The Jedi Temple Murders
by analise and Kirby CrowPart 7
Qui-Gon gasped, his eyes closing at his apprentice's words. "A Dark Energy cave? I've heard of such places," he got out, his voice a bare whisper.
"I didn't know what it was Master, but it wasn't my friend. I mean, it was. It was still Geen, but he was different." Obi-Wan's fingers twisted and curled around his. "I tried to fight him, master, but he was so much stronger than me. We were...close, Geen and I. I knew his strengths, but I was so weak. I think It had drained us the night before..."
Qui-Gon nodded sadly, ignoring the barb of jealousy that pierced him when Obi-Wan said Geen's name with *that* inflection.
"It was a foe beyond any of you. There was nothing you could have done. There are places here and there that collect Force-energy... and sometimes strong emotions can give it substance. It becomes almost a living thing. Pure hunger, forcing things like love, hate, fear, pain...things for it to feed off of. To become stronger. These ...things...tend to manifest in times of war, or passion." He swallowed again, his voice trying to attain a cool, distance lecturing tone, and failing. "There hasn't been record of one in hundreds of years." There was an icy cold knot in his heart as he tried not to think of his Padawan in that cave, facing such a manifestation. Facing it in his own friend. Alone.
He didn't want to hear the rest of the story. He wanted to shut his ears and pretend that it had never happened, that he didn't already know what Obi-Wan was going to tell him next.
But he stayed. And he listened. It was all he could do.
Obi-Wan fell hard on his back, scraping one shoulder-blade raw, his breath exiting his lungs in a rush.
"Come on, Obi," his friend grinned down at him slyly, a strange mockery of Geen's usual playful smirk, "You wanted it before when I was sucking your cock. Why are you running from me now?"
Even through his horror and fear, he could tell that part of Geen *wanted* him to run, to be afraid, but he could do nothing else. His limbs would not work properly, and Geen seemed to be moving with an almost uncanny speed and agility.
Obi-Wan scrabbled back, crablike, gasping, shouting out involuntarily when his attacker's hand clamped around his ankle and dragged him effortlessly back.
"You want to play rough? Is that what you like?" The words were intoned as if Geen had memorized lines, as if he were aping someone else's voice. "Beautiful boy, you know you want me. *Everyone* wants me." Why did the last words sound so sharp, so self-deprecating?
Both hands had his ankles now, spreading his legs wide as he was pulled through the soaked moss towards the man who was his best friend. The fingers were tight enough to bruise, but he barely felt it. He stretched out with the force, not caring that he was acting in panic and fear, and found the nearest rock to hurl with his mind. He was barely able to lift it at all.
Geen didn't even notice his pathetic attempts, fixated as he was on the young man lying helplessly below him.
"Geen..." he gasped, his voice trembling as hard as his limbs, "what are you doing? Why-?"
"Shhhh. No talking now. You know I love you, don't you?"
The words tore into Obi-Wan, a cruel mirror of the same feelings revealed in the lagoon...but with a foul taint to them now. A hand came down and took hold of Obi-Wan's braid, yanking it painfully forward until he sat upright, his mouth even with Geen's straining erection. Swallowing, he looked up at his friend's face in the growing light and then gave a weak cry when hard fingers suddenly dug into the pressure points at the joint of his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Before he could plead once more, the hot, hard shaft was thrust into his mouth so deeply he gagged.
His hands came up to grasp at the forearms that held his head, fingers digging into the muscles as hard as he could, searching for nerves as he struggled futilely. Four deep thrusts were forced brutally down his throat before he found the tiny nerve bundles at the inner wrist, oddly in just the place they had gotten the tattoos that bound them all together as friends for life. The hands released his head with a snapped curse and for a moment, he was free.
Almost sobbing, he twisted to one side and began to crawl away as fast as he could, softly urging Sandor to wake up, praying for Bacco and El to return from wherever they had gone.
He made it perhaps two feet before Geen grabbed him by the legs and jerked him forward, capturing his limbs easily and pressing his face down into the moss as he wrenched his arms back.
