Hi!! First of all, I'd like to thank you all for the FB! I'm so glad you're enjoying the story! Though, Sarah, I'm kinda curious as to why you say you've been waiting for this for a long time? *quizzical look* Before you skip off to read the next part, please read my little note:

I forgot to mention that a couple times in this story Obi talks about something that happened in a previous story, "The Most Important Thing." Actually, I wrote "The Most..." after writing the parts that referenced it in this story...it inspired me! Anyway, you don't have to read "The Most..." 'cause it's not important to the plot or anything, and it's hardly mentioned at all, but if you want to you can find it at my site.

BTW – this is one of those parts that's really heavy on description!  I swear, I have pages for what could have been done in paragraphs!

'Kay, that's all I have to say for now!

My Place is at Your Side

~ Part Two: Crash Landing ~

Obi-Wan:

As my mind relinquished its control over my body and receded into the beckoning arms of sleep, the agony slipped from my mind. It was strangely inviting, the lulling world of painless rest, and I almost yielded to it without a single protest.

Almost.

No! The thought came with surprising fortitude. I could not lose consciousness! If I did, the ship would crash and Qui-Gon and I would both surely die. I was stronger than this – I had to fight to stay awake.

With desperate strength and determination, I pushed the darkness away, not letting it consume me. Rushing back to full consciousness I accepted the pain back into my system, taking it for what it was – a sign that the night would to claim me. My head swam and my thoughts were hazed, but I didn't let it faze me. Instead I blinked several times, struggling to clear my vision.

Finally, surrendering to my willpower, the shadows retreated and I was blessed with the semblance of clarity. The pounding pain that claimed the entirety of my head was furious in its unrelenting presence but I forced myself to ignore it. I had to regain control of the ship and issue an emergency landing – it was the only way we'd survive.

Groaning softly, I rolled my splayed body up off the floor and managed to get into a crouching position. I swayed precariously and nearly fell down again when my movements caught up with me and a flash of bright hot pain engulfed my thoughts. Viciously encircling my mind, the agony seemed intent on thwarting me.

I shook my head – I had to land this ship and I wouldn't let anything stop me.

Reaching out to the Force I let it wash over me and offered up my pain to it, willing it to ease the brutality of it enough for me to think. Infinite in its possibilities, the Force embraced my body and the light of its sheer serenity washed over my body, soothing away the harshness of the agony.

Despite the terrible, earthquake-like tremors that shook the ship, I was able to climb to my feet and stumble into the pilot's chair. The pain was still there, all too stinging in its touch, but it was bearable now.

Even as I took in the information that the computers were flooding me with, I reached out to Qui-Gon. Master? I sent to him, are you all right?

There was no answer.

Momentarily turning, I saw that my Master was splayed across the computer console directly across from his chair. A pool of blood surrounded his head, seeping to cover the shiny surface of the control panel. He trembled with the violently shaking ship but he was completely unresponsive to any external stimuli and alarmingly lifeless. He was unconscious.

I grimly returned my gaze to the flashing panels before me – I would have to do this alone. For Qui-Gon's sake and my own.

Taking in the swirling mass of black and red that covered the visual readout, I intuitively imputed the new vector that would lead the ship through the calmest patch of air that I could find. However, considering the tempest, that wasn't saying much.

It was only then that I heard the alarm's warning cry. The sound was no different than it had been before – equally loud and grating – but it held in it the warning cry of a thousand sirens. An ominous hum in the Force served to chill my blood – the unsettling feeling shot through me like the tremors that wracked the shuttle.

My gaze was drawn to the systems panel. The flashing red light told me all I needed to know – the navigational array had gone out. Without it I had no way of telling where the ship was – no way to gauge our altitude or position. All I had was the small visual readout, a display of the air space immediately surrounding the vessel.

Instead of letting myself worry over what to do, I trusted my instincts. A second's glance at the visual readout had me altering the ship's trajectory to compensate for the storm's changing fingers of anger. So far I had managed to keep us out of the most intense regions of the storm. If I could keep that up, I could perhaps ride the tempest safely to the other side. Then I would worry about landing the shuttle.

The ship was under a constant battering pressure. In the back of my mind I could hear the wind and rain beating against it and even though I mostly ignored it, my body was shaking with the jerking and rattling seats. It reminded me of being on Cytis Prime during the earthquake that had nearly decimated two cities.

My fingers froze in mid-vector adjustment when the lights of the visual readout flickered and then went completely dark. Fear that I couldn't control surged through my blood like shocks of lightning and settled in my chest, tightening it to the point where breathing became painful. I had just lost all knowledge of the storm. I had no way of knowing how close I was to the ground, no way to emergency land.

