Authors Note: First part is by Rani, the second part, starting with Meri's POV is mine, and the last with Alex's POV is by Derisa. Thanks for reading everyone!

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"Master..." her cry was breathless, "She's... she's not there...!"

"What?" He moved to her as his concern suddenly grew, and held her gently by the shoulders. "T'lor, we will find her," he tried as she desperately looked around the empty air around her. "You must calm yourself. Focus now…" he coached her gently.

T'Lor forced herself to relax and reached along the bond again, but gave up after too long a stretch, with a worried shake of her head. "The bond is there, but she's too far away... like she's a kite, tethered to me but so distant I can't see her. And I pull on the line and try to drag her closer, but I still can't see her..." Her eyes locked on her former Master's, looking for answers, and her tone again grew insistent and concerned. "She's *too* calm, Master...beyond distant. Almost…disembodied?"

"When did you last see her? At the Solstice gathering last night?" Gi'den voice had a definite edge to it. At her nod, he quickly continued, "The Temple gates were closed after curfew. She couldn't have left unseen by the security, and we would have heard about a missing shuttle or fighter..."

"So she has to be here, in the Temple. Somewhere." T'lor finished the sentence for him. "The roof. She used to go there when she needed to think. Or the Healers? If she wasn't feeling well..." as she tossed out possibilities, T'lor's outward seeming grew calmer, but she could not still the ache of the lack of contact from her best friend of many long years.

"I'll stay here, and start placing calls on the comm," Gi'den decided. "Someone might call here, or she may return on her own. You go look for her in the places she normally goes…you know her better than I do…" he said the last with a tinge of regret in his voice. T'lor could see that Rani's surrogate Master was struggling with a sense of failed duty to her. "We'll find her, Padawan, don't worry," he smiled confidently, perhaps for her sake.

The new Knight scoured the Temple, checking every place she could think of for her missing friend, trying with all her considerable powers to get some sense of where she might have gone the night before. At length, her analytical mind returned to her last memory of her friend. It was the at the party the night before, and Rani had walked away, had stopped to talk to... Alex.

T'lor's steps were nearly running as she headed for the Master Jedi's rooms. If anyone could help her, Alex would. She breathed a sigh of relief to find him at home as he answered the door, and quickly told him of the situation, finishing by asking for any insight he might have into why she would fail to come home the night before.

His brow pinched into a frown, as he considered how to respond. "She was upset last night," he said carefully. "I... We had words, " he broke off in a sigh. "I can't imagine where she's gotten to, T'Lor... Where have you looked already?"

T'Lor cast a concerned look at him, but pushed the question burning at the edges of her mind away, to answer his. As she outlined everywhere she had checked already, Alex nodded, and reached for his robe. "Perhaps we should check the lower levels?" he suggested. "The Dome, the Library?"

The worried young Knight exhaled tensely, grateful for his assistance, and then cursed whoever felt that the Jedi Order required such a sprawling complex as the massive and convoluted Temple on Coruscant. They decided to split up, Alex doing a sweep of the lower levels and Library, while she checked the Dome, and several other places that occurred to her in that quadrant of the Temple. "I'll comm you immediately if I find her," he promised, and headed towards the lift.

The rest of the search was a blur until she got that comm, less than an hour later. Alex had called from the infirmary, where he and Kaline had taken the comatose padawan immediately, and where they both waited with T'lor and Master Dway the two hours until An Paj allowed them in to see Rani, tubes and life monitors all in place and horrifying.

The girl at Rani's bedside was brought out of her reverie by her new and unfamiliar title of only four days. "Knight Kaden," the blue-skinned Master Healer said gently from the door to his patient's room, "I can assure you that while Padawan Veko would be touched by your show of dedication, she wouldn't want you to become a patient here yourself, admitted for exhaustion." She turned to see a slight grin on his mouth that matched his dry sense of humour.

"I worry less when I'm here with her, Master Healer," she replied. "Is there any change?"

"None yet, I'm afraid," he answered as he entered the room and began checking the I.V. bag hanging from its hook. "But she's stable, and we know what is causing it now, and may be able to save Master Kern in the process, thanks to Mind-Healer Halle."

T'lor looked back to her unconscious friend, as if able to read on that ghostly face what was happening to her. "Rani is still directing a healing Force along her bond with her Master, then?"

"Very likely. There's no telling how long she's been doing it, but according to Reis-An Halle, Rani couldn't have been doing it consciously, otherwise she would have just known where her Master was and told the Council to redirect the search teams to the Akessiae system. It's no wonder they hadn't found Master Kern yet, they were looking on the wrong blasted side of the Inner Rim!"

An Paj shook his head as he glanced at his patient, "She's probably been either healing him or at least keeping him alive for weeks, and she didn't even realize it..." his voice trailed off as he shook his head again in wonderment of the powers of the Force.

