I understand that many people are wary of ongoing violence in stories such as this one, so readers please be forewarned that the next few chapters do contain such themes.

New Arrangements

By: Syntyche

Chapter Twelve

"I wish I could say that it is a pleasure to see you again, Padawan," Qui-Gon murmured softly, his swiftly darting glance instantly registering Kenobi's darkly bruised visage and haunted eyes - this haggard version of young Obi-Wan Kenobi was so far removed from the Padawan who had shown up on the doorstep of Qui-Gon's apartments at the Temple that Qui-Gon almost wouldn't have recognized him but for his unmistakable Signature deep within the Force and the jangling hum of uncontrolled emotion that discontentedly permeated the air around him.

Qui-Gon realized immediately that he had somehow stumbled onto something far more troubling than he had originally surmised when it had dawned on him after passing Rhagos and his Padawan in the hall that Kenobi had recognized him - even calling him by name, which had triggered a revelation that couldn't be ignored even past the relentless pounding in his head. He had actually thought that Kenobi was mocking him, challenging him to remember the Padawan who had abandoned him … now, however, he wasn't so certain, and the conclusions he'd reached the night before with Master Dooku suddenly didn't seem as clear as they had yesterday.

Kenobi offered him a wan smile, if it could even be called a smile; the ghastly sick quirk of his lips barely remained in place as the Padawan dropped his head wearily to acknowledge Qui-Gon's words.

Qui-Gon raised troubled eyes to meet the glare of the other Master. "Master Rhagos," he said, dangerously quietly, resolutely firm: "an explanation is required."

Rhagos' surprised, almost offended gaze met his evenly. "An explanation for what, exactly? Can you not see this young one is ill?" Rhagos pursed his mouth questioningly, adding impatiently, "I must take him to the Healers immediately. What more do you need to know?"

"I need to know why you are protecting a fugitive from the Jedi Order, for starters," Qui-Gon began sternly, refusing to be swayed by Rhagos' dismissive attitude. For his part, Kenobi kept his eyes downcast, shifting restively but saying nothing. "And why he looks like he's gone ten rounds with a gundark and lost," he added, concern seeping into his voice. His hand lifted involuntarily to touch Kenobi's face, but he pulled away before he could brush the pale cheek just beyond his hovering fingertips.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Master Jinn," Rhagos answered slowly, his confusion apparent. "My Padawan is assigned here on Garos with me; this is directly from the Jedi Council. You can check with Master Yoda if you like."

Qui-Gon's headache increased tenfold … what the hell was going on? "I will check with Yoda, you can be certain of that," he murmured, feeling so strongly the urge to turn around, to walk away, to once again leave to Kenobi to whatever fate the Force had decreed for him that didn't contain the involvement of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Qui-Gon brought his hand to the crooked bridge of his nose, rubbing its unevenness wearily, trying to sort through his muddled thoughts. If only Master Dooku would come through those doors, help him make sense of this confusion …

"We do need to be going, Master Jinn." Rhagos laid a gentle hand against Kenobi's shoulder blade to usher him away, but Qui-Gon saw the way the Padawan stiffened at a gesture that should have been comforting.

"Padawan?" Qui-Gon asked slowly, trying to meet the wide eyes that couldn't seem to hold his questioning glance. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Kenobi did meet his eyes then, a watery shimmer to his accusatory glare. "What could you wish to do for one as 'hopeless' as I, Master Jinn?" he rasped sharply, vehemently, his infuriated grey eyes boring into Qui-Gon as he spat, "I need nothing from you." He tried to wrest angrily from under his Master's hand, but Rhagos' thick fingers quickly dug into Kenobi's shoulder tightly, preventing the Padawan from moving away. A frustrated whimper slipped from between Kenobi's clenched teeth as Rhagos turned startled eyes toward him.

"Padawan!" The Jedi Master sounded quite surprised by Kenobi's unexpected ire and he darted an apologetic look at Qui-Gon. "I'm sorry, Master Jinn," he soothed, profoundly remorseful. "As I mentioned before, my Padawan is ill." A glimmer of hope flashed through his dark gaze. "Perhaps there is something you could do…?" he trailed of encouragingly, gently squeezing Kenobi's shoulder through the apprentice's robe.

