pronker

Part One Hundred Three

The fish did not flap even once when they hit the floor. Their small bodies fanned out in a ribbon of dull silver, blasted by a Chosen One's rage.

Luminara stood above the wide-eyed Padawan, ready to exert herself again, but Anakin held himself clenched in a sitting position, rigid with tension. He was still gasping for air, clutching the arms of the chair until the metal creaked. The aquarium bubbled away, no longer filled with life that didn't love, dream, or plan. Luminara thought that if Anakin had that kind of life, he might be more content walking the Jedi path. She realized some beings might consider her own life close to the fishes' and resolved to think about that later.

"Anakin, you are the Chosen One. We don't know what your full abilities are." And this result from Plo and my research is unsettling for me, for Obi-Wan, for the Order ... stop, Luminara. This is a Padawan before you, not a monster. You've known him since he was a child. He's difficult, emotional, and in love. These things aren't crimes. Luminara tucked a stray hair under her cowl, which was slightly askew from the tussle. She sat down.

You're afraid of me. Anakin portrayed earnestness in as mild a way that he could. He put everything he had into this acting attempt, although he knew that he was a poor thespian. The circumstances driving him made him better at it than he had ever been, and he stilled his worried face, turning large blue eyes on the Healer appealingly.

Luminara recognized the attempt and softened her manner. "Anakin, Obi-Wan isn't powerful enough to shield himself from your presence" --- she makes me sound like stellar radiation --- "when you two are so close together. It's as if the whole galaxy is rushing at him" --- yeah, that is what life feels like sometimes --- "and it's destroying his mind. I'm sorry to have to tell you this. First these nervous tics appeared, correct?"

"The hiccups and the stuttering, yes," he muttered. "His numb hand came later." And the way that he followed me down the hall like my Padawan. And how flying wasn't as jaw-droppingly repellent as before. Anakin glanced at his glove. He felt my phantom arm pain ... "But you're wrong! Master is stronger than anyone I know!"

Luminara modulated her tone further, though she was still upset with him. "His shields aren't as strong as before; he's let down his guard with you. The guard of his mind. You came inside the essence of him" --- in more ways than you know, Master Lu --- "when you got, ah, closer; if this condition continues, you will not be able to continue as a Master and Padawan pair." She locked eyes with Anakin and held herself taller in her seat as she told him, "As your and Obi-Wan's Healer, I couldn't allow it. I'm sorry." Luminara couldn't stop herself from apologizing again. She knew the depth of devotion that Obi-Wan was capable of, from his firm ties to Qui-Gon and his own friendship with her. She remembered their dinner together at the Elfin Sprite. And he didn't drink his cocktail, abstaining just like you do. "Um, Obi-Wan said there were no clashes with you on Trow, Anakin, and that you'd gotten even closer in some ways than before. I'm here to tell you that you need to back off whatever ways that you've changed your relationship" --- and I might know how you've been changing it, it's the sleeping together thing, right, Anakin? --- "if you want him to return to health. It's for his greater good and, of course, yours, too."

Greater good. That's why the timing was never right to reinstate the Respect-For-Master's-Authority. Anakin brushed tears from his cheeks with a trembling hand. "I can't stop loving him, Master Lu."

She handed him a tissue. "Certainly not. Compassion makes us Jedi; you couldn't be you without love in your life." I haven't his experiences. I don't know how difficult breaking off something like this is. The closest I can imagine is seeing Barriss walk away from me, braidless and free. She unbent. "We've settled on the 'what,' and now Plo and I are homing in on the 'why.' For your sake as well as his, be gentle with your Master. This is for his health, Anakin; it's as if you knew he craved hoi-broth for lunch and you wouldn't give that to him, would you, if it were your turn to cook?"

Incipient hysteria choked Anakin. Hoi-broth. She's comparing our love to hoi-broth. He brayed a laugh, building to a spate of bellylaughs that doubled him over with dull knives of pain. His diaphragm ached by the time he was done and he needed a fistful of tissues. Finally he stilled, worn out. "You'll tell him first, then, if Master Koon confirms?"

"I will."

"Because I can't. I can do many things, but I can't deliberately hurt him."

"We might be wrong; I surely do hope so. Master Koon will do the procedure after lunch. Obi-Wan is continuing his Visiting The Sick in the war-injury ward and we'll all three have a meal together. He won't need any kind of prep." Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind, young one. It's a Healer's credo. It's still difficult for me and I hope that doesn't ever change. "Pull yourself together, Padawan Skywalker. He'll know you've been crying."

