Ewan's girl Thanks so much! And I'm kinda worried about writing the companion piece--I think Obi-Wan's POV is always so much more difficult! Shanobi I feel so honored that I would even be compared to Cas. She was an amazing writer--I hope she finds her way back to this fandom. Athena Leigh Thank you so much.

Eighteen: Beneath the Surface

My entire body is shaking in small, icy quakes, deep under my skin, where the eye cannot possibly delve--and so, somehow, is all the more painful. I don't know where the anger is coming from, the outrage that's passing from physical to mental, to the overtaxed wires of my mind, but it's hurling itself like a squall, leaving nothing untouched.

And I'm in the midst of the ocean, my arms working to rise above chopping waves, screaming…saying…

"If all you plan to accomplish during this meeting is playing cruel mind games, then forgive me if I take my leave of you."

I don't wait for the last word to fall from my numb mouth before I stand.

That's it. I'll get out of here. Get out of this damn place and forget the nonsense. Get out and find Obi-Wan.

Gods for a moment, it felt as though the past few months were a transparency, settled over something else, but too insubstantial to conceal what was beneath…what was before it.

Get out and find Obi-Wan.

How often did that thought surge through my system, when I was walking empty halls and pacing empty rooms and seeing their utter vacancy and feeling that same void, cold and aching, within the deserted chambers of my heart?

"Master Jinn, please sit down."

Her voice is a coax, but sweet berries can burst sour. Nothing is as it appears, not Master Meelon or that person sitting alone in the corner booth or the glass of dark red juice with poison swirling beneath the surface.

I can't. I have to find him.

I hear her take a step toward me, feel her hand barely upon my shoulder. "Who, Qui-Gon? Who do you have to find?"

I fight to keep my knees from buckling. H-How? "Are you a mind reader as well?" I croak, looking at her porcelain-pale face.

She shakes her head. "You said that just now. Out loud. Who do you have to find?"

I bring a trembling hand to wipe at my mouth. "I-I just wanted to check with my apprentice's progress."

Gently, she leads me back to the slender couch, then replaces her seat on the chair. "He's training with Master Windu, isn't he? In the sparring arena?"

I nod.

Her brows knit for a brief instance. "Then why did you say you needed to find him? His location was already known by you."

I rest my sweating palms on my knees. More than shivering now, I'm seething. "That doesn't mean anything. I'm not there with him, am I? So how can I be sure…" My breath struggles "Sure where he really is?

"That's a constant uncertainty in life. No one can be positive where another is all the time. Unless you pin them in place, like an insect, you can't have complete control. You have to trust that Obi-Wan will be where you left him. You have to trust in him, Qui-Gon."

I close my eyes and shake my head. "I trust him more than I've ever trusted another soul." I lift my gaze, and at last I can feel a total abandon, allowing the fear and grief to flood my eyes. "But trust isn't enough. I trusted him on our last mission and those…cretins stole him away. They took him from his bed while I slept. What good did trust do then?"

"Threats will always exist. All around us, at any time, something unexpected could happen." She leans forward, and clasps my hands in hers. "But if we spend all our lives preparing for what could happen, nothing else will happen, and what kind of lives would those be worth saving?"

I pull my hands away and stand again. "You can talk about your simple, neat little theories all you like, but that's all they are. They're words strung together. In reality, they don't mean a thing."

On this attempt, I'm able to start out the door.

"Do you think Obi-Wan believes that?"

I refrain from putting a hand to my heart, stopped dead in the doorway, staring into the corridor.

"Do you think Obi-Wan believes they're false, Master Jinn? When he's locked in the apartment, sensing his Master's unending distress and unable to help, himself or his Master, escape? Is his pain meaningless?"

I wheel around. "Of course it's not. Don't you understand? It's all I can think about. How much he suffered when he was kidnapped, how long he woke afterwards, shocked to be in his own room, under his own blankets. If Obi-Wan doesn't agree with my methods of protecting him, then he would've told me. I would know."

Her pallor isn't even flushed by the debate. "You mentioned that Obi-Wan excels in whatever he chooses to pursue, didn't you?"