The Padawan growled, but the misery and hatred in his eyes burned into Qui-Gon. "Don't touch me!" he snarled, and Qui-Gon almost took a step back at the vehemence directed at him - Kenobi had again become completely unfamiliar: twisted and bitter - even his Signature within the Force had shifted, growing Darker, malevolent, it snapped the air with a loud hum that Qui-Gon did recognize. He stood his ground, caving to the panicked look Rhagos flashed him as the other Master suddenly shouted:

"Please help me with him! I can't - "

Qui-Gon couldn't afford to hesitate - Kenobi was out of control. Instinctively he summoned soothing energies from the Living Force swirling around him as it responded to his pleas, and he reached out to brush his fingers lightly against Kenobi's cheekbone, careful to avoid a savage scrape that was seeping and infected.

When his fingers touched the Padawan's too-warm cheek, Kenobi staggered, twisting in his master's grasp just as a blinding headache ripped through Qui-Gon's skull. He jerked his hand back too late as a blue-white rush of heat surged from Kenobi, an angry crackling of Force energy that slammed into Qui-Gon, and the Jedi Master's last thought was that he remembered feeling this same power before, nearly ten months ago when Kenobi had disappeared.

Fool me once… Qui-Gon thought hazily, and then his eyes closed as he sank gracelessly into waiting darkness.

All indicators of panic immediately and completely wiped from his demeanor, Rhagos turned approvingly from the slumped body of the large Jedi Master to face the young man sagging against him, trembling and barely conscious, and he squeezed Kenobi's convulsing shoulder warmly.

"Nice work, Padawan," he said cheerfully.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Not all Jedi were completely able to sever the training Bond between Master and Padawan once the Padawan was released from the Master's care - in ideal cases, of course, released because they had successfully completed their training and attained the rank of Knight in their own right … in other, rarer cases, released because the Master had been found egregiously incapable of continuing the Padawan's training.

But the training Bond was a peculiar thing; useful, certainly, but the effects of which had not yet been quite fully explored. Sometimes, imprints were left behind at the severing of the Bond. Sometimes, the link between a Master and Padawan was so strong that nothing short of death could completely erase the last vestiges from the minds of those joined by it.

The Bond between Master Dooku and his old Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn was one of the latter, still resting comfortably in the back of Dooku's mind even after all these years; quiet, reassuring, dormant mostly, but every now and then he felt a flicker of emotion from his former student.

Like now.

It was nothing exceptionally discernable, just a vague unease that Dooku couldn't quite put his mental finger on, an uncertain rumbling in the back of his mind that added to the irritating nervousness he was already feeling. He'd felt a similar feeling before when he and Rhagos had waylaid Qui-Gon and Kenobi on their return trip from Agamar. It had been disconcerting, to say the least, to watch Rhagos work then, and the passage of time certainly hadn't made witnessing the man's unrelenting streak of cruelty any easier on the dignified older Jedi.

His worry growing, Dooku looked in quickly at the room he'd assigned to Qui-Gon and found it empty, though Qui-Gon should have returned here to rest almost an hour ago.

I should never have left him alone with Rhagos here.

Shouldn't have left him alone, not after revealing his plans for the future. Shouldn't have left him, not with Rhagos here and clearly upset about Kenobi.

Dooku flinched at the emptiness of Qui-Gon's room surrounding him, passing an exhausted hand across his forehead, not at all liking the way his usually calm nerves were jumping and twitching.

I should never have left him.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"I am, as ever, surprised by your power."

Kenobi glared at him, a hateful burning darkening his bright eyes but he said nothing and Rhagos felt his pride prickle.

"Soon you'll stop fighting and use your power on your own," he pointed out with a disapproving tilt to his head, his weariness and disappointment with his student soaking into the space between them. "And I will no longer need to use you like a vessel just waiting to be filled."

Still trembling though he now stood upright under his own power, Kenobi refused to be baited by the master who had reclaimed him. "That day will never come," he answered certainly.

