I was still standing watching the end of the sunset when my comlink beeped and recalled me to the Council Chamber. I could tell nothing from the simple summons.

I lifted my face to the deepening dusk, and renewed my simple promise to my padawan: "I will return for you, Obi-Wan. Believe that, have faith in the Force. I will return as soon as I can make arrangements to free you."

With Obi-Wan's name on my lips and Anakin's in my mind, I turned away from that deep blue night shading into black, and reentered the Temple. I knew the Council had to accept Anakin, and yet I was troubled, for I was unsure they would do what they must.

They called me stubborn and defiant, but I was willing to listen to the will of the Force in a way that they could not. I had to be right – I knew I was right. There simply was no way the Council would not see this.

I smiled reassuringly at Anakin as I entered, and stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me and smiled, but it was a sad little smile, like his mind was far away – back with his mother on Tatooine. It was a sentiment I thoroughly understood, for a part of me remained there, too. It would remain apart from me, until I was re-united with the one I had left it with, the one who used to stand beside me where Anakin now stood.

The Council refused to accept Anakin for training.

I stood in shock. Blind fools! Listen to the Force! Listen.

What would they listen to? What words would reach them? Anakin stirred beside me, his face downcast and near tears. Standing, in the padawan's spot. I took a deep breath.

"I will take Anakin as my padawan," I said as firmly as I could, even as my heart cried out that I was abandoning Obi-Wan yet again. I turned deaf ears to it, for the moment, caught in my need to see Anakin vindicated and accepted.

"An apprentice you already have," Yoda said sternly, and the members of the Council swiveled their various appendages and faces towards him in mild surprise. "Master Qui-Gon?" he said, inviting me to tell them what I had confided in him mere moments before, before Anakin's testing.

"Obi-Wan is alive. I found him, in slavery on Tatooine, and had no way of rescuing him at the time," I said curtly. "I must either have a means of disabling a chip within him and stealing him back, or credits to purchase his freedom."

"Is he still a Jedi?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked, in his softly accented voice. I knew what he meant – was Obi-Wan, well, Obi-Wan? Had he retained anything?

It was not an easy question to answer. I looked deep into my heart, and found the answer in that flash of Obi-Wan's eyes, the gentle command to take Anakin away. I had the answer, even if I didn't have all the answers.

"Yes. He is a Jedi." I had never been more certain of anything in my life. Anakin shifted beside me, and I spared him a moment's glance. As certain as I was of Anakin's destiny, I was more certain of my answer to the Council.

Finally, Mace Windu leaned forward and said, "Now is not the time for this," and Yoda agreed with him, adding, "Decided later, his fate will be." Of course, they were speaking of Anakin, not Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan gave up his chance of freedom for the boy, and for his mother," I said, trying to stifle my disappointment and frustration. "He told me to take Anakin and leave him behind, when I could only free one of them." Anakin shifted again, and his eyes shot up to meet mine in surprise. I remembered that our silent communication had been through the bond, private. I had not mentioned it to anyone until now, and Anakin had not known of this.

I looked at each of them in turn, hurt and betrayed. I had abandoned Obi-Wan so that the Chosen One could take his place with the Jedi, and they refused him. I couldn't believe it. How dare they do that to Anakin? How dare they do that to Obi-Wan?

"You dishonor Obi-Wan's sacrifice," I said tersely, and I could sense the Force swirl through the chamber as each Council member retreated into a calm center to meet the surge of bitterness I couldn't restrain. I expected a reprimand, whether now or later, but I didn't care. I just stared at them.

"Sacrifice?" Mace demanded, leaning forward. "That is a strong word, Qui-Gon."

"It is indeed," I almost snapped back. Almost. "He has been ill-treated, yet he asked that I free Anakin when I was forced to choose between them. He asked that I leave him behind."

"Spare Qui-Gon the retelling I will," Yoda said, his eyes turning on Mace. "Told me, he has, the story I will relate. Other affairs to discuss we have."

Yoda turned back to me, his ears swiveling. "The Force be with you, Qui-Gon," he said firmly. It was a dismissal, and one I heeded. I nodded to Anakin and we left.

When I left the Council chamber, I was so angry I fairly strode down the corridors. Anakin struggled to keep up with me. I had no patience, and I wasn't about to inflict my feelings on a young boy thrust into a strange situation amongst strangers.

I tried to soften my voice, and told Anakin I was going to return him to the Naboo for now, while I tried to calm down. He nodded, in relief I think, for he saw how upset I was, and he was pleased to be able to spend more time with Padme. He had really grown attached to her in a short time.

I paced back and forth in my quarters, wondering what I should do. I knew what I had been told to do, but I also knew what I had to do. I just didn't know where I'd get the credits, or when.

Yoda came to hunt me out later. I didn't want to talk to him; I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to cradle my hurt and my grief, wallow in it until I was sated, until it was time to act.

I wasn't going to speak to Yoda. Let him spout his words of worthless wisdom. Wisdom would not help me.

I whirled on him, demanded in a voice cracking with my pain, "How dare you! How could you so betray Obi-Wan's sacrifice?"

Yoda just stood there, leaning on his gimer stick, waiting for the words to pour out of me. They did, angry words, hurt words, sobs. It was not until the flow stopped and I sat down heavily, totally drained, that Yoda spoke for the first time, and his words started to heal my wounded heart.

