Chapter 27: Walking Wounded
The tears did not last long. Atel's shaking hands still covered her eyes - a futile attempt at hiding, she knew, but she didn't have the strength to face Obi-Wan just yet. The stunning shock of his repudiation was as chill as the cold, wet skin beneath her fingertips.
It has been minutes, hours, days since he claimed her guilty of murder. Or was it only moments ago? She wasn't sure. In the jumble of unreality that was the dank cell and Tharten's corpse and her Master's rejection, she could be certain of nothing but pain. The Force was full of it, the red-glow of agony quenched, of hopes lost in brown slime, great chunks of frozen smoke and pollution filling the usually clear currents of that great energy field. It sickened her, this dark obscenity, just as his words had sickened her with his effortless denunciation of her struggle to save Master Jinn.
Yet his accusation had been delivered in such a casual way, as if he were discussing the flavors of tea or talking about the latest hovercraft specifications, not some vast black-hole condemnation of treachery and ruin.
Squeezing her eyes shut tight against fingers still damp with grief, she gave out a shuddering breath and tried to center herself, to drive away the chaotic confusion and regain her balance, to act like a Jedi - as she would have under ordinary circumstances. But these were anything but ordinary.
It hurt to breath. It hurt to think. It hurt to wonder what would happen when she looked into his eyes at last and saw the certainty there that he believed her capable of trying to murder someone he loved. She knew it was foolish. She had always been taught to face her fears. But for just a little while longer, she wanted to hide behind trembling hands, to avoid seeing the flush of hatred in his face. Just a little while longer.
But the Force was reminding her of duty and honor and things yet to be done. Wiping away the last of the tears, Atel gathered her strength and looked over at her Master.
Obi-Wan was sitting there, a meter or so away, staring up at the ceiling. An unblinking glare, it was almost as if he could see through the layers of duracreet into the very sky over their heads. He didn't move. A pale statue, he seemed lifeless - except for the slight rise and fall of his chest, and the glimmer of something unbearable in his eyes.
She wanted to call out to him, to remind him that she was still there, still his Padawan and that she would forgive him anything if only he would look at her with trust again. But it was a fool's wish. They had said too much, done too much and they could never go back to the way it was just a few days ago.
It hurt to breathe. The stone-weight of that knowledge pressed into her chest, freezing the very blood in her heart.
How had it come to this? When had they lost their connection, their trust in each other and in the Force? When had her failure to understand become his failure to see her as she was, someone trying desperately to do what she thought was right and yet still keep his respect and love? Or had he seen her as nothing more than a liability? All those years. Had their life together been nothing?
Trying to shake off the absurd desire to hide again, Atel realized that she was being selfish and very much a fool. He had been hurt, he was still hurt, and she needed to stop this and act like the Jedi she was. She had to help him even if it was for the last time.
"Obi-Wan, do you need...?" Her hoarse question trailed off into silence.
Atel had expected him to react somehow, even if only to reprimand her insolence at the familiarity. Instead, he just sat there, silent and still, staring at the ceiling, ignoring her. She glanced up but saw nothing except one line of water stain that had spidered its way across the duracreet. There was nothing to warrant such attention.
Perhaps he was going insane after all. With the streaming trails of death-shadow and the crimson horror of mind torture still profaning the Force, it was almost impossible to find his light in the twisted echoes of what had happened here.
Yet someone needed to repair what had been damaged between them by his careless, cutting words. With his continuing silence, it looked like that someone was her.
As she twisted her body to look at him more clearly, for a moment, the muscles on one side of her torso jerked abruptly, spasms of pain shooting through her. It hurt to breath and it was more than just grief tugging at her spirit. Atel felt as if a bantha had stepped on her chest, crushing her and she was left with only the memory of life.
She tried to ignore the pain; it was nothing but bruises, damage from getting Force-pushed into walls - twice. The flash-memory of his hand flinging her aside like so much trash sent a quick pulse of anger slithering down her chest, adding to the burn but she shoved that emotion aside. Now was not the time. Perhaps later, she would deal with it all, when she was alone and it had finally been settled between them.
Besides, Obi-Wan's injury was far greater than any of hers and he would need further medical attention soon. A couple of bacta patches, even with a strong painkiller, could not keep a lightsaber wound's problems at bay forever.
Atel started again, "Do you need help to get to the Healers? Would you like me to...?"
"They are watching us still." Quiet, flat words but the rage in Obi-Wan's voice was undeniable.
Drawing back, she glanced upward for a moment. There was nothing there in the ceiling but a thin stain and duracreet. "Who is watching us?"
"Don't you know? Can't you sense them?" The way he said it, so intensely, with such passion and anger, sent chills skittering across her flesh.
When he said nothing else, just kept ignoring her, she tried again to capture his attention, "I don't sense anything. Who are you talking about?"
"I told you in the turbolift." With an annoyed growl, he angled around to look at her. His eyes were hard grey and full of some bleak thing that remained unspoken. The frown she saw there seemed to etch his face into white bone and fury. "Did you hear nothing of what I said? Did you think that I was merely...?" He broke off and looked away, down towards his clenched hands. Even from where she sat, she could see the tension in the pull of muscles against flesh.
For a moment, the grief in his voice was unbearable. He murmured quietly, half to himself, "That's right. If I remember correctly, you thought I was insane. Perhaps I was." Then glaring at her, he dove back into rage. "Crawl back to the Council, then. I wasn't lying, I wasn't insane. But you seem to find it impossible to believe anything I say."
