I know this is waaay different then how I usually post, but now this site is even with what is posted at the 'other' place. Hope you enjoy, and thanks SO SO MUCH to Boofreakiddywho(love that name!), ewan's girl, Trigger, Ayvren, Kynstar and Athena. You guys are great!

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Eight: Awake

My eyes open slowly, and are immediately assaulted by intense lighting.

"Whoa, whoa." A blur of a face hovers over me. "Take it easy."

I blink, struggling to make out the features. My entire body is shaking. "Master?"

A large hand covers my forehead, shading my vision. "He's saying 'master' again. What d'you think that means?"

"I'm no expert…but maybe since he's young, he's a student or something. He's obviously delirious."

"Or just disoriented?"

"They laid into him pretty well..he probably put up a fight before they stuffed him in there." Hands grip my shoulders "How do you feel, kid?"

"Head hurts." I answer absently, hardly aware of the pain through my rapture, searching my smeared periphery for my Master's unique, towering form.

A new voice lifts in the room. This one is feminine, solid, soft. "That's to be expected. I hope it doesn't hurt too badly, young one. I'm afraid I must wait to administer medication until you're stable."

Medication? What's she talking about? She must not be Jedi. Then she would know that I don't require a needle jabbed in my arm or a dose of thick, gagging syrup. All I need is Master to ease this throbbing and the ache—and he's here. Everything will be alright now.

If only I could see him a little better.

"Have you found any form of identification?" The woman asks.

"None. All we've been able to determine is that he has a 'master' of some sort that he keeps talkin' about."

"Slave?"

"Could be, I guess. But then I can't think of a good reason they'd want to detain a slave, hide 'im better than they hid the rest of 'em. He doesn't look like nothing special. No bulgin' muscles or nasty scars."

Fingers brush against my ear, and I feel my braid being run through them. "This is unusual." She says. "Could it be some mark of distinction among, say, a tribe?"

I exhale with weary frustration. Why doesn't Master correct her? He knows all these answers, and yet he allows them to continue their moronic guessing. Out of exhaustion, my head starting to tighten with the increasing pressure, "Jedi!"

I sound ragged and breathless, even to myself.

"Jedi?" The trio of voices respond in incredulous unison.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. The mist begins to lift. "Jedi. Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan K-Kenobi. Master Qui-Gon." I swallow with difficulty. My mouth remains maddeningly dry. "Corus—Coruscant."

A hearty chuckle . "Is that enough for ya?"

The woman doesn't share his mirth. "Start a check for him. Have it narrowed to Coruscant. If that doesn't match with anything, widen it."

"Right away."

Footsteps carry one of the men away.

The sound resounds in my skull. "Master I need help."

A hand, smooth without a single rough spot or callus, caresses my cheek. "Don't worry, Obi-Wan. If your information is correct, we'll be in contact with the Jedi Temple within minutes."

That's good. That's nice. I miss home. I miss my bed, laying outstretched on it looking up at the ceiling and watching the model ships twirl just a little as the clear wire twists and untwists. Waking up to Master, standing over me, still in his nightclothes, telling me to prepare for the day, always with that small tinge of regret. Because we always have to wake so early.

He hasn't stood beside my bed in a long time.

Maybe, if I sleep, then he'll be here to wake me, so we can have morning meal together and even get a spar in before we have to be dressed in uniform.

"I'm…tired." I say aloud.

The gentle hand moves to my hair. "Then sleep. I'll be right here to monitor you."

"Okay. Master? Master too?"

"Shh. Things will be different when you wake, Obi-Wan."

And that's nice too.

My eyes close.

Yes. That'll be good.

Nine: Hallucinations

I dreamed of nothing at all, except feeling, if you can qualify that as dreaming. As I slept, I was surrounded in a downy cocoon of warmth and assuredness. The cold roil of unending awareness of my prison was gone. The bars dropped. I felt-I feel-safe.

Now my eyes open, and those emotions disappear.

Where am I now?

It's a little room, with reflective steel walls and deep green material that covers the windows, the bed, me. The darkness is gray and fabricated.

I can't remember much about my previous waking, only the soft, far off voices, but I know this isn't the same place. It's colder. Smaller.

