its creation," she flatly declares, cutting off his attempted excuse. Carefully not smiling (though the growing feeling of surety and triumph within her tempts her sorely to smile), she continues immediately, before he can try to cut her off with some other attempt at explanation or complaint or justification, voice cool as she firmly notes, "Ergo, the text of it is not infallible."

"That's hardly fair, Padmé!" Obi-Wan snaps, voice rising in volume and eyes suddenly flashing with affront, brows lowering in an angry scowl, his left wrist twitching powerfully within her grasp as his right hand plants itself on his hip in a plainly combative manner, the hand trapped by her grimly determined grip plainly wanting to mirror its counterpart but checked by Obi-Wan's apparent unwillingness to use plain brute force to rip himself away from her. Since she continues to refuse to let go - not trusting him to stay put long enough to finish the argument unless she literally keeps a hold on him - after a moment he makes an impatient huffing noise, raises his right hand up off of his hip, and then lets his arm fall back down by his side. "Master Odan-Urr lived and worked during roughly the era of the Great Hyperspace War," he informs her, then, his much quieter tone of voice clearly trying for serene surety, as though he might convince her by the sheer reasonableness of his tone, regardless of what he might actually be saying to her, "and he could scarcely be expected to - "

"And he is?" she only demands, lifting her chin challengingly and snapping right back at him, not at all impressed by either his sudden convenient flare of temper or his abrupt show of excessive reasonableness.

"He was the Jedi Master and librarian who compiled the original mantra of the Code," Obi-Wan replies, his tone and mien abruptly plunging past tranquility into outright iciness again, as though she has knowingly offered affront against a well-known hero instead of merely asking to be told some details about some mysterious figure from Jedi lore so obscure as to be entirely unknown among the histories of the general public.

"A librarian?" she merely repeats, not bothering to keep either her incredulity at Obi-Wan's answer or her increasing scorn at his attempts to overturn her argument out of her voice. "Well, then, since he apparently compiled this mantra from others he came across, in his studies, I suppose it would be safe for me to say that he was not an avatar of the Force itself? He wasn't the actual voice of the Force, given flesh?"

"Well, no, but - "

"Then why, am'chara, would you assume that words from his lips - or annotated copies of his records of his research, I suppose, since his work has, by your own admission, been edited and reedited by many of the Jedi Masters who succeeded him - are infallible?" she simply and quietly asks, not a trace of triumph in her voice or manner as she watches him apparently shrink in on himself and retreat to a place within where no one can follow, the light in his eyes dying and all of the tensed muscles in his body abruptly relaxing, as though the most vital part of him has somehow found a way to divorce itself entirely from the proceedings.

"The Code encapsulates the Jedi way of life. As time passes, the galaxy changes, and the beings of the galaxy must find ways to adapt themselves to those changes, or else they will perish. So, too, has it been with the Jedi. We adapt ourselves to the changing times, and so, too, has our Code evolved and grown, changing to reflect the alterations within both the Order as a whole and the Jedi themselves, as necessitated by the passage of time," Obi-Wan replies in the same flat, toneless, rapid voice that means he is reciting something he has been instructed on at great lengths, from a great many sources. It is a voice that she is rapidly growing to hate, recognizing it as a voice of indoctrination. "There is no argument you could possibly seek to bring against the Code that has not already been attempted by thousands - possibly millions - of Jedi and Jedi initiates before you, and all of those arguments have been refuted by the Masters. I should know. I've brought several of them - including many you haven't thought of - against it, to the dismay and disappointment of both my teachers in the Temple and my Master, Qui-Gon Jinn. I plagued poor Master Yoda with such an endless stream of questions, as a youngling in the crèche, that I am frankly surprised the Grand Master put up with me, much less that he sought to make sure I would become Master Jinn's Padawan. And before you ask, yes, even my Master, legendary though he is becoming for his inability to cooperate with the High Council, does not doubt the validity of the Code. As my Master, he has reason to remind me of it often. 'There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force.'"

"That - that is monstrous./ Obi-Wan, do you even hear yourself? I know you have been taught to obey the Jedi Code and revere its wisdom, but can't you see how utterly at odds this so-called wisdom is with the very real wisdom you've just offered to me from the lessons you were given as a youngling in the crèche, about the need we all have to keep striving for balance in our lives?" Shocked and dismayed almost beyond words by what she is hearing, Padmé nonetheless tries to reason with him, to point out what is, to her, an obvious contradiction between what is demanded of the Jedi by their Code and what is also accepted by the Jedi as necessary for all other sentient beings in the galaxy, the blatant lack of balance in the Jedi's approach to life so staggering, the demands placed upon the Jedi by their Code so wholly impossible to live up to and calling for such overwhelmingly unhealthy behavior and beliefs, in her eyes, that she cannot, for the life of her, understand how the Jedi Order could have possibly survived for as long as it has without its members literally tearing themselves, the Order, and the galaxy apart - a terrible thought that, suddenly, brings to mind an almost unthinkably horrible idea, for, even as little as she knows about the Jedi Order Padmé knows enough to be aware that the Jedi Order has always seemed to spawn its own worst enemies, the Sith themselves having sprung from the defeated remnants of a war between Dark Jedi and Light Jedi, and if it is, as seems all too possible to her, this flaw in philosophy that has brought about such conflicts, and if Obi-Wan himself cannot see the obviousness of the flaw . . . Finding herself suddenly lightheaded and sick with fear and horror, she begins to whisper helplessly, in a stunned and hollow voice that sounds nothing at all like her own to her ears, "Obi-Wan, /am'chara, you cannot possibly believe that - "

As though he has not heard her, Obi-Wan simply continues speaking in that rapid, low monotone, declaring, "The Code is not meant to be taken entirely literally, of course. We are not so foolish as to try to deny ourselves all emotion, for example, especially not when the central mandate of our Order is unfailing compassion for all beings. The refutation of both emotion and passion are not meant to deny Jedi their feelings, but rather to remind us that we cannot allow ourselves to be ruled or overcome by our baser instincts, which inevitably lead down the path to the Dark Side. The lines of the Code are meant to function as teaching tenets and reminders of duty in addition to stating ideals that sum up the philosophy of the Jedi and the Order, and - "

