Sacrifices Rating: NC-17
by MacWarning: Contains violence and sexual abuse
Pairing: OW/GQ
Spoilers: None
Category: Angst, dark AU
Disclaimer: Done for fun, no profit to me.
Archive: Mac & Anna's Place, M_A , others please ask
Feedback: Please, I do enjoy it.
Summary - After the lighter events of How to Seduce a Jedi, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are on their way home when their ship is intercepted by a strangely twisted individual who proceeds to torture Obi-Wan while keeping Qui-Gon trapped in a dangerous Slaver Net.
I was woken from the depths of a dreamless sleep by a mouth and a hand. The mouth was kissing me and the hand was -- well, it was holding onto a well-worked part of my anatomy.
I groaned. "Please - no --"
The mouth slid across my cheek, a rough beard rubbed and circled, a wet tongue slid into one ear --
"Noooo." I tried to push myself away but two very strong hands grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head. At least they'd stopped touch --
Oh no. Now he was rubbing. His groin. Onto mine. It was too much.
"Stop - so tired. Have to sleep. Please."
He didn't stop. He has no pity. I cracked open one eye and glared up into those disgustingly bright eyes. "You have no pity. I need my rest. I'm very tired!"
He smiled, indecently awake, freshly washed, lustfully aware. "The youth of today have no stamina. Here you are, with a Jedi Master draped on top of you, and what do you want to do? Sleep!" He stroked himself over me in one long sweep. "Shame!"
It was a bad moment. If I pushed or shoved I'd only be putting us closer together. He insisted we sleep naked so everywhere we touched was hot, slick skin. Hot, slick, sensitive, hyperactive skin. Lovely skin, really, now that I came to think on it. Difficult not to think on it when it was wrapped around me like a living blanket. Except for the lumpy bits, which didn't fit the metaphor at all.
I was rambling. It came of not having had enough sleep. Three days, three nights, nearly constant sex. I had a whole new understanding of the phrase 'screwed senseless'. Not that I hadn't been on top from time to time but I must admit I'd enjoyed my oh-so-proper Master growling and acting the Alpha male and seeing just how many improbable positions he could arrange me in prior to performing The Act.
Being Jedi does have its advantages. I'm quite sure the ninth and thirteenth times wouldn't have been possible unless you were double jointed, possessed of six limbs or were in command of the Force.
But it was just too much. I called on my body control, commanded the growing erection to be gone and clamped my eyes shut. "I'm going to sleep now. You do what you want but I'm sleeping. Closing my eyes here. Snoring soon. Dead to the world."
I went limp but I couldn't fool him when he could read me down this strange new bond we'd formed somewhere along the way. He moved off me, yes, but only long enough to flip me onto my stomach and settle back to the job at hand. Knowing that I was faking a lack of interest didn't help at all.
He began with the nibbles, little sucking bites along the small of my back that had me twitching at the small, sharp pains made by his teeth. He was trying for reaction, of course, the wretch. Then he moved down to my ass and in between and - that - was - cheating - his tongue slid between as he thumbed me apart and he licked me, pressed his face into that hot, moist space and I pushed back before I could stop myself. I am only human, after all. I defty anyone to lie there motionless while they're being rimmed by the best tongue in the galaxy.
He chuckled, his breath stirring the hairs around my spinchter. "Still weary, Obi-Wan? Shall I lull to sleep?" As if...
When it seemed I was doomed to endure yet another morning of being turned into a legless wreck the alarm claxons started hooting. We both leapt out of bed and into our clothes before the third cycle - I ran out into the hall barefoot, carrying my lightsabre in one hand and struggling into a tunic with the other. Qui-Gon was only a few steps behind me.
We slipped into the bridge as the transport shuddered; a blaster strike, unmistakeable.
"What's the situation, Captain." Business-like, everything else forgotten as Qui-Gon studied the readouts and I watched the pilot struggling with an obviously distressed ship.
"Sir, we came out of hyperspace for our planned navigational check and - damn!" The pilot jerked as a stream of blaster fire rocketed past the window. "Two ships, big converted freighters by the look of them, they were waiting for us. Blasted us as soon as we appeared."
