~Chapter Two~

Later Wokki and Anakin were in the back of the ship playing some unknown game and Jyana was just sitting in a cozy chair.  "Obi-Wan," she called out to him as he passed.

"What?"

"Could you do me a big favor?"

"Sure."

"Don't do that again."

"Do what?"

She just looked at him.  That was enough for him to understand what she was talking about.

"Oh.  Why?"
"I don't like it."  At least happening to me, she finished the though in her mind.

"You don't?"  That stung, mostly because he could feel that she was lying on that small issue.  She may not want him to do it again, but she certainly did not, not like it.

"You don't understand.  I made a promise I would never marry and I don't want you to get any ideas."
"Why'd you promise that?"

"To save me."

"What?"

"It's hard to explain"

"I sense fear."  But I don't know why, Obi-Wan mused to himself.  She used to want marriage.

She shook her head and scoffed.  "Of love?  No way.  What goes with it maybe, but not love.  Love is something that I dare not possess."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be.  I've been through too much to want to love, and even go through what those who love each other do."

"What they do?"  The thought that followed truly shocked him, and he didn't know what to think of the fear he guessed, nor did he really want to believe it.  She's scared of sex?

"I'm scared of getting that close to anyone…"

"Don't worry.  I won't make you."  I wonder why she thinks I will, Obi-Wan again thought to himself.

"I know."

"Then what are you worried about."

"I guess I really don't know."

"Why would you be scared of getting that close though?  I've heard good things about it." 

"It's only good when in a commitment."

"I know that."

"I'm not ready to make a commitment."

"You don't have to be.  But really, why?"
"I saw what it did to Mom, and it caused a huge mess."

"A commitment?"

"No.  Sex."

"You saw that?"

"I didn't live with Mom so I couldn't.  I only saw the consequences and the after math. Dad told me the rest.  That explained the whole mess with Qui-Gon."  Qui-Gon had been Jyana's mother's lover long before the conception of her.

Obi-Wan sighed because he now understood.

"I'm such a mess because of her decisions."

"You aren't a mess."

"Maybe I'm not, but in most eyes I am."

"Not mine."

Typical, Jyana scoffed to herself in skepticism of Obi-Wan, or just men in general for that matter.

He arched his eyebrow.  She was hostile to him now, for an unknown reason, at least it was unknown to him, and it seemed that she didn't really care whether she was confusing him or not and also seemed that she didn't really want him to know really what was up with her.  She was hiding something and he knew it, but being a guy, he honestly had no clue what that was.  He took a deep breath.  "Qui-Gon loved you as a daughter.  He really missed you when you were gone."

"But he said I must go.  He agreed that I was to go with Wokki.   My destiny lied in places elsewhere, he told me.  If Qui-Gon missed me, he would've talked about me more, thought on me more, and I would've been invited to that damn funeral."  She started blubbering and crying.  Obi-Wan sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder in order to try to comfort her.  She then continued tearfully, "I guess at 15 I was easily made upset so Master Mace didn't tell me.  I wish he had.  I wish I had been there, although I do believe that you wouldn't have been able to comfort me then like you are now attempting to."

"I didn't cry at the funeral."  That statement was true enough for most his tears had been spent at the moment of Qui-Gon's passing to the other side.

"You wouldn't have been able to stop yourself if I was there crying too."

He didn't reply.  She was too right.  He took his hand off her shoulder and looked away because of the thought.

"I think," she thought aloud looking straight at him, "That my disappearance made someone else much more upset."

He didn't reply.  He just continued looking away.  Her female intuition added to the force was a deadly combo and he didn't really like feeling that she could see right through him when he could hardly understand her.  Obi-Wan was still upset at her that she left, without a good-bye, but now was not the time to discuss that.  He didn't really understand why, except for the fact that she had been his best friend.

"Guess what, Obi-Wan.  I'm here.  You found me.  There's no need to be upset anymore."

"I was worried."  I really missed you, he tried to get through to her without saying aloud.

"I've always been able to handle myself pretty good," she said, getting up from her seat, pulling him up and looking straight through him, yet not looking in his eyes, "You said so yourself."

"So I did.  Doesn't stop me from worrying though."

"Don't let someone else's assumptions make you worry about me, namely Master Yoda's.  Remember me.   How I am.  There are things that just can't happen to me.  My power be too strong sometimes."

"But I worry about where you are weak, Jyana."

"We all have our weaknesses, Obi-Wan.  Don't let me become one of yours."  She walked off to the cockpit to leave Obi-Wan to his thoughts.

Where does she get this stuff? he pondered to himself.  He tried to push Jyana from his thoughts and looked over at Anakin, noticed the lightsaber hanging from his belt.  "Have you finished your lightsaber yet, Anakin?"

"Yes Master."

"Let's test it out then."

"Neato.  Me want to watch," the ewok said with incredible enthusiasm.

