Part 10
Obi-Wan Kenobi leaned against the counter of the now very familiar juice bar. True, this was a good place to take a break, and the people watching was hard to beat, but...did they have to come here so often? He glanced to his left at his master. Here was half the reason they came here so often. The other half was the owner of the place, whom they were watching serve a cluster of Ithorians herself. She set a huge bowl of green goo in the middle of their table with a flourish. They made grunts of approval. She lowered her forehead and rubbed it against the flat space between the eyes of presumably the highest-ranking member at the table. She spoke to them warmly with the aid of a small translator clipped to the collar of her blouse. After making sure all was well she returned to the area behind the bar.
"I'll have the money tomorrow, Lia. I'll pay you back." Ravi was perched on a stool at the far end of the bar.
"You're damned right you will," she said pleasantly, unclipping the translator and tossing it on the counter. "This is absolutely the last time I'm bailing you out of jail for your mouthing off, Ravi. My funds and friendship with the police only stretch so far. Do it again and you can get yourself out, or rot in a holding cell."
Ravi actually looked apologetic. He knew she was as good as her word. "I'm sorry, Lia," he said glumly. "My father will cover it. No problem."
Valia fixed him with a stare, her dark storm-cloud colored eyes steady. Ravi's father was a stupendously wealthy real-estate developer on Coruscant who didn't pay much attention to his son's affairs, and never really had since his birth. Not his protests over various civil injustices, his opinions or his passionate creativity. But he was ever ready to fork over the necessary funds to get him out of trouble. And keep him from being more personally responsible.
"No, Ravi. You see, there is a problem, because I don't want to see a single credit from your father. This time you're going to pay me out of your own pocket. And I don't care how long it takes." She was refilling his glass with whatever he'd been drinking. "I'll only charge you two percent interest."
Ravi was not too sure he liked this new, much slower payment plan. He slumped on his stool and rolled his eyes at her. "You love me so tough, mama," he murmured with a feeble attempt at humor. It was an old joke between them. Ravi's father had been a help to Lia when she had first arrived on Coruscant. Had she been open to the idea, it would have been very little effort for her to persuade him to marry her. She might have been Ravi's stepmother. And one very wealthy juice-slinger. Probably miserable with a workaholic man such as Ravi's father, but free of financial worries.
"Someone's got to look out for your crazy butt," she said pulling a container of sliced fruit out of a refrigerator. "And it isn't just about the money."
"If only I hadn't gotten tangled up in that grappling line. That was stupid."
Valia slapped her forehead. "Of course. That was the only stupid thing about the whole night."
"But Lia! Sector Governor Uniog doesn't give a shit about homeless rights, no matter what he promises. He's an apathetic, lying, Dug-faced, lard-assed son of a--"
"Well now, do you really think screaming it at the man through his kitchen skylight is going to help any?"
Obi-Wan stifled a disbelieving smirk. Qui-Gon sat impassively next to him wearing a frown of consternation. He foresaw an early death for the young man unless he learned to control his volatile nature and pick his battles.
"Excuse me, but does no one care about anything in the City any more? This is the kind of thing you have to do to get anyone to notice. No one understands." He sounded exactly like a petulant child.
"Oh stop it already, you're breaking my heart. You know none of that's true." Valia put her hands on his forearms and rubbed them. "Here, have some of this." She picked up a piece of fruit and held it to his mouth. "I wish you wouldn't hang around with that group. There have got to be better ways..." Their conversation dropped to a low murmur. She tried to dispense tough love at the same time she was hand-feeding him.
Paccaia and Bracca arrived and begged to be given the same personal service as Ravi. She laughingly fed all of them, hoping a sanitation inspector wouldn't happen along. She sighed as she looked at the half empty container of fruit. "You guys may as well eat the rest of this. It's going to outdate in an hour anyway."
"Thanks, Lia!"
"You're a real pal."
"And don't any of you forget it, either," she muttered, as she disappeared into the back of the store. She returned with her blaster, intending to do its monthly maintenance, having nothing else to do at the moment. When Ravi saw it, he gasped theatrically and held out his hands. He launched himself into tearful pleas and nearly hysterical begging for more time, for mercy. He knocked over his stool and crawled on his hands and knees on the stone pavers. Customers anxiously turned their heads and stared. Valia merely skewered him with a bored expression. She put a hand on her hip and waited for him to stop.
"All right, all right, already. Knock it off," she laughed. "Why do I put up with boys?" She shook her head. She laid the blaster on the front counter. "What's your poison today, Qui-Gon?" she asked, turning her attention to the welcome and mature calm of the Jedi at this end of the bar.
"I'm in the middle of Number 232," he answered.
Obi-Wan always got the impression that everything they said was a reference to some previous conversation.
"Obi-Wan, how about you? You want another bowl of that Ord Mantell melon?"
Brightening, he lifted his chin from where it rested in his cupped hand. "Sure." Since they were probably going to be here a while yet, he may as well eat. Lia always gave him extra big servings. And he seemed to always be hungry. She replaced his empty bowl with a heaping one.
