Testoffaith1

An alternate possibility for JA 8.

Title: Test of Faith
By: Cassia
Email: [email protected]
Category: JA sequel (sort of), Short Story, Hurt/Comfort, Drama, AU with JA 8
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the JA books, especially 2, 5 and 7
Disclaimer: All recognizable Star Wars characters are the
exclusive property of George Lucas. Credit also goes to Jude Watson
and Scholastics Books. All others belong to me.
I have no official permission to use these characters, but
I'm not being paid for it either, so that's okay.
Same goes for the song in the beginning which belongs to the Backstreet
Boys and some recording studio that I can't remember.
Feedback: Yes Please!
Time Frame: 12 years before TMP and directly after JA 7. Obi-Wan is 13.

Summary: Things go amuck on Telos, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon have a blow-up,
Xanatos gets a hold of Obi-Wan and traps him in a horrible place.
In the end, the only way Qui-Gon can save Obi-Wan's life is to restore
the broken trust between them.

Long sections bracketed by //* means it's a flashback.

-Test of Faith-

       Show me the meaning of being lonely,
       Is this a feeling I need to walk with?
       Tell me why I can't be there where you are?
       There's something missing in my heart.

       There's nowhere to run,
       I have no place to go.
       Surrender my heart, body and soul.
       How can it be you're asking me
       To feel things you never show?


Obi-Wan shivered with intense cold. His muscles spasmed in protest against the bitter chill and it was all lhe could do to keep his teeth from rattling like a set of loose converters.

But it was more than mere physical cold which assailed him. No, it was something far more treacherous, and far more deadly.

Dark energy filled the deep pit he was trapped in, surrounding the young Jedi, screaming fear and hatred at him so loudly it was almost audible.

"Feeling cold, little Jedi?" Xanatos' cool, taunting voice flowed like an icy waterfall from the darkness above.

Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber, the bright blue blade casting only a dim light in the shadowy blackness. "Xanatos," he said quietly, through shivering lips. His voice reverberated hollowly against the frozen walls of the narrow pit that threatened to become his tomb.

Ignoring the Dark Jedi's voice for a moment, Obi-Wan sought a way out of this death trap. The sides of the circular cavity were so narrow that he could stretch out his arms and the fingers of both hands brushed lightly against the frosty earth.

Cutting a swath out of the side of the narrow well with his lightsaber, Obi-Wan attempted to make handholds, but the loose earth crumbled under his fingers, refusing to hold the slightest weight. The pit was deep, far to deep to jump out of, even with Force help, and the dark void that Xanatos had created here seemed to dampen his abilities.

Looking up, Obi-Wan could just see the small pinprick of sky that marked the opening to this hole, several hundred meters above his head.

"Out of reach little Padawan," Xanatos' cold voice mocked him again, filling the air with hatred until it made Obi-Wan's head hurt. "You won't get out that way. In fact," the heartless voice continued. "You won't get out at all."

The apprentice could not see Xanatos and did not know how the older man could see him, but apparently he could.

"D-don't count on it," Obi-Wan said stubbornly, trying in vain to keep the chilled stutter out of his voice.

"Not waiting for your precious Master to save you I hope?" Xanatos' voice filled the small space like a dark
cloud. "Not after what happened back there in Thani."

Deep, heart-wrenching pain stabbed Obi-Wan in the chest at the memory. Somehow, he got the impression that his unseen captor was smirking. Xanatos had studied Obi-Wan, he knew how to hurt him.

It still seemed impossible. Never in a thousand lifetimes would Obi-Wan ever have thought that Qui-Gon could abandon him like this, but the image of the tall Jedi Master turning his back on the dumbfounded boy and walking away was indelibly etched into Obi-Wan's minds' eye.

"It's your own fault," the accusing voices in Obi-Wan's head told him. "He warned you all along, he told you there was no trust between you anymore. Why should you be surprised that he acted on it?"

Why indeed? Because a part of Obi-Wan hadn't believed it, hadn't allowed himself to believe it. He had been so sure that things would work out between he and Qui-Gon, so sure that he could regain the elder Jedi's trust.

They had overcome the obstacles between them once when Qui-Gon had finally taken him as Padawan in the first place, before Melida/Daan, and Obi-Wan felt certain that they could again, until now. Only this time, it was Qui-Gon, and not Obi-Wan who had done the walking out.

"And why shouldn't he walk out on you?" the voices said contemptuously. "You did it to him. And you're not even his Padawan now, you're not even a Jedi, you're just on parole, he has no obligation to you."

As if mirroring the accusations in Obi-Wan's tortured mind, Xanatos' voice drifted down to him, cold and cutting. "You see I was right in the end. He is heartless after all. Bringing you all this way, raising your hopes only to dump you at the first test. Perhaps it's better for you to find it out now, up front, not like I did, not in the end, after I'd given heart and soul to him, only to find it trampled on and torn to pieces! Face it Kenobi, he'll never trust you, he'll never like you, you'll never be good enough for him, no one is and no one ever will be, you'd have gone mad trying."

Obi-Wan pressed his lips together in a tight line, his grip tightening savagely on the handle of his lightsaber. "Everything you've ever said has been a lie Xanatos!" he barked at his unseen tormenter. "Qui-Gon did not betray you. You betrayed him! Just like I did," the young Jedi's voice dropped miserably, choked by the huge lump in his throat.