Obi-Wan brought out a remote ball that hung in the air.  Anakin blocked shots that it fired at him.  The lightsaber was a blue colored lightsaber and it had a youthful glow to it.  Anakin closed his eyes while he blocked the shots.

Jyana stood in a doorway and watched and pondered over many things unsaid to herself.  He's the Master now.  I've got to get used to that, although he was my Master first, in a way.

He had heard her.  He finally understood how great telepathy could be in conversation without speaking aloud.  Obi-Wan turned his head to face her.  And you left, he sent to her.  

I was not to be trained by a Padawan, but by a member of the Council.  Master Mace Windu.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes as he sent more of his thoughts in her direction.  Doesn't stop how much it hurt when you left.  You should've come back earlier. 

I'm sorry.  This things must you get over.

"Impressing," Wokki remarked when Anakin turned off the lightsaber, desperately trying to stop Jyana from her mental lashing on Obi-Wan.  He didn't want them to not get along, and he knew how powerful Jyana was with her telepathic beat down.

"A typical lesson," Jyana thought aloud.

"I wasn't taught that way," the ewok stated.

"We all learn in different manners.  We usually pass on the ways we were taught to those we teach."

"Are you criticizing my teaching, Jyana?" Obi-Wan asked challengingly.

"I criticize everything that I never found as good training."

"I want to learn, Jyana.  I can handle it," Anakin boasted.

"I'm sure you can, Anakin.  You're a bright kid.  You always have been."

"Who told you?"

"Amidala."

"Really?"

Jyana laughed.  Ah, a teenage heart's infactuation, she thought to herself.  She wasn't going to touch that one with a 36 and a half foot pole.

"All right, Jyana.  How did you learn?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I taught myself.  Running away from attacking pirates.  It was a spur of the moment lesson."

Obi-Wan gulped as he remembered to himself how she always had been.  That's right.  She always picked up on things quick.

"What I learned later was that good against remotes is one thing, and good against the living is something completely different."

"Let's demonstrate," the ewok was eager to pipe in.

"Set your lightsaber on absorb first, Wokki."

He clicked a button on his tiny lightsaber.  Jyana then brought out her blaster.  She shot at him twice, and Wokki blocked them both with amazing speed with his forest green lightsaber.

The last time Jyana had really seen Obi-Wan's skills was when he himself was a Padawan, so he decided to take on the showing off challenge.  Beckoning Anakin, he said, "All right.  Anakin, let's demonstrate some of your challenges on your Master."

Anakin smirked and made a quick cut at Obi-Wan, who had his lightsaber on for only a brief moment to block it and then it was off as quickly as it was on.  And again, Anakin made another cut and it too was blocked in the same manner.

Jyana, thoroughly impressed, said more to herself than to anyone else, "I didn't know a man could do that.  Turn it on and turn it off so quickly."

"Only a Jedi, dear," Wokki smirked with a smothered giggle, "Only a Jedi."

Obi-Wan turned a bright shade of pink at what Wokki implied, or what he thought that he implied.  Then Anakin burst out laughing, making it even more implied and making Obi-Wan's face turn a deeper red.  Wokki stopped smothering it and joined in on the laughter, not only at his joke, but at Obi-Wan's face and embarrassment.

Jyana, a tad slow for one of the first times in her life, finally understood why she had got the response she did.  "Hey!" a blush crept up her face and vanished as best as she could get it to.  "My musing was clean, y'all's minds are dirty."

"Hint, Master Jyana," Anakin said with a broad smirk, "If you are to marry…"

"Which I ain't."

"If, I said.  You would want the pleasure only received from a Jedi."  He then pointed at Obi-Wan and finished his thought, "And that Jedi is thoroughly available."

Obi-Wan flashed Anakin a dirty look, although he really didn't mind the statement.  Coming from his headstrong Padawan, that was a real compliment.  At least he was thinking about him.

"Hint, young Padawan," Jyana replied, "Good luck setting this Jedi up with anyone."

"I rise to the challenge," Wokki said.

"And then fall to fail, Wokki.  You know me.  And Anakin, don't call me Master.  I may be older than you and everything, but I ain't anyone's Master."

"Yet," Obi-Wan said quietly.

"Never.  I could never teach what I know to anyone easily.  I want to be my own person, thank you very much."  She walked over to inspect something around some of the ship's wiring that she saw was odd, poked at it, and looked back at Anakin.  "Has anyone ever told you that you have pretty blue eyes?"

Obi-Wan flinched.  She had told me that about 16 years ago.  She can't be making eyes at my own Padawan, right in front of me like that, he thought to himself.

"Not yet."

"Well you do."

"Thanks, but you see my heart is with…"

"Amidala, I know.  I sense that much.  I was just telling you the truth, not trying to make a pass at you or anything.  I'm just glad you gave me the same courtesy."

Obi-Wan took a sigh of relief. 

Jyana rose her eyebrow at him, not comprehending, but getting a small idea.  "Lucky she is to have you and yet…" she trailed off feeling something in the distance.