We were, as usual, travelling in one of the red-hued unarmed transports, the colour signifying a neutral vessel without weapons and it should have been obvious to any raider that we weren't worth attacking. Council courier ships never carried valuables, only passengers and I couldn't see the reasoning behind the attack. Unless there was no reason beyond simple violence.
The ship shuddered, tossing us up against the wall and the co-pilot slapped on an emergency power buffer. "Sir, that was the hyperdrive. We're not going anywhere."
We stood watching, keeping out of the way as the pilots tried to dodge aside but it was obviously pointless without the ability to jump. Qui-Gon moved around the co-pilot and toggled on the communicator.
"Attention attacking ships," he said, holding on to the back of the co-pilot's seat as the ship jerked and shuddered, "this is a neutral unarmed Republican Council vessel. Cease firing!"
Co-incidentally, the firing stopped at that moment as we pulled forward by a tractor beam coming from the closer of the two ships. The second ship moved behind us and there was a clanging thump as it attached itself to our hull. Qui-Gon moved back beside me, lightsabre in hand as we heard the hissing slice of cutters breaking through the airlock.
"I think we're receiving guests' he said in his coolest voice. I felt his calm and fearless readyness and slid into the familiar stance beside him.
"Uninvited ones." I flicked my sabre to the ready, wishing I'd had the time to put on shoes and even as our two sabres flashed to life the hull exploded inwards and figures tumbled through onto the deck.
Qui-Gon ordered the pilots to duck for cover as we fanned out. There were three of them dressed in light battle armour, armed with short-barrelled blasters and two of them made the mistake of firing on us. Two blaster bolts were deflected back, two attackers fell. The last man yelped and ducked back through the broken hatch.
We moved forward towards the hatch – in such a situation attack was the best form of defence as were could be easily despatched if we allowed ourselves to be cornered in the transporter. As we were about to check out the hatch a small grey shape flew through the smoky opening and bounced against the wall.
"Stun grenade!" I yelled, pushing Qui-Gon aside even as I dived for cover. He stumbled in front of the hatch, I tumbled and came to my feet as I sensed a figure crouched in the entryway with a stocky black shape in its grip. I called out a warning – too late! -- a wave of black filaments flew through the air and struck Qui-Gon even as he tried to turn aside.
The grenade had been a ruse. As I turned to leap I heard Qui-Gon cry out in pain, a sound that momentarily froze me. The filaments had wrapped themselves around him in an inky black web. A Slaver Net! Strictly outlawed, terribly dangerous, I wondered frantically how I could get it off before it tore him apart. I took a step forward and a voice spoke out of the smoke.
"Make a move, Jedi, and I'll have my little toy slice your friend into bite-sized pieces."
Indecision tore at me. I could see his face behind the web, red and flushed as he stood trembling, his feet the only part of him not wrapped in that deadly web. His lightsabre had fallen to the floor and I could sense his pain as he tried not to struggle, sensed the choking pressure gradually asphyxiating him. Any movement tightened the web and it was squeezing him to death.
"Stop it! You'll kill him!" Desperate, I turned to the man in the door who had been joined by others who stood back with raised blasters. As the smoke cleared I could see him more clearly. Tall and thickset, dressed in black battle armour, his face covered by a helmet and faceplate. He gestured with his free gloved hand.
"Put the sabre on the deck and kick it to me, or I swear I'll put this thing on automatic and you can watch him swim in his own blood! Do it now!"
I knew either choice probably meant our death but the more immediate danger to Qui-Gon had to be contained, so I flicked off my sabre, lowered it to the deck and pushed it to him with a Force nudge. I risked a quick glance at Qui-Gon then turned back, surprised, when I sensed a dark flicker in the Force. My sabre was in his hand and he studied it with interest.
"A long time...a very long time..."
No time now for subtlelty. I concentrated on the black figure, my eyes narrowing as I reached out for him through the Force.
