Interlude

He can feel the Light again.

After six days and nights of endless, boundless deprivation, Obi Wan can feel it once more. They have finally, finally left the place behind. They have escaped from that speck of barren rock which bears the name Zigoola, at least in someone's star charts, but which for him can never have a name because it is the epitome of personal hell.

Thus far in my life, at least, he qualifies - with a twist of humor so dry and black that it startles even him. Oh, Force… there is Light, and it is clean. Pure. Gentle. Powerful. Overwhelming.

"See? I told you it wasn't gone."

That is Senator Bail Organa, a politician, and – imagine this – a good man. He is both things at once, like Padme Amidala, who pilots this vessel, who came all this way just to rescue the two of them from certain death – or worse. That increases the sum total of living paradoxes to two. Two shining, wonderful beings, examples of virtue who might, in that regard, stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with the Temple's finest. This does not prevent Organa from implying that he told you so. It is an endearingly human trait.

"Yes…yes, you did."

Oh, dear. His voice cracked. Hopefully the Senator did not perceive it. But the Light is here, after such long absence, and it feels like rain after long drought, and it tastes of sweetest honey, and it sounds like Qui Gon's voice laughing, and chimes, and fountains, and it smells of her… and he is against all expectation and protocol going to make a complete ass of himself right here in front of Organa and the clone medic and anyone else who might happen to be eavesdropping around the corner. Like Padme, who thinks he cannot See her simply because he cannot see her. He mustn't do that. So he turns his face away and covers his mouth with one hand, noting that his skin and beard are filthy.

He hates being filthy. And right now he is filthy down to his core, every last cell of his body polluted by the Dark, his very soul stained and bruised and reeking of Sithly torment. He closes his eyes, hoping that the others, who are not Jedi, cannot perceive this inner filth, that he can somehow manage to veil the fact behind his shattered serenity.

It might have worked. Or not.

"Hey. Hey." Organa again, in his human mode, not his politician mask. "Do you want a painkiller?"

Which means, let us put you out of your misery. How funny, how ironic, that these people who cannot touch the Force, who are not Jedi, are now the protectors and the bringers of compassion and comfort. They are the strong ones, because they cannot. And he? He is now a pathetic life form. Like all the others he has ever mocked or impatiently brushed aside. Even if he had any dignity left, he would not deserve to have it. When he is fairly certain that his voice will not crack again, he speaks. "I believe I would."

It was kind of Organa to phrase that as a question, to couch the situation in terms that weave the illusion of free choice. He is a good man. Coric – this is the clone sergeant's nickname, the one his brothers gave him to replace the damning indignity of a mere serial number – has a star-forsaken arsenal all lined up. He can see the row of hypos waiting on their sterile tray. He chuckles, because it takes the edge off incipient hysteria, and because he is a master not only of negotiation and lightsaber combat, but of understatement as well, and he knows full well when the joke is on him.

They are going to drug the blasted hells out of him.

Part of him is glad. Part of him wants the relief this promises. And so, when the first cold rush hits his bloodstream, he does not resist the ensuing haziness. Organa is holding his shoulders, smiling, saying something. He doesn't care. Coric is still working him over, Jango Fett's eyes not so hard and bitter in this version of the ubiquitous face, but amber brown and genuinely concerned. He doesn't care about that, either. He is aware, dimly, that the medic is likely enough going to strip him down, too, and subject him to other nameless humiliations, but he doesn't even care about this. He closes his eyes and folds himself into the Light, and lets the ocean of drugs carry him away, into a welcome oblivion.

He knows when they land at the Temple. He knows because this is the Temple, his home, the fortress and sanctuary of Light. The Force shifts when the Nubian Senatorial yacht settles upon the landing pad, and he drags his mind up out of the comfortable morass in which he has been languishing for a stretch of time he cannot hope to calculate.

