The Jedi Temple Murders
by analise and Kirby CrowPart 10
By the time they caught their breath, the sun had risen high and the day was heating up. They lay on the stone flags, covered in his robe, his apprentice's head pillowed on his shoulder.
It was Obi-Wan who broke the silence.
"Everyone thinks that Elspeth is the murderer, don't they?" His words were soft and thoughtful. The older man was relieved to hear much of the crushing pain gone from his Padawan's voice.
"Yes. Do you disagree? She attacked you. She is clearly not...well." He could still see her lifting her lightsaber...bringing it down on his apprentice. It had been all he could do to simply tear the weapon from her grip instead of flinging her bodily against a wall.
Obi-Wan swallowed and though Qui-Gon couldn't see his face, he could sense the frown.
"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense to me." He fell silent again, and Qui-Gon could fairly hear the gears turning in that young head. "Master," Obi-Wan said suddenly. "I think I need to talk to her. Will it be allowed?"
"I think she's been sedated until her trial, but she should be able to talk to you, Padawan."
Obi-Wan flinched slightly at the word 'trial', clearly recalling his own all too well. He tightened his arm, pulling the youth a little closer in wordless reassurance.
Obi-Wan rolled and propped his chin on Qui-Gon's breastbone, looking up at him, sea-green eyes searching his. "Still your Padawan?" he asked lightly, but Qui-Gon heard the very real fear lurking behind his tone.
"Of course. Padawan and beloved."
Obi-Wan sagged a little in relief and laid his cheek against his master's breast. Qui-Gon knew he was hiding the sudden tears that had misted his vision.
"Oh, I'm so glad," the young man said fervently.
Qui-Gon hugged him warmly, fingers carding through his soft hair, sliding down the braid and fingering the beads entwined in the plaited hair. He frowned suddenly, remembering the other bead he had found in the fountain.
He hugged Obi-Wan once more and urged him off so that he could sit up. "There is something of my own I must follow up on, Obi-Wan," he said, tugging his tunic down and pulling his breeches back up around his waist. "Your instincts about Elspeth may well be correct."
Obi-Wan nodded solemnly, a proper apprentice once more, and the Jedi Master repressed a grin. "You will make a fine Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi." He kissed his lips quickly. "Go. See your friend."
"Yes, master. But...I think I should clean up first."
Qui-Gon shot him a teasing look. "You think?"
Obi-Wan hesitated, then suddenly pressed his own quick kiss to Qui-Gon's bearded lips. Qui-Gon could glimpse the return of his apprentice's confidence already. He repressed a smile at the thought that he rather liked the youth biddable and not so stubborn.
"Master...tonight?"
Qui-Gon swallowed then, seeing the love in those eyes. His heart felt like a fist was squeezing it. "Tonight and every night, love."
Obi-Wan flashed him a smile that made his belly flutter with anticipation and the muscles in his groin tighten. *Old goat*, he chided himself. You will be patient.*
Obi-Wan jumped up and disappeared down the garden path, hastily pulling his clothing into place. Qui-Gon watched him go and shook his head, marveling at the recuperative powers of the young. Yesterday the world had been crashing down, and indeed, Obi-Wan had had good reason to feel so. But this morning his step no longer held the tread of doom. He no longer looked like a man uncaring if he lived or died. His brave Padawan was back, full of the intense joy of life that made him so very special and unique.
He drew his knees up and laid his arms across them, staring thoughtfully at the ragged trail of a sapphire butterfly through the air. He took wry note of the fact that more than one set of muscles were complaining. Clearly he hadn't used those particular ones in a long while. It was almost a dream, as Obi-Wan had whispered, a dream that his arms, so long empty, were now filled.
His eyes shuttered briefly, his lips curling in a smile he could not contain.
The bead, he reminded himself, the bead. He had forgotten about it in the furor surrounding Bacco's death and Obi-Wan's subsequent 'arrest'. His forehead creased slightly in a frown. Why had Mace not mentioned it to him last night? True, the tensions between them, the stiff, unbending Code that Mace followed so scrupulously, had hung between them like a palpable third presence. It was possible that his old friend had allowed his intense disapproval of Obi-Wan's 'secret', of Qui-Gon's own passion for his student to cloud his judgement, to let him forget that two Padawans had been killed.
Though, knowing Mace, that was extremely unlikely. Even as strangely as the man had been acting lately.
Perhaps Mace had discovered the bead to be useless, or perhaps the psychic signature of Sandor's terror had faded from it. Whatever the reason, there had to be a logical explanation. There was much that the strength of the council together could learn from such an item. An item that he believed to have most definitely been present during the murder itself.
*Why* hadn't Mace mentioned it?
His frown deepened as he mulled over the significance of such an oversight in such an anal man, and he stood, brushing at the stiffened patches on his tunic and attempting to put himself to rights. There was no time to wash. He needed to see Mace immediately.
"Elspeth?"
Obi-Wan poked his head down through the arched alcove of the secluded chamber the temple guards had directed him to. Within the interior was a door that was too small to lead to anything but a closet, a short hall leading into the living chambers, and a few potted plants drooping and struggling for life in the dim light. "Hello?"
Silence was his answer.
He stepped further into the chamber, his face expectant. "Elspeth?" he called again. Water was dripping somewhere. He saw no temple guards, and for a moment he wondered if he taken a wrong turn somewhere. Then he spotted a young guard sitting in a chair just beyond the hallway, arms folded over his chest, long legs crossed at the ankle in front of him. His head was down, chin touching his chest, as if he were deeply asleep. Frowning slightly, Obi-Wan shook his head and approached the sleeping guard, his hand outstretched to shake his shoulder. Then he saw the blood.