"Perhaps." I said, with a slight twitch of my hand, "it would be wise to let us go now."
I watched him, felt his resistance, felt unusually strong shields snap into place in his mind. "Yes, it would be. But you know, after all the trouble of getting you, it would be a foolish time to learn wisdom."
A small silver weapon slipped into his hand and he gestured at Qui-Gon. "What will you pay for his life, Jedi? No, not money, I know your kind all too well for that. What precious thing would you relinquish to spare him pain? Your honour? Your pride? Your body? Surely that's worthy of the bargain?"
Ice formed in my stomach as I sensed his unsavoury and unstable hunger. "And your word is worth...what?"
"Some small hope, at the very least. Otherwise, there is none. Just – say – yes."
I was hit by a flash of precognition, not imagery but the sense of being a part of something important, something involving this man. I spoke the word before I could rationalise my response.
"Yes."
I heard his delight through the Force as he turned the weapon toward me. Before I could think to move he fired and the world went black.
I was brought awake by a violent pain in my side and I rolled over with a groan.
"Time to wake up, boy."
That voice. I opened my eyes and looked up...was laying on a floor and he was standing over my, nudging me with his booted foot. "Stay down there and I'll have to kick you again. Get up."
The effects of the stun made it difficult for me to co-ordinate myself but I finally managed to stand, if a bit unsteadily, one hand holding the spot on my side where he'd kicked me, steadying myself on a small, empty table behind me. I looked around, tried to focus.
No Qui-Gon. I swung around, almost falling and he reached out to steady me.
"No, he's not here. " I turned back to him, grabbed at him and he pushed me back. "Stay calm or I'll have to punish you. Look up there." He pointed over my head and I turned to see a bank of monitors, all grey but one.
"What..." I moved closer and saw a figure on the monitor, slumped in a corner against a wall. Qui-Gon, still wrapped up in the net, alive because I could sense him, a vague feeling of discomfort. I turned back to him, pushed down the sudden bloom of anger, studied the man.
He was tall, almost as tall as Qui-Gon, but bulkier, a broad well-muscled chest, big arms, big legs, obviously someone who worked out. Dressed in pants tucked into black boots, his powerful arms bare in a sleeveless black shirt, he would be formidable in a fight. His face, topped by short-clipped pale blonde hair, might have been considered good looking if it wasn't for the harsh line of the mouth and the hard glint of the blue eyes.
He was watching me with calculated interest, a staff in one hand that he twirled slowly between his large fingers. It was of a similar size to a lightsabre but two or three times the length, made of some dark wood.
"What do you want?" I asked him and his eyes narrowed even as white teeth flashed in a slight, pleased smile.
"To learn. To discover. To perceive."
"I don't..."
"...understand. I know." His voice was almost gentle. "But you will. We will explore together, you and I. I will teach you things your Master never has. And perhaps you will be able to teach me with that clever young mind and perfect body of yours. Who knows?
"Are you being deliberately obtuse? Why are you doing this? What have Qui-Gon or I done to you to deserve this?"
"Nothing active. I had no idea you were on board that ship. I wanted it because I thought it might be useful in some plans I had. You're being aboard was a surprise." His teeth flashed again as he began tapping the stick against his thigh. "I must talk to my contacts on Ord Mantell, reprimand them for failing to inform me. I dislike surprises."
He walked around me as I was hit but a sudden flash of nausea, the final effects of the stun. I wiped my eyes, suddenly thirsty, wishing I had some water, wishing my Master was with me to offer council, to suggest a way to handle this obviously unbalanced mind.
His path was an inward spiral so that when he stopped before me he was very close. He raised one hand.
"Give me your hand."
When I hesitated he flipped a switch on the box on his belt and I saw Qui-Gon twitch from the corner of my eye. I bit my lip, lifted my left hand he took in his larger grip. He stroked one thumb over my palm as he watched my face.
"Do you know how many bones there are in the human hand?"
I shook my head as he continued to feel my skin.
