Title: Forbidden Harvest
Author: Sleepwalker
Category: Romance/Adventure
Rating: M
Spoilers: None at this point any more!
Pairings: Q/f
Setting: About 5 years before 'The Phantom Menace'
Summary: In this sequel to 'Forbidden Fruit', Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi are asked to go on a mission to recapture an escaped gun smuggler. In a twist of coincidence, they must go to the home world of Valia Traxis, Qui-Gon's love interest, to accomplish this. Qui-Gon gets taken home to meet Mama and Papa. I think I'll be rotten and say no more...
Disclaimer: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Coruscant and all other occupants and places in the Star Wars universe belong to George Lucas. I also went to Jude Watson's universe in the Jedi Apprentice series, and did some borrowing from Brian Daley. 'The Essential Guide to Alien Species' by Ann Margaret Lewis was great reference material. All the other characters have been made up by my own little self. Valia quotes something from Confucius in Chapter 13. No monetary profit whatsoever was gained by this writing. The gifts of chocolate don't count. Those were out of pure friendship. But they sure didn't hurt either…
Warnings: Yep, this is another one strictly for the grown-ups. Adult situations, including sex. A little violence. More secondary characters to deal with. Plenty of mush. And this is long. Really long. Twice the length of 'Forbidden Fruit'. I don't know what came over me. But then again, there may be those of you out there who totally understand...
Author's notes: This was first written long before JA 14 and 15 came out (summer of 2000 to 11/20/01). There's a cameo appearance by Tahl in chapter 14. I apologize for the ungodly length of time it has taken me to rewrite this and put the finishing touches on it. And finally get it posted. And then post it again on dedications: To all Qui-Gon lovers, but especially Sabine, Yvonne, and Ellen, friends from my ancestral country and stalwart fellow fans without whom this probably never would have been written.
Chapter 1
Obi-Wan Kenobi stationed himself where he could almost see through the small window in the door to the walk-in cooler. He did this very carefully, because he didn't want to be seen himself from inside the chamber. Close enough to be ready to accompany his master as soon as he came out the door, whenever that might be. But not close enough so that he could hear every single thing that was going on inside. He tried to make sure he was always aware of the line of privacy between himself and his master, Qui-Gon Jinn.
"And just precisely when were you planning on telling me about this idea of yours...?" The voice of Valia Traxis easily carried through the thick door. Hers was the only voice he could hear without straining his ears. She was making no effort to keep it down. Qui-Gon's voice was low and calm, and he could just make it out, if he took a step or two closer to the door. Not that he was trying to listen in, of course.
"Haven't you been constantly talking about finding a bigger apartment for two years now?" Qui-Gon asked the question in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice.
"Define 'constantly'," Valia challenged acidly.
"Do you, or do you not want to move into a larger place?"
"Yes, damn it all, but that was something I would have gotten around to taking care of myself! I'm perfectly capable of..."
Obi-Wan was curious what Qui-Gon had done or said now to have brought on this tart serving of Lia's irritation. Probably something to solve what in his vision of things was a fixable problem in her life. In the last few minutes he'd heard her sling, among others, the words arrogant, intrusive, and overbearing at his Master.
"All I did was speak briefly to your landlord in passing."
"In passing? He said you've 'just so happened to run into him' on quite a number of occasions."
"It may have been more than once, yes."
"What in the Core Worlds did you say to him!"
"Only something to the effect that perhaps you were deserving of a larger unit, if one became available. I was only trying to be helpful."
"Helpful? I don't know what that slimy little Hutt is up to now, but I just about dropped my delapabas when he told me how much it pained him to do so, but my rent was unfortunately going to be raised, and how high."
"He told you he was raising your rent?"
"Yes, he is raising my rent!"
"How high?"
"We're just about talking a low orbit!" she snarled.
Obi-Wan made an attempt to direct his attention away from the muffled one-sided shouting match in the cooler by remembering what delapabas were. When the last time he'd had them. The crisp, pink and green skin they had, with the little even rows of bumps. What they tasted like. What the weather had been like at the time...
He instantly heard a hand close around the inside latch, and smoothly stepped aside. The door exploded outward, and bumped the wall. Valia stiffly marched past him and around the corner to the area behind the counter. The door softly closed again. Qui-Gon did not come out. There had been a brief glimpse of him standing with his arms folded, angry gaze fixed on the shelves of inventory as if he were trying to freeze them.
