More than anything, it was always the smell. As she crossed that familiar threshold, the scent moved into her, and a thousand memories spiraled beneath her bootsoles, snaked around her wrists, and tousled her hair until she was nearly sure she was twelve again. It was a blend of faded currywood incense and takeaway dinners, of robes in need of washing and the light blossoms on the small plant that grew in the kitchen, surviving against impossible odds. Reassuring and bittersweet, it was the scent of her apprenticeship.

Alla moved through the apartment soundlessly, careful not to disturb the piles of datasheets on the table or the tattered bag by the door, which spilled its contents across the rug. Her former master had own sense of organization; it baffled those with a neater constitution, like herself, but he generally knew where everything was, and she supposed it was a bit late to try to initiate some kind of change in the man. It surprised her sometimes that Qui-Gon had decided to stay in this apartment, especially after Xanatos. At first she believed it to be a silent martyrdom, a proving trial to demonstrate how stoic he truly was, but as the years passed, she had come to see that the place was the only home he'd ever had, and it was the one space in the galaxy that he could call his own. Funny thing, Master, she thought, softly enough that her words wouldn't carry over to him. It still feels like my home too, sometimes.

She activated his door, and it slid aside without a sound. Slight worry creased her brow when the prostrate figure made no movement on the bed. Her former master had never been a sound sleeper, and the most innocuous noise would have him wide awake, jolted out of deep sleep. Passing over to his bedside, she used the Force to bring up the lights just slightly. Qui-Gon lay on his back, hair pulled back loosely in a tie, his breath moving in and out at slow intervals. She saw his shoulder was wrapped in light dressing, and the scent of bacta gel met her nostrils. Underneath his closed eyes, a grey coloring spanned his skin, and she noticed the lines that gathered around his mouth and temples, indicating pain lingered even in sleep.

Her breath left her slowly as the thought formed for the first time in her mind. Force, he looks old.

Resting her hand gently on his sternum, she felt the steady beating of his heart, its cadence as familiar a rhythm as her own. There were times during her apprenticeship she could have honed in on the sound in a crowded room, if she concentrated hard enough.

"Alla," he said softly, reaching for her hand across the blankets. His palm felt cold, and she enclosed his broad hand within her smaller ones, trying to warm them.

"Are you all right, Master?" She watched as awareness drifted across his expression, finally settling in around his eyes. " I stopped by to see you, but Char'ra said you signed yourself out of the Infirmary."

Qui-Gon shrugged, then clearly thought better of it as he drew in an edged breath across his teeth. "I didn't want to be there anymore. I'll heal faster here than surrounded by white-robes."

"You're still in pain." Her former master had never been one for pity, especially over physical hardship, but she reached for the hypospray Char'ra had insisted she take along. "This will help."

"I don't think that's going to change anything about how I'm feeling," Qui-Gon said, eyeing the painkiller. "Is there any new word? On the others, I mean."

Alla gave him a slight smile, using her most practiced diplomatic tone, one she'd heard him use with irritable senators and disgruntled kings. "If you'll take the hypo, I'll be more than willing to tell you everything I know."

A sigh escaped him, and he finally consented, tilting his head away from her to expose his neck. She pressed the spray into his pulsing carotid, and within seconds, his tense form relaxed somewhat. "I hope, for your sake," he said dryly, "you've got something worth sharing."

She settled herself more comfortably on the bed, smoothing the blankets around Qui-Gon. "There's some good news, and some bad." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, locking his gaze on hers. "Bel-San. . .he's doing a little better, at least physically. They're going to keep him until the end of the week, probably, but he's starting to heal."

Qui-Gon nodded slowly, betraying nothing in his expression. "The bad?"

"The tribesman, I think they said his name was Seph. He's not responding very well to the Healers. Charr'a said that she can't understand why their techniques aren't working on him, because they should have been able to help him, but there's been no progress." Alla sighed, recalling the look of failure that had been on her friend's face. "He's actually getting worse. . .not eating, not sleeping. . .nobody seems to be able to communicate with him. The only time he responds at all is when Bel-San visits him."

She saw the flash of surprise flicker in her master's aqua eyes, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Why don't they let Bel-San see him more, since Seph seems better with him around?"

Alla folded her hands in her lap to keep them from moving restlessly. "Bel-San seems to think he can heal Seph himself, and he ends up unconscious from using the Force. He puts his own health in danger, but as soon as he wakes up, he wants to go back to try again."

"But I'm sure—"

"Master," Alla said, keeping her voice even, "they've had to post a guard by his door to make sure he doesn't get out. Bel-San thinks he can save Seph, but in the meantime he's going to kill himself."