"I don't know, either. A lot. Its an amazing tool, these fingers, this thumb that raised us from mere creatures to thinking machines. Such a useful member." He turned my hand and lowered it his groin, pressed it to the swell of flesh there. I instinctively pulled back, disgusted and his other hand started to move and I stopped. He nodded slowly as he stroked my palm up and down along his growing erection.
"Good, you're a fast learner. Curl your fingers in, please." I forced myself to obey and he continued to watch me as he combed my hand up into the warm place between his legs, his expression mildly intent. "That feels good. You have a fine hand."
Then, still holding me, he swung me around, pushed my hand onto the table behind me and brought the staff down on my open palm in one brutal blow.
I screamed, felt bones break and he struck again, hitting my wrist and more bones snapped and I sobbed. Twice more and somehow I didn't strike back, somehow I controlled the instinct to kick at him as he battered my hand and I tasted blood as I bit my tongue.
He stopped, raised my twisted hand back to his groin and pressed it against himself. I tried to curl away as he pressed it to him, as I felt the broken bones grinding against each other. The tip of his tongue slid over his mouth as he stroked himself with my broken hand.
His voice cut through the buzzing in my head. "The rules are simple. Annoy me, fight me, disobey me and he suffers. If you manage by some chance to overwhelm me, my crew have orders to push your Master out the airlock."
I stayed upright somehow, drew on the Force to submerge some of the pain, tried to think. "I still don't...understand."
"I know, you are so very young, so untouched." He raised the poor, swollen broken thing to his lips and kissed it. "You will stand there and allow me to hurt you and teach me your pain. Perhaps it can make me forget mine."
And I felt his mind probing mine, forcing entry, raping through into that place that belonged to Qui-Gon, joining with me in some sort of twisted bond. Realised with horror that he was a Jedi.
He sensed my understanding, stopped the questions with a tightening of his hand that turned my words to a whimper. "Don't ask. It's a very long story." He dropped my hand and I cradled it, watched him circle behind me again, twitching in spite of myself at his nearness. He trailed the stick across my back, around my side, up my naked chest to my chin, tipping it up. His other hand took hold of my braid, wrapped it around his hand and pulled me closer.
"Is he a good Master?"
I nodded.
"I can feel his worry for you, we're both together in you now, inside you like blood in your veins. But I shall be a better teacher in this." He pushed the tip of the rod against my chest, tightened his grip on the braid and jerked his hand back violently. I gasped, bit my bloodied lips again as my head was pulled forward, as the braid was torn from my head. I felt the blood on my scalp as he wrapped the braid around his hand and tied it into a knot. "That's how they do it at the ceremony you know, cut it off and tie it around their wrists and proclaim you a knight. This is so much nicer, don't you agree?"
He swung around on his toes, sweeping the stick around him like a lightsabre and struck me in the ribs full force. As I doubled over he pushed me back upright and swung again, striking the other side and I felt a rib crack. "If this was a lightsabre," he said in a calm, instructional voice, "you'd be cut in half. See how merciful I am?"
Somehow I kept my feet as he struck me again and again. He was flushed, eyes bright, expression oddly calm, the face of a teacher. The link between us strengthened as he tasted my pain, focused it, shared it with Qui-Gon and his hands stroked the bruises he made, pressed against the broken bones, healed them only to break them again.
He finally robbed me of my touch with the Force, submerged me in his older, darker energy and I fell, knowing my disobedience could cause Qui-Gon pain but unable to stand on a broken hip, unable to stop the screams and he followed me down, cradled me as if I were a child that he loved and not his victim.
Tired. So tired. Drifted in and out, taking each breath as a victory, each victory sharp and hurtful in my side. Tasted blood, coughed and that hurt more.
Even thinking was difficult. Feeling was easy but it just brought me closer to the pain. I needed...balance...my Master – but my torturer's presence was a black hole that sucked in the strength that Qui-Gon sent me as if it were his own. I began to doubt that any sacrifice would be enough to feed that need. I had to break through to him somehow. For any hope of survival.
I reached for my fading contact with the Force, pillowed myself within it and opened my eyes. He was near me, cross-legged, fingertips roaming over my back, fingers damp with blood – he'd cut my clothing away at some time to give him greater access to my skin.
