Author: Chaos
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Qui-gon and Obi-wan and the universe they come from, along with their vehicle and all their luggage belong to George Lucas exclusively. They are respectfully borrowed with no intent to profit thereby or infringe on the copyright thereof.



Section 11

Debrah and Obi-wan had trekked back to the ship. Debrah had one of Lisa�s sketch pads under one arm and a pocket full of pencils and different colored pens. While her friend was busy taking measurements of Qui-gon and plotting and planning her costuming masterpiece, the blond was going to take her first look at the damaged components of the transport. Since Obi-wan was the more knowledgeable of the two Jedi about the workings of the ship, he was along to help her if necessary.

�Ok, let�s see what we�ve got here. Ben, show me what I�m looking at.�

�It�s right over here.� The sandy-haired young man pointed her toward one wall and pulled the cover plate off to reveal the burnt out section of the hyperdrive. �As you can see, it is totally destroyed. We�ll need to replace it entirely.� He pointed to several of the most obviously over-stressed parts. �The motivator, the power couplings, the interlinks, all past repair.�

Debrah hardly heard him though. This was what she�d been waiting on for the last seven years. All along, all through each excruciating class and every tedious lab, this was what she had hoped, prayed, expected would eventually happen. The circuit laid out before her became suddenly clear. This was the way she�d always imagined it should be. Each component and its purpose was so obvious as to be almost painful. The whole of it was immediately apparent and what she needed to do to get it working again was just as easy to see. For the longest time she had envied those around her in her engineering classes that could look at a schematic and simply know what it was. She had studied and worked and ground her brain to sticky grey paste trying to make that happen for herself, but it never had. Until now.

�I know this,� she whispered. �I know what this is and I know how to fix it.�

�Debrah?�

The woman raised her eyes from the hole in the bulkhead, surprise and wonder in her gaze. �Obi-wan, I can see it. I know it.� The young man only looked confused so she reached out a hand and laid it alongside his face, then reached awkwardly into the Force. She wielded it poorly and with no elegance or real control, but none the less she used it to try to show him her frustration, her disappointment, her dashed hopes, so many years of struggle apparently in vain, and then tried to convey the wild tangle of emotions that assailed her now. She could see it and she knew it.

Bright blue eyes gazed back at her in sudden understanding. �The Force brought you to us, Debrah. Never doubt that.�

�I won�t.� Her hand dropped away and the moment passed. �Well then. I�d better get to work.� Debrah turned single mindedly toward the exposed circuitry, her focus already on the task before her. �Obi, do me a favor and haul my boombox and the box of CDs in here, would you? I want some music while I work. Oh, and I�ll need my multi-meter as well. It�s the bright yellow, drat, never mind, just bring the grey and red box in here as well.�

The Jedi smiled at her back and moved away to do as she bid, finding everything she had requested. He dropped the grey and red box beside her and fumbled with the boombox. He�d seen her operate it and he�d seen the care with which she treated the small reflective disks. �You know, you could probably store all these on a just a couple of datadisks.�

�Then start storing. I�m not sure how long the batteries for the boombox will last and I haven�t noticed any plugs around here.� The woman�s voice was muffled because she had her head halfway through the hole, her hands holding the bright yellow rectangle of the multi-meter as she tested this lead and that for resistance, amperage and voltage.

Obi-wan watched as his host on this strange planet made page after page of notes. She used the multi-meter almost constantly and would occasionally ask him questions about this part or that and their function. Since her own planet�s technology was inferior to what she was looking at Debrah was unfamiliar with many of the more common components and their function as well as most of the terms used. She would jot down what he said next to a rough drawing of the part and go back to her testing. It was fascinating to watch.

Obi-wan half wished that he could see what was going on inside of her head. He�d heard that engineers thought differently, looked at things differently than everyone else and he could now see why they might say that. She worked constantly, often humming to herself along with the music or tapping with a tool against the bulkhead in time with the beat, but other than that she appeared totally unaware of her environment. He heard her stomach rumble a request for food, but she didn�t seem to even notice. The task before her absorbed all of her attention and anything else was a distraction to be filtered out and ignored.

�Hey, what�s this . . . Ouch!!� Debrah jerked back her hand, pulling out of the exposed wiring and sticking a wounded finger into her mouth. She sat up slowly, shaking her hand and looking at it as if it had betrayed her by being susceptible to stray shocks. �Hmm, maybe I�d better worry about just the broken parts for now.�

�Not a bad idea.�

Debrah looked up at Obi-wan. He was sitting quietly off to one side next to her boombox. He had stacks of CDs on either side of him and a datapad and several datadisks in front of him. She�d about forgotten that he was even there. Her stomach took that opportunity to again signal its emptiness and the blond slapped a hand across her abdomen in chagrin.

