Firstencounterspart3
"We'll be back in a few minutes," Qui-Gon promised. "Just make yourselves comfortable."
He could hear the murmur of voices that suggested that Noela was, as usual, ignoring the suggestion. Instead, she was giving Mere an unnecessary 'tour' of the living room to explain all the things that she'd mentioned in passing over the years. Given the amount of information that Mere seemed to know about him, their conversations had not entirely avoided the subject of the Jedi Temple.
Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was following with a kind of resigned dutifulness as any teenaged boy would when asked to do chores. As the father figure, Qui-Gon had to keep himself from dragging Obi-Wan by the ear into the kitchen with a good degree of difficulty. After all, only so much could be blamed on hormones.
The rest could only be blamed on Obi-Wan getting a taste of his own medicine.
"She's an attachment," he began in a frank and accurate impression of Obi-Wan's persistent whine.
"Master, I am not..."
"Padawan," Qui-Gon said patiently, "is she a Turagi?"
Obi-Wan's brow furrowed at this, since a human woman in no way resembled a thirty-foot sea monster with its oral cavity in the middle.
"No," he said in obvious puzzlement.
"Then the face that you should be looking at will be nowhere below her neck!" Qui-Gon snapped. "If your chin goes anywhere towards the floor in looking at her, I'll have to take some drastic measures. Understood?"
Obi-Wan looked openly stunned at the thought of anyone taking drastic measures with him within the Jedi Temple, since he was a letter-and-spirit-of-the-law obedient adherent to the Jedi Code at this point.
"Master," he repeated weakly.
"Understood?" Qui-Gon hissed in a low, dangerous voice that suggested that he would get an appropriate answer, even if it took the entire week to do so.
"Master," Obi-Wan protested, "you can't say you've never thought of her that way!"
"As a piece of meat?"
"As a...well..."
Obi-Wan was as red as a julaberry and at a complete loss for words. Perhaps they should have this sort of conversation more often.
"I have always considered her to be lovely and charming," Qui-Gon explained, voice returning to a more normal tone to spare his Padawan the humiliation of suffering a cardiac arrest in the middle of the kitchen. "I have always considered her to be a worthy and loyal friend. It never even entered my mind to wonder what her navel looked like!"
"Well, sure," Obi-Wan sniffed, "but you've outgrown your hormones. I'm still thirteen. You can't fault me for thinking of her that way."
It was a good thing that the wooden spoons were across the kitchen because if Qui-Gon had been inclined to abuse the Force, he might have smacked Obi-Wan over the head with one. The boy needed some sense knocked into him in one way or another.
"Oh, yes I can."
If Obi-Wan even began the chemical process of having a lascivious thought, he would be scrubbing 'freshers until his fourth Padawan sat on the Council.
Qui-Gon's flat tone seemed to have more of a cowing effect than any harsh bleating that he might have hastily engaged in earlier in the conversation.
"You," he said, threat unveiled, "will be a complete gentleman tonight, not only because you represent the Jedi Order, but because you are my Padawan and that is my..."
He broke off, unsure of how to precisely describe her.
My best friend.
My only understanding companion.
My j'm.
My Noela.
"That is Noela," he finished inadequately, "and you will someday appreciate what her friendship has meant to the Order as well as me."
That finally seemed to sink in and Obi-Wan's expression turned to one of wholehearted relief that Qui-Gon was, at last, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
"I hope to begin that process tonight," Obi-Wan said meekly.
Qui-Gon wasn't sure if that were what Obi-Wan thought he wanted to hear or something genuine, but he finally cracked a smile.
"It won't be difficult," he admitted, "once you forget that the word 'attachment' was ever translated into Basic." The swoop-bike was, in a word, antiquated.
Obi-Wan had found a place that rented swoops that still required foot-pedals to keep the engine going, thinking that a bit of healthy exercise never hurt anyone. The trick was that every bike on the lot was therefore from the days of Alderaan's last war.
To whit, something that should have been demolished centuries ago, but was kept along for nostalgia.
Obi-Wan had found himself rather mortified at this and was about to suggest they find another venue of entertainment when Noela drifted over to a particularly beat-up one with racing stripes in fuschia and questionable pedals.
"I think we should call her 'Deathwish' for the evening," she teased.
He found himself grinning in spite of himself. "Watch out," he cautioned, coming over to inspect the mount. "No one likes to be told the truth about themself."
"Well," she suggested with feigned concern, "we could call her a noble steed, but we don't want to give her delusions of grandeur."
"Deathwish it is, then," he agreed. "Should we pay here or do you think they'd pay us to get it out and about?"
As it was, the price for a night's rental was only 20 credits, which suggested that they charged not by the hour but by the total value of the equipment. Even then, it might have been overcharged.
They both looked rather absurd with the helmets on, since they were designed to keep everything from dust to starlight out of the eyes, but were transparent enough for him to steer.
"Where to first?"
Noela reached under his arm, tapping in coordinates to the mapviewer that he recognized as in the consular district. "You got to show off your home," she explained. "My turn." "I wonder if they're still alive."
Qui-Gon rolled his eyes, but kept his smile broad and genuine. "I doubt Obi-Wan is that bad of a driver," he rejoined.
"I wasn't talking about driving," Mere countered. "He's more likely to keel over from the uncertainty of what is proper etiquette and she might work herself to death letting him like her in a non-romantic sense."
"She wouldn't have to try," Qui-Gon sighed. "She never does."
"I know," Mere responded quietly.