Anakin allowed Luminara to ghost her fingertips over his face, soothing away redness and the congestion of tears. I'd rather keep them, like a badge of mourning. To commemorate these past months.

The river inverted.

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Part One Hundred Four

Plo Koon thought it beneficial to treat Obi-Wan in the Council chambers in the late afternoon. Quiet, that time of day. No infirmary antiseptic smell. Force-permeated. Peaceful view. Familiar. Somewhat ... formal. Conducive to reason. Luminara allowed Plo to lead her in this direction after this morning's face-off with Anakin. She had released her concerns to the Force, cleaned up the pitiful silver bodies, and brought along a large supply of tissues. How I do hope we are wrong as wrong can be.

Obi-Wan hesitated outside the chamber's doors and Luminara had a hideous vision of a soon-to-be-trapped animal sensing its danger. Healer, heal yourself. Schooling her expression, she led the way inside to where Plo admired the afternoon view. Or studied the view, or counted skyhoppers in his scientific way. His character remained off-putting, but Luminara was nothing if not professional. "Obi-Wan, let's sit."

"Very well." Obi-Wan sat in his regular seat, Plo in his, while Luminara gave in to impulse and sat in Master Yoda's, adjusting its repulsors for her height.

"Obi-Wan," Luminara began, "while you were on leave, I had many Jedi to treat, and not one for being a 'mental,' as you put it; therefore, you had my entire attention. In the month since I've seen you, I've searched other Force-sensitives' databases, even the Dathomiri, whose uncatalogued mess I hope never to touch again. These populations use various methods of finding each other in crisis situations. Some are quite effective."

Plo Koon crossed his arms and his legs. Don't argue with a Healer in front of her patient. "Yes. Indubitably."

"I also installed a feed from the Republic teachers on Trow. They sent a probe droid along your journey, from point of entry into Gitchy to your last accommodations in the hotel near its shores." She showed her datapad's scroll to Obi-Wan. "Nothing inimical to you or to Anakin. No spores, toxins, miasmas, unusual radiation sources or water supply poisonings could it turn up. An indigenous mold came the closest to harm, but that was all."

Plo Koon tilted his head, folded his hands inside his robe sleeves and remembered his Kel Dor-human relations interview seminar that he attended as a Padawan. Maintain eye-to-mask contact. Use the human's name often. "Obi-Wan, we're fellow Councilmembers. Everything we do is for the common good of the Jedi, the peacekeepers of the Republic and the galaxy in general. So you, Obi-Wan, know that when I and Luminara suggest a telepathic diagnosis to confirm your condition, it is for the good of all concerned, Obi-Wan, especially for your Padawan." Make it personal. Pull out all the nalargon stops.

"What the fuck for?"

Oh, not good. Luminara showed her datapad to Obi-Wan again, but he brushed it aside, pushing her repulsor chair one meter away. "I mean, it's just a tremor," he argued. "Give me some stronger vitamins, or neuron blockers or something, but don't invade my mind!"

Luminara put down her datapad and Plo took over. "It's invasive, I can't lie to you. It doesn't hurt. I won't tell any secrets. As a responsible Kel Dor, your mental pathways and especially your motivations are simply data for my protocols. If it is my technique that harms anyone beyond a few behavioral changes, I have the responsibility to withdraw its use. If it is not" --- he regarded Luminara, but she could read no expression in his goggled eyes and he wasn't using body language at all --- "then further research into your case must be done. We can't have Jedi Councilmembers in jeopardy deciding crucial issues for the Order."

"In jeopardy of what?" Obi-Wan said his latest version of Luminara's lesson to himself. Don't feel so much. "Lu?"

"We don't know exactly, but it may involve Anakin's affecting you in his capacity as the Chosen One, though not intentionally," Luminara put in swiftly. "I am your primary care provider, and I've called in help, Obi-Wan. Please let me do my job." He was her special friend since Ansion. They forged a bond there, a firm friendship. It would weather this. It would.

What does my Padawan have to do with this? "What? What about Anakin?"

"Obi-Wan, this procedure may define a bit more what a Chosen One's abilities are! We as Jedi need to know this. Anakin needs to know about this." Shameless, Luminara.

Plo Koon reached inside himself and came up with empathy. "Obi-Wan, you and I are brother Jedi; not friends, more than acquaintances. I do what's best for the Order." Don't make me come over there and take what the Order needs.