"Obi-Wan, no, I don't...." Her frantic objection went unheard.
Darkness seemed to swirl around him, smears of smoke and outrage, and underneath it all, such an aching despair.
With a shaking, angry voice, he spat out, "Go back to your High Council, those wisest of the wise Masters of the Jedi Order. Find just how much the rsshak slime manipulated both of us. Playing us like we were nothing but Dejarik pawns, wriggling out our lives on the razor wire of endless missions. Deception and cruelty and bloody meat for their games. And all the while, we go where we are told and when we are told and give away everything that we are. For what, Atel, for what?"
Blinking rapidly, his eyes smoky with grief, Obi-Wan abruptly curled inward. One hand splayed across his chest, the other scrubbing at his face. He looked exhausted. It seemed all the anger and adrenalin of the last few hours had finally drained away.
"May they burn in hell for what they demanded of me and may I burn with them for what I had done...."
She could barely hear Obi-Wan's whisper. But she knew that this was not good. Anger was not the only way to the Dark; despair and grief and even shame could be powerful conduits as well.
Atel didn't know what to say. He had always been the strong one, wise and calm, the epitome of a Master - a Jedi without weakness, someone to learn from, someone to admire, someone to follow into hell and back and remain unscathed - until this moment.
The last of her childhood finally fell away. Now, she would have to be the one to help him regain what he had lost. No matter that he had accused her of murder only minutes ago, no matter that he had rejected the Jedi and flung her aside, he needed her and now that they both knew the truth, she would move on.
Almost too weary to get up, nevertheless, she managed to struggle to her feet, wincing as she did, and hobbled over towards Obi-Wan. Hesitating for a moment, she leaned down and brushed one tentative hand across his uninjured shoulder.
She had meant only to comfort. But instead he reacted as if she had struck him, jerking out of her reach with a harsh, "Don't."
"Let me help you." Blinking back surprise, she stood there for a moment, waiting for him to realize that she wasn't attacking him.
Instead he just shuddered and pulled himself into a tight knot of arms and legs. "Don't touch me. I'm not...."
Waiting in vain for him to finish explaining what he was not, when it was clear that he would say nothing else, she knelt down beside him, keeping a careful distance, and urged gently, "Not what?"
Obi-Wan seemed to be at the centerpoint in a riptide of dark emotions, the Force polluted with the slushy chaotic remnants of his loathing and fury and shame. She waited for him to let go of whatever demons were tormenting him but instead, he sunk deeper into self-hatred.
Stonily glancing up at the ceiling for a moment, Obi-Wan's gaze slid away from her concern. "How can you be so calm after what I did to you? After I hurt you? Accused you of killing Qui-Gon when all you were doing was trying to save him?"
Atel pushed back a sharp flash of remembrance: the blossoming pain as she hit the wall and slid down, Obi-Wan's accusations of murder, her own betrayal at his hands. But she shook it off. There would be time enough to deal with this after she got him to the Healers and he could come to terms with it all.
"We can talk about this later, when you've recovered from your ordeal." But when he just shot her an unbelieving look, she said, "You need to let it go, Obi-Wan. You know this. You were the one who taught me, remember."
Sarcastic, he spat out, "Did I teach you how to use the Force to torture someone? Rape their minds?" He glared at her, his eyes hard as durasteel. "Did you hear her screams? Such agony when I forced myself into her head, her fighting me all the way?"
His one hand scoured across his face as if to remove the tainted flesh from beneath his palm. "I could feel her pain, knew, without doubt, that every nerve in her body was on fire, her heart wildly beating as she tried to break free of the torment and yet I kept... I kept doing it." He shook his head, closing his eyes against the memories, "How can I let it go when a Jedi would not... would never...?" His words trailed off into silence.
Knowing that he was on the brink of collapse, both physically and mentally, she took his good hand in hers and began to stroke it gently, as she would a small child whose night had been filled with terrors. He glared at her but did not pull away. "Obi-Wan, you are ill. Look at yourself, exhausted, a night of torture. The saber wound in your shoulder needs attention and you need rest."
"Rest." He shook his head, sounding so weary and unhappy that it made her heart clench in sympathy. But he did not move, only looked down to watch her fingers steadily stroking the back of his hand.
She could feel the currents of the Force begin to clear. Obi-Wan was not fighting against her soft touch, and as he sat there, swaying slightly in fatigue, it was almost as if he was beginning to allow the hurt and torment of the last hours to drift away. She knew it would be a long hard climb to remove the taint from his spirit but she would make sure that it came to pass. "Yes, rest. You are only going to make yourself worse with all this. You are ill enough as it is."
"Ill? I suppose I am. Sick enough. Sick of it all. The lies, the betrayal of everything I've believed in. And for what? Lies, all lies." The heat of rebellion was still there in the words but he said it with such weariness that she knew she had won this round.
She wanted to cry again, absurd as it was, but she pushed away the unwanted emotion. She had to take care of Obi-Wan first and then she would have much meditation to do before she could feel free of the dark taint of this day. "Let me call the healers. We'll get that shoulder fixed up, you can rest, and then we'll see what we can do about the mess."
Obi-Wan gave a half-nod, and then closing his eyes, bowed his head in resignation. "I'm leaving the Jedi, you know."
Glad that her Master could not see the heartbreak on her face, she pulled out the comlink and began to open up a channel to the Healers ward. As she looked away, out into the darkness beyond, her vision wavering in liquid grief, she hesitated for just a moment. Then with a murmur too quiet for him to hear, she said gently, "I know."
