Chapter II

There were two figures framed in the doorway as the Padawans approached the Jedi Temple. One of them was standing very still and staring out over the steps. The other was gesturing emphatically and yelling at his companion.

"—why they would leave without warning like this--"

But he quieted as the four people below trudged up the stairs. Asha, it must be admitted, trudged rather faster and with more enthusiasm than the others. Obi-Wan supposed that she did this because she was magically unaffected by the intent stares of the Jedi Masters awaiting their return. He bowed when he reached the step below his teacher, Master Jinn, and Ciaràn's, Battlemaster Drallig. Kate exhibited a pointed lack of bowing.

Asha did not bow either; she ran right to Master Jinn, tugged excitedly on the hem of his tunic, and exclaimed, "Obi-Wan took me to Coruscant!"

"That's wonderful, Asha," he replied, though the look he gave Obi-Wan suggested otherwise. "Why don't you go inside now?"

"Okay." The girl let go of Qui-Gon, walked a sort-of figure-eight pattern around the group, and then finally disappeared inside, presumably to return to her clan. An awkward silence reigned, during which Obi-Wan hoped that Asha did not take it into her head to go and explore his rooms again.

"So," said Kate. "Where's my Master?"

Qui-Gon said, "I haven't seen him. He may be looking for you."

She muttered, "I doubt it."

"Why are you out here?" He asked, looking at all of them but addressing, Obi-Wan felt, his apprentice in particular.

"Kate was…in distress," said Obi-Wan.

"Yet another understatement," muttered Ciarán. "Now we just have to teach you sarcasm to go along with the irony."

Obi-Wan pointed at the Zabrak. "Zap."

"What?!"

"That was his woefully inadequate Force lightning," said Kate. "For now it will serve in the place of sarcasm." Faultlessly she switched tacks and looked at her superior. "Master Jinn…this is my fault."

Qui-Gon looked at them.

"You didn't ask us to go out of the temple," said Obi-Wan, out of joking retaliation mode and looking kindly at her now. He sensed the Force roiling within her, emotions threatening to spill as she actually considered spilling them to Master Jinn. Fear and denial and passion.

Master Jinn did too. "I think this isn't a good conversation to have on the steps." He projected calm and understanding—Obi-Wan hoped he could understand Kate's problems. He certainly didn't—not well enough, anyway. He had come to the same conclusion with Kate that he'd come to with Siri. Girls are weird.

"Come," said Qui-Gon. He lead them into an offshoot of the entrance hall, where an alcove held comfortable couches and a dim glowlamp. Obi-Wan idly listened in on Drallig and Ciarán's conversation as they followed him.

"Padawan, you know you're not to go outside the temple alone!"

"I apologize, Master."

"Helping others is commendable. Thank you for locating Padawan Misinjian. But you're getting pushups for this."

"Yes, Master."

"We'll leave now, I think," Drallig said, addressing Qui-Gon as if he were asking a question; Qui-Gon nodded. Kate had collapsed onto a plushy, yellow couch, and he noticed her glance at Ciarán as if she wanted him to stay. He departed, however, with Master Drallig, and Obi-Wan sat beside Qui-Gon, facing her.

"He knows," she said, head drooped, defiance smoldering like coals on the edges of her Force presence. "Obi-Wan knows. I've told them how unfit I feel…for this place. I sit down at mealtime with so many other people who have the same training I do, but they get it. I can't be this calm, perfect, Jedi… clone. Master K'tan only tells me over and over to feel the serenity of the Force, and looks at me like I've disappointed him. Master Drallig does too, and Yoda, and…the Council members frightened me today."

"What do you mean?" Qui-Gon asked softly.

"Master Yoda said he could take me apart." She raised her head as she spoke and looked him in the eye, the more defiant and confidant the more concrete her foe.

"The Council is…not perfect," Qui-Gon admitted. "Wise, yes, but wisdom is not always expressed in the ways the student needs to hear. I'm not saying you're at all wrong about Yoda. In fact, I suspect you're right. His intentions are good. But…I will speak with K'tan and the council, alright?" Obi-Wan wondered, Have I ever heard her Master's first name? "You should rest."

