notes: Hnnnng idk how I feel about this chapter, but I'm just so *sick* of it at this point that I just wanted to get it out and done with. So. Here, have a chapter. I hope that you enjoy regardless of whether it's a very "good" chapter or not...


CHAPTER 11

The next day Aunt Beru brought Luke to the urgent care unit in Mos Eisley. The harried doctor took one look at him and announced that he needed bacta.

"We don't have the money-" Aunt Beru began.

The doctor waved his hand. "We have systems set in place to help those who can't afford care. I'll put you in contact with the medical office in Mos Espa. They'll get you sorted. Right now this young man needs bacta."

It was the first time Luke had ever been in bacta. It felt strange, he decided as he sat down in the horizontal tank: like gel, but warm. The doctor fitted a mask over his face, then gently pushed him down and sealed the lid over him. In seconds, Luke was asleep.

He dreamed.

He was standing on the edge of a ravine, a river running hard and fast at the bottom of it. The walls were pitted and cracked, stunted trees, grass, and wildflowers growing out of the splits in the rock. Luke looked over the edge and down to the water. The moon, heavy and swollen with light, hung reflected in the waves, wavering and insubstantial.

Curious, Luke followed the river upstream, hugging close to the edge of the ravine, occasionally sending cascades of dirt and pebbles over the lip and down, down, down to splash in the water.

After a few moments of walking, a shape began to materialize in the river ahead of him, spanning from bank to bank-something large and black. Something familiar. Luke quickened his pace, and as he drew near, he became more and more certain of what he was seeing.

It was the wall-the wall that Shmi had showed him, with the crack and tiny flow of water trickling through it. Only now it wa more than just a crack. Now, Luke saw as at last he drew abreast of the wall, it was a gaping hole, wide and dark, through which water gushed.

For a long moment Luke could only stare. How had the crack widened? He hadn't been able to do so with his own hands, no matter how hard he had strained. Surely that meant he hadn't been the one to widen the hole?

Then again, Shmi had said that he could widen it-that he just didn't know how to yet. Did that mean that he had widened it, without realizing it? But if that was the case, what had he done to widen it? How had he widened it?

A gift, the water burbled below him

A gift, the wind teased as it plucked at his hair.

A gift, the moon sighed as it fell to the earth in silver rays.

"What do you mean?" Luke called out, looking skyward. "What gift?"

Oh, Child of the Force, the air whispered all around him. You have a long road ahead of you.

~oOo~

When Luke awoke, he felt much better. His eye no longer throbbed with every heartbeat, and it was no longer swollen shut. He touched his eye carefully, and found that there was no pain. His nose still hurt-it had been covered by the breathing mask, and thus had not been touched by the bacta-but that was a small pain compared to his eye. He just had to breathe through his mouth-and though his nose still throbbed, it was a bearable pain.

"How do you feel?" the doctor asked, coming into the recovery room Luke was lying in. His aunt sat in a chair by his bed, hands folded tightly in her lap.

"Better," said Luke.

"Good, good," said the doctor. He pressed a gentle finger to Luke's cheekbone, then to the eye socket. He nodded, satisfied with what he found, and said, "The nose will have to heal on its own. It shouldn't take more than six weeks to do so. If it does, come back, and we'll figure out what to do then."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Aunt Beru.

The doctor smiled. "You are welcome. You're free to go," he added, looking first at Luke then at Aunt Beru. "Just check out with Natelie at the front desk."

Luke rose uneasily, Aunt Beru standing quickly to grab his shoulder to steady him. Luke shook his head, then took an uncertain step forward; his legs remained firmly beneath him, and he did not wobble even as he took another step, then another. His aunt released him, and then led the way out of the recovery room and out to the urgent care lobby and the front desk.

Natelie was a short, plump woman with gray streaks in her brown hair. She had a soft face and softer blue eyes, with a pointed chin and dimples in her cheeks. She looked motherly and kind, and Luke could not help but instantly trust her.

Aunt Beru spoke with her. She said something about "Talked to the agency representative-" before Luke tuned her out, focusing instead on the way the sunlight filtered into through the large bay of windows at the front of the lobby.

"Luke!" Leia's voice rang loud and clear, so very different from the far-off echo that usually was her voice when she spoke first to him. Memory crashed into Luke, stealing his breath away.