"Save Obi-Wan, we will, Qui-Gon," he said softly, and my head came up from where I had buried it in my hands. "Know a special bond I have, too, with your young apprentice. Leave him to suffer we cannot. Enough credits to free him we are putting together. On your way to Naboo, time enough there is to side trip to Tatooine. Save our Obi-Wan, you will."

He frowned at my smile, which only grew wider. I had come to find that Yoda's frowns were his way of controlling some emotion he wished to keep inside. He had frowned mightily when I had told him Obi-Wan was alive, and living in slavery. His pleasure that I had found my padawan was nearly as great as mine had been. I had had only a few brief moments to brief him before the start of the Council session.

"Tell me, more of what you know happened to Obi-Wan these past years," he asked, sitting and putting his hand on my knee. "Need to help him deal with it; we must, when return here he does. Prepared, I wish to be, and not to discuss things he might not wish to discuss, or force him to face things he would rather not."

"I'll be here for him," I protested – and sighed. I relented, for Yoda was right. It would be hard for Obi-Wan to return to Temple life and face his friends and colleagues. Whatever we could all do to ease his transition was for his own good.

"I don't know all that much, as yet," I admitted, suddenly surprised at how little I did actually know.

"He was mind-wiped, but it wasn't permanent. He remembered some things he could do with the Force, he remembered me although he couldn't place my name or our relationship – it was like everything was just out of reach, yet he could remember some things. When I spoke his name, it was like a veil lifted, for he knew me, though he didn't remember me until he looked at me."

My eyes widened in sudden realization, and sheer horror. "He remembered – when he heard my voice, saw my face." I buried my face in my hands, and felt Yoda's hand touch my knee again, shake it. I looked up, eyes blurry.

"If I had found him sooner – that mind-wipe only worked as long as he didn't face anything familiar. It was that fragile – oh, Force – he was fully Obi-Wan as soon as he saw me." I didn't want my voice to quiver, so I stared at my hand and focused on a smudge of dirt. I took a deep breath and sighed my pain out.

"The Force, you say was not with him," Yoda asked gently, after a moment's silence.

"No, more like he couldn't access it," I corrected. "I think he has some kind of Force-inhibitor on him somewhere but the Force was with him all the time. It led me to him. He even… even," my voice broke, "he reached me through the bond just before we left. It was brief, but it was enough to know…" I couldn't finish. Obi-Wan had been abandoned, twice, and his last thoughts were his love and understanding. He was a better man than I.

"Your bond, intact it is," Yoda nodded thoughtfully. "Good, that is. How looks he?"

"Thin," I admitted. I saw again his hollow cheekbones, felt his ribs poking through the skin of his chest as I hugged him, the bruises and scratches that I'd seen. There were probably far more that I hadn't seen. "Bruised. They beat him, not often, his owner said."

I looked down and saw my hands clenching and unclenching. Yoda saw, too.

"I don't know how often or how badly he was mistreated, or how long he had been on Tatooine. His 'master'," Force, how I hated to call his slave owner that, "his owner offered to sell him to me for money, or for just one night's pleasure - ." Oh, Force, how I hoped Obi-Wan had never been forced to that. He was not a slave to a Cantina-owner, or a slave working in the so-called pleasure palaces; I wished to believe it was just his owner's hope, born out of my kiss on his cheek.

"Treat him kindly, we will," Yoda said, forcing me to look at him. "Make him well, we will."

"Can we make him happy again?"

"No," Yoda said gently, and I flinched. "His happiness up to him it is, all we can do is to help him find it. Said, you did, that he was happy to see you. Happy, I think he'll be. Happy, a state of mind it is, and inside Obi-Wan it is. Lost it, no. Help him forget the bad, we will and he will find his happiness, if buried it is. Lost, it is not."

I remembered Obi-Wan's smiles, his wink. Wise old Jedi! Yoda saw to the truth of so much. If I was a demonstrative man, I'd hug him. Or not. I looked at the gimer stick, and winced. Even if I tried, I didn't want that whacking against my shin ever again.

Yoda gave that look that I knew meant he understood how I felt.

"Brought you this, I did, for Obi-Wan. And for you," he said solemnly.

He opened his hand and held it out to me. Beads and decorations – symbols of all that Obi-Wan had achieved. Lost, over the long hard years. Yoda was giving me something for Obi-Wan, to weave into his braid once again, once he was back where he belonged, at my side.

One of them was new. A bead, symbolizing a trial passed. A bead, symbolizing another step on the path to knighthood. The Council had authorized this. They recognized Obi-Wan's ordeal, and growth in the ways of the Force, even if he had been denied access to it for so long. It wasn't a reward for suffering, though he had suffered much, I knew.

It was a reward for self-knowledge and self-control – his generosity, compassion, and mercy towards others in a situation that called on him to deny his own needs. The much-feared trials only come after the skills are mastered, and are tests more of character than use of the Force. Obi-Wan had just passed one of the tests.

It was a bead no padawan knew the significance of, until knighted. A bead, each knight and master recognized.

My eyes filled with tears and I put out my hand and watched Yoda drop the beads into them. I wrapped my hand around them, full of wonder. I was going to get Obi-Wan back.

Certainty, joy, elation fought for release. I really was going to get Obi-Wan back!

Oh, what the heck. I could stand a little pain. I leaned forward and hugged Yoda. If he whacked me, I never felt it.