"That does not make it any less horrible or the tenets that it teaches you and all of your brethren any less hypocritical!" Padmé immediately flares back, interrupting the hateful sound of that conditioned and unthinking voice, catapulted to a place beyond fury by the inescapable and gut-wrenchingly horrible recognition that Obi-Wan has been taught to accept, without question, a way of living for himself and all of the other Jedi, too, that obviously and entirely contradicts a very basic and hard but no less truthful guiding principal that the Jedi have somehow learned to recognize applies equally to all sentient beings in the galaxy . . . save for one glaring exception, focused around a blind spot about themselves and the way of life that their Code, with its many accompanying rules, demands of them, that is so absolute that apparently not even describing the blind spot in exquisitely painful detail to one of its own (someone who is, to all appearances, an intelligent and independent and sensitive and strong and upright young man, who should be able to look past the untruths accepted and taught by his Order . . . unless of course the indoctrination and training that the Jedi Order uses upon its own is even more terrible and absolute than Padmé can bring herself to imagine . . . ) is enough to make one of them aware of it enough that he can understand why that blind spot's existence is so very dangerously wrong.

Obi-Wan merely looks at her blankly, his stark look of incomprehension so complete that Padmé might have been tempted to wonder if she had somehow begun speaking to him in a whole other language, something so alien to him that it might as well have been gibberish and nonsense syllables instead of proper words with specific meanings, if not for the slightest hint of a shadow of hurt, lingering at the back of his eyes. "Forgive me, Padmé, but I am afraid that I do not and cannot follow your argument. The Force . . . is very difficult to explain to those who are not sensitive enough to be knowingly attuned to its workings. I don't mean to be rude, Padmé, but you are not overly Force-sensitive. I fear I could never explain it to you properly. There are some things that one must feel and experience first-hand in order to truly comprehend them. The Force and the way in which it acts as a balancing influence, for those who are gifted with the ability to hear its voice and understand its will and the wisdom and selflessness to obey that will and voice without doubt or question, is just such a thing. It must be lived. I am sorry, Padmé, but the truths found in the Jedi Code were given to the wisest and most powerful among us, those with enough strength of will and purity of purpose both to seek to listen to the Force's voice and to obey its will by transcribing and passing on the wisdom gained through that carefully attentive listening. It was not voted upon in committee. The rules we live by were given to the Masters by the Force, passed along to the rest of the Jedi through the teachings of those Masters, and eventually were recognized as unbreakable tenets within the Order, binding to all who came to the Order, by the will of the High Council Masters whose wisdom had first received those rules to begin with. These rules change only when the Force wills them to and only if the galaxy itself has altered enough to warrant such a necessity. These are not things that can be changed arbitrarily or altered through the will of one person alone."

"I am not a committee! Though frankly I fail to see the difference between your Order's High Council and just such a political body!" Padmé only cries, finally dropping her hold on his left wrist so that she can wrap her arms comfortingly around herself, her feelings inexplicably hurt by Obi-Wan's oblique reference to politics and political bodies and what might or might not be meant as an intentional slight against leaders with enough personal power to arbitrarily change entire bodies of laws whether they also have sufficient wisdom to understand the full meaning and fitness of the existent laws or not. Though her determination both to better the lives of the citizens of Naboo and to be a true servant of democracy has led her to choose to commit herself to the realm of politics, she is not a career politician, and the idea that Obi-Wan might be able to view her in such an unflattering light breaks her heart.

Obi-Wan merely blinks at her mildly before patiently explaining, "I did not say that you were a committee, Padmé. I said that, because you cannot truly understand what the Force is like, since you are not sensitive enough to its energies to be able to experience the reality of the Force, I cannot properly explain to you how the Force acts as a balancing influence upon the Jedi. You must trust me when I say that it is so and that the Code all Jedi abide by, as members of the Order, accurately reflects both the will and the voice of the Force, which balances and completes us . . . when we are mindful enough to listen and to heed it."

"I trust you/ Obi-Wan. I trust you implicitly! But what you are telling me about this Code - idealized teaching tenets or not - and the way that the Jedi Order operates makes no rational sense. There is no logical way that the Jedi could live healthy lives, much less balanced ones, under such unbalanced and biased rules. How can you stand there and tell me that life for all sentient beings is struggle, because true living is defined by individual personal growth and such growth requires constant effort, to avoid the entrapment of either outright stagnation or else of either becoming automatons allowing others to direct us or else of losing all sense of self to the endless needs and wants of other beings, and then turn right around and insist that the Force exempts all Jedi from this necessity because it, in some inexplicable, mystical manner, provides each Jedi with a sense of balance if that individual Jedi obeys its will?" she only demands back, stubbornly refusing to back down or let the argument drop, convinced even more than ever of the validity of her protest, given that additional clause regarding the Force's ability to provide balance /only /to those Jedi who are supposedly sufficiently wise and selfless to be so wholly obedient to its will and voice (and, by extension, to the Code) that they have, in essence, given over control of themselves either to the Force itself or to the written rules that are supposed to exist because (according to the word of the Jedi Masters on the High Council who evidently decreed that these precepts were to be as law, for all of the Order) the Force willed its voice to be heard on the matter by a specific few within the Order. She has always heard great things of the Jedi and placed much store on the renown wisdom of the Masters on the High Council - especially that of the Order's Grand Master, Yoda, whose fame has burned brightly the length and breadth of the known galaxy over for centuries, now - but if unprovable mandates and obviously faulty logic is what lies at the core of the Order, Padmé is suddenly quite certain that there is something very /wrong, both with the Order itself and with the galactic-wide aggregate of beings who can so unquestioningly trust in and revere the wisdom and efficacy of an Order of highly developed and skilled Force-sensitives and warriors whose training is so flawed and so patently unhealthy that it must, logically, drive the whole lot of them constantly to the ragged edge of breaking. She is so sure of this that the urge to simply snatch Obi-Wan up and spirit him away from the Jedi community and way of life is so strong that her fingers literally itch with the need to rescue him.

Obi-Wan, though, simply regards Padmé silently for several long moments, obviously deep in thought, before finally asking, voice distant and eyes focused on her in a considering (but chillingly impersonal) manner, "Are you quite sure that you trust me, Padmé?"

