Rating: NC-17

Archive: M-A

Series: Gods no.

Categories: AU (between movies), first-time, Q/O (?), angst, POV (O)

Feedback: please

Summary: Years after Naboo, Obi-Wan comes across a very intriguing individual with some very big secrets.

Warnings (real, actual warnings): References to killing clone embryos. Those sensitive to a quasi-abortion topic might want to pass on this. Not a lot of detail, but a bit of clinical language about it.

Some descriptions might evoke 9/11 images. This was unintentional and I think they might pass in the context; still, as I was reading this for final beta, I realized I'd better warn. Now isn't the time to be blithe.

Also, follows TPM canon but then veers radically away from AotC events. And by the way, I couldn't stay away from that whole midi-chlorian thing.

Disclaimers: Someday I intend to use my own beloved, beautiful characters to write for fame, fortune and glory. Today is not that day.

Notes: Beta'ed by Cuimne (multiple times--thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with adverbs--or at least fixing them till next time), Hippediva (for character development that made me add to Obi's psychotic tension, Force bless 'im) and Fox (for putting up with all the run-ons, and for "had lain": Kiss!). Thank you all, very much.

/..../ thoughts

I led my apprentice through the sand-colored, crowded Mos Eisley marketplace, arms tucked into wide sleeves in a façade of Jedi calm. Inside, I roiled. My sixteen-year-old padawan learner had taxed my serenity to the point of breaking, and now there would be the Sith to pay for it.

As soon as we'd reached our temporary quarters on the outskirts of town, I sank to my knees in the middle of the common room floor without preamble.

"Join me, Padawan," I gritted out, leaving no room for question or argument. Anakin dropped down in front of me, struggling to bring his anger under control.

"We are here," I said with dangerous quiet, "to negotiate the division between the Hutts and the Pilots' Guild on the shipping routes and percentages. We are not here-- for any reason, at any time-- for you to sully your reputation and that of the Order with drunken barroom tricks involving shots of Bespin whiskey." My gaze bored into his sullen one. I awaited my apprentice's argument with barely restrained irritation.

"I wasn't drinking--and it wasn't a barroom trick," Anakin countered, as expected. "It was to display that according to the laws of physics and based on the pull of gravity--"

I raised my hand and turned my face away. Anakin fell silent.

"Your studies are not to be wasted in that way. I don't care if you discovered the Seventh Element of Being there: you are not to go back to that place. If I catch you there again, you'll be on the first transport back to Coruscant and set on crèche cleanup until I return. Is that clear?"

Miserably, Anakin nodded. I knew as well as he did that he did not want to go back to Coruscant early; in his view, it would only prove to Turab and Ro'l and everyone else who gave him grief that he couldn't handle life in the field. Besides, there were few tasks more demeaning than crèche cleanup.

"I'm sorry, Master," he mumbled dutifully.

I sighed, my anger slipping away toward something far worse: the burgeoning disappointment I felt in my own inability to handle Anakin Skywalker.

"Don't tell me you're sorry because you don't want me to punish you, Anakin. Realizing why you were wrong would take you much closer to knighthood than my shipping you home to wash diapers."

Anakin nodded again, but I knew that it was a rote response, not a heartfelt one. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly, pushing out my remaining anger and my self-doubt. I felt Anakin follow suit, releasing his irritation with me and his guilt at having disappointed me yet again.

"I think that a meditation on our mission parameters would be in order," I said a little gruffly, my eyes still closed, and took another breath before sinking into a low state of consciousness. I ran a tendril along the training bond and prodded Anakin to follow me into a meditative state. He did, uneasily.

I left Anakin in our quarters that evening under a strict directive to finish his Academy work for the day and then go to bed.

I felt a need to be away from my padawan, to avoid the feel of that overwhelming beacon next to me, at least for a time. It was another failing I was perpetually releasing to the Force. Anakin was like a fuel cell--constantly burning, expending energy too hot to touch--and I felt ever on the verge of pressing the wrong switch, waiting for the explosion.

I knelt on a small, sandy plateau overlooking Mos Eisley, trying yet again to calm my mind enough to meditate. These were the days I longed never to have heard the breathless plea, "Train him." Yet I knew that it was pointless to wish for that; what could I have done? Qui-Gon had believed.

In those days after my master's death, I had wanted to believe as well--desperately so. Of course I had: Anakin was the remnant of Qui-Gon's final wish, his last, fervent duty to the Order.

I sank to my heels and sighed, knuckling my eyes. If, perhaps, I hadn't respected Qui-Gon so deeply, or admired him so much, or if perhaps I hadn't loved--but it was no good thinking of that--then perhaps I would not have felt so beholden to a memory.

But that, certainly, was another useless thought. My deep emotions for my master were my last personal bastions: I kept them deep inside, buried, where even Anakin was not allowed. Where I seldom, truly, allowed myself. It was no good longing for something that I would never see.

Ruthlessly pushing the stray emotions aside, I shielded thickly and focused my attention on how best to handle my padawan. Anakin had become increasingly problematic as the months went by. I could feel him hiding more, replying by rote to get certain responses rather than from the heart. There was something cold at the edges of it all, but I could not place it.

/The boy is dangerous. They all sense it; why can't you?/

I shook my head to clear the stray memory. I wished for those last days again; I longed never to have said those things. In the end, my disrespect had accomplished nothing but my own master's death, and I'd battled darkness over it. If only I'd never said those words, we never would have become so distant from each other in that final, crucial battle. If only I'd not opposed him so stridently--

/-- If only Qui-Gon had left the boy on Tatooine. If only he hadn't tried to take him as a padawan./

Ah, yes. I'd been through all of that, too. My position as a master with a padawan precluded blame and self-doubt, but my humanity almost demanded it. Sometimes it rose to the surface unbidden, stifling in its intensity.

Other emotions, ones I had buried for years, rose to the surface, too, asking their own questions "why?" I pushed them back ruthlessly, but they would not stay gone.

Making a frustrated noise, I folded myself over in the dust, hitting my fist on the hard ground. I rested my forehead on one arm, smelling the heat rising from the packed sand and the scent of the dirt we'd lived in for weeks. Anakin's home. Anakin knew this ground. As much as he'd hated it when he was a child, now it only reminded him of his mother.

We had avoided Mos Espa altogether, for the most part. I did not want my padawan getting distracted by his mother's presence, and I certainly did not want Anakin to meet up with his former owner or that Dug I'd heard so much about. These negotiations, however coarse they appeared on the outside, required a great deal of finesse. So far, Anakin had managed himself well, with the exception of this latest escapade.

It was bad enough that Tatooine had no ruling government, as such, and that the populace in general had pressed for Republic intervention into the slavery issue. It was worse, still, that Anakin Skywalker was the catalyst for the move. If a nine-year-old boy could be free, they all wanted freedom as well. It was right. It was just. No one could deny it--certainly no one could concede anything other than the abolition of slavery as a requirement to full-fledged admittance into the Republic.

The problem lay in the fact that Anakin, now, had come back to negotiate a treaty between the very Hutts and shippers with whom the slavers had done their greatest business. Anakin had become, quite suddenly, a bit of a thorn in the side of the Tatooinian public.

Rising, I rubbed a hand over my eyes and sighed. Perhaps that was why Anakin had been down in the bar today, playing tricks with physics and the Force. Surely he understood the position he was in and wished to make it right, somehow, by doing it in the way a non-Jedi, non-iconic sixteen-year-old boy would do it: by showing off. He was trying to be normal.

I remembered the difficulties I'd faced. We all faced them at some point or another: the Jedi way was misunderstood by many and to grow up in it to adulthood was not an easy task. Once, I had even been asked, by a misguided elderly woman on a lesser-known Mid-Rim system, if I would like help escaping. But in my gangly early years, though, I had been given the benefit of a crèche background, a home among the same peers with whom I sometimes still worked. Anakin had been thrown into the mix in an irregular way, an outcast from the beginning.

Thank the Force we had managed to keep his true place in the Jedi a secret. Not even Anakin knew the prophecy, though I would be naive to think he did not suspect something was unique about him and his sudden adoption into the Order.

I pushed myself off of the ground and stood, releasing my disappointment in myself as I had earlier. I'd misconstrued my padawan's intentions entirely, and now, as I dropped my shields, I could feel the boy's nervousness and could almost see him worrying at his bottom lip.

/Sith,/ I thought, glad that I had perfected my shielding techniques before Naboo. Master Yoda had taught Anakin his shielding techniques and the importance of respecting privacy, but I feared that it was only a matter of time before I lost that respect altogether. I could not withstand Anakin's sheer power in the Force, and Anakin had not yet learned control.

/And neither have I,/ I thought, striding quickly back to our quarters. /My emotions rule me far too often. I cannot train him like this./

I knew, as did Master Yoda, that the problem did not lie in the future. The problem lay in the fact that I had been training the boy--like this--with my emotions in reign, and not my serenity.

/I must overcome this,/ I told myself firmly, but it was not the first time, and it would not be the last.

"Your apprentice, Obi-Wan," Master Yoda said quietly, his flickering hologram a foot-tall picture of calm resignation. "How fares he?"

"I believe this mission taxes him, Master," I replied, biting back, /I know it taxes me./ "We have had a few difficulties, most of them pertaining to his desire to fit in here. I cannot make him see that he is no longer a common resident and will never be treated as one."

"Hm," Yoda said, closing his eyes. "And concerned, you are, that this bothers him."

I sighed. It was time to stop dancing around the issue; The wizened little master and I both knew that his difficulties had nothing to do with the Tatooine mission. There was something else, something larger.

"I am not equipped to handle this, Master," I almost pleaded. "I cannot teach him. He needs you; he needed Qui-Gon. I'm too young, too inexperienced, and my emotions--"

The holo of Yoda slashed his gimer stick through the air before him. "Let go of Qui-Gon you must. Too long it has been, seven years, hm? Your fault it was not. His fault this is not."