And I'm alone.

Something thick rises in my throat. It can't be my heart, because that's still down at my chest, hammering against my rib cage. I sit up in a rush, not caring that the speed causes my head to throb and my vision to spin, sends currents of ache up my back and arms.

I feel like I've been thrown back to the cell, and I've awakened from the hot ether of sleep to find myself unmoved, to discover that my rescue was a tease born of my lonely, fevered mind.

Maybe it's true. Hells, it's not like I've never done it before.

Oh gods no oh gods oh force no

My breaths are coming fast, too fast. The word is ripped from my mouth, "Master!"

I don't wait to listen for footsteps. I repeat the name, over and over, sweat trickling from my forehead like melted ice down sunburned skin.

"MASTER!"

please let him be here please he has to be here he has to make it okay again

The door slides open and light breaks through the shadow, nearly blinding me. A towering form heads toward me, and moisture spikes my eyes.

"Master you're here you're here." I'm gasping, unable to stop.

Arms wrap around me. "Quiet now, young one. You need to sleep."

I feel the voice reverberate against me. I can't see his face. Not even an eye, as I could in the cell's dust-caked floor. But it's him. It must be him. Who else? Trembling, I lay my head down, and for a few minutes, experience the closest thing to peace I have in months.

"Mace? Is he alright?" Someone asks in the distance.

Mace? I open my eyes, narrow them, then look up. Through the clouds, I can make out Master Windu's brown eyes, shining and solemn.

"Damn." He swears, his gaze traveling from me to whoever stands at the door. "No."

I wipe at my face and pull back, the pain in my temples thudding. Mace reaches out to steady me, but I push his hands away. "Wh-Where's my Master?"

He swallows, his dark countenance chiseled smoothly of composure and coolness.

And right now, I hate him for it. "Where is he?"

"Coruscant." He replies in a low tone.

My stomach clenches. "And where am I?"

"On a transport ship. Back to Coruscant." He sighs heavily. "Obi-Wan, we'll be at the Temple shortly. It was better that I just let you believe-"

"That he's here?" I croak, the lump in my throat growing more dense and sour. I look around the room, jerking when I see that it's empty. "He's not here. But he was. He had to be. He was there, to get me out and-" I seal my eyes, as dread binds me, strangles me. "He wasn't."

A hand grips my shoulder. "Your captors beat you, because you resisted when they wanted to lock you in the deep isolation cell. You probably had a concussion that was left unattended, until the police freed you and took you to the medical center. You told them your name, told them you were Jedi." He cups my chin, and I wrench myself from his touch. "That was good, Obi-Wan. They were able to contact the Temple. I was on assignment, close by. I came as quickly as I could. You've been asleep since then."

Reluctantly, I open my eyes, and strain to see him through the watery veil of tears. "Where's my Master? I n-need him. He can t-tell me this is real." I'm shivering down to the bone. " He can tell me I'm n-not hallucinating."

"You're not, Obi-Wan." Mace pushes my shoulders down, until I'm resting on the pillows again. "This is very real, and Qui-Gon'll be at the landing dock to meet you."

But no. This can't be real. I've been tricked so many times, allowed myself to think the prison was a nightmare.

Time's worn on. I'm not supposed to delude myself any longer. It would hurt too much if I let it continue.

I study Mace's eyes, so lifelike, so convincing. "Leave me alone." I whisper, and close my own eyes against the gray.

I wait for sleep to come, to carry me back to the grime and bars and long, grinding hours.

Ten: The Precise Apparition

The ship rumbles. I can feel it under me.

We must have stopped.

I haven't been able to escape this illusion yet. My sleep was short, disrupted whenever Master Windu or another passenger would come in, to change a bandage, offer sustenance, or see how I was feeling.

I wonder who these intruders really are, beneath the masks my subconscious has created for them. Maybe I'm in solitary again, and the jailers are bringing me my meager, dried out food portions for the day.

In either case, I haven't accepted the meal. It sits on a metal tray a few feet from the bed. I've been hungry for as long as I can remember, the emptiness churning in my stomach. But I know what it's like to believe that void has been filled again-I felt Qui-Gon's arms around me for those few, deceitful moments-and I won't subject my body to that same wicked game that was played on my mind.