Again she looked down. Loneliness drew itself to her this time, but it was tossed aside by a bitter rage—and then a sort of calm, as she thought of how sleep would distance her from the day. She nodded and stood up. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan followed; together they walked in silence to the residential tower and took the turbolift to their proper places. Qui-Gon said nothing once he and Obi-Wan were alone. He wondered what was going through his Master's mind. No thoughts kind to the Council…and perhaps, some reflecting on his own darkness.

"And my own passions, my apprentice," said Qui-Gon. "I feel that her most dangerous emotions are not, for now, aggressive. They are simply very strong."

Ciarán came into Intergalactic Politics class looking as though he hadn't slept properly. This was not to say that he was bleary-eyed or yawning; these were human traits. He had no hair to be messed up. However, someone walking into the classroom would have immediately been able to tell that he had been up late last night for quite some time. And if they knew Master Drallig, they would also have known that Ciarán had been doing pushups.

The Zabrak's face fell against his desk with a quiet thud.

Obi-Wan prodded his shoulder from across the aisle. "You're going to dent the desk again."

Ciarán grumbled and looked up. "You remember when we were younglings and we got to have naps?"

"Padawan!" The Master in charge of the class seemed to appear in front of Ciarán with upsetting speed. "What is the relationship between Corellia and Selonia?"

"Erm, sisters."

The class snickered. "Yes, Padawan," said the Arkanian Master without any humor. "The Corellian system is often referred to as the Sisters. However, the answer I was looking for was 'post-colonizational accord'…"

The rest of morning classes followed this trend. Ciarán banished his weariness for the one he really cared about—Lightsaber Combat. There in the room floored with mats, windows looking out over most of the proximal buildings, he stretched out in preparation for class, the silver hilt of his double-bladed lightsaber lying beside him. A few feet away, Obi-Wan looked up from touching his toes.

Kate walked in among a group of other students, her face painted in black and green. As if nothing had happened, she smiled and sat down next to Obi-Wan and Ciarán. As if nothing had happened, she participated in class, never excitable or upset even when she fought a practice duel. Her green lightsaber slashed and parried, hummed and shrieked, and when class was over she smiled at her friends, said "'Force be with you," and left for her next class as usual.

Obi-Wan and Ciarán did not have their next class together, but they stood in the hall outside the training room for a moment, each knowing what the other was thinking.

At last Ciarán said, "That was…rather odd."

"Our lives are always odd. I mean, I met you when you beat up Bruck Chun! Although I still maintain that I had complete control over the situation."

"I'm so glad you can actually laugh about that now."

Obi-Wan smiled, and they parted.

--/--

True to his earlier promise, Ciarán returned to his room after classes and promptly fell asleep again. He was almost completely unaware of what was going on around him – almost, because if he was completely unaware and Master Drallig caught him like that, he knew he'd never hear the end of it – which was why, when he felt a hand grip his shoulder, he was still able to punch the body it was attached to.

"Ow!" Obi-Wan gave him another, slightly less friendly shove. "Get up! She's gone again!"

Ciarán turned his head and blinked. "Who did what?" He started to pull his pillow over his head again.

"Oh honestly, I don't have time for this." The Force offered Ciarán a warning, but it didn't come quick enough to Ciarán to react before Obi-Wan pushed him off the bed.

"Was that really necessary?"

"Yes." Obi-Wan spoke sternly and seriously, hands on hips. "Kate is gone."

"And you propose we go after her again?"

"Yes. If we hurry we might be able to catch her before she--"

He started to head out of the room and down the hallway, and did not realize that Ciarán wasn't following until he heard his friend's voice call after him, "Might I make a suggestion?"

Obi-Wan turned and stared, rather annoyed at the way that the Zabrak could stand so unaffectedly in the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking as though he had all the time in the world. "Yes?"

"Let's tell our Masters this time."

--/--

Cin Drallig was teaching when the two boys appeared in the doorway of the training room. He had a lightsaber in his hand but it wasn't lit; the students were seated, taking notes about Forms on their datapads. Ciarán must've contacted him through their bond without Obi-Wan knowing, because he came to the door as soon as he saw them—strangely enough, Obi-Wan could not get a response from his Master. The bond was intact, but Qui-Gon was busy.

"Just a moment, everyone, my Padawan wants more pushups…" Drallig addressed the class, then lowered his voice to address Ciarán. "Problem?"

