Disclaimer: They all belong to George Lucas. I just didn't like the way it turned out. :) So I decided to have a bit of fun. Enjoy. This is set right into the end of The Phantom Menace, which, on some levels, did not have a happy ending.

Written In the Stars

Four

Siri paced.

Wearing the uniform of Queen Amidala's handmaidens, with her blonde hair slicked back and coated with some substance she didn't want to think about, Siri looked no less like a Jedi and any more like one of the girls from Naboo. She certainly didn't act it, with the three young women sitting on the edge of the sleep-couch, Padme and Corde to either side of Sabe, who was once again acting as the Queen's decoy, their eyes following her as she strode back and forth.

Obi-Wan had been gone over an hour. When he had left, Siri had had the impression that he would not be long in finding out what the problem was. After twenty minutes, she had begun walking back and forth across the room, worries flitting around inside her mind, a dozen different scenarios that never ended well. The room was silent, save for the sound of their breathing and the soft swish of the fiery colored cloth that swung around Siri's ankles.

She knew pacing would do no good. Yet she was afraid to meditate, lest someone come inside and discover that she was simply a Jedi disguised as a handmaiden. Two thoughts conflicted in her mind—the thought that she should remain in disguise, and the thought that she could search for Obi-Wan in the Force if she meditated. One thought of duty, and one thought of emotion. Jedi were not to show emotion, a thing that had been drilled into her head for so many years by her teachers, by the council, and her master, Adi Gallia.

Padme watched Siri pace, taking a small measure of pleasure in watching the older woman suffer. At the same time, she too, suffered, knowing all the things that Siri knew, the same scenarios rushing through her mind. He could be dead, for all Padme Amidala could tell. She did not have the grasp of the Force to know if he was still there or not.

She took a deep breath and sighed. Sabe reached out a hand and clasped Padme's reassuringly. Padme gave her a small smile of gratitude.

Siri sank to her knees then, calming her breathing and closing her eyes. Her body swayed with the ship as it landed suddenly, and she reached out in the Force, searching for Obi-Wan.

She could feel him, and a wave of calm rushed over her, and Padme, watching, could see the tension erase from Siri's face, and she wondered if this was some miraculous Jedi thing that could be accomplished my meditation. Siri opened her eyes and turned toward the door expectantly.

On cue, they slid open and Obi-Wan strode through, sweaty, his tunic streaked with grease. There was a smear of blood on his cheek. Siri rushed forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Padme's lips tightened and she glared, jealousy burning inside her. Obi-Wan hugged the blonde girl quickly, then let go.

"We must go," he said.

"Why?" Sabe asked.

Obi-Wan frowned. "Why can't you ever just take me at my word?" he asked. "Your pilot has been killed, your Highness," he said, his eyes on Padme. "As well as the captain of your security. You must trust me now."

Padme looked up at him. "What must we do?" she asked.

"At this moment, there is only one thing we can do," Obi-Wan said.

"And what is that?" Sabe asked him.

"We must run," Siri said.

~`~

The room was cramped, hot, and dirty. Everything that had happened up to this point—the sabotage of the ship, the spies among the crew—had been made to look like they had stemmed from the Spice miners with a personal vendetta against the Naboo queen.

Yet now, Obi-Wan knew better. There was something more going on that anything appeared. But the true answers remained just out of his grasp. He did not have an exceptional grasp of the living Force, and he did not think that he ever would. He did not have the power and strength of his Master, or the abilities of his Master's new apprentice. Frustration rushed through him in waves, and he thought back to a time in his apprenticeship when he had given everything for people he loved, those he had to protect.

The frustration broke and rushed away, and a calm settled over him. He would protect Siri with his life. He would protect Padme with his life. When he was thirteen, he had left the Jedi order to fight for what he thought was right, to protect a girl that he had felt a bond with. Now these two women were the only things that held him together.

Siri sat beside him on the grimy floor. The tiny little one-room hut had been the only place that they could find where they were safe, and even then, they were not. Padme and Sabe rested on the tiny sleep couch, and Corde sat on the floor, her head resting on the mattress, her dark hair tumbling across her face. Siri leaned her head against his shoulder, and closed her eyes.

"What now?" she asked, her breath warm on his neck.

"I don't know," he said. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair. She had washed it in a stream as they had walked to the city they were now in. Obi-Wan did not even know its name. He did not know where they were.

"Did you try contacting the council?" Siri asked, putting one arm around his waist and leaning more fully against him. He could feel the exhaustion deep within her.

"We're too far away," he said. Siri sighed, and looked at the three women asleep on the sleep couch.

"She loves you," Siri said.

"What?" Obi-Wan asked.

"The Queen. She loves you."

"Certainly not."

"I've seen the way she looks at you, the way she glares at me if I am near you."

"That does not mean she loves me, Siri. Where is your logic? Love and lust are two different things. Infatuation is not the same as love."

"I can see it in her eyes, Obi-Wan. I can feel it." Siri lifted her head and looked at him. "You do not because you choose not to."

"It is the truth." Obi-Wan said softly. Siri was silent for a moment.

"Even if you don't believe me," she said after a while, her voice even softer than before. "She does love you. And she can love you, which is something that I cannot do, Obi-Wan. I cannot love you, but she can. Do you understand me?"

A mixture of frustration and anger filled the girl's voice, and Obi-Wan turned and kissed her. "You do not have to be the perfect Jedi, Siri."

"Yes I do," she said.

Padme stared at the ceiling, her eyes wide in shock.