T'lor looked over at Rani again, guilt rising with her concern this time, as the Master Healer worked around her prone form. She saw the thinness, the angles of bones that should have been properly hidden by healthy muscle and fat, not jutting under the girl's papery skin. The pang that rose in her caused her to bite her lip, finding it hard to accept that she had not seen how changed her friend had become over the last six weeks.

An Paj eyed her carefully, his sensitive mind picking up easily on her self-accusatory thoughts. "Go and get some sleep, T'Lor. You will feel better for the rest." he ordered her gently. "Rani's always been a stubborn young lady... but she would never blame you for what's happened."

T'lor gave a wry half-smile that didn't reach her eyes and rose from her chair. "I'll check in later, Master An Paj." She surveyed her friend's still face, but there was no change in the slack features. Rani remained in a deep coma, her body being nourished through tubes in her arms, and her bond still stretched tight from T'lor's mind to where her own had fled.

The young Knight gave her friend a soft stroke on the hand, and sent courage and support flowing down the link, to disappear down the cord of life that stretched between them. "Good night, Rani...I'll see you tomorrow," she told her.

**

The floor under him was warm in the early afternoon sunlight, as Master Alex Arieh slowly brought his awareness back to roost in his body from its soaring flight on the airy currents of the Force. His sky blue eyes slowly opened, and he drew in his first aware breath in a while, his meditations having flown him far from the concerns of his body.

Those demands had grown more insistent of late, leaving Alex questioning whether he had made the correct choice in taking Meri as his Padawan when the enforced closeness of that relationship only reinforced her necessary distance from him. And coming on the heels of the discovery of his friend's secret love and then her collapse, Alex found himself fighting harder to keep that safe distance from his Padawan.

Even now, he could sense Meri, moving about their suite, her graceful, slender form padding noiseless on the smooth polished floors, and his breath deepened momentarily as her sweet thoughts touched on his with that quiet serenity she exuded. But, no: he must restrain himself ever more, or risk losing that one person closest to his heart.

And that another, as well as Meri, should have felt similarly for him, and hidden it all this time... that she should know of his feelings for his own Padawan... He had to remind his ego to be still, that this could have played but little role in the older Padawan's eventual collapse, she was more heavily weighted by the burden of her constant feeding of healing energy across the bond to her Master.

He recalled his surprise when they had learned what had caused the young woman to waste away to almost nothing, so that when he hefted her in his arms, there in the dust of her Master's deserted rooms, she hung in his arms, little more than skin and bone, and her unruly dark curls the only lively thing about her. He felt her phantom pulse once again, thin and thready under his fingers, but in his stomach lay a heavy stone of worry for this frail creature, his long time friend, Rani Veko.

At the naming of her image in his mind, with all the weight of his years of affection for her behind the simple syllables, Alex felt his Padawan pull back from his mind, and he frowned outwardly at the withdrawal. He slowly slid to his feet and drew his robe over his bare shoulders, turning to seek that well-beloved connection again.

"Meri." His voice was soft, but the edge of his confusion flavored the name. She looked up at him, her eyes almost too bright. "Meri...? What's wrong?"

"Meri, I feel responsible, and-..." he was interrupted by the door alert sounding, and after startling, Meri practically ran from the room to answer it.

Alex drew a deep breath, and released it as a sigh, before absentmindedly closing his tunic and resettling his belt over it. "Master!" Meri's voice called from door, and he felt a flash of the importance of the message from her, and he raced to the door, to learn what it was that had his Padawan so suddenly on edge.

"They've found Master Kern!"

Within moments, Alex was following T'Lor down the hall to the infirmary. With Davin Kern found, the search team could place him in stasis and it was hoped Rani could be brought out of her coma by the mind healers with no danger to either her or her master. He sensed Meri let the door slide closed and then lean heavily against it, her emotions in turmoil. The last thing he had set into her mind was the thought, he had hoped would reassure her, that they would talk more later.

**

In the moments after Alex left, Meri remained leaning on the closed door, eyes tightly shut, her emotions churning. She bit her lip nervously as she slid slowly away from the door and moved into the main room. In her mind's eye she could see the scene that had just taken place, and her heart constricted painfully. The day had been going well, up to now. Over the past few days, Meri had been trying to bury any memory of the information she had found out that night about Rani, but it was hard.

Hard because every time she'd managed to push it away--the worry, the concern, the guilt--it would be brought back to mind when through the strong bond with her Master she sensed him thinking of the other padawan. Coupled with this was the fact that in the last few days Alex had become extremely remote. Coming on the heels of what had occurred with Rani, this caused Meri no little worry. It was constantly in her thoughts. Was he upset with her, she wondered? Had she done or said something wrong?

