That evening:
"Go to bed, Padawan."
"I – I – may I stay up for another hour, Master?" Nasriel's thin fingers fidgeted around her teacup, empty the past twenty minutes. She had only been drinking hot water anyway. "I don't really –"
"You may leave the light on, or the door open, or sleep in your clothes, or all three, but you absolutely must and will rest. That is an order."
Shortly after midnight, Qui-Gon looked in on his Padawan to find that she had chosen all three, and was curled up in both her woolen blankets and her cloak, a shapeless pile occupying only the upper third of the narrow mattress, but still wide awake.
"Can't sleep?"
"No. Every time I close my eyes, I'm alone again, and I'm there again, and –" Nasriel shook her head in quiet defeat. "Can't sleep."
"I can help. Mist it over for a few hours."
"You'd see. I told Obi-Wan a tiny bit – barely nothing – in words, but if I let you help you'd see everything. And then you really wouldn't... really wouldn't love me anymore."
"Minx, it would not be possible for me to love you any more than I do. But you can't keep this up forever. You'll have to let me in eventually." He hoped that was true.
"The last man to say that to me..." Nasriel began, quite obviously with no intention of finishing the sentence.
"Was referring to your body, not your heart. We are luminous beings, not this gross matter."
"I don't feel very luminous just now, Master. Tired. Empty. Used and dirty and decidedly gross, but not luminous."
"Oh, little one. What have they done to you?"
"I'll show you," she offered unexpectedly, sharp and defensive. Not waiting for a reply, she sat up, turning to face the wall, and in one swift motion stripped off her tunic. Even from across the room, even in the dim light of her desk lamp, he could see the scars all too clearly, pale and dark, deep and raised, covering her back from shoulders to hips, above and below the tight-fitting breastband.
"Nasriel..." Qui-Gon sat down at the far end of the bed, staring in fascinated horror. The girl stiffened as she felt his eyes on her.
"You haven't seen the half of it." She turned to face him, entirely calm, staring through him into the middle distance. Here there were burns and knife slashes, as well as the fine net of whip marks.
Noticing Qui-Gon's expression of undisguised dismay, Nasriel said flatly, "Beautiful, aren't I? Don't worry, Master, half the men of Laerdocia have seen me nakeder than this. And about a quarter of the marks are too old to hurt much. And you needed to know."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't want this any more than I did."
"Do you think you could sleep if I stayed here?"
"I think so." Pulling her tunic back on to cover up the past, Nasriel wriggled down into the blankets. Settling himself semi-comfortably, seated on the end of the bed, Qui-Gon held out one hand to Nasriel, and her soft cold fingers curled gratefully around his rough warm ones. He gently drifted sleep across the tenuous bond thus formed between them, a poor substitute for the casualness with which they had wandered through each other's minds in the past, but enough – for now. Nasriel slept until mid-morning, the now-familiar night terrors passing silently, and for once waking neither her nor her Master. Qui-Gon left at dawn, when he heard Tahl stirring in the next room.
"I'm assigned," she said proudly. "Had to fight for it, like usual, but I got a mission. Back in a week."
"If you're not I'll come after you."
"Try 'congratulations'. Anyway, Nasriel's on a healers' gating, and you wouldn't leave her behind. I will be home in a week, Qui. Don't worry. And don't kill the girl while I'm gone."
By the time Nasriel emerged, tousled and disoriented, from her room, the crisp chill of the new day without had already begun to dull to a mere pleasant coolth. She shivered, but made no comment beyond a sleepy nod good morning on her way to the refresher-room to shower.
"Hello," Qui-Gon greeted her reappearance. "Sleep well?" Something's wrong...
"I'm down to twenty-eight." The bond was still silent – she was deliberately keeping it so, shields meticulously in place, not a whisper of emotion. But he knew at once what she meant.
"Thirty a week ago had Master Che worried enough. And you've lost weight since then? Are you trying to stay out of the dojo?"
"Believe me, Master, I would love to get back to the old-fashioned humiliation of simply getting beaten in a 'saber bout. I've been trying, I really have, but I just can't keep anything down."
"Tea?"
"Nope. Water's enough of a challenge."
He pushed a cup across the table to her, poured steaming tea, added honey. "Try."
"I can't."
"That must be another of those bad words you learned while you were away. I said, try. You never used to give in without a fight, minx." For what felt like the first time since he had fetched her home from Chu'unthor, it was the right thing to say. Defiance blazing from her eyes, Nasriel picked up the cup and drained it, glaring at Qui-Gon over the rim.
"There. Okay?"
"Good girl." The gentle teasing they had previously used was now removed as a means of communication. No telling what might strike a nerve and send her back out into the dark. Tact, then. "Since you've been banned from the dojo, I felt a little solidarity was in order. So, as neither of us has anywhere particular to go, shall we meditate together?"