�How long have we been out here?� Without waiting for a reply to her own question the engineer glanced at her watch. �Yeesh! That�s why my bladder feels like it�s going to explode. We better get back to the house and rescue Qui-gon from Lisa before she decides to redesign his entire wardrobe.�

They discovered that things weren�t nearly that bad when they returned to the house. Qui-gon was wandering through the flower garden, happy as a clam as far as Debrah could tell and Lisa was in her sewing room measuring out great lengths of black cloth, definitely happy as a clam. The blond stuck her head in, loath to interrupt her friend, but she had probably missed lunch, too.

�Hey, hungry yet?�

Lisa looked up from her fabric and scissors, pins jutting from her mouth like strange metallic whiskers. She seemed to think about it a moment, then nodded in the affirmative. She mumbled something around the pins that came out unintelligible.

�What?�

Lisa cleared the pins from her mouth. �Your uncle is dang tall. I�m gonna have to piece all of this.�

Debrah laughed lightly and moved to help her friend tidy up the room. �Hey, I�ve warned you in the past. All my brothers are six-one or better. Why would you even think that a relative of mine might be normal sized?�

�Ben�s not that tall.�

�Ben�s only seventeen. Give him time.�

�Give me time for what?�

Both women glanced up with slightly guilty looks as the young man in question stuck his head in through the doorway. �Oh, I was just warning Lisa that all of my relatives are tall. After all, I�m the shortest person in my family and I�m taller than average for a woman, barely, but still.� Debrah shrugged as she straightened up from folding excess fabric. �Well, Lisa. Do you want to cook, or shall I?�

�You cook. I have no clue what I have for food, but feel free to use whatever you find. You were always a better cook than I was.�

Debrah smiled at her friend. �Then come talk to me while I do it. I know that you�ll stay in here and putter if I don�t drag you out. You�re almost as bad as I am.�

�Okay, okay,� Lisa dropped her scissors into a basket full of similar implements on a cluttered table and proceeded past her guests toward the kitchen. Debrah gave Obi-wan a push after the short brunette and both of them trailed along behind.

Dinner, both preparation and the meal itself, were accompanied by laughter and light conversation. Lisa and Debrah took turns regaling the two men with stories from their school years, mostly embarrassing ones. Lisa made sure not to ask the men anything that might make them uncomfortable. The whole evening progressed easily in a relaxed manner, even for Obi-wan, because the dogs lay quietly on their rugs where Lisa had ordered them to stay.

�You should have seen her face,� Lisa giggled. �I�ve never seen anyone turn that red. And a second later when he held up those black silk boxers it only got worse.� She turned to see that Debrah had only turned slightly pink around the ears and across her cheeks. �Hmm, not as bad as it used to be.�

�No, this story has made the rounds enough times that I no longer turn crimson at the mere mention of Baron William and the boxers.�

�Kat has pictures, I believe.�

�Yes, I�ve seen them,� the blond replied drily.

�Well anyway, she was so flustered that she could hardly think of a thing to say and things went downhill from there. Nikki ended up winning that one.�

�Yes,� Debrah turned a self-deprecating smile on the two Jedi and shrugged. Both men had slight smiles on their faces, though Obi-wan�s looks like it was about to explode into gut-busting laughter. �I am an engineer. I need time to plan and they didn�t give me any. Not fifteen minutes later I knew what I should have said to turn the whole thing around, but by then it was too late, of course.�

�Well, I think that the moving furniture excuse was a very good one, Debrah.� Obi-wan remarked. �It explained why Lancelot was in your room and gave you the time to get properly dressed before opening the door for the Baron.�

�That was the whole point behind the Guenevere contest, Ben. Anyway, I would never have entered it if I hadn�t had time to watch what the others were doing and happened upon a decent plan of action. Even as it was I only took second place.�

There was silence for a short time after that. Dishes had been pushed back and glasses were down to just ice cubes and melted ice cubes tinted slightly pink from the lemonade. Lisa pushed her chair back from the table.

