George owns it all. Still two writers...

Undomiel

Alright. Extra meditation. That wasn't so bad. At least I hadn't been kicked out of the Academy ...

"You're still here, are you?" I hear Aeryn's mocking voice call from behind me; I roll my eyes and continue down the corridor to my room, doing my best to ignore the girl. "I'm surprised," She continues, quickening her pace to match mine. "Usually they get rid of Padawans like you early on."

I take a deep breath and bite my lip, thinking before I open my mouth to respond. "Well ... they didn't this time." I say flatly, hoping to simply bore Aeryn into leaving. She snickers and shakes her head, running around to stand in front of me.

"You know ... no one ever said the Masters were perfect." she giggles, leaning up against the wall and tossing her hair back out of her face.

Oooh, if I could just get one swift punch in ... I think to myself, my eyes narrowing at the sight of Aeryn's wicked smile. "No ... they didn't." I respond instead, moving to pass around her. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some things to do." I add as I duck beneath her arm; she takes my shoulder and stops me mid move, her eyes flashing.

"Watch your back, Undomiel." she hisses. "You didn't get kicked out this time ... but just wait." With that, she shoves me to the floor and stalks off, looking like a triumphant snake.

"I'm shaking with nerves ..." I mutter, picking myself up. Sighing, I dust off the tunic and try to decide what my next destination should be. After short debate, I begin to make my way to the infirmary to find Gabe; I only hope that he's more coherent than he was when I left him.

Cienanos

The walk back to the ship went relatively well. Master Siron and Master Qui-gon each took one of my arms to support me as I hobbled along. Kenobi followed lugging my bag.

I spent most of the time thinking about the artifact and did not say anything. I was so lost in thought that I didn't see the mischievous glance that the two masters exchanged. It took me about an hour to catch on.

"Okay, that's enough," I said. "I'm not THAT heavy."

Siron looked at me with complete innocence. "Whatever do you mean Nano?"

"The grunting that you two have been doing. I am not that heavy."

Qui-gon looked questioningly at Siron. "Were we grunting? I hadn't noticed."

I glanced over my shoulder to see Kenobi shaking with silent laughter. Oh that's just nice!

"Kenobi!" I growled. "Keep it up..."

He simply smiled and said, "I'm not too worried. I know where you have been this whole time so I don't have to worry about my room being flooded."

I sighed. How true. It would be nice to get back to the peace of the temple, to get back to my nice warm bed. I contented myself with that thought the rest of the walk back.

If the walk back to the ship was uneventful, the trip back home was downright boring. Master Qui-gon and Kenobi piloted the ship while my master continued treating my leg. He told me that like we had suspected, he and Qui-gon had sensed my fall but were caught in the middle of one the planet's frequent afternoon storms. They were not able to start back to find us and had been forced to seek shelter. They decided to start back the next morning a few hours before dawn. He said nothing about sensing my emotions during my dream and I said nothing about it. Instead we simply talked about the training mission.

"Well," I said. "At least it was interesting."

He nodded. "Too bad we didn't accomplish what we set out to do."

I looked at him with surprise, "But we did! We may not have done it in the most straight forward manner but we did it all the same."

He raised an eyebrow, the familiar twinkle returning to his eyes. "And how did you do that?"

"Well, Kenobi and I may not have cooperated and found you but we still worked together. Sort of..."

A smile spread across his face, "Exactly my padawan. Exactly. You and he both looked out for each other."

"Well, he looked out for me more than I looked out for him."

"But you may have to look out for him someday...and now you can. There may just be hope for you yet, Nano."

Undomiel

I peeked my head around the corner of the infirmary, my forehead wrinkling as I saw Gabe lying on the bed, his head wrapped in bandages.

"Hey you ..." I whispered; with a grimace, he turned to face me, his eyes lighting somewhat when he realized his visitor wasn't yet another one of the Masters come to check on him.