"Of course I trust you! Haven't I just said that I - ?"

"I ask," he cuts in, overriding her hurt and angry retort, "because if you are entirely certain that you trust me, I can attempt to show you the truth of what I have been saying. You must be absolutely sure that you trust me, though. Your mind and will cannot resist mine when I reach out to you, or else my meager skill and power in the Force will not be equal to the task of holding the connection. You are too self-aware and your will is too strong for me to compel you or even truly establish contact with you, through the Force, unless your trust is complete enough to allow me egress. Because you have a strong mind and will, you have natural defenses that guard you against casual or unwanted intrusion by one who is strong in the Force. If I had to, I could perhaps force the issue, but I would not like to have to try to break through your shields. It would be a form of violation and I do not want to do that. So I ask you again: are you absolutely sure that you trust me, Padmé?"

"I have trusted you with my life, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and with the deepest thoughts and fears of my mind and heart. I would willingly trust you with much more than that. You need never ask me such a thing," Padmé replies without hesitation, unflinchingly holding his gaze.

"Ah." For a moment Obi-Wan looks flustered by her words and uncertain of himself, but then his gaze hardens and he nods, saying, "Very well, then, Padmé. I will never ask that of you again. If you will allow me?" Obi-Wan steps closer to her then, so near that the toes of his boots are all but touching the edge of her skirt, and raises his hands up between them before pausing, right eyebrow quirked questioningly, clearly waiting for permission.

She nods once, silently, not entirely able to keep her eyes from widening as he reaches for her with both hands, cupping her face between his long and 'saber-calloused fingers (and Obi-Wan must be ambidextrous with that blade. It's the only thing that explains the callouses on both hands, mirrored all but exactly from palm to palm) with the same kind of gentle reverence that she has seen new parents bestow upon their firstborn and the newly bound lavish upon his or her declared wife or husband. He somehow moves even closer to her, then, though they are already toe to toe, and for one heart-stopping breathless moment she thinks that he is about to lean in and kiss her, his face is so near to hers, and she wants that, by the Force, by all that is/, she wants Obi-Wan to kiss her, she wants /Obi-Wan -

- and between one blink and the next, sudden sourceless light breaks over her and washes her under.

Caught mid-breath, her heart frozen in mid-beat, by that sudden burst of illumination, Padmé feels a sudden wave of energy flow into her - pure, raw, vast power, like nothing she has ever experienced before. Light and life and love ignites her. Hot as the weight of a sun, the inexplicable light picks out her shape and then floods within, etching all that she is against and within that vast field of fiery power. She tries to move but cannot budge for the pressure, the pleasure, of that suffusive light. She tries to look past the illumination, to find Obi-Wan's face, which she knows is near to her own (or had been, but an instant before), but all she can see is electrical blue-white, harder than the washed out hue of a heat-leached sky and deeper than sight itself can plumb, fixed like a veil before her, somehow both screening her and infolding her in its embrace. Then she is somehow both washing up out of herself into that blue-touched light and being washed in upon herself by the same caressing and pervasive wave of blued energy, flooding full of a lighted love so strong and unshakeable that it both roots her in place and lifts her up out of herself, the heat and pleasure of it as refined and adamantine as pure pain. Bliss, ecstacy, clarity, light, life, love, Light -

In the light-washed purity of the fraction of a moment when thought it still possible, before feeling washes all else out, Padmé understands that the purposeful touch of Obi-Wan's spirit has in some way caused all of the barriers between her and the Force to break open and fall away, releasing her to its all-pervasive energies like a splitting chrysalis presenting a newly born and yet fully fledged butterfly to the light. She is empowered and galvanized, her heart and mind and soul rendered transcendent, her entire being translucent with light, until she feels all but omnipotent, open to the Force and flooded so full of its energies that she is entirely certain she could perform miracles if only she knew what to do, where to begin, with so much power at her disposal. She is simultaneously in her body and out of it, able to sense beyond three, even four dimensions. It feels as though she might grab hold of the fabric of space and time itself and turn it, twist it, mold it in any manner that suits her. For the one blinding instant in which she can feel the Force, as she has never been strong enough to do so before, she knows it in all of its entirety. There is a kind of . . . cosmic consciousness, in which she feels connected to all things, everywhere, able to do anything, anything at all -

- for in that timeless moment, Padmé does not just feel/ the Force but rather she /is the Force. Stars are born, planets spawned, civilizations rise, fall, the planets grow barren, their stars growing cold and still or else collapsing in upon themselves into the immense gravity wells of black holes. Time flows like a blaster bolt, like a ship at hyperspeed, and yet still somehow she is able to track it all. Every detail on every world in all the galaxies all the way outwards til the bounds of the universe. And even that is not the end. Oh, no. For the background radiation of space is not the relict temperature of any hypothesized Big Bang. Rather, she understands that it is the heat of an endless and expanding energy field, the inertial unity of the continuum. And the crushing wells of black holes are not the permanent graves that they have been assumed to be, either, for black holes grow. The endless streams of energy that they swallow are locked into them by their gargantuan gravity fields, yes, but inside the almost absolute zero cold shells of their event horizons is a heat so unimaginably great that the hottest and wildest of stars in the cosmos pale to icy coldness in comparison. Eventually, with enough time, that heat builds up until it finally it grows so unbelievably intense that gravity itself breaks down, and in the instant in which this happens even a black hole will explode. Such an event doesn't produce an immense explosion, as such things go. They are nothing like supernovas. The enormous gravitational and magnetic fields muffle the blast, and all of the star plasma and synchroton radiation the black hole has been gathering in upon itself are channeled by lines of irresistible force to both poles, where they jet out into space again. Over time, this material is recycled into new stars, and the process begins all over again. Bubbles within and alongside other bubbles of endlessly spewing and syphoned off and then recycled energy, cooling and slowing into mater. Chains of bubbles, spiraling outward and inward into forever, an infinite corridor of all of the endless and always expanding numbers of universes, a multiverse strung upon a chain of singularities. No Big Bang and no eventual cease of expansion and slow but inevitable collapse back inward upon itself into implosion and void. Just endless cycles of growth, pushing eternally outwards in all directions and dimensions.