In a blur, Rhagos closed the gap to the apprentice, grabbing Kenobi's chin in his hand, his uncut fingernails digging into the Padawan's stubbled skin. He jerked Kenobi's ear close to his mouth, his breath stirring the ginger hair beneath his lips. "Then I will use you until there's nothing left," he hissed, the certainty in his voice chilling. "I will use you until your pathetic cries for mercy cease, until the last breath in your useless body is spent cursing me, until there is nothing left of you, little one, but a shell from which the madness in your mind cannot escape…"

A twitch from Kenobi, and suddenly grey eyes were boring into Rhagos' own - he found himself looking down, momentarily unable to look away as his Padawan held his gaze firmly.

"You can try," Kenobi retorted softly.

A heartbeat passed before Rhagos shook himself back into control, stepping away from the Padawan and cursing his weakness for allowing Kenobi to regain his center, even for a second. The boy's power really was amazing - the reason for which Rhagos had convinced the Council to let him train the young Initiate - even Kenobi had no idea how strong he really was.

"Your mouth is getting ahead of you, little one," Rhagos sneered mockingly, grasping to regain the upper hand. "Have I been gone so long you've forgotten why you fear me?" He smiled, cold and twisted; a frisson of fear snaked its way through Kenobi's defiant eyes and Rhagos' grin widened in anticipation. "A refresher, then," he announced, "and then we have other business to attend to with the Garosians." His smile turned predatory, wanting, as he carefully tested unsure waters; Kenobi's reaction to Jinn had surprised him, but he wasn't convinced all was as it appeared. Obi-Wan Kenobi was too genuinely and nauseatingly … good … to truly hate anyone. Except for maybe himself. "Shall we bring Master Jinn along, too?"

Kenobi's glare was as hard as his tone. "I do not care what you do with Qui-Gon Jinn," he answered coldly.

Rhagos' smile grew, taunting, twisting the knife. "Then you don't mind if he … watches?" he suggested, and his grin turned satisfied as Kenobi's staunchly bitter expression wavered at the implication.

"Is it not enough simply to hurt and humiliate me, now you wish to subject others to witnessing my private hell?" Kenobi snapped angrily.

"Submit to the cause and your 'private hell,' as you so dramatically put it, would be behind you," Rhagos suggested reasonably. "I have so little patience left for you now, Obi-Wan, and now I must deal with both Jinn and Dooku. As we dither here, I have business waiting to be completed that I require your special help for … do you not see, little one, how your continued sad attempts as resistance are doing nothing other than hurting you and putting me behind schedule?"

Kenobi smiled darkly, coldly pleased. "At least I'm accomplishing something, then."

Rhagos grit his teeth as his frustration bubbled over, clenching his jaw so tightly his head hurt. Two short steps and he was back at Kenobi's side, the feel of his knuckles bursting against Kenobi's cheek so satisfying, so warmly pleasant that he followed the quick strike up with a backhand that snapped Kenobi's head to the side. The Padawan staggered, spitting blood as he sank to his knee, glaring up angrily as Rhagos instinctively raised a fist to strike again.

But Rhagos reigned in his anger abruptly, forcing himself to be calm, reaching out to whatever in the Force was listening to pull calm to himself. He wrapped a large first in the front of Kenobi's tunics and hauled the semiconscious Padawan to his feet, the tips of Kenobi's boots barely grazing the docking bay tiles. Rhagos pulled Kenobi in close, so close he could see the widening of Kenobi's grey eyes and the small drops of perspiration dampening the young man's forehead under his shaggy hair.

"You have until tonight," Rhagos hissed sharply. "My patience is up. Cease your pathetic rebellion or I will let the Garosians keep you, and I know you're well aware they will not be as kind as I have been." He released his grasp on the other man, stepping back as Kenobi flopped to the floor with a satisfying thunk, sprawling on his back with a pained grunt.

Rhagos eyed the two prone Jedi, a glimmer of an idea settling into his mind, though he admitted to himself distastefully that it was more along the lines of Dooku's way of thinking than his. And yet, despite his words to the Padawan, he had no intention of giving Kenobi up - he had come too far, spent too long, working on his apprentice to start over again. Kenobi just needed that last push over the edge.

