By the time we're loaded into the back of a lorry, they have to drag Quinlan's nearly lifeless body. Someone slams their hand on the top of the cab and we tear off, wheels sputtering in the slush, a cloud of exhaust left behind. I sit in silence, squeezing Quinlan's hand, watching the blaster flashes light up the forest, the shouting and Anoobas yelps getting further and further away. I feel an urge to start sobbing, so I just bite the inside of my cheek and focus on keeping Quinlan awake. With shaking hands, I pet his hair and whisper in his ear "we're almost there, stay with me" as he looks up at me with half-closed eyes and a forced smile. The other riders just watch me and say nothing, gripping the walls of the lorry and keeping their blasters from bouncing around too much. I don't know if I'm ready to face them all. How can I even begin to apologize for what I did? I imagine them killing me, too. Like they paid to break me out just to kill me for themselves. And I probably deserve it.

We pull into an encampment and I start shivering uncontrollably. I have to clamp my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering. Several people walk toward our lorry with a stretcher and carefully load Quinlan on. He winces in pain with every jostle and they have to ask me to finally let go of his hand to carry him away. I watch after him as he disappears inside a tent, and someone wraps their arm around my shoulder and guides me away, sitting me down inside another shelter. A heavy blanket settles down on my shoulders and a steaming mug is placed into my hands but I just stare at it like I don't remember what I'm supposed to do.

Someone crouches down in front of me and waives a small flashlight across my eyes. Somehow this snaps me out of my daze and I try to look around and take in my surroundings.

"I'd like to do a quick assessment on you," the woman says after taking a hold of my wrist and looking down at her watch. "Do you know if you're injured anywhere?"

I start taking a mental scan, trying to remember everything that happened. I hurt everywhere, but was I ever injured? I look down and feel around under my shirt, where the skin seems to be throbbing and screaming. I pull my hand out and stare at the blood all over my fingers. The medic's eyes grow wide, and she starts saying something unintelligible into her comm device. Hands are suddenly all over me, guiding me gently yet forcefully all at the same time, and with every step I get more and more faint.

I know I was trying to say "I think I'm going to pass out," but I'm not sure how much I said before the world went black.

.

.

.

It's light outside. I can see it coming through the gap between the tent flaps. How long was I out? I reach up to rub the grit out of my eyes and hear Quinlan's voice nearby.

"Well good morning."

"Quinlan!"

He drags a stool beside my bed and plops himself down, grinning. "To answer your question, you weren't out long. They decided to give you some pretty strong pain meds, so I guess you needed to sleep for a few hours."

"How are youdoing? I was really worried." My voice is incredibly raspy, but I don't care.

He lets out a sigh and stares at the wall. "I'm alright. I guess I was really dehydrated, and lost a lot of blood."

"Jesus, what did they do to you?"

"Same thing as you." He pats his belly and smirks.

"Oh wow. They must have really botched your…is operation the right word?"

He chuckles and rubs his eyes, exhausted. "Yeah, they must have. The medics here say I was already showing signs of infection, and there was even some internal bleeding."

"Jesus…" I want to say more, but trail off. Any reminder of what they did to us is too disturbing to take.

"I already asked these guys, by the way."

"Asked them what?"

"Oh, what you're probably wondering right now. Can these damn things come out?"

"Oh shit, right." I get a little too hopeful.

"Negative." He tries to laugh it off again, but grips my bed rail hard.

"Of course," I roll my eyes. "Did they say why?"

"It's too dangerous. They're built with some sort of anti-tampering mechanism. Supposed to go off if they sense they're being removed without being deactivated first. Apparently even so much as taking a hit to the gut can make them misfire. They're pretty crude, from what I hear."

"That's unnecessarily cruel."

"Well, they sure know how to spin it. The Salewa government is claiming it's to stop the evil Jedi from just taking it out of people before they whisk them off the planet in the dead of night." Quinlan drops his face into his hands and sighs. "I don't know how much more of this place I can stand. I'm getting violent urges, Obi, I mean truly vile."

