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laniew1FYI… The next chapter will not be posted until Monday, because I want to post the next two chapters together.
The possibility of escape arrived on a bright and sunny day.
TITLE: Between Space & Time
RATING: R - because Ewan likes to cuss
PAIRING: nothing yet, will end up (eventually) Ewan/Anakin
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Heh, I own nothing. Ewan owns himself as does anybody else that is a real person in real life. George Lucas owns everyone that that is property of Star Wars. I make no money off of them. Don’t sue.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 /
Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17
Between Space & Time – Part 18
The possibility of escape arrived on a bright and sunny day.
At least Ewan thought it was bright and sunny (it had to be bright and sunny somewhere in the fucking universe after all) he couldn’t really tell as his tiny cell (which was shrinking and that wasn’t him just going crazy either) had no windows and actually very little lighting.
He wondered if the ship had paid its electric bills or if it was Qui-Gon and Padmé’s idea of mood lighting.
He’d made two subsequent trips to that bright place where Obi-Wan was no longer hanging out. Ewan made a mental note to ask him how his girls were, how Jude was, how The Island premiere had gone.
It amused him that Obi-Wan might have had to walk the red carpet pretending to be him.
He wanted to be on the red carpet, he’d really like to be in a restaurant. He’d even take fast food at this point he was so tired of gruel. He wondered if that was how Qui-Gon and Padmé proposed to break him, by feeding him horrid food.
Because it was the same thing every day, the same routine every day.
Except for the day he escaped.
The guard had arrived as usual, that hadn’t been different. What had been different was the fact that the guard had set the tray down on the floor and left.
Usually the guard would stand in the doorway, legs shoulder width apart, arms crossed over his chest watching him eat something that could only be called food on a good day, if you gave it the benefit of the doubt and didn’t look at it or taste it in any way.
But this day, the glorious day of his escape the guard had left. He’d shut the door behind him but beggars couldn’t be choosers and to say he’d been shocked would have been an understatement.
He contemplated eating for about half a microsecond.
Decided that really if he was going to die he’d rather it be on an empty stomach.
He dumped everything on the floor, kept the tray (which was metal of some sort and would probably hurt if he hit someone upside the head with it) and the fork (because the tongs were sharp and would most definitely hurt if he stabbed someone with it).
When the guard returned (adjusting his pants as if he’d just gotten lucky or used the loo) he was ready.
The door opened and Ewan swung the tray, connected with his guards head and watched him drop like a sack of potatoes.
He spared a half a second to wince, because hell that had to have hurt.
Then he was off. Dropping the tray to the floor with a loud clatter and clutching the fork in one hand.
Then dropped the fork because really that was just stupid, a fork against a blaster, he’d be dead with a gaping chest wound before he could even lunge at anyone.
He ran as quietly as he could, ducking into corners when he saw guards and it was like he was filming a scene from the movie. Except this had never been in the movie.
Also... unless some of these guards were blind they had to have seen him.
All the time he ran and hid and thought about stupid movie scenarios he was trying not to wonder if the ship was big enough to house other ships.
He could multi-task when his life was in danger it seemed. His agent, his assistant and his publicist would be thrilled he was sure.
He decided that he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the guards were blatantly looking the other way (like that one that had just stared at him, shook his head and walked in the opposite direction as the way he’d been originally been headed) then he wasn’t going to complain.
And the ship had to be big enough for at least one other ship. Because Qui-Gon hadn’t appeared out of thin air after all. Ewan decided that Qui-Gon would surely have been detected by the Jedi on Coruscant (he was thinking positively here and not reminding himself of the fact that the Emperor had been under the Jedi’s nose the whole time and had been none the wiser) either Padmé’s ship had docked with Qui-Gon’s or vice versa.
No alarm had been sounded so either the guards were continuing to look the other way or his escape really hadn’t been noticed. And really he hoped to be off the ship by the time that happened.
Which was looking less and less likely as he moved down corridor after corridor having no clue where he was going.
It would help if one of the guards that was busy not seeing him would at least point him in the right direction.
It was highly ironic, and really he had expected nothing less… he found the landing bay at the same exact moment that the alarm sounded.
Fate was a sonofabitch and really, truly hated him.
There was a small spaceship in the landing bay, but Ewan didn’t think that one of his girls could fit into it, hell he didn’t think Kenny could fit into it and he’d fit into Artoo’s robot body for years and if they couldn’t fit into there was no way in hell that he could.
He was short yes, but he wasn’t that short.
He questioned (only for a split second because really he didn’t have the time and he highly doubted that Obi-Wan would try to kill him since it was his body after all and Ewan thought he might want it back at some point) the wisdom of escaping a perfectly good ship.
A guard shouting at him to stop got him moving toward the breadbox and he moved with grim determination.
He would fit in the damn thing if he had to bend himself fucking in half.
It really was like a gift from god that Qui-Gon and Padmé seemed to not want to hurt him.
That feeling lasted until a guard shot at him, and while the guards it seemed were incapable of hitting a barn with a mile high bulls-eye and a handicap, he still thought that being hit by a blaster shot might hurt.
And that was only if the wound didn’t kill him.
He clambered into the cockpit; it was a bit larger than expected on the inside but not by much.
Reminded himself quite forcibly that he was not claustrophobic and then called Obi-Wan a fucking liar.
“It’s very easy; most of the controls are marked.”
Bull, fucking, shit.
He punched buttons, pulled at controls. He tried not to think that this was the absolute stupidest thing that he’d ever done and that was counting that thing with Jude and Jonny that they had sworn to never speak of ever again.
He managed to get the canopy to close and moved a short distance, but before he could pat himself on the back the ship came to a shuddering halt.
“Obi-Wan get out of there right now,” Qui-Gon yelled. Ewan ignored him, or tried to anyway. He was pretty sure that he wasn’t moving because Qui-Gon didn’t want him to move.
He punched a few more buttons and felt a bit of fear at the sight of Qui-Gon stalking toward the ship with an ‘I will punish you within an inch of your life’ expression.
A guard slammed into the other man, the whole time looking horrified at what he was doing, had done and the little ship began moving again.
Then he was in space, there was no one following him, no one shooting at him… just him, his tiny breadbox of a ship and the collar that he’d not managed to get off.
This really was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
He wanted to cry and laugh, but mostly just cry.
Because he was in space, flying a spaceship. It was beautiful and lovely and he wanted to share it with everyone that he loved.
But then he remembered that he had no idea where he was or how to get home and he was pretty sure that he was going to die and no one was going to find him.
Also it seemed he had turned into the stereotypical guy.
He was lost and he absolutely refused to stop and ask for directions.
Obi-Wan had swore they could do this on their own, so he would.
And when he died he’d go haunt the moron that had thought this was a good idea.
***************************************************************
They’d rendered the ship unable to move but from the looks of the landing bay Anakin thought that possibly hull integrity had already been compromised and the ship wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
They were still cautious when they departed their own ship. You could never be to cautious Obi-Wan had drilled into his head, he’d never really understood why Anakin continually rushed into crisis situations head first without checking the severity of it first.
Anakin had his lightsaber out as did Mace Windu. The guards that Chancellor Palpatine had forced on them had blasters drawn.
The feeling in the landing bay was subdued, quiet.
There were feelings of distress and Anakin glanced over at Mace to see that he was looking around with a pinched expression.
Obviously he wasn’t the only one that felt the disturbance.
The guards stiffened when the doors to the landing bay opened. Qui-Gon Jinn with Padmé by his side sweeping in looking as if they were royalty.
Anakin wanted to cut Qui-Gon in half with his lightsaber and gouge out Padmé’s