Leia's in my mind now too, he thought.

"Yes," Leia said. "I am."

"You could hear my thoughts," Luke said excitedly, "just like at the diner!"

"Yeah. If I really focus," Leia said, "I can hear just about any thought you're thinking, like impressions or echoes. Unless you think something specific, and then I hear it like it's being said from far away."

"Cool!" said Luke. "Let me try."

Luke tried. He thought of Leia, sinking into her mind as he had so many times before. This time, though, it was like nothing he had experienced. Everything was brighter, sharper, clearer, as if edged in crystal and glass. Her voice sang within his mind, just as his sang in hers, bounding and rebounding until it was a symphony of perfect proportion.

He sank deeper and found her thoughts, swilling and swirling in her mind like a cloud of mist. He touched one, pressed against it-and he felt it, heard it, understood it. I'm hungry, she thought-a thought so distant, so buried that Luke wondered if Leia even knew she was thinking it.

More than that, though, Luke could feel Leia in a way he never had before. He had felt vague sensations from her before: pain, cold, something hard beneath her. Now, though, he could feel the pain emanating from dozens of cuts littered across her body. He could feel the gooseflesh on her arms as she shivered with chill. He could feel the shirt pressed against her chest, held tightly in her arms.

He knew her-all of her.

"Leia," he gasped. "It's...it's incredible."

Leia smiled. He could feel it on her face and in her mind. "Isn't it? I don't know why I was ever afraid."

"You were afraid?" Luke asked, and then remembered Leia's comment the day before.

"I was," said Leia. "I was terrified."

"Of what?"

"Of being so open with you. Of knowing everything-and you knowing everything about me."

"Why?" Luke wanted to know.

"Because…" Luke felt Leia take a deep breath. "Because that means I can't keep anything hidden from you. Because I had secrets, but not anymore. Not from you. I can't keep them from you now."

"Yet you came into my mind anyway?"

"Yes," Leia said. "You needed me. I couldn't let you die. I just couldn't."

"Even though we used the Force?"

Leia hesitated. He could feel the gap in her thoughts, filled with creeping fear. "I couldn't let you die," she said again, softly.

"Well I appreciate it," said Luke. "I'm not ready to die."

"I'm not ready for you to die either."

It was Luke's turn to smile. He could feel Leia basking in it, in the warmth and joy of it.

"I'm glad you're alive," she said softly. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too," Luke said with an internal laugh. "Me too."

~oOo~

Obi-Wan Kenobi was having a very bad week.

It started with a nightmare.

He was in a duracrete room lit with harsh fluorescents, a bed bolted to the wall and toilet in the corner. A grey shirt sat crumpled on the bed, abandoned and alone, lonely in the harsh setting.

Obi-Wan blinked, and two figures appeared in the room with him. One was a girl-dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight and too pale; he knew instantly, instinctively, intrinsically that it was Leia-and the other was a tall and slender man with dark hair and pale blue eyes. He had Leia pinned to the floor and was rocking in the cradle of her legs, bent at the knees. He moaned, long and low, and Obi-Wan saw Leia shudder once beneath him.

"No." The word was hoarse and barely audible, a croak and a whisper. "No," he said again, louder, and reached for the man already straightening. His hand passed through the man's back, mist over stone. "No!" Obi-Wan cried, and struck. His first fist vanished in the man's chest, his second through the side of his face. He did not even falter as he bent and murmured something to Leia, then straightened once more and vanished through the door.

"Leia," Obi-Wan gasped and turned toward the girl lying on the floor in a puddle of blood and semen. He knelt beside her, cupped her cheek. Her eyes were open but unseeing, her expression blank. "Oh, Force, Leia…"

Obi-Wan awoke.

"Now, what are you going to do?"

Obi-Wan leapt out of bed and whirled, lightsaber in hand, to find Qui-Gon Jinn sitting at his small, white table.

"Master," Obi-Wan gasped.

Qui-Gon smiled mirthlessly. "How many times have I told you, Obi-Wan-I am no longer your master."

Obi-Wan shrugged, sinking to the floor. "Why are you here?" he asked. Whenever Qui-Gon visited him, in dream or in the shadowy blue form that wavered in front of Tatooine's suns, he always had something to say.

"You have a choice to make, Obi-Wan," said Qui-Gon.

"And what choice is that?"