I laugh and squeeze his knee. "We're getting out of here, Quinlan."

He peers back up at me and smirks.

"I'm serious. It's gonna be okay." I sit up slowly and start tugging at the IV in my arm. "Come on, I want to talk to someone."

Quinlan looks around nervously, but helps me with the needle and guides me to a standing position. I have to clamp my eyes shut and hold my breath for a few seconds as a wave of nausea and pain takes hold. We both walk like the ancients, staying close to one another, ready to catch whoever falls first.

"By the way, any word of Siri?" I ask, squinting in the sun.

"Oh, she's here…" his voice is quiet, caustic.

I stare up at him, stunned. He seems to want to change the subject, and guides me toward a warehouse without another word. The air changes when we walk inside. People go quiet, stop their work, stand up from tables and just watch. The nerves from the previous night all come rushing back, and so does the nausea. I briefly think they'll kill me again, but then wonder why they'd bother to give me medical treatment.

A young man and woman finally break the tension and walk toward me while the others look on. The man is walking a little fast and getting in too close and I brace myself for a coming blow. Instead, he throws his arms around me and squeezes. A gasp of surprise catches in my throat and I see Quinlan watching with with his mouth hanging open. He doesn't let go, and I start to feel his body shaking, his breathing getting hitched. The woman closes in, too, rubbing his shoulder and looking at me as though she's fighting back tears.

He moves his hands to my shoulders and holds me out in front of him, looking me up and down with wide, watery eyes. "Is there any chance at all you remember me?"

I feel all the eyes on me, the weight of the silence. "I…I don't know. I don't think I do." I whisper.

To my surprise he chuckles and sniffs back up vagrant snot. "That's alright."

He beams over to the woman smiling and wiping her eyes beside us, "can you believe his accent? He certainly sounds like a Coruscantian now, doesn't he? Is he a hopeless cause now?"

The woman, as well as most of the others, laugh. I crack a smile and let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding. Others walk in closer, and I begin to recognize some of the faces from the rally. At the sight of one girl in particular, the sounds of her anguished screams echo in my mind. Her face still looks pale and lifeless. She stands amongst the others, but can't seem to share in their smiles.

"I'm really sorry," Quinlan's nervous voice cuts in, "but what is happening? Obi-Wan, do you know these people?"

"I don't think there's any way he could have remembered us," the man answers for me. "My name is Bodevan Kenobi." He smiles shyly. "But everyone just calls me Ben."

Quinlan shifts uncomfortably. "Wow, that's…an odd coincidence. I've never met another Kenobi before."

"I couldn't imagine one would. We're it." Ben waits patiently, watching Quinlan's easy smile fade into confusion then shock. "Well it's me, my older sister here-" he gestures for the other woman to come nearer- "my uncle over there, and the youngest." Ben points over to the pale girl, still frozen at the edge of the crowd.

"And everyone else here?" Quinlan asks.

An older gentleman rises from one of the tables and extends his hand toward Quinlan. "We were the original Resistance Party. Or rather, we all joined." He suddenly looks over at me. "Was your father that started it, actually. Your family was doing good work here, before things soured."

"How so?" I ask.

Ben looks uneasy at the older man. "It turned into something we weren't able to recognize anymore. When Senator Adelare came on board, we thought we finally would have some pull. She did increase our numbers quite a bit, got the word out. But she changed things…corrupted it."

"So you guys aren't associated with that medical facility?" Quinlan asks. I'm not sure if he realizes his fists are clenched.

"Lord, no!" The old man shouts, looking offended.

"But I saw you all." I add, feeling anger rising. "You were at the rally, with the senator."

Ben looks down at the floor and wraps his arm around his sister. "Dad thought it was our only choice. If we abandoned the movement, it would run away from us, get even worse. He was the last person able to keep the senator in check. Besides, it was too risky to speak up publicly."