I ducked my head down and sighed. We had been over this many times before, and quite possibly would be again. Truth be known, I was not about to let Qui-Gon go. Master Yoda knew this, but said nothing. He continued to give his advice, though to his credit, it came less and less frequently. He'd imparted his undeniable wisdom yet once more; it might be months before he mentioned it again.

I murmured something noncommittal. I was not prepared to discuss Qui-Gon now. Recklessly, I plunged on, changing the subject.

"Master, you've seen my record with Anakin. He is studious and diligent but sometimes so irresponsible that we both lose what footing we have on our calm. The things he does for attention are sometimes downright dangerous."

Master Yoda went quiet for a while, then sighed. "Find a way, you will, Obi-Wan. Many paths are there to becoming a Master. Choose the hardest one, you need not."

"I understand that, intellectually." I rubbed my hand over my eyes and combed my fingers through my hair, swallowing my agitation and increasing sorrow at being reminded of Qui-Gon's death yet again.

Yoda nodded, his ears drooping in sympathy. "A great loss was Qui-Gon. A great Jedi Master, and a great friend. Take out his loss on your padawan, however, you must not."

I sighed and nodded, then said my closing and terminated the connection. After a moment, I slumped over the desk, my face in my hands.

/Why?/

The touch on my shoulder startled me. I looked up to see my padawan, who had an amazing habit of walking into a room completely undetected.

"That explains a lot," Anakin said quietly, and squeezed my shoulder.

I sank my head into my hands again. "What are you talking about?" I asked, not unkindly. I did not need to be placing any more wedges into our relationship at this juncture and held my tone carefully.

"If you never mourned properly, then that makes sense out of a lot of things." The statement was delivered so calmly and certainly that I raised my head again, staring. "Especially if you loved him."

I shook my head, glancing away, then back again.

"Your anger," Anakin explained. "Your sorrow. All the battles you fight. It's no wonder you feel unfit to train me. You conflict yourself."

I stared into those terribly young, frighteningly wise eyes and swallowed around a lump in my throat. His words were not spoken with the usual arrogant knowingness of the young; they were spoken as facts, plain and simple. I felt small and completely incapable suddenly, knowing now that I could never get this boy to knighthood when I couldn't even keep my own heart hidden. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about my old master, ever, and it had grown worse, so much worse, since we'd come here.

Rising, I tugged Anakin into a fierce hug.

"I'm sorry, Anakin," I choked out. "I cannot do this. I have too many lessons of my own to learn yet; I cannot complete your training. When we finish this mission, I will request a new master for you."

I could feel Anakin bite back his own sorrow even as he smiled faintly. "I hesitate to ask this, Master, but if you would please be so kind, my yearmates would laugh less if I requested a new master myself."

Pulling back, I thought better of the automatic response: that his peers' opinions did not matter. I knew as well as anyone did that to Anakin, they mattered less than only one thing: his mother. Nodding and smiling tightly, I embraced my padawan again.

The negotiations had closed for the traditional midday meal and what the locals referred to as heat rest. The daytime face of the planet was unbearably hot, so most took their meals indoors and waited until nightfall to finish their days' work. I took this opportunity to purchase something to eat from a vendor just before he dropped the boards on his shop, and then I was off to our quarters to share it with my padawan.

It hurt now to think of Anakin in that way, understanding that the moment we got back to Coruscant I would no longer be the boy's master. It had been seven years, and in spite of the hardships and the occasional anger, suddenly I found myself with an unreasoning fondness for Anakin.

/It's because I'm walking away,/ I told myself sternly. /Because I'm taking Qui-Gon's last wish and tossing it aside, and letting Anakin down in the process. Well done, Knight Kenobi./

Drawing a sleeve over my forehead and back across my hair, I tipped my head back and shook the hair out of my face, closing my eyes against the sun. Force but it was hot--hot and bright. I told myself that accounted for the sudden moisture in my eyes.

When I dropped my gaze to one of the many packed-sand buildings around me, my stomach turned and my head went dizzy.

Qui-Gon Jinn was coming out of a shop just meters from me.

/It's the heat, it's the heat,/ I told myself repeatedly, but--no. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. He--my master--was walking away, down the rapidly clearing street. His hair was unbound and he wore a pale tan poncho and leggings with short boots: very common local attire. He had a satchel thrown over one shoulder, and was taking a bite out of something, possibly whatever he'd been in the shop for. His hair was long and darker brown; he had no beard and his skin was a shade darker than Qui-Gon's had been, as well. He appeared to be a younger, tenser version of my own master. Still, the resemblance was astounding. I stared until the man was nearly away, turning down a narrow side street.

"Master!" I tried to shout, an automated response. It came out an awed whisper. Immediately I broke into a run, darting down the street and around the corner where the man, who I could only see as some fantastic Force-induced apparition, had turned.

"Qui-Gon!" I called, my voice broken and unsteady. I skidded to a stop just inside the alley. The man did not slow, nor did he look back.

Hurt and frightened, I ran again. I caught up to the man, grabbing the shoulder of the poncho.

Whirling about, the man raised one forearm, effectively breaking my hold on his cloak. He took an aggressive stance and bounded back instantly, his eyes displaying nothing: no surprise, no shock, no fear, none of the things I was feeling, just a calm determination not to be robbed, it seemed.

Understanding, I raised my hands. "I'm sorry, Master, I--Qui-Gon--Force--" The words came out in a rush as I stared at that face, so familiar and yet so alien, in front of my very eyes after seven years. My confused mind whirled with questions, but I could find no voice or enough thought to articulate them.

Relaxing, the taller man shrugged his poncho straight and gripped the strap of his satchel. "You have me mistaken for someone else," he said rather gruffly, and turned to go.

Ruthlessly pushing down the urge to cry at the beauty of that voice, I gathered myself as best I could. /It isn't possible,/ my mind argued, /he looks, sounds, feels just like--/

"Wait!" My voice was thick. "Wait, who are you?" When the man turned back, his expression unreadable, I spread my hands, unable to voice a fraction of the whirl of questioning emotions I felt.

"I don't know you," the man said, looking me over carefully, still assessing a possible threat. "I've no reason to give you my name."

I was astonished. The man's look, his stance, even his vocal inflection was all Qui-Gon; the absence of the beard that Qui-Gon had always worn was unnerving, as it was one of only a handful of tiny differences between the man who stood before me and the man who'd trained me as a Jedi. Lightly, I probed with the Force and could find nothing, nothing that was different in the man's life signature from my master's--except that he had, it seemed, no contact with the Force whatsoever.

He did not react to my probe if he'd even felt it. He seemed much more bothered that a strange man in a Mos Eisley alley was detaining him. Not that he seemed afraid; to the contrary, he was more irritated than anything else by this point.

I tried another tactic, knowing I was losing ground. "My friends call me Ben. My given name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I--I had a--" Swallowing, I shook my head and tucked my hands into the sleeves of my tunic out of habit. "You look a great deal like someone I once knew."

"Hm." The man regarded me a moment, then said shortly, "I am not that someone." He turned again and strode away, and I was helpless to do more than let him leave.

Anakin had sensed my agitation, essentially, from the moment I had seen the man who looked so stunningly like my master. Immediately as I entered our quarters, he was questioning me.

"I saw Qui-Gon," I replied, exhausted and unsure if I could even discuss what had happened. Anakin's eyes went wide; his face bore an expression that looked like disbelieving panic. He pressed for an explanation, but I was suddenly too overwhelmed to think anymore. I sank shakily into a chair and stared at the opposite wall. My heart was racing, my chest ached from holding my breath, and my body shook with adrenaline. I felt as though my whole being throbbed with blood, but I was cold and weak.

"Master," Anakin pressed for something, any information, but it was a long moment before I could speak.

"He was coming out of a shop. He--Anakin, he looked and felt just like Qui-Gon." I looked at my apprentice, who had shielded his reaction carefully. I could glean nothing from his stance or his eyes; he appeared to be deep in thought.

I sighed, rubbing at my forehead. "If you please, Padawan, I need something to drink, and my--oh." Belatedly, I realized I'd come home empty-handed; I must have dropped our supper right in the street.

Understanding as he always seemed to, Anakin said tightly, "We have rations in our packs. I'll put something together, Master."

I was never more grateful for his dedication and foresight than at that moment.

My control, my concentration, and my calm were all little more than veneer for the next three days. Nevertheless, the two of us wrapped up the talks successfully. I will admit it was due in no small part to Anakin taking a great deal of control over our part of the issue.

After we had closed down the negotiations and packed our things, we prepared to go to Mos Espa to visit with Anakin's mother. It was an unsanctioned visit; I was ready to explain, later, the delay in getting home, but for the time being, I simply did not mention in my reports that the contracts had already been signed.

My own post-mission plan had altered drastically, though: as soon as we had arrived at Mos Espa and greeted Shmi, I intended to turn right around and come back to Mos Eisley.

It had taken me several hours to process the events of that afternoon; most of that time I'd spent on my knees on the dusty floor of our hut, deep in meditation. I could not fathom the odds that might have put me on a street with a man who wasn't Qui-Gon but looked just like him. The Force was at work here; my soul sang with it.

Anakin remained silent most of the trip, driving intently toward the closest thing he had to a home. He had hidden whatever puzzlement or confusion he bore, and for that I was grateful; I knew my padawan had questions, but they were nothing to what was racing through my head.

Who was that man? Why was he identical in every way but Force capability to my old master? Where had he come from? Why had we been put together on a street on a planet that the Jedi had only recently begun to hold jurisdiction over, and indeed, on a planet from which the prophecy's Chosen One had come? I could make no sense of it--none. My mind was still numb with the shock of it--as were my knees, eventually--but my heart sang with the caress of that voice, so long gone, through my ears.

"I'm going back," I said firmly, apropos of nothing.

I sensed my padawan's botherment. "Take me back with you," he all but demanded, not taking his eyes away from the desert road before us.

