For jmmdh1, who was right.
This has been reworked, with one scene cut as suggested. Many thanks.
Padawans go missing all the time; Sentinel more than Templar, to be sure, but it's a rare Master who hasn't mislaid at least one apprentice at least once. Yet it must be said, Qui-Gon Jinn had absolutely and without exception the worst record for losing people. It didn't help that he was practically a Sentinel, always tearing off somewhere in the middle of the night. His first Padawan, Feemor, used to say he needed space, and vanished and reappeared as he pleased. Xanatos ran away once, and got left behind at Socorro once, when Qui-Gon was chasing up a lead and didn't have time to wait for him. However, only the younger two have ever been kidnapped. Obi-Wan was fifteen and out in the Ord Paidron system when it happened to him, but he was recovered within the week and unharmed.
Nasriel… well. That's another story. She must have been either just sixteen, or nearly sixteen. On this mission, just a routine one collecting a youngling from Laerdocia, Xanatos had come along for the ride, as he didn't have anything better to do. His Padawan was long Knighted by this time, of course, so it was just the three of them.
It must be noted that Qui-Gon was almost over-careful of Nasriel's safety. At first this was only because she was a small girl and the granddaughter of a great friend of his, but as the years passed, he became increasingly fond of her for her own sake. There was never any question of leaving Nasriel behind anywhere by accident!
Well, the three Jedi had reached Laerdocia, only to find that the local calendar ran a day behind the Standard calendar, and that the youngling's parents would therefore not be in town until the next day. As usual, Xanatos grumbled, and Qui-Gon contrived to be philosophical about the delay. There was enough money to rent rooms in a cantina for the night, which is where the trouble really started. For the sake of propriety, the men agreed to share, and pay the extra for Nasriel to have a room to herself. The only two rooms available were on the ground floor, and in the attic, with three floors in between.
Qui-Gon didn't quite trust the cantina keeper, so Xanatos went up with Nasriel to ensure that she was comfortably settled, and that her door was firmly locked from the inside. After all, his reasoning ran, she was a Jedi Padawan and a sensible child for her age; she should be fine. So he went back down and went to bed.
In the morning, when Qui-Gon made his way up to the attic to fetch Nasriel, he found the door swinging open, the jamb splintered where the bolt had been forced, and the girl gone. Her outer tunic and belt, her boots and cloak and pack, were neatly arranged on the shelf where she had left them the previous night, but the bedding had been flung onto the floor, a chair overturned, and the lamp broken. There was no clue as to when Nasriel had left or where she had gone – or why she had been taken. Her lightsaber lay discarded on the attic steps, kicked into a corner of the narrow landing.
Descending the stairs, feet moving a thousand times slower than horrified, whirling mind, Qui-Gon met Xanatos coming up, and explained briefly what had happened. Xanatos just nodded, and offered to finish the stated mission alone, to leave Qui-Gon free to search for Nasriel. Laerdocia was well-known in its time for its copious exports of legal and illegal goods, and it seemed to the anxious Jedi Master that one of the world's teeming slave markets would be a logical place to start searching for a missing girl.
A Human woman with blank, pale eyes rimmed with smudged kohl, crouched in a doorway sucking smoke from a cigarette, nodded slowly in answer to Qui-Gon's impatient questioning.
"I see lotsa blue girls. One today, be another one tomorrow... this is Laerdocia, mister, there's girls all colors if you know who to ask." Sighing a puff of heavy silver smoke down onto the muddy street, the woman shrugged. "Lotsa kids. You the first I see that be looking for stolen goods, but heck, half the kids on this street reckon their parents are somewhere trying to find them."
Turning away, sick at heart but knowing that even he had no chance of finding Nasriel on Laerdocia that day, Qui-Gon slipped out through the crowd and made his way back to meet Xanatos. The other Jedi was babysitting a two-year-old Twi'lek, and seemed unsure whether to be encouraging or sympathetic.
"You track her down. I'll get the kid home on a public shuttle so you can take our ship, and I'll get the first Sentinel team bound for the Priory to take some extra cash for you. Okay?" Qui-Gon gathered his cloak around him, for the rain, though thin, was icy cold, and returned to the marketplace, on the slim hope of finding someone who knew what had happened to Nasriel.