"And now, little one, I believe you're owed a reminder" he announced, feeling the first stirrings of warm pleasure sweep over him, accompanied by a palpable excitement that twisted up his spine; he could swear he felt himself salivating, the heat in his mouth delicious. He expelled his breath in a rush as he hooked the toe of his boot under Kenobi's side, pulling up and flipping the young man over onto his stomach. Kenobi gasped and ground his teeth as his battered body slapped against the cold permacrete, inhaling roughly as Rhagos knelt beside him, trembling already starting to make its way through the Padawan's limbs as he realized what was about to happen. The defiant apprentice disappeared swiftly as frightened weariness settled in.

"Please don't…" he whispered in the dull tone of one who had long given up on receiving mercy but couldn't keep himself from asking for it.

Rhagos smiled slightly; though he hated to concede a point to Dooku, it may be that a more subtle manipulation was required with Kenobi. "You see, little one," he murmured, "how frustrating it is to ask and ask, and not be heard? You and I, Obi-Wan, share the same frustration, the same agony of wanting but not receiving that which we ask for. How can I show you mercy when you continually rebuff my attempts to train you, to regain all the ground we lost when the Council took you away from me?" His long fingers were working their way under Kenobi's collar as he spoke, brushing aside the snarled ginger hair that tickled his palms.

Kenobi fell silent, pinching his eyes shut, hopelessness already thick in his Signature, his shuddering increasing as Rhagos' fingertips snaked across the pale skin of his scarred shoulder blades, tracing the gouges carved there. Nearly lost in his enjoyment of the sensation of the Padawan's fear, Rhagos almost missed the low moans from Jinn that sounded in unison with the pained groans of Kenobi.

Rhagos lifted his gaze to the slumped body of Qui-Gon Jinn lying nearby, his mind already clicking ahead. He wasn't sure whether to be furious, intrigued, or elated at the suspicion that Obi-Wan had somehow managed to form a bond with Jinn - he had actually assumed his Padawan's capacity to form a mental bond with anyone had been permanently damaged when their own training bond had been ripped apart violently, nearly shattering Kenobi's mind in the process. It should have been a painless procedure to sever the bond at the demand of the Council, Rhagos admitted, but he had been so angry, livid and bitter at their intervention and Kenobi's betrayal, that he had destroyed their bond, reaching as far into Obi-Wan's mind as he could before the Council realized what was happening and twisted, spilling Dark and hatred as he swiftly embedded a door he knew the Council would never find, a link unceasingly binding him to his Padawan.

Rhagos stilled his roving fingers where they had been lovingly tracing the gnarled skin beneath his hand. "I could be persuaded to be merciful, Obi-Wan," he murmured thoughtfully, "… just maybe… "

Kenobi said nothing but his trembling body froze on the intake of a breath, his shoulders lifted slightly with the motion. Rhagos rose carefully, moving away from the prone Padawan to kneel next to the senseless Jedi Master.

Rhagos' lips formed a smile, twisted and cold. "Were you telling the truth when you said you didn't care what happens to Qui-Gon Jinn? Because I would be willing, little one, just maybe willing to transfer your punishment to him. If you ask nicely."

Kenobi's eyes slowly opened, his gaze shuttered and unreadable and Rhagos felt a clenching of disappointment in his chest. Did Kenobi indeed not care? Had he misread him? He brushed back long strands of chestnut from where they lay gently across Jinn's bearded cheek, watching surreptitiously for any change in Kenobi's demeanor. "Or I could give him to the Garosians," he mused thoughtfully. "He could take your place, Obi-Wan. You could be …free."

Kenobi shifted gently, but even the small movement set off a string of rough coughing that doubled the Padawan over tightly. When his panting finally subsided, he gently laid his head back on the cold permacrete; a trickle of blood slid past Obi-Wan's lips as he wheezed dryly, acceptingly, "I will never be truly free of you, Master Rhagos."

Rhagos nodded in agreement. "No," he said with certainty, "You won't." He rose, gesturing toward the prone Jedi Master. "And now, Padawan Kenobi, you have a decision to make."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Okay, so crazy Obi-Wan was going to show up here, but confused Qui-Gon keeps dragging the story out. Next time, dear readers, and maybe after 10,000 reviews!