They have dimmed the lights, and the blinking of the biomonitor is a tiny beacon in the gloom. He can hear the ship's systems cooling, hear the tramp of footsteps just outside the door, in the polished corridor, hear his own pulse faintly beat beneath his skin. The Force eddies and pools, an invisible susurration. It flows through him, but he appears to be floating above his own body – and that is a slightly disconcerting sensation , but he still can't muster enough energy to really care.

And then the small medbay is full of presences. Coric again, all efficiency and deference; and two others, vibrant in the Light. Jedi. He has not felt another Jedi in so long, since before Zigoola. The bright nimbus of fire about these two is painful, blinding. He aches with it, with gladness for it, with a pain-joy verging on unbecoming emotion. The newcomers abruptly shield, dimming the influx of Light again, diminishing their presence until he can see them with his eyes. One is an apprentice healer, whom he does not know, because he is always gone from the Temple now, always on the front lines killing and destroying, and never wrapped in the serenity of the gardens and the Archives and the laughter of younglings. The other is Vokara Che.

She looks at him, and he gazes back up, inappropriate humor tugging at the corners of his mouth, making his eyes water a little. The elegant Twi'Lek's face is a study in chagrin and stern reprimand and genuine compassion.

"Master Kenobi," she says, tartly, as though he is a youngling caught in flagrante at some forbidden piece of mischief.

He wishes he could apologize, that this was the result of reckless disregard for her instructions, that he could claim abject remorse for his misdemeanor. But it isn't really his fault that he has brushed so close against death. Twice. In one month.

She is furious with him, and yet strangely tender as she lays her blue complected hand across his eyes. Her touch loosens his already tenuous shields, and she slips beneath, where the scars of Zigoola lie raw and bleeding, gashes ripped across his psyche, gaping wounds and terrible, hollow places where the Force only haltingly swirls, a broken sob. He tries to wriggle away, but Coric has reappeared, and the clone medic very much has the advantage of strength. There is no escape.

'Peace," Vokara Che murmurs, withdrawing gently. He realizes that he is whimpering, and that the apprentice healer is both alarmed and disheartened by this. It is impossible to suppress the resultant pang of guilt; now he has frightened a Padawan, a mere child who should not have to see a Jedi master reduced to such straits. He is supposed to be an example of strength and serenity. He tries to explain to the distraught youngling that this does not represent the limitations of the Force, but only his own weakness and frailty, that she should not think anything of this unseemly display, that he is hardly worthy of the title and rank he bears, but it is difficult to form words. Blasted drugs. He closes his eyes again and breathes, seeking a center that shifts away nauseatingly every time he grasps at it.

Vokara Che murmurs something to her Padawan, and the child's presence fades, disappearing down the ship's corridor on some errand.

"Stars' end," the healer mutters, in her husky, slightly accented voice. She is addressing Coric, now, accusation tingeing the civility of her tone. "How many meds did you administer?" there is the faint rasp of a fingertip against a datapad's touch-screen.

"Standard of care, ma'am," the clone answers, defensiveness underpinning his detached, professional tone. "Painkiller, sedative, antibiotic, thermo-regulators, shock suppressant, blood serum stabilizer, another more general pain med, that's got some other sedatives in it – the General's human, so I felt confident. I'm fully trained as a field medic specializing in human physiological trauma."

The Jedi healer sighs, and there is an awkward silence. "You are not to be blamed," she decides after a pregnant pause. Obi Wan chuckles again. It is funny, from his point of view. And then he thinks he might be sick all over the decks, just thinking about all those toxins circulating in his system. He feels a bit queasy already. But how would Coric know? He is only doing his job, the one he was trained to do by the Kaminoans and later the Grand Republic Army, and he has done it well and thoroughly.

"Easy, General," the clone advises, patting his arm. The medic misunderstands his reaction. But he, too, is a good man, beneath the behavioral conditioning and the rigorous training and the anonymity of his replicated chromosomes. And he cannot really do any harm, nothing worse than the Dark has already wrought in abundance.. So Coric is truly not to be blamed.