The certainty of this knowledge is as indeterminate as the experience of gaining it is indescribable. A final stray thought encompasses the entire ineffable and timeless moment: This must be what it feels like to be a deity, should such things actually exist.

Later, she will never be entirely sure how long the experience lasts. A few moments or a few eons, there is no real way to time it . . .

Then it is over. Padmé staggers, stunned by the experience, and would have fallen if not for the steady warm pressure of Obi-Wan's hands around her head, his fanning fingers framing her face and cupping her, holding her, like a man about to lean in for a kiss from his sweetheart. The scalding weight of his hands upon her bare skin gives her something to focus upon, and this steadies her just enough to keep from collapsing. She can barely breathe, though. The surge of power and knowledge is passing, but remnants of it continues to swirl within her, potent patterns that eddy and dance throughout the whole of her being. Though shock makes her legs unsteady, she feels elated and refreshed, and there is a sense, somehow, that she has become both stronger and wiser, because of her experience, even though some of the details are already inexorably slipping away, the memories of things too large and wonderful and strange for her small and untrained mind to hold onto clearly. The overall impression of the experience is still potent, though, pinwheeling in her mind in a glory of light and love and sights and sounds and smells and tastes and feelings and all-enfolding touch . . . This/ is what a relationship with the Force can be like, for those who surrender to it wholly. /This is how such a relationship should be, all the time, if one is to avoid tumbling into the trap of selfishness and the Dark Side . . .

Padmé frowns, feeling a tiny tug at her memory. A flaw. A looming disaster. Something that is not right, something jarringly imperfect in the midst of such perfection of oneness with the Force . . . But what is it? Padmé frowns again, a little deeper. It is so difficult to concentrate, in the wake of such an overwhelming gift from the Force!

"It is my understanding that such experiences can be disorienting. How do you feel?" His voice, resonant and melodious in a way that reminds her of the way that trained singers and storytellers often sound, sends a delicious frisson of pleasure shivering down her spine and distracts her so utterly from the thought that she has been trying to catch a hold of that she finds herself simply staring up at him and smiling. The Force, still swirling around and within her in ebbing currents, fills her with certainty and love as she gazes up into those beautiful mostly blue eyes - the irises flecked, as she now observes, with an entire palette of color, blues and indigos dominating, true, but dappled with greens and clouded with grey and scattered with shy patches of violet and rimmed with an almost mercurial halo of some incandescent not-color, something that flashes bright and hard and inhuman, like the dazzle of light off a fragment of mirror or the polished shine of a bauble of braided silver and gold - and as she looks upon him, with absolute trust and devotion, a stray tendril of the Force, whispering to her of purpose and joy, moves her to reach out to him, not only moving to place her own small hands over his but also stretching out, like the image of that newly hatched butterfly, gathering up all the stray power still skirling and dancing within her so that she is once again being propelling up out of herself, the whole of her being drawn up through her body like rising sap, to spill out through her eyes, only this time, instead of tumbling out into light, she dives within the depths of those kaleidoscopic eyes -

- only there is a sense of nearly bruising shock almost immediately, as of fetching up hard and fast against an unexpectedly shallow bottom, and as she hangs there upon that surface, seemingly splayed painfully against an invisible but impassable barrier, she seems to hear a familiar low rumble of a voice, a deep baritone, liltingly accented, speaking, in an overlapping jumble of sound and meaning that makes it difficult, at first, to pick out the individual words.

" . . . I have you. You can let go. I will not let them hurt you again, little one . . . "

"You are the child of my heart . . . "

" . . . I dare not risk this, youngling, no matter what the Force may seem to be saying . . . I cannot trust myself to be your Master, as I have promised, and . . . if you cannot touch the Force, then you cannot fall, as he did . . . "

" . . . /No /. . . Our destinies lie along different paths . . . You must forget about me."

" . . . You deliberately disobeyed my order . . . No . . . You can't force people to be just and decent. Such qualities arise from within - they cannot be forced from without . . . No. I'm not /testing you, Obi-Wan. /Life tests you! Every day it brings you new chances for triumph or defeat. And if you pass the test, it doesn't make you a Jedi. It makes you /human/."

The shock of another voice - entirely unknown to her, not so deep as the one that has been speaking in that overlapping cacophony of sound and accented in a way that is difficult to pin down or define but nonetheless is still distinctly different from the voice of any being she has ever heard before, though something in its timbre is hauntingly like Obi-Wan's voice, even if the pitch is deeper and the tone is rougher - cutting unexpectedly and cleanly through the noisy babble of the first vaguely familiar voice hits her like the impact of an unexpected blow.

"I used to be his apprentice, too . . . I was his Padawan. So I know what you go through every day/, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I /know what you wait for. His approval. His trust. But he keeps both from you. He keeps a skin of ice around himself. The more you try to please him, the farther away he goes. Yoda praises him. The Galactic Senate depends on him. Everyone vies to be his apprentice. But he is the worst kind of Master. He denies you his trust. Yet, he demands everything of you . . . I am Xanatos . . . It's up to me to tell you what he did to me. How he built me up, kept me at his side, always with the promise that I would advance. Yet, in the end, he broke every promise. It will happen to you, too, Obi-Wan."

Startled, she strains after this second voice, the unremittingly anguished words of this Xanatos striking an oddly reverberant chord within her, but the instant she tries to turn her attention the babbling, overlapping jumble of words from the first, faintly familiar voice returns, washing over her like the rush of a waterfall, overlapping syllables ringing in her ears in a confusion of sound, making her have to concentrate mightily to separate out the various different words and their distinct meanings.

"No/, Padawan. There /has to be another way."

"My anger left me. In the end, you taught me something about myself. And when the Padawan teaches a Master in turn, the partnership is right . . .You would have died for me. Your courage is extraordinary, even for a Jedi. I would be honored to accept you as my Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"I was harsh to you after what happened on Melida/Daan . . . Obi-Wan, it was much more than you deserved. I have come to see that my reaction was due to my own failings, not yours. I haven't had a chance to tell you that . . . You are just beginning your journey . . . the Jedi path is a difficult one to walk . . . but you are my Padawan, Obi-Wan. I do not need the Council to tell me so . . I fought our bond from the first. But you knew something I didn't. You knew that some things are meant to be. Now I know it, too. You will make a fine Jedi Knight. I would be proud to continue the journey we started together."

