FicWad

Additional Author's Note: The scene that had to be cut in two to post the previous chapter on the lj and which was also cut in the comparable chapter here to keep the chapters of a comparable size picks up immediately below!









This/ time, he does Hands doubled over into fists of frustration, the young one rapidly declares, “Baby brother says the first time you met Anakin Skywalker, you were terrified of the boy. You couldn’t explain it to yourself, and you tried to write it off as startlement over the way he suddenly popped up around the corner and injected himself into the conversation you were having with Obi-Wan, but it wasn’t that. You were afraid of him, even though he was a child. You had a nightmare about him that night from which you awoke in a panic, shivering and sick to your stomach, terrified but unable to remember what it was that you’d just dreamed, and it wasn’t until /Athair Skywalker told you about Darth Vader that you finally remembered what it was that you dreamt that night. You saw Mustafar and the duel that would’ve taken place there, if things had fallen out other than the way they have. You heard Anakin screaming his hatred on the lava field, saw Obi-Wan’s heart break and take the wound that would ultimately kill him, and you woke, shouting, to rush for the ’fresher, for a place to purge yourself of the helplessness and the sickness the foretelling inspired. Is that proof enough that someone was watching over you?”

“No. All that proves is that you’re able to read more of my mind than I’m comfortable with you being able to see.”

“Then remind Athair/ Skywalker of the Tusken Raider whose life he saved, about a week before the situation on Naboo exploded and Qui-Gon and /Athair Obi-Wan got caught in the fallout! And when he’s done playing twenty-thousand questions, remind Athair Obi-Wan to watch out for Jenna Zan Arbor and tell those two not to trust the Grand Masters to find us all before it’s too late, okay? Someone needs to be looking who really wants to find us all, and not even help from willing Coruscanti locals will be enough to tip the balance if there isn’t someone there who’s willing to look beyond the realm of what merely seems possible. Understand?”

“Why – ?”

“Just remember! Please./ I haven’t got time for anything else. And Athrys Bail! In case anything goes wrong, /please tell your Masters that we love them. Alright? We love them and we’ll always love them, no matter what.”

Bail is still trying to ask why he should say any such thing when the dream – or vision. Or hallucination. Or sending. Whatever it truly is – comes to as abrupt an end as it first began, the far too real image of the blond teenager with the dancer’s build and dark eyes flying apart into a hundred thousand glittering fragments as Bail’s body jerks rapidly awake.

His mouth is moving to frame Master Qui-Gon’s name in question when he finds his eyes flying open, revealing the ceiling of his own bedchamber, in the Alderaanian Royal Palace.

***

They’ve just made it to their Padawan’s bedroom when Bail’s supine form gives a sudden violent jerk, gasps, and then sits up abruptly in bed. Dark, badly hollowed eyes flash around the room, as though looking for someone, before finally settling on their familiar figures (lingering in the doorway, waiting to see if he’s woken all the way or simply suffering from dream-induced periods of restlessness). With a sigh, the Crown Prince of Alderaan declares, “I think I’m getting tired of having a mind that’s so open to other people’s thoughts. Could you maybe teach me how to shield myself now, before anything else can happen, and then I’ll promise to be good and sleep for at least another full day?”

“Are you alright, Padawan?” Obi-Wan only calmly asks, heading across the room to the bed with Anakin on his heels.

“I just had probably the oddest dream of my life. And I’m not even particularly sure it was a dream!” Bail explains, scrubbing his hands tiredly across his face and giving voice to a laugh that sounds a bit more ragged than he’d like as he tries to make himself comfortable, his exhausted body clumsier than normal as he moves to prop himself up on his pillows. “Masters, can someone strong in the Force send visions into another Force-sensitive being’s mind?”

“As a discipline, dream-walking hasn’t been taught within the Order since the days when most Jedi knew Ossus as their home. It is possible for a very strong Jedi to send messages to the mind of another who has not been a Master or Padawan to the first, if the two are in close enough proximity and the mind of the second is open to contact – something that generally only occurs during sleep – but it does not happen often. Emotions are easier to send than coherent thoughts,” Obi-Wan replies, perching himself on the edge of the bed, to Bail’s right.

“Ah.” Bail blinks at that, a small frown creasing his forehead, before, with a sigh, he continues by noting, “Well. This may sound like an odd question, then, but Master Skywalker did you by any chance happen to save the life of a solitary Tusken Raider a little over a week or so before you first met Master Qui-Gon?”

Anakin sits down on the mattress behind Obi-Wan hard enough to rattle the bedposts and send the canopy swaying overhead. Clearly shocked, he demands, “Yes, but how did you know? I don’t think I ever told anyone about that – not even Obi-Wan!”

“Apparently an older brother of someone who’s recently supposed to have sent you a message, through your dreams, about Sidious holding people against their will somewhere on Coruscant. I’m still not satisfied that this makes the boy trustworthy, but that’s the bulk of the proof he offered me. He said I should share the whole ‘sending’ with both of you. It felt rather like a dream, only much realer and much more confusing. I’m not really sure it’s a good idea to take anything he said at face value, but you’ll be able to tell better than I can if it’s important or not by looking, won’t you? And then you can teach me how to shield myself so that I won’t have someone like that interrupting me every time I try to sleep, right?” Bail asks, not bothering to hide the plaintiveness of the question.

“We can teach you how to shield yourself, Padawan. That shouldn’t be a problem,” Obi-Wan replies, voice calm and soothing. “But as for this sending . . . are you quite sure it wasn’t a dream, Bail?”

“It wasn’t a dream. The boy was too coherent, even though a lot of what he said didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I never would’ve even thought of needing to warn you to be on the lookout for Jenna Zan Arbor if he hadn’t brought it up. I’d forgotten she was still alive, to tell the truth, and I know I never would’ve imagined her having children, if left to my own devices,” Bail adds, shuddering slightly.

Anakin looks positively aghast at that, his body recoiling slightly, as if to actually dodge something unpleasant. “Jenna Zan Arbor has had kids? Pity the poor man!”