The pain that had settled in my heart grew to devour my chest, pounding in time with my suddenly quick breathing. The ship was out of control, being hammered about in the throws of a wretched tempest. The only thing that kept me sitting down was the gravity generator – without it both Qui-Gon and I would be bouncing off the walls of the shuttle like ping-pong balls. I could practically hear the ruptures forming in the hull. Against the pressures from outside, I knew that my Master and I only had a few minutes to live.

A quick inhalation of breath that was the result of my irrepressible anxiety tickled at the base of my throat and sent the air rushing out of me amongst a fit of coughing. A few deep breaths calmed my breathing, but it was much harder to tame my fear.

With the navigational array, visual readout, and the Force, I might have been able to land the ship but now… But now it was like being blindfolded during a lightsaber tournament. The realization hit me suddenly. It made things harder, yes, but not impossible. If I could use the Force to see where my opponent was going to move next, why couldn't I use it to anticipate the tyrannical hands of an angry tempest? Why couldn't I use it to navigate the ship to safety? I still had the main thrusters, navigational control, and life support. As long as I could direct the shuttle's flight I had a fighting chance.

First I had to calm myself. I could not let myself become overwhelmed by emotion – I was 18 years old and had learned well how to control my fear. I could not forget my lessons in the moment when I needed them the most. I would not do shame to my training.

Calling upon all the discipline that Qui-Gon had ground into me during our five years together, I opened myself completely to the sinuous rivers of the Force and allowed them to wholly overwhelm my body. Instead of simply letting it cascade through me, I gave myself up to its power – its guidance and wisdom. In a way I never had before, I allowed myself to fall into it until I could feel it surrounding me entirely, pulsating against me and carrying me safely through its expansive depths.

For the first time in my life, I could utterly understand what Qui-Gon meant when he said that everything was alive with the Force. Before, I had always believed that the Force was alive, and that was true, of course, but not in the limited sense I had thought it. I could now feel that the Force wasn't merely alive, it was life. It flowed through all things, binding them together in a way I had never before imagined.

Everything in the universe, from the most beautiful rose to the dullest piece of metal, sang with its on Force signature. Shinning differently through every object, the Force gave things a color, a feel, a life all their own. The galaxy was alive with the different brilliant colors of the things that inhabited it, and now, marveling at how I had never understood before, I could see the true beauty of the Force.

With my eyes closed and my mind open, I could see everything that surrounded me. The ship, built from so many different metals and substances, glowed with a beauty that I never would have thought possible given its boring, gray appearance. Beyond the vessel's walls the conflicting winds were like tidal waves of blues, greens, and reds, flowing against each other in a show of splendor much more breathtaking than any sunset Qui-Gon and I had ever shared. The colors nearly overwhelmed me and suddenly I realized that the storm wasn't an enemy trying to destroy us, merely a force that could be traversed without fear as long as one was open to the Force.

Using completely steady hands, I touched my fingertips to the computer console and let them dance gracefully over the controls. My hands flew over the blood-stained panels, making course corrections that I wasn't even aware of formulating, as the Force filled my being and certainty of my actions thrummed through my blood.

In my mind I could easily read the picture the Force was feeding me and I knew, with an undeniable confidence, that the only way to break through this tempest was to ride the winds instead of fighting them. Complementing the power of the thrusters with the awesome strength of the winds, the ship surfed through the storm like a stick floats over water.

So sure was I of my actions that when I sensed we were much closer to the ground than I thought – only a hundred feet above it – I didn't falter. Instead, I adjusted the ship's path so that slowly, patiently, it descended through the winds and rains and closer to a rough, but safe landing.

'Seeing' the trees we would soon be hurtling into, wondrous beings of brilliant life and awesome color, I gripped the arm of the chair tightly with one hand and continued to input course corrections with my other. With a loud, resounding impact, the ship smashed into trunks, branches, and leaves, slowly losing velocity with each jagged impact that furiously forced my body back against the shuddering chair.

Finally, the shuttle rammed into the ground.

My clutching hold on the chair was nothing against the ferocity of the collision and I was sent forcefully lurching forward into the already bloody control panel with agonizing intensity. But this time when pain consumed my senses and blackness encroached upon my thoughts, I was not afraid to surrender myself to unconsciousness for the dazzling colors of the Force still danced before my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Obi-Wan, a voice that was more a feeling than a sound reached out from the thick, endless night to whisper my name. It was a mere tickle against my mind from within the Force and the sensation was like that of being in a deep sleep and being called to wakefulness by something that seemed far, far away. Although I was too removed from true awareness to recognize the voice, I immediately perceived that it was Qui-Gon, using the Force to touch my mind, and that I was drifting very close to the void of total unconsciousness.

