Author's Note: Argh! Why won't dashes work in summaries anymore? So frustrating. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing this story! You'll be getting posts every few days for a while, and I will attempt to keep that up. Love ya!
Chapter 4: Following the Thread
The dark spots smudging the cord in Qui-Gon's mind were bigger, deeper, threatening to choke the brilliant flow of light. He kissed Julune good-bye with a brief, tangled explanation, and was out the door, grabbing his dark green cloak as he went. They had a speeder here, though they usually walked, or took public transports—Qui-Gon backed it out of the small garage attached to the temporary housing facility and roared off before he even thought of which way to go.
The Southern Zone was a couple of hours away from Bandor by speeder. Qui-Gon wasn't quite halfway there when he realized that he was heading in the wrong direction. Surprised, he slowed the speeder to a stop and idled it for a moment, staring sightlessly at the ravaged landscape as he pondered.
No doubt the Agri-Corps workers were searching within and in the immediate area of the zone, assuming that the boy had run away afoot. But Qui-Gon's instincts told a different story. Obi-Wan was quite far away from the zone by now. And he wasn't necessarily running.
Qui-Gon looked inward, almost in meditation but not quite. How had Obi-Wan described it? Ah, yes. He had followed the feeling back, and found Qui-Gon. There was no reason the man couldn't do the same. The cord—the connection—pulsed, faltered, and surged again. Confusion, fear . . . loneliness. Pain. Trapped, unable to escape. Helplessness. Terror.
North. North and west. Qui-Gon swung the speeder about and gunned the engine again, dust and small, chipped rocks flying up in his wake. The bloated red sun began to set, staining the tainted sky in blurs and streaks of sickly light. Qui-Gon tried not to breathe too deeply of the ash-flecked air, though his lungs strained to pant, to hyperventilate. He felt dizzy with urgency.
It took too long. It took far too long. What was the use of even having a speeder if it couldn't go faster than this? Qui-Gon was tempted to jump out and run.
A sudden easing, a sense of release, and Qui-Gon exhaled slowly, the relief not his own. The tense urgency relaxed slightly, though his foot still crushed the accelerator to the floor. The feeling of being trapped and helpless was gone. But the pain was increasing, taking on a physical overtone. The boy was suffering, confused and alone.
The thread became slippery in Qui-Gon's mental grip, fuzzing in and out. He tightened his fingers, and it slid away completely, drawing a growl of frustration from his lips. What had happened? He didn't know, didn't know how to get it back.
He reached the general area the thread had been leading him to and stopped the speeder, leaping out to continue the search on foot. The cord remained difficult to grasp, and he thought it might be thinning. Qui-Gon quit trying to grab it, afraid of causing more harm. He would continue this by other means.
"Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan Kenobi! Where are you? Don't be afraid, young one—I'm here to help you. Obi-Wan?"
Qui-Gon tramped over broken boulders and parched, uneven ground, dust rising at each footfall, sometimes drawing a cough. The dry, cracked earth seeped residual heat from the now-sinking sun as if this were a desert, though Bandomeer was generally quite temperate, if a bit given to violent storms. All in all, it was a miserable place to get lost in.
"Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan Kenobi!"
By all the twinkling stars, why hadn't he thought to grab the heavy-duty luma from the speeder? Qui-Gon fumbled on his belt, searching for the little multi-tool Julune had given him for his last nameday. Can opener, fuser, gripper . . . he flipped through the different heads and found the pin-light. It was better than nothing.
"Obi-Wan? It's Qui-Gon Jinn! Please try to answer me, little one! Obi-Wan!"
Qui-Gon paused, listening, his heart in his throat. What if the boy couldn't answer? What if he were seriously hurt? No, he couldn't focus on "if." Live in the moment. Find the boy now. The scent of this acrid wasteland stung his nostrils, mocking him with his futility.
"Obi-Wan!"
Was that a moan, or just the breeze murmuring in the pitted earth? Qui-Gon turned toward the sound, probing with the pin-light, reaching out with senses that cringed away from the devastation here. There it came again . . . definitely sounded very much like a human moan, pained and low.
A mound of dirt, tailings from some failed mine, obstructed Qui-Gon's path. He rushed around it, his senses focused on what lay on the other side. His pin-light bobbed from side to side, sporadically lighting the way before him. There, at last—he barely stopped in time to prevent stepping on a small, limp hand, flung out from the prone body as if reaching hopelessly for something lost.
Qui-Gon fell to his knees by the boy's side, his breath leaving him in a muffled whoosh. "Oh, my poor little one. What happened to you?"