“Apparently, it’s a bit late for that. The young man indicated that the father was Granta Omega,” Bail admits, not bothering to hide his lingering shock and distaste at the notion. He knows he’s being at least a little bit hypocritical (Bail himself is – no, had been – married to someone quite a bit younger than he), but for stars’ sake! Women mature faster than men, they tend to live longer than men do, he’d known Breha pretty much all his life, and he’d tried so very hard to be careful of her, to make sure that he never did anything to curtail her growth as an individual or to shape her opinions along lines that coincided with his own, that he hadn’t even been able to argue her out of fixating on the notion of having a child! Granta Omega would’ve been barely more than a child when he first fell in with Jenna Zan Arbor and, from what Bail can recall hearing about that partnership, it is entirely likely that she deliberately shaped him into her best notion of a weapon against Obi-Wan and Anakin.

“Xanatos’ son?” Obi-Wan looks surprised and then slightly confused before a troubled expression settles across his face. “That would explain much that had been unclear, regarding his ability to access Sith Holocrons, despite his lack of Force-sensitivity. If she did something to him, some experiment that increased his powers artificially, it would also possibly explain why he killed himself, on Korriban, rather than be captured, given that, historically, such experiments in boosting Force-sensitivity almost always result in madness of one kind or another.”

“You’re thinking of Vjun, right?” Anakin and Obi-Wan trade glances, Anakin’s face flushing with embarrassment. “I think I reacted to that place the way I did because I was already starting to lose it, by then. If I went back there now, I’d probably be as horrified of the feel of the place as you were. There’s so much pain and darkness in that place that not even removing the taint from the Force will’ve probably helped it any. Whatever else Padawan Whie Malreaux might or might not be, though, I think he worked through and past his personal crisis point, when Dooku left him and that Tallisibeth girl, Scout, with Ventress. Since it was his parents who were part of the experiment and not Whie, I honestly think he should be okay from now on. Probably, anyway,” Anakin adds, shrugging slightly.

“We should perhaps see about reclaiming that planet, making it safe. Jenna Zan Arbor doesn’t need the lure of a whole world steeped in what both the Jedi and the Sith have thought of for so long as the Dark Side to tempt her to any new experiments,” Obi-Wan notes, forehead creasing slightly, thoughtfully. “The ecology of the world is itself dangerous, but I’m aware that there were some advances being made in the fields of nanotechnology and terraforming, before the war, that might, perhaps, be of some use in this matter.”

Anakin shoots him a startled look at that, but Obi-Wan merely quirks an eyebrow at him. Frowning back at him a little, Anakin slowly notes, “Well, we know how dangerous relying on superweapons for any kind of power base can be, thanks to your far-sight visions. And besides providing the enemy with huge targets and tying up ungodly amounts of resources, they didn’t really seem to work all that well, did they? Maybe the scientists could use something to keep them busy in fields that aren’t immediately tied to weapons.”

Obi-Wan answers Anakin with an approving smile. “Quite possibly. We’ll have to see what can be arranged with our new government, though. It’s my understanding that most of the known galaxy’s top scientists are either working on legitimately government-funded projects or else they’re laboring under the mistaken impression that they’re working on legitimate projects, thanks to Sidious’ alter ego. It may take some time to convince those who are now in charge of the former to shift the priorities of such projects and to track down the latter so that they can be informed otherwise, regarding their employment. In the meantime, though,” he continues, turning his attention back to Bail, “I don’t suppose this mysterious contact told you anything about where to find Jenna Zan Arbor, did he?”

“No, Master. He did say to tell you that we shouldn’t trust the Grand Masters to find everyone who’s been away on Coruscant by Sidious, though. And that I’m supposed to let you both see the entire sending, though my memory of it. He said that his baby brother had recently contacted Master Skywalker about that and he kept talking about Xanatos like part of him is still here but has somehow been locked up in a box somewhere by Sidious. I hadn’t thought Xanatos had any dealings with the Sith, but – ”

Obi-Wan interrupts, flatly declaring, “He didn’t. His son did, though. Granta Omega died taunting us with the identity of the Sith Lord who’d survived the events surrounding the invasion and subsequent eventual emancipation of Naboo. He died laughing at us, knowing that we hadn’t the least particle of suspicion regarding Palpatine’s true nature. If anything of Xanatos survived the death of his body and if Granta Omega knew it or if whatever of Xanatos survived was tied to a material object that later came into Granta Omega possession – and I have read of such things being done, by those with sufficient will and power, though as far as I know it is not a skill that is practiced within or indeed has ever even by sanctioned by the Jedi Order – it is not impossible that Sidious could have learned of what transpired or obtained that object. Granted, of course, that this young man wasn’t simply lying to you, Padawan.”

Bail instantly leaps to assure him, declaring, “I have my doubts about what the boy said, Master. This kind of thing would be a very good way to stir up dissent and to cause us to doubt each other. He seemed rather irrationally set against Master Jinn, for instance, and wouldn’t offer up an acceptable explanation for his dislike, which doesn’t particularly incline me to trust the young man. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable simply ignoring everything he said, either. Perhaps if you and Master Skywalker would just look at the memory? At least then you’ll be able to judge for yourself, rather than judging the message second-hand,” he offers, shrugging slightly, helplessly, unable to think of anything else capable of making the situation at all clearer. “I know the Order doesn’t particularly promote a lot of mental touch – ”

“Oh, that’s going to have to change, no matter what,” Anakin airily asserts, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. “We’re trying to get rid of the tendency towards isolationism, not to give it reasons to perpetuate itself, remember? The Force tends to make us telepathic or empathic or both. It gives us the ability to do or to cause things to happen with our minds and our wills that other beings can’t and often couldn’t do even if they had the use of specialized equipment. We’re just going to have to get used to accepting that, instead of trying to hide from half of our talents out of fear of revealing how human or how biologically fallible and frail we are all. Don’t worry about it, Padawan, alright? Just think of it as a different and very special kind of teamwork.”

“I can do that,” Bail replies, his voice only a little bit shaky. “But I still want to know how to shield myself from other people’s thoughts and emotions, please. I’d prefer not to get overwhelmed by what other people are experiencing.”

