Hello, everyone! Thanks for the feedback and I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! :)
author wanders back to working on the next chapter, a pile of turkey sandwiches at her elbow
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Some Other Future's Past
Chapter 12
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Padmé had no sooner rolled into bed when she had to roll right back out again, called by the reception desk to deal with a rather insistent Wookiee.
"And she wants to see Obi-Wan?" Master Windu matched her stride for stride down the sunwood and lapis paneled corridor to a private reception room.
Briefly, she considered waking Ani, but discarded the notion. Coruscant did not seem to agree with him, he had been very tired when she saw him and ordered him back to bed.
"She says that she is a master healer and a Jedi, Master Windu."
The dark-skinned man nodded. "Chaawushro."
"Pardon me?" The name sounded like a strangled sneeze.
"Master Chaawushro is a healer, one of the best we have with long-term or critical patients. If Qui-Gon was injured as Obi-Wan was, she would be the natural choice for his care."
A gesture from Mace opened the counterweighted stone doors into the reception room. Paneled in soothing blues and with the musical accompaniment of water trickling over stones, the room had done little to calm the red-coated Wookiee pacing back and forth.
Padmé felt a slight twist of apprehension. - she had never seen a Wookiee this closely, much less met one. Chaawushro had to be two-and-a third meters tall! Blazing green eyes locked on Master Windu and a series of harns, yelps and growls sounded like an invitation to mayhem.
The Jedi obviously made sense of them. "Yes, Chaawushro, he is here and you will be able to see him. You have to understand why we are being so cautious. The past months have been full of trials that would send many experienced Jedi to hide under their beds, much less a new knight and a pair of fledgling padawans."
The Wookiee softened her tone, speaking with guttural growls and barks. Padmé felt a little stupid – this was obviously speech and she could not understand any of it.
"The dark power that this little one fought was old and strong. How many years has it hidden among us wearing a trusted face?" The Jedi seemed to be arguing now. "Yet she held it at bay long enough to give us a chance to break its grip, even at terrible pain to herself."
Chaawushro harned softly and looked down at Padmé, then knelt to look her in the eyes. Placing a huge hand on Padmé's shoulder the healer gave another harn, this one with an interrogative sound.
"She asks your permission to examine you." Master Windu's voice was neutral, giving her the right to refuse. "We have no healers with us, and this has been of some concern to me."
"All right, but I don't know if the medical wing is open" Padmé broke off as Chaawushro's hands settled to either side of her head, then the room faded into a mist of golden light.
She breathed and the light was inside her - in her beating heart, flowing through her veins, zipping along her nerves, in every molecule in every cell of her. It was as if only the thin mebreane of her skin held the being that was Padmé Naberrie and if that barrier was gone, she would fade into this glorious everything without a second thought.
The light took on purpose now, moving about sounding not only her physical self, but her spirit. Odd visions flashed across the mist –
Her own baby fist around her father's finger.
Sola and she playing in a pile of autumn leaves.
The exact way that the underside of her mother's dining room table looked.
The memories – some that she didn't even know she had played out like a holorecord. Good and bad, comforting and frightening, Padmé studied her life with a certain fascination. Wondering why she had made some decisions and not others, why she had done this instead of that. Then came the memories of the blockade and invasion, the flight and the fear that was with her every second. Even now, she wondered at some of her decisions.
Why this and not that? What if opportunities had she failed to see? What more could she have done for Naboo?
Then the memories of that night
The mist roiled as she rejected them, the light dimming within and without.
The light seemed to contract around her, swaddling her as tightly as a babe. Carefully, those memories were laid open and Padmé felt her body rebel. No matter what Ani said, what she had done was horrible! She must be weakminded to have let someone in who could move her about like a puppet on strings! What if that evil remained? What if there was some residue within her that would begin to fester and rot, infecting her anew and endangering her friends and her world?
The golden light strengthened, pushing the darkness out of and away from her and she fought that. Some part of her wanted that darkness, desired the reminder of how stupid and vulnerable she had been.
She was afraid that without the anger, she could not be strong and that Obi-Wan and Ani would pay the price for her failing.
The light and the healer who lived within it – she could feel the Wookiee within the light, an inextricable part of it – denied her the carefully constructed reasons. The seedlings of darkness within, withered.