"Yes, this place doesn't seem very forgiving of dissenting opinions." I see my words sting everyone, but I don't care.

"We're trying to do better." Ben says sheepishly. "We have our own meetings here; we say it's just a religious worship and they leave us alone for the most part. I think they're getting wise to us, though."

"Well, especially now." The older man jams his hands into his pockets and gives Ben a sharp look.

Quinlan and I both look at each other and remember the fire fight in the woods. "Oh, no." I whisper. "When you broke us out last night…"

"We had casualties." The older man still looks stern. "For their sake I hope the poor bastards are dead. 'Cause we weren't able to bring their bodies back with us. There's simply no denying our involvement now, once they figure out their identities."

So much blood on our hands…my hands. Rowan, our rescuers, the Republic security forces we still have yet to find. I feel so exposed in this room, under a spotlight with everyone staring. I feel dirty, I feel like a downright failure, cursing everything I touch. And the girl's screaming swims in my mind again, blocking out everyone's conversations. I can see Quinlan asking more questions, his mouth moving, but all I hear is screaming. And all I see is the pool of blood soaking into the snow in the courtyard. "…Mr. Kenobi, stay with me…"

Suddenly everyone is looking at me, concerned. I realize I'm gasping for breath and I try to apologize, excuse myself, but I can't seem to speak properly. Quinlan tries to reach out and touch my arm, but I turn and walk quickly for the door. Ounce outside I double over, hands gripping my knees, staring hard into the ground, hyperventilating. Someone touches my shoulder and it's the last face I ever wanted to see. Ben's blue-green eyes are staring right into mine, kindly and compassionate.

Then the words spill out of me, I didn't even know I was thinking them. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry…"

Ben pulls me into an embrace again and I just lose it. I sob into his shoulder. I'm stuck on repeat, pathetically saying I'm sorry I'm sorry through gasps for breath. He guides me to the ground and we sit together in the snow, my fingers still locked around the fabric of his shirt for dear life. All I can do is thank the bloody stars that no one else has come outside to see my humiliating display, though I'm sure the entire encampment can hear my cries echoing through the air, blessedly muffled a bit by Ben's chest.

I start to get my breathing under control and Ben finally speaks. "You have a lot of guilt. I can tell. About a lot of things, things that are probably not yours to carry."

"That girl in there…she's my little sister…" I'm not sure if I meant that as a question or a statement, but Ben seems to understand.

"She'll be alright. We've had a lot of loss, and she's the youngest. Fortunately, she was too young to remember Mom, but she was pretty close with Dad. She just needs some time."

Mom. Dad. These names belong to me, but they don't feel like mine. I feel I don't deserve them.

Awkwardly, I let go of my vice grip on Ben, and we sink back against the warehouse wall, staring out into the woods. "So do you remember me at all?" Ben asks.

I pause for a moment, and search for memories of this place. The one and only image plays in my mind, as it always does. Running through tall grass, the warmth of the sun. The horizon that seemed to stretch on forever. And the little boy I'm chasing, his smiling face as he looks back at me, squealing in glee. The more I see of this inhospitable place, the more I worry that this memory is false. Just planted there, or confused with something else.

"Well, I remember you." Ben keeps talking. "We were only a couple of years apart, but I really loved you. You were my little buddy. You were just the happiest kid, you always wanted to play."

"Did we use to chase each other in…a field of grass?"

Ben's eyes light up and he squeezes my hand. "Well yeah! That was probably over at our old farm, in the Tanana Province."

"God, that makes sense. I thought I just didn't recognize this place."

"Yeah, Salewa is pretty different." Ben laughs.

"Why are you guys here now?"

His smile fades. "It got burned up. The house, the crops. We lost it all and had to relocate closer to the capitol. Honestly it was for the best. After what happened, I couldn't imagine staying there."

Images start flooding into my mind. Chaos, screaming. The sounds of my own crying, reaching my little hand out to a woman as I'm being carried away in someone's arms. She's being held back, fighting, crying out to me. "When Mom died?"