�That was a wonderful meal, Deb. I�d forgotten how nice it was to have you cook for me.�

�I�ve always liked cooking for other people, you know that.�

Lisa began to pick up the dishes, but Qui-gon stopped her. �No, let us do that. It is the least we can do for your hospitality.� Debrah rolled her eyes at her friend in a �they do this all the time� look and it was answered with an �I don�t mind� shrug. Lisa began to put the leftovers in tupperware and Debrah stepped out the french doors into the garden and the spectacular sunset.

The blond needed some time to herself. She�d always been sort of a loner as a child and now that she was basically an adult not much had changed. She�d played well with others and helped and defended and chased with the rest of them, but always there had been a craving, a requirement, for time and space of her own that no one could intrude on. When her sister had finally insisted on her turn at the upper bunk, Debrah had immediately taken an extra large bedspread and used it to make a curtain around the lower bunk, closing it off from the rest of the room. That had become her space and everyone in the family had learned to knock before sticking their head in to talk to her.

Now, the engineer wandered toward the hedge maze. The moon was a brilliant silver smudge on the horizon, not yet risen high enough to peek properly over the trees. The scent of pine was on the wind as well as the ever present perfume of the roses that Lisa had insisted on planting almost everywhere. The stars overhead were clear and seen with an ease that Debrah had missed while at school. There had been too much ambient light in the middle of the college town for any but the brightest stars to be discernable, but here those same bright stars were surrounded by their smaller, farther celestial companions and the shimmering blaze of the Milkyway was almost a white stripe painted across the heavens. With air was cool and crisp and Debrah inhaled deep, large lung fulls, while her mind tried to sort out the suddenly urgent need to sequester herself.

The last few weeks had been taken up with frantic, study sessions that started early and lasted late into the night, by packing and unpacking, by worrying about the Jedi and their safety and then that horrible way the shopping trip ended. All that was over for the moment. There would be a little time to stop and catch her breath before moving on again and there was something she�d been putting off, deliberately not examined, that refused to be ignored any longer. Debrah just couldn�t put her finger on it. Twisting this way and that in the maze, not really caring where she went, the woman wandered till she found one of the conversation nooks that appeared on occasion within the green growing walls. Sitting down on a stone bench, she tucked her legs up indian-style and tried to relax. If actively thinking about the problem wouldn�t bring it to her, she might as well try to meditate. It had helped at school, no reason why it wouldn�t help here.

Debrah closed her eyes and listened, just that and no more. First there was the soft lapping of the water in the fish pond in front of her, the little splashes the fish made as they flitted hither and yon in the dark. There was the songs and chirpings of the night birds and insects, blending together in a kind of natural symphony. The wind murmured gently in the leaves of the hedges and made the branches grate softly against each other. What she didn�t hear was the impatient stamp of a horse or the baying of coyotes down in the canyon. There were no hissing cat fights or rumbled purrs. No calls of �Mom!� from the not too distant house or loud laughter of small children. She realized that she hadn�t heard the sounds of a television since she left school. That was how mom relaxed in the evening after a day of work. She�d come home, changed into one of her many bathrobes, poured herself a tall glass of milk, grabbed up her current book and turned on the TV. One could hear it all hours of the evening till about ten. There was no scent of baby wipes in the air, no brush of a small, warm body against the legs. She wasn�t home and probably wouldn�t be any time in the near, or even distant future that she could foresee.

Debrah�s chest constricted and her breath hitched with the welling emotions those realizations pulled along in their wake. A tear welled up and rolled out of her eye, sliding down the curve of her cheek till it dripped off her chin to land unnoticed on the leg of her jeans. No, everyone was right. You can never go back home.

*******

�It�s such a shame that her parents are dead.� Lisa was half speaking to herself, but she turned to look at the two men. She knew her friend was hurting and so she was hurting, too. �They were such good people, to hear her talk about them. She loved them dearly, anyone could see that. She went home at every opportunity. I think she began to hate school because it kept her away from her family.�

Lisa looked from one man to the other. �She said that her branch of the family didn�t have much contact with your branch, but she needs someone right now. She was closer to her parents than any of her brothers or her sister and she�s the only one that couldn�t make it to the funeral. It�s very good of you to come and keep her company,� she hesitated fractionally, �even if you had other reasons for doing so.� When their host had put the rest of the food away she turned to leave.

�Ben, when you�re done there, come on back so that I can get your measurements.� And with that she left them alone.

The two Jedi exchanged a glance. No words were necessary. Obi-wan took the dishrag from his master and bent over the remaining dishes while the older man stepped out through the french doors and followed Debrah out into the garden. Moving quietly into the hedge maze that stretched out from the side of the house, Qui-gon reached out with the Force, trying to get a sense of Debrah�s emotional state. Ahead of him, he could feel a swirl of pain, grief, chased swiftly by longing and loneliness. Those emotions were stamped down only to rise again. She was fighting them and only partially succeeding.