For the next few months, the main question asked in the Temple was whether anyone knew what had happened to Qui-Gon. Occasional Sentinel teams returned, mentioning Dom-Bradden, Koda Station, Nanth'ri, or Adumar, but always with a shrug and a shake of the head. Someone who had mentioned seeing a girl who looked like Nasriel, but only for a few seconds. A Pantoran false lead. A month of wandering aimlessly with no clue to follow.
At length, Tahl called Qui-Gon and demanded that he come back to the Temple. If, after four months, he hadn't found even a hint as to Nasriel's location, staying out wandering the Galaxy forever would not help. Qui-Gon stopped at the Sentinel hub of the Priory, and extracted a promise from the traveling branch of the Jedi, to call him the instant anybody turned up even the faintest clue. He spent another month hanging around the Temple in a bad mood, fretting constantly and avoiding well-meant questions.
Gree Yarzakawula called from Karazak in the middle of the night, to say that she had found something interesting, and would be in the guesthouse next door to the Coruscant spaceport by dawn, if Qui-Gon cared to meet her there. Ask at the desk for Janna Green.
Asking, in the grey firstlight that filtered thinly through the windows of the guesthouse foyer, proved unnecessary: the Rattataki Sentinel was already waiting patiently for him, blue eyes narrowed, hands on hips. Qui-Gon strode quickly to within talking distance, and nodded to her by way of salutation.
"Gree."
"There are very few men from whom I'll take my right name, Jinn. Be thankful you're one of them."
"You said you'd found something 'interesting.' What did you find, and why couldn't you say?"
Gree shrugged. "Unsecured comm channel. I thought you'd work it out at once: I found Nasriel."
"Where –"
"Where did I find her? Doesn't matter. Where is she now? Upstairs. She doesn't want to talk to you, Jinn. In her place, I don't think I'd want to talk to you either." Gree tilted her slick chalk-white head curiously to one side, a cynical half-smile just touching her mouth. "Humor me – okay? Just tell me why you left her there." Ordinarily, a Sentinel Knight of well under thirty would not get away with demanding explanations from a Templar Master of slightly over seventy, but the circumstances were unusual, and Qui-Gon complied with Gree's request.
"I left her because I had no way of knowing where she was, and by the time I knew she was gone, she was probably already offworld."
"You couldn't just go to the local law and say the girl's Jedi, find her right now? Too simple for you? Wait – where was this? Nasriel didn't say."
"Laerdocia. And I tried, Gree. Everything I could think of."
The Sentinel bit her lip in sympathetic understanding. "Yeah, I guess you would. It doesn't change anything now, though. Way I see it, you have two problems. One: Nasriel doesn't know the backstory, all she knows is she didn't see you come looking for her. Two… it's very complicated."
"How complicated is very? Every problem has a solution, Gree; stop talking in riddles."
"Why should I? You do it all the time. The problem in question relates to the fact that Nasriel has been gone for nearly six months, and I've got an idea what her life's been like in that time, because I've been put through that myself – except in my case it wasn't an accident, it was ring-busting. It's also why she won't talk to you."
"Gree. Please." Qui-Gon was beginning to suspect he knew what the Sentinel was going to say, and to wish she would just say it. His suspicions were not justified: it was worse than he'd thought.
"Look, Jinn, I know you've been counted as one of us, Sentinel, for longer than I can remember. So I'll be straight with you." Screwing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath, Gree said rapidly, "Nasriel's pregnant. She asked me to tell you because she said you'd be furious and she couldn't handle that."
Impatiently, he brushed the backhanded compliment aside, and tried to absorb the information. "Yes, that is complicated. Other than that, is she all right?"
"Physically, yes," came the dubious reply. "Mentally? Force only knows. I gather it… wasn't pretty." Gree counted off points on her fingers. "She's about five months gone, I guess, doesn't know who the father is – doesn't know what species, how about that? When I asked, she said she figured she could narrow it down to any one of about thirty people, about twenty species. Jinn, are you hearing this?"
"Hearing, yes. Believing…" Oh, Nasriel. He still thought of her as a child.
"You'd better believe it. She keeps saying she can't go back to the Temple like this, and I'm inclined to agree with her."
"You've known about this for longer than I have; I'm sure you will have given it some thought."