"You know now what is happening to Leia."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "I know," he said tersely. "But what choice do I have? I must stay and protect Luke, guide him and teach him once he is ready." He looked at Qui-Gon, sitting calmly in one of his two chairs, long hair gathered in its customary half-tail. "If Leia Falls-"

"You were certain she would have Fallen already," said Qui-Gon blithely. "And yet she continues to hold out, even in spite of the horrors being dealt to her."

"She will Fall," said Obi-Wan. "It is only a question of when."

"And you know this how? Have you dreamed some portend I have not? Have you seen the future, resolute and set in stone?"

Obi-Wan shook his head, frustrated. "You know as well as I that, in all but one permutation of the futures I have seen through the Force, she Falls."

"And you are so certain that the one permutation in which she does not Fall cannot come to pass?" Qui-Gon asks.

"Not without risking Luke," said Obi-Wan. "I severed their connection for Luke's sake. With it, he risked Falling as well—and it was no certainty that she wouldn't Fall if their connection remained intact."

"So you would damn the child?"

A pit yawned in Obi-Wan's stomach. "I had to," he protested softly, doubting his actions—just as he had every day since he had made his choice.

"Luckily for Leia-and for Luke-their bond may have withstood your little test."

Obi-Wan's frown deepened, and the pit in his stomach contracted, turning sour. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Qui-Gon remained impassive.

"What do you mean?" Obi-Wan repeated.

"That is for you to discover," said Qui-Gon.

Frustrated, Obi-Wan huffed a sigh. "Did you only come here to speak in riddles?" he asked, sharp and angry.

"And to ask you: what now?"

"What now?" Obi-Wan echoed.

"Now that you know what is happening to Leia, what are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do?" Obi-Wan asked. "My mandate is to watch over and protect Luke. I did that. I made an impossible choice, but I did—I protected Luke, just as I swore I would. What can I do that would not put Luke in danger?"

Qui-Gon stood. "Very well," he said, tucking his hands into the brown sleeves of his robe. "You have made your decision then."

Obi-Wan stood as well. "What else can I do?" he asked-but Qui-Gon was already gone.

Then, four days later at sunset, Obi-Wan's worst fears were realized.

"I need your help," Owen Lars said, standing outside of Ben's hut on the bluff. The suns were setting behind him, turning the dust-filled air to a golden haze. "Luke's disappeared-we're guessing he was taken by Tusken Raiders, though any tracks they might have left were swept away before we could find them. If so, I don't dare go after him myself, or with my neighbors. They will just die-like my father and his neighbors did when they went after my stepmother."

"So you came to me?" Obi-Wan asked, quirking one eyebrow. "Am I really that expendable to you, Owen Lars?"

Owen shook his head. "It's not that," he said. "It's that I think you can save him. Please, Obi-Wan," he said, and a shock ran through Obi-Wan's chest and stomach. It had been long and long again since anyone but Qui-Gon had called him Obi-Wan. "Help us. Help him."

The Force shuddered, and the ripples and eddies Obi-Wan had sensed suddenly made sense. They had whispered, had crooned, had murmured of pain and fear. But Obi-Wan, afraid of what they portended—that Leia was continuing to be tortured and raped, that she was nearing her breaking point—had shut them out. They had not whispered that it was Luke who was in danger; it had felt the same as every other time the Force shuddered at Leia's torment.

I can't do anything about it, he had told himself every time an eddy of the Force had touched his mind and heart. I can't do anything about this. I have to protect Luke. I had to protect Luke. Their connection is severed, and Leia will Fall. I have seen it.

The day Leia had been taken by the Inquisitor, Obi-Wan had seen the future.

It had come upon him like a wave crashing over a rock, striking him down and stilling his heart, his breath, his thoughts. All he could do was bear witness to a hundred permutations of the future.

He had seen Leia rise, triumphant and glorious in the Dark Side, eyes flickering sickly yellow, the banner of the Emperor—lit by the blood red glow of a lightsaber—waving behind her. He had seen her kill and torture and manipulate, had watched her murder countless innocents. He had seen the fledgling Rebellion fall, again and again and again, brought low by the Emperor's new Right Hand.

Then, a breath.

