Special thanks to Jacinta Kenobi for her faithful reviews! Reviews, as always, are as cherished and adored as Obi-Wan Kenobi (and better-treated), and I am grateful for them.

I would appreciate it very much if anyone else who has been following this story for awhile, like Jacinta, would take a moment to review the story's overall quality and consistency. I'd also value comments from any newer readers as to what they think … this fic has been a long time in the writing, but I enjoy working on this one especially so I'd like to know what you all think! Thanks!

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TPM Tatooine Rewrite: Through Glass

By: Syntyche

chapter twelve: answers … and questions

Delian Ani-Suru's speeder screamed into Mos Espa, the whine of the engines cutting through the early morning quiet as she coaxed every last bit of speed she could from the abused engines. She knew she was mistreating one of her babies, but at the moment she just didn't care.

Something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

She didn't know how she knew, but she never questioned these things. She was Corellian, after all. And she'd had that damned dream about Kenobi again last night – not the good one, but the one about the Room.

She should have come immediately after Kenobi had abandoned the Demolition Games – she knew that now. But she couldn't be too late. She couldn't let him down. Cocky Jedi bastard who'd wriggled into her life and demanded a place there.

Kest, please, please don't let me be too late.

Kenobi's racer was parked outside Watto's shop and Delian vaulted from the speeder – giving herself an automatic perfect ten for her landing – and burst through the shop doors, ignoring that annoying little chime that announced the arrival of a customer. The bells echoed in the stillness of the shop, but no cheerful voice greeted her, no pattering of wings or small feet skittering across the stone floor to beg her for the latest news and gossip.

"Anakin?" she called softly. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as her Corelli senses screamed at her to be cautious. "Kenobi?"

Nothing.

Delian moved up the stone steps to Watto's back lot, noting a soft buzzing sound from the exterior.

Oh, Kest.

Her breath caught painfully and she immediately looked away, swallowing hard against the bile rising in her throat. Delian hurriedly stumbled past the clearly, disgustingly dead carcass of Watto, now buzzing with a multitude of flies, through the stench of death, and dropped hard to her knees beside the small body crumpled a bit away from the Toydarian.

"Anakin?" What the hell had happened here…?

Her shaking fingers felt for a pulse on the boy's neck, and she almost cried when she felt a weak, erratic beat against her fingertips. He was unconscious, probably in shock, but he was alive.

"I'm here, honey, I'm here," she whispered soothingly, "I'll be back in just a minute. Let me check on Obi-Wan, too."

Delian rose, trying to keep her nausea at bay and ignore the trembling in her limbs, and carefully picked her way to the other body. Her foot impacted with something small and solid, and she looked down to see a lightsaber rolling away from her boot. Without a thought, she picked it up and secured it to her belt where Obi-Wan's transmitter had hung a short time ago. It was Obi-Wan's lightsaber, she knew. She could feel it.

Her hands shook hard and she fought to steady them as she knelt by the cloak-enshrouded body. Please let him be alive, she whispered, drawing close to pull back the cloak. I've got to get him to a medcenter.

Please don't let me have been too late.

OOOOOOOOOO

Monitors hummed and machines buzzed, and he thought vaguely he would choke on the sterile smell clogging his nostrils. It occurred to him that he was somewhere very, very familiar, and it took just one more second of conscious awareness to realize that he was in a medcenter. It took one more moment for his sense of irony to kick in and he realized that, for being someone who devoted his life to restoring peace, his own being was in jeopardy far too often.

Many thoughts flicked through his mind as he struggled to remember what had happened to him … Tatooine … the Sith – for he knew that's what the creature had been, despite the Jedi records that the Sith had been extinct for a millennia. They had fought … and there was pain, and darkness.

Now there was light, and it hurt, though he supposed he shouldn't complain.

There was a rustle of movement by his bedside, and despite himself fear kicked in and he was scrabbling for his lightsaber until a warm hand closed over his, stilling his agitated movement.

"Damn, it's good to see you," someone said, and he recognized the voice, but his mind was cluttered in a frightened disarray and he couldn't seem to think. He tried to speak but there was only a hoarse croak where his voice should have been.

"Just relax."

The hand moved to his shoulder, and the feeling brought him automatic comfort. He willed himself to calm down, to anchor in that familiar voice that quietly brought him peace. If only he could open his eyes he was sure that everything would click into place, but it felt like hundreds of tiny grains of sand had lodged underneath his eyelids and nothing wanted to move, or seemed to work right. What had happened to him? And where was – !

He concentrated very hard. "Where…?" he managed to gasp out.