"I am the one who was lost, Padawan. You were generous and patient with me. And I needed that patience. I still carry the wound I suffered . . . I will for the rest of my life . . . I am grateful for your efforts to help me through my pain. For a long time I was not ready to hear your words, but you were still right to speak them. Thanks to you I have found myself again - I have found a way to go on. Your words . . . you are a comfort to me. Thank you."

"Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs . . . Be mindful of the Living Force, my young Padawan."

" . . . I trust you have finally learned your lesson, my young Padawan . . . "

"Be mindful, young Obi-Wan. Your sensitivity to the Living Force is not your strength."

" . . . /Listen to me/, my young Padawan. There are secrets hidden in the Force that are not easily discovered. The Force is vast and pervasive, and all living things are a part of it. It is not always apparent what their purpose is, however. Sometimes that purpose must be sensed first in order that it may be revealed later . . . Secrets must be exposed when found. Detours must be taken when encountered. And if you are the one who stands at the crossroads or the place of concealment, you must never leave it to another to act in your place . . . Be patient with me, Obi-Wan. A little faith sometimes goes a long way . . . "

/The change in tones - from a gentle and soothing serenity to blissful certainty to utter, absolute desolation; from quiet pain to a deliberately hurtful anger to almost despairing panic and to an almost tranquil quietude; from something half ashamed awe and half wavering fear, settling finally on the kind of fragile and friable calm that comes of the inevitable surrender of exhaustion rather than any real sense of surety, to a dawning gratitude and plainly unexpected sense of shocking /rightness; from an almost reverent, if still startled, feeling of thanksgiving and joy to a strained and weary sense of half-fearful warning; from a mixture of outright fury and an almost viciously content sense of justification to a hard and unyielding cold certainty to, finally, another strange mix, this time of sorrow and self-hatred and despair with faith and trust and love and a surety of purpose that logically should have no truck with so much disappointment - are even more bewildering than the overlapping words themselves. It is almost a relief, to be forcefully and abruptly ejected away from that invisible but impassable barrier, with its confusing swirl of words.

Almost.

This though . . . this is painful. The analogy of having dove down into what appears to be a deep and placid lake, only to find herself crashing up against an inexplicably shallow bottom, suddenly seems all too appropriate, as Padmé abruptly finds herself floundering, as though she were being swept away by a raging and inexorably rushing tide, the power with which she has been snatched up and tossed aside so overwhelming that it is like being caught in a whirlpool or a raging sea being lashed by wild storms. Disoriented, she feels herself being tossed helplessly and painfully about, like a twig that is in a current, but not of it. It occurs to her, only then, that she should not have tried to catch hold of the ebbing flows of the Force, directed down through her by the young Jedi, and reach back to Obi-Wan on her own, since she has neither the personal strength or skill or whatever it is that is necessary to control such power properly. By trying, she seems to have somehow disrupted the flow of the Force. She has completely lost her footing, her stance upon the firm ground that her surety and love had given her. The roiling current that has her now is sweeping her mercilessly and inexorably along, further and further away both from Obi-Wan and from herself . . .

No! The Force has not yet abandoned her entirely. She still has power. Great power. She can still use it! Padmé knows that she has experienced wonders and gained much knowledge: surely it should be enough to make a difference, now! She should use it, that awareness and that power, perhaps she even must use it, to save herself! After all, isn't it only right, that she should save herself from this disaster, since it is of her own making? Concentrating mightily, Padmé tries to anchor herself, but there is nothing to grasp, nothing solid that she can perceive. She is caught in a flood, a gale, an avalanche spinning and tumbling and disorienting her, with all around her nothing but the overlapping and confusing echoes of that oddly familiar, though as yet unrecognized, deep masculine voice, entirely drowning out the second and unknown voice with which she still feels such a surprising affinity. Deep within, a part of her is aware that she is desperately seeking metaphors for that which cannot be described, searching for some kind of mental analog that might enable her to separate herself from this sudden chaos of power. Desperate, Padmé fights for calm, struggling to center herself, only to discover that she can accomplish neither. Like a flood, the wild energy seems to splash up into her mouth and nose, threatening to drown her; like a gale, it flings her in all directions, snatching the very breath out of her lungs; like an avalanche, it threatens to crush her beneath its suffocating weight. It is like all these things, and none of them. And though it is wildly different from what she experienced before, at Obi-Wan's guiding, it is as much a part of the Force as that calmly suffusive light.

Close to the trembling edge of panic, Padmé thinks she hears someone speak then, a quiet and familiar voice that she can't quite place. Let go,/ this voice tells her. /Don't struggle against it. Surrender and let yourself sink beneath it . . .

For a moment she is tempted to simply give in to the suggestion, obeying without thought . . . but no! The wild energies of the Force are already all but drowning her, the unremitting and chaotic pressure from all directions at once all but strangling and suffocating her, and she needs to find a way to control it, if she wants to survive! She has learned much, from what Obi-Wan has shown her: if she just concentrates hard enough, she should be able to control this wild power, use it, wield it -

Or you could die, /alanna/. . . and, while doing so would likely give your enemies much cause for rejoicing, it would also condemn a young Jedi who has placed much trust in you and done no wrong to be cast out into darkness and suffering and exile from all he knows and loves.

Padmé can feel the care and concern in that gentle voice, and, on some level below her conscious mind, she knows that it is right. It is only as she ceases to struggle and relaxes into the mighty current that she realizes why she thinks she recognizes the speaker: the voice is that of the second speaker, Xanatos, only soft and tranquil and stripped of pain, whispering directly into her mind instead of out towards her from Obi-Wan's memories . . .

. . .