Valia opened a small tool kit. She sat down on a stool on her side of the counter and proceeded to take apart the blaster. She worked for a few minutes while Qui-Gon closely watched her. She felt his blue gaze on her until she was nearly itchy. But it was not at all an unpleasant sensation. When she realized she'd been cleaning the same part for an entire minute, she slanted him a look without raising her head. She slid her eyes back to the blaster in her lap and smiled.
Here we go again, thought Obi-Wan.
"You're staring, Master Jinn," she said very pointedly and very softly.
"Was I? How rude of me. Forgive me. Perhaps you'd like to stare back," he invited, and smiled too. Though it still unnerved her to communicate so intimately, she took him up on his offer.
You're especially beautiful today.
Ha! This sounds like something I've heard way too many times. But thank you.
You are. In every way. Don't you believe it?
I believe I don't want to get a swelled -up ego.
That's not likely to happen.
It might if you keep giving me all these flattering compliments.
You 're quite worthy of them.
I'm not...I don't have...I don't look like...
Silly little one. Wishing your hair was a different color.
Oh, get out of town!
So anxious for me to be gone?
No. Not really. Not at all. Never.
Obi Wan watched them making eyes at each other, privately conversing. He wanted to leave, but he checked the urge and willed himself to mind his own business and be patient.
"I was wondering, when was the last time you fired that?" Qui-Gon inquired audibly about her blaster.
Valia shook the trance-like sensation out of her head. She seemed to think about what he'd asked her, then laughed. She apparently found something richly humorous about his question.
There was no way she was going to tell him she'd used it one night last month at an indoor shooting range. After quite a number of alcoholic drinks. Using slingshot-fired rotted teo fruits as the targets. She'd been gratified to see she could still hit a moving target, and found a fun use for wasted inventory. Her friends had told her she'd been quite entertaining. She answered him when she stopped her embarrassed laughter.
"Just last month. I know how to use it if I need to, if that's why you're asking. But I really don't care for handling firearms much. That's just one more way I don't fit in with most of my family. Besides fruit-growing, there is a Traxis passion for anything that can be aimed and fired." She squinted at a power cell, checking for corrosion. "The immediate family can boast of a few sharpshooters. A couple of snipers. And a few gun-smugglers and illegal arms dealers. But you didn't hear that from me." She affected a look of innocence as she rolled her eyes toward Qui-Gon. She snapped everything back together, and rose to make an entry into a data terminal to check off the maintenance.
"It looks like there's something caught in the barrel." Qui-Gon gestured toward the blaster lying on the counter.
Valia turned that storm-cloud look on him. "What?"
"Take a look."
She reached over and snatched it up. She closely examined it. "I don't see anything."
"Here. Let me have a look."
She brought it to him, wondering what he was talking about.
'Well, now. Here's the problem." He placed his fingers over the end of the muzzle of the blaster and withdrew a large, dark blue flower. He turned his hand so it rested open on his fingers. He held it out, offering it to her.
She just stared at it. Obi-Wan stared at it too, and then rolled his eyes. The rational part of Valia knew it was just a trickster's simple sleight of hand. She wondered where he had filched it from because it was nothing she had growing in any of the containers in front of the store. The non-rational part of her short-circuited, popped sparks, and melted. She tentatively reached out to take the fresh, nearly perfect bloom. A soft breath escaped her parted lips as their fingers grazed. She admired it for a few seconds, then flashed him a rakish grin and tucked it behind one ear. Her eyes had gone dark and smoky.
He was openly flirting with her, and she was encouraging him by enjoying every second of it. Obi-Wan looked on in disbelief, feeling like a reluctant voyeur. He'd never seen his master's head turned by a woman before. Now this. Why her? Why now? Why was he doing this? Obi-Wan liked Valia. That is, he really wanted to like her. She was kind and sweet and funny. And not too hard on the eyes, either. He supposed if Qui-Gon was going to fall for a woman, at least his taste was commendable. They really knew how to grow them right on Nyme' or wherever she was originally from. But what was her motive behind this?
At the end of every day, it was Qui-Gon's habit to ask his student one or more questions about something they had seen during the day. It could be about a person, conversation, or event. It was designed to keep him mindful and thinking about his immediate reality. Qui-Gon never asked him about anything to do with Lia. He knew this was his private business, but Obi-Wan would have had some ready answers on the subject for his master, if asked.
Everything he knew about his mentor or had heard from others told him that this entire episode from the day they had met her was just another form of vintage Qui-Gon Jinn behavior. He did as he saw fit, with his own agenda. An agenda he wasn't presently sharing with Obi-Wan. But a blind man could have seen what that was! Thoughts of sex crossed Obi-Wan's mind often enough. He knew it was natural and normal. But they remained passing thoughts, and had no influence on his behavior. He was determined to be a properly devoted Jedi. He firmly steered his mind away from the inevitable mental images of his master and Valia... going to bed? He inwardly closed his eyes against what he knew all too well what the outcome of this would probably be. Then what?
