The most dangerous beast is the beast within.

They found the cave after little enough time; it was just broad enough at the entrance to fit the speeder through it, and wider at the back.

Qui-Gon was glad to see the back of the cave. Nothing lurking behind to snatch them— at least, nothing living. The floor was worn but it didn't look like anything had been living in there. It was as safe as they were going to get at the moment.

Qui-Gon propped Obi-Wan up against the wall while Xanatos tried their communicators. Obi-Wan's eyes opened into slits.

"How are you?" Qui-Gon said, checking his pulse and fighting not to frown. It was much too fast.

Obi-Wan squinted at him. "It's like time is all mixed up," he said. "Like I think I'm then, but then I remember then is actually the future. And that now is then, but it's different now. And my past is your future." He blinked. "You know?"

"Sure," Qui-Gon said.

"I don't," Xanatos said, approaching with the droid at his heels. He looked at Qui-Gon. "No dice on contacting anyone."

"Artoo?" Obi-Wan said. "Where's C3PO?"

The droid beeped, sounding confused.

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" Obi-Wan asked. "I almost never see you without—" He jerked, looking up at Qui-Gon and Xanatos as if registering their presences for the first time. "It's not real," he said, in an exhaled breath. "It's not real, it's a trap, you've found me—"

"Padawan—" Qui-Gon said, reaching for him but stopping when Obi-Wan flinched, hard, against the wall.

"I always knew you could be cruel," Obi-Wan said, burying his face in his knees. "Wearing his face won't help you. I won't tell you anything."

Obi-Wan was unstuck in his timeline. Not good, when you saw the kinds of futures Obi-Wan did. Qui-Gon had seen some of them. He still tried to forget. Obi-Wan startled again when Qui-Gon reached for his wrist, but he didn't attack, which meant he was at least a little lucid. He could take out his old master if he put his mind to it; they both knew it. Obi-Wan's heart was absolutely racing now, certainly too fast to be healthy and not sustainable. He was also running a fever despite the chill, his eyes unfocused and hands unsteady.

Qui-Gon held Obi-Wan's wrist too tightly for a moment. Kriff. His padawan was only a child. Very rarely did Obi-Wan look completely young— there was something old and sad about his eyes that made him look much older and tended to make people listen to him. But now he looked every day his age and a little younger, not even quite sixteen and still in his padawan braid.

They needed to get his heart rate down. "Go to sleep," Qui-Gon said, pushing a Force suggestion into Obi-Wan's head. He realized it was a bad idea only a moment after he'd done it, and then Obi-Wan's mental barriers shoved him back, so strong and completely efficient that Qui-Gon jerked with the force of it, overbalanced, and landed on his back.

Xanatos' face appeared above him. "Idiot," he said, amused.

"Thanks," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan had extremely strong mental shielding. Qui-Gon had assumed they would be a little weaker in his drugged state; in fact, it seemed like they had tightened. Like Obi-Wan knew what could happen if he didn't draw up his defenses around himself when he couldn't fight back.

He sat up and they both looked at Obi-Wan again. He was mouthing words to himself again, shivering.

"Kark," Xanatos said.

They stayed there for an hour or so as Obi-Wan got steadily worse. He mostly seemed confused, and was very forgetful. He called for several people, most of which Qui-Gon didn't recognize— Cody and Rex and Padme and Ahsoka and Cerasi and, oddly, Anakin. The implications of that were worrying and probably not worth thinking about for that reason. Sometimes he called for Qui-Gon too.

Qui-Gon sensed more Trandoshans in the distance— searching for them.

He and Xanatos attempted to coax Obi-Wan into drinking some water, melted and filtered with one of the filtration pods Qui-Gon had on his belt.

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said, plucking at Qui-Gon's sleeve. "I'm sorry. I trained the boy, like you asked. I trained him. But I failed—" He kicked out weakly, and his back arched.

Xanatos glared at Qui-Gon, who felt guilty even though he hadn't done anything yet. "No you didn't," Qui-Gon said, heart clenching. "You did great. Rest now. It's fine."