Obi-Wan squirmed and pled beneath the heavier body as it straddled his thighs and began to probe in the very same places where Geen had gently and ably teased him the night before. No tenderness now. His friend was growling softly with lust as Obi-Wan's legs were spread forcefully apart. Obscenely enough, Geen was whispering a gross parody of reassurances as he positioned himself.
Hands dug under his hips and lifted him, spreading him, and then there was one stark, seemingly endless, moment of pain as the maddened youth opened him with one brutal thrust.
Obi-Wan shrieked hoarsely as Geen lunged and slammed into him, grinding his body down onto the moss-covered floor of the cave, pressing his face into the moist vegetation, filling his senses with pain and the pungent odor of lichen. And he could feel that very agony siphoned from him along with each drop of terror and betrayal that his mind swam in. Geen only grew more violent in response.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. Sandor had awoken and he was staggering weakly towards his friends, reaching out to try and haul Geen off Obi-Wan. It came as no surprise to young Kenobi when his friend suddenly went flying backwards as if an invisible fist had picked him up and hurled him into a wall. He didn't move.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and bit his lip to keep from screaming, trying not to listen to the deep crawling horror of his friend's false endearments between grunts.
Sandor made no second attempt, unconscious as he was. And it seemed to go on forever, until with a roar, Geen plunged into him one last time and spent himself inside Obi-Wan's body. The pain was so intense that black dots swam before his eyes, and for a moment the nightmare faded as he skirted the edges of unconsciousness. Then Geen collapsed across Obi-Wan's back, breathing heavily.
Obi-Wan stirred, boneless from the assault and trembling violently. "Geen?" he whispered, his voice hoarse with tears and shame.
"Obi..." Geen croaked. Obi-Wan turned his head to look at his friend, seeing the barest bit of his classmate peering out at him from reddened, horrified eyes. "What did I...I wanted...I'm so sorry..." The last was a raw whisper, his friends face filled a self-loathing that was almost palpable.
Then, like a closing door, Geen's green eyes went hard and bitter and lustful again, but it was still his friend's voice that thundered "NO!" The dark-haired youth tore himself away from Obi-Wan's battered and unresisting body. He rolled over painfully and watched, helpless, as a hundred different emotions flashed across Geen's features, doing battle to tear his face apart as madness wrestled for control with the Jedi apprentice.
He could see that Geen would lose. He knew it in his soul. He had felt the thing that his friend now fought. And it had reeked of obsessions and secrets and hidden shame. Of all that was warped and twisted. The by-products of the traumas that life brings. It was like looking into an evil reflection, a dark mirror of a self that you never wanted brought into the light.
Apparently, Geen knew it too, and Obi-Wan could do nothing but weep in torn denial as Geen ran to the entrance of the cave and flung himself from the top of the cliff, his body vanishing into the pounding foam.
Qui-Gon's fingers had gone numb from Obi-Wan's desperate grip. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Obi-Wan's grief pouring through the barrier that separated them. He felt numb all over. Kithurrin had been the first time he had been apart from his Padawan since he had taken him as apprentice. He had twisted and turned each night for the full month that their shared quarters had remained silent, hating the thought that Obi-Wan was not within arms reach.
He could remember now, when Obi-Wan had returned from Kithurrin with the edited tale of Geen's suicide. He had taken the pallor and the silence to mean his Padawan was grieving, and indeed, he had been. But he'd also been...
Qui-Gon eyes flew open. He found he could barely say the word in his mind, let alone speak of it with Obi-Wan. That he had endured something so brutal. And from one of his own friends!
He took a deep breath and sternly reminded himself that Geen had been under an outside influence during the act, and thus not truly responsible. Even so, he found it shamefully hard to feel regret for Geen's death. The dark-side energy had to work off of existing emotions and hidden flaws. It was probably why it had skipped over his Padawan.
"Obi-Wan," he said, "Let go of my hand." The fingers gripping his only tightened, slight panic trembling through the touch. Qui-Gon sent soothing impulses to his Padawan through their bond. "I'm going to open the door, Obi-Wan."