“Shields can easily be arranged, Padawan. Afterwards. Just remain calm, for now, and focus on this dream that was not just a dream. You don’t have to do anything else, for the moment. Just concentrate on that memory. Hold it in the forefront of your mind,” Obi-Wan directs, his voice serene, tranquil, almost lulling in cadence, at once both soothing and directing, his voice full of a weight and a presence that is almost tangible, that feels almost like a pair of warm hands, gently but firmly smoothing away the tensions in Bail’s body and mind and calmly, patiently, deliberately leading him along a specific path, as one might steer a spooked or nervous child. “Focus on the sending, on every detail of what you experienced, what you heard and saw, the texture and the feel of the dream. Concentrate. Focus. Let your mind remain open to mine. Don’t try to force the connection, but don’t hold yourself apart from me, either. Relax, Padawan. I am one of your Masters and I will not hurt you. I would die before hurting you. And it is the same for Anakin as it is for me, in this. He is your Master, too. We both care for you a great deal, Padawan. Relax. Focus. Concentrate on your breathing for a time. Concentrate on simply /being/, for a time. Hold onto the memory, but don’t try to do anything with it. Just hold onto it. And relax. Relax. There. Do you feel that, Bail?”

Vaguely surprised to find that his eyes have fallen shut without him noticing and that he is lounging back against the pillows, feeling as utterly relaxed and at peace as he has felt in . . . well, a very long time, anyway, to be sure, Bail replies, “Something like . . . warmth, like a warm current rushing by me, perpetually, here?” right hand rising automatically but with an almost languorous grace to brush at his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

In the same infinitely soothing tranquil voice, Obi-Wan explains, “What you sense is a part of my mind, asking permission to enter yours. I am not using the bond we share, as Master and Padawan, as a path into your mind, Bail. Not this time. Instead, I am approaching you as any Jedi or sufficiently strong and practiced Force-sensitive might, openly but politely, simply by making my presence known to you. What you feel is the mental equivalent of a questioning presence, waiting to be acknowledged and invited in, invited into conversation, into sharing. A Jedi Bendu should never enter the mind of another without asking. Trespassing on the mind is the same as violating the body. We have our mind tricks, true, but they are a last resort only, used only when the alternative would involve much loss of life, and then used as skillfully and as unobtrusively as can be, with as little mental trespass as possible. A Jedi Bendu never uses such skills selfishly or for personal gain. Even for sharing between the minds of two Force-sensitives, there are rules, polite conventions, that govern the contact, even as there are proper procedures and customs for communicating with another being. We do not initiate unwanted contact. We present ourselves as available and wait for invitation. We do not attempt to delve more deeply than we are invited, or to push for access to memories and thoughts that have not already been willingly offered. We do not seek to share emotions, if all that has been invited are thoughts. Nor do we seek to offer up specific thoughts or observations if all that has been invited is a level of wordless, empathic communion. Perhaps most importantly, we do not seek to remove thoughts or emotions, memories or dreams, from those with whom we share contact. We share such things. We invite others to view or to experience the reality of our memories, our thoughts, our dreams. By the same token, when we see one who is wounded, or bereft, or in need of succor and protection, we ready ourselves for the task of healing and we set ourselves to the problem of shielding, and, while we may offer our aid unasked, unless it is a matter of immediate life or death, we do not act until we are invited, and we do not venture where we are not given permission to go. Do you understand, Padawan?”

“I understand you, Master Kenobi.”

“Good. So. Do you trust me, then, Padawan?”

“With my soul.”

“Will you invite me in?”

“I already did, Master,” Bail replies, not at all surprised to find that he actually has, a part of him having reacted instinctively in the moment when that warm presence had been recognized as a welcome visitor politely awaiting an invitation, leaping forward to respond to that unvoiced question with an answering warmth and a gentle yielding, inviting that energetic but carefully contained presence within.

And it is . . . the most peculiar thing. Something like pressure, something like weight, something like warmth, and yet none of these things, exactly. Something within him not of himself and yet not entirely alien or unknown or unwanted, for all of that difference. Bail feels oddly energized and yet soothed at the same time. It is almost like being given a massage, of sorts, something that at once relaxes and yet invigorates. And there is something else . . . an echo, almost, as if the mental hands giving that massage are being guided or in some way shadowed by the hands of another, so that it occurs to him, quite suddenly, that Obi-Wan is no longer ever completely without Anakin and vice versa, that the two have long since become so thoroughly entwined that they are no longer ever truly separate, and that any invitation to the one will necessarily include the other, which is precisely why Obi-Wan spoke of Anakin, too, when he’d been reassuring Bail of his intentions, calming him and leading him to acceptance and invitation of the mental touch. And then he knows a moment of hesitation, of almost fear – Anakin and Obi-Wan are partners, are mates, are the truest and most perfect example of a couple who are anama-chara and cariad o’ngariad each to the other, two-who-are-one, that he has ever known or heard tell of, after all, and Bail has comforted himself and warmed himself with thoughts and memories and dreams of Obi-Wan for over two decades – but common sense stops him before he can push himself towards panic. Given Anakin’s carefully polite manner and his unmistakable lack of any kind of real trust in Bail, before Padmé died and the whole of the universe seemed to suddenly change, a part of Anakin has doubtlessly known of Bail’s not entirely proper attachment to and his not entirely honestly expressed feelings for Obi-Wan Kenobi for quite some time, now. And Anakin has yet to say one single solitary thing about it.

If that is not trust and understanding, if that is not discretion and a respect for the sanctity of Bail’s thoughts and Bail’s emotions, irregardless of what Bail’s body and Bail’s mind has doubtlessly been telegraphing – if not for years, then certainly at least since that fateful day in the Temple, when Bail was accepted as the first recruit of the New Jedi Bendu Order and became the shared Padawan learner of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi – for anyone with the talent to receive and understand his interest, then Bail Organa quite frankly does not know what would be. Besides which, there is the fact that, as Obi-Wan has just so carefully explained, those who are invited to touch the mind of another like this observe a very clear set of rules, regarding what they will and will not do and where they will and will not venture. Obi-Wan told him to focus on the memory of the dream (or sending or whatever it truly was), and it is that memory and that memory alone that he (and, thus, Anakin) will touch and observe while within the confines of Bail’s mind because it is that sole memory which he has been given explicit permission to view. Before he would venture to touch anything else within his Padawan’s mind, Bail would have to offer it up, deliberately, and he would have to insist that Obi-Wan accept that offering. So his very inappropriate past thoughts and dreams are, in essence, as safe as if they were locked away in an inviolable vault, for Obi-Wan has essentially given his word that neither he nor anyone else in the Order will ever go into Bail’s mind seeking after such secrets. He is literally more likely to reveal himself by broadcasting his thoughts too loudly for others to be able to avoid having them blasted into their awareness than he is to have someone deliberately try to go rummaging through his mind looking for such knowledge. What Obi-Wan (and, by extension, Anakin) wants to do is something that will help teach him how to avoid doing just that. It would be foolish, indeed, to demur, when odds are that he might end up telegraphing something extremely inappropriate to someone like (Force help him) one of many Force-sensitive relatives.