The warm aroma wafts around my face. I turn away, facing the other wall.

I wish this dream were not so painful. Literally painful, from the bruises and bloody wounds. I need to be numb to it, but I haven't found a way to accomplish that. Even after the passing of seven months, there's still too much that seeps into my awareness.

Sleep never lasts long enough.

The door slides open, a clean, quick sound I've grown to loathe.

"Obi-Wan." Mace's quiet voice, behind me. "We've landed."

I wrap my arms tighter around myself. I know I'm real, it's the only thing I can be certain of.

He steps closer and touches my back. "Obi-Wan, your Master's outside waiting for you."

I shrink away from the hand and clench my eyes shut. "Leave. Me. Alone."

"He's waiting with the healers. They're all waiting to help you, Obi-Wan."

I lift my eyes to his face, where a strip of shadow is slashed across the mahogany skin. So lifelike, but I don't remember him being this cruel. "Help me?" I can barely force the words out. "Help me the way you've helped me?"

Mace's expression is unchanged. He sits beside me on the cot, and I make no move to evade his proximity. If anything, he's a mirage. Insubstantial. A figment that's walked out of my tortured dreams, to haunt me in this version of reality.

"Obi-Wan," He grasps my arm gently, "Why, after all this time, would you reject your Master?"

The fingers are like sizzling venom on my skin. I sit up, immediately dizzy, but focused. "I would never reject him."

"Then why won't you go to meet him?"

I stare at him, incredulous, on the verge of an outraged, overwhelmed sob. "He isn't here! He's gone. You're gone." Fire covers my face, soothed none by the moisture running down my cheeks. I can't breathe. "I know this isn't real so just LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The scream has taken everything from me, gutted out the last bit of strength. I collapse on the bed and my head throbs.

For a few minutes, there is silence.

It isn't beautiful. Or comforting.

It is nothing. And it's what I've wanted all along. Now, if I could just slip away, fall from these last shackles that chain me to consciousness…

Something, someone pulls me up, into strong, unyielding arms.

I keep my eyes closed. "Please leave me alone." I can only give a croaking whisper and hope that finally I will be shown pity.

"I can't do that." A voice replies, rich and baritone, and despite myself, I have to look at the owner.

My Master's face is above me, exactly as it has always been, if a little grayer. His eyes are the same sapphire shade, awash with—tears?

But it is fabricated emotion, from a fabricated vision.

These cannot be his arms that surround me, that cradle me against a warm chest. The tips of his hair cannot be brushed against my cheek. It cannot be his lips that are a breath from my ear, and murmur "I can never leave you again, my Obi-Wan."

And this embrace, this tender reunion, must be a lingering dream that has stalled my waking.

"No." I manage to rasp through my weeping. "I c-can't take anymore."

"I know, young one." This imposter says softly, brutally. How can the imitation be so precise? "And you won't have to. I'll take care of you now." He gathers me closer and rocks me in the darkness.

A tear drops on my neck and it feels so damn real…

"Oh how I've missed you, my Padawan."

I swallow, my lips quivering. "I miss you too."

A kiss is pressed to my temple. "But it's over now. I'm here now, my Obi-Wan. My sweet, brave Obi-Wan."

I gulp down another sob, and discover I'm too weary to fight another apparition, especially one so vivid. I look out at the room's shadows, then whisper, "I'm tired, Master. W-Will you help me…Will you help me sleep?"

"Of course."

And it doesn't matter that I lay in the arms of a phantom. For once, I can rest.

Eleven: From the Dust

Darkness. It is the only companion that has not abandoned me, for any length of time. When my eyelids lift, the black meets me.

But now, there is a voice laced through it.

"It's alright, Padawan. I'm with you."

How many lies must I be fed? I open my eyes and yes, it's dark. But on a side table, a disk floating above a platform glows warm orange. I feel it on my face, and remember it from childhood, a kind of security blanket that warded off nightmares. My mind must be grasping desperately now, for ways to separate me from reality, to bring me another hour of false comfort.

Qui-Gon is sitting beside the bed, and when our eyes lock, he reaches out a hand to rest on my forehead.