He quickly broadcast a loud telepathic summons to every master on the Council that must have clashed inside their skulls like a gong. Still, Qui-Gon heard no protest raised, for they were all too focused on the unspoken words he had includved in his beckoning:
*New evidence.*
Obi-Wan opened his eyes to see Mace Windu's earth-brown orbs staring down into his. Mace lowered his hands from their place on Obi-Wan's temples and folded them in his sleeves. He nodded in quiet satisfaction. Obi-Wan shivered from the newly reopened wound, but the second time had been far less painful than the first. Mace had known exactly where to strike, and had gone for the target unerringly. The rest of his psyche had been left virtually untouched.
And yet, only Qui-Gon's comforting hand on his shoulder kept him from breaking down. He would have to work long and hard to overcome his resentment and fear of Master Windu. Which, he thought as he watched Mace Windu's impassive gaze rake him, might take some time.
"It is true," Mace's deep voice flowed out into the Moot Hall, echoed by the gasps of a dozen Jedi Masters.
"Dark Energy!" someone hissed. "Near one of our Training Temples!"
Yoda held up a gnarled green paw, calling for silence. "Inform the masters at Kithurrin," he ordered solemnly. "Close all training sessions, we must."
"Kithurrin should be sealed and off-limits to Jedi, until we can determine the extent of the danger," Mace added. "And the energy would have exited Geen's body at his death. We will need to discover if it found a new host. It could have been anyone who was on Kithurrin at the time."
The other Masters all nodded emphatically, some with fear in their eyes.
"You found no trace of it in Padawan Kenobi?" another Master spoke from the depths of the room. Obi-Wan jolted slightly at the thought, his wide eyes going back to Mace as if bracing for another mental assault. He felt his Master's arms tighten around his shoulders protectively.
Mace did not move towards him, apparently already satisfied as he shook his head to the question, but the next words from the Jedi Master stunned him.
"Padawan Kenobi, you must report to the Healers, who will take you to off Coruscant to Aralin, there to recover from what has happened to you."
Mace did not see Yoda's sudden frown, nor the quick glances exchanged between the other masters at this presumption. He was occupied watching the apprentice's reactions, and Obi-Wan could have sworn the resentment he saw mirrored in Master Windu's eyes smacked of jealousy.
*Jealous of who?* he wondered. *Me?* Obi-Wan recalled with a sudden jolt that Master Windu's history with Qui-Gon Jinn went much farther back than his own.
"I...I can't *leave*," Obi-Wan strove for words, drawing courage from Qui-Gon's hand on his shoulder, which tightened convulsively. He turned to look up at him. "Don't make me leave, Master," he asked, striving to keep the pleading out of his voice, knowing he was failing. "Please don't," he implored.
Qui-Gon shook his head slightly. "Of a certainty, no one will force you to leave," he said, his eyes on Mace. "I am your master. I will decide the course of treatment for your healing. It is my right."
"It would be the best thing for the boy to be sent away, Qui-Gon," Mace's voice cut at him. "He will heal faster, and it would remove him from certain...influences that perhaps are not wise for him to be experiencing at his age."
Obi-Wan breath froze in his lungs as Mace locked a long hard gaze with his master. So Master Windu *had* seen it after all. He sent a quick prayer to all the Fates that the venerable master was not heartless enough to spill it to the Council right in front of Qui-Gon.
No one could have missed the blazing look Qui-Gon returned Mace's way, nor the cold anger that the raw insinuation raised in him.
"Influences," Qui-Gon said flatly, uttering the word as a challenge. Obi-Wan saw that Qui-Gon fully comprehended the thrust of Mace's argument, but also knew all too well that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
Only Obi-Wan knew just how innocent he was, how scrupulously ethical he had maintained his relationship with his padawan.
*Ethical to the point of torture,* Obi-Wan thought. *Master Windu must know this. Why does he persist?*
"Explain yourself," Qui-Gon demanded, his voice hard.
*No!* Obi-Wan took a step forward, out of Qui-Gon's touch. "Someone is killing my friends, Master Windu," Obi-Wan protested. "I can't just run away."
"From all the indications, you might be next to be killed, Obi-Wan," Mace said almost kindly, and Obi-Wan felt his master stiffen behind him as that fear wound its way around his heart.
"Peace," Yoda tapped his cane on the floor for silence. "A old wound it is, that Kenobi bears, and unnecessary these measures."