"Hi," he croaked, propping himself up on an elbow. I walked in and sat at the foot of the bed, smiling weakly.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, looking at the wrappings.

He shrugged and chuckled. "Only like I've been crushed by a herd of stampeding wamprats ... so I'm ok."

I shook my head and laughed, glad that he at least had a sense of humor about the situation. "And what about you?" he asked.

"Eh ... it's ok. I haven't been kicked out, so that's always a good sign, right?" I offered, relaxing back against the rail with a sigh.

"Who's getting kicked out? What's going on?" Kenobi's voice broke into the conversation. I looked to the doorway to see the Padawan, his arm slung underneath Nano's, helping her as she limped into the infirmary.

My eyes went wide and I shot up from the bed, nearly falling as I did so. "Nano! Are you alright?" I asked, rushing over, looking scathingly at Obi-Wan as I did so.

"I'm fine ..." she said, climbing up into the bed next to Gabe. "Now what's going on with you?"

Cienanos

I sat on the bed listening to Domie tell her story. Domie was well known throughout the Temple for her running ability and her speed. The truly astonishing thing though was the fact that her mouth can go about as fast as her legs. I finally had to break into the story.

"Hold on, Domie…let me get this straight. She attacked Gabe, so you went after her. And the masters assigned you extra meditation?"

"Right," she replied.

I looked at Kenobi, who just shrugged.

"Domie," I said. "Why are you worried about this? Okay, sure. What she did to Gabe was pretty bad, but you have to realize, she isn't a Jedi yet. She can still be forced out of the program."

"But, I had to do extra meditation…the masters think…"

"Domie, Nobody knows what they are thinking most of the time. You can't worry about it. You are still here. Besides, I can't count the number of times that I've been given extra meditation. We've all been in trouble at one time or another. It's how you learn from the experience that matters."

Domie glanced at Kenobi. "Not all of us have been in trouble."

Kenobi and I exchanged confused glances before we realized what she was saying. We both burst out laughing at the same time.

"Domie…I've been in trouble," he said with a smile. "I actually LEFT the order for a little bit. I didn't think they were going to take me back. But they did. Don't worry. You don't have to pack your bags yet."

Domie and Gabe stared at him in disbelief. I looked at him, "I thought everyone knew that story! Well, you learn something new everyday. OW!" I winced as my attention was once again brought back to my injury by the medical tech droid working on it.

I watched the droid work for a moment before I continued, "Domie…Gabe…we all have weaknesses…"

"Nano's is gravity," Kenobi interrupted.

"BUT," I continued shooting Kenobi a deadly look, "but we all work to overcome them."

When the droid finished, I stood up and tested my weight on the injury. Not bad…I could at least walk.

"Now if you will excuse me. I think I'm going to get cleaned up and get some rest."

"I think I'll do the same, Nano. I'll walk with you." Kenobi said.

Domie and Gabe both smiled as we left. Kenobi and I walked from the infirmary towards the dormitory. We made small talk as we did so basically talking about how much we were looking forward to a decent meal and a good night's rest. As we reached Kenobi's quarters, I thanked him for his help and told him I would see him at dinner. Then I strode off towards my quarters.

I was feeling pretty good as I reached my door. My leg was feeling stronger and stronger. Then…I opened my door. I'm not exactly sure how much water washed over me. Some of the Padawan's estimated that it must have been a wave about 5 feet high…others say 6. All I know is…I got knocked off of my feet by an extremely LARGE wave of water. I fought my way into my quarters to check the environmental controls and THEN I realized what had happened. KENOBI! How stupid I had been. He had been so nice to me all the while he was stabbing me in the back. Soaked to the bone I headed back down the hall…only to encounter a strange creature about half way to Kenobi's quarters. It took me a while to realize that it was actually Kenobi…covered in…I actually had no clue what it was, but it didn't look pleasant. He looked at me. I looked at him. Then we both realized what had happened.

"DOMIE!"