A memory overwhelmed her. A shoulder beneath her cheek, a hand large enough to cover her upper back and a feeling of absolute security, love and safety. In the space of a few seconds, she moved between past and present.
Only now the shoulder beneath her cheek was covered in red fur, and wet with her tears. Instead of her mother's voice, there was a low croon and a large hand stroking her hair. She was wrapped in feelings of care, love and gentle regard – unquestioning, unconditional.
"She was moving away from us, pushing away so subtly that at first I did not notice." Master Windu's voice was quiet, concerned. "It appears now that the Force moved you to come here for more than one reason, Healer."
~
The first race of the night went well. Anakin had moved up in the rankings and would now be facing some of the best in the district.
In a small poured plascrete garage next to the track, he carefully tuned the repulsors for a heavier shove. The stern-heavy swoops tended to fishtail in tighter turns and a racer really needed the push to get straightened out.
"Good racing,kid." Barruda had been impatient to get to the track. Anakin had been late, delayed first by looking in on Obi-Wan and then by Padmé sending him back to bed. "You in three more tonight, all good payoffs."
Anakin nodded, watching the readouts on the repulsors. "What's the competition look like?"
The Dug spat. "Buncha bums. Spaceflot, mostly. Between jobs or jail terms."
Anakin shrugged. Racers – at least on the local level – were an unsavory bunch. "Doesn't matter as long as none of them know who I am."
Anakin Skywalker was a name too dangerous to be talked about here. The Dug had confirmed that there was a price on his head, quite a considerable one – it did not, however, match Anakin's potential for winnings on the track. The people behind the offer were not well liked or well trusted, either. The Black Sun had not commented one way or the other, but surprising word had come from the Hutts that none in their employ would take the bounty.
Spaceflot, however, might pose some danger. Hence Anakin had entered the races as Ashmi Brightsky from the smuggler's moon of Nar Shadaa.
"They'll never know. Your hair is different and you taller a little." Barruda passed Anakin a thermabox. "Two tarna, a bag of fried nizziks, and a ruby bliel. How you can eat before a race, I donno. Most would be yukking it up in their helmets."
The tarna smelled delicious and he took a huge bite of the rolled sandwich, catching a bit of stray sauce with his finger. Ha paused for a moment at a feeling of deep sadness from Padmé – these dark moods came often, yet she passed them off as simply being tired or as something she had to deal with herself. Anakin sent feather light brushes of hug-feelings to her – just enough to let her feel loved, but not to know who was sending them. He wan not only supposed to be asleep, he didn't want her to think that he was listening in when he just could not help hearing her.
Briefly, he felt a flash of guilt for his actions – sneaking out, racing, making covert plans – but he could not ask Padmé to get involved in this. He understood a little about politics and diplomacy now, and if the Naboo were to be involved in what he was planning, it would be a major incident. All he wanted was a quick in to the Jedi temple and then out again with Master Jinn, something discreet.
For everything that would get him to that position, he needed money. Lots and lots of money. Bribes, tips for information, some equipment, access to restricted files that he could not slice into himself – all required cash.
Luckily, Barruda seemed to be as enamored of cash as Anakin. Negotiating a deal with him over the proceeds from the races had been difficult – Obi-Wan had flat-out said that Anakin was not to gamble or take percentages on anyone else's gambling.
This made things complicated.
Hence, Anakin became an employee of Barruda, earning sixty percent of the prize for each race. Barruda kept forty percent and was free to bet on the outcome of the race.
However, as enamored as Barruda was of cash, he seemed to have no problem spending it to outfit his racer.
Anakin had been surprised to find real racing gear awaiting him this evening instead of the make-do second hand stuff he'd used last night. Boots, fireproof and thermal underclothes to go with them, a padded coverall and helmet were all in dark blue, piped and slashed with black and silver. The primer-grey swoop was now just as flashily painted as those of the competition, and his safety gear still had ratings stickers attached.
He had been stunned at the Dug's generosity and said as much. Good gear was not cheap.
"I good to my racers. Always been. You gonna make me money, I gotta keep you in one piece." Barruda grew quiet, brooding for a few minutes. "Besides, maybe you gonna give me somethin' money can't touch. What you told me last night?"
Anakin froze with a crisp-fried nizzik halfway to his mouth.