So he relaxes his body under the (actually quite light and very still) physical touch of Obi-Wan’s right hand, as it comes to rest on the crown of Bail’s head, fingers threading through his (now more than ever overlong and in need of a cut, though Breha is not here to tease him about it) hair, and he relaxes his mind under the deft sureness of the mental contact, letting himself go, physically and mentally, melting into the touch, the contact, eyes sliding shut to close out the distraction of sight, focusing inwards, on that touch, that warmth, like a vibrant warm glow in the darkness behind his eyes, feeling warm light and soothing and healing spreading out throughout him, like a rush of color across and throughout a body of water at the addition of a packet of dye, Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s strength dispersing through him from that touch, like a chain reaction from a catalyst point (and there is something there, in that thought, that imagery, that a part of his mind recognizes, that resonates with him. Something that feels/ right/, something that feels /true/, and a part of his mind files that feeling of kinship with catalytic reaction away, to mull over later, when there will be time enough to truly ponder it), and he follows that light, that vibrant warmth, that dispersal of healing through the darkness of his mind, relaxing and melting into it, melding with it, and oh, /oh/, he could see the shape of his mind, illumined and permeated by that light, and his mind is something like a series of meshed netting, only /living/, strands of thought and webs of training and chains of memory and stitchery of belief twining all one into another and tangled up with each other at every point, somewhat like the interconnected tracery and web-work of lace, only somehow rendered in three dimensions, like a matrix or the delicate and precise weaving of certain kinds of spiders, the kinds that don’t just spin webs across and between but around and over and through as well, the kind of webs that have bulk, however airy, breadth and depth as well as length. His mind is like a living construct made out of layers upon layers of netted chains, fantastic shapes rendered in lace stitchery, reminding him suddenly of the shifting shapes and the living breadth and depth of a vibrant screen of growing, blossoming, spreading hedge, the whole so interconnected that it makes him think of garden mazes and forests and ecological chains, the way everything will tie together so that it builds, each piece upon the others, every part, however seemingly insignificant, in support of one another, so that ultimately, it all works together, just so, every little thing necessary to continue the health of the whole thriving, balanced, functional ecology, like a self-contained little microcosm, perfect in and of itself.

Only here, there are holes in the webs, gaping wounds of places where the intricate and functional lacework of strands gape and flutter aimlessly. Even as he watches, the warm glow of his Masters threads a way through many of those open places, weaving a stitchery prominently new, bright and vibrant and healing in a tangled, branching route along spirals and circles and forking, rapidly multiplying intersections, dispersing as far as possible out along and throughout the webs already woven, already in place, joining to bits and pieces of itself already there, links and loops of chains already woven through and shot sparking throughout the whole of the netted, layered construct. Yet, no matter how deeply that warmth seeps or how wide that spreading net of light extends, no matter how many ravaged gaping holes and torn open places the presence of his Masters slides within and heals or weaves whole and joins up to other pieces of himself, there are still open places, spots and shapes of negativity that are not so much ripped open or torn apart as they are simply – unfilled. Unfulfilled. Open. And waiting. Awaiting something, someone, to come, and to fill, and to finish those pieces of himself, as though, if his mind were a garden, all of those open stretches were fallow ground, stretches of space left for the seeding and growth of new plants, different life, things not yet present, absent and even missed, yes, but in the sense that the fertile earth misses the movement of roots within it as a lack, not in the sense of a place that has known such movement but in the way that it yearns for such, quietly waiting. Those places are an absence, a lack, something natural, not violent, and he has a feeling that he knows whose absence from his life is the cause of that lack (though he refuses, stubbornly, to give that person a name, on the strength of nothing more than a few unverified suspicions and a sending that might or might not actually amount to anything more than a fever dream). Under the careful attention of his Masters, Bail’s mind reforms itself, rejoins the torn and jagged pieces of itself, around those areas of emptiness, seeming to take no lasting hurt from them, and he supposes that is enough reason to let the issue alone, at least for now. So he lets the thought go, without hesitation.

In its place comes the awareness that if his mind is like a series of living webs, if it is like the interlocked and moving mass of a solid growth of a hedge in a garden maze that isn’t just one plant but instead made up of many, many other smaller and different plants, then his own power, his connection to the vast sea of energy that is the Force, is the anchoring point and the place of genesis, the firmament from which the whole construct springs and to which it all, eventually, at some point terminates (though originates is, perhaps, the better word). His own talent, his Force-sensitivity, the place within from which and through which and, in an odd way, within which the power of the Force resides and flows, lies beneath the living, building, growing chains and laced matrices of webs, at the core of him. And what is within him can move, can rise, can join to the power of his Masters and flow through him, pour through him, in a cleansing, healing, warming flood of power/. Simple. /Simple. So very simple! The power rises. The power joins. The power flows, winding its way all throughout him, and, wherever it goes, cleanness and wholeness and health and strength shine behind it, all of the empty spots left from the blistered, bleeding places and the blasted and blacked burned channels torn and blazed and ravaged into him by grief and pain and anger and sorrow and self-hatred and blame and shame and anguish, all of those ripped open and gouged out and seared over and rubbed raw places within him, all made whole again, not just lined up and patched back together and shot through and linked up to each other by the strength of his Masters, not just polished over and made pretty along the ragged, ruined edges, but well and truly and deeply and rightly /healed/, broken parts all realigned and welded together and sealed over with new life, new energy, new purpose and strength of will, melding and joining and growing together this time from the inside out, a rapid chain reaction of linkages and spreading growth, in and out, in both, in all, in every possible direction, in the midst of which he finds a balance he had not known he’d been craving before he finally found it.