"You've been sleeping for two days straight. Bant was so elated to see you, she almost shook you awake." He smiles and ruffles my hair. "But she knew you needed your sleep."

"Bant?" I haven't spoken the name in months, and it cracks my dry throat.

"Here," Master quickly takes water from a pitcher and sits me upright, supporting me with his arm, "Drink this, Obi-Wan."

I don't expect my lips to be moistened by the water, because I don't expect the water to be tangible. Perhaps the glass will be empty, like when children play tea party and pour pretend drinks of air. Or it won't be water at all, but the ashy muck from the prison that goes thick in your mouth.

I wrap my fingers around the glass. It's cold and smooth, the rim is almost soft against my lips.

Cool liquid pours down my throat and I swallow, the thirst growing insatiable, from nowhere, from the dying parts of me thought lost. I gulp without stopping for breath, until the last drop is drained.

Tears stand in my eyes. Why must I be taunted?

Master looks down at me, his face lit in the gentle color of sunset. But it's manufactured, as everything else here is. Because it's night. Always.

He wipes the wet from under my eyes. "It's going to be alright, my Padawan. You're home now."

Nooo. I can't help the current that breaks free from my soul. "No. Please, stop."

Again, he doesn't listen. He cups my cheek. "Obi-Wan, it's me. You're home, on Coruscant, in the healers' ward. Your ship landed two days ago. I brought you in from it, don't you remember?"

"It wasn't real." I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. "This isn't real, and I can't go along with it anymore. It hurts too much."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, and I'm grateful, because it's easier to seek out reality…

"Obi-Wan, you must know that this is real."

I shake my head with more fervor, trying to pull away from him. "Noo-"

"Look at me, Obi-Wan." The words are deep, authoritative.

Something inside me has to obey, when my mind rages against it. His eyes are clear, gleaming emerald stone, remaining steady on me.

"If this weren't real, I wouldn't be feeling the rapture of seeing you again. And if this weren't real, I wouldn't be sitting at your side all these silent hours while you sleep, taking your hand when you look troubled, pulling up your blankets when you kick them down." He swallows and takes a breath, "And if all this wasn't real, I wouldn't be one step away from taking you in my arms and never letting you go…I wouldn't be dead afraid that I might, somehow, lose you still."

No. No no no no no. This can't be true. I know who my Master has become in my life, I know he has dwindled to that eye staring up from the dust of an old life that's been destroyed. This…This…

Suddenly, I lunge forward into his arms, pressing my trembling cold face against his neck. The shock, the surprise, the disbelief—the joy, it rushes at me.

I search for the lingering doubt.

But, gods, it just isn't there.

Only he is.

Twelve: The Nothing That Matters

For a sweet lifetime, I'm cradled in the knowledge that I am safe, that this time, there is no return to the steel bars that striped over my vision, the ash that coated my heart. It's been so long since I have been shown the compassion of another being.

And so it floods my soul.

Master is steady, his hands gripping my back and his soft words at my ear. "Obi-Wan. I'm here. This isn't a dream." Fingers reach up to comb through my hair. "This is real, Padawan."

An echo, resonating in every crevice of my mind, even those small places that still fear betrayal, that remember so well being shaken from realistic reveries. This is real. This IS real. I pull back, only an inch. My lips tremble--in such intimate proximity, I can see the gloss of tears in my Master's eyes. But these are not the tears of a prison, where the shadow is reflected in each drop, another form of darkness. I see them shining.

"I-I know, Master."

Careworn fingers brace my face, quivering. "I won't lose you again, Obi-Wan. I won't let you be h-hurt again. With all my power as a Master, and as a man, I will protect you "

I close my eyes and lean against his cheek. I'm tired to the bones, in the downy state of knowing sleep is to come, easy sleep. My response is almost reflexive, a sigh falling away from me, into the room's darkness. "I know, Master."

For a moment, I think I hear his shuddering breaths, the kind that choke back great sobs. But then I understand that I am weeping as well, the sound frail even against a backdrop of silence.

"Where have you been, my Padawan?" He murmurs. "Because I don't know where I've waited for you." He wipes the warm deluge from my eyes, I watch the sheen in his, "I don't want to know where I am, if you're not with me, my apprentice."