I tried to answer but found it impossible. Qui-Gon's voice, his bond with me, was the only thing that surpassed this darkness and I was unable to gather enough strength to reach through it myself. The Force, always and forever present, was at the edges of my grasp but I could barely sense it. It was like I was disembodied, like my thoughts were contained in some small, buried part of my mind. My tenuous grasp on awareness was sustained only my Master, who had reached within my unconscious mind for some reason unbeknownst to me.

Padawan, the sound was still faint but the touch on my mind was stronger, pulsating somehow within me. It seemed to be compelling me, drawing me forward, but not towards consciousness, simply towards him. In a rush, the Force was pushed towards me, swarming in a mass of beauty and light around my thoughts. It was not I who was gathering the energy; it was my Master sending it to me.

At first, I wondered what Qui-Gon wanted me to do but then, as the Force continued to build and flow about me, I recognized what he was attempting. I had done it countless times myself, but I had never been on the receiving end – had never had someone do it for me. My Master was initiating a healing trance not for him, but for myself.

I hadn't even known this was possible but, after a brief flickering in the swirling mass of energy Qui-Gon was enveloping me in, I felt the healing tendrils of the Force begin to soothe the wounds I had suffered in the crash. Then, as soon as the trance was stable, I felt my Master's mind slipping away from me. I wanted to thank him but he was gone before I could figure out how to reach past the darkness that held me prisoner, and with him, my consciousness also fled.

~~~~~~~~~~

A faint pattering drizzle of whispering waves of sound breached the thick clouds of darkness that hung about my thoughts, slowly lulling me into wakefulness. Swirling about my mind and echoing hollowly, a rising howl accompanied the unbroken prattle of random drumming that beat in my temples. By increasing increments, the constant thrumming grew louder and louder until it filled my ears with a thunderously loud ruckus of indecipherable noises.

Prickling cold fingers tickled at my skin, fleetingly touching my face and arms and leaving a trail of flowing wetness behind them. My entire body was alive with the strange sensation of being covered in a seeping skin of freezing liquid that crawled and rolled over me. A feather-light, itching touch against one eyelid, over my nose, and across my mouth, was an annoying but equally unidentifiable feeling.

Trying to reach through the thinning, but nonetheless obscuring blanket that still covered my mind, I pushed towards the light of consciousness. Though it seemed a futile battle, I could feel the veil falling and giving way to clearer, logical thought. After a timeless period I became aware, on a coherent level, of the world around me.

The first thing that struck me was the Force. The wondrous connection that I had achieved had completely dissipated and in comparison to it, my normal connection seemed lacking, pitiful even. The energy that Qui-Gon had used to keep me in a healing trance while I wad unconscious was mostly gone now – presumably because he had ended it shortly before I awoke – but there was something different other than that surplus of power.

I slowly opened my heavy, liquid coated eyes.

Blinking to clear the moisture that obscured my vision, I looked around to take in my surroundings. I was half-sitting, half-laying, over the chair, with my head propped up on one of the arms and my feet dangling over the other. My clothes were soaked through, my hair was matted to my head, and my dripping braid was plastered across my face.

Irritated, I swiped my hand over my face and flicked my braid out of the way. Then I rubbed the water off me and brushed my fingers through my hair to un-stick the strands that clung to my forehead. As I did, I felt an abrupt stinging break out over my brow to momentarily obscure my thoughts. The pain was harsh but fleeting and reminded me of the wound I had suffered during the crash.

Tentatively, I touched my fingers against the wound that now ached dully. The pain increased on contact but not by the magnitude I would have expected. The agony I had experienced when first receiving the wound had nearly robbed me of consciousness and I was surprised to feel only a coarse scab and very little fresh blood. True, Qui-Gon had initiated a healing trance for me, but how much time had passed that my wound had mended to such an extent?

Outside, the storm that had brought the ship down raged on. The sound I hadn't been able to identify was the rain, battering and hammering loudly against the shuttle's hull as the wind, a baying cry amongst the never-ending fury, blew it through harshly swaying branches and falling leaves.

Small fractures in the hull were the perfect openings for the slithering, sneaky rain that dripped into the ship to thoroughly saturate me. The miniscule holes were apparently present throughout the shuttle for when I looked around I could see numerous streams of water falling from the ceiling, including one that was perfectly situated to trickle over my face.

Several of the seats and supplies that had been present in the ship were strewed across the floor, broken and shattered. Other than the fractures that were rudely letting in the rain, the ship was miraculously intact.