I turned toward him in the speeder seat. "Your mother--"

"He was my master, too."

I braced myself. "Anakin, this is something I need to do alone. He claimed to know nothing of Qui-Gon. Two Jedi approaching him will do more harm than good."

Anakin tensed visibly, gripping the steering bar. "Were you even going to give me a chance? This is important, this could be--"

"No," I replied, more firmly than I had intended, completely cutting him off in his expression of whom he thought this Qui-Gon lookalike might be. "I'm going back alone, and you're going to visit your mother. We have three days. We can risk no more. There's no knowing when we might be back again, and I'm pressing our luck as it is."

When Anakin would have said more, I stopped him. "I am going to do this alone, Padawan," I said, and this time my voice carried an edge to it. "I bent the rules for you; I'm going to do it for myself, as well." I turned toward the front of the speeder, effectively closing what discussion there had been.

Shmi's weathered, tired face lit like the twin suns when she saw Anakin climbing out of the speeder.

"Oh--my boy--" she cried, running to him, her long tunic catching at her knees. We had never informed her that we would be on the Outer Rim; I had been unwilling to allow her to raise her hopes and have them dashed if something happened to prevent our visit.

Anakin was big enough by now to swing his mother around, but he must have felt her tiredness, felt the aching in her body, and did not. Tamping down on his jubilance and restraining it to a great, beaming grin and a half-desperate hug, he cupped her face and rained kisses over it, staring at her. Her hair had grayed considerably, and her face had aged. She still wore the solemnity that all Tatooinian women seemed to carry, but it was brightened by the tearful smile in her eyes.

"How is this possible?" she asked quietly, her voice caught between a laugh and a sob.

I stood respectfully back while Anakin explained, "We've been in Mos Eisley. We weren't sure we could get over here." He looked guilty suddenly, as though he'd kept a horrible secret.

Shaking her head, she hugged him again. "Oh, it doesn't matter." Seeing me then, she drew back and smiled hesitantly, as though I would whisk her son away again.

"We are glad to have come, Madame Skywalker." I could see the stillness in her, the sudden suspicion. I stepped forward and bowed before her, taking her hand and pressing my forehead to it. In response, she made a clicking noise and pulled me up, hugging me briefly.

"You brought my son home," she said quietly. "I must thank you for that, Master Kenobi." Smiling, I nodded. I allowed her to believe, as she surely did, that this was a sanctioned visit.

Seeming to remember herself, she wrapped her arm around her son's waist and tugged him toward the hut. "I'm sorry--come in." Hugging the tall boy with as much excitement as I had ever seen her display, she leaned her head on his shoulder and walked slowly, lost in Anakin's presence.

She provided us with cold drinks and offered up the contents of her kitchen, but I could see immediately that although she kept the same home she always had, things were not as they once were. The hut had a shabbier appearance, as though the winds had swept through, wearing at things. The furniture was, if possible, sparser than before.

Anakin went immediately to the point. "Mother, are you well? Do you need money?"

I tensed; in recent years, the Order kept our credits tightly accounted for. Although the number of active duty negotiation teams dwindled, money grew shorter every year. I knew that any expenses would be questioned heavily.

Sensing my reticence as accurately as always, Anakin shot me a look. "If you're going back on a manhunt, I'm going to take care of my mother," he said flatly, putting me in no position to argue in front of our hostess, who looked at me questioningly.

/Brat,/ I thought to myself, knowing that Anakin was well aware that I was pinned by my own stubbornness.

"Going back?" Shmi asked worriedly. She looked back and forth between us.

Anakin hurried to soothe her in spite of the flash of anger I felt from him, directed at me. It was obvious he thought I was being foolish--or a danger to myself.

"Master Kenobi is going back to Mos Eisley. He has some more research to do. I'm staying here."

Her eyes searched his face. "For how long?" She reached up and stroked his cheek, and I was struck by the tenderness of the gesture. I could not imagine her pain and loneliness.

I had to correct myself. Perhaps, after all, I could. And yet here, too, there was an edge to her pain, similar to that of Anakin's. Something tinged her feelings, a sense of urgency that...

Ah, I was only imagining things. I had seen too much misfortune in my time and had allowed it to color my perceptions, surely.

"Three days," I interjected before Anakin could do more than offer up illegitimate expenses. "It's all the time we have to spare," I added apologetically, softening my tone.

Shmi sighed and her gaze went distant. "Three days, then. It will have to be enough, won't it?" She looked between us again and then went into the kitchen, beginning to prepare something to eat.

Anakin stepped toward her. "Tell us what we can do for you, Mother. What's happened?"

I shot a warning through the training bond, but Anakin deflected it.

Shmi began to pull vegetables out of a wall unit and said quietly, "It's nothing for you to concern yourself with, son."

Anakin stepped toward her. "Mom..."

She sighed and turned back toward him, knowing, as we all did, that she could keep nothing from him. "It's been very hard since slavery was abolished. Very difficult to find work." Sighing that aching, long-suffering sigh, she turned back to her vegetables. "At least when we were slaves, we knew where we stood. I had to sell your protocol 'droid, Ani. It was that bad. I'm sorry."

He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her arms, turning her around. "Mother. I can build another protocol 'droid."

I felt the pain rolling between them along with Anakin's helplessness. My apprentice shot me a half-worried, half-angry look and I returned it sadly. There was little we could do, and we both knew it.

As soon as I could politely get away, I extricated myself from the Skywalker household. It was a good distance back to Mos Eisley; Shmi had wanted me to stay the night, concerned I might run into Tuskans. I had reassured her calmly, trying to make clear the importance of my return without divulging the actual reason. Before Shmi could press Anakin into the duties she could not handle alone, I pulled my padawan outside for a moment of privacy before I left.

Tucking a commlink into his hand, I admonished him to keep the unit on his person.

"I don't know what might happen," I warned. "I do not know who this man is." I felt a wave of what felt like disapproval and knew that Anakin was struggling with his own reactions to this entity I would not let him track down with me. I disregarded the feeling and continued, "I could be letting myself in for trouble. You must understand, though--I cannot keep from doing this."

Anakin snorted, knowing he'd never get away with anything even remotely like this. "There's that selective justification the Council's always on about."

Giving him a heavy look, I turned to get into the speeder. As an afterthought, I turned back and said, "I know you're concerned about your mother, Anakin, but remember--everything must be accounted for. We're going to have a lot of explaining to do as it is."

Nodding, Anakin sighed, looking at the sand beneath his feet. I studied him a moment, then reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

"Be here for her while you can, Ani," I said softly, and Anakin looked up in surprise at the endearment only Qui-Gon and his mother had ever used. Our gazes locked for a moment. I felt a shudder of understanding pass between us, a moment of vague, distant vision. It passed so quickly that I doubted its truth. Later, I would come to regret not acknowledging it for what it was, but then I simply nodded my head.

"May the Force be with you," Anakin said, and stepped back from the speeder.

"And with with you," I replied, whisking myself away.

The trip back to Mos Eisley was uneventful; I pushed the speeder perhaps a little harder than I should have. It was dusk when I arrived. Immediately upon my return, I began questioning vendors as to the whereabouts of a particularly tall man with light brown hair and blue eyes who seemed to be a native. In this part of the galaxy, though, few people answered questions about unnamed descriptions, and fewer still answered them without a bribe.

I cursed; I had only a few dactari. Fortunately they had become recognized as local currency several months prior, but I only had enough to live on for the three days I'd promised Anakin with his mother. I certainly didn't have enough with which to buy information--no one was giving it freely, let alone to a Jedi.

A good way through the evening, as I was about to retire to a cantina for something to eat and some unfamiliar drink or another, I saw Qui-Gon's replica again.

This time, the man was making for me directly. I strode forward, meeting him halfway in the crowded street, only marginally surprised when the man grabbed my arm and steered me into the bar, fairly shoving me into a seat.

"I don't ever--ever--want to hear that you were asking after me again," the man hissed, glancing around, though the music was loud enough and the place was talkative; no one paid any mind to two men about to have an argument in a corner.

"Why not?" I asked, keeping my voice flat, belying the way I shook inside. I had not expected to be advanced on that way, though I assumed that the man would not be pleased to know a Jedi had been asking all over the spaceport about him.

"I do not need any trouble," the man said tightly and beckoned a Twi'lek over. "Two ales." He handed her a coin and waved her off. "Nor do you," he finished, turning back toward me, his voice cold and angry.

I stared after the serving girl, though it was largely to avoid meeting that intense blue-eyed gaze, now regarding me with naked anger. Finally, I turned and faced the man.

"Are you familiar with the Jedi?" I asked, quite calmly, and the man blinked and sat back.

"Of course. They run about in pairs, one mentoring the other. Their numbers are dropping because so many of them have chosen celibacy and asceticism, supposedly for the approval of the Council that heads them up. They are, essentially, living in the back pocket of the Senate, headed up by Chancellor Palpatine, a most unwholesome individual, even for a politician, if you care to know. Why? Should I have something to do with them? Am I the likeness of some famous Jedi or another?"

I hardened my expression, refusing to be cowed. The man had shaken me; now he seemed to think he could do it perpetually.

"You seem very knowledgeable in the ways of the Order," I said calmly, "or at least very opinionated." The Twi'lek came with our ales and I glanced up at her briefly, waiting for her to leave before resuming. "As a matter of fact,I am a Jedi. You look, sound, move and act almost exactly like my old master, though I must say he wasn't nearly as irritable as you are."

The man took a sip of his ale and licked his lips, his eyes smiling coldly. If he was surprised to discover my vocation, he did not show it. "Your master would be irritable too, if some stranger appeared out of nowhere asking dangerous questions."

Before I could speak, he waved a hand to cut me off. He sat back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest. "You should know, Jedi, that here, any question is dangerous." But he seemed to consider a moment, then said quietly, "Finish your ale, and then I'll take you somewhere. Obviously you won't leave me alone until you have your answers." His expression grew thoughtful. "And perhaps you might be the solution I've been waiting for."