She had pretended to ignore it at first; she lied to herself, told herself it didn't really matter. But today had been too much, and when an especially emotion filled thought of his friend came across their bond, Meri had pulled back, too confused to deal with it any longer. However, not without consequences.

Sinking down in the sunspot her Master had previously occupied, Meri tried to reign in her wild thoughts. Alex knew something was the matter, he had sensed it finally today.

'What ifs' flooded her mind. What if he had became angry with her? What if the fear in the furthest corner of her mind was true? And he did feel something for Rani? She shied violently away from the thought. It couldn't be true. She fingered her pendant at the thought…no it just couldn't be, so it must have been something she'd said or done to displease him. He had never acted this way before….seeming to avoid her whenever he could, placing a distance between them that was entirely foreign to Meri since they'd acknowledged their love for one another.

The wedge between them had only become more apparent when they were asked to house one of the exchange students for the program the Jedi Temple was instituting. The girl's name was Vail D'Ka and to Meri it seemed that Alex used the girl as an excuse to place even more distance between he and his apprentice. Thankfully Vail seemed to have a gift as a healer and spent most of her time down at the infirmary. Yet still, her Master treated her in this strange manner…as though she'd displeased him in her training or some other thing.

Oddly enough, she wanted to tell Alex all of her worries. Some little voice told her to tell him how she felt, but on the other hand, she feared what his response would be. He had almost requested another master for her once…was he thinking of this again?

A moment before he'd left, he had sent a thought winging across their bond saying they would talk later. She wasn't sure if this was meant to reassure her or if it should worry her. After the tension of the last few days, however, Meri was ready for whatever was going on between them to be brought out in the open. At least if she'd done something wrong, she wanted to know about it.

As the sun shifted lower, it continued to pour over the padawan sitting in the sun's shinning path, her head bowed in deep thought.

**

Alex's footsteps were hurried as he left the infirmary, his thoughts occupied by the padawan he'd left in turmoil some time earlier. The distance he'd been struggling to put between he and Meri wasn't working. Meri didn't understand why and he knew that as a result of this she'd been hurt. That hadn't been his intention at all!

After seeing how Rani had reacted to his and Meri's relationship, one of his closest friends, he began to wonder at what would happen if anyone else found out. This led to him resolving that their relationship could never be revealed. And he knew that unless he forced himself to pull back from Meri, someone else would find out. The only reason he knew others hadn't found out was because the thought or idea of a master and apprentice having a relationship was not even considered by another Jedi. The idea would've seemed ludicrous to anyone else. But if anyone had chosen to look and really see, Alex didn't know how they couldn't have seen what was between he and Meri. It was a living thing and becoming stronger by the day.

In a vain attempt to control the temptation, Alex had requested to house one of the students who had come to the Jedi Temple for the exchange program. This forced a necessary distance between them. He had thought Meri was coping and hoped she hadn't suspected anything, but today her rush of emotions across their bond had told him the truth. She was afraid she'd done something wrong and Alex ached to make it right between them. He longed to hold her in his arms and reassure her that everything was alright, that he wasn't upset with her and he loved her more than life.

Suddenly a voice broke through the haze of his thoughts, pulling him back to the present with a sharp jolt.

"Master Alex, please..." A padawan he recognized as Ane Oligi was the one calling him, reaching for the other man's arm as he moved up the corridor to the door, "I need your help."

"Ane," Alex Arieh chided, "I am somewhat occupied at the moment. Can it wait?" but he noted the urgency in the boy's troubled face. He inhaled a steadying breath, and drew on the Force, letting it lift him. "What is it, Ane?"

Relief at being heard out at last suffused the Padawan's face. He had spent an hour, likely more, searching the halls of the Temple for someone who might be able to help him without getting him in worse trouble that he already was. With a deeply indrawn breath, he embarked on the tale of how his friend had disappeared.

Alex's only clear reaction came when Ane told him who he had been with, watching the suspected technician, Carik, of sabotage. "Ciaran Ui'Niall?" he asked, and as Ane confirmed it, the Jedi Master felt a whisper through the Force, an ephemeral foreboding. While at the infirmary, he had learned of Ciaran's disappearance. After his talk with Meri he had planned to offer his help in the search for the missing padawan. He nodded for the young man to continue as he drew on the Force for serenity, in the face of his growing certainty that all was not well with the youth that was being sought.

"...so he sent me to get someone, only I..." Ane's voice trailed off. They were headed back up to the technician's quarters, quite a long walk from the rooms the Padawans of the Order shared with their Masters.

"I understand, Ane. You had been barred from the hangar, you already said. And with your predilection for trouble..." The Master let the slight rebuke in his tone speak the rest of the words for him. Ane hung his head. "How long ago did you leave him?" Alex asked.