"So why hasn't anyone explained this to him? I thought Payter went to go talk to him."

She could sense the frustration seeping through in his tone, and she restrained herself from reaching for his hand. Qui-Gon didn't want to be comforted. "Char'ra tried, has tried, several times. He just doesn't want to listen to reason."

"As if this is a new concept where he's concerned." Qui-Gon released a long breath, looking away from her. "So I've been enlisted then as the Bel-San diplomat?"

"No. I came to see you, because I was worried about you, and you asked to know what was going on, so I told you." Alla pushed a piece of dark hair behind her ear. "You know better than to put words in my mouth."

"You should know better than to worry about me," Qui-Gon said, sitting up with a slight groan.

Alla counted off on her fingers as she spoke. "First of all, it's my job to worry about you, especially when people shoot you. Second of all, I find you here by yourself, quite padawan-less, and that's a bit troubling to me."

"Obi-Wan ran away from Heri to come see me at the infirmary. I saw him for awhile then, but until I'm healed, he's better off with her and Slade. He's just going to worry about me, which apparently is a trait in my padawans." Qui-Gon wasn't scolding her, but Alla knew he was uneasy about the subject matter. However, her master had taught her that sometimes the difficult conversations were the ones you needed to have.

"Speaking as a former padawan, I can say right now that Obi-Wan is not going to be better off with anyone but you. He's missed you terribly, and he's confused and concerned, because you've been back for several days now, and you're not with him. It may be more comfortable for you to stay here in the dark by yourself, but it's not comfortable for him." Alla sighed. "That's how I used to feel, anyway."

"You and Obi-Wan are quite different. I don’t think you should presume to know how he feels."

"I don’t presume, Master. I spoke with Heri yesterday, and she told me that Obi-Wan asks for you every day, and that he's—"

Qui-Gon drew in a measured breath. "I appreciate your concern, but I don't think I need to explain my actions to you. I'll take what you had to say under consideration. If Heri feels the need to talk to me, she should speak to me directly, and not use you as her go- between."

"Honestly, Qui-Gon," she said, her tone harsh. She very rarely called her former master by his given name. "Heri didn't send me here on her behalf. I'm not here to give you a hard time, and you know it! I'm sorry that Bel-San got hurt, and I'm sorry that Seph got dragged into everything, but I'm more sorry for Obi-Wan, because he needs you more than anybody, and right now, he's that last thing on your mind."

Qui-Gon withdrew his hand from beneath hers. "If you think that's true, then you don't know me very well."

Alla felt a distance move between them, transparent yet meters thick. "Maybe not."

***

Qui-Gon pressed the pad inside the turbolift, keying in the code for the Infirmary, and watched as the display counted down the floors. His mind still reeled with countermoves and barbed phrases. Alla had left without another word, and he felt anger tingling along his senses. Who was she to tell him, of all people, how to be a master? If she was calling him into question, then really, she was calling herself into question, since she claimed to have learned everything about being a Jedi from him. It was poor logic. And of course she had to have the last word; she always had to have the last word.

He knew he needed to purge himself of these irate thoughts, and he called on the Force, letting the top layers of steam slip away on thin streams of peace. Beneath it all, he knew he was still angry, and not just at her, but at least he had regained some sense of calm.

The doors slid open, and he walked slowly into the healer's domain, stopping at the desk. "Is Knight Jacoba still in the same room?"

"Master Jinn! It's good to see you up and about." The receptionist was a padawan, probably well into her late teens. He didn't recognize her, but he figured the healer gossip chain must move as swiftly as the Temple's in terms of the patients. She gave him a light smile, and pointed down the hall. "They moved him. He's in room 667."

He gave her a nod, and then made his way to Bel-San's room. A robed healer sat outside his door, looking slightly bored. "I'm here to see—"

"Oh, Master Jinn." The healer waved him on. "Go ahead. He's not sleeping now, so you came at a good time. You feeling better?"

He ignored the healer's question, and stepped inside the room. The lights were dim; apparently the healers had been trying to entice their patient into sleep. Bel-San's bed was on the far wall, and only two monitors stood sentinel over him. He looked small beneath the blankets, and he could see the thinness of his friend's wrists where they poked out from his ill-fitting tunic.

"They let you out, huh?" Bel-San's voice was quiet, and Qui-Gon sat in the chair by his bedside.

"I signed myself out." He cleared his throat, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the chamber. "I stopped by to see you, but they said I couldn't. They said they found you unconscious."

"Don't take it personally. I've been doing that now and then."