His cheek throbbed with the memory of Qui-Gon's large hand making stinging contact with it. Obi-Wan knew he had been an idiot to say what he did, but it was too late for regret now. Too late. Why did he always realize the consequences of his actions and choices too late?

        *Flashback*

          "I'm sorry Obi-Wan. I thought we could work together, I thought... but it seems I was wrong." Qui-Gon's deep blue eyes were etched with pain,                    and defeat.

          Obi-Wan's lips tried to form words, tried to explain, to deny what Qui-Gon was thinking, what it looked like he had done, but his voice refused to                   work.

          "I have a job to do," Qui-Gon's voice became tense. "I don't know what you're going to do," Qui-Gon turned his back on the boy and walked away,              leaving him alone in the middle of the huge, empty courtyard. Qui-Gon did not say: "And I don't care," but as far as Obi-Wan was concerned he                  might as well have.

          It was after that that Xanatos came... Obi-Wan was good, but the emotionally disturbed thirteen-year-old Padawan was not up to facing a full grown             man with a Knight's skill level. Not alone.

          Obi-Wan had trusted Qui-Gon, and the elder Jedi left him alone to face a darkness that was greater than he was yet prepared to deal with.

Betrayal. Broken trust. Obi-Wan knew how that felt now, like a burning pain, ripping his insides out. Is this what he had done to Qui-Gon on Melida/Daan? No wonder the big Jedi would never trust him again. No wonder he was so quick to judge...

"Then you got what you deserved boy," Xanatos said harshly.

Obi-Wan hated to agree with anything the Dark Jedi said, but in this case, he feared Xanatos was right.

"Ironic isn't it? That in the end, he betrayed you the same way you betrayed him?" Xanatos continued mercilessly. "As you said, we're not that different you and I. We did the same thing, and he hates us both for it. We are no different..." Xanatos' voice echoed chillingly.

No different...

No different...

"No!" Obi-Wan cried, hoarse with cold and emotion. "I am not like you and I never will be! I let Master Qui-Gon down, I betrayed his trust, I made the wrong decisions, but I would never and will never yield to the darkness that grips your soul Xanatos!"

"Then you are weak as well as foolish young one!" Xanatos flared. "What is there in life for you now?!" he demanded, his voice as hard as permisteel and as cutting as a vibro-shiv. "Qui-Gon has rejected you, betrayed you, left you completely at my mercy. Left you to face *his* enemy, alone. If he does not believe you, if he rejects you, what do you think the Jedi Council will do? What do you think your actions in Thani are going to make them think? You're only on probation as it is, this will finish you forever with the Jedi and you know it. What do you think you're going to do with your life Obi-Wan Kenobi?   You've got nothing and no one who believes in you and no way to survive on your own." Xanatos laughed as if he found the situation amusing.

Obi-Wan's throat was swelled so tight he could barely breathe and there was a terrible ache in his chest. Tears he couldn't keep back slipped out of his eyes, only to freeze halfway down his cheeks. Xanatos' words cut him far deeper than he would like to have acknowledged. What in the Force WAS he going to do?

"You're w-wasting your breath Xanatos!" Obi-Wan shouted, this time glad that he could pass his trembling voice off as an effect of the cold. "I know what you're trying to do and you'll never get me to turn!"

"Don't flatter yourself," Xanatos sneered. "I have no intention of trying to do anything with you. You've been far too bothersome to me for that. All I'm doing is letting you know why you should be thankful that you don't have a future to worry about anymore Kenobi, because if you did, it would end here. I'm going to enjoy watching you die little Jedi, and so will Qui-Gon," Xanatos said the last in a grim, but satisfied whisper that Obi-Wan barely heard and didn't have time to try to understand.

Suddenly a creeping sensation ran up Obi-Wan's chilled spine. An instant later hundreds of glowing eyes regarded him from the numerous small holes in the pit's walls that he had barely noticed before.

He scarcely had time to bring his lightsaber up before dozens of small beasts with glowing eyes and long, wicked fangs and claws sprang at him.

Obi-Wan tried to repel their attack, tried to slash at them with his lightsaber, but there were dozens and dozens of them, possibly hundreds, and they just kept coming, driven by their own ferocious instincts and Xanatos' dark suggestion.

Needle-like fangs dug into his leg, his arm, his neck and razor claws tore at him with a vengeance.

Obi-Wan stumbled, his body numb with the cold, but burning from the many bites and slashes the creatures inflicted upon him. The tiny space he was in did not allow him any room to maneuver, and now the crazed beasts were dropping down from the walls above him as well.

Landing on the young Jedi's head, the creatures clawed his face and repeated sets of teeth sank into his neck like burning needles, making Obi-Wan yell in pain as he struggled frantically to shake the beasts off him.

There must have been venom in the creatures' bites because Obi-Wan felt a terrible, burning fatigue take over his frozen muscles and a nauseous light-headedness made the darkened world spin around him. He was slowly succumbing to the poison, the pain and the cold. He had never imagined it ending this way, but as his senses started to leave him he had no time for regret, no time to feel anything but the burning pain and the freezing cold.

Xanatos' cold laughter echoed icily around the torn, bleeding young Jedi as consciousness fled and darkness claimed him.