Silently, I obeyed him. We drank our ale without speaking any more, blending easily into the cantina atmosphere after our rather noisy entrance. Then I followed him out into the street and to his home.

Once we had reached the man's hut, he immediately tugged his poncho off, revealing simple tunics and leggings. He continued to undress, taking off his outer tunic and then his boots, and I was about to wonder exactly what he had in mind when he said, "Come here."

He sat on a wide bench, a worn-smooth wood plank on legs. As I moved toward him, he placed one foot on the opposite knee in a relaxed stance. He patted the bench next to him and I sat.

Pointing to his heel, that achingly familiar voice said, "Look."

Bending closer, I could see a small mark. It could almost be mistaken for a mole, except that it had a faint bluish cast to it.

I straightened and shrugged. "A birthmark?"

The man arched an eyebrow at me. "From a certain point of view."

I looked at him closely. "Who are you, really?"

He rose and padded barefoot to a table, where a latch underneath revealed a shifting plate full of hidden documents under the surface. He pulled out a small stack and carried it to where I was sitting, handing me the top document.

It was a reproduction of an enlarged blue circle, similar to the mark on the man's heel; it appeared to be a logo of sorts. On it was printed a serial number, a production date, a donor code, and the words "Concept property of ExGen Dynamics, Yavin 4."

I pulled in a breath.

"Now you see," the man said, his voice a low murmur, "why I prefer that people do not ask after me. Why I don't answer questions like, 'who are you' or 'where did you come from.'"

My head spun and my vision darkened. I put my elbows on my knees and supported my skull, suddenly dizzy almost to the point of sickness. If anything, my questions increased, each clamoring for attention more loudly than the last.

Seeming to take some sympathy for me, the man said, "My name is Kian. I expect it will take you a while to get used to that."

I stared almost raptly as Kian told his story, or as much of it as he knew.

He had been generated in a batch of half a dozen other clones as the pinnacle in a series of experiments. The intention of ExGen was to attain the ultimate goal of creating a Force-sensitive clone. Unfortunately, he explained, this particular experiment, which had started with a highly Force-adept donor, had failed to produce the desired result. The reproduction had been flawless but for the fact that the midi-chlorians lay too dormant to account for more than sentience in the copy. When Kian had discovered that he and the others had become liabilities, he managed to gather up as much information as he could and escape the ExGen compound. None of the others would go.

"If nothing else," he said almost sadly, "you may rest assured that clones are capable of independent thought."

But this was only the beginning, he'd found, upon going through the random data he'd come away with.

There were two political bodies struggling for financial control of ExGen: a small coalition of planets headed by Alderaan and Malastare, and the Republic Senate.

I barked out half of a laugh to conceal my horror. "You're going to have to do better than that," I snorted. "Generally when accusations of a high-level galactic conspiracy come up, we require things like proof."

Immediately a stack of datachips landed in my lap, some of them spilling over onto the bench and then to the floor. Startled, I thumbed through them, staring at the header information before loading one of them into Kian's datapad.

The clone went on, "The planetary coalition wants ExGen closed. The Senate wants it monitored--they say. I do not believe Palpatine's word that the technology would not be ill-used."

I looked up from the piles of data documenting the struggle. I had heard none of this. There had been whispers darting about for years about cloning capabilities, but the news that had circulated among higher government bureaucracies was not available to the public or even the Jedi at large. Certainly the general Republic populace had no idea of any capability to produce intact, sentient life forms. That the Senate was already investing time in taking control seemed almost impossible, too huge a secret to keep.

Kian bent at the waist and placed his hands on his knees, staring at me. "Do you not understand? Palpatine is planning something. Something huge. There must be a reason that the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic--a relatively new Chancellor, I might add--wants the Senate to own the controlling percentage of a cloning facility." He spit the last words out as though they were sour.

I glanced away. My stomach felt sick, and I was too amazed to think. Unbidden, the only possible solution became clear to me.

"Come with me. Come to the Temple. We can present your evidence to the Council and provide you with protection. We have--"

Kian turned his back on me, silencing me in spite of myself.

"I will not go to the heart of the Republic and lay my trust in the organization resting in Palpatine's back pocket," he said calmly. "They want to kill me, Jedi. I have heard the myths about clones being emotionless and insentient--in spite of them, you might be surprised to learn that I rather enjoy not being dead."

I shook my head, frowning. "We're a separate organization. We take diplomatic jurisdiction from the Senate, nothing more."

Straightening, the man who looked too much like Qui-Gon folded his arms over his chest and tipped his chin up. He stared down his nose at me, obviously not convinced.

Kian's voice was dangerous and quiet. "I haven't stayed alive so long outside ExGen without keeping my head on straight. If this is some kind of a trick, you should be aware that I have copies of all of that data elsewhere."

I rose from the bench, my eyes hard. I'd had quite enough of his attempts at browbeating me. "I should think you stupid if you didn't," I retorted. I dropped the chips in my hand onto the floor where some others still lay scattered. "Now if you will excuse me, since you've obviously wasted both my time and yours, I need to see about rooming arrangements until the morning."

I moved to push past the clone, too many questions still racing through my head to address.

"Wait." Kian placed a hand on my arm, paused, and then went on reluctantly, "If you give me your word that the information will be kept out of the Senate's hands, and out of any subsidiary organizations, I will go with you. But if you're to help me--"

I laughed then. "Oh, it's on your terms that you want my help. Tell me, has it yet occurred to you that without the Order's knowledge and cooperation, I'm useless to you?"

Kian tipped his head down and let out a huff of air, dropping his hand. When he raised his eyes again, I looked at him curiously.

"How old are you?" I asked, realization dawning.

"I am forty years old," came the response, obviously programmed, but delivered in such a wry tone that I raised an eyebrow and waited for the real answer.

"The incubation period on a clone is two years. My post-gestational life has spanned five years. My genetic material was preprogrammed with an age designation and accelerated life span so that I would quickly attain the appearance and character of my donor. Of course, that means the rest of my life span is accelerated; I have only a few years left in me." He looked at me, watching my eyes slide closed suddenly, my throat working to swallow. "You knew all of this, didn't you?" he added quietly.

I knew, but the reality, the confirmation, was almost too much. When I spoke again, the words came out a powdery whisper. "Where was your genetic material gathered?"

Kian's gaze was steady, his voice matter-of-fact. "Mos Espa."

It was true: he was a clone of Qui-Gon.

I could barely decide what to do after Kian had told me his origins. /I should contact the Council; I should head back to Mos Espa immediately and get Anakin. I should ask more questions. I should get all of this on a holorecorder in case something happens. I should whisk Kian away from here so that he will be safe./

I stared at him, my unvoiced questions ranging from technical to utterly, inappropriately personal. Through it all, a pervasive and rather unnerving sense of having come home invaded my heart. This man was too close to the memory of the one who had died in my arms. The man for whom I had harbored feelings so thoroughly hidden that I hadn't even seen fit to voice them as he slipped away from me.

/This is not a man; it's a clone,/ I mentally corrected, but I could not imagine someone who had come from my master's body as a thing.

The truth of the matter remained that I had difficulty not looking at Kian as my master. It was Qui-Gon, but not Qui-Gon. It was too much to consider. I caught myself gaping again and lowered my eyes.

Kian moved into the very small cooking area and began to put vegetables and bits of dried meat into a processor. "I'm sorry I'm not the person you thought I was," he said over the whine of the meal in preparation. I glanced up again, seeing the man leaning back on the counter, arms folded over his chest, legs crossed casually. Even his movements were the same. It was stunning.

I was silent for a few moments. When I spoke, it was almost to myself. "He meant a great deal to me."

Glancing up, I could see Kian wanting to say more, perhaps ask a question, but in the end I relieved him of the awkwardness and began to go back through the datachips, closing the discussion altogether.

If the origin of the genetic material had been Tatooine, that meant that the one gathering it might likely have been the Sith I had killed on Naboo. The best we had been able to determine was that the Sith had been tracking us for at least two days; he might have had plenty of opportunity then. Also, Qui-Gon had destroyed a probe 'droid on his way out of Mos Espa. There was no telling how many more there might have been.

Or how many there were currently.

I ran my hand over my face and tugged at my beard a little, staring at the documents but not really seeing them anymore.

"We're going to have to get out of here," Kian told me, bringing two bowls of food. "Quickly, before we're noticed together again."

"Tomorrow," I agreed. "First light." I looked at my bowl of food and then up at my host.

"Why yes, we do eat," Kian said dryly.

I shook my head, sighing.

I tried to eat, but my stomach wouldn't take it. After a few moments of poking at the stew, I gave up. Finally, belatedly, I commed Anakin.

"Skywalker," I heard, and immediately began talking.

"Padawan, I need you to listen to me. I have contacted the individual I mentioned to you. You need to be ready to come back to the port first thing in the morning. No later than zero-eight."

"What?" Anakin exclaimed. "No! You told me three days--"

"And I told you to be ready to go in case something happened. Suffice it to say that 'something' has. I'm not going to explain it now. You will be ready to go when I come to get you."

"Master," Anakin ground out, "I deserve to know who this person is if he makes you pull me away from a visit you promised me."

"Padawan, you had best watch your tone with me. I am not telling you anything over an unsecured comm. Now you be ready to go at zero-eight."

I terminated the connection.

Kian was watching me when I glanced up again. "Problems?"

I sighed. "You've no idea. Force, I wish Qui-Gon hadn't--" I caught myself before I could say more. Frustrated and embarrassed, I combed a hand through my hair and slumped forward. The room felt hot suddenly and I peeled out of my robe where I sat, leaving it draped over the bench unheeded.

Several minutes passed in silence, and then Kian spoke again.

"This master of yours. You were in love with him?"

