Obi-Wan

"We have him."

That was the only thing Bail said, and for a moment Obi-Wan, in a vague place between sleep and wakefulness, could not fathom who he meant.

When his mind did catch up, he doubted he'd heard Bail right. There was only one he they did not need to name. Dooku was the heart of the Separatist movement, the symbol of all they were fighting against; he had ceased needing a name long ago.

But that could not be who Bail was talking about. No one could capture Dooku, except for perhaps a Jedi, and Obi-Wan was the only Jedi actively looking.

Unless Dooku wanted to be captured.

That thought made him sit up and switch on the light.

"Dooku is there?" The words felt tight in his throat as he imagined Dooku sitting placidly before the leader of the Alliance, coiled in wait for the best moment to tear him apart.

He could hear only Bail's breathing for a few moments.

"One of our contacts saw him wandering the streets as though he'd never been here before. The guards brought him in. No resistance."

"Bail..." Obi-Wan hesitated. Bail Organa was no fool, and Obi-Wan hated suggesting such a thing-but this, this was foolish, thinking Dooku was not up to something.

"Wait until you see him," Bail said. His voice was tinged with wariness, and a bit of wonder. "Obi-Wan, he is...he seems lost."

The flight to the Aldaaranian housing seemed interminably long. Obi-Wan was less careful than usual, leaving the Temple. He didn't have the time to blind the codes to whatever shuttle he took. If the Council wanted to know what took him away in the middle of the night...well, perhaps, impossibly, he could bring them Count Dooku as a reason.

The door to Bail's main conference room slid open silently, and Obi-Wan saw the flash of white hair behind a wall of guards. Bail stepped out of the shadows and motioned him through.

Dooku looked up at him, leaning forward heavily on his elbows, his eyes dark and hollow with a sort of fear.

"It is gone, Master Kenobi." That voice, always so vast and deep, seemed to break and scratch as it made its way out. He stared at Obi-Wan as though he had the answer, as though he were, somehow, his savior.

Obi-Wan sat down across from him, and he knew now why Bail was no fool. This was a broken man before him. A lost man.

"What is gone?" Obi-Wan asked, looking at the wrinkled skin around Dooku's eyes and seeing his age for the first time.

Dooku flung his hand out, and Obi-Wan immediately threw up his Force shields, and...

Nothing.

Dooku made a fist with the hand and pressed it against his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut in pain.

"It. Is. Gone."

And suddenly it was clear to Obi-Wan.

Dooku could not access the Force. Could not feel it. Could not use it. Without the Force, Dooku saw himself as nothing, no one. No wonder he had been found wandering the streets. Without the Force, he was truly lost.

How did one lose the Force? The thought made Obi-Wan cold, an icy grip on his heart.

"What happened?" he asked, and wondered if this was a warning from the Sith Lord, a terrible omen that this, I can do to you too.

Dooku shook his head, and Obi-Wan saw welling tears reflecting the pain. "I do not remember," Dooku said. "I remember...I went to meet with a source, but I do not remember which one. I remember meeting someone, and being afraid, and realizing that I did not fathom power until that moment. I remember feeling the Force being shut off, as though it were a switch, and I remember being told that I would remember not a face or a voice or a place. I would be doomed to wander without knowing, without the Force to guide me." He placed both fists in front of him and stared up at Obi-Wan with a fevered intensity. "What kind of power can do this?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "You are sure it was not your master?"

Dooku made a scoffing noise. "Sidious? Force, Kenobi, I know my own master. I know what he is capable of-and it is more than any Jedi-but this is worlds beyond what he could dream. I reached out, and the Force was thick as water and melded to the will of the one who stood before me. I angered that one. I suggested joining my master, and it was a fury I have never known in response."

Well. That was...perhaps in their favor. Sure, an unimaginably powerful Force user was somewhere on Coruscant, but that Force user apparently loathed the Sith.

It could just as easily loathe the Jedi too, though. Perhaps this was something outside of the realm of both.

"You don't remember where you were? Or where you were going?"

Dooku furrowed his brows, the lines in his forehead deepening.

"It was...an agent recently turned. One that...worked with you, I think, until..."

Prav? Undoubtedly there were many agents turned every day, but the name jumped to his mind. It was in Dooku's nature to attack Obi-Wan where it hurt most.

"Was it Prav? At the Net cafe?" Obi-Wan hoped his questions would help Dooku find a way around whatever Force block was strong enough to hold his mind.

Dooku stared at him. "I-maybe."

Obi-Wan looked over at Bail. "I sensed something there today myself; I thought a Sith was watching me, but now I wonder if this other power was just waiting there for Dooku. I pray it is on our side, since it went for Dooku and not me."

Bail ran a hand through his dark hair, and Obi-Wan wondered when so much gray had appeared. "You didn't see anyone who stood out?" Bail asked.

Obi-Wan hesitated. The girl, the one who made him uneasy; but he would have sensed Force power coming from her, and he felt nothing like what Dooku described...

"No," he said. One woman in a city of billions. "But we should alert the Council. I'll take Dooku to our holding cells. The Chancellor should not know we have him, because we can't risk the Sith Lord knowing his state. We may have an unknown ally, or a terrible enemy. I'd like to hold our cards close until we know which it is."

"Darth Sidious should not know," Dooku agreed, and Obi-Wan suddenly doubted everything he'd just decided on. Dooku shook his head, a slight smile on his face. "I am not manipulating you. I am being honest. There is no good outcome if he knows. He would accelerate the war, to the detriment of his cause and yours, or he would tear this city apart to find this Force power, and open himself up to discovery. Our purposes align here. We have a common enemy. For Master Kenobi, you must consider this one an enemy, no matter how much you may wish to find a friend. I know darkness when I see it, and this is darkness like neither of us has ever known."