"An hour, maybe a bit more," the Padawan confessed, in a clearly penitent tone. Alex shot him a chastising look, sharp from the Master's deep blue eyes. His lips tightened as he lengthened his stride.

Strained silence reigned between the two Jedi as they arrived where Ane had last seen the other Jedi Apprentice, only to find the corridor empty.

"I swear, I left him right here," Ane pleaded, "Carik's room is just over there-"

"Which one?" Alex interrupted, moving around the corner to survey the row of doors. Ane directed him to the door, but there was no answer after Alex's authoritative knock. Without hesitation, the Jedi Master moved to the activator panel and keyed in an override code, and the door slid open with a quiet hiss.

The quarters were devoid of life, obsessively neat, and Alex shook his head as he headed back out of the door. "Ane, go down to the Archives and get Knight T'lor Kaden. If you see Dama Kaline, inform her of what has happened here tonight, and tell her to comm me if she comes up with anything. Do you have all that?"

"Yes, sir!" Ane replied quickly, almost cringing under Alex's severe gaze as he headed back down the corridor, but the Jedi Master was no longer thinking about Ane Oligi in the least. Rather, he was reaching into the strong pressure of the Force blowing all around him, and casting his spirit higher, to gain some height, and perhaps a different perspective on the situation.

He let the Force guide his steps as he moved down the corridor, the opposite direction from the Padawan he had sent on the errands. It was as if he were being pushed gently, faintly, one way and then another, but always guided forward, out of that wing, and down, to the levels of the street accesses of the Temple.

A little-used door opened before him, and Alex Arieh was outside the Temple, and standing, inhaling the Coruscant night. Along with each breath came a faint scent of foreboding: a cold and delicate miasma of...

Fear.

Jedi Master Alex Arieh drew himself up straighter as he identified the taint of dread rippling in the airy currents of the Force, like a faint cloying scent in the night air.

I have nothing to fear he calmed himself. I am a Knight and Master of the Jedi, in the full flower of my strength. His self-confidence had always been a strong point for him, and Alex knew how to use it to achieve a better balance within himself I am just seeking a lost child of the Temple, and I *will* find him soon. The image of lost Jedi children reminded him of his own padawan, who was also so much more to him. Meri Irhanah had once been lost, hiding away in her own mind at the death of Ariana, her first Master. It had taken all the patience and compassion of the handsome Knight Arieh to coax her out of her self-induced catatonia and set her back on the path to becoming a Jedi Knight.

Alex sent a fond thought her way, and then rededicated himself to his task. He found the gradual strengthening of that ill wind of fear disconcerting, and he was more than relieved when his commlink alerted him to an incoming call.

"Alex? It's T'Lor. Ane just found me. Are you onto something?"

The Jedi Master smiled grimly, pausing in his progress through the levels of Coruscant's night-lit streets. T'Lor had always been one of the most focussed Jedi Alex had ever met, a characteristic he was appreciating very much just now. "Yes, T'Lor, but I am having difficulty navigating through the wash of things. I could use your help."

"I'm on my way to the hangar now," T'Lor informed him, but Alex quickly interjected a protest.

"Some of the padawans have been looking into suspected cases of sabotage, T'Lor, and I don't have time for you to fully inspect a ship. I'm only a few minutes from the Temple, come on foot."

"All right," she assented. He could hear the surprise in her voice. "Where are you?"

"Level fifty-four, approaching the Diplomatic Sector. The distraction is growing stronger, though, T'Lor," Alex admitted. "I am not sure how much longer I'll be able to trace Padawan Ui'Niall like this."

"What do you mean by distraction?" the new Knight asked, and Alex could hear the cadence of her quick strides as she spoke. He had a clear picture of the petite Knight striding along with her characteristic resolve, compensating for her lack of height with immense determination.

"I am sensing a great deal of fear on this trail," Alex informed her, "It's clouding things for me."

"You can track by the fear itself, Alex, if you are sure it's coming from him." T'Lor's voice reflected no amusement as she informed him of this, but Alex took a breath.

"That's why I need you, T'Lor. *You* have the training to do these things, not I."

"I'm on the way," she assured him, before logging off the commlink.

Counting his blessings that he had an able assistant, Alex continued along the streets. He was used to working as a part of a team, and while he had never done a mission with T'Lor, he knew her skills were sharp and he trusted her judgment. They had done innumerable training exercises together as padawans, and he easily recalled how superb her tracking skills were. They were among the several excellent reasons she had been selected for the Intelligence arm of the Jedi.

With a long, steadying breath, and a renewed link to the Force, Alex once again focused his attention on its faint urgings, and set his foot to the trail of the ill-fated Padawan, Ciaran Ui'Niall.