"I failed everyone," Obi-Wan said, and ignored the cup Xanatos shoved under his mouth. He stared up at the ceiling. "All of them."

"You're too young to be a maudlin drunk," Xanatos said. He poured the water in between Obi-Wan's lips, which while not being the most compassionate tactic was at least effective. "Wait till you come of age. I'll come kidnap you from the Temple and we'll get fun drunk in one of the clubs on the lower level."

"You will not," Qui-Gon said.

Xanatos, of course, ignored him. Obi-Wan too, but at least he had an excuse. Xanatos was not being nice, but for him this was downright cuddly. He really did have a soft spot for Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan had a way of doing that.

Obi-Wan coughed a little water out of his mouth. His hands clutched at Qui-Gon's shirt, apparently having forgotten he was holding it. He searched Xanatos' face. "I failed you too," he said. "I never had enough faith. Luke was the only one of us who knew— you can come back. You can come back." He shuddered. "But I watched you die. I was only a kid. I could have been faster. I could have been better, if I'd known."

Xanatos jerked back, surprised, but Obi-Wan had returned to being mostly nonresponsive.

Qui-Gon sighed and smoothed a hand over Obi-Wan's head.

Xanatos was still looking spooked; he retreated to the mouth of the cave and peered out the entrance.

After a moment, Qui-Gon got up and followed him. The droid rolled up to Obi-Wan's side, presumably to keep watch. Having seen that droid's capabilities, Qui-Gon worried more for the sake of anyone who tried to hurt them than for Obi-Wan.

Xanatos stared broodily out at the landscape.

He was no Jedi. That was Qui-Gon's responsibility to bear, not his padawan's.

"I'd be dead if not for him?" Xanatos asked, not looking at Qui-Gon.

"His visions are not precise," Qui-Gon said. "And he's very tight-lipped. Normally. We may never know." Xanatos scowled at him, and Qui-Gon relented. "Yes, he mentioned it once, by accident. He seemed to think you were supposed to die."

"Stupid kid," Xanatos said. "I'm not supposed to owe him more."

Qui-Gon grinned.

In the corner, Obi-Wan twitched. "Gedet'ye," he said. "Gedet'ye." He was panting now, open-mouthed and much too fast.

"He's not going to last a lot longer with a heart rate and a fever like that," Xanatos said. "He needs to detox. He needs to purge the spice from his system."

"He can't concentrate like this," Qui-Gon said snappishly. "I don't think he even knows he's been drugged."

"And trying to get past his shields to try to shake him awake is more likely to hurt us than help him," Xanatos said.

Qui-Gon hesitated. "A psychometric managed to slip past once," he said. It had not been pretty, for anyone— the psychometric Master had been Kadrian Sey, who had then turned to the Sith and tried to destroy them all.

Xanatos tilted his head consideringly. "The Vos kid?"

"He's very naturally gifted, but Obi-Wan's mental defenses are durasteel. Not to mention that Quinlan is there and we are here."

Xanatos squinted out at the snowy landscape. "Yeah," he said. "We can fix that. I'll go pick him up."

Qui-Gon gave him a disapproving look. "I assume you haven't forgotten about the— now very angry— Hutts and their hired guns who are after us."

Xanatos lifted his arms above his head and stretched. "Sounds like a good challenge." When this earned him another look, he shrugged. "The kid shouldn't be moved like this— not when that means being treated to my fancy flying. But I can do it on my own. I'll get there."

"Xanatos—"

"I'm going," Xanatos said. He grinned. "The Republic can pay me for services rendered later."

Qui-Gon shook his head, exasperated. There was certainly a commonality between the padawans he tended to pick, or who picked him. They were all too stubborn and too smart for their own good. "At least take the droid with you," Qui-Gon said. "He knows the way."

The droid beeped proudly. "Yeah," Xanatos said. "Annoying little thing. No wonder Obi-Wan likes you." The droid beeped again, this time decidedly more threatening. Xanatos gave it a friendly sneer. It brandished the taser at him. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

Qui-Gon supervised them as they loaded up into the speeder, and told Xanatos to be careful— earning an eye roll— and then returned to his padawan.