The power flows, streaming all around him and up through him and past him, turning and spinning and spreading and flooding and permeating the whole of him, relentless and inexorable and natural as the tides of a sea, and he dances and turns and rushes and flows right along with it, understanding that, having found this inner point of perfectly balanced equilibrium, he will never again lose the knowledge of it. And as for protection, as for shields, well, the best defense against casual penetration may be a solid wall, but other things are needed and are better suited to turning aside truly determined sallies against him. For that, there is ebb and flow of everyday thought and eddying whirls of unspecific, commonplace, ordinary thought-problems and riddles skirting the jewel-perfect shorelines of deceptively calm pools of memory with placid shining surfaces hiding roaring riptides and misty-edged uncertain areas of betwixt and between to curtain it all, banks of mental fog meant to cushion the heart of him and warn off bystanders and befuddle and bemire (and even, perhaps, drown and destroy by luring them unsuspecting down to places of deepest, strongest undertow) true trespassers. The best defense is offense, is movement, is a carefully and meticulously woven series of shifting screens hiding traps baited with false memories with teeth all covered over by layers and layers of unimportant common little everyday observations and details and bits and pieces of doggerel rhyme and riddles. Not solid barriers that can be blasted through by one strong enough and determined enough. No. Shields with give to them, with play, layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of woven netting, by themselves delicate and no real barrier at all, but altogether an interlocked and impenetrable mass of living, breathing, growing veils. A bank of willows, able to provide shelter to him and to stand against any wind by giving ever so slightly to the storms and gusts of outside forces. A spider’s web, seemingly delicate and beautiful, but in truth a deadly snare.

Wholeness. Warmth. Health. Balance. Protection. Safety. Growth. Equilibrium. Light. Life. Above all else, /life/.

Nestled in the assurance of that affirmation, Bail drifts. And, drifting, slides effortlessly back into healing sleep.

***

After a time in which Anakin feels he has been quite patient enough, in awaiting an explanation, he shifts slightly on the bed, shooting Obi-Wan a significant look.

Obi-Wan, sighing slightly in fond exasperation, simply shakes his head and returns his demanding gaze with a look of sheer implacable placidity. Sliding his fingers free of the riotously thick thatch of Bail’s hair, in such a way as to be very careful not to pull or catch on any snags, he declares, along the bond, Not here, Anakin. He’s only just drifted off and I’d rather not risk waking him. He needs the rest. Come along.

If you would just tell me if it was the same person, since I could only catch part of that –

It wasn’t. It was . . . someone else. Someone like him, though, I would wager. Here. This is what he experienced. Ruminate on that and come along, Anakin. Our rooms aren’t far.

Frowning slightly, Anakin slides off the edge of the bed and walks around it to the foot, waiting for Obi-Wan to join him and then idly threading his right arm around Obi-Wan’s waist, habit matching his stride to Obi-Wan’s and absolute trust allowing him to focus inward on the shared information while his body blindly shadows Obi-Wan on the quick trip back to their suite of rooms. He surfaces only when the first door shuts behind them, shaking loose with a scowl to stride off rapidly across the room, towards the bedchamber and the holocomm unit keyed to the Temple and the Grand Masters.

“Anakin! I thought you wanted to talk about this!”

The words drift after him, more than a little bit impatient, but he doesn’t bother to turn to acknowledge them. Instead, attention turned determinedly down to the pack that he’s sure holds the comm unit /somewhere /or another within its folds, he snaps, “What’s to discuss? The Grand Masters obviously can’t be trusted to do their job!”

“Anakin. You know you don’t mean that.”

The hand settling on his shoulder is meant to be calming, he knows, and not a reproach, but Anakin still spins away, wheeling out from under the touch and spinning around to put the oversized armchair that’s acting as a catch-all for part of their sparse luggage between them. “And why not? Huh? Why shouldn’t I mean it? Dooku didn’t seem all that keen to cooperate and now Qui-Gon’s no longer trustworthy, either, so why the frag shouldn’t I blasted well mean it?”

With the same implacable calmness, Obi-Wan simply holds his gaze and quietly replies, “I can’t believe that about him, Anakin. Not that I won’t, mind. I can’t/. Qui-Gon is Qui-Gon/. He was my Master, Anakin. I know him. He was like a father to me. He would never knowingly, willfully hurt another sentient being. I cannot believe he would ever even knowingly, willfully hurt a nonsentient being. The first thing he did was beg my forgiveness for failing me and seek to take blame upon himself. Does that strike you as the actions of a man of hubris?”

“But he did fail Xanatos! You can’t tell me that he didn’t!” Anakin snarls back in open challenge, slamming the pack back down against the cushion.

Obi-Wan merely raises an eyebrow at him and tilts his head to one side, in an attitude of consideration. “And do you think he’s unaware of that fact, Anakin? Do you think he didn’t regret what happened and grieve over that loss and punish himself for not knowing how he could’ve kept it from happening every day of his life? Do you think he doesn’t still think on his failure and regret the pain he helped cause, every day? Anakin, that regret, that grief, that shame, was a shadow across the whole of my apprenticeship to Qui-Gon. I should know, if anyone should. I’m the one who nearly got sacrificed to it, love, remember? The pain ate away at him constantly, like a poison. He always said he was certain it would have killed him, in the end, if I hadn’t been so willing to lance it – and then to keep lancing it, over and over again, every time the creeping corruption tried to set back in. It was the knowledge of that failure that hurt him so. You know what that’s like, Anakin. You saw me, in those other timelines, after I had lost you.”

“It’s not the same! That wasn’t your fault! It never would’ve been your fault! This was his fault, though. He left him there. He killed his father right in front of him and then he abandoned him there. Knowingly. Willingly. He turned his back on him and left him there. Xanatos didn’t fall to any Dark Side, Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon frakkin’ well pushed him over the edge!”

Calmly, patiently, Obi-Wan merely follows him around to the other side of the armchair, voice pitched low and soothing as he notes, “That’s this boy talking, Anakin, not you. You know that’s not how it happened.”

“And why do I know? Because of what Qui-Gon said!” Anakin only snaps explosively.