And then Obi Wan rolls over and is, indeed, sick. But there is absolutely nothing in his belly, so this does not make a dreadful mess. Which is some consolation for the wracking cramps. Now he is shivering and sticky with fresh sweat, and very, very ill. "Lovely," he whispers, because he can't help himself, and bats away the hands that try to pull him back against the cot's hard pillow.

That is the moment when Master Yoda chooses to appear, flanked by the nervous apprentice healer and two more clones. Senator Amidala and Senator Organa are lurking in the background, and he cannot help but notice that he felt this same way on Geonosis, when he was chained in the gladiatorial arena, on display for the enthusiastic and bloodthirsty spectators. He half expects Anakin to make a grand entrance, claiming to rescue him when he is, in fact, in the same dire situation himself. This is not a fond memory; it ends in the death of over a hundred Jedi, in Anakin maimed and moaning, in Dooku's gloating smile, in betrayal and dark revelation, two burning saber scars carved into his flesh.

The Grand Master is speaking to him, rasping words that fall against his ears without meaning. He groans, because Yoda is so bright, so scintillating in the Force, that his presence burns, though in a good way. The tiny master's clawed hand brushes against his hair, and this gesture proves to be his undoing , for at the familiar touch twenty years and more fall away into the Force's timeless embrace, and he is hurting, and wants Qui Gon Jinn to be here, soothing and reassuring and immovably secure in the Force.

"Master…" he says, and they all think he means Yoda. All except Yoda himself, whose gimlet eyes betray his understanding, and yet bear no censure.

And then they are moving him again, perhaps onto a hovergurney, and their voices blend into a confused medley of sounds, of worry and grief and melancholy wisdom. Vokara Che's presence looms closer than the others, too close – intimately close, too far beneath his shields to be comfortable but too firmly to be repelled, and she is pushing him deep, deep into the Light, into peace, into another kind of oblivion, one he would not resist even if he had the strength.

Rest, she orders, imperiously, and he does. Gratefully. The Light carries him away.

When he surfaces again into consciousness, it has been an eternity.

The world is softly incensed, and warm and spacious, and quiet. It is a peaceful place, sheltered and serene, as antithetical to Zigoola as it is possible to imagine. The Light is everywhere, abundant, overflowing. He simply floats in this effulgence for a very long time, listening to the quiet, breathing, allowing the subtle hints of Chandrilan halsawood pervade his senses. There are other beings nearby – other luminaries gently burning within the plenum, welcome constellations of thought and awareness, and he supposes that a fallen star suddenly restored to its rightful place would feel thus, and swell thus with unspeakable relief.

A voice interrupts his bliss. "There you are. Come now, open your eyes."

This voice is not hostile, and he squints in the dimness, colors and shapes moving vaguely before his puzzled gaze. Light coalesces into place and time, and he must admit to a pang of disappointment. With vision comes a threshing of appearance from substance, there from here. He is suddenly aware that he is a vacuous weight within the panoply of stars and light; that he is empty and hollow when all else is sublimely radiant.

Panic rears its ugly, primordial head, rising out of some instinctual swamp, some somatic realm of emotion and memory. He thrashes, feebly, because he has sworn an oath never to submit to darkness and now, horribly, he finds that emptiness has taken up residence within him, made his soul its dwelling-place and throne.

"No!" He won't have it; he can't. Fear whips serpent-like at the base of his spine and he crushes it, closing his eyes, seeking for that wonderful moment when all was light and peace and he had no center and so no hollow core. He reaches for the tranquility of that lost paradise, and finds that it has dissipated, that the healing trance has been broken and he is left here, alone with the hard truth of his own individual condition. He had been in the Force; and now it is merely in him, and not very fully at that. He is a lantern grown pale and weak, guttering in a perpetual wind.