"Just us now," Qui-Gon said, hearing the speeder take off in the distance. He would just have to trust that Xanatos would come back. He would. Qui-Gon had a good feeling about it. "How are we doing?"

Obi-Wan made a whining noise.

"Right," Qui-Gon said, and settled in for the long haul.

He gathered Obi-Wan into his side for the warmth and leaned his own head back on the wall, falling into a very light meditation. He was roused only a short time later, when Obi-Wan started moving around.

Qui-Gon opened his eyes quickly. Obi-Wan was sweating; thrashing. He clawed at his arms. "Pleasegetthemoffgetthemoff," he said, raising a hand to his face— Qui-Gon grabbed his arms before he could. "Pleaseithurts—Master—"

Qui-Gon gritted his teeth, trying to send calming waves though the Force. If Obi-Wan felt it, he didn't indicate. "It's all right," he said, a little helplessly.

Obi-Wan tried to wriggle out from under his hands, his arms already scratched up from his efforts earlier.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Qui-Gon said, in the sternest voice he could muster, "Get ahold of yourself."

For some reason, this worked. Obi-Wan stilled, falling limp.

He shuddered and closed his eyes. When he blinked them open, they had lost much of the blurriness of before.

"Padawan?" Qui-Gon asked cautiously, as he blinked up at him. Slowly, he let go of his arms. "Are you all right?"

"I was dreaming of the fire beetles again," Obi-Wan said. "Isn't that funny? I haven't dreamed of them since the Sith planet."

The implications of which were very worrying.

"Do you know where you are?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Of course I do," Obi-Wan said. "I have suns-stroke again." He leaned his head against the wall, smiling a little. "Beru is going to kill me if she has to send Owen out here with electrolyte-solution again."

"I don't believe I know any Berus or Owens," Qui-Gon said, running his fingers over Obi-Wan's braid. He was clearly not completely with it still, but things were calm for now at least. Maybe these were people who could have been in Obi-Wan's past, or a couple they would meet on a mission someday. Maybe Jedi, ones who would keep Obi-Wan out of trouble once Qui-Gon's knees were too creaky to do it himself.

"No, you never met them," Obi-Wan said.

"Shame," Qui-Gon said. "They sound like good people, if they're taking care of you."

Obi-Wan smiled again. "Sap. I miss you, you know."

"Well, I'm right here," Qui-Gon said.

"Yes, but not really," Obi-Wan said. His eyes flashed with humor. "They call me the Wizard of the Wastes, you know, because I keep running around shouting at you. I do believe everyone thinks I'm quite mad."

Qui-Gon was confused but he didn't show it, just continuing to run his fingers through Obi-Wan's hair. "You'll have to tell me about it sometime."

"Sometime," Obi-Wan said, closing his eyes. "You should see the boy, Qui-Gon. He looks so much like his father. His mother, too. They'd be proud, if they could be."

Qui-Gon felt he was intruding. "Just sleep it off," he said, and Obi-Wan slumped obediently, falling into another restless sleep.

Qui-Gon sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. Apprentices. Too much work. This was why he hadn't wanted another one— you started caring about them too much.

Obi-Wan didn't come to consciousness like that again, just shook and muttered and sometimes— which was the worst— didn't scream, just made noises like he was keeping them in.

After a while of this, Qui-Gon heard the sound of an engine. He had his lightsaber ignited and

was on his feet almost before he registered the noise.

Then a familiar presence brushed his mind— Tholme. He relaxed a little. Keeping one eye on Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon looked out the entrance of the cave. Xanatos had not brought the speeder back; instead, he'd brought a full ship, complete with weaponry.

They demonstrated this weaponry by shooting another hoverspeeder of mercenaries, a group that had apparently managed to regather themselves, off the face of the earth.

The ramp came down in midair and Tholme leaned out over the edge. "Need a little help?" he asked, loudly over the sound of the engines.

Qui-Gon grinned at him, but it was tenser than he had meant it to be and Tholme sobered a little. "I had it under control," Qui-Gon said, and turned back to the cave to get Obi-Wan.