“Qui-Gon, who admits to killing Crion. Qui-Gon, who admits to turning away from his apprentice’s pain. Qui-Gon, who admits that he failed to see how much Xanatos had come to desire the trappings of power and privilege, as offered up to him by his father. Qui-Gon, who was abandoned by Xanatos first, long before he departed Telos for Coruscant and the Temple,” Obi-Wan immediately counters

“Qui-Gon, who didn’t even raise a single solitary finger to try to help or save or find or rescue his own Padawan before he went running back to the Temple and the High Council!” Anakin in turn instantly and furiously retorts.

Obi-Wan blinks at that, caught off guard, before finally, somewhat incredulously, asking, “And I’m supposed to believe you think Yoda shares none of the burden of guilt, in this?”

“Of course not! I don’t think it would’ve happened at all, if not for his meddling! But that’s beside the point, Obi-Wan!”

“And what is the point, pray tell?” Obi-Wan asks somewhat drily.

“That the boy’s right! Qui-Gon was a hypocrite and we shouldn’t trust him not to act in his own interests, first!”

“Anakin. You know you don’t really believe that. You came to care for Qui-Gon a great deal, in the time you knew him.”

“Which proves exactly nothing except for how gullible I still was!” Anakin only snarls.

“I have never known you to be gullible, Anakin. Trusting, yes, but gullible? Never. What really has you so upset? And don’t tell me it’s Qui-Gon, because I won’t believe you,” Obi-Wan warns. “If it’s just the thought of there being hostages – ”

“It’s not that!/ Bloah!/ I’ve accepted the fact that I was completely wrong about Palpatine and I’m not surprised by the idea that he would’ve had hostages and people who’ve either been kidnaped or hired under false pretenses if not purchased outright, to act as human or near-human laboratory rats for people like Jenna Zan Arbor, squirreled away in various safe-houses all over Coruscant – and maybe even Naboo, too! Who knows?” Anakin cries out, throwing up his hands in a dramatic sweeping gesture composed of equal parts disgust and frustrated helplessness. “As paranoid as he probably was, he might even have safe-houses tucked away on planets and moons scattered across the galaxy all the way from Coruscant or even the Deep Core out to Naboo or even into the Outer Rim or Wild Space! I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that a lot of the records he kept are chock-full of details on facilities in a lot more places than just Coruscant. It’s Xanatos, blast it! And Qui-Gon and Dooku, thank you very much! I just don’t like this, Obi-Wan! We’re stuck here while those two koochu are in charge of getting enough people organized to go through all of Sidious’ records on Coruscant and actually find any hostages or lab rats before they die of dehydration or starvation or whatever, being told by two different people not to trust them to be able to do this job when there’s not a blamed thing we can actually do right now except to trust them and, on top of that, now we have to worry about Xanatos/, too? Our Padawan doesn’t need to fixate on a dead man, dammit! I don’t /care if there’s something of him left still floating about somewhere! After what Qui-Gon did to him, there shouldn’t be anything left of him that’s sane, anyway! Broggled if I know what this kid thinks trying to do something to help Xanatos now /will be able to accomplish, but I won’t sacrifice Bail to some damned-fool scheme to save him! It’s /Qui-Gon’s mess: let Qui-Gon fix this, frag it!”

“I promise you that we aren’t going to sacrifice or lose Bail, Anakin. We knew something like this might become an issue, given what we saw in his mind when the bond formed that made him our Padawan, and I know we’re both going to be watching him even more closely to make sure that this doesn’t get out of hand. I honestly don’t think that you need to worry this much about him losing perspective on the issue, though. He seems to be maintaining a entirely healthy amount of skepticism concerning the whole message relayed by this mysterious young man. Bail is the one who pointed out the possibility that this supposed messenger may actually be an individual tied to some organization that wishes for us to distrust one another and to fragment rather than ally, remember? Sidious spoke of Dark Side Adepts and Mages he has gathered together, many on a world called Byss, and trained to be the agents of the Empire he was building. This boy may actually be one of those adepts, trained using methods which the Jedi Order has either forgotten or else ceased to use, out of fear of the Dark Side. It seems fairly clear, to me, that the ability to enter another sentient being’s dreams like this could quite easily be abused, perhaps even to more destructive ends than the misuse of the various mind tricks that the Jedi do still learn. For all we know, he might not have anything to do with the youngling from your own dream at all,” Obi-Wan patiently explains, his voice still calm but firm.

“But we know that something of Xanatos survived the death of his body! Padmé said – ”

“I know what Padmé told us, Anakin. But even if Xanatos did stumble over a technique that would’ve allowed him to separate his spirit from his body and preserve himself afterwards, I find it extremely difficult to believe that whatever form that preservation took wouldn’t have been noticed at some point by Qui-Gon, if Xanatos was still watching us very long after the liberation of Naboo. And that suggests, to me, that either the preservation didn’t last or that he transferred his consciousness to another body to avoid dissolving into the Force, as it has been said certain Sith ghosts have sometimes been able to do, via possession. If the first has happened, then he is truly gone. If the second has happened, then it is very likely that he is one of those so-called Dark Side Adepts or Dark Acolytes gathered together by Sidious. I find it hard to believe that Dooku wouldn’t have known about Xanatos’ presence among the ranks of Sidious’ Dark Mages – which I’m quite sure he would have mentioned, by now, if he were in possession of such knowledge – if, as this boy insists, Xanatos was actually meant to be Dooku’s Padawan instead of Qui-Gon’s. So it seems very likely to me that this young man is either woefully misinformed or else quite simply lying in regards to both Xanatos and Qui-Gon.”