"The medcenter. Try to relax; you've been through a hell of a lot."

"No!" he shook his head weakly. "Where's – Anakin?" he demanded haltingly.

The voice was confused. "I don't know. I was more concerned with you, actually. It's a wonder you're still alive, but I'm sure you're used to the feeling."

He had to laugh, though, Force, it burned in his belly like fire. "Not…this bad …before."

The voice turned sober and thoughtful. "That's probably because we haven't seen anything like this before."

Something else clicked in his mind. "Oh, Force! Where is he?" Panic swelled his throat; one of the monitors by his bedside started beeping faster, picking up on his distress and his eyes shot open. "I can't feel him!"

"Relax! Please! Try, at least … " the hand on his shoulder tightened. "We're looking. I promise."

"I left him," he whispered softly. "I can't feel him …. He's not there… oh Force, no … " he breathed out achingly, ignoring and uncaring of the hot tears that were sliding down his bearded cheek. As his vision wobbled into focus he saw that his friend sat by his bedside, his dark hand resting on his shoulder. Mace shook his head despondently, and he slowly dropped his head back onto the pillow.

"I'm sorry, Qui-Gon. We can't find him."

He felt blackness flitting about the edge of his vision, but he pushed it back. It was too strong for him, though; he was still perilously weak.

"Obi-Wan," he whispered.

OOOOOOOOOO

Earlier that morning, two silent figures had stolen through the dark dawn of Mos Eisley, quietly intent on their task. The sight that met their disbelieving eyes, however, was not what they had expected.

"What the hell happened here?"

Barak surveyed the grisly scene in the back lot of the junk dealer's shop with a grimace of disgust; it was a hugely unpleasant sight indeed. Four bodies were strewn across the lot, one of them a mere child. It was a picture he'd seen more than once: arguments over a slave – especially the pretty, female ones – could cause rifts between even the best of friends, but that didn't make the loss of good income any easier for the slave trader to bear.

He was here for the boy, Skywalker; the child was to compensate for the junk dealer Watto's preferred racer losing in the prior day's Demolition Game out in Mos Eisley. From what Barak had heard, the racer had simply abandoned the arena, forfeiting the Game. It wasn't the first time that had happened, either; there were few Games as vicious as Demolition, and many a racer had lost his nerve before the last bell sounded. This racer, certainly, would have hell to pay when anyone who had placed bets on him caught up with him.

Barak shook off his contemplative mood as his colleague, Saarven, fidgeted uneasily beside him, clearly anxious to depart this place where the cold still of death hung over them, marring the early morning quiet with a noiseless, heavy oppression that settled upon their hearts. He had seen much death in his trade, but he didn't like it any better this morning than on any other day.

"Let's hurry," he grunted, pulling a scanner from his belt.

"There's nothing to take!" his companion squeaked, and Barak didn't begrudge the man's uneasiness – he was new to this line of work. Soon he would be jaded, so for now Barak simply ignored him.

Barak lifted his long knife from its sheath. "Well – there's no sense in wasting good transmitters," he explained bluntly, grinning smally when his companion turned a faint shade a green. "You've gotta learn, kid, to leave no credit uncollected."

He knelt by the first body, this one shrouded in a thick black cloak that obscured its features, running the scanner over the corpse and frowning when it bleeped a negative at him. No transmitter. Barak rose from his half-crouch and settled by the next body, passing the tiny scanner over the still form. He grinned triumphantly when he got a positive, and his grin grew wider when the screen displayed further information.

"I'll be damned. This one's still alive," he murmured. "Help me roll him over."

"Are you sure?" Saarven asked dubiously as they roughly twisted the young man onto his back. "He looks like a corpse to me."

Barak nestled his thick, callused fingers under the stubbled, strong jawline, and nodded approvingly when he found a pulse beating strongly under his touch. "Yeah, he's alive. Pretty out of it, though. Maybe took a knock or two in the fight." He leaned back and studied the inert form intently. Young, strong. He tipped up the face this way and that in the pale dawn light and eyed the fingers closely, noting the rough calluses that decorated them quite liberally.

"His hands probably aren't soft enough to sell him off as a pleasure slave, but his looks definitely might. Still, he looks strong." Barak considered. "Too bad there ain't more of him," he observed wryly, "we could make a fortune."

Saarven's eyebrow's shot up. "We're gonna sell him?"

Barak regarded the man like he were incredibly dense – which, the trader was beginning to believe, he was. "I came here to pick up a slave. This is one," he pointed out slowly and, he felt, reasonably. "He's got a transmitter. We're gonna make a hell of a lot of money."