I turned my head toward him and tried to find his eyes, to reach through the dark to him. My voice was barely a whisper, annoyingly weak.
"What...is your name?"
He stopped, sat back, tapped the bloodied staff against his other palm, impassive. "Why do you care? Does it change anything?"
"Just – curious."
"Curious? I expected hate, anger, loathing, demands, threats. But curiosity? Maybe I should have expected it. It's so very – Jedi." He looked up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "No, I don't think I'll tell you my name, it makes it a bit too personal. But you can call me Sir. I think I'd like that."
Compliance was easiest, bending in the face of threat an acceptable strategy. "If you want. Do you – have to – do this – anymore?"
I could sense Qui-Gon's attempts to work on the Slaver Net, to loosen it's iron grip on him. At the same time he was sending me comfort, support, and his love. The man next to me sensed it, looked back down at me and I saw the madness swirl around in his gaze.
"He keeps touching that. Touching it. Won't leave me alone. Tell him," he said with a feral snarl, slamming the stick onto my swollen hand, "to stop touching it!"
Agony dumped me back into darkness. There was no gap between the strike and sense of his weight on my back. He fumbled with his trousers and I felt his erection digging into my back, sliding down into me, the invasion a tiny pain compared to what had gone before.
Worst was his weight on me, on my cracked hip, my ribs that tore at my lungs...I choked, convulsed, tried to scream but could barely breathe. The blood. Up in my throat, out of my mouth, down my chin. Stop breathing and it might - stop -
Breathe. Just breathe. Obi-Wan, just breath
Qui-Gon! Warm, determined. Inside my head somehow.
He acts like am amplifier, he's very strong. Stay with me, Obi-Wan. Breathe.
It hurt but I did what he asked. Took one – another - shallow gasp. He anchored me to each anguished breath. I found some place to rest, held on. Pushed through the sharp, coppery anguish even as I felt the other riding me. He thrust into me with angry, savage strength. He was a big man and he hurt me but I was surprised to hear him sobbing with each thrust. The face that he pressed to my back was wet with tears.
I floated somewhere between them, the one who loved me and the one who hurt me. I felt arms slide around me and tensed, anticipating pain.
And then he touched me. Gently, the big hands stroking over the cracked ribs and I felt them pull away from the torn lung and melt together, felt the skin inside me heal. The strangest combination – healing me as he forced himself inside me, his body moving like a machine that, once started, must finish its labour. He reached out to Qui-Gon on some instinctive level, almost like a Padawan, and wrapped himself in me as if I were his last hope.
I felt an odd sense of disconnection. I knew I should hate him at that moment, for the pain, for the rape. Yet nothing he'd done had given him any pleasure. Even the physical release he gained as he climaxed was simply his body's reaction to stimulus. His only true content seemed to be when he touched me, when he took away the pain.
I knew I learned something important but I was simply too exhausted to put all the pieces together. I felt him lift me and carry me with ease to some soft place and then he let me sleep.
While I slept, I dreamed. Saw a man, slender, brown haired, brown eyed, a Jedi Master who laughed a lot and smiled with his whole pleasantly ordinary face, his whole extraordinary spirit, who loved me - saw him trapped and beaten and dying, hands out to me though I could do nothing but scream in terrified grief...and feeling the bond that had been born between us torn from my mind leaving a great black gaping hole into which my mind fell, shrieking...
I woke with a gasp, hot and cold, found him lying beside me twitching and moaning in his sleep. His hands gripped my arms so hard that the bones he'd already broken and healed were at risk of breaking again.
Leaning forward, I twisted one hand free and touched his forehead. Hot, wet, his eyelids flickered and I knew it was the dark vision I'd had, no dream but a memory that I'd felt along the bond he'd forced into me.
I understood then, at least part of it. Wondered if I would survive such a loss, survive the sundering of a soulbond. That he lived at all showed his strength and determination. That no-one at the Temple had recognised the internal wound and healed him appalled me. There had to be an explanation.
