Hours later, after their wounds had been slathered with a salve that stung mightily and made the potion Ando had sent to Tatooine smell like the finest of perfumes, Eliel sat alone on the terrace where the fight had played out. It was swept clean of all remnants of the struggle and a casual observer would never know that a battle had raged in the very spot earlier. She knew, though, and the knowledge weighed heavy.

In several hours, they would be back on Coruscant; mission complete. Her part in the matter was done. She would be dispatched to Alderaan where Bail Organa would welcome her into the relative peace of his home. Her quarters--the same ones she'd shared with Master Jorus for so many years--would be waiting; comfortable and familiar, even in the clamor of war.

Obi-Wan, though...the difficult part of this mission was just beginning for him. His Padawan would be questioned at length by the Council as Masters Yoda and Windu examined Anakin's loyalty and motivations. Obi-Wan might fall subject to scrutiny himself, though it was doubtful that anything asked of him would be greater than the weight of his own guilt.

And then there was Tarc. If Anakin and Obi-Wan were about to face an unpleasant inquisition by the Council, their experiences would only pale in comparison to what awaited Tarc Marin on Coruscant. He would be stripped of all his mental defenses and probed. Every corner, every recess of his mind would be examined by the collective will of the Council. Some might call it torture--Tarc certainly would, by the end of things--and Eliel wasn't sure if she disagreed. Yoda had probed her, once. Her will had been bent and broken her willing participation was the only reason she'd come out of it with any shred of sanity. Tarc, she knew, would not be so cooperative.

She looked up and across the terrace, pulled from her thoughts by Obi-Wan's arrival. He crossed the permacrete with long strides and sat down next to her on the low bench, nearly melting into it with fatigue.

"My turn to baby sit?" She asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "It's under control, for now."

"You look," she said at length, "like you could use a good sleep. I can get us back to Coruscant."

Obi-Wan sighed and ripples of weariness moved outward from him, settling into her own bones.

"He makes me tired, Eliel. I am not an old man--not yet--but he exhausts me."

She nodded sympathetically. Nerilu had been the same way. There were days, in fact, when she would have sworn on the Jedi Order itself that the energetic Padawan was physically aging her with her boundless zeal and need to question everything. And there were days like this one, when she would gladly trade everything she knew just to have the girl back among the living.

"By my count," she said, "you are merely a fraction of Master Yoda's age. Imagine how he must feel dealing with unruly apprentices."

Obi-Wan chuckled. "Do you suppose Qui-Gon and Jorus felt the same?"

"Qui-Gon, for certain," she smiled.

"I shall ask your Master when next I see him," he answered, echoing the expression. "I'm sure he will have something to say on the matter."

She let an extended silence fall, using the time to watch a flock of birds wing across the lake and wondering idly how Anakin Skywalker was spending his final moments on Naboo. "How did things go? Before"

Obi-Wan glanced over and let out a heavy sigh. "My Padawan," he said, "is very apologetic for what has happened. He regrets his actions on Tatooine and understands that the Council will seek to make sure he remains in control of himself."

Eliel gave a small nod, noting that Anakin's other transgressions had been left out of the matter entirely. She spent a long moment studying the set of her friend's shoulders before answering. He would not like what she was about to say. "I don't blame him for what he did to the Tuskens."

"What?!"

She swiveled to face him and leaned forward, arms planted across her knees. "If given the chance, I would gladly kill the man who took Nerilu from me. And you, Obi-Wan, fought and killed the one who took your Master. Do not tell me there was no thirst for vengeance there. We're not supposed to indulge our emotions, but we do. We all have moments of weakness."

"Anakin," he answered, his voice faltering, "slaughtered an entire village. There is a difference."

"Yes," she agreed. "There is. But it's only one of degree. He wants to do the right thing. His heart is not dark. Not yet. He needs support, not condemnation."

He met her eyes for a moment, then got to his feet abruptly and paced away a few steps. "You would have me ignore the potential danger he carries?"

Eliel shook her head emphatically. "No. Absolutely not. But he is still with you, Obi-Wan. Do not treat him as if he's already lost."

Obi-Wan put his back to her, digesting her words. She, of all people, knew what it was like to have your Padawan slip away--taken from under your very nose by circumstances outside of your control. She was on his side, as she'd always been and as she always would be.

He should thank her for that. And he should thank her for her insight into Anakin's mental state, for insisting that the boy might be victim as well as aggressor. For insisting that Anakin, above all else, was worth saving. But he couldn't. Words simply refused to form through the tight knots of guilt and anger and Obi-Wan seized the arrival of Tarc Marin and his escort as a worthy distraction.

He scowled, studying Marin as he struggled against the ministrations of Senator Amidala's guards. There were four of them, well-armed and trained for such tasks, and all were working hard to control their prisoner. Anakin was with them, acting as a last line of defense should Marin escape, but he and Eliel should be down on the dock as well.