I felt myself flushing and rose quickly. "What in the Sith--what kind of a question is that? He was my master. My mentor. I have a great deal of respect for him. Great Force, between you and my apprentice, you should charge by the hour and open up a mindwarp facility." Still huffing, I took up my bowl and moved into the small, open kitchen, dumping my uneaten food down the compactor. I returned to find Kian staring up at me, a smile playing in the haunting blue eyes.

"Oh no," Kian said, amused, "that wasn't a defensive reaction at all, was it?"

It was very difficult to find sleep that night, in spite of the lateness of the hour. My mind raced and the fact that Kian slept like a stone infuriated me inexplicably. There was only one pallet in the small hut, so we shared it, both of us curled up on opposite sides, facing away from each other. I stared at the dark, blank wall. My companion snored faintly.

The clone had been aware of himself for five years. I, however, still struggled to wrap my brain around the fact that clones existed, let alone that I was lying next to one who was identical in almost every respect to the man I'd lost to the Force. I had always thought, somehow, that if any organization were to perfect cloning technology, the product would be less than human--nothing more than the sum of its parts, perhaps. To find that so profoundly untrue unsettled me, to say the least.

But this one had come from Qui-Gon Jinn, and perhaps that was the reason I had trouble thinking of Kian as a clone at all, even though I dimly realized that there were more of them out there. How had ExGen secured the genetic material? How much was required? A hair? A bit of blood? Had my master been injured in the 'saber fight before he'd leapt to the ramp and just not told me? Had it been, indeed, the Sith who had collected the sample, or one of the 'droids? Were there agents here? Did anyone else on Tatooine know that Kian was a clone? But then, anyone who might have recognized him as Qui-Gon would have been in Mos Espa.

If the Sith, then, had been involved, it was likely that the other half of the master-apprentice team was involved with ExGen directly. I almost wished I had a clue pointing anywhere else; the investigation into the Sith had gone cold after two or three years. The Council speculated that it was only an apprentice that the two Jedi had fought on Naboo. It would require a master to cover tracks in the interplanetary outcry that had resulted from the dissolution of the Trade Federation.

Still, an apprentice could slip away undetected and recuperate himself, possibly taking on an apprentice of his own.

I sighed heavily. This line of thinking was not helping me get any sleep. Irritated with myself, I turned over onto my other side, my movements tight and quick so that I might avoid jostling the body next to mine. Pillowing my head on my tucked-up arm, I met the gaze of a very awake Kian.

"Your restlessness is enough to dislodge a mynock," Kian complained lightly. "I know I have given you enough to worry over for several nights, but do you not have some serenity exercise to keep you from constantly sighing and rolling around?"

My jaw tensed as I mentally inserted "Padawan" at the end of his sentence. My perpetual squirming and fidgeting had alternately amused and bothered Qui-Gon.

"Forgive me," I said tersely. "It is only that you seem to have unleashed a number of questions, and I cannot get them sorted in my head. I will be still."

Once again I found myself staring into those eyes, now dark like the room around us. He stared back, unashamed.

"Do you know why, Jedi, I asked you if you were in love with your master?" Kian's voice was quiet, a low rumble.

"No, of course not," I said, keeping the defensiveness firmly out of my own voice.

He reached a hand up and pushed a stray hair from my forehead. It was too intimate a gesture; I felt my throat go dry and my pulse quicken.

"I asked you because I've seen the way you look at me. Your eyes are still filled with shock, which is to be expected. Every time you look at me, you hope. That is to be expected, too. But you look at me, also, with longing."

I allowed my eyes to slide closed as long, roughened fingers, callused not by a saber's hilt but with household tools and bricks and sand, cupped the side of my neck. "There is no longing, Kian," I said, but my voice was roughened like those hands, now, my body responding half against my will and half with it.

"Then why will you not look at me now, Jedi? You've stared at me all day like I'm your drink in the desert. Open your eyes."

I did so in time to see Kian moving very close. His lips brushed over mine, dry and warm. I was frozen in place, mesmerized by the shocking events of the day and now the night, those lips grazing over mine gently, giving me time to pull away.

/This isn't Qui-Gon,/ I heard myself thinking distantly, but I did not know whether that knowledge brought relief or disappointment.

Kian's tongue swept over my bottom lip. I opened my mouth, admitting the questing tongue, welcoming it. The half-moan that came out of me sounded as though it belonged to someone else; the mouth, drawing at Kian's, wasn't mine either. It felt surreal, and yet my senses distilled the kiss down to a sharp, needful act perpetuated by my own long-standing grief.

Kian raised his head and stared down at me. Our breathing was shallow and my gaze flicked over his face, searching. For what, I did not know.

"Decide," Kian half-growled.

In response I pulled him down, my arms wrapping around the broad back, fingers digging into tunics to pull him closer. I kissed this time, my tongue sweeping forward and catching Kian's, and I was pleased at the groan that an aggressive thrust of hips brought forth. I neither knew nor cared that I'd wanted--needed--this to be my master. I had always known that the depth of my grief stemmed from more than my inability to properly honor Qui-Gon's death. Now, I knew that it did not matter. In the morning, it would. Perhaps in an hour, it would. In the moment, I allowed my body to want; I allowed myself to borrow Kian's inexplicable lust to give me some kind of pleasure.

The mouth over mine was firm and demanding; there was little finesse to the kiss as it became rough with urgency. I groaned and shifted up onto one arm, switching our positions and pressing Kian down to the pallet to straddle his hips. I trailed my mouth to the hollow of Kian's throat and bit, thrilled when the large body under me arched and shivered.

Kian pushed his hand into the overlapping folds of my tunic. When the warm, callused hand met the skin of my chest, my mouth fell open and I gasped involuntarily. It had been so long, so very long that I'd forgotten to miss the feel of hands on my skin.

Suddenly, I could not wait any longer. I shifted downward, tugging at Kian's clothing, hauling him up to pull the tunic over his head, then pushing him back down to yank his leggings off. I fumbled with my own clothing until Kian batted my hands away, undressing me with the same harsh eagerness I was feeling. I heard something tear; I let out a brief laugh and then descended over Kian again, kissing ravenously, cupping the too-familiar face, sliding my fingers over the now-stubbled jaw and into the long, loose hair. I ground downward roughly, hard enough to bruise, and Kian responded with a gasping groan and an answering movement toward me. The friction of skin and coarse hair against my erection was so welcome that I could not think beyond the sensation.

Kian thought for me. He shifted, pointing to a trunk at the foot of the pallet. I moved to it immediately, unclasping it and throwing it open. There was a vial of oil immediately to hand. I took it up and turned back to Kian, moving between his legs and pushing them up and apart. My hands shook; my own eagerness stunned me. I was about to share myself with a man whom I had only just met, but who also looked identical to my master. The sensation of vertigo returned as I stared down at the body under mine, cloaked in darkness and a bare sliver of moonlight from a low window.

It was so close, too close to my heart: hair swept back from the broad forehead, soft but lightly creased skin, eyes that even in darkness were so long missed that my breath caught in my throat. The body before me was lean and strong, corded by hard work and tanned by sun. But now I could see faint differences: the nose was regal and unbroken; that had happened when Qui-Gon had been an adolescent. The hair was longer, thicker, less streaked with silver. The muscular body was lean in slightly different ways. I realized I did not know what Kian did day by day, but of course he did not handle a lightsaber or perform katas.

"Don't wait," Kian breathed, and I shook myself as my would-be lover pressed his hips upward, the dark erection too inviting. I tried once again not to think about the length of time since my last lover as I passed my fingertips over the terribly soft skin of Kian's cock. It twitched under my hand, and Kian sucked in an urgent breath.

"Now, Jedi," he growled. Startled, I shifted, watching Kian watch me hungrily. I felt filled with power, as though Kian's need imbued me with strength I hadn't had in years, if ever.

Licking my lips, I uncapped the oil and coated my hand with it. Kian made an appreciative noise, half-purr, half-groan as I tucked one finger inside him and thrust, half-consciously mimicking the movement with my hips, adding another finger when I felt the tension in the big body relax. I wrapped my hand around the thick cock in front of me, smiling almost smugly as Kian jerked and thrust into my fist.

I would have pressed another finger inside him but he groaned, "Enough" and curled himself upward, taking my wrist and pushing it away from him. He sat up and grasped my hips, digging his fingers in almost painfully, then leaned forward and bit a nipple, hard enough that I gasped sharply. As Kian reclined again he pulled me over him.

We kissed furiously, Kian grinding upward as I sought entrance carefully, then not so carefully as the clone of Qui-Gon made a needy noise and tried to pull me into him. I breached the tight entrance and pressed inside, watching in amazement as he lost what little control he'd had and began to moan continuously, low rasping noises that shattered my handle on my sanity. I began to move urgently, falling down as he tugged on me to pull me in more deeply, faster, harder. Kian tipped his head up to kiss me until our breathing was too ragged and labored to allow it any longer. I dropped my head to his chest, hips pumping rapidly, my hands tucked under the broad shoulders and curled over them, holding tightly. The end came too quickly, yet not quickly enough. Release broke over me abruptly, catching me by surprise as I shouted, legs working as though I would crawl into his body and bury myself there. Ripples of sensation crashed through me, rocking me.

Struggling to bring my breathing and emotions under control, I realized that I had shouted a name and that it had not been "Kian." Embarrassed, I groaned and ducked my head down.

"I'm sorry," I breathed against the light hair under my cheek.

But Kian seemed not to care what name I had used; he thrust his hips upward again and reminded me of his own waiting erection.

I crawled backward, disengaging myself reluctantly. Kian let out a small moan, stroking himself lightly. I watched for a moment, fascinated. Would Qui-Gon have looked this way, done these things? I shook my head and reached for the vial of lubricant, not wanting to think about it. Then I reconsidered, leaving the small bottle where it was.