In the end, Obi-Wan thought of the Force first, and then of Anakin, just like in his lesson. "All right. What do I do?" All three rose to their feet. It seemed better to commune in a three-sided huddle.

"Relax. Let me near. I don't need to touch you." Obi-Wan thought he could handle the approach of a near mind-rape, but stiffened at the last moment and pulled away, stumbling back three steps. Luminara and Plo steadied him with firm grips on his arms. He stiffened further, but didn't back away. Plo Koon wasn't like a psychometric Kiffar. He had merely to reach out with his mind to a receptive --- or not --- consciousness and dip inside for a 'statistical sample,' as he called it privately, of the being's self. He was a stern but not a cold Master. He was scientific, he told himself; others mostly agreed. "Obi-Wan, please!"

Luminara warned, "Obi-Wan, if you struggle and shield, you could harm yourself further. Please let Plo help me to help you. I'm, I'm at my wits' end here!" To Obi-Wan's ears, she was close to hysterics in her need to aid her friend. He didn't think it had to do with her wanting to finish diagnosing and be off to New Holstice after long weeks of delay, all on his behalf. He didn't want to think it, anyway.

"Hold yourself together, Obi-Wan, this will build your character --- " Plo shuffled along with Luminara as Obi-Wan twisted in their grip, Obi-Wan breaking free entirely of Luminara, who could think of nothing but Anakin's desperation earlier. They were more alike than they realized. It began to frighten her.

" --- I have character to burn --- I said let GO of me, Plo! --- I am loaded to the fucking gills with character, what I want is Anakin!" The part of Obi-Wan that was embarrassed by his lack of control submerged again and there was only the truth of his cry echoing in the chamber. This was his condition talking while the rest of him exploded as he pushed away from his fellow Councilmember. Luminara touched him with her Healer's hands, but he pushed away from her, too. She pursued him until they came to a stop in the middle of the chamber. Plo stepped up to Obi-Wan's other side, bracketing the distraught Master between Luminara and himself.

"I don't want to involve the others, Obi-Wan. You don't want me to, either. There, there, now, breathe. Let me in. I can help." Plo's telepathy oozed its way into Obi-Wan's brainpan, over each corrugation of his cerebrum, down the corpus callosum, straight to the brainstem. Obi-Wan had never felt invaded like this before and the fact that it came from a colleague only made it worse. He breathed shallowly in tiny puffs, fighting off the urge to shield mightily as he had never done previously, and didn't calm when Plo withdrew. Obi-Wan yanked away and paced in front of his own Council seat.

"Hmmm."

"What? What's 'hmmm'?"

"You're conflicted."

"No shit, Plo."

As a Kel Dor, Plo regarded anything other than black and white issues with distaste. It was his respect for Obi-Wan that kept it from appearing in his voice or manner. "More than psychically, I mean. It's like your midichlorians are responsible for it; some have changed their polarity." Physics were fascinating, always. And it wasn't my imprinting protocols. Whew. It has to do with Anakin's status as Chosen One defiling his Master somehow. I'm glad my part of this is over with.

"Polarity? Midichlorians can have polarity separate from the other parts of my cells?" Polarity meant negative and positive charges. And if they were changing, whatever would before have been attracted to him would switch to being repelled. Did this apply to beings' minds, or physicality, or magnetic fields or ...

"And the conflict is that you are fighting it. You are fighting to stay the same, but you're in danger of being overwhelmed by something stronger. The conflict is unbalancing your mind. It's nearly touching your soul." Physics may be fascinating in this case, but as a Jedi, Plo felt deep compassion for Obi-Wan and Anakin. The sentiment shocked him somewhat, and he backed off from it. He would examine it later. "Wanting" Anakin, what does that mean? Wanting him to do what? Plo himself wanted nothing so much as to retreat to his laboratory and update his protocols.

"You can't have Anakin the way you want without going insane," said Luminara softly. Not a psychosomatic, but a somatopsychic origin for his troubles. I'm here for you, Obs. "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan; you're my own dear friend and I know that this hurts. I've researched for weeks and this is the news that I have for you ... I'm sorry."

Obi-Wan's legs shook and he sat down in his seat. Head in his hands, he felt tears building up and blinked them back. A sick fear lanced through him; different than battlefield nerves, different than fear for his Padawan's wellbeing. It would take time to work through and release this one. This was a primal fear of losing one's self, all that one could claim in meek acceptance of existence. This was real, this was true. Obi-Wan wanted to faint and make it all go away, but he couldn't. He had some planning to do.

The river disappeared.

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