Valia was standing in front of an open tool locker. She was glaring at the contents, hands on her hips.
"Basha?"
The young server scurried forward.
"The thermostat calibration tools. Have you seen them?"
He turned around and gathered up a number of tools from the counter behind him. "We got them out because we knew you might need them."
"I do. Thank you." She quickly took them from him. His wide eyes widened even further when she paused in front of the tool locker and selected a wrench the approximate length of one of Qui-Gon's arms. It had a wicked-looking steely sheen and a blunt, club-like end. She marched back toward the cooler. Obi-Wan hastily opened the door for her and let it close behind her as she stomped back inside.
Qui-Gon watched Valia angrily wedge the wrench head between a shelf and the carton on it near the back wall of the cooler. She laid the other end of it on the opposite shelf and sat down on the wrench, at a comfortable height to work at the control panel. She closed her eyes, leaned forward, pressed her hands against her forehead and rubbed her temples with her thumbs. She tried to relax, to let the headache drain out of her, to deal with this pain as Qui-Gon had taught her. It wasn't working. She was too tense, too angry, too tired, too...
"Headache?"
Valia couldn't begin to think of enough sarcastic words to answer him. "Mmmm-hmmm," was all she said. She opened the control panel.
"Your hand is bleeding," he observed with concern. She glanced down at her hand as if noticing it for the first time. A spot of blood had seeped through a hasty-looking bandage job at the base of her index finger. "It'll be all right," she flung over her shoulder.
"I can take care of those for you."
Ha! This and everything else in her life, she thought. "And heal the sick, make the blind to see..." she muttered unkindly.
"Lia! Don't be this way. Stop being so stubborn." The first traces of irritation grated in his voice.
"Stubborn? Well, now, you would know. I believe you wrote the manual on stubborn..."
Ouch, thought Obi-Wan. At this point he decided he was no longer needed as doorman and moved away from the cooler toward the tables outside the front of the store. Though he might deny it, it was true. Qui-Gon could indeed be quite stubborn. And so could she. In spite of his distress over the verbal battle between the two of them, he had to bite down on a smile at the thought of his master meeting his match in sheer attitude and possibly getting a taste of his own medicine for a change. He wondered if during one of these arguments he was finally going to see Qui-Gon lose his composure. These lovers' showdowns didn't happen very often, thankfully. When they did, they were usually followed by a disappearance of both of them for a few hours. Then all was peaceful again.
He came face to face with Drre, one of the servers, who looked like she needed to go into the cooler for something.
"They're both still in there. This might be a while," he said by way of apology. She glanced at the closed door, and gave a little toss of her head. She moved off to start making garnishes, deciding that whatever she needed out of the walk-in could wait.
The two Jedi had been one step behind Valia all afternoon as she hopped from pressing business at one fruit and juice bar to the next. She owned four stores now and had the potential for many more. Trying to track her down across Galactic City had taxed even Qui-Gon's patience. Obi-Wan had tried to suggest she wasn't necessarily running from him, just very busy. Qui-Gon had said nothing to this. One of the quickest ways to irritate the Jedi Master was to be evasive and avoid him when he needed to speak to you. He and Obi-Wan had waited at a table under the tree at her first store, sure she would eventually wind up here. She either wasn't carrying her commlink or was refusing to answer it. When she had arrived, she had immediately gone into the cooler following a few brief words with one of her staff near the front counter, sparing just a glance out at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Fuming, Qui-Gon had sat for several minutes. Then he had abruptly risen, walked through the gap in the storefront counter and back to the walk-in. Yanking the door open, he'd gone inside and had been there since.
This was really a simple task, Qui-Gon reminded himself. All he had to do was explain to her the relevance of their present mission to her, and then ask for her help. He had mentally reviewed all the reasons she might refuse, and all the logical reasons why she should. Naturally she would lend a hand.
As soon as he saw her when he entered the walk-in, he realized at once that he was going to have to make slight alterations in his strategy.
She turned around, slightly startled. When she saw who it was, a 'how dare you' look settled on her face. Her fine chin and nose lifted at this intrusion onto her turf. He'd seen warmer looks on the faces of empresses passing sentence on criminals. She somehow managed to make him feel like she was trying to look down at him, despite the fact that he stood head and shoulders taller than her.