. . . Padmé abruptly finds herself cradled close in the supporting circle of Obi-Wan's arms, blinking up at him as if she has just come out of a deep sleep. She doesn't need to check a chrono to know that a goodly chunk of time has passed. Though the unbroken streaking lines of hyperspace are essentially as they were when they first entered this little niche, she can feel the passage of time in her body, having been well trained to keep note of such things. If pressed, she would guess she has been . . . gone . . . for some hours, and the concerned look in Obi-Wan's eyes seems to support the supposition. A peaceful lassitude grips her in the wake of her journey, though she rouses herself enough to smile reassuringly up at Obi-Wan's anxious face. She feels as if she has been shot through with light and wrapped about in love. The lingering warmth of that love/light fills her to the brim, flushing her with a soft, melting heat and flooding the hollow bodiless center of her mind with a serenity so absolute that it trembles on the edge of ineffable rapture. Memory is naught but a soft distance, all expectation utterly undone, if not unbegun. The awareness that something else happened to her, while she was within the embrace of the Force, something both shocking and worrisome, something revelatory enough to finally rouse even the most complacent of Jedi from their placid assurance, hovers in the background, the knowledge as directionless and pervasive as smoke, but at the moment the details all escape her, and her stillness is such that she sees no purpose in reaching towards it now. It is of no great matter, after all. She is as certain of that as she is sure of the existence of that knowledge in the first place. If it is important, then the Force will bring it to her attention again, and likely sooner rather than later. She has faith in that. She trusts in the Force. All will be well. And if she seems to hear a voice, both familiar and not, laughing in the distance, promising that -

Indeed, you shall do, ansa, /and well enough! Already, you are as much a /glaive as you are a mathra-cridhe. I had not been sure, before, but they seem to have chosen a-right with you, toiseach . . .

- well, it is not so very startling, after all, to be named what sounds to her like a weapon and a nurturer as well as a leader and, first of all and so primarily, someone's best-beloved.

"You were beginning to worry me, Padmé! You should not have tried to reach back to me, like that. You are not strong enough in the Force to attempt such things safely. If your soul's affinity for your body were any less strong than it is, you could have become so lost in the flows of the Force that you would not have been able to find your way back. Do you feel quite well?"

It takes her several long moments to gather herself enough to answer Obi-Wan, and it is the concern in his voice and the anxious glint in his eyes that finally gives her impetus enough to speak. "I feel . . . wonderful, /Obi-Wan. It is . . . difficult to find words to properly express this, /am'chara/. I feel . . . calm and whole and entirely at peace. /Cariodal, if this is what it is like, to surrender oneself to the Force - "

"Where you had opened yourself to me, I was able to link myself with you and bring you with me, when I surrendered myself to it. It is . . . similar, in a way, to what a Jedi Master will sometimes do, when first attempting to teach an initiate how to meditate deeply and so reach a full communion with the Force, so as to show that such a joining with the Force is possible. But please don't allow yourself to become deceived, Padmé. This is not a level of communion that you will be able to reach again, on your own. I am sorry, but you are simply not strong enough in the Force, on your own, to be able to do such a thing. You nearly lost yourself, when you sought to reach out on your own: you wandered for hours in the Force and there were times when I could not feel you at all and thought that I had lost you. I dare not even risk trying to take you with me into the Force again, for fear I should lose you entirely," Obi-Wan cuts her off, his demeanor very serious, his voice made slightly rougher than normal with lingering worry. She can see that she has worried him greatly, and she is sorry for it, but what he is saying to her, the idea that she will never again know of such a oneness with the Force - !

"Obi-Wan, are you sure? The Force - "

"There is a place hidden deep within the mind, where an excess of Force-sensitivity shows itself in the presence of instinctive defenses. For those who possess talent enough to be trained in the way of the Jedi, probing at this spot will result in that person being thrown back, bodily, generally far enough to cross half the distance of a decent-sized room, as the ancient reflex seeks to repel an uninvited mental touch. Tell me if you feel this."

All but trembling, she takes a deep breath, and then waits . . .

And waits . . .

And waits some more . . .

. . . until finally Padmé knows, without a doubt, that Obi-Wan has reached out to her and met with no resistance, her Force-sensitivity so small, when unaugmented by another, that she needs no natural defenses against invasion and possible possession by another mind and spirit. Only the lingering sense of warmth and love and peace from her time within the Force keeps her from breaking down and crying, then, like a small and fitful child who has been told that she will never be able to slip her shape and fly away, no matter what she is capable of in her dreams. Her eyes close with the pain of realization, but she does not quite cry.

"Padmé?" Obi-Wan hesitantly asks, after several long, silent moments. "Did I do wrong, to give you this? Are you well?"

"I am well enough, Bendu. And it was a priceless gift that you gave me, one that I shall treasure, always. Thank you, Obi-Wan. I feel . . . much better than I did, before you found me. More balanced than I was feeling, before. You have been a great help to me," Padmé quickly assures him, opening her eyes and tilting her head back to smile reassuringly up at him. "I have kept you for hours, though, haven't I? Will your Master be missing you? I don't wish to cause you any trouble!"

With a small, bittersweet smile, Obi-Wan carefully releases his hold on her and quietly reassures her, "He will not miss me. My Master is communing with the Living Force, Padmé. I should have to do something either far more worrisome than absent myself from his company for a handful of hours or else far more spectacularly foolish than reach to touch the Force, with you in tow like a new initiate from the crèche, to garner his notice, at the moment. Master Qui-Gon takes his communion most seriously and will likely be meditating for some time, still. It is why I was out roaming the ship's corridors. I am not recovered enough to be able to maintain a strong enough connection with the Force for any truly deep meditation yet and so I would have been naught but a distraction to him, if I had remained within our quarters. I thought I had explained this to you, before?" he asks then, brow creasing slightly in concern.