When Qui-Gon entered the ship, carrying his padawan, Shmi was already laying down a blanket in the resting berth, and Xanatos was coming out of the gunner's seat. Tholme and Quinlan were waiting anxiously; Jango in the front piloting. They had brought two children with them— Shmi's son and the blue Twi'lek girl who had attached herself to Quinlan.

"All aboard?" Jango called out.

Obi-Wan startled at the voice and squinted towards the cockpit. "Cody?" he asked.

"Sorry, you've got me confused with another handsome son of a bantha," Jango said, with good enough humor.

"Is Obi-Wan okay?" Quinlan said. "Xanatos said he needed my help."

"Spice," Shmi said with authority, settling a pillow under Obi-Wan's head. "He's overdosing— he needs to see a Healer."

"I don't even know if that would help him now. It's like he's in a feedback loop of himself, trapped within the Force," Qui-Gon said.

"That's where I come in?" Quinlan asked, grimly determined.

Qui-Gon nodded. "Only if you agree. Your psychometry may be enough to break through his shields, just for an instant. Then we can get in his head to pull him out."

Quinlan just pulled off his glove in response, kneeling by the cutout into the wall where Obi-Wan was resting. "What do I need to do? I've never tried to get a reading on him, but it's never happened by accident either, which means I don't think it will be easy."

"No," Qui-Gon agreed. "Which is why you get in, I go in and help him out of it. Like a partnered meditation."

Quinlan gave him a dubious look.

"You don't have to do it," Tholme said. "It may be dangerous."

"It's Obi-Wan," Quinlan said, as if that was enough of an explanation for him. "Let's do this." He flexed his uncovered fingers. The little Twi'lek girl gave him a thumbs-up.

"Don't go too far," Qui-Gon reminded him sternly as he kneeled next to Quinlan. "Just skim his surface thoughts."

"This Jedi magic is going to help?" Jango asked, blatantly skeptical.

Qui-Gon ignored him. He centered himself in the Force, and felt his senses expand around Quinlan and Obi-Wan both. Quinlan let him twine his Force signature with his, feeling nervous but resolved.

Quinlan touched Obi-Wan's arm.

Nothing happened.

He frowned. "I'm sorry, Master. He's just not letting me in. I'm trying, I promise."

"It's not your fault," Qui-Gon said.

"Here, let me see if I can help," Tholme said, joining them on the floor. Throughout this, Obi-Wan sweated and moved about listlessly. He was increasingly pale.

Tholme spread his awareness in the Force as well— Qui-Gon felt it brushing his mind. Tholme bolstered his padawan's Force abilities, drawing some of his own power into him.

"Oh!" said the little girl. "That feels funny!" She hopped over and took Quinlan's free hand. To Qui-Gon's surprise, she immediately connected with him through the Force. It wasn't quite a bond, but it was clear that things could easily head that way if they wanted to in the future. Qui-Gon stifled a smile. That was sure to be a troublesome partnership.

After a moment, Xanatos joined them on the floor and added his power.

Together, all of them bolstered Quinlan in the Force. Again, Quinlan reached out with his psychometry. This time there was a noticeable effect; Quinlan pressed into Obi-Wan's mind with a noticeable bounceback, like rubber springing back into place.

"Force," Tholme said, with sweat visible on his brow. "What are you teaching this kid?"

"He came like that," Qui-Gon said, trying not to be proud, because this really was a serious situation. "Here, let's try this a different way."

This time, they focused their energies on bringing Obi-Wan to some form of consciousness. After a moment, Obi-Wan's eyes fluttered halfway open.

"Wrghh?" he said.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said quickly, before he slipped back under. "You need to let your shields go. You need to let me in."

Obi-Wan shook his head.

"Yes," Qui-Gon said. "Obi-Wan, you have to let your Force presence go."

Obi-Wan tried to roll off the bed. "I can't," he said. "The Inquisitors. That's how they find you."

"They will not," Qui-Gon said. "Let your shields down."