He had seen a broken and scarred Leia standing against the Dark Side, a wall of Light illuminating the shadows. Beside her stood Luke. He was faint, his edges blurred as if the image of him had been smudged—but his voice rang loud and true as he spoke. "I am with you, Leia," he said, and reaching out he gripped her shoulder. "I am with you until the end."

Then darkness.

After that, Obi-Wan left Tatooine for six months, searching for information about Force bonds. He knew some about them; every master and padawan shared a Force bond. His bond with Qui-Gon had been severed with Qui-Gon's death, but his bond with Anakin remained—if fragmented and shattered into shards now that Anakin had become Darth Vader.

He searched long and hard but was rewarded only with fragments of records and accounts, many of them broken and corrupted by Palpatine and his Inquisitors. What he found indicated that twins strong in the Force often formed a bond in childhood—a bond that, if it was not severed, grew into adulthood with the twins, and remained as strong as any master-padawan bond.

The niggling notion that the bond between Luke and Leia was far stronger than a master-padawan bond remained, however. The way Luke had appeared by her side, though smudged and faint, was nothing like what Obi-Wan himself had experienced, first as a padawan then as Anakin's master. The bonds he had experienced allowed feelings and emotions to transfer between the two halves of the bond, and on occasion echoes of thoughts. Never before had he seen or heard the other as clearly as if they had spoken directly to him, however—not like Luke had to Leia.

Obi-Wan had returned to Tatooine and brooded.

With Luke, Leia had a chance at withstanding the Emperor's machinations. That was a good thing, right? He should allow them to continue with their bond, not interrupting it or interfering with it.

That night, Obi-Wan had dreamed again of the future.

Leia rose, glorious and triumphant in the Dark Side—and Luke rose with her, eyes flickering sickly yellow, face lit by the blood red glow of the lightsaber in his hand.

"I am with you," he said to Leia, whose eyes flickered yellow in reply. "I am with you until the end."

Obi-Wan woke drenched with sweat and shaking, certain now of what he must do.

If their bond remains, he thought, climbing out of bed and throwing on his robes, Luke risks Falling as well. I can't let that happen. I can't.

He left Tatooine again, this time with desperation. He hunted for five months to discover a way to break the bond between them. This time, however, his hunt was a success.

He found a partially destroyed file of a book regarding Force bonds. Much of it was unintelligible, the corruption so complete, but at the end, Obi-Wan found a discussion of how to sever a bond. He took the file home with him, studying and meditating on it—and in the end, he had a solution.

Eleven months after he had seen the future, Obi-Wan visited the Lars homestead. He found Luke pale and gaunt, bruises of exhaustion beneath his eyes.

He severed the connection, sinking into Luke's mind and finding it, bright and gold, a cord shining amid the shadows of Luke's thoughts. Obi-Wan cut the cord, sliced it apart with an arrow of the Force, and watched the two ends unravel before him.

Obi-Wan left the Lars homestead with a heavy heart, tears gathering in his throat. He had just damned Leia Organa to death-to a metaphysical death, even if not a physical one.

I couldn't risk it, he told himself, over and over again. Luke was clearly already suffering from the bond.

He slept only fitfully that night, his dreams plagued with nightmares. He saw, again and again, Leia rising in glorious triumph, a blood red lightsaber in hand. He saw those she would kill, those she would maim, those she would consign to Darkness.

In the last hour before dawn, a new nightmare took shape. It was of Luke, standing with his back to Obi-Wan, silhouetted against Tatooine's twin suns. Obi-Wan approached slowly, cautiously, warily, afraid of what he would find.

Luke turned. "You damned her," he told Obi-Wan. "You damned her without a second thought."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "I had to," he said, desperate for Luke to understand. "For you. I had to do it for you."

"Why?" Luke asked.

"With the bond intact, I risked you Falling to the Dark Side as well. Your Fall had already begun, I suspect."

"You damned her," Luke whispered. Obi-Wan heard heartbreak in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said.

Luke began to fade, and Obi-Wan wondered if it was really Luke himself, or if it was his own troubled thoughts and feelings manifesting as Luke. It didn't really matter who it was, though, Obi-Wan realized-the point that they had made remained absolute: Obi-Wan had damned Leia. There was no going back from that.

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan called to the fading Luke. Luke looked on with a cold expression. "I'm sorry!" he screamed, falling to his knees in the sand. "I'm sorry…"

Obi-Wan woke up crying.