I wished there were some way I could get to Qui-Gon, release him from the net and bring him there. Together there was some chance we could reach the tortured mind and help it. Separated we could barely reach each other, our own bond was too new.
I wondered, then, if that was why he hadn't killed either of us. Some lingering understanding, perhaps, of what he would be doing, repeating what had been done to him. Wanting to be a part of such a bond, to heal and replace what had been taken - even if the only way he could experience it was through my pain and renewal –
I am not trained in psychology but I am Jedi and some things I knew. We live in the constant glow of the Force, it touches us each breathing moment and nothing, nothing is quite like it. To be Jedi and to have each experience of the Force an anguish made my transitory pains seem trivial. I had lived a day in pain – he had lived a decade in agony.
He woke while I was lying there thinking, woke and watched me with the puzzled air of man who didn't remember lying down to sleep next to his prisoner and couldn't understand why he'd done it. He pulled himself to his feet, looked down at me where I lay crumpled on his bed and shook his head, seemed about to speak then turned and left, locking the door behind him.
The room was plain, undecorated, functional. Thinking functional reminded me of my own body's needs and I managed to slide from the bed and crawl to the bathroom. It was a form of relief to empty my full bowls and bladder, to clean myself up as best I could with water and towels. The face in the mirror was bruised and pale and I touched the sore spot on my head where my braid had been with a sense of loss. It felt odd not to have it lying on my shoulder.
I had other things to worry about, more important than a piece of hair. I used a chair to hobble back to the bed, favouring the damaged hip. That I could breathe well enough to cross the room meant his healing had held. He could use the Force when we touched but not at any other time. It was an odd situation which I didn't yet fully understand.
I needed my Master, my Qui-Gon, needed his strength and wisdom, if I could just work out some way to persuade him...As I collapsed on the bed the door opened and my captor returned. Without a word he dragged me from the bed by my arm, ignored my pained groan and took me back to where we'd started, back to the empty room.
As the door opened I felt a wave of Force strength – Qui-Gon was there, still locked in the net, looking bedraggled and pale, but alive. He was propped up against the wall and as we came into his sight I saw his cheeks flush with relief, sensed his solid, calm strength wash over me.
The hands released me and I dropped to the floor, biting down on the gasp as the hip twisted under me, and I tried to crawl past him towards Qui-Gon. He rested his foot on my hip and pushed down and I cried out, bit my poor torn lip again to try and smother the sound.
"No. Stay," he said, as if I were a dog, standing there with his foot on me, looking towards my Master who struggled, the anger exploding out of him irregardless of black netting that chocked him with each movement, losing any advantage he'd gained during a still, miserable night.
I put out one hand. "Please...Master, stop!" He was dying, I could sense it, see it. See the webbing wrapping around his throat as he gasped for air, as his race red, twisting his spine to breaking point. I turned over, ignored my own pain, and practically climbed up his leg, grabbing for the remote and he thrust me away, snarling. Pushing down on my chest with one knee, he grabbed my throat and hissed, his eyes hot blue pits.
"Don't you know, Padawan, life isn't fair and the Force is really overrated. " I grabbed at his hand and as he pulled my hand away I felt the wrist snap...again. He squeezed it and I whimpered, tried to kick at him, anything to reach the control. He pulled me up, dragged me over to Qui-Gon's twitching form and shoved me against him.
"There he is. You can feel him. Feel your Master, be with him when he dies. I know what that's like, I really do." He sank to his knees and buried his face against my throat, grabbed the slick strands of netting on either side of me and pulled himself against me as if he wanted to press himself inside my skin.
"Maybe we can all go together," he whispered.
I suddenly saw what it was that he wanted. He didn't want to kill me – he wanted to kill Qui-Gon, take my place within the bond and go with him – as if that were possible. It was a strange, sick and desperate need that he was beyond rationalising.
Qui-Gon had almost stopped moving and his breathing was becoming uneven. I pushed myself upright, said the first thing I could think of to try and make him understand.