"We have. Nasriel said that if you didn't absolutely insist on her returning to the Temple at once, she'd prefer to go to the Priory or to Master Djinn Altis at Chu'unthor until… until the problem sorts itself out, then come home. Would that be all right? I checked with Djinn already, and he says he owes you one anyway, so it's all serene with him. If we're doing that, we'd better go before they move again."
"Fine. Oh – Gree, tell Nasriel I shall look forward to seeing her again. I'll come out to Chu'unthor to visit if she wants. And tell her to call me anytime. Give her this." He handed Gree his own comlink, knowing that there were rarely any functioning comms at the Altistian base of Chu'unthor.
"Will do. May the Force be with you, Jinn. You'll need it."
In the next two months, Gree's prediction was fulfilled. Qui-Gon was sorely tempted to contact Nasriel, many times, but never did. If the Padawan wanted to talk to him, she would. If not, then calling would be the worst thing he could do. At last, Djinn Altis called and left a holomessage. Would Master Jinn please come, or send someone, to fetch Nasriel home? There was no question of sending anyone; Qui-Gon left within the hour.
His Padawan was waiting for him, pale and despondent, arms defensively folded. She didn't speak.
"Hello, Nasriel. You're all right?" A nod. "Are you ready to go home?" Another nod. "Don't feel like talking just now?" A vehement shake of the head, flicking strands of black hair across her face. "That's all right. There's no hurry."
Nasriel finally broke her silence just after the shuttle jumped to hyperspace. In a conversational tone, eerily casual, she said calmly, "It's dead."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The baby; it was born dead. I thought you might like to know."
"Thank you." There was an undercurrent of fury to the Padawan's suave self-control, and Qui-Gon knew it was better for all concerned to let her get to that in her own time, rather than force the subject. That she was talking to him at all was a good start.
"I don't remember too much about it, just that it hurt like the nine-Sith-hells and there was blood everywhere. Master Altis said I nearly died."
"I see." But the reply was unnecessary; Nasriel had already run on.
"I was trying to calm myself down, I tried to remember the sort of things you used to say when I was upset about something, but I couldn't think of anything. It was the middle of the night, I was all on my own."
"When you're upset, Padawan, you don't need to be told things. You need to talk. Which could be why you couldn't remember anything I've said to you when you're upset – there's very little to remember."
"Okay, so I'm talking, already, Master. And before Gree came and found me – no. I'm not going there. Maybe in a few years when I've forgotten some stuff, or maybe I'll talk to Tahl. I surely can't tell it to you. Just please… please don't ever leave me to deal with that kind of stuff alone again. Because I can't do it. I don't know what you were thinking when you let me fall into all that, I only wish you hadn't thought it. And I am going to be a little weird for a while. In fact, I'm not sure if I can ever be normal again. Does that worry you? Your turn to talk: go."
Qui-Gon spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "What happened to you more than 'worries' me. Some of what you've said… I can see why you would come to that conclusion. But I promise, I did not leave you on purpose. I would never leave you on purpose. I know you're only protecting yourself from more heartache. That's all right. Say whatever you need to; if it hurts me, that's fine. I'll do whatever it takes to restore your faith."
"You're not playing fair, Master. I can't hurt you if you won't hit back. And I want to – dear Force, I want to hurt you. I spent months hoping you'd come for me, and then nothing, nothing, nothing happened, and I desperately wanted you to pay for that."
"Go ahead. No holds barred. Just for Force sake don't shut me out." And the funny thing is, he meant every word of it. He wanted to reach down and take her hand, but thought better of it.
"Is that thing on autopilot?" Nasriel asked suddenly. "Good – then you can stop being such a – a sleemo stupa wermo, and hold me. Like when I was still a kid, before any of this chizzk happened."
"Where did you learn words like that?" Seeing the look on the girl's face, Qui-Gon backtracked. "Never mind."
But it was too late, and the damage was done. "I know a lot of words," Nasriel informed him icily. "I know words like schutta, and chroob, and di'kut, and slyth, and –"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry any of this ever happened, and I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me."
"Forget it. I need you now," Nasriel said softly. "I'm not made of glass, Master. Turns out, I'm harder to hurt than either of us ever thought. Can we just forget about it?"
"You can try. I don't think you'll get far just by running away from the past, but I won't mention it unless you do. Better get some sleep – it's a long way to Coruscant."