I stunned us both by dropping suddenly to my elbows, pulling Kian's hand away and engulfing the smooth shaft in my mouth, sliding my tongue down the base of it and then over the tip, tasting. Kian let out a long, low cry, gripping my head and threading his fingers through my hair. I worked my tongue, suddenly eager to be finished: unrequited fantasies of Qui-Gon flitted through my head unbidden. I was grateful when Kian came, moaning brokenly and gripping the covering on the pallet.

Swallowing with effort, I pulled back and began to dress, arranging myself quickly.

Kian raised his head and stared at me questioningly. "What is it?"

I did not look at him. "You were successful; I'm tired. We have a long day tomorrow. We need to rest." I ignored his invitation of open arms and dropped to the pallet, turning my back, pulling only enough of the blanket over me to mostly cover my body.

My throat closed around an ache as I realized what I'd done even as I struggled, questioning why I'd done it. Had I deluded myself into believing that having sex with a man who looked like my master would somehow reconcile my love and sorrow? Force, had I managed to make myself believe that Kian represented Qui-Gon in some way?

Kian shifted beside me; I felt slight warmth curling around my back although he carefully avoided touching me. I closed my eyes. I still tasted him, and Force help me I felt both grateful and desperately sorry for that--Qui-Gon would taste the same, surely.

I could feel Kian staring at me but I said nothing and encouraged no conversation, only dropped into a light trance. It was enough for me to eventually fall asleep.

At dawn I rose quickly, pulling the rest of my clothes on and gathering my things with the efficiency my master taught me.

Ducking my head down, I realized I absolutely did not want to think about my master. Images of the previous night struck me and I batted them aside.

/This was not my master. This means nothing; he is a man I found attractive, nothing more./ The admonition rang falsely even to me.

Kian cleared his throat from the doorway as I knelt gathering up the last loose ExGen documents.

"I know you're duty-bound, Jedi, but I'd like you to tell me what happened last night."

I tensed, pausing in the gathering of the chips, then answered, "I told you. I was tired."

The silence was thick. I waited a breath, then began to gather the last three documents up.

"Fine, then," Kian said. "You were tired."

I glanced up in time to see him tip his head back and stare at the ceiling. I knew he didn't believe me but there was nothing to be done about it; rather, there was nothing I wanted to do about it. I absolutely could not fathom beginning an intimate relationship with a man who looked so hauntingly like the one I had lost. I thought, perhaps, that Kian had understood that the instigator for our encounter the previous night had been his looks and our loneliness. Surely he did not hope for more?

I handed the stack of chips to the clone. "We should get going."

Kian nodded, saying nothing.

Anakin Skywalker stared into the face of his dead master.

I had done the best I could to smooth the path but my padawan was simply confounded by the whole thing. He seemed almost afraid of Kian; whether that might be due to the tension Kian had sparked between us or the fact that he was a clone, I did not know.

Kian stared back.

"Force," Anakin breathed, stunned to the core as he approached the clone. When Kian looked up from his stack of ExGen data, his expression hovering between irritation and amusement, Anakin lowered his gaze tensely.

"Forgive me," my padawan said quietly, his voice completely unrepentant, "but you look just like--"

"I know." Kian shifted, adjusting the datapad in his lap, flipping a few screens and beginning to read again, dismissing the young Jedi.

Anakin stared a moment longer, then turned away, still dazed. I glanced between my padawan and Kian, wondering.

Kian did not look up from his screen. "Say it."

Anakin turned back around slowly. "It's wrong." He ignored my indignant look at his impertinence. "Where did you come from? Who sent you here?"

I stepped forward, mouth open to speak, my embarrassment rising at the uncouth behavior of my apprentice. Kian waved me down.

"It is unnatural, after all," he pointed out wryly. His gaze met mine, challenging and knowing.

Anakin saw. Abruptly he rose from the table, looking from me to Kian and back again. Then he stormed out of the ship's common area to the cockpit. I followed after him, placing a hand on his arm as soon as we were out of Kian's hearing. The boy jerked away and slid into the pilot's chair.

"Anakin," I began in a sigh, "whatever you think you believe about him, you need to consider--"

"Don't." Anakin held a hand up, not looking at me. "Don't tell me what I need to consider, Master. That--" he pointed out toward the common area-- "is wrong--he--he shouldn't be coming with us. And you--you--I know the feelings you were trying to hide for Qui-Gon and it's obvious you've already involved yourself with him. And that's even worse. A clone. A clone."

I stared at my padawan, and then after a moment I slid into the copilot's chair, leaning forward onto my knees. I was unsurprised; I'd known I couldn't keep that simple yet oh-so-complicated act from my padawan even if the two of them had never exchanged a glance.

"I don't see that it's got anything to do with you," I countered steadily, staring at my hands. "That--" I pointed back into the common area-- "is not Qui-Gon."

"You've desecrated his memory," Anakin ground out, ignoring my words. His anger was almost palpable. He spun his seat about and glared at me. "Is he my replacement? Your revenge because Qui-Gon wanted to train me?"

I tightened my jaw. "You are completely out of line, Padawan," I informed him coldly. Chosen One or no, I was not going to allow my young apprentice to cow me. "You and I had already discussed your reassignment before I met him. His coming back with us has nothing to do with you."

"Good." The young Jedi stood, then glared down at me a moment. "I want nothing to do with him." He strode from the cockpit and to his room, his anger billowing behind him like his cloak.

I stared after him. I had expected disbelief, even reticence, but this venom had no reason behind it. Was he jealous? Did he honestly think that this was a similar scenario to Qui-Gon having brought him as a child to Coruscant? Staring out into fathomless distance, I wondered exactly how alike the two situations really were.

Of course Anakin had a right to be jealous; his feelings were as valid as mine had ever been. But this was nearly as crucial a discovery as that of young Ani himself. This could impact not only the Order but also the entire Republic on a fundamental scale.

Kian must have seen Anakin go; he came into the cockpit slowly, cautiously, as though he expected to be sent away.

"Jedi. I've caused you problems."

I sighed. "You've done nothing. And I have a name."

I could not look at Qui-Gon's double as he moved close behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I stiffened, unable to help myself.

"Alright then," Kian said tightly, dropping his hand. He backed away, then turned and left much like my apprentice had: sullenly.

I had a bad feeling about this.

I paced the hold that night, unwilling to sleep in the tiny cot opposite my padawan. Anakin was angry with me; I could understand that the idea of a sentient, human clone bothered him--certainly the implications of it bothered me--but why he seemed to be angry with me over it I could not say. Perhaps he really did believe Kian was some sort of replacement for him.

By the hours we'd grown used to, it was well into the night as I moved to the hold portal, staring out, watching the stars warp by. I heard movement behind me and turned, surprised to see Kian there in the bay door--as surprised, it seemed, as he was.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, backing out of the doorway.

"No--wait. It's alright." I faced him, noting that he seemed to be ready for some form of exercise: he wore soft boots, loose leggings and a baggy tunic.

"I will leave you be," I said quietly, moving past him. He looked completely unlike Qui-Gon at the moment, so relaxed as to be almost sloppy, and that aloof air about him did not attract me.

"Stop," he said, catching my arm. "Why do you do this? Why are you avoiding me this way?"

Closing my eyes and shaking my head, I said nothing.

Kian moved toward me, too close, never letting go of my arm. "You're afraid of me."

I snorted. "You assume too much."

"You are." He took another step and I shifted away, pulling my arm from his grasp. But there was nowhere to go: I was hemmed in, pinned between Kian and the hull, the portal beside my head.

Perhaps I allowed myself to be hemmed in.

"It wasn't so bad," he breathed. When I looked at him, startled, he went on, "It has been a long time for me. I think it has for you, too, Jedi."

I shook my head, another useless denial, but remained quiet and did not move. My heartbeat quickened at the sound of that voice, at the closeness of him. No, it had not been bad. That was the problem.

Kian slid his hand down my torso and immediately between my legs, cupping me, massaging through my leggings. I pulled in a stunned breath and squirmed, but it was good. I grew hard quickly, one shoulder against the hull of the ship, Kian's hand stroking me purposefully.

"See?" he coaxed. "I want you, Jedi. I think that's plain. I think it's reasonable. And I think you want me, too."

I moaned, neither denying nor confirming, but it was enough for Kian. He pressed against me, pushing my back to the cold hull of the ship. When he sought to kiss me, I reached for him blindly. I groaned into his mouth, shuddering, thrusting into his moving hand. It was warm through my leggings, contrasting the cold against my back and complementing the heat of his mouth against mine. He tucked himself against me, sliding his erection against my thigh, encouraging me in breathy moans between hungry kisses.

"There. There, Jedi."

I threw my head back, letting out a short grunt as I came.

Kian released me immediately, stepping back and smiling haughtily.

"I imagine you will continue avoiding me now." Turning on his heel, he left me standing there, clammy and alone.

My master used to have a maxim that went something like, "No one can bother you without your consent." In light of that, as I made my way back to my bag and my cot, I disapproved of my own ease at consenting to allow Kian to... bother me.

Anakin would do no more or less than stalk around me the entire journey home, and I could do no more or less than release my frustration into the Force and wish that he would try to understand me, or listen if nothing else. The boy was completely irascible where Kian was concerned, and I was completely confused now.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was thinking, bringing Kian back with me. I had no authorization to offer him protection as I had done. I had no reason to believe the Council would even accept the notion that Kian was Qui-Gon's clone. We had a donor code but we had no cross-referencing information backing up the assertion that the donor material had come from the Jedi we had all known.

So what was I doing? Why hadn't I simply suggested a dispatch team go to retrieve or protect the clone of Qui-Gon Jinn?

/Because they wouldn't have allowed it,/ I realized, brushing my fingertips over my forehead. /And because this is too unbelievable, too amazing to leave alone. Because the possibility is too good to resist./ I closed my eyes. No, it could not be so simple. It could not be so selfish. I could not make peace with my master's memory by involving myself with a man made in his image.