He shook his head again. "No. They got— I felt them kill Luminara last week. I can't let that happen to me. I have a purpose here—" Qui-Gon saw Quinlan visibly flinch. Luminara Unduli was one of his and Obi-Wan's friends, if Qui-Gon recalled correctly. She wasn't much older than Quinlan himself.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon said. "Listen to me. I promise you that I will not let anyone get to you while we do this. I promise I will protect you." He grinned. "Don't you trust me?"

Obi-Wan blinked. Considered this blearily.

Then his shields went down, just for a fraction of an instant.

It was enough. Quinlan touched him again and drew on his psychometry, and all the Force-sensitives in the room felt it as he took advantage of the brief dropping of the shield, using each of their offered extra power in the Force. And someone else's too— the baby. Somehow, Anakin added his own strength to the fight, and they broke through into Obi-Wan's mind.

Quinlan screamed. Qui-Gon thought, for a moment, that he had disobeyed and tried to dive solo into Obi-Wan's mind— but no. That was just from touching the very surface of Obi-Wan's mind.

Still, Qui-Gon didn't hesitate when it came to taking the opening Quinlan had given him. He dove into Obi-Wan's Force presence.

It was dizzying. He was standing at the edge of a shore made of lava; sizzling hot magma flew in droplets at his face and he raised an arm to protect himself. When he lowered his arm he was losing his footing in a gunship plummeting towards the ground. Then he stumbled into a battlefield where someone in Jedi robes was fighting a legion of blank-faced droids— he could only see them from behind but he was sure the Jedi was Obi-Wan.

Then he was pushing through a crowd, watching another someone who had to be Obi-Wan going through the crowd as well, covered fully in the kind of sand-resistant clothes and scarves you found on a desert planet. No one in the crowd seemed to notice Qui-Gon's presence.

Obi-Wan, younger than he was now, not dressed in Jedi clothes but rags, shooting a blaster at a row of adults coming up the hill. The lava again, this time with a sickening smell of burned flesh. A white medical room where a pregnant woman screamed and screamed.

Nothing in any of the visions as they passed by saw Qui-Gon at all; not the droids or crowds or white-armored men which sometimes showed up. Qui-Gon tried to call out to Obi-Wan when he saw flashes of copper hair or a blue lightsaber, but his padawan never seemed to notice.

Jango Fett, a new scar on his eye, handed a lightsaber to another Jedi-cloaked figure, and the voice that spoke, though again too far for Qui-Gon to see, was Obi-Wan.

"What would I do without you?" Obi-Wan asked, his voice older but no less Coruscanti crisp.

"You don't want to know the answer to that, sir," Jango said dryly, and Obi-Wan laughed.

The visions swirled around him again, spice-tinged.

He couldn't trust anything here, he reminded himself. They were, at best, visions of futures that had never come to pass or would never come to pass, and more likely just hallucinations.

"Obi-Wan!" he called. "Obi-Wan!"

There was no answer, just more moving of the vision— Qui-Gon was walking through Illum, standing at the top of a waterfall in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, holding onto a seat as a fighter ship went wildly out of control. Dark beasts snarled and scratched, ripping through the fabric of the world as if a cloth.

Then Qui-Gon heard Obi-Wan scream, and the world rocked. Qui-Gon landed on his feet.

This place was different. It had none of the raw edges of the other visions, kind of soft and blurred. Like a dream within a dream.

Obi-Wan was older. Unsettlingly, he was wearing armor, just on his forearms, but it looked well-used and a little scuffed. He stood straight and tall, every inch the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon knew he would someday be. He'd grown a beard.

He was talking to a woman who, Qui-Gon could tell, though he didn't know how, was not any kind of being he'd seen before. She looked… human-esque, or at least human-shaped. But there was a subtle glow about her, not as a luminescent species— like something was lighting her from within. She hovered a few inches off the ground, her unnaturally long, greenish hair waving as if touched by an invisible breeze.

Obi-Wan was holding what looked like the hilt of a dagger, but with no blade attached to it. He tried to give it to the woman, who refused it.

The two turned to leave— they were in some kind of big, mystical cavern. For lack of better ideas, Qui-Gon followed. "Thank you," Obi-Wan said. "I know this can't be easy for you. To kill your own brother— it must be difficult."