"Long time ago, I learned ain't all of anybodies bad. You tell me 'bout this Jedi, Quiggin? How he sick an' hurt, held for not doing nothing more than saying his mind?" The Dug reached for a spanner and fiddled it around with his feet, flipping it back and forth. "Well, my kind notta lotta like for Jedi, notta lotta like for Republicers, but you say he's good, the clan that took you in is good – just on everybody's wrong side. So maybe I gotta do payback for long-time-ago stuff."
Anakin was very quiet, listening as hard as he could to the Force and the Dug.
"When I was little little, a couple a Jedi held off the Gran that came to burn our thorp because of something my father's father said that lots of others agreed with. The Republicers took us here, so's we wouldn't be killed or indentured. Maybe this man was one, humans keep looking different as they get old anyhows, so I'm thinking maybe we owe. I talked to my clan and kin. They thinkin' that, too." The Dug grinned. "An' maybe kick the Republic, the Gran and the Jedi right inna slats when we bust 'im out, too."
The buzzer for the next race blatted through the garage,
"Get movin', little human boy! We got a long night comin'!"
Anakin stuffed the remaining half of one tarna into his mouth, followed by the last strips if nizzik and washed it down with the ruby bliel. With a ringing belch, he grabbed his helmet and fired up the swoop, heading for the track, wondering if being smeared into the wall of the track had just become the least of his worries.
~
Chaawushro leaned back in the Wookiee-proportioned chair that the Naboo had so politely brought for her. Nothing in Obi-Wan's room would either hold her weight or accommodate her with any degree of comfort.
Very nice people, the Naboo, but very skittish.
Well, except for young Rabé. That cub was fierce enough for any five Naboo. It had taken a great deal of Mace Windu at his most persuasive to simply get the strong-minded child to let them in the door. Then it had been a fine tussle between Obi-Wan and Rabé over the strictest definition of 'rest.'
Human males of the fairer-skinned varieties did turn such interesting colors when their dignity was offended – though why pinching someone's plums was something to get bothered about, Chaawushro had no idea.
Obi-Wan was somewhat used to her ministrations, but had never sustained this type of injury before. In his own way, he had been as badly injured as his padawan or Qui-Gon. At least she had been able to ease him a great deal, though nothing would ease his mind until he had his beloved master where he could keep an eye on him. News of Qui-Gon's condition grieved him greatly, and he was bitter toward the Council and Sifo-Dyas.
Anger was not in Obi-Wan – much to Chaawushro's great relief. Even wholly justified anger could go from spark to firestorm if not watched carefully.
Both the young man and Padmé were asleep. Padmé in the bed that she had been rousted out of, Obi-Wan in the rooms that had been given to him.
The fur along her spine raised again and she felt her upper lip skin back to bare her sharp canines. So much hurt from malice on the Sith's part and stupidity on the Jedi's. Young Padmé would be long in healing the wounds to her spirit, even if the insult to her body had corrected itself.
The other Jedi who had come with this batch of oddlings looked in from time to time. Most she knew, others she didn't but all seemed in good health, if stressed. If he divisions in the ranks of the order reached even these far travelers, they were vast divisions indeed.
Such as the one that had nearly swallowed Qui-Gon.
Ever the nonconformist, going as far back as the creche, Qui-Gon walked a different path with an air of quiet boldness. Dooku had nurtured the child's intellectual freedom, encouraging him to investigate, explore, and question everyone and everything.
In many ways, Obi-Wan reminded her of Qui-Gon – even if two more different people had never been made. Obi-Wan was more cynical, yes, but he still had the unfettered mind that his master had worked so very hard to develop.
Even if that unfettered mind reached conclusions vitally different from Qui-Gon's.
At the moment, Sifo-Dyas was not in good odor with a large part of the Council, partially because of the harm that had befallen Qui-Gon at his hands, partially because of his failure to deliver an appropriately reformed penitent. However, the Council could order her to release him back to Sifo-Dyas – something that every sense she had screamed that she should not do.
It was hard to shake the feeling that neither Qui-Gon, or Obi-Wan and his padawans should be within the same sector as the Jedi master. As much as she tried to push the image away, all she could see in her mind's eye was a kriipi battening on its helpless prey, injecting it with a solvent venom, and sucking it to a dried husk.
The more she thought on it, the more certain she became. Qui-Gon Jinn would not survive a week in Sifo-Dyas' custody and rather of walking him about the Convocation, they'd be holding his Memorial instead.
~