"Yes." Ben looks over at me. "Do you remember?"

"I don't know. I think so, but I'm really not sure."

"Well, I'm not surprised, you were so young. Not even three years old yet."

I think back on Rowan, starting this movement over that day. Over me. His face on that stage at the rally, the way it changed, the way he tensed up when I said my name out loud. How he followed after Siri and I, to warn us about the storm. The way he looked as though he desperately wanted to say more but couldn't.

"Did Rowan figure out who I was?"

"He had his suspicions," Ben says somberly. "But he only told me, after the rally. He insisted I keep it a secret. He didn't want your cover blown. He was worried that if people figured out you were a Jedi that they'd come after you. Unfortunately, that all went tits up, didn't it?"

"Why didn't he say anything to me…?" I think out loud, feeling like I want to cry again. "If he just told me who he was, I might have done things differently, I might have…"

Ben grabs my arm and forces me to look at him. "Stop doing that. It wasn't your fault. Things escalated, you did what you had to do. Dad shouldn't have threatened you guys. You have to understand, he just hated Jedi so much. They killed his wife, they took his son…well, you."

"How do you even know it's me? Mabey our names arejust a coincidence. If Rowan wasn't sure, maybe I'm not the one."

"The doctor told us. The police figured out who you guys were, they verified your identities on some sort of Galactic database. Doctor Hanns came by our camp yesterday to share the news. He was pretty shaken up about it. We actually haven't heard from him since, there's a chance he may have defected, finally left Stewjon for good this time."

"Are you guys going to have to relocate again? Now that they figured out what you're doing here?"

Ben sighs. "Yes. We're already getting things ready. I'm really not sure where we can go."

"Come with us!" I shake Ben's arm. "We'll take you in, at our base. We already have a lot of defectors staying with us, we can protect you as well."

Ben scoffs. "Good luck convincing anyone here to do that. We may not agree with what the Resistance Party is doing anymore, but most of the group is still very mistrusting of the Republic, and the Jedi for that matter. And besides, I heard you're all leaving. Do you really expect us to go with you? To Coruscant? Forget it!"

"Ben, I just don't think it's safe here anymore. The Resistance Party is now against you, and I'm afraid a war is coming. Last I heard, the Republic was sending troops here. After the terrorist attack on Chancelor Palpatine, and now our personnel being captured, things have gotten way out of hand."

"They're sending troops? Are you fucking kidding me?" Ben looks angry now.

"We tried to stop them. I was against this, I swear. It wasn't supposed to happen like this."

"Jesus, wherever Jedi go, chaos follows." Ben shakes his head and moves further away from me.

"We can just leave, Ben. All of us. This isn't our fight, not the Jedi's or your group's. As far as I'm concerned, this is between the Republic and the Resistance Party."

Ben bolts back up to his feet, and I nervously do the same. "You don't get it at all. You expect us to abandon Stewjon, let it fall into ruin or into total control of the Republic? We're one of the last autonomous planets left in this Galaxy, a last bastion of freedom. No, I intend to stay and fight. If Stewjon dies, I'll die with it. I'll see my father again in the halls of the martyrs and I'll be welcomed by everyone there."

I release a desperate wave of calm into the Force, hoping like hell the drugs have worn off by now. "You're right Ben, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean anything by what I said, just that I worry about you and your group. I just want you to be safe. You saved my life, I want to do the same for you. Please, tell me how I can help."

"You can join us. Take back your rightful place in this family, fight with us. Use those Jedi powers for good this time." Ben stands chest out, shoulders squared, speaking with righteous indignation.

"Ben…" I whisper. "You know I can't do that-"

Before I can finish my thought, he scowls and turns away from me. I watch uselessly as he wraps his coat tighter over his shoulders and heads back inside. I'm left alone, wondering what just happened, how in the hell I've gone and screwed up so badly again.