Scowling darkly, Anakin retorts, “But we can’t know for sure that he is lying, Obi-Wan. And I know, all things considered, that I’m not the best person to be relying on, when it comes to judging other people, but Padmé usually was pretty good at that, and she never really cared for or even respected Qui-Gon very much, did she? She honored him because he was your Master and because he was killed fighting that Sith while her party snuck into the castle and seized the Trade Federation Viceroy and his aides, and then she was thankful to him for catching her spirit when her body died and teaching her enough to be able to keep her from passing on into the Force immediately, so she could stick around and try to help us, but she’s never really liked or trusted him. Just like she never really entirely comfortable with Palpatine, either. She was careful to try to keep good relations with him, because he was the Supreme Chancellor and he was, after all, from Naboo, but I honestly don’t think she ever really liked him. ”

Obi-Wan only shakes his head, though, and there is a hint of dismay in his voice when he answers. “Anakin, you’re grasping at straws. Padmé barely knew Qui-Gon at all and most of the friction between them stemmed from her desperation to help her people and to find a way to save Naboo from the Trade Federation. If she had any misgivings about Palpatine, they most likely stemmed from the fact that he personally seemed to profit from the Naboo crisis. Besides which, I’m fairly certain that Master Dooku already had a Padawan, when Xanatos came of age to be taken as an apprentice.”

“Not true. In the time he was with the Order, he helped mentor several students, including Mace Windu, and he finished training three different Padawan who had lost their Masters – two to a mission-related deaths and the other simply to old age – but he only ever had two Padawans chosen by himself as apprentices and only one of them actually became a Jedi Knight. The other one, Komari Vosa, who was only about twelve years older than you, went rogue and as far as is known was killed by the Bando Gora cult. She wasn’t of age to be chosen until almost three years after Xanatos, and the first of the three orphaned Padawans whose training Dooku completed became a Knight nearly half a year before Xanatos came of age. I know because I looked up and read everything about Dooku I could get my hands on, after Geonosis. So Dooku didn’t have an apprentice when Xanatos came of age to be chosen,” Anakin counters, stubbornly refusing to be swayed. Challengingly, he then adds, “And if Xanatos’ spirit went into someone else’s body to try to get away from Sidious and Sidious captured him anyway and locked him up somewhere, in some kind of box, there’s no reason why Dooku would’ve ever even found out about Xanatos discovering a way to cheat death. Sidious doubtlessly would’ve wanted to keep that little secret all to himself. And if Xanatos resisted telling him what he knew, that would explain the box. This box could be a device like that Sith torture mask, only full-body.”

“That’s only speculation, Anakin. We can’t prove that any more than we can prove that the young man wasn’t simply lying through his teeth. And the simplest explanation is more likely to be the truth, which means that the boy was most likely either misinformed, if not actually lied to, or else actively lying, when he told Bail those things. I don’t understand why you’re so set on believing the worst of Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan admits, hurt creeping into his voice. “He was, to all intents and purposes, your first Master, and I seem to remember you insisting that you used to dream about being taught by him as well as by me, when you were a boy. And you seemed so happy to see him again. What changed, love?”

“Nothing changed, except that I’ve had time to think about a couple of things – like the fact that Qui-Gon frakkin’ waited until it was almost too late before he finally deigned to show himself to us and that these other Force spirits or whatever they are who taught him how to become a Force spirit haven’t ever tried to contact us or anyone else that we know of at all, when they have to have known that Palpatine was Sidious and they must’ve been able to see what was coming and known what would’ve happened, if Sidious had been able to trigger Order Sixty-Six successfully and declare his Empire. What kind of beings are these, if they obviously care so little about those of us who’re still alive because we have bodies that they couldn’t even be bothered to give even one person so much as a single blasted warning about Sidious, and how much loyalty does Qui-Gon – and, by extension, Dooku, too – have to these people? We don’t know because they haven’t actually volunteered to share a whole lot of information about either those beings, now have they?” Anakin demands, clearly incensed by the apparent lack of caring on the behalf of all of those other Force spirits and entities of the Force. “Padmé wasn’t even a real Force spirit and yet she stuck around and she fought tooth and nail to help us!”

“Yes, but Padmé loved us, Anakin. She loved us both, in her way, and she wouldn’t have cared if there were rules barring such interference.”

“Interference! What?! How the frell is telling somebody the true identity of the Sith Lord who’s been lying to virtually everybody as part of his plan to take over the whole galaxy and make everyone his slaves interfering, when defeating him was the will of the Force?” Anakin is so furious that he nearly shouts the question, an angry, hectic flush rising in his face and a throbbing vein standing out starkly, prominently, against his temple.

Refusing to back down even in the face of Anakin’s understandable anger, Obi-Wan quietly replies, “I don’t know, Anakin. I’m not a Force spirit or one of these other entities of Force energy. But I can easily guess why there would be rules in place and enforced by such powerful entities. The lure of playing god would doubtlessly be quite strong and quite dangerous, if these beings allowed each other to have contact with corporeal living beings with impunity. Can you imagine the damage that could be unleashed on the galaxy, if a virtually immortal being like Qui-Gon but with millennia of studiously collected knowledge of the Force and therefore access to much more of its power got it into his or her or its mind to conquer the galaxy and enforce order on us how, by whatever means might be necessary to accomplish that? The galaxy would swiftly come to know a tyrant even more ruthless than Sidious.”

“You don’t know that! And besides, telling one person in a position to actually be able to do something constructive with the knowledge that Palpatine was only a mask Sidious hid behind isn’t the same blasted thing as taking over the galaxy!”

“And what if there was no one who would’ve been able to do anything constructive with that knowledge, before Qui-Gon acted to save first Padmé and then Dooku? What if any attempt to interfere before that would’ve brought on nothing but a bloodbath?” Obi-Wan instantly shoots back, a flush beginning to rise to his own face.

“I can’t believe that. I won’t believe it. I /refuse/. There’s no way this couldn’t have been stopped earlier than it was, before things got so bad. There has to have been a way to stop him before the war broke out!”

“Why, though?” Obi-Wan instantly counters. “Why does there have to have been a better way to stop him earlier than we did? Just because you want to believe in something, Anakin, that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true. You know that, love. Besides, Sidious’ plans mostly seem to have simply taken advantage of the cumulation of centuries, if not millennia, of stresses placed on both the institutions of the government and the Jedi Order. He wouldn’t have been able to get as far as he did if the Republic wasn’t already fraying apart at the edges and rotting from within from the corruption spreading throughout the bureaucracy and if the Jedi Order hadn’t already been so far removed from the actual mandate and true scope of duties of the Jedi. If he had been denounced earlier but not slain – and Anakin, think on that a moment before you reply. You saw how many of the Order’s finest ’saberists he was able to either take down or fight to a standstill, in those other timelines – then he would have had the droid armies of what would have become the Confederacy of Independent Systems plus either the ability to turn the clones against us or perhaps even the clones themselves. How many more might have died, then, if he had made it a war between himself, as a representative of a new order of Sith, and the Jedi of the old Republic? There simply may not have been a better way than this one.”