Vokara Che is still here, making soothing noises at him. He doesn't want her cosseting; he wants the Light, that has been so long denied him. He wants to stop drowning in nothing, in smothering absence, in void. There was a voice on Zigoola, sounding out of the planet's very bowels, whispering in its tainted air. Die, Jedi. Die, die.

"No!" he shouts, with renewed vigor, with strength that is not his own, that springs out of thin air, out of nowhere, out of hidden Light, out of whatever dregs of life still kindle in his blood, because the one thing that he will not do is surrender. Never! Defiance sparks him to desperate strength, and he throws off the shackles of the cloying dark, fighting for his life, for the Light, for the Force that he is sworn to serve.

It takes three other Jedi to hold him down. He fights until he is exhausted, which doesn't take long, and then he realizes what he is doing and subsides, breath coming in heaving gasps, head spinning, adrenaline lending a liminal clarity to this last bit of folly. Vokara Che's face swims in and out of his vision, while the hands holding him maintain a precautionary grip. There are many voices; he has created a scene. How … poignant. He grimaces in distaste. Mortifying does not begin to describe the situation.

"Forgive me," he rasps out, hands clenching in the soft blankets which, he just now notices, are bunched and tangled about him. He is in the Temple, in the Halls of Healing. There is nothing here to fight against. He blinks up at the pale ceiling, the blurred and unsteady firmament, and then closes his eyes against the impending migraine, once again feeling hollow and sick, feeling the hands upon his arms and chest and legs relax their hold, feeling Vokara Che once again cradling his aching spirit in her own, pushing him gently, inexorably back into the healing trance, and its sweet forgetfulness, its peace. He submits, a willing prisoner, surrendering to the Light and only to the Light.

"Foolish man," he hears her mutter before he drifts away completely.

The next time he wakens, it is with reluctance.

"Come now," the healer's voice murmurs, encouraging. "You are doing beautifully. Open your eyes now."

He does not want to do this; but duty has always come before his personal desires, always since Melida-Daan, or at least since Anakin, since Qui Gon's death and the grief that threatened to eviscerate him if it was not thrust aside for the sake of higher purpose. He opens his eyes.

"There, there," Vokara Che murmurs. "Here, let me help…" She won't be put off, and he can't be bothered to resist. She pushes and pulls and generally fusses about until he is propped up, resting now against a veritable mountain of pillows. His own breathing is a lulling melody, texturing the Force with peace; his eyes drift shut again.

"No, no," Vokara Che warns, "Not yet. Stay with me for a moment. Look at me." Fingers brush against his temples.

He drags himself back to the edge of awareness again, and looks into the healer's amber eyes. She is aging; the blue skin about her lids is thin, and lined, and dark circles are there that never were before the war. Healing in time of universal strife is a slow death; Vokara Che's vitality will bleed from her slowly, year by agonizing year, until she is as empty as he is, until she is a hollow corpse and the Force reclaims her spirit. It is not an unhappy fate; it is an enviable one. He wonders why he has not already succumbed to it… and then he remembers.

"Anakin," he says, speech returning with a lurch. How long has he been here?

"Five days," she answers. "Long enough in a healing trance. You need to be awake now, walk about, eat. Center yourself."

Oh. This all sounds like a dreadful litany of chores, but Anakin deserves a master – a friend – who would not roll over and die simply because he has been eaten alive by the Dark. And duty comes first. Always. He reaches for the Force, and feels that he is no longer a howling void. There is a pale meniscus of Light clinging to his bottommost soul, the dregs of an overflowing cup that was once his. That barest shimmer is enough, however; the Force is with him, however diluted, and it will be enough to bear him through this. It might even be enough to support him, albeit shakily, as he accepts the shallow bowl thrust into his wobbling hands and downs whatever warm liquid it is filled with. It might be tea, or broth. He isn't sure, and the effort drains him utterly.