"Oh no. No no no. You don't get into my mind that easily." Her shoulders slumped dejectedly. "I really miss you, Master. But I – it's just too much of a mess right now."
He missed her too, missed the irreverent sparkle of her presence in the Force, half-shielded, at the edges of his mind. Like the glint of mica flecks in smooth grey granite. Like shining ripples on calm water. Nasriel overflowed with the optimism of the Living Force as none of the boys had done, a tiny, intense concentration of brilliant light. But for eight months, she had been gone, and now that light was dim and fitful, when he could sense it at all.
"Let me help."
"There's nothing you could do, Master." Her expression altered swiftly, from flat despondency to fleeting alarm. "Excuse me. I'm going to be sick."
A minute later, she was bending over the basin in the refresher-room, emptying the meager contents of her stomach. Qui-Gon stood beside her, holding her heavy dark hair out of her face. At length Nasriel stood up and grinned palely.
"I hate to say I told you so, Master, but..." She shook her head, wordlessly exhausted, and suddenly both far older and far younger than sixteen. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't ask for this any more than I did."
"Master...?" The question trailed off, as her eyes rolled grotesquely back in their sunken sockets, and her knees buckled, tipping her into an uncontrolled fall. Qui-Gon caught his Padawan before her head hit the tiled floor, lowering her gently to the ground.
"I'm here. I'm here."
Nasriel was thoroughly unconscious, and it was only as he picked her up that he realized how little twenty-eight kilograms of flesh on a five-foot frame really was. Even Anakin, as a nine-year-old newly-freed slave, had had more bulk, less sense of being as delicate as a palmful of dried flowers, easily blown away by the least breath.
Qui-Gon laid her on the couch in the main room, tucked around her a blanket whisked from her bed; called Vokara at the medcenter for advice. The venerable Twi'lek healer demanded transmission of a blood scan before committing to anything.
Nasriel moaned painfully as the blood-test probe pierced the skin of her arm, but did not wake. Although Vokara acknowledged receipt of the scan at once, twenty anxious minutes passed before she called back with any information; in the meantime, Qui-Gon did not leave his Padawan's side. Once, her eyes drifted open, and she regarded him quizzically for a few seconds, unrecognizing, before lapsing back into unconsciousness. At last his comlink rang, and he stepped away to answer it.
"Well?"
"Well. We do have a problem. I apologize for the delay; I had to request a file from the Archives, the medcenter doesn't keep data on viruses this exotic. It's called Nima, it's common throughout the Outer Rim, though this is the first Temple case. Spread by sexual contact, apparently. Nima is characterized by long incubation period – about three months – undetectability by scanners during this period, very sudden onset of symptoms. Otherwise, it's a standard fever. Dizziness-nausea-vomiting triad, high fever, complaint of feeling cold, often delirium, nerve pain, and so on."
Qui-Gon risked a glance at Nasriel. She was awake, lying shivering under the blanket and watching him discreetly, through lowered lashes. Vokara hadn't finished:
"Kills two-thirds of victims in otherwise good health. And there's one other thing, I'll leave it to you whether to tell Nasriel or not. Nima virus, in its presymptomatic phase in primigravid females, usually causes spontaneous abortion. You'll bring her in, of course. I'll see you in a few minutes." The call was terminated before he could tell Vokara that Nasriel was not an object, to be 'brought' anywhere.
"Master?"
"I'm here, minx."
"Who was that?"
"That was Master Che. Apparently you've caught something called Nima, and she wants you in the medcenter to make sure it's nothing too serious."
"Okay." The Padawan worked her way to a sitting position, and after a minute with eyes closed and fingertips pressed to temples to regain balance, struggled shakily to her feet. "I'll be fine going on my own – I don't feel that sick, really, just cold. Stiff. I think it's some sort of 'flu."
"I'll accompany you, if I may." To stop her collapsing in the hallway and possibly doing herself a serious injury.
"I'm not a baby, Qui-Gon." The vulnerability revealed by her use of his proper name contrasted sharply with the fiery indignation of her tone.
"I agree. But humor me in this."
"Very well." Surface docility masking... he could not tell what it masked; Nasriel had learned from the best where it came to concealing emotions. Frustration was a fair guess. She was still shivering, teeth rattling together whenever her concentration on clenching them eased.
As it turned out, it was just as well he insisted on going with her: they were not ten meters past the door when Nasriel stumbled, almost falling again, but instead leaning her slight weight on her Master's supporting arm. He understood the motivation that led her to insist on walking, spine straight and head high, although she was unsteady on her feet and her face was sharp with fever and sunken into shadows. Halfway across the Temple, she fainted again, and he carried her the rest of the way to the medcenter. He wasn't as young as he had been, but... Nasriel wasn't much of a burden.