In the small but intense beam of light Qui-Gon could see little, but what he was saw was very clear. Fresh bruises marred Obi-Wan's face, smeared with dust and slack in unconsciousness. Qui-Gon reached out to touch an unharmed portion of that smooth young cheek, and felt yet another spike of worry when he found it flushed and dry and burning with fever.
Obi-Wan flinched from the contact, weakly turning his head away, another moan bubbling up. Qui-Gon gently urged him to turn back, trying to study the still face as the thin eyelids fluttered erratically. The boy was seriously ill, and it shocked him to see such a rapid deterioration since their brief meeting earlier in the day.
The youngster's eyes fluttered open, murky and hazed, fever-bright in the twilight, and Qui-Gon angled the pin-light away to avoid hurting him further. Words stumbled from lips numb and trembling, a shaky hand wandering wearily in the air as if in search of something. "It's—it's wrong. It's all wrong. Isn't it? It's all wrong. It is. It's all wrong."
Qui-Gon grabbed the wandering hand, cradled it gently to his chest. "It's going to be all right now, Obi-Wan. You're going to be all right."
Obi-Wan closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. He shook his head in tired negation, not defiantly, just very certain. "No. No. It's wrong. It's been wrong for a long time. It's getting worse."
"Fever dreams, little one. It's the fever talking." Qui-Gon squeezed his hand. "What happened to you? How did you get out here?"
Obi-Wan's forehead wrinkled, and the confusion returned. His voice was suddenly very young and uncertain, lacking the conviction that had strengthened it before. "Can't . . . can't remember. A ship? A man. Don't know." He turned apologetic eyes to Qui-Gon. "Hurts. Sorry. Can't remember. Sorry."
"Don't apologize. It's not your fault. Maybe you'll remember when you're better."
Obi-Wan sighed and closed his eyes, falling limp as the tension drained away.
"Obi-Wan? Do you think you can walk? We need to get you to medical care."
The boy's eyes flew open, and he weakly tried to grip back on Qui-Gon's hand, distress tightening his body again. "Don't take me back there. Please. Wrong. Not the right place."
Qui-Gon blinked, and realized that he hadn't been thinking of taking the boy back to the Enrichment Zone at all. Bandor was closer, anyway, and the only thought in his mind was to get the sick child home to Julune. "I hadn't planned on it. I want to take you home, as a matter of fact. Is that all right?"
Slowly the pale eyelids slid downward once more. "Yes," the boy murmured. "Better. Not quite right, but better. Thank you, Qui-Gon."
"You're welcome, little one." With that settled, the youngster fell back into sleep, or perhaps unconsciousness. Qui-Gon shook his head slightly. "How easily you trust me," he whispered to the lost-and-found boy. "It's a precious gift. I won't treat it lightly."
With Obi-Wan found and his anxiety eased, Qui-Gon's connection to the Force came more easily, though it was strangled and unhappy in this barren place. He clipped the multi-tool back on his belt and gently gathered the boy into his arms, the heat of the slight frame instantly soaking through his tunic. Obi-Wan huddled against him, shaking with chills, whimpering softly as the fever tightened its grip on his weakened body.
"Stars above, child, when was the last time you ate?" Qui-Gon muttered, feeling the boniness of the wrist against his palm, the hip bone jutting into his abdomen. "Or slept, for that matter? Did no one care for you at all?"
As once before today, the Force guided his footsteps, preventing any stumbles as he made his way swiftly back to the speeder. It was hard to abandon the boy to lay alone on the back bench—he wanted to keep him close, keep an eye on him during the journey back—but Qui-Gon forced himself to do so. He wrapped the shivering form in his thick green cloak to ward against the chill of the oncoming night, and pulled the restraints around him as carefully as possible. Obi-Wan tossed his head, muttering, but stilled when Qui-Gon laid a hand on his forehead, whispering soothing phrases.
"Shh, little one. It's all right. You're safe. We'll be home soon."
The trip back seemed just as urgent as the trip out. And, again, it took much too long. Qui-Gon fought to keep his gaze from slipping back to check on the boy every other second—he still needed to keep some of his attention on the ground ahead, patchily lit by the fore-illuminators on the speeder. The boy seemed to lay utterly still, and that worried the man even more than the restless shifting and muttering had. The bright cord in his mind was silent, dimmed, the gray blotches threatening to take over the brilliant light. Was it just the physical illness affecting the boy's connection to the Force, or was something deeper amiss?
"Hold on, Obi-Wan. Hold on," Qui-Gon murmured, wrenching his gaze once more back to the dark terrain before him and the sporadically illuminated city looming larger with the passing of each second. "You aren't alone anymore. Don't give up. We have far too much we need to do."
He blinked, and realized immediately that it was true.
They had a lot to do.