Vokara Che is speaking again, but not to him, so he gives himself permission to simply float, halfway between asleep and awake, between self and the Force, indifferent to the chatter and bustle going on around him. He begins compiling a mental list of things he must do… later. Tomorrow. It is unbecoming , he knows, for a Jedi to procrastinate. Qui Gon would never have approved. But right now, at this present moment, the only possible place for his focus to be, he cannot even imagine beginning to climb his self-imposed mountain of duties. They loom over him, forbidding and impossible heights of ambition. He cannot muster the strength to scale them.

Eventually his determination fades to vague future resolve, and he sinks deeper into the blissfully soft, seductively warm bedcovers, and sleeps.

Genuine sleep is quite different from a healing trance. Perhaps they pertain to different aspects of the Living Force; he wonders, but he is not a trained healer, and may never fully understand. Whatever the reason, his slow waking from deep slumber is a counterpoint to the drifting, detached aftermath of a trance. It is a slow uncoiling from the visceral and vital places, the blood and breath and soft dark recesses of the corporal. He stirs, and stretches, almost groaning with the sheer enjoyment that brings, the relief from immobility, the rush of new life into cramped, starved spaces, the low thrum behind his eardrums as he yawns.

There is something to be said for being an animal, after all.

And the Force is everywhere this morning, dancing and burbling and leaping in wild spurts all about him, through him. He is still empty – he can feel that in his very core, his heart and soul, and also in the hollow pang of his stomach – but it doesn't matter so much. Not when there is such abundance without and all around. He is empty as a fountain's basin is empty, one constantly overflowing yet holding nothing for itself. He can tolerate this kind of emptiness, because while he does not have the Force, quite, it certainly has him. And it is a powerful ally indeed.

With its boundless effulgence pervading him, he can do anything. He sits up, and casts off the coverlet, and lets his bare feet fall to the floor. There are some irksome things attached to his person, and they are summarily removed. Uncivilized. Intrusive. Standing is another challenge, but he surmounts it with the help of the Force. He walks, even – step by careful step, unusually aware of his own axis of balance – into the adjacent 'fresher, and back out again when he has finished. A droid pokes its head into to check on him.

"Bring me some decent clothing," he orders it, and off it hovers, on its assigned errand.

He waits, one arm tucked in against his chest, the other hand stroking at his beard. It needs a trim. And where in the blazes is his comlink, and his saber? The small room has an inset cupboard, and he is relieved to find his belt and equipment stowed neatly on a shelf. His weapon he checks over carefully, surprised to find that the hilt is flawless and unstained, as though it has miraculously escaped the scourging and pollution he has suffered at the foul planet's hands. His saber appears to be immune to temptation, to corruption, to torment. The crystal within chimes faintly, alluringly, preternaturally tuned to the Force's fundamental tone, the song beneath all songs.

He listens to it for a while, until the droid reappears with a stack of crisp medward gowns, shapeless bleached things reeking of innumerable unpleasant associations. But he has sworn off memory and its clinging barbs forever. And he craves a restoration of his assigned role, his place in the universal constellation of duty.

"Not those," he chides the poor droid. "Bring me my own things. Clean ones."

It stares at him, conveying cybernetic disapproval. "I must obtain clearance to fulfill that request," it snips at him, and hovers away again.

Blast it. Vokara Che is on to him. Worse yet, she is in the doorway.

"What in stars' name are you doing out of bed?" the formidable Twi'Lek demands. Her eyes flit over his body, narrowing critically. "And what have you done with the…. Never mind. That is enough." An imperiously arched brow. "Just how far do you think you would get beyond the threshold of these Halls?" she demands, her slight lilting accent honing the inquiry to a caustic edge.

His private estimation – made with the swift and brutal honesty of a man accustomed to battle, to the merciless calculation of odds and risks – would be four hundred meters. But he knows better than to admit to any degree of incapacity, and is far too wise to confess that he had not even thought that far ahead until she mentioned it. He fixes the fuming healer with a bland look. "To my own quarters," he replies, blithely, infusing the statement with the same Force-borne certainty that has inspired troops to follow him into situations more rightly described as lunatic fool's crusades.