I blink, irritated by this veer off the subject matter. "Yes."

"Then if he wanted to shield himself from you, he would only need to work at it awhile, right? It's very possible that he's blocking his emotions from you."

"That's not possible. I told him not to close his mind from mine. He wouldn't disobey me."

Meelon pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Even if doing so was in what he believed to be your best interest? "

I smile bitterly. "In any case, it still isn't possible. Obi-Wan is incredibly gifted, but I'm much older and far more experienced than he is. He doesn't have the skills to block me entirely."

"Have you ever underestimated Obi-Wan's capabilities?"

"Never to the extreme this situation would require. It would be a breach in the Master/apprentice guidelines. If I know anything about Obi-Wan, I know he doesn't stray from rules."

"And is he ever influenced by his Master, the rogue rule-breaker of the Temple? Does he know how to gauge one rule's supremacy over another?" She counters. "Would his dedication to his Master, as his Padawan from a young age, outweigh his responsibility to lesser points of the Code?"

Shut up. "He knows that a stifled communication between us worries me."

"But would he be worrying you more if he revealed what he was truly feeling?"

"How would you know what he's feeling?" I snap. "I sat up with him in the hospital after nightmares and shushed those horrible flurries of words, when he wouldn't let me leave the room and wouldn't sleep for hours after waking."

"What horrible words?" She prompts, fingers curled under her chin. "What did he say?"

Oh Sith I can't talk about this. "H-He was talking about what happened while he was held captive. He was by himself, and he---he was scared he wasn't going to see me again."

"And then you would quiet him."

"Of course. He didn't need to relive that."

"And you didn't need to hear that, did you?"

My stomach tenses. "No."

Her mouth is a painted flat line. "So whenever he would talk about his imprisonment, you would shush him. How much time passed before he stopped talking about it altogether?"

"About three weeks. Just a little while after he returned to the apartment."

She pauses for nearly a minute. "Yes, you've certainly proved to me that Obi-Wan excels quickly at what he focuses on. He caught on that you didn't want to hear about his captivity, that it pained you to listen to it, so he stopped talking about it. But he still thought about it. He couldn't erase the memories from his mind, even if he erased the words from his spoken vocabulary. So to save you from pain, he needed to block you partially from his thoughts.

"When he was in the hospital, he didn't want you to leave his room?"

I want to rage at her, but there's nothing to say--yet. "No, he didn't."

She exhales. "And you didn't?"

"No."

"So he was trying to latch on to familiarity, to security. A natural reaction in his situation. But a healthy progression would be to slowly detach himself from that need. For you to leave, so that he could readjust himself to being alone and being comfortable in his singularity.

"But you didn't leave him. You stayed with him all the time and fed his fears, enabling him to become dependent on your presence…Because you were equally dependent on his."

My lungs are clogged with disbelief and I sputter for a moment. "He was still healing and he needed me. I wasn't going to walk out and leave him there on his own."

"Because he was on his own so long? Because you were on your own when he was gone?"

"I find nothing wrong with my behavior or his."

"I know you don't, Master Jinn. And I can appreciate why." She reaches for my hand again. "When Obi-Wan stopped talking about the months when he was missing, when he turned down the Chancellor's request, when he all but disappeared from the Temple, save the apartment, he was doing more than comforting himself. In fact, I don't think it was actually comforting for him at all. It put your mind at ease, and gave you the ability to monitor him constantly--so that you wouldn't need to worry, to race out of a room to find him where he's being taught by a close friend, within the same building as you.

"Once you enabled him, he enabled you, until your entire existences dwindled down to living within the walls of your quarters. You've been the pillar of perfection to him since he was thirteen, so he wouldn't judge you for what you're doing. Even when it hurts him."

I shudder a sigh. "I don't want to hurt him."

"I know, Qui-Gon. This entire problem stems from that. Your world revolves around him, ensuring his safety and wellbeing. It's called secondary narcissism, when your mindset is unfailingly focused on another person, causing other parts of your life to crumble." She smiles sadly. "And may be to blame for those dark circles under your eyes."

And it's now that I realize how bone-tired I truly am.