"You . . . said he was meditating and asked for some of my time, to help distract me from brooding. I remember that, Obi-Wan," she replies after a few moments of careful thought, able to cast her mind back to the specifics of their discussions before Obi-Wan had arranged things so that she would be able to feel the Force only by concentrating mightily. She can recall the gist of their talks easily enough (and the feeling of being cradled carefully in his arms, while she wept over Naboo and the evil of the Trade Federation, is as vivid in her mind as the touch of the Force) but the particulars, especially after her crying jag had passed, are much more elusive, the details washed out of her immediate perception by the celerity of what she has brought back with her from touching the Force. If the sensation of being filled by the light and love and life of the Force were not still so imminent, all but eclipsing her perceptions, she might worry about that. The lingering glow of power and sense of blissful oneness with all are both still so real, though, that, even as Padmé concentrates on casting her mind back to the time before Obi-Wan carried her with him down into the Force, she simply finds herself unable to rouse enough concern over the gaps and hazy places in her recent memory, still convinced that the Force will not allow her to forget anything truly important. Thus, with a small, unapologetic shrug, she smiles up at Obi-Wan again and explain to him, "I have no sense of how much time has passed, though, other than that it has been at least a few hours, and I'm not familiar enough with Jedi to know how long a Master will normally meditate. You and your Master are the first Jedi I've been privileged to meet, Bendu. And since you've uncomplainingly allowed me to monopolize your time as well as coaxed you into giving me the priceless gift of feeling what it is like for a Jedi to surrender to the Force, it would be poor repayment indeed to get you in trouble with Master Jinn." Hesitantly then, not wanting to seem as if she were in any way purposefully slighting Obi-Wan's obviously beloved Master but abruptly filled with a concern that is far too urgent to allow her to keep quiet on the subject, Padmé carefully observes (uncharacteristically having to grope after words that will hopefully allow her to get her meaning across without causing any offense, the result of which is that some of her words end up being separated by several long and slightly awkward pauses), "Obi-Wan, your Master . . . he seems . . . like a very . . . hard man."

Obi-Wan, though, merely gives her a rather odd look - half placid incomprehension and half sheer blankness, almost as if he doesn't just not understand what it is that she's trying to ask (without simply coming right out and asking) and why she feels the need to try to ask such a thing, but actually fails to comprehend what it is that she is saying to him - before blinking at her mildly and declaring, "Qui-Gon Jinn is a Jedi Master, Padmé. A Jedi's path may be hard, but unfailing compassion for all is one of the three central tenets of the Order. I know that you know this. So I must admit to being somewhat . . . puzzled by your concern about my Master. I have been with Master Jinn for over a decade now, as his Padawan, and I can honestly say that I have never once, in all my time with him, wished for any other Master. We became Master and Padawan because the Force itself chose to bond us together, rather than the much more usual and informal method of simply pairing off, either according to personal choice that has arisen over years of mutual observation and interaction during training classes in the crèche or else petition from the High Council. Does this reassure you at all? I promise you that all is well and all will be well. Please, believe me when I tell you that Qui-Gon will not have missed me any more than he will be angry at me for remaining away from our quarters for so long. You would do better to worry about the concern of your own people, Padmé. It has been just over six hours. Won't they have missed you, by now?"

Uncomfortable with the evasion but aware that she cannot simply come out and admit that she is the real Queen of Naboo, Padmé assures him, "This is a relatively small craft and it is safe enough, with only us aboard it. I told my companions that I wished to be alone with my thoughts, so that I could not upset anyone with my fretting, and I asked not to be disturbed. As long as I return to our own quarters to sleep, no one will worry overmuch. Except for Eirtaé, the other handmaidens are all either only children or wards of the state. The handmaids or personal retainers and attendants of the reigning monarch of Naboo are often either wards of the state or else only children or those who have been orphaned by time. It is . . . something of an unofficial tradition, since the time of King Jafan, who essentially adopted many of the orphans of Naboo's last war of unification into his court. Eirtaé and I are the only ones here who still have extended family on Naboo to worry over. I am sure my parents and my grandmother, Ryoo Thule, will be fine, but I have an older sister, Sola, who married less than a year ago, just after her eighteenth birthday. My family recently learned that she is already carrying her first child, and with first the trade embargo and now the disruption of food shipments, because of the occupation . . . " Padmé's voice trails off into worried silence as her eyes fall shut, as though in pain. A few moments later, she forces herself to continue, admitting, "I am extremely concerned about her health, am'chara/. The others know it. We have all left behind friends and acquaintances we are worrying about, but it is a different kind of ache, Obi-Wan, to have to abandon our families, even if we have left them behind only in an effort to bring back help. Although this ship is small, my friends have all gone out of their way to allow me some privacy, so that I might work through my fears alone, without having to worry about aggravating their own anxieties . . . though I think, too, that they will be pleased to find I have chosen to share my grief and worries with another. You do not mind if I tell them how you have helped me work past the worst of it, /cariodal, do you?"

"If you believe it will help to quiet their own fears, then of course I shall not mind. I am glad to be of help, Padmé. Besides which, it seems only fair that I make myself useful," Obi-Wan continues, breaking into a surprisingly wide and breathtakingly dazzling smile, one that is more than deep enough to flash his dimples at her, "since you are also helping me, and not just in the matter of keeping a certain injury from my Master's notice. I find your presence to be at once both soothing and challenging, milady. If I am a distraction to you and of aide in helping you come to terms with your fears regarding both Naboo and your family, then you are providing no less for me, in regards to my own troublesome circumstances, thanks to that blasted and unlucky hit. I am pleased and honored to be of some small service, in return for your own help."

"Then it is a pleasure for us both," Padmé notes with a small but genuinely happy laugh, "and we need neither of us worry about imposition. I am glad of that, Obi-Wan, very glad! If the Jedi on Coruscant are anything like you, I am certain that Naboo will be free of the Trade Federation and we will all be going home quite soon."

Startlingly enough, Obi-Wan flushes slightly at her words, embarrassed color staining his cheeks. Awkwardly, as though he is entirely unused to such praise, he draws himself up and then sweeps her a low bow, murmuring, "You do me far too great an honor, to say so, but I will do all that I can to see to it that your expectation is fulfilled, Padmé. I will petition Grand Master Yoda myself, if I must, for the Order's assistance for Naboo."

"It is not honor but the truth, Obi-Wan," she insists, placing her right hand on his arm to reinforce her words (and diplomatically ignoring the slight, startled flinch of his muscles away from her). "But I thank you for your promise. It eases my heart and it will reassure the others, as well, to know that you have pledged to champion our cause. I only hope that your Master will add his word to yours, as well."

"My Master is a great champion of just causes, Padmé. I am certain all will be well."

"Thank you, Obi-Wan," Padmé repeats, her voice fervent as her hand tightens on his arm, wishing desperately that she might simply hug him but unwilling to risk discomforting him when he has been so very kind to her. "You have been a great comfort to me, Bendu. I am going to go back and tell the others the good news, so that they may be reassured as well."