"Master Yoda," Mace began.
"The padawan shall remain with his master," Yoda stated in a voice that would brook no opposition, and Mace fell silent, defeated and resentful.
Yoda turned to Obi-Wan. "Your wounds have healed, young Kenobi. Left deep scars, they have."
Obi-Wan bowed his head. That much was true. "Yes, Master Yoda."
"Talk we will," Yoda promised. "At another time. Now," Yoda rose, and the body of Jedi Masters with him. "Decide we must, our own actions to take." Silently, they filed out of the ancient hall. With a formidable final glance at Qui-Gon, Mace left with them.
They were alone in the vastness of the Moot Hall.
Obi-Wan was wondering what he could say to fill the void of fracturing silence left by the departed Council, when his master's regretful voice echoed quietly around him.
"There is still something you have not shown me, Obi-Wan," he said softly. No pressure. Just a stated fact, with so much hurt concealed behind it.
He almost did it then. Master Windu knew. It was almost unfair now not to tell him, to reveal his secrets. All of them. In all their lurid glory.
And his mouth even opened, the confession on the tip of his tongue.
But he had only to look at his master, to see the trust and the respect that had not wavered, even as tested as it had been in the past day. He could not lay this last thing on shoulders that already shook with the strain of having him for an apprentice. Qui-Gon deserved many things in his life, but having to deal with a lovestruck fool was not one of them. He had humiliated this man enough for one day.
So he only shook his head and pasted the best look of innocence on his fact that he could muster under the circumstances. The small pain his master felt now by his silence was a minor price to pay and far better than the only other option.
"Nothing important, Master." He said, his voice low with his shame. Qui-Gon's eyes hardened and Obi-Wan's heart nearly broke with the pain he read there at this latest lie. "I...I'm tired. May I return to our quarters now?" He couldn't stand up under the disappointment that he read in that beloved face. He couldn't even meet his Master's gaze.
"Go then."
Choking back sudden tears and fighting the urge to simply fall at his master's feet and tell him everything, every last sordid wish and fantasy, he turned and stumbled out of the Moot, down the wide steps...
...right into the wild-eyed form of Elspeth.
Her greenish face was pale and streaked with tears as she emerged from the shadows of a column, her entire posture radiating complete loss of control. Obi-Wan gasped softly at the sight of blood dripping from her wrist. Not much, just enough to cover the area where a small blue tattoo might have sat at the junction of her forearm and her palm.
And she was clasping her lightsaber in one crimson-stained hand.
"El?" his voice was little more than a whisper in the face of the rage and hate that was painted on her normally sweet features.
"You bastard." her voice trembled unevenly, " I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them how you killed Geen. And Sandor...and Bac..." she trailed off into a gulping sob, lifting her lightsaber up with a buzz and a hum of energized motion. He didn't want to remind her that she had already told the council her suspicions. She wasn't lucid. But even through her obvious distress, the weapon was steady. He could read her intent clearly. Her need for revenge.
"I didn't..." he was shaking his head. Even after being exonerated by the Council, he couldn't dismiss the guilt that her accusations stirred up. He felt like an exposed wound. Reliving the rape, Geen's death...lying to his Master; he was fully aware that he was crying yet again, tears streaking indiscriminately down his cheeks.
She took another step towards him, her eyes narrowing.
"You killed him. I knew he talked to you yesterday. I warned him. He didn't listen." Another step and Obi-Wan could feel the heat of the blade on his skin. He made no move for his own weapon, instead standing still before her. Praying that she come to her senses before she killed him. He would take no action against her.
"No." It seemed all he could say. He was all out of words, all out of wits...all out of spirit. He was only defeated and broken. She lifted her saber as if to bring it down on him...only to have the weapon wrenched from her grasp by an unseen hand and flung violently against the stone wall of the hallway.
Blinking, Obi-Wan suddenly noticed that there were Temple guards surrounding the both of them, hemming Elspeth in, and his Master was half-running down the stairs of the Moot, robes flapping around his ankles.
He was empty. Empty of pride, of energy, of feeling. And like the broken shell he was, he simply crumpled to the stone flags beneath his feet.
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