The Jedi Master slowly wound his way through the maze, sometimes having to turn back and retrace his steps when he made a wrong choice of direction. The stars above were bright and the moon had cleared the tree line so there was plenty of light with which to make his way. A loud sniff warned him just as he rounded a corner. A conversation nook spread out before him. There were rose bushes in the corners, the blossoms spilling fragrant perfume into the night air. A small fish pond was placed squarely in the middle of the clearing with several varieties of water plants decorating it. Four stone benches were located around the pond and on the nearest one, her back to him, sat Debrah.

As he watched silently the woman�s gaze lifted from the gently rippling pond to the sky above and she drew in a shuddering breath. She was on the edge of crying, hanging on to her slipping control with every gram of strength in her, and was trying to decide if it was okay for her to do so. Her emotions were a confusing swirl of conflicting thoughts, a vast quagmire that needed to be drained before it could be properly dealt with. Qui-gon took a step toward her and a pebble rolled under his foot.

Debrah�s head swung around and a startled gasp slipped from her throat. He could feel the incredulous hope that raced like wildfire through her as she first caught sight of his silhouette. �Dad?� He could also feel it the instant she realized her error. The dam she had built to hold back her grief and pain was already cracked. Now, it broke entirely and with a wrenching sob, she leapt off the bench. With one hand up to dash the burning tears she could no longer hold back from her eyes, Debrah couldn�t see properly in the dark and crashed headlong into a hedge wall, rather than staggering through the opening that was just to her left. Qui-gon was instantly at her side, helping her up, leading her back to the benches.

�Please, please go away.� she sobbed. �I can�t, I can�t . . .� Debrah couldn�t decide what it was she couldn�t do and her words trailed off into broken, gasping weeping. Tears poured from her eyes and she covered her face with her hands. A steady, comforting hand came down to rest on her shoulder. That was it. The Jedi did not say a word. He simply sat there, his hand on her shoulder and waited. If she asked him again to leave, he would, but something told him that she wouldn�t and that he shouldn�t.

�I can�t believe that . . . that . . . they�re really gone.� she rasped out between heaving whimpers. �At home I could pretend that they were just out at a Bed & Breakfast for the weekend or that Dad had joined Mom for another one of her business trips. But out here . . . .� The woman shook her head in a negative motion and slid closer to him and Qui-gon put his arms around her, pulling her close, cradling her against his broad chest, resting her head on his firm, strong shoulder. �Out here, the sounds are all different. The house smells different. I can�t escape it any more. They�re gone, Qui-gon. How can they be gone?� Her tears soaked the fabric of his shirt, but he continued to remain silent. She had to work this out herself, but there was no reason for her to have to be alone while she did it.

�They were always there. They were going to always be there. How can they be gone?�

He let her weep till she had cried herself out and no longer shook like a leaf in a gale wind, but leaned weakly against him. Together they sat under the starlight and gazed out into the darkness. There was a slight chill gathering in the late spring air, but neither of them took note of it. Qui-gon kept track of her emotional state through the Force, sensed that her pain and grief were spent. The loneliness remained, and the longing, but they were not the crippling weight they had been earlier. When next she spoke her voice was absent of tears and matter of fact

�I can�t even go back to the house now. Not for a while anyway.� she mumbled into his shoulder. �Those men are going to want to talk to me and I�m not sure I�m going to like how they do it. I certainly didn�t like how they did it last time.� She sat up straight to look into his eyes, but she didn�t pull out of his embrace. �It�s almost as if something is cutting all my ties here.�

Debrah slowly stood, but she caught one of Qui-gon�s hands as he released her. She stared into his eyes in the darkness for several long moments and sighed. �Thank you,� she whispered and disappeared back into the maze, whether toward the exit or to go deeper, he didn�t know. After the sound of her steps faded, he sat there under the starry sky and thought about family. His own consisted of only Obi-wan. He�d not known his blood relatives any better than his Padawan did and he wondered what they lost because of that.

Debrah was a strong and intelligent woman. Her family had helped to make her that way. But not by being distant, not through letters or comlink conversations, not by telling her that she should be strong or giving her lessons on it, but by quiet example and by love and by those close-knit relationships that can only be defined as family.

What did the Jedi lose by taking that away from their students? Did they lose anything, or would they even know it if they did?




Section 12