Qui-Gon was nowhere to be seen. "Master?" I called out to him, thinking that he was in the back room, meditating or deep in his own healing trance.

Swinging my legs over the armrest of the chair, I carefully sat up. When I didn't feel any great amount of disorientation or dizziness, I rose to my feet and looked down at the computer consoles. They were covered in a sheen of muddy water but it was easily wiped away to reveal a mass of flickering panels and blinking lights. Most of the systems were not functioning at all, and those that were would require repair.

My fingers froze over the consoles they had been hovering over and I frowned. Why hadn't Qui-Gon answered me? My Master never initiated a healing trace without ensuring that part of his mind was still focused on his surroundings. Qui-Gon? this time I used our bond, knowing he would hear me even if he was in the middle of the most profound meditation.

Again, only silence greeted me.

Now I was truly worried and I reached deeper into our bond, probing to see what the problem was. Despite the closeness of our relationship, my Master was always careful to ensure that most of his thoughts and feelings did not leak through our bond. This wasn't done for lack of trust – merely for the sake of both our privacy. Therefore, I expected to find his normal shields in place and was shocked, and more than a little scared at what I encountered. The bond was dead on Qui-Gon's end. I could feel nothing from him, no shields, no pain, no emotion, nothing. There was only an oppressive silence that clenched at my heart and turned my blood cold.

A stinging pang shot through me, tightening my chest. Tingling cold shivers, starting at the base of my spine, slithered up my back and made my hands tremble slightly. A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach and my heart began to quicken its beat, pounding against my temples.

Something was wrong.

Images my mind had gathered during the crash filtered back through my thoughts. After almost losing consciousness I had stumbled to my feet, sat down, and turned to my right to see Qui-Gon lying across the computer console, a pool of blood surrounding his head…

I looked towards where my Master had been slumped. Streaks of blood still marred the chipped and partly cracked surface of the panels, dripping onto the floor with the trails of flowing rainwater. Qui-Gon wasn't there though, or on the floor, or – for that matter – anywhere in the vessel that I could see. That left only the back room.

Turning, I quickly made my way towards the small sleeping quarters. About halfway there I caught sight of something that made my eyes go wide. I felt a cold hand grab my heart, clenching it tightly and making pain shoot through my chest. The air I inhaled evaporated somewhere between my nose and lungs, leaving me winded and gasping for breath so hard that I ended up hyperventilating.

It wasn't so much what I saw that ignited something very close to panic deep within me, but the gnawing, empty feeling that settled in my heart when I realized that what I first thought was debris, was actually the tips of my Master's feet in the doorway that connected the small sleeping chambers to the rest of the shuttle. I hadn't seen him before because the wall that divided the two rooms also obscured the rest of his body.

Immediately the dreadful fear that something was wrong turned into an undeniable certainty.

Rushing to reach his side, I leapt the remaining distance to the door and carefully stepped over his feet and into the other room. My mind screamed at my body to keep moving, to help my Master, but this time it was what I saw that doubled my fear and made me freeze in place.

Blood streaked the man's face, intermingling with the patina of sweat that bathed his skin. He was extremely pale and the trails of red that marred his features looked all the more harsh against the abnormally light skin. I swallowed weakly. My Master looked helplessly small – weak and so unlike the stoic Jedi Master I had grown to respect and deeply care for.

My mind raced even though I was immobile. How was this possible? How had this happened? Qui-Gon had obviously regained consciousness – he wouldn't have been able to lead me into a healing trance if he hadn't – so why hadn't he formed one for himself also? Why was he lying here, covered in blood, with a ghastly head wound? Why was I healed, and yet he wasn't?

My thoughts reeled about in a storm as furious as the one outside as I desperately assumed the worst. He had obviously never initiated a healing trance for himself. What if he had been hurt worse than I had in the crash? He had lost consciousness long before me – what if his wounds had been too severe and he…

No! I stopped myself from finishing the thought, unable to accept that it could be true.

Forcing myself out of my shocked immobility, I dropped to my knees next to Qui-Gon and murmured his name, my voice heavy and rasping against the parched dryness of my throat.

Carefully, I lifted his head and shoulders and pulled him halfway up into my lap where I cradled him within my trembling arms. There was a deep gash in his forehead, slowly leaking a trail of crimson blood from amongst a wretched scab of torn skin and tangled strands of hair. Carding my fingers through the tousled mass of hair, I touched something sticky and wet that stained my skin red. When I looked at the floor where he had been laying, I was disgusted to see a thick pool of blood.

TBC… (on Sunday)