The breast of the guard's black temple uniform was gleaming with a dark liquid. Obi-Wan froze in his step. Even from several paces away he could smell the bright tang of spilled blood, like metal in his mouth, an unmistakable scent. Once experienced, never forgotten.
His throat had been cut.
Obi-Wan began to back slowly away in horror, all the fear of the past several days slamming into him at once. His heart, after that first painful seizing, began to pound against his ribs in stacatto rhythm. The room spun. He felt skin of his face was going numb and dimly noticed he was hyperventilating. Obi-Wan held his breath for a long moment to stop the dizzying sensation, then had to remind himself to breathe before turning and stumbling for the archway.
Only when he turned did he see the dark stain spreading from beneath the tiny closet door next to the arch. The sound of dripping intensified, and he realized it was coming from behind the closet door. Obi-Wan made a small sound in his throat, halfway between a whimper and a sob. It was happening again. It was all happening again.
He trembled and tried to reach for Qui-Gon with his mind, but his mental disciplines were shattered. He managed a weak jet of sending, gone dumb before it was out of him, before his control shattered altogether as the dark liquid spreading across the floor touched the toes of his boots.
"Noooo!" he sobbed, and lunged forward to jerk the door open. Elspeth tumbled into his arms and he fell with her, her slight weight bearing his unresisting body to the floor. Obi-Wan uttered a wailing cry of denial and loss as he cradled her limp, soaking wet body in his arms. She was warm and smelled of soap. He looked down into her wide staring eyes and shook her violently, his voice rising on a note of hysteria.
"Elspeth! *Elspeth!*"
He might have gone on forever, shaking her and screaming her name, if not for the arms that grabbed him from behind and the iron hand clamped over his mouth.
Qui-Gon found Master Windu in the Temple of Reflection, a cold and darkened hall with little light and a single uncomfortable bench. It seemed the perfect place for the man to retreat to. The stark order of it, the unadorned lines and the pure elegance that could only come with such enforced structure. Mace sat neatly on the small bench with his back to him.
"Come to speak to the statue, have you?" Mace asked tightly, a wall of hurt behind the words.
Qui-Gon laid his hand on his shoulder. "I didn't mean that, old friend."
Mace turned and took in his disheveled state. He froze, an undefinable emotion flashing past his features. "You could" he said deliberately, "have taken the time to wash. You smell like a Dug prostitute."
Even Mace's surly rejoinder could not dim his mood. Or distract him from the reason he had come. He moved to sit beside the stiff figure on the bench, looking up at the beautiful elegance of the statuary that hung over the floor. Grim and lifeless though it was, it was also stunningly elegant in its sleek perfection. Staring nude figures hung as if in the air along the walls, looking down on those who came to reflect, to perhaps judge?
"I only wish to protect the boy, Qui-Gon." Mace's words were tight, and the big man did not look away from the central-most figure. A massive stone woman, her curves limned in the faint light of the clerestory windows high above. "I have seen the folly of lusting after a Padawan."
That shocked Qui-Gon, and he knew Mace felt his sharp emotion. It practically echoed in the high, stone hall. A smile lit Mace's lips, though he still did not look at his friend.
"It is not as you think, Master Jinn. I do not lust after children." The flush that came to Qui-Gon's face was not anger, or shame...it was stunned shock. He had read the inflection in Mace's voice...he understood. Mace didn't lust after children, but he did desire Obi-Wan. Surely no child.
He was speechless for a moment, his mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at the chiseled profile. After a long, long moment, he turned his eyes back up to the statue that Mace stared at. It was the representation of Calm, he realized distantly.
"I'm sorry," Qui-Gon said quietly, only now realizing how painful it must be for Mace to be confronting him in his present state. He, the one who had claimed the object of Mace's desire and then come to him still with the scent of Obi-Wan on his body, the taste of him still in his mouth.
*Callous,* he berated himself. *Insensitive. Cruel, even. But how was I to know?*
Mace only sighed and then finally, finally turned to face the other Master. "I came to terms with it some time ago, Qui-Gon. But I am concerned still. I have seen what happens with such desires. I saw what happened to Geen."
"Geen?" Qui-Gon frowned, not understanding. Mace did not release his gaze.
"Obi-Wan's recount of the Dark Energy tells only half the story, I think. Why did It find a receptacle in Geen? We know how Dark Energy works. It feeds of emotions that are already present. That are repressed or hidden. Things that many of us carry with us and never allow to surface. How was Geen able to rape his best friend? Not only because he had wanted Obi Wan for so long, but because he himself had been lusted after. By his master."
"What?!" Qui-Gon was frowning again. The quiet, gentle Veddian? Be'el had desired his Padawan? Not that it was that surprising in retrospect. Geen had been truly beautiful. There were many, student and teacher alike, who had admired him.
"I knew for some time. I was, as you put it, 'peeping though windows and taking names'. I suspected that Be'el had taken it further. That he may have sexually abused the boy."
"And you did nothing?!" Qui-Gon gasped, realizing instantly the trap he had walked into.
"And interfere between a Master and his Apprentice?" Mace asked wryly. There was no trace of malice in the man's face, only a sad amusement. "Recall how well you handled it. And, just like with you, I had no proof."
Qui-Gon shook his head ruefully, bringing one hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose. Poor Geen, if it was true.....and it did explain the boy's repressed sexual rage. He blinked suddenly, frowning. The bead...
"Mace, did Be'el ever give you the bead I found?" Somehow, with a sick twist of his stomach, he already knew the answer.
"Bead? What the blazes are you talking about, Qui-Gon?"
He came to his feet in a rush, his eyes slightly wild. It wasn't Elspeth after all, just as Obi-Wan had thought.
And that meant that both the girl and his own Padawan were still in great danger.
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