I had loved Qui-Gon since my childhood, since the earliest months of my apprenticeship. It had not taken me long to respect him, and then to admire him, and then the rest had been simple. I had hoped that one day--

But no. I had been down that path far too often of late.

Live in the Moment, his voice said suddenly, and I let out a choked noise and curled forward, resting my forehead on a cool piece of metal on the control panel. My mind so desperately wanted to mesh with my heart that now I was recalling his maxims to suit my purposes.

/No,/ I thought firmly. "No." My voice was quiet but it seemed to echo in the cockpit. Anakin had spoken correctly; it was misguided at best to involve myself with Kian. It would be the worst possible kind of use--in fact, what we had already done together was wrong. Our encounter in the hold, surely, was proof enough of that: he'd been getting back at me, reclaiming some of his own after I'd stung him that night in his hut. It was not an auspicious beginning for a love affair.

/It's for the best,/ I told myself. /Better that he never comes to feel more than this. Better that I never do, either./

But the realization did nothing for my heart but weigh it further.

"Knight Kenobi," Master Windu greeted me quietly. "You have something important to share with the Council, I presume?"

"Yes, Master," I replied, bowing, and gestured toward the door. Anakin palmed it open, his eyes betraying his dislike of the situation.

The collective gasp that went up around me would have been rewarding had there been any happy news delivered in the hands of this man. He had, inexplicably, pulled his hair away from his face and into a tail. His clothing was much the same as it had been on Tatooine, though he looked sharper, less dusty. He carried with him all of the files. Of course he had no way of proving from whom his original cells had come, but I felt it to be obvious to anyone with a sense of the Force-- or with eyes, for that matter. For all intents and purposes, Qui-Gon Jinn stood before the High Council seven years after his body released his spirit into the Force.

Master Yoda alone concealed his reaction. "Extraordinary, this is," he remarked, placing a stubby finger on his chin. "Who are you?"

"My name is Kian. I have no surname. My donor code is TQGJ-SS-1138.T. My lot information is here." Fearlessly, he strode toward the head of the Jedi Order and presented him with the 'pad and the stack of chips.

"Lot information?" Master Windu said incredulously, staring as Master Yoda thumbed through carefully-labeled data. "Knight Kenobi, you had best explain this to us."

So I did. The expressions on the faces of the Councilors slowly ran the gamut from amazed to grim to resolved, and with dawning relief I realized that Kian's lonely battle was over, and he would soon be joined in his fight by the Jedi. Whatever tensions lay between us, I did not see the need for him to suffer his fate without help.

"This will have to be undertaken with a great deal of care," Mace said quietly, steepling his hands.

"Mmm," Master Yoda nodded. "Assigned to this, you are, Obi-Wan." He turned to Kian and said, "Equipped, you will be, with uniforms and a weapon. Pose as a Jedi, you must."

A distinctly uncomfortable knot congealed in my stomach. "A Jedi?" I asked, my voice weaker than I'd intended for an indignant question.

Master Windu nodded. "It's the only way. We will formulate something more concrete as we confirm the information here. Begin the equipment and uniform requisitions and when we have further instructions, you will be summoned." He held the portfolio up briefly, studying it before finishing, "That is all. You may go."

Reluctantly I glanced over at Anakin, who had moved in from the doorway and now stood at his place, behind me and slightly to the left. It would not be his place for very much longer, it would seem.

"With permission, Master," Anakin said quietly, and I stepped back, indicating that he should come forward.

The Council waited as my first padawan drew up his courage, took a breath and finally spoke.

"I wish to petition for a new master."

The words were delivered with shocking, stinging flatness. When we'd talked about it, Anakin had been regretful, even sad. But now, in the wake of Kian, the boy no longer seemed to care that he was leaving me behind. Perhaps I had never been a good teacher, but I had thought, if nothing else, I'd tried to be a good friend.

Yoda sighed, considered a moment, and nodded his head. The standard protocol called for reasons why the request was being made, but his motives had to be apparent here, given the conversation the little master had only recently had with me. There seemed to be nothing left to say. This event carried with it no surprise--the reaction of the Council was, at most, muted--and that fact did not escape my notice.

Yoda's voice carried a heavy air of resignation, as though it were all too much. He rested his gaze on me briefly and then turned to Anakin. "It will be granted. Released you are from Knight Kenobi's padawanship until chosen again you are." The little master waved his hand in dismissal, turning his face away.

Anakin bowed shallowly and swept from the room, pausing at the entrance to make eye contact with me as he bowed, neatly severing the training bond with a painful mental slice. I stood there in the center of the Council circle, dumbfounded even as the pain dulled and disappeared. That was all? After seven years of training, I was set aside without so much as a thank you? Ah, but I had put us here. This had been my request, my doing. Anakin's anger centered around Kian now, though we might have parted ways amicably otherwise.

Master Yoda regarded me blandly, waiting. I bowed and turned. Kian remained where he was until I approached him, gripped his elbow firmly and guided him from the rotunda.

Just outside the antechamber, I released his arm abruptly and kept walking even as he paused, staring after me.

"It's no fault of mine, Jedi, that they assigned me a keeper and it happens to be you," he said in a slightly amused, slightly irritated tone. His voice, deep and too hauntingly familiar, resonated within the stone and marble walls.

"True enough," I tossed over my shoulder, not stopping. When he made no move to come after me, even as I neared the exit, I turned and snapped, "Well, come on, then. Uniforms. Equipment. Great Force, I have bought myself another padawan." I tipped my head back and rubbed at my neck, sighing, then walked on.

Slowly, his footsteps echoed after mine.

I treated him abominably, truth be told.

He was right, of course: it wasn't his fault that I'd been tasked with him like a crèche warden. I had expected an independent team to head to the cloning facility for investigation, using Kian as a guide, perhaps. This set of plans had never crossed my mind. Nevertheless, we did manage to get him some uniforms and boots. The requisitions and supply personnel quietly boggled at the man following me around, carrying boxes and piles of personal items and looking very much like my master at a younger age. I ignored their reactions for the most part, struggling with my own. When he turned a certain way--

But there I went again, on about things that had no bearing. Now, I was on a mission. Yes, I had work to do. We were about to embark on something deeply political, possibly involving espionage between the planetary alliance and the Senate, and if Kian's assumptions were correct, then there was a lot more to Chancellor Palpatine than met the eye.

By the end of the day, I was tired of his condescension and longed for my bed. As I palmed the door open, I felt the absence of my padawan--my former padawan--and sighed. Kian was right behind me, wondering at my hesitation.

I entered the rooms I'd inherited from Qui-Gon and dropped the bundles that I'd ended up helping Kian carry. The quarters had never really felt warm and homelike since Naboo, but now they felt gutted and chill. I rubbed at my arms, disliking the way my tunics suddenly seemed to chafe. Anakin had taken his belongings and swept out the energy behind him. It was as though I had never had a padawan living with me at all.

"I suppose I will unpack here," Kian suggested, stepping into the bedroom and indicating the second bed. "It seems as acceptable--"

"No," I spat suddenly, surprising both of us. "You can't stay here. I won't allow it. The Council will have to find you alternate rooming." The words came out in a rush and I stopped abruptly, glaring at him. He knew, surely, that I had no strength against him. Nights alone with him were a dangerous idea.

He raised his hands and bowed his head somewhat, the picture of resigned defeat. "Whatever you say, Jedi. Do whatever you have to do to get me a bed, and do it quickly, if you please." He ran a hand over the scraggly beard he'd grown over the past days, then slid it around to scratch at the back of his neck in an eerie mimic of Qui-Gon in a deep state of exhaustion.

No, he could not be allowed to stay with me.

"Very well," I said tightly, turning on my heel and leaving the quarters altogether. I could have used the comm unit; I could have called in a request for guest rooming. No; I needed to get out, away. I felt as stifled, perhaps more so, with Kian than I had with Anakin, and no wonder. He was too inviting, too haunting in spite of his coldness toward me--the coldness I had created.

/Damn it all, Kenobi, you're a wreck./ I strode quickly down the halls to Rooming, gritting my teeth, hood raised, fists clenched under my long sleeves. /Let it go. You must let it go./

/It will be easier when he's gone, when he's sleeping somewhere else,/ I answered myself. /Much easier./

"What do you mean, exactly, when you say you won't assign him guest quarters?" I demanded slowly, banking my growing anger.

The Rooming clerk accessed her databank and shook her head. "I am under strict orders, Master Kenobi, to belay any requests for guest quarters issued to Master Kian."

I felt myself tense again. /It's not 'Master' Kian,/ I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. I wasn't about to discuss classified material with the damned housing staff--not even if it would assuage my growing indignation to point out to anyone who would listen that Kian was most certainly not a Jedi.

"Where, then, is he supposed to sleep?" I asked, projecting patience and serenity.

She looked at me steadily, tilting her head. "You have, as of today, an empty padawan bed, have you not?"

I could do little more than give her a close-lipped smile and grit my teeth. I hate bureaucracy. I truly do.

I felt him the entire night. It was as though I were still on Tatooine, trying to sleep with a large, familiar and yet alien body next to me. I could not relax, could not allow myself to sleep with him in the room.

Dawn was close to breaking. I could feel the light beginning to spread over this quadrant of Coruscant, though of course I could see nothing. Qui-Gon had never been entitled to a windowed room, and so neither had I been. It did not matter; darkness faded whether or not I could see it.

He moved on his pallet, shifting in that way that is both uncomfortable and sleepless. I heard more shuffling, and then he was walking toward me in the darkness, a warm shape in the black room.

/Decide, Jedi,/ I remembered him saying.

I could not decide. But I could buy more time. I could buy just a moment's more contentment. /For both of us,/ I told myself.

We did not speak. There was nothing to say, and on some level within me, I knew it would be like this. His senses in the dark seemed as capable as mine somehow; he found me, climbing into my arms as readily as I would have his had I only dropped my pride.