Qui-Gon kept the edge from his voice, but it was difficult. "They found you unconscious because you'd tried to heal Seph."

Bel-San shook his head, scoffing. "Says the man who shared strength with a child to save my life. You really don't have a leg to stand on in this argument, so don't even try."

"I know that this has been really hard for you, Bel-San, but you need to focus on getting well right now. You've been through—"

Bel-San's eyes looked like black stones. "What is this? How about 'how are you feeling, Bel-San?' 'It's really good to see you, Bel-San.' You know what's not good for my health? Having conversations like this. Like the ones Char'ra keeps trying to have with me."

Holding up a hand, Qui-Gon leaned in slightly, hoping to dissolve some of the tension. "They've posted a guard by your door to keep you from leaving your bed. Maybe you need to rethink what you're doing, at least until you get well."

"If this was your business, then maybe we'd have something to talk about, but as it stands, not so much."

Qui-Gon's hands clenched into fists. "This is my business, because I came out there to save you. I risked my life to get you out of there, and I'll be damned if I sit and watch you kill yourself trying to save someone who's beyond help."

"He's not beyond help! He can hear me. He is all that's left of his people, and he's on a planet that is nothing like his home, and he can never go back." Bel-San drew a quick breath. "I am the only person he can trust. He's scared beyond all imagining, and no one seems to care."

"I care about Seph. I don't want to see him in pain, and I grieve for what happened to him—"

"How can you, since you're the person who got him involved in the first place! You can't even begin to know what the galaxy has lost. . .you can't even know. And you come in here to tell me to let him be, to care more about myself and let him fend for himself. That sounds like the Jedi way to do things. Have you been talking to Mace lately?"

The barely-concealed malice in Bel-San's tone only fed the festering anger in Qui-Gon's mind, and he locked his eyes with Bel-San's. "You've lost all sense of reason here. Do you honestly think that you can heal him when all of the Temple's best Healers can't? There is nothing you can do to change what happened. He's not going to get better. That's the reality of the situation. You need to deal with that."

A strangled laugh came out of Bel-San's mouth, and a bewildered smile crept over his lips. "Oh. Oh, I see. And you'd be the one to tell how me how to deal with that, because you set such a stellar example with Xantatos. How should I deal with this, Qui-Gon? Should I run away? Should I leave the Temple without a word when I can't fix things? Should I just shut everyone I love out of my life because things didn't go my way? That seemed to work awfully well for you."

"This has nothing to do with Xanatos." Qui-Gon felt himself go cold, and he sensed the anger that pressed behind his eyes, hard as granite.

"Why? Does it still hurt to talk about him? Is it because you feel like you should have done things differently, or it is because he's living proof that you, for once in your life, made a mistake?"

Qui-Gon scoffed, shaking his head. "It's not as if you ever gave him a chance. You barely tolerated his presence until you just started ignoring him. And you wonder why he never liked you much."

Running a shaky hand through his hair, Bel-San winced as he pulled the intravenous tube in his arm. "That's funny, because I never did like him much. Not that you ever bothered to listen to my opinions on the subject."

"Well, you wouldn't know, would you? You've never had a padawan. I wonder why." Words started coming faster in his mind, and Qui-Gon found himself preparing for the next exchange, as if they were sparring. "Maybe because you'd rather die than have to be responsible for another human being."

"I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for what happened with Xanatos. You think I'm deluded for trying to help Seph? At least he's worth helping. How about a self-absorbed, good for nothing, egotistical child who didn't care about anyone, especially you?"

"Those are just the sort of heartfelt, loving remarks that made wanting to stay around the Temple such an agonizing decision at the time. Thank you for reminding me why I made the right choice by leaving."

Bel-San's angry smirk had melted into a sneer. "It's what you're best at anyway. Except you always come crawling back around again, looking for attention, because Force forbid anyone else be more important than you. And we all just play along with your little games, welcoming you back with open arms, just so thankful that Qui-Gon Jinn wants us around."

"You know what? Go ahead. Take your best shot, Bel-San. Say whatever horrible things you need to say, and go ahead and blame me for everything. Blame me because I said you should go to Was-4. Blame me because I convinced the Council you should go. Blame me for the fact you were stupid enough to get captured and tortured. Blame me for Seph getting involved, even though it saved your life. Blame me for the death of his tribe, of his world, of all of your research gone wasted. Blame me for saving you, even though it looks like you wish I hadn't." Qui-Gon moved to his feet, pushing away the chair. "Does it make you feel better?"

Bel-San swore violently under his breath. "You know what would make me feel better? For you to walk out that door, down the hall, and go far, far away. Only this time, try something new. Don't come back."

TBC