The woman smiled, very sadly. "Someday you may be faced with the same choice, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

The older Obi-Wan looked startled. "Has The Son already gotten to—?"

She gave him an enigmatic look, gentle and sorrowful. "You may have to do the same thing I am doing now."

"No," Obi-Wan said, shaking his head firmly. "I would never."

"Then all may be lost," the woman said. Then she looked airily out at the exit to the cavern. "Come, we must away. There is little time."

Obi-Wan went obediently, but he still looked perturbed. The woman made to follow after him, but then she turned— and looked right at Qui-Gon.

He stepped back a little, surprised and a little unnerved. He looked behind himself, but there was nothing there she could be looking at. Just at him.

"Ah," Qui-Gon said. "Hello?"

She broke out into a smile. "Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn."

"You're not real," Qui-Gon told her. "That's not how this works. You're just a vision— a possibility."

"Not for mortal souls, maybe," she said. "But I'm a little bit different. I'm not bound by the same constraints you are. Not in time, or in space."

Qui-Gon gave her a skeptical look. She still smiled. "I need to talk to Obi-Wan," he said, for lack of better conversation ideas.

"That you do," she said. "For he may be lost in his own memories if he stays here too long. And we can't have that, can we?"

"We can't," Qui-Gon echoed dubiously. He didn't know what kind of creature could infiltrate a vision. Certainly there were some species with above-average psychic abilities, not to mention the Sith and the Dark Jedi, but he was starting to get the bad feeling that this had more to do with the Force, and that he might never really understand.

"He's special," the woman said. "Perhaps more than you know."

"I know my padawan," Qui-Gon bristled.

She looked amused. "He is loved by the Light." She hovered gently still. "I will help you," she said. "I have no great powers with the mind— not in this state. I'm not real, you know." She tilted her head. "But I can stir the waters of his mind in a particular direction, I think. I can send you into a happy memory."

"A vision," Qui-Gon corrected. She gave him another strange smile.

"Yes, of course," she said. "Travel well."

And the world spun sickeningly around him once more; stars wheeling by, blaster fire whizzing near his face, falling, falling—

Then he found himself in a clearing made up of yellow trees and flowers. In the distance there was the clearest natural pool Qui-Gon had ever seen, with a Togruta girl and a human man with a shiny arm playing in the water. It was too far away for him to see their faces, but he could hear peals of laughter and shrieks coming from their direction.

Obi-Wan was the right age again, almost sixteen, padawan braid trailing behind his back. He was watching the two young people play. He looked wistful.

Qui-Gon stepped up beside him, tentative.

Obi-Wan turned to look at him and grinned. "It's easy to forget they're more than just the war," he said. "Ahsoka made us stop at four different shops before she found that swimsuit. I didn't even know there were that many options. Her Master almost had a heart attack when he saw how little fabric it was made out of though."

Qui-Gon folded his arms, oddly reluctant to leave this little content moment. Maybe because he knew how many bad ones there were. "It's just part of being a teenager," he said. "They like to make you worry about them."

"Trust me," Obi-Wan said, "I know."

"Obi-Wan!" called the young man. "Come join us!"

The dream flickered, into black corridors and the snap-hiss of a lightsaber. Then there was a soft breeze, somehow feeling like the woman he'd met in the cavern, and it went back to the pool.

"In a moment," Obi-Wan said to them, with a laugh.

"Obi-Wan, you need to wake up," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan turned to him, puzzled. "I have so few pleasant dreams," he said.

"This is not a dream," Qui-Gon said. "Wake up."

Obi-Wan stared at him. In the soft sunlight, a red creature appeared and bared its teeth. Its eyes were yellow. Then it disappeared.

"Wake up," Qui-Gon repeated, seeing that he was getting somewhere.

A blonde woman in a fine dress appeared, then clutched a wound on her stomach and vanished from existence again. The water in the pool sloshed.

"Wake up," he said, a third and final time.

"Oh no," Obi-Wan said in a small voice, and Qui-Gon gasped awake.

Chapter header from TCW - 2X19 The Zillo Beast Strikes Back

Mando'a translations:
Gedet'ye - please

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