She halts the utility droid in the corridor and overrides his last order, neatly thwarting his scheme and leaving him - uncharacteristically – at a loss. He backs up a single pace, sinking down on the edge of the medical cot with the faintest suggestion of truculence, holding the obstreperous healer's gaze as she descends upon him, hands akimbo, lekku faintly twitching in vexation.

"These are your own quarters, until I see fit to release you. And I shall not do so unless you cooperate perfectly with my directives. I believe, in diplomatic terms, this would be considered a doomsday ultimatum."

Vokara Che is a woman forged of durasteel. He says nothing, weighing options, acutely aware that negotiations here are condemned to premature failure. Still, he can't help trying, although there is no such thing. "I require proper clothing, a datapad with open links to the Archives terminals and the closed net transmission channels, and a cup of tea before I will so much as consider your terms," he asserts, crossly.

The Twi'Lek snorts in derision, though the Force betrays her secret amusement. "You may have tea," she concedes, less than graciously.

It is a very minor triumph, small enough to be counted as a loss by Anakin's absolutist standards. And that gives rise to another thought, a very hopeful one indeed. "Is Master Skywalker on-planet? In the Temple?" He dares to hope, for a short span of heartbeats, until Vokara Che gently shakes her head in negation.

Her amber eyes narrow slightly. "No. Your accomplice is on assignment." A further thinning of her dark-tinted lips. "Which strikes me as a mercy of the Force. I don't want him agitating you like he did last time."

Ah, yes. Anakin has made himself unpopular here, and that is likely the only complication the boy has caused to date which inspires his mentor – former mentor – with no pang of guilt or consternation. "Oh," he responds. He hopes to appear an exemplar of patience, the very model of meek acceptance.

The tall healer is no more deceived by it than Qui-Gon Jinn ever was. She tssks deep in her throat and points an admonitory finger at him before taking her leave. "Back in bed. Now."

Fine. A Jedi does not lack for resources, nor for perseverance. He may not be winning this battle at the present moment, but his has always been the strategic long view, and she surely does not know against whom she is pitted. There are ways and means. He allows her to examine the almost perfectly healed wound upon his thigh – the place where, in the interest of saving two lives, he permitted himself to be burned with his own 'saber – and to smooth the coverlet back over him with a brusque efficiency. All the while she keeps a stern eye fixed unremittingly upon his face, the glint in her dark gaze conveying a minute suspicion and a fey light of battle alarmingly close to that of a berserker clone commando. She is indeed not to be trifled with.

The droid hovers in, politely bearing a tray with a single steaming cup.

The tea has not steeped long enough for his taste. It is smooth, and tinged with a floral aftertaste, sweetened with honey. He prefers the tang of bitter wisdom to this weakened version, truth to euphemism, duty to the siren call of desire. But he drinks it anyway, taking long enough - he would like to think - to annoy the solicitous and patronizing droid as it hovers in the corner waiting to remove the empty cup.

"Just a moment." Vokara Che, observing the proceedings with the patience of a hunting colwar, arrests the thing in the act of reaching for the delicate bowl. She grasps the smooth curve of white porcelain between her own fingers, keeping it suspended in mid-air. "Hold this for me," she commands, cautiously loosening her grip as her patient raises a hand, buoying the small object with the power of the Force.

It floats serenely between them.

The Twi-Lek healer watches him with eyes narrowed to a critical acuity.

The cup wobbles, but does not fall. He imagines it adrift on a sea of Light, carried on supernal currents, wafted hither and yon by motionless wind, by formless waves. It cannot sink, because – like him – it is hollowed and empty, scoured of all weight, even the twin burdens of grief and apprehension. He smiles when Vokara Che frowns, knowing that he has won a crucial battle, and then levitates the cup back onto the droid's tray, letting his hand drop and his head fall back against the pillows.

"I'm perfectly well," he informs his captor, heaviness tugging at his limbs and eyelids. "You should release me.."