"Of course," Obi-Wan acknowledges, nodding once in understanding. "I believe I will be retiring, too. It is getting late and we all need our rest. Sleep well, Padmé," he smiles at her, placing his right hand over her own, on his arm, and pressing it once, reassuringly, before taking a step back from her and, gathering his outermost robe in close about him (pulling the deep cowl up so that it swallows up most of face), gives her another bow before turning and gliding silently out of the little viewing alcove they have been monopolizing for over six hours.

Cradling the hand he has touched against her cheek, Padmé takes a deep, only slightly shaky breath (thinking all the while that her dreams will now likely be as sweet as they will be torturous), in an attempt to gather her composure, and then makes her way out of the little nook, too, firmly promising herself that, when this is all over and Naboo is safe, she will do everything in her power to make Obi-Wan aware of just how deeply her feelings for him already run . . .

Now within the only cabin of a much smaller craft designed for fighting and not simple transport, her soul anchored securely in the Padawan braid of Anakin Skywalker, she who was, in life, Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker regards these memories from the vantage point of years and mistakes and wishes, tiredly, that she might weep. Somehow, between the shock of having her senses all fully opened to the Force for the first time in her life and an absence of immediate follow-through on the argument that she had been trying to build, to prove her point about the flaw in the Jedi way of life that caused the Order to cling to a rigidly unforgiving Code (which essentially resulted in the Jedi regarding emotions as a whole and attachment to other beings, reliance upon others, as anathema and an abomination, leading directly to the Dark Side) rather than the tried and true wisdom with which the Jedi regarded the most basic needs of all other sentient life in the galaxy, she and Obi-Wan had both managed to completely miss each other's points, not to mention lose sight of the very real truths that each of them had attempted to offer up to the other. Under other circumstances, Padmé might be tempted to forgive herself, at least somewhat, for her failure - it had, after all, taken her years to recover fully enough from her unexpected experience of the Force to lose that sense of calm certainty that the Force would see to it that all would be well in the end, regardless of any specific small detail that she might or might not remember from her talks with Obi-Wan and which might or might not cause her to seek to speak with him again, personally - however, the situation being what it is, Padmé finds that reasons to excuse herself are the very last thing on her mind.

Padmé has failed, in this matter. And while Obi-Wan had perhaps also failed to take her own arguments seriously, he has, at least, essentially come to figure out both the truth that she had been trying to tell him on his own as well as the truth that neither one of them had seemed to realize, even with all of their debating: namely, that while constant struggle is indeed necessary for balance and that individuals must personally strive for that balance and the growth that it leads to, it is also true that the Force, if not relied upon absolutely as some kind of substitute for real balance in one's life, can and will be a strong ally in that life-long struggle, given but half a chance. Obi-Wan and Anakin, as they are now, and what they have managed to accomplish in so very little time since coming together, are proof of this truth - both parts of it - if nothing is. But she is also quite certain that even Obi-Wan and Anakin could stand a bit of helpful instruction, when it comes not just to recognizing these truths but to making it so that others - especially those who will be in their New Jedi Bendu Order - will know and understand and strive always to live by these truths. The truths that she has fought so hard to win for herself may have come too late for one Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker, but they need not come too late for the generation of Jedi Bendu who will be dedicating their lives to rebuilding and protecting the Galactic Republic, whatever they may choose to call that government when the task has been accomplished enough for a true galactic-wide democratic republic to once again exist. If what she has learned can be of use to even one soul, then she may finally rest, content that she was indeed worthy of being rescued by Qui-Gon Jinn and adored by Anakin Skywalker and perhaps even considered a true friend, heart and soul, of Obi-Wan Kenobi . . .

And speaking of useful information, it is entirely possible that it might prove important for Obi-Wan and Anakin to know that the voice of a man who supposedly died twelve years previously to the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo spoke to her quite distinctly, through the Force, on the ship when they were still bound for Tatooine. Xanatos of Telos . . . Yes, Padmé knows quite a bit about the first and failed Jedi Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn (whose name she had actually come across in her attempts to research Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, in the aftermath of Naboo's liberation, long before she had come to remember enough details from her experience of the Force to recall either his name or his voice), and it is all too likely that the fact that a man who has been assumed dead for twenty-five years had been able to communicate with at least one other being (and someone who had never met him, while living, at that), through the Force, well after the time of his supposed death (even if the communication did occur well over thirteen years previously), will prove valuable information . . . Wishing briefly that she could either still frown thoughtfully or at least nod, she who, in life, had been born Padmé Sharian Naberrie adds the need to also pass along this particular piece of information to the growing list of things that she will need to speak of, before she allows herself to relax enough to take a break from her unrelenting self-examination and undo the anchoring grips that Master Jinn had created for her, to bind her spirit safely within Anakin's old Padawan braid for a quick look around.

After checking to make sure that Obi-Wan and Anakin are still safely in bed together and occupied (they are, a fact that makes her remember being able to blush with wistful fondness), Padmé reaches a careful thread of awareness outside of the braid, just like Qui-Gon had also shown her how to do, just sufficiently far and just long enough to make sure that two specific, luminous, and very powerful souls really are still lingering close to Obi-Wan and Anakin, so near to the uppermost boundary of the flows of the Force that they are almost present within the physical realm, as she had been told that they would be. They are there, of course, two brilliant points of blazing energy and love, so close together that their coronas are overlapping, hovering in the air above Obi-Wan and Anakin with every sign of both absolute contentedness simply to be near those two beloved men and utter incomprehension when it comes to what is going on in the physical realm around them. Quickly withdrawing, so as to not risk attracting their attention (Master Jinn had been most insistent about the need to avoid doing so - something to do with keeping them anchored by their natural ties to Anakin and, thence, to Obi-Wan, close enough to the physical realm to keep from being reabsorbed back into the Force and so still have a chance to be born completely into it, though Padmé still cannot even begin to understand how such a thing might be done, even if she is fairly certain that the two men who managed to cleanse the entire Force of the cancerous taint upon it inspired by the twisted use of the Force through what the Jedi have, for so long, mistakenly called the Dark Side, will find a way to do it, when the time comes), Padmé subsides into the braid again, once more content to wait, and watch, and think about what she has done and what she still might do, to help make things right, again . . .

***