"But the numbers don't match up," Saarven pointed out; "This isn't Skywalker."

"Do you see anyone around to complain?" Barak cracked harshly, waving a hand around vaguely at the empty lot – save for those unfortunate corpses – to make his point. He began rummaging through his bag, crowing softly in delight when he found the suppressor drug he was searching for.

"Just to be sure," he murmured, patting it reassuringly before pressing it to the unconscious Jedi's neck, sending Obi-Wan deeper into oblivion. "Come on."

Saarven eyed the remainder of the carnage uncomfortably. "What about this?"

"We'll leave it for someone else to find." Barak was stooping over Maul's body, searching for the controls to Obi-Wan's transmitter. "Grab the kid and let's go."

OOOOOOOOOO

Obi-Wan Kenobi was in hell.

Fire raced through his veins, contrasting sharply with the deathly chill he had felt in the presence of the Sith.

In his mind, his Master screamed to him for help, but Obi-Wan wasn't there, couldn't make it in time to prevent the unfeeling crimson blade from stealing the life of one he loved. Anakin, too, his small face older somehow and dark with hate, was shouting for him, and though the young Jedi struggled, a fire blossomed in his thigh, crippling him, driving him to his knees in agony even as he struggled to reach those who needed him.

He was crawling across the jagged, rock-strewn landscape, cruel gravel biting into his palms and knees and tearing his flesh … He fumbled furtively for his lightsaber but the clasp on his belt swayed emptily, and his grasping fingers met only air.

Obi-Wan gasped in shock as he felt his body being lifted and then dumped unceremoniously on his side, flopping awkwardly over a hard metal chair. The unexpected pain seemed to pull him from his dark dreams and propel him unwillingly toward a bright, harsh light. Obi-Wan blinked furiously, trying to orient himself.

"My lightsaber," he mumbled. "I lost it – I think I lost it … somewhere… please…?"

Voices grew louder in the din, and he could even make out a couple of surprised words.

"Shit! He's coming around already! Get the damn sedative!"

He felt the hypo at his neck a second before the drug was released into his system.

"He'll need his mind wiped – thinks he's a damned Jedi, this one does!"

Hands were grasping his sweaty head now, trying to force him to be still. More hands were fastening belts across his chest and legs, pinioning him to the chair. Obi-Wan fought both the sedative and the hands violently as he felt another man approach his side and fit a slim device across his forehead. The cool metal pressed against his face, the machine hummed, and his limbs were flooded with heaviness as the device clamped into skin, digging its tiny hooks in to anchor itself in preparation for clearing his mind of his memories.

"Please don't!" Obi-Wan strained against the restraints, thrashing wildly as the mindsweeper's long, thin needle slid into his temple. "Trevanni," he sobbed, his struggles weakening, "Trevanni amas – amulli yason!"

The man responsible for purging the slave's minds before the sale pursed his mouth in slight surprise at the unfamiliar language spilling in anguished pleas from the young man's lips. He'd been on many, many planets and had contact with aliens from many more, and he couldn't recall ever hearing this language before. Still, he shrugged, there were thousands of planets in the galaxy, and no one could visit them all. It didn't take a linguist, however, to translate the young man's entreaties for mercy. He turned away.

OOOOOOOOOO

No! Oh, Force!

The buzzing was growing in Obi-Wan's head, and he wasn't ready – damn it!

Confused and drugged, he didn't have the capacity to pull the Force to him to protect himself and suddenly the machine was inside his head, sifting mercilessly through his most precious memories and discarding them as unimportant while simultaneously grasping any knowledge he held that was deemed dangerous and blanketing it in a fog so thick that Obi-Wan soon forgot he had ever possessed it.

The Jedi gasped at the shock and pain setting in and made one last effort to protect his remembrances of his life before this hell, of Qui-Gon, the Temple, even Delian and Anakin, anything he could catch before it was cruelly extracted from his straining grasp. He latched onto the sorrow and hurt as well as the joy, cradled it and tucked it as far away as he could from the cold mental fingers that tore callously through his mind.

Finally he could hold out no longer, and with one last attempt to force the sweeper from his mind, Obi-Wan wearily relinquished his efforts and slid deep into darkness.

The unit continued humming and digging long after Obi-Wan lost consciousness, busy probing the Jedi's mind. Finally it beeped its completion, signaling the end of its task.

"Good." The trader smiled his satisfaction. Waving over the two slaves designated as his assistants, he indicated the limp form of the Jedi Padawan.

"Get this one ready for the block."

OOOOOOOOOO