"Ben?" Owen Lars said, taking a step forward. "Will you do it?"

Obi-Wan blinked, coming back to the present. "Yes," he said without hesitation. "I will. Do you know what direction they went in?"

"No," said Owen. "As I said earlier, any tracks were swept away before we could find them."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Very well," he said. "I will leave immediately."

For the first time ever, Owen Lars smiled at Obi-Wan. "Thank you," he said, sounding more sincere than Obi-Wan had ever heard. "Is there anything I can do to help…" Owen trailed off suggestively.

"Go home," Obi-Wan said. "It will be best if I do this alone, I think."

"Okay," said Owen. He smiled again. "Thank you, Obi-Wan."

"Don't thank me yet," said Obi-Wan. "Thank me once I have him safely home."

"Okay," said Owen again. He hesitated, then said, "I'll take my leave then."

Obi-Wan nodded, and Owen turned and walked back to his landspeeder. Obi-Wan watched him climb in and start the engine, then drive off.

Quickly Obi-Wan ducked back into his hut, gathering his brown robe and lightsaber, as well as a canteen filled with water and a packet of jerky. Then he ducked out of his hut.

He stood for a long moment at the top of the bluff on which his hut stood, eyes closed, listening to the wind and the cries of krayt dragons far out in the desert. The Force pulled and tugged at him, eddying around in him waves and spirals.

Luke, Obi-Wan thought, where are you?

Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan sank into a light meditation trance where he could feel the Force better and more fully. It whispered to him, formless words that Obi-Wan could neither hear nor understand-could only feel the impression of them on his mind. Luke, Obi-Wan thought again, where are you?

The Force tugged at him, pulling him forward. Hoping-trusting-that it was guiding him towards Luke, Obi-Wan set out.

He walked all night. The moons slid across the sky, sinking down towards the horizon. The air turned from midnight black to dusty purple, and a swath of light glowed on the eastern horizon. Obi-Wan drank half of his canteen of water, stopping every so often to rest and sink deeper into meditation. Still the Force guided him onwards.

Then, just as the first sun began to rise, Obi-Wan made out a figure detaching itself from the shadows lying at the base of the cliffs that rose before him. It raced towards him, crying, "Ben! Ben!"

Obi-Wan stopped dead in his tracks, startled. Then, abruptly, he laughed and started forward. "Luke, is that you?" he called, barely daring to breathe, to think, to hope.

Luke all but tackled Obi-Wan, hugging him fiercely around the waist. "Oh, Ben," he said. "I'm so happy to see you."

"What happened, Luke? Obi-Wan asked. "Where have you been? Your aunt and uncle have been worried sick." He got a good look at Luke's face, and saw that his lips and chin were covered in blood, his left eye swollen shut. Touching Luke's face gently, he asked, "And what happened to your face?"

"I was captured by Tusken Raiders," said Luke. "They were going to sell me to the Hutts."

Obi-Wan's blood ran cold and for a second he could only see red and white. He took a deep breath, forcibly calming himself, then asked, "And how did you get free?"

"Come on," said Luke. "We have to go get Talia. I'll tell you on the way."

Confused, Obi-Wan asked who Talia was. Luke explained, then launched into the story of how he had escaped the Tuskens-how he had fought the guard that brought them food, how he had run, how he had been tackled, and how he had ultimately snapped the Tusken's neck with a power he did not understand.

Luke finished his story by asking, "Any idea what they meant by The Destroyer?

"I've never heard of a Destroyer," Obi-Wan said honestly. "But then, I'm not very keen on Tusken mythology."

They reached a hole in the cliff face. Luke stepped forward and called, "Talia? Come on out. This is Ben. He's a friend."

A dirt-smudged, red-haired girl emerged from the hole, her green eyes wide.

"Hello there," Obi-Wan said, smiling and kneeling. "I'm Ben Kenobi. And you must be Talia."

Talia shook his hand and said warily, "Nice to meet you."

"It's very nice to meet you too," said Obi-Wan. "Luke here was just telling me about how you two escaped."

Obi-Wan tried not to take it personally when Talia dashed behind Luke, grabbing his hand and peering around his leg.

"It's okay, Talia," Luke said with a laugh. "Ben's a friend. He's going to make sure you get home."