"Perhaps later," she concedes.

He is asleep again before he can savor his victory.

That evening he eats a full meal, his appetite howling like an abandoned akk-pup too long deprived of attention and sustenance. He has not eaten with such ravenous intensity since he was a growing Padawan, and he recalls the astounded expression on Qui-Gon's face when his sixteen year old apprentice managed to consume the entirety of seven courses at the Arkashi Premier's inaugural banquet. He also recalls the ensuing night of acute discomfort, and the trenchant irony with which the Jedi master lectured him on the virtue of moderation even while he gently nursed him through the well-deserved sick spell. The memory provokes a twinge of sorrow, and of fondness. He smiles, even as grief skims alarmingly close to the surface of his composure, leaving a distinct ripple behind.

But the smile lasts longer , and that is a good sign.

After he has eaten, he walks, pacing the bustling corridors of the med-ward, ignoring the pointed looks cast in his direction by the various apprentice healers left in charge of the night shift. Not one of them has sufficient nerve to challenge him, and so he passes unopposed into the exercise room reserved for physical therapy. When he is certain there are no witnesses, he drives himself through the level four Ataru advanced form kata, a ritual ingrained in his very bones, a thing learned decades ago, before tormenting fate had ever laid its claws into him. His performance is sloppy, and he lands badly more than once, but the Force floods into him as he dances, purging away weakness and the clinging dross of the Dark, obliterating all trace of madness and injury. Zigoola is wrung out of him as he sweats, running in weeping rivulets along his skin, onto the polished floorboards. Droplets fall, and for a moment they seem to him crimson, or ink-black, the spattered detritus of malice, of some evil Sith poison expelled from his veins by the scintillating Light.

He drags himself back to his assigned room before anyone can chastise him for his recklessness, and collapses face first on the cot, aching infernally in every muscle and joint, but happy as he has not been in weeks.

A delicate cough issued upon the threshold rouses him from a state halfway between meditation and slumber. He groggily shifts to his side, squinting at the light-limned figure leaning on its stunted cane in the doorframe.

"Master!" Instantly, he is sitting upright and hastily brushing his disorderly hair backward with one hand.

Yoda stumps in, grunting a little with each successive shuffling step, as though the galaxy's perturbation has manifested as arthritis in his aging joints. He thrusts one wizened claw against his hipbone and pops a troublesome vertebra back into place with an audible snap. "Impatient you are, Master Kenobi."

How is it that the ancient Jedi always seems to knows everything without being told, his inquisitive nature allied with the Force itself, as though Yoda and the universal energy sit cozily together like a pair of gossiping village wives, exchanging the most trifling of confidences, the most intimate of secrets? "How –"

"Visiting another here, I was," the tiny master snorts at him. "A disturbance your play makes. Hmmmph. Cleared for such extreme exertion you are not, Obi-Wan. A relapse do you crave?"

The Grand master deliberately omits the use of his title when upbraiding him for such irresponsible and stubborn antics, rank and honor discarded like costume props in some younglings' play. Yoda's eight hundred years of teaching authority admit no respect of persons; even the hoariest Jedi resident in the Temple now is a babbling child by comparison to him. The hint is not lost on the Negotiator.

"No, master. Of course not. But I do not think –"

"Exactly," the ancient troll retorts, voice gravelly with irritation. "Think you do not."

This is supremely unfair, but Yoda is not constrained by the same rules of gentlemanly conduct or logical rigor that circumscribe others' range of possible arguments and repartees. Obi-Wan accepts the insult with equanimity, understanding that it signifies nothing but the old one's unspoken regard.

But that does not mean he will be denied his own bit of mischief. "Feel, do not think," he blithely counters, almost managing to rein in the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Yoda's ears curl vexedly at the impertinence. The gimer stick comes up in a fierce salute. "Obey Vokara Che's strictures you will, or change your feelings I will," he threatens, sincerity and jest nestled close together, a viper coiled within a shadow.