"He's not going to go quietly, you know," Eliel said.

"I don't suppose you have any Nyex on you?"

She made a show of patting her pockets, then shook her head. "Fresh out. There should be some in the medkit on the ship, though."

He nodded. Nyex was standard-issue in medkits, but there would not be nearly enough aboard their ship to keep Marin sedated all the way to Coruscant.

Eliel touched him lightly on the elbow and pointed to the stairs, falling in step as they started the descent toward the waterspeeder.

"I could always smash him on the head with something heavy every hour or so," she offered, making an attempt at a light tone.

He stopped, one foot on a lower stair, and turned toward her. "I think you'd enjoy that entirely too much for someone who is supposed to be in control of her emotions."

Eliel shrugged, motioning him forward. "I don't hate him, you know."

"No?"

She shook her head. "The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference."

"You don't seem very indifferent, Eliel."

She stopped at the foot of the stairwell and sighed. "I'll detach when he's in custody in the temple and we're all still alive. Until then, I think hostility might just give me an edge."

Obi-Wan snorted out a small laugh, but his amusement was quelled by the small ruckus unfolding at the speeder. Two of the four guards splashed headlong into the water and a third went tumbling backwards on the dock as Marin made a break for freedom. He moved to intercept, but Anakin brought the situation under control quickly by grabbing Marin by the throat as he passed. Obi-Wan watched, startled, as his Padawan's mechanical fingers squeezed and Marin flailed wildly, gasping for breath and toeing at the dock.

"Anakin!" He called. "That's enough!"

Anakin turned and raked them with a wide-eyed gaze, seemingly startled by their presence on the dock. He nodded once, curtly, and let go. "Yes, Master."

Tarc Marin sank to his knees and doubled over, coughing.

Eliel sidestepped and skirted around Obi-Wan, but he caught a glimpse of her expression as she passed. It was difficult to tell from this angle, but she looked to be a mixture of shocked and entertained. So much for indifference. He drew in a deep breath and ran through a counting exercise in his head, then squared his shoulders and strode toward the speeder. It was going to be a long trip.

****

Eliel felt a small jounce in the rhythm of her trance as Obi-Wan settled in next to her. From across the small chamber, Tarc Marin snarled and his disdain rippled toward them, palpable even through his sedation. She clenched her teeth and sent another band of restraint twisting around his consciousness. It would not do for him to gain even a hint of control while they were trading shifts.

Tarc answered with another snarling wave of hostility and Eliel twitched, surprised by the strength of it and by the depth of his hatred for her. She should have expected nothing less from him, given the circumstances of recent events, but this was old malice. It was deep and well-tended and sprung from a place within him that was not foreign to her.

It wasn't about Anakin Skywalker, or Tarc's new Master. It wasn't about the battle they'd just fought on Naboo. It was about betrayal--about her choice to remain in the Order during his self-exile. And it was about the man sitting to her left.

Fool. Nothing between us. Not then. Not now.

Her thought was not aimed at him, but Tarc's answer pounded into Eliel's skull and reverberated there. It was a tangled mix of words and raw slices of anger and hurt: Liar. Traitor. He was always first.

Her own emotions welled in response to the accusations, but Eliel felt Obi-Wan snap yet another layer of restraint onto their prisoner. Tarc's voice left her head, but his emotions still seethed, pushing and testing the boundaries of the barrier Obi-Wan had erected. She waited a few moments, making certain that he had the situation in hand, then released herself from the trance and opened her eyes.

Eliel stretched and plucked at the fabric of her tunic. The small of her back was drenched with sweat from the effort of mentally controlling Tarc. Next to her, Obi-Wan was already frowning intently. She glanced at her comlink, checking the time. There were still three hours of travel before they'd be home. He'd relieved her early. That was probably a good thing.

Under the best of circumstances, exerting mental control over someone who was strong willed was a taxing endeavor. Tarc was trained as a Jedi and had further refined his skill in the years since he'd left the temple. Even sedated, it took a great deal of concerted effort to restrain him--to ignore the suggestions and taunts he flung in retaliation. Her neck ached from the two hours she'd spent in trance and Eliel could feel a dull throbbing settling into her skull behind her eyes.

More than that, though, she felt unclean. Once, she'd shared meditative space with Tarc willingly and the experiences had always left her with a sensation of safety and belonging. None of that was present now. His mind was dark, his emotions darker, and his essence slithered around inside her own, tainted with the darker side of the Force. He had the same sandy hair and soft, almost boyish feature, the same hands and the same green eyes, but this was not the Tarc Marin she knew.