"What?"

"Nothing of importance."  She walked off.

"What did she see?" Obi-Wan asked Wokki.

"Possibly a possible future.  Sometimes she'll get lost in it, or the past, and then she's not her usual perky self.  That's only sometimes."  He closed his eyes.  "We must be coming on Coruscant.  She always freaks out when we near it.  How'd you get her to come back?"

"I'm not sure." 

She likes him, yet she won't act on it, Wokki thought.  Perfect.  Finally I can get her a decent husband.

"In your dreams Wokki!" she yelled from the cockpit.

"D'oh!"

Obi-Wan walked out of the ship and Anakin and Wokki closely followed.  Jyana walked out slowly and took in the horizon with dread in her eyes and heart.  Obi-Wan went to her and tried to grab her hand but she flashed him a look of warning as if to say, Don't touch me.     

"It's been a long time," Obi-Wan whispered to her.

"If only I didn't have to come back."

"But you had to."

Anakin spotted a transport approaching.  "Look, here comes Master Mace."

Mace Windu, Jedi Master and member of the much revered Jedi Council, walked out of the transport and motioned Obi-Wan to him.  "How'd you do it?" 

"Not too sure."

"Do you realize what matters are at hand?"

"Is it the Sith?"
"Partly.  The matter that concerns Jyana also concerns you."

"Meaning?"

"The Council will be glad to see her with you."
"They would," Jyana mumbled under her breath.

Obi-Wan was slightly shocked at her muttering, and he wondered what it could mean.  Does she really not trust me?  I mean, I've done everything I can to be the same as I used to be towards her.  What's changed?  Why doesn't she like me anymore?  I no longer understand her.

"Young Jyana, it's good to see you again."

"I agree Master."

Mace bent to hug her.  "We must go before the Council now.  You know it."

"I do know.  Is Yaddle's position the same?"

"Yes.  She and I will agree with you, but I will go only so far.  I can no longer completely agree with you.  There is truth in what we the Council seeks, Jyana.  You are getting older.  Our days are numbered."

"But can't balance be attained some other way?"

"I don't know.  No one does, but I do believe it is best for you."

"I don't."

"In time Jyana, you will change your mind.  I believe even this."

"By then I may be gone."

"It is doubtful that Obi-Wan will let you go this time.  I think he likes you with him."

Obi-Wan looked up at Mace.  That's true, he thought, I can't let her go again. I just found her.

"We'll see about that," Jyana replied with a smirk.  I'm not going to give in, she thought to herself, Not without a fight.

The sunset found her standing on a balcony outside the Jedi Temple.  She gazed across the horizon.  If only for some nature, she thought.  Something not made by man or creature.  Something created by an Infinite Being.  How she longed to be home on Corellia or on the Sanctuary moon of Endor, the home of the ewoks.  Anywhere but here.  Why did I bother to come back?  Tears welled up in her eyes as images of her mother, Vaya Angele's, death came back to her.  Of how Qui-Gon cried with her and Mace saved her life from going with her mother.  Obi-Wan had first been a jerk the day that Vaya died, because he didn't know at the time.  He apologized later on and cried with her.  Also two days later he held her through a thunderstorm, which she was terrified of because she lost her fraternal twin sister during one, one of the only times she ever got sleep during one.  She trusted Obi-Wan then, but then he was a boy and the difference in their ages more evident.  Ten years was no longer as large as a gap.  Now he was a man.  If my fear of men wasn't so strong, maybe… no, I can't let that even cross my mind.

Obi-Wan walked up behind her and said, "The Council will see you now."

"If only I weren't here," she mumbled.

He put his hand on her elbow and she shook it off flashing him a look.  He noticed tears in her eyes when she looked at him.  So many bad memories, he recognized.  Have they taken away all the good ones?  She looked away quickly and put her hands on the railing, pining for something elsewhere.  "Why must you defy the Council?" he asked her.

"Why must they ask the impossible?"

"Why do you answer a question with a question?"

"Why so many questions?"

"Why no answers?"
"I gave you some."

"You answer some, but not the important ones."

"Important ones?  Which are the important ones?"
"Everyone I ask."

"I gave you the answers that I felt you should know.  Why do you feel you should know everything about me?"

He sighed and placed his left hand on top of her right hand and said, "Only to assess where you've been and how you've changed."

She tried to get her hand out of his grip but he tightened it, entwining his fingers through hers.  "Why must you know that?" she asked with a shaky voice.

He sighed again and said trying maintain her gaze, "I missed you."

She looked away and mumbled, "You weren't the only one."

"Who else?"

She shook her head and said, "No that's not what I meant.  I meant I…" She paused.  Honesty, or not?  Honesty will hurt my chances of getting him off my case… but honesty is good and dishonesty is not… oh *insert multiple curses here* nuts to this… "I missed you too."    

He tightened his grip on her hand.  "I know."  She looked at him as he continued, "I felt it."