"If you kill him - it will happen again. It will happen again – and you will do it! To me. To him. To him," I screamed, thrusting the memory of that dying man in his dream back into his mind like a dagger. His mind buckled against the vision and I saw it, remembered it ---
Master...don't leave me...please...
And he turned to me in his terrible pain and willed me to stay. Fed his terrible, wonderful strength to me, not knowing what he was doing, how he would condemn me with his love. Even as that thing that had held us together was torn from me, leaving me agonised, even as part of me went with him into the light...the rest of me stayed at his command...torn forever in two...half alive, half dead...
As he swayed in grief at the memory he pulled the box from his belt and I grabbed for it, though this was the end...
But he held his arm out from his body, flipped the switch I saw Qui-Gon fall from the loosened web. Alive. Alive.
He looked down at the thing in his hand, closed his big fingers around it and crushed it, let it fall to the deck. Then he bent and picked me up, carried me back to Qui-Gon.
He watched as my Master struggled upright, fighting for breath, watched as I huddled against him in painful relief. His eyes were bright and I thought for a moment that he'd gone completely mad, that I'd pushed him too far. Then I saw it wasn't madness but tears. He hunched down beside us and though I knew he wasn't sane I also knew he'd found a sudden purpose. It was a purpose I hoped I would never need an intimate understanding of.
And then I heard that other voice.
Eric...I'm so sorry...all this time I couldn't reach you...to tell you how sorry I was... It came through the Force, through the strange enforced link we shared, amplified by Qui-Gon, by me and I saw him – Eric – react to the words. Surprise. Disbelief. Then glorious delight.
"...Master..." He struggled upright, swung around but there was no-one there. He stood, closed his eyes. "Please...don't leave me alone again..."
I touched Qui-Gon's hand and he looked at me, questioning.
"Can we help him?" I asked and he frowned.
"After what he has done to you, you would help him?"
I nodded, watched the tortured figure straining to hear that lost voice. "Yes. He is Jedi and he is lost."
The finger twined in mine and I felt his love once more like a fire in the night. "He is that. Very well. We can try."
I closed my eyes and sought the strength of our bond. It flowed from us into the Force, a filament of power going from us to that mysterious place where the all-encompassing power of Life was formed. Eric sensed the outreaching that went somewhere he couldn't go and surged along the bond, seeking. He pushed himself, added his strength to ours until we reached where no living things should go.
There was a ripple, the sense of presence as if a hand reached out.
...Eric love...so long...it's been so long...
"Yes..." It was the last sound he made as his body crumpled, as his spirit slipped into the reborn bond and was pulled away. There was the fading sound of a laugh and we snapped back to ourselves, to lie tired and wounded together in that fading sense of balance restored.
The remaining members of his crew were persuaded by mind manipulation and threat of repercussions to take us home to Coruscant. There, with a little help from the Healers, we recovered well enough to watch while Eric Menarrian was given his final rest in the flames of the Garden of Peace, to be mourned as the lost Jedi he was.
The records showed that his Master, Dillan, had been captured and killed in a revolt on some out-of-the-way world some months after he and his Padawan had formed a lifebond. No-one on Coruscant had been aware of it and the boy had fled in anguished madness when his Master and lover had died. Unable to find any trace of him, they had assumed him dead and listed him as such.
But he'd survived, held to life by the promise he'd made his Master, the promise to live even though his soul had been rendered by the death of his bondmate, his mind unbalanced by the conflicting need to live, and die. A fate worse than death was what he'd found.
I wondered, as I watched the flames take his body back to the Force, how I would have lasted under such pressure. A hand touched mine, the familiarity of Qui-Gon's presence soothing my thoughts with his calm presence.
Never fear it. We stay together or we go together. You're stuck with me, Padawan!
And you with me. I sighed as we turned to go back to our quarters. At least I could get some sleep now, preferably without dreams. I want to go to bed...
Outwardly calm and dignified, inwardly anticipatory. Yes, that sounds good. I think I'll join you...
I sighed and linked my hand surreptitiously to his. Yet another sleepless night...but for all the right reasons.
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