“They could have stopped him before it ever got to the point where he would be in line for the Supreme Chancellorship! They would have known what he was, Obi-Wan, and what he was capable of doing! They could have warned someone back before the Trade Federation and the other business conglomerates ever became dangerous enough to be able to threaten Naboo, before they ever even had their droid armies!”

“Self-determination, Anakin.”

“/Excuse/ me?”

Sighing and rubbing wearily at his temples, Obi-Wan explains, “It might have been a question of his right to self-determination, then. Interfering with Sidious before he became a true threat might have trespassed on Sidious’ right, as a sentient individual, to self-determination. A matter of free will, in other words.”

“And I suppose we’re supposed to just believe that the free will of the rest of the sentient beings of the galaxy and their right not to be killed or essentially enslaved doesn’t somehow counter that?”

The prominent vein in Anakin’s left temple jumps so violently at that incredulous and well and righteously furious question Obi-Wan finally gives in and reaches out, the fingertips of his right hand ghosting across Anakin’s forehead, gently seeking to calm that throbbing and so soothe Anakin’s temper. “I didn’t promise their rules would make sense to us, love. I only said that such entities of the Force would likely have such rules in place to keep them from actions that would tempt them to play at being gods. They likely believe that their lack of interference in our lives in some way protects our free will and right to self-determination.”

“It’s not /right/, dammit! It’s just /not/!” Anakin snarls the accusation low in his throat, body held stiff and tight to keep him from leaning into that caressing hand.

“I know that, Anakin. Believe me when I tell you that I believe they were abdicating a greater responsibility to both their former fellow corporeal sentient beings and to the Force itself, by not acting. But that is, in part, why I pushed Qui-Gon and Dooku to accept a shared seat as Grand Master of the New Jedi Bendu Order. I wished to see how much responsibility they were willing to actively shoulder, and I wish to know exactly how much they could essentially resume their old lives without provoking a response from these other Force entities. I haven’t truly been able to see these other beings, in any of my far-sight visions, and I believe we could benefit from an actual alliance with the whole of their community, such as it is. You know the dark times are coming, Anakin. It’s important to gather together as many as possible who will be willing to make a stand and fight against that massed darkness,” Obi-Wan merely quietly notes, continuing to trace his fingertips along Anakin’s forehead.

Sighing, shoulders slumping slightly, Anakin finally admits, “I know the storm of storms is coming. But I don’t know that I want to be allies with people who can care more about their own damned reputations than the trillions of sentient beings whose lives they’re endangering by maintaining their silence. Someone with the ability to reach one of us earlier on than Qui-Gon says he could have should have at least had the decency to actually put the question to one of us, so that we would’ve been able to make the decision, if they weren’t willing to make the call themselves, whether or not to have one of them tell us something that maybe kind of infringed on one person’s free will verses the right to self-determination and freedom and just to blasted well live of essentially everybody else in the whole damn galaxy.”

“That would seem a reasonable alternative, wouldn’t it?” Obi-Wan sighs, not bothering to hide his pained expression. Tiredly, he fixes Anakin’s gaze with his own, his voice quietly grave as he adds, “I would prefer to think that they assumed that helping Qui-Gon achieve a state where he could communicate with us was their way of working around the problem, rather than that it simply never occurred to any of them to turn the issue over to one of us, but I’m not sure we can afford to assume that this community of Force spirits and Force entities hasn’t been entangled by the same kind of trap that the old Jedi Order fell prey to. It is entirely possible that these beings have, over the centuries, simply become so used to obeying their own rules without question and become so far removed from the reality of the living corporeal sentient beings of the galaxy that they may have actually fooled themselves into believing that they were doing the right thing, in avoiding any kind of interaction with us, even if only to warn us of the evil in our midst.”

“Well, they’ll just have to damn well get over it, if that’s what they think!” Anakin firmly declares, his voice flatly convinced.

Drily, Obi-Wan notes, “Somehow I doubt it will be a matter of simply telling them to ‘get over it,’ Anakin. Things are rarely, if ever, as easy as all that.”

Anakin makes a little grumbling noise at the back of his throat before finally allowing his lips to twitch into a smile. Reaching out, he snakes an arm around Obi-Wan and pulls him into a loose embrace. Matching Obi-Wan’s dry tone almost perfectly, he replies, “Noticed that finally, did you? If I didn’t know better, sometimes I would swear that the Force likes to make us sweat.”

Wryly, Obi-Wan notes, “I’d tell you that the Force never asks anything of us which we cannot give, but a certain rather persuasive individual I know happens to hate Jedi platitudes and aphorisms and to tell you the truth I’m not all that particularly fond of the blasted things myself.”

“Smart man. I knew there was a reason I was in love with you.”

“Careful, bratling. Just because I don’t like all of those pithy cliches doesn’t mean I don’t know them all well enough to be able to rattle them all off at once, if given sufficient reason to,” Obi-Wan mock warns, his left arm creeping around the small of Anakin’s back so that he can fit himself more closely to Anakin’s side.

“Force forfend!” Anakin half laughs at that, though the shiver of fear and revulsion his body gives at the prospect of such a recitation is only half feigned. “Anything but that! I’ll behave when we comm the Grand Masters, I promise!”

“Smart man,” Obi-Wan drily echoes. “I knew there was a reason I kept lecturing you all those years, even if you hardly ever seemed to be truly paying attention to such discourses.”

“Oh, ha-ha, Obi-Wan. Very funny. Yes, indeed, he can be taught!” Anakin snipes grouchily, snuggling closer to show that he doesn’t actually mean it and leaning in to Obi-Wan’s touch so that the gliding fingers can run back over the crown of his head and card lovingly, soothingly, through his loose curls.

“I never doubted it, love,” Obi-Wan smiles in reply. Then, more seriously, he adds, “We should probably go ahead and comm them now, while we have the chance, before anything else can happen.”

“I know. Just let me hold you first, for a little while longer?”

“Yes.”

***