She lifted her chin slightly, indicating the stage below where the improbable chamber orchestra made up entirely of Senators with too much time on their hands was tuning up. "Have you heard them before?"
"I can't say that Jedi have much time to go to concerts," Qui-Gon admitted. "The last time I heard one was the Alderaanian Symphony when Noela insisted on getting tickets for my Master and myself and that was before my Knighting."
"Ah," she sighed, "in the Dark Ages."
He knew he was nineteen years her senior, but that kind of impudence was practically unforgivable.
Or it would be if the term weren't so funny.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, straining to keep the laughter out of his voice.
"She did that one year after the Jedi made you escort someone else," Mere reminded, "as a birthday present. She calls that the Dark Ages because she didn't get to illuminate you in the slightest for six whole years."
That prompted another roll of the eyes, but a discussion of Noela's quirks usually did.
"Glad to know I have my own vocabulary," he said dryly. "Care to translate anything else?"
"No," she said airily, "you probably don't want to know. Besides, the concert's starting."
Qui-Gon hated to admit that she was probably right. The art of pedal-biking, it turned out, was a lot more difficult than it seemed. After three complete failures and a few heart-stopping plummets, they managed to work out a system that kept them airborne.
Mostly.
By the time they got around the Alderaanian Consulate, looped the Senate twice and cut a dash through the Temple district, they were laughing too hard to talk and were starting to tire.
"I think it's a good time for dinner," he called over the honking of horns that seemed to accompany them everywhere that they idled along.
"Can't argue with that," she bellowed back.
Fortunately, it was only a five-minute ride to the great undiscovered treasure of culinary arts that was Dex's Diner.
"I don't think I've ever felt this young," she panted as she stowed her helmet beneath the seat.
"Nor I," he agreed.
"You're only thirteen," she reminded. "You're not allowed to feel old for another ten years."
"I'm a Jedi," he insisted. "We start feeling old around the time that everyone else starts becoming Padawans."
Her mouth curved down slightly. "That explains a lot about Qui-Gon," she observed. "He had such a good nature and learned humor with a bit of difficulty, but he always seemed to be carrying a mind as old as Yoda at times."
It was probably the most accurate thing he'd heard told about his Master, but then again, Obi-Wan had never known Qui-Gon in the days before Xanatos.
"What was he like before he took his first apprentice?"
She blanched, probably without noticing, and he knew in that moment that there had been something lost to her as well when Qui-Gon was critically wounded that way for the first time. It was slightly reassuring, if somewhat frightening.
"He always had that solemn nature, took things seriously, which is why we worked for each other," she observed, "but when Xanatos betrayed him, he forgot that he knew how to keep himself from feeling how heavy his heart was."
"It must have been difficult," Obi-Wan murmured.
"It was," she agreed, "for all of us, but I hope you never have to understand why."
He wanted to ask more questions, but the doors slid open and the stenches and screeches that were Dex's on a busy night nearly knocked them back a few paces. The waitdroid buzzed by, muttering something about college students and it was hard to see an empty table anywhere.
Perhaps this wasn't the best place to take her.
"If you want, we can..." he began.
"This place has character!" she lauded with a broad grin. "I'll have to bully Qui-Gon into taking me here next year."
Finally, a relief. He had just let out a long breath when four arms crushed him from behind.
"Obi-Wan," Dex crowed, "you've been avoiding me."
"I wouldn't call it that," Obi-Wan choked out, ducking out of the hug. "We've been off-planet."
"You've been on-planet long enough to get a girlfriend," Dex harrumphed. "I could have gotten you one of those."
"Except I'm not fond of the kind with more than five legs," Obi-Wan responded. "Besides, this isn't a girlfriend. This is..."
"Noela Ovorp," Dex finished, extending one of his hands. "I've seen her at the Senate on occasion."
He waved a hand. "We're a bit crowded, so if you don't mind the private dining room, you can take her back there."
"Private?" Noela inquired as they made their way towards the back end of the restaurant.
"Dex was rescued from slavers by Qui-Gon and Master Dooku," Obi-Wan explained, "so he never denies a Jedi a place to eat. The 'private' dining room is what he's set up to accomodate that."
It was, in fact, a converted broom cupboard, but one that was familiar to most Jedi. Obi-Wan had first been there when the Crechemasters insisted on taking the highest-scoring initiates in mathematics out for lunch. Trying to fit two Masters and six squirming initiates between the ages of eight and ten had been quite an adventure.
"Charming," she said dryly as she settled herself on the packing crate. "Anything you recommend?"
"Just stay away from anything on the 'authentic' list," he counselled. "Dex has a very strange idea about what that means."
"Duly noted," she said with a nod. "And something still wriggling would probably be unwise as well."
"I don't know," Obi-Wan mused, "sometimes it's the only way you can be sure it was once edible." "They're not back yet," Obi-Wan lamented, swiping his passkey through the door release.
"Most concerts run late," Noela reminded. "We shouldn't have to wait long."
He turned on the lights, then headed for the kitchen. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Anything cold," she suggested. "I never thought it could be this warm this early in the year."
"More likely you didn't think you'd work up that much of a sweat in the middle of winter," he rejoined. "I certainly didn't."
He returned to find her watching him with a curious expression.
"You didn't like me much," she guessed.
"I didn't know you," he retorted. "I just knew Qui-Gon was far too fond of you for his own good."
She managed a smile at that. "Do you still think that?"
He shook his head with a crestfallen expression. "I think I'll be guilty of it in another five minutes."
"Good," she pronounced. "We just don't have to tell Qui-Gon."