Qui-Gon had confided to him not long ago that he wasn't entirely at ease with the slow, small betrayals the crude matter of his body was beginning to show. Not that Obi-Wan could see. His master was strong of body and would only grow more powerful in mind, spirit, and oneness with the Force, but... Could that be what this whole thing was all about? Nothing more than a denial, a rebellion against age? Or was his master going soft in the head? What was the term he was looking for? Mid-life crisis.
He glanced at Qui-Gon. The Jedi Master very slowly stirred the sediment in the bottom of his juice glass with a long spoon, and took a slow drink. His eyes followed her as she went about her business behind the counter. Nothing short of a good thump on the head with Master Yoda's cane would have diverted his attention from her. He never gave any indication that his mind was on her when they were not here. But when they were here...his focus was nowhere else.
There was a whispered conversation going on at the other end of the bar. Obi-Wan caught the word 'midichlorians' but little else. Chuluk, Paccaia, Bracca and Ravi were clustered together. Lia gestured toward Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with her head. "You can ask them. They'll answer you."
More low discussion.
"Well then, go ahead and keep arguing. But I don't think it's this big taboo subject," Valia said turning away from them.
Qui-Gon turned his attention to the young men at the far end of the counter and waited patiently for whatever question that was burning among them.
"Sir," Paccaia began. "We were just wondering. Do people who aren't Jedi knights have midichlorians in their bodies, too?" He nearly squirmed with potential hero-worship.
"Yes. Just not anywhere near as many. Everyone has at least a few."
Bracca mouthed 'see I told you so', and elbowed Paccaia.
"You both owe me fifty credits." A satisfied Ravi leaned back on his stool.
"I'll take the first installment on your debt now, Ravi." Valia was busy at a data terminal so she didn't see the sneer he gave in answer to her remark.
"Is it really true that they...tell you things? Speak to you?" Bracca asked.
Qui-Gon folded his hands and leaned forward. "To put it very simply, yes. They help speed our reflexes, telling us what will happen before it does. They connect us and all living things with the Force."
"They've been arguing among themselves for a week about that," Valia said, now frowning over a sticky lid on a container of extract. "I told them to just go to the authority and ask. They thought it was forbidden to ask about it or something."
"No question asked out of a search for knowledge should be forbidden."
Valia looked up from her cleaning. "So, do you have entire conversations between yourselves and your midichlorians?" There was a teasing sparkle in her eyes.
"It's not like that at all," said Obi-Wan.
"No, it's not. It's more of a one-way discourse. We don't tell them anything. We listen."
"And are they telling you anything right now?" Valia sensed she was pushing another flirt button, but she was curious to see what kind of answer he would give her.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes and appeared to be deeply concentrated on something within himself. Then he opened them and gave her that soft look he gave no one else.
"They're not speaking at all."
"No?"
"No. They're singing."
Valia raised one eyebrow and leaned a hip against a preservation unit. "Singing?"
"Yes. They always do when I'm anywhere near you."
The hinges in Valia's jaws went loose. His face was completely straight as she searched it for some clue that this was just more dry humor. She clapped her mouth shut and glanced at Obi-Wan. The look on his face perfectly mirrored the one on her own. This was possibly the biggest piece of drivel either one of them had ever heard. In the last ten years, Valia had endured probably every come-on line made up by the male of several species; every tired fruit and juice-based sexual innuendo a clever customer could think up. But no one had ever told her his midichlorians sang for her. Qui-Gon studied the three-way battle as it played out on her face.
Well, come on, Traxis. Think of some smart-ass comeback for this one, her mind urged. This is pure sap.
I can't. I don't want to, her heart dribbled. I think he means it.
How high would I have to jump to be able to clear this counter to get to his side of it, her body wondered.
She started to speak once, then thought the better of it and stopped. It was really getting warm in here.
"Before you run to the walk-in cooler, can I please have a refill?" Qui-Gon slid his empty glass toward her. Obi-Wan began a mental mathematical exercise designed for patiently filling long waits.
Valia narrowed one eye and tightened her mouth at him in response to his smug prediction. She turned to a refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of 232. She poured for him and set it down on the counter with a thump.
"My, you are in rare form today, Master Jinn." She wasn't about to run now. "What an interesting curriculum you have designed for Obi-Wan. Does your padawan need lessons in flirting?" She smiled at Obi-Wan. He gave her a look in return that clearly said don't even drag me into this.
"Flirting? Is that what I was doing?" Qui-Gon asked innocently. "I really know nothing about the subject."
You know entirely too much, thought Obi-Wan.
"Qui-Gon, you've just set perfect examples of flirting."
Yes, thought Obi-Wan, perfect examples of things I shouldn't be doing.
Qui-Gon merely inclined his head and smiled at her.
"Hey Lia, you have time to show me how to calibrate the thermometers in the walk-in today?" Chuluk stuck his head out of the walk-in's door.
"Sure, Lukki, right now." Valia grabbed a light thermal vest from a peg near the walk-in.
She threw Qui-Gon and his singing midichlorians a last look over her shoulder as she disappeared into it.