I can't describe how, but I manage to smile. It seems foreign to my face, nearly painful. A shattering of walls.

Master matches my smile with his own. It grips tenuous to him "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what has happened…as long as you're here now. A-As long as I don't have to wake to rooms…deserted by Light, it doesn't matter. You're home now, Obi-Wan." He trails his fingers down my braid, disheveled from months of neglect. "What else can matter?"

"Nothing." I answer before the question can sink in, before I register the words. I embrace him as tightly as my overtaxed muscles will allow, and breathe in Home. "Nothing."

A simple, two syllable mantra, repeated in my thoughts as they blur and mesh together, melting away toward sleep.

But how can I go now? Now that the ghosts have been pushed back, and life has surged back to me, to my Master?

The Force wraps around me, laced in the aura of Qui-Gon. The first message to me, in our silent communion:

There is time. What can't wait, while you rest?

He doesn't understand that when eyes fall, terrible evils can leap from the air itself. What if I wake, and someone has run their foot over this image, and all I have left is a fragment? My heart cannot withstand that again.

I've waited an eternity, Master.

And now, it is his turn for the automatic response. "I know, Padawan."

So my eyes remain open, seared into awareness by devastating memory.

But it seems nothing can dispel the exhaustion. And the familiar voice in my head is urging me into slumber with gentle, ethereal fingers.

Let go, Obi-Wan.

Never before, in the brighter days before Ejhlon, had I ever thought I would so relish the simple action of obeying my Master's order.

With a tired, inward smile, I do just that.

Thirteen: Walls

I'm floating. The waves brace my back gently, cool and fluid, carrying me at a languorous pace.

Where am I going?

Hm. It is of little relevance, released from my thoughts as a sigh. How can I be worried? The water is soft and I feel an inherent sense of security, a blossom of warmth at the core of me, a sweet, lazy heaviness.

Maybe I'll go to sleep, turn my cheek so the bed of moisture rolls along my skin. Hmmm…I've slumbered between some of the finest sheets in the galaxy, but none compare to the natural velvet that caresses my body now.

I realize my eyes have been closed, so I wait for them to drift open. Perhaps my Master will be beside me, arms tucked behind his head, coursing down the river. Will he know where I am? Or will he be settled as comfortably as me, in the twilight place of not-knowing?

Finally, the darkness beneath my eyelids gives way to the atmosphere.

But there is little difference. I'm still bathed in black, though I catch faint gray lines struggling to assemble some kind of form…something small that surrounds me…encloses me…like a cube…

I blink, and for the first time, think that I might want to shift in my cradle, to study this square that has stopped the idle flow. Barely a full thought is materialized in my head, wordless, composed of plain, distant emotion:'?'

I want to move, find my Master through the shadowed layers, because he will know the answers, and then I can let my eyes shut to dreamy limbo again. I maneuver to my shoulder, but just as I do so, the tender current begins to sink…drain…

I choke on a gasp, helpless while the waters flee, dropping closer and closer to….

Ice. Hard, unbearably frigid ice. No--it's cement. Cement that feels frozen beneath my trembling form.

Cement that I KNOW from somewhere…from some time…The last drops are sucked out, but my face is drizzled in hot moisture, as I lay flat on the slab. I try to stretch out my legs, but my toes graze the uneven surface of the walls, my arms can't be extended very far before the same happens to the pads of my fingers. Did I say it was as box? Yes, it is. Oh dear gods…yes…

I scramble to my feet, breath burning the very bone of my lungs. But there is nowhere to look, nowhere that isn't sloshed in darkness, and I feel my cold platform set to spinning…until the bile is filming my throat…fine motes of grime and dirt…stale things that hung suspended in filthy little clouds in the prison air…the prison air swallowed into my body…because I have to swallow…I have to breathe….and now it sullies my veins…oh gods…I can feel it…

It's all around me, blunt walls of the square…th-the cell…and now it's IN me…shooting through my system, aiming for my heart…taking everything away…taking every smile from my memory and every hope from my soul…I feel sizzling pain at my wrists, and feel desperately for them…my fingers are pulled away, soaked and dripping with thick blood…

'No. No.' I shake my head, backing up, sinking to my knees and bowing my head under the tight shelter of my arms. I can't do it again. I can't stay here…not for another second…nonononononononoNONONONONO!