Talia panicked-and she did not calm down until Luke promised to accompany her to her home. "I'll come," he said at last, before looking at Ben guiltily. "Please, Ben?" he asked.

Though he wanted to get Luke home as quickly as possible-wanted to get him safe and back with his family-Ben could not deny him this. Not with Talia looking fearfully out from behind his leg.

"Very well," he said. "We'll stop by Talia's house first. But then we're going straight home, Luke."

"Okay," said Luke, grinning and nodding.

The trip back to Anchorhead was uneventful, if slow. After only half an hour, Talia began to flag. "Wait, Ben," Luke called to Obi-Wan, who was leading the way out front. "I think we need to stop for a few minutes."

Obi-Wan turned, saw Talia straggling behind, and knelt. "Well, your highness? Do you want me to give you a piggyback ride?" he asked Talia.

After checking with Luke that it was okay, Talia giggled and ran forward, clambering up onto Obi-Wan's back. Obi-Wan rose, fighting back memories of carrying younglings on his back through the Jedi Temple-he had done so whenever he visited the creche, which was whenever he was on Coruscant, though that had been rarer and rarer as the Clone War dragged on-and began trekking through the sand and sun once more.

They reached Anchorhead in the early afternoon, and Obi-Wan directed them to the single diner on Anchorhead's main street. His charges went willingly and excitedly, chattering happily together, Talia flapping her hands at her sides.

Lunch was utterly unremarkable save for two moments. Twice Luke's eyes glazed over and his expression went vacant, gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond Obi-Wan-beyond the present. His breathing slowed, and Obi-Wan could feel the Force gather around him, draping over him like a cloak and hood, descending over him like a veil.

The first time Talia spoke up, asking, "Are you okay, Luke? You have that weird look on your face again."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Luke said quickly, blushing and, for some strange reason, looking at Obi-Wan with nervous eyes. "Just trying to figure out what to have."

The second time Obi-Wan spoke, frowning and asking, "Are you alright, Luke?"

"Yeah," Luke said, a little too quickly. "Just hungry."

His gaze did not lose its far-off look, however, and his voice seemed distant.

Curious, Obi-Wan gathered the Force to himself and reached out a tentative tendril of thought toward Luke. He brushed against Luke's mind, and for an instant-just an instant, a breath, a heartbeat-Obi-Wan glimpsed...something, buried deep within Luke's labyrinthian mind: an ember, glowing bright and steady-and within that ember, something else. Someone else.

Leia.

So he hadn't severed their bond after all, just as Qui-Gon had hinted at. Or, if he had, they had somehow reconnected it.

But how? How was that possible? And how had they hidden that bond from him the last time he had gone to check to make sure it was severed?

Then again, Obi-Wan mused, perhaps he shouldn't be surprised by the impossible when it came to those two. They were, after all, children of Anakin Skywalker, and carried the highest midichlorian count other than their father and Yoda himself.

What did he do now, though? Did he try to sever the bond once more, out of fear of Luke Falling as well? Or did he leave it intact, with the hopes that it was not too late for Leia? Even if he did sever it again, though, there was no guarantee that they would not simply reconnect again, just as they had before.

On the one hand, Luke did not seem in danger of Falling. He was a bright and happy boy, full of sunlight and joy. That did not seem changed, even after three days as a captive of the Tuskens. On the other hand, though, that could change with the new torments that Leia was facing..

So what should he do?

A new thought came to him.

If he feared Luke Falling because of Leia, and Leia was in danger of Falling because of Palpatine, then the most logical solution was to rescue Leia from under Sheev's thumb. Doing that, however, would not only put Obi-Wan in danger, but could put Luke in danger as well. He was mandated to protect Luke-not go on a potentially suicidal mission to save Leia.

But saving Leia was protecting Luke, wasn't it? And if he could save Leia, then he could keep her from Falling as well.

Obi-Wan swallowed thickly.

What do I do? he wondered.

Very suddenly he remembered his dream of Qui-Gon, and Qui-Gon asking him what choice he was going to make.

I know what they're doing to her, Obi-Wan thought. How can I just leave her there in good conscience-especially when I know now that saving her could mean saving Luke too?

His only option stared him in the face, bold and terrible.

I have to try to rescue Leia, Obi-Wan realized. There's really no other choice.

He just had to figure out how.


end notes: So, what did you think? As bad as I'm afraid it is?