Obi-Wan knows better than to press his luck – which doesn't exist in the first place. "Yes, master."

Contented with this display of submission, the ancient Jedi huffs his way back into the corridor. "Sleep well," is his parting benediction, a wish expressed in softer tones as he clacks and grumbles his way out of sight and down the passage.

Obi-Wan dares to smile again only after Yoda's presence has faded to a distant beneficence, like that of Coruscant's golden sun. The Force is stirred into a mellow and soporific warmth by the echo of the ancient master's affection; soon enough, he has succumbed once again to the alluring invitation of his own dreamworld. And Zigoola is not part of it.

The next morning Vokara Che hauls him into her private office for a court martial. But he has armored himself against the unknown, girded himself with knowledge, skill, and the Force. That is to say, he has at least managed to bathe and to groom his beard, and to manipulate an unsuspecting junior Padawan into bringing him his own clothes, and has replaced his saber at his hip. The fact that he is exhausted by the sum total of this activity is irrelevant. Self submerged beneath duty and devotion, he is prepared for the worst. He will face the healer as a Jedi – composed, and fighting to the very end.

Vokara Che clasps her hands together upon the desk. He leans back in the opposite chair, crossing one foot over his other leg.

"Senator Organa contacted me this morning," the revered Twi'Lek informs him. "He must have worked very hard to breach our communications security protocols."

Bail is a stubborn man, and an intelligent one. It is amusing to see Vokara Che so unsettled by the thought of an outsider infiltrating the Temple's inner sanctum. He would also have been distressed by the notion – before he met Organa. But it is now oddly comforting to think that light shines outside these walls, that there are allies to be had even in the Senate. It is a sign of contradiction, a gleam of hope in the gathering darkness.

"He inquired after your well-being," the healer continues, and she is genuinely touched. "I told him you were recovering quite well."

He is gratified to hear her say so.

"I wonder," she adds, "what ulterior motivation he might have in making such inquiries? You may not wish to contemplate such things, but the war has made us all – and some of us more than others – objects of public scrutiny."

"I am aware of this," he answers. "But Organa should be counted a friend. I trust him."

Her brows rise. "I see."

"He is a good man." Thank the Force. For the fact of it, and for teaching him to see it.

Vokara Che purses her lips and unfolds her elegant hands, splaying the long fingers upon the polished surface.

"In that case, let us discuss your immediate future."

"Ah." Now they will join battle, he pleading the cause of freedom and she championing the cause of despotism and tyranny.

Her lekku twitch. "Do you suppose I have learned nothing in all my years?" she snorts. "I remember you with skinned knees and missing teeth. I have your measure, Master Kenobi."

So she would like to think, anyhow. He cocks an eyebrow, idly wondering where this vexing line of argument will lead.

"A compromise," Vokara Che proposes. "You are hereby released from my immediate supervision – and yes, that means you are free to depart these Halls, as you so clearly long to do – on condition that for the time being your activities are restricted to the Temple precinct, on pain of my most severe displeasure."

"House arrest," he sums up, irked at the boldness of her ploy.

"Call it what you will. Those are the terms, and if you are half as accomplished in diplomacy as they say, you will accept them without condition." She fixes him with a penetrating glare.

He squirms a bit. Blast it. "Very well."

Vokara Che offers him a solemn nod. "Then I shall see you in a week's time." She emphasizes the command with a grave gesture, one of dismissal and blessing, and he executes a neat bow as he rises to take his leave. It has not ended as he would have predicted, but he supposes that he has come through the ordeal less wounded in dignity than he might have. And he wonders whether Yoda's influence might lie behind this sudden treaty between himself and the Temple's senior healer. It is a thought worth pondering… but not now.

For now, he will simply walk, basking in the vibrancy of the Force and this his home, nourishing the seeds of recovered strength in that welcome reunion. And that will suffice for a humble beginning.

After all, he has the Light again, and that is all that he needs.