Oh and I'm writhing in the dense black, twisting in on myself…kicking and pulling at my hair…screaming for it to go from me, to leave me alone…after all this time…for it to just LEAVE ME ALONE…

Something warm clamps onto me, almost squeezing the crux of my arms. But I don't know what it is, what it wants from me, if it's another minion of the Dark, come to wrench me back in, and I fight with the final shreds…I scream with the last defense, the sheer volume of my ragged voice.

"Obi-Wan!"

And it knows my name, now that it has crawled inside me and mingled with my blood, mangled my life. "NO!" I howl, turning my face away, pulling away.

"Padawan, it's ALRIGHT!" The phantom hands are still rigid at my arms.

But it's a lie, concocted and brewed in the claustrophobia, by the Dark itself. I hate it. "NOOO!"

I feel myself being lifted, and the string binding me to any vestige of rationality is severed, releasing the paroxysms of ultimate, desperate panic. "No! No!" My limbs rebel against the force, flailing and convulsing. "I HATE YOU!!!"

But it doesn't care…hells, it just doesn't care that I hate it…nothing I've done…nothing that I can do, will stop it. And it's then that the tears flood me in horrible, painful sobs.

"Open your eyes." The voice urges, "Open your eyes, Padawan. It's alright." The words rob me of the energy to go on; I collapse against the support of what must be another wall, though it's warmer than the others. I slump boneless against it, hands covering my face, and weep.

Something, a touch, teases my temple, as a remnant of the Light, a memory, starts to stir. "It's alright, Obi-Wan. Don't cry. Please don't. Nothing can hurt you here. I'm right here, Padawan."

I shudder and shake my head. "N-No…"

I'm gathered closer against the wall, and oh Force the ceiling is caving, pressing against my head. I can't move anymore. "Mmph…no…"

"Shh. Be still, Little One. Everything will be okay." The next assurance is against my ear, "I'm right here with you."

You're safe.

And those two words are heard differently, echoing in my mind, almost comforting…

Fingers stroke my back and I resist the urge to worm away from them, waiting, waiting a moment, only a moment on the ghost of a chance that it is not the Dark that rakes its touch along my skin…

That's it. The fingers run through my hair. You're safe, Padawan. Here with me. Here with me, who will always protect you. Always.

The fear begins to uncoil guardedly, wary of another ruse hiding behind the sentiment. My own fingers are digging into fabric, I think, my face is pressed against a warm curve.

"Open your eyes, Obi-Wan." The whisper encourages me, and this time, I risk following its entreaty.

My vision is a smear of color and I blink furiously, until I make out shapes, until shapes solidify into forms.

I'm panting, sweat and tears rolling hot over cold skin. Where am I? I still don't know, but there's light here, and for now, that's enough. I look at my hand, fisted around someone else's sleeve. I look up.

My lips are quivering. "M-Master?"

He is a blaze of blue, vivid eyes, after the darkness. "Yes, Obi-Wan." He rubs my back and I can hear the hoarseness in his voice, "It was a dream."

A dream? I stare up at him, though my eyes have wandered over my memory, searching for truth.

Yesss…A dream. It had to be. Because I can remember waking in the ship, then again, in the Healer's. I strain a little, and can picture the moments before sleep claimed me again, talking to my Master, safe in the circle of his care. A dream. Yes, and now it is done, and I'm here, I'm home again.

My head drops to something less a wall and more a chest, and I sigh. "It was Ejhlon." I whisper in a raw, spent tone, "In that cell. The one…The one they found me in."

"Shhh." For a second, his hands stop, and his arms weave tighter around me. I think--I think I can almost feel his heart beating fast, but it might be my own, still caught in the fever of nightmare. "Don't say anymore."

I chafe momentarily against the soft request, because I can feel the horror within me, needing to be purged like a rotting poison.

But then…it just falls away from my concerns, as more words drift around me, soothing me.

I listen to them, I lay in the half-embrace, the knots massaged out of my muscles.

I don't sleep.