Eliel shivered and got to her feet abruptly. She crossed the small room and stooped over Tarc's inert form, peering at the readout on the medscreen. His body was metabolizing the Nyex quickly and she wondered if he was somehow physically manifesting his mental resistance to the drug. No matter. She reached into her pocket and produced an injector, administering a second dose.

Tarc's muscles relaxed almost immediately and Eliel gave a small smirk of satisfaction as turned from him. Obi-Wan's frown, she noted on her way to the door, had already lessened somewhat. It was the least she could do.

****

Anakin sat alone in the cockpit of their ship, his hands limp against his thighs. The hyperdrive computer was controlling things and had been for almost two hours, but he was reluctant to leave the controls. His Master had been very clear about the fact that Anakin would not be taking a turn at mentally restraining their captive and, although slightly relieved by this, he could not help but feel somewhat impotent.

Too much time to think, not enough to do. He almost wished that something would go wrong--if only to distract him. It could only be easier to fight than it was to wrestle with what had come to pass and what was still to come.

He sighed and bent to study the readouts on the navscreen. They were, naturally, on course and were making good time. In three hours he would be back on Coruscant. In three hours his life would change yet again. In three hours, he might no longer be a Jedi.

A rumble in the Force told Anakin that Master Jensei had left her trance and was moving about the ship. He took a moment to probe her gently, trying to get a feel for her mood. She was tired--exhausted, even--but did not seem closed to the idea of company. He pushed back from the console and got to his feet, heading for the ship's lounge.

Anakin paused inside the doorway and stood there for a long moment, silent and still unsure of whether he wanted to disturb her. He waited for a few more breaths, then coughed politely, smiling when she took notice.

"Master Obi-Wan told me that your lightsaber is damaged. I can take a look at it, if you want."

She nodded gratefully and produced the weapon from her belt, passing it to him. "It's shorted out."

Anakin took it and moved to the small table across from her. He sat down and bent over to study the weapon, sliding open the cover. It took a few minutes of fiddling, but he managed to determine the source of the failure. Once identified, Anakin made quick work of the problem, passing it back to her with a big smile.

"Easy," he said.

Jensei powered it on for a moment, admiring his handiwork, then slid the weapon back to its resting place at her side. "Thank you, Anakin."

He offered a dismissive shrug in reply. "You're welcome."

They fell silent, but Anakin could feel her taking stock of him. He was used to it. Everyone assessed him and had done so since the moment he met Qui-Gon Jinn in Watto's shop. Everyone probed him, searching for cracks in his psyche and weaknesses in his ability. Everyone but Padme, of course.

Something was different with Jensei, though. Her gaze did not carry the weight of other Jedi. She was not looking for a way to break him down. She was not skimming the surface of his thoughts in search of darkness. The contrast made him slightly nervous and Anakin got up suddenly, pacing to the window.

Bel Eliel Jensei had been the first person to welcome him to the temple all those years ago. In a time of uncertainty and grief for what he'd left behind on Tatooine, she'd plucked him from the darkness of his room and spirited him off on an illicit quest for honeycake. She was not his friend, he knew. Her bond was with his Master and it was Obi-Wan she was actually there to comfort in the days following the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. But she'd always been kind to him, even in the face of how poorly he'd treated her Padawan during the few times they'd interacted while the girl was alive.

"You are very lucky, Anakin Skywalker."

Luck, Anakin thought, had abandoned him somewhere in the alleys of the slaves' section of Mos Espa. Luck, he knew, had certainly not been present when his Mother died in his arms. Luck, Master Yoda insisted, did not exist.

"You know who named you," she continued. "You know that you were loved by the one who bore you. You have memories of your mother's face and you know what it is to live among people who are like you in ways that do not involve the Force, duty, or the Jedi Code. You, Anakin, know where you came from. You have roots that the rest of us lack utterly."

He stood a moment, digesting her words and wondering if his life might have been different, had Master Jensei taken him as Padawan. She seemed, in his somewhat colored opinion, to be the embodiment of everything that his own Master lacked. She did not scold, was not prone to irritability, and she spoke to him as a peer. Obi-Wan never did that. To him, Anakin was nothing but an insolent boy. Jensei, though...Jensei understood that living by the Jedi Code was more than a matter of reciting it ad nauseam. Jensei understood that emotions could not always be controlled. Jensei, he wagered, would also understand the need to act on them.

"Master Obi-Wan might disagree that roots are anything but binding," he said, finally.

"He believes," she answered, "that the Jedi are all the family we need."

"And you, Master Jensei?" Anakin turned suddenly, his stance broad and somewhat challenging. "What do you believe?"

"The Jedi are my only family," she answered. "And, now, they are your only family as well."

Anakin frowned, trying to work through her sudden shift. "But what about roots?"

Master Jensei stood, heading for the cockpit. "Roots," she said, "are merely a starting point, Anakin. It's where you go from there that matters."

[end]

Elismor
July 2002