"Yes, Master. Kate Misinjian fled the temple again. On foot, right, Obi-Wan? You sensed it."

Obi-Wan nodded. "I certainly hope she was on foot. I can barely sense her now…she's put distance between herself and the Temple, physically and psychicly."

Drallig thought for a moment. "You got her back last time. I'll trust you to do it again. Don't get hurt, don't go down any sleezy streets. Qui-Gon and I will find you as soon as we can."

Obi-Wan asked, "Begging your pardon, but… where is Master Qui-Gon?"

"With the Council. "

He pointedly said no more, but Ciarán muttered, "Probably berating them for what they did yesterday."

--/--

Obi-Wan had been outside of the temple before. He had been on planets possibly more dangerous than Coruscant, on planets more alien or more hostile. But he saw the forest of skyscrapers in which the Temple sat as a challenging, trackless jungle when he was in it to find a wayward friend, with only a sketchy Force presence, like a guttering flare, to follow. He managed to ignore the expanse of black sky, and walked down a curved walkway which sloped upward toward another block and Kate's presence with a confidant step.

He wasn't, after all, going to look less confidant than Ciarán.

The walkway stopped at a turbolift next to an automated airtaxi stop. A taxi pulled up to the edge as the Padawans approached the lift doors, and before they could focus on where Kate had gone from here, a familiar figure trundled out of the taxi carrying a briefcase-like object almost as large as she was.

"Look," said Obi-Wan in a sort of daze of surprise. "Asha."

"Hmm?" Ciarán turned around, saw the little girl, and pressed his hands against the turbolift's control plate, concentrating—and leaving Obi-Wan to respond to Asha's immediate tug on his hand.

"Hi!"

"Hi, Asha…Shouldn't you be at the Temple?"

"I had music lessons!" She proudly patted the case she carried. "Violin!"

Ciarán said, "She's gone way down."

"And we go after her?" Obi-Wan replied.

He nodded.

Asha babbled. "Every day at the opera house I--"

Obi-Wan began speak to her, but at that moment the Force bugled a warning; he pulled the little girl and the violin to one side of the turbolift doors. Ciarán slid to the other side and drew his lightsaber, ignited one blade—

Because out of the turbolift came a family of armored rats. Two Asha-sized rodents with matted fur lumbered out of the doors and lunged for the Jedi. Ciarán waved his silver lightsaber at the beast and it jumped away with jittering steps, claws clattering on ferrocrete—as if it had already felt the bite of a blade. Obi-Wan Force-pushed the second one away down the walkway.

"We still have to go," yelled the Zabrak; juvenile rats were pouring out of the turbolift car's roof and hanging from the door like gargoyles. Ciarán made a fist and tore three of them off the doorframe and onto the air taxi, which sped away a moment later

"We're the only ones who can do this." Unshakable loyalty drove him, rooted in Drallig's command, Kate's plight, and Jedi morality.

Obi-Wan knew that Ciaràn was going to step into the turbolift whether there were rats in it or not. He also, for once, thought his friend was completely mad and that they needed to escort Asha back to the Temple. Insanity, however, was preferable to the slavering adult animals which were now between him and the temple, as Asha was keeping a death grip on his right arm.

Silently, ferociously, and with a flexibility Obi-Wan didn't think he himself could manage, Ciaràn kicked a snapping rat off the wall of the turbolift and into the street. Obi-Wan backtracked just in time for the adult rats to clamp their jaws together on the air in front of him—Asha let out a wavering, repressed scream, and Obi-Wan backed into the turbolift with the youngling, the violin, and Ciaràn's lightsaber buzzing in his ears—he slammed a Force Wave into the adult rats with his free hand, and thankfully the turbolift was empty, the doorway out of it filled up with snarling, pushing animals as the adult rats collided on the way to the door again and one's spiny back raked across the other's eye; they turned on each other, their children running out from under clawed paws—Ciaràn punched numbers, Asha stared silently, and Obi-Wan tried to silently convey to her that this was life and it was good that she realized there would be no hiding her eyes—

The lightsaber snapped off and the doors thumped shut, leaving the hiss of the descending turbolift that sounded to Obi-Wan's ears like silence.