His mouth was warm and sure. His hands were rough and capable. His voice was desperate and hungry. He took me that night, using the lubricant that I'd kept on hand only for stray visions of Qui-Gon.

His urgency was diminished; it was as though two encounters with me had tamed him, brought out his finesse. When he slid his hand over my stomach and between my legs, he moaned at the way I shivered. He prepared me gently, almost sweetly. Kian's fingers inside me, blunt and knowing, were almost more than I could bear when he was being so tender. I needed him to be brutal and cold. I did not need to think of him being considerate of my feelings.

"Now," I gasped, arching onto his hand in spite of myself. "Now, Kian."

In my sleepless, lonely state, I viewed him as another stray vision. He buried himself inside me, his eyes glittering in the darkness. I wished I had turned over; his eyes were cold and his face bore no trace of any pleasure he might have been feeling. He was almost stoic as he took me in spite of his gentleness, as reserved as my master had ever been in a million asexual moments. Kian was a shade, an aspect of Qui-Gon that had escaped the Force somehow, returning to this plane to--

To what? To be with me? To haunt me? To bring to the foreground all of my failings?

It did not matter. That night, he only fucked me. It was good, and then it was over, and wordlessly he went back to his bed. His absence made me ache. I told myself it was Qui-Gon I mourned, but Kian was here, warm, willing, alive, the image of the man I loved. I turned to the wall, ignoring the stickiness and chill. I should have done many things that night; I did nothing but stare into the darkness.

I roused myself with the dawn, coming out of a doze I hadn't realized I'd slid into. Immediately I was up and heading for the small meditation room in the center of my quarters. The padding I'd placed there as a permanent fixture was wearing thin; perhaps it would serve to keep me focused. Physical discomfort, surely, was much better than what I'd been enduring since Kian had come into my life.

But once again, I was aware that it had never been his fault. He'd been carrying on, going about his day when I'd accosted him, and then he'd had to stop me from drawing attention to his presence in Mos Eisley. I had interrupted his life and he had allowed it, hoping I would help him.

Help him. How in the suns would I do that? From what I had deduced, we were expected to somehow infiltrate the cloning facility and determine their intentions, their funding and their political backing. Really, I had no idea what Kian was after. It was unlikely that the Jedi, without proper support, would be able to shut down a whole cloning site, apparently a large, well-supported one, besides.

But the answers would not come to me this way; I would simply have to wait until the Council gave us a decision to advance on. I did want to help Kian resolve this, by whatever means the Council found necessary.

I wondered at him a moment. My stomach coiled around itself at the memory of the previous night, and to my chagrin I discovered that I was becoming aroused at the thought of what he'd done to me. It had been completely emotionless, almost stoic, an act of physical desire and inability to sleep. My mind began to phrase the question, /Hadn't it?/ but I broke the thought off hurriedly. Of course it had. Loneliness and sorrow are always made worse by exhaustion and insomnia.

/Emotions tend to take free reign when one is not in control of oneself,/ I remember Qui-Gon saying, /and control requires a rested mind./

Ah, my master. How I missed him still. How wrong it was that he was gone. But what of Kian? What would become of him after we had completed this mission of ours? Where would he go, back to Tatooine? And then, on the heels of that thought, I wondered about my former padawan.

Anakin seemed to have cleared our quarters the instant he'd been given leave, transferring down to the crèche housing area. He had never lived there; from the moment he'd belonged to the Order, he had been a padawan, and so I wondered how he was faring.

Had he truly left so quickly, almost angrily, because of Kian, or was I reading into something that wasn't there? I hoped that he would find happiness with another master, someone more capable than I. I had too many problems to work through, too many questions of my own to try to teach the ways of the Force to a boy with more power than I could control. Perhaps I was trying too hard to fill Qui-Gon's shoes; at that, of course, I was destined to fail.

"Jedi," came a soft, rough voice from the doorway, and I started somewhat.

"Yes?" I turned to look at him and swallowed back an urge to call him "Clone" in retaliation: he was dressed in the Jedi attire that we'd requisitioned for him--shining, smooth, brown boots adorned with a single buckle at the shin; deep brown inner tunics; cream-colored outer tunics; sash and stola--all of it. His robe was dark, the robe of a master. His beard was thickening, though it was not trimmed and shaped the way my master's had been. I swallowed and looked away. It was all very much like Qui-Gon's uniform, with minor details altered--not enough minor details for my comfort, it seemed.

"You have been in here a good while," he pointed out. "The sun is long up and I am hungry. Will you break your fast with me, or shall I leave you be?"

The question seemed strange to me, a soft request for company--a surprise, to be sure. He had seemed so cold--

But no, again, together we had created this mutual, fluctuating barrier between us. He might have seemed willing enough to be angry about it after that first night, but last night, Kian had embraced the distance, used it. Perhaps now he was reconsidering again; but surely, no, a shared meal could harm nothing. It was certain the Council would see us spending a great deal of time together if I was to train him in rudimentary Jedi arts.

"I will join you," I said quietly, realizing I'd passed my entire meditation time in random reflection. Daydreams and answerless questions accomplished nothing. I would be more careful in the future, more mindful of my thoughts. I rose from my my kneeling position and Kian, oddly, bowed to me, his freshly-braided hair sliding down over one shoulder.

"There is no need for that," I said quietly. "I am no master here." The words stung me, even from my own mouth, so I said nothing more, preceding him out of the room to head to the commissary.

We ate in silence. I was painfully aware of the eyes on us, some curious, some full of shock, as we sat in the common dining area in the Temple proper.

I distracted myself from our settings as I considered how best to handle this new situation. I thought the best course would be to guide Kian through a standard day of padawan training. It seemed odd to me but there was not much of a choice left to us. Other than this, I did not know what more to do.

"Last night," Kian said suddenly, pulling a biscuit apart with his long fingers, "was not meant to happen. Was it?"

I swallowed tea and resisted the urge to rub at my forehead, wondering why that made a difference after I'd allowed him to stroke me to orgasm in the hold of the transport back from Tatooine. "It was--probably not a good idea," I ventured carefully. I did not want to argue with him; not when we were joined together by Council mandate.

He nodded, chewing, then said, "And if it happens again?"

I closed my eyes a moment; there was no use in trying to hide what he did to me. That voice was still too dear, though it was rapidly growing new associations. I will never know which hurt me worse: that I felt as though I was losing Qui-Gon's memory to this man, or that I was thinking of this man as Qui-Gon. None of it made sense to me.

"It should not happen again," I told him, less firmly than I would have liked. "But if it does--then--we will deal with that as we come to it."

He studied me a moment, then nodded. "I suppose we will, won't we?"

We finished our breakfast in silence, though the bread seemed too dry for me, the fruit too mealy, and the tea too weak. I glanced around, looking for a distraction of any kind, then regretted it instantly.

Anakin was watching me. He noted Kian beside me, noted his attire, and smiled grimly. I met his gaze steadily, refusing once more to be cowed by a sixteen-year-old boy. He was a child; Chosen One or no, he was still a subordinate in the chain of the Order, and would not hold sway over me with petty guilt over acts that were none of his business.

I told myself that more than once before Kian and I left the commissary.

"You will have neither time nor facilities to attend any theory classes," I told Kian quietly as we strode through the archive halls. "We will have to make do with what's here." I turned down a tall aisle and searched, scanning the rows quickly until I found what I wanted.

"Here." I handed him a data chip. "That's just this side of layman's terms. We can't have you knowing just what the rest of the galaxy knows about the Jedi. And this one." I chose another. "Basic Force theory. Unification, Living--does any of this mean anything to you?"

He looked at the chips. "It will soon enough, I suppose," he said rather grudgingly.

I hid my irritation. "You wanted help. This is your help. You're going to have to learn these things if you're to guide your team around the facility."

Kian looked at me, startled. "Is that--have you been given some order to that effect?"

I shook my head. "What else could they possibly want with a civilian who acts like a Jedi?"

Sighing, he nodded.

"Meditation," I told him, "is not only the art of blanking your mind, though that is one aspect of it. It is a form of focus. It is--" I broke off, struggling for words that a non-Force user would grasp, then tried again. "When you concentrate on something, focus on it, it comes into clearer view. That is meditation. Most beings perform it in some capacity or another without realizing it, though seldom is it as ritualized as the Jedi make it."

He sat across the mat from me in the small rotunda in the center of my quarters. His legs were folded before him, his hands resting on his knees. It was a lesser-used position, but it would suffice until he grew used to kneeling as I did.

"I don't know how to start," he said, sounding mildly frustrated. It had been the lament of the day.

"Choose something about yourself, perhaps, that you would like to change or improve," I suggested, and he laughed.

"Oh, I think I like myself as I am," he smirked. "You seem to, at any rate. Occasionally."

I flushed. "Then focus on the tea we had at midday," I snapped, then sighed, waving my hand. "The content doesn't matter. That you find the ability to focus does. People cannot see into your mind, but if you find a focal point, you will look less like you're sitting there waiting for me and more like you're in a state of meditation."

Kian nodded, seemingly deciding to stop prodding me for the time being. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and I did likewise. While he practiced at looking like a Jedi, my intention was to make up for the time I'd lost that morning.

I dropped into a low-level state of focus, monitoring my breathing and my heartbeat, turning more deeply inward as I regained touch with myself that I'd lost over the recent days that had passed. I had slid past a third level of consciousness, a deep state of focus, when I felt it.

It was a spark, a presence, clear and plain, and so comfortable and familiar that I gasped, jerking myself fully alert and out of my meditation altogether.

"Master," I breathed, without realizing I'd spoken. Kian opened his eyes, looking at me quizzically.

I looked around the room, shaken. I stood, stretching my senses, feeling for--but no. There was no one here but Kian and myself; Qui-Gon had not come.

"What is it?" Kian asked me, looking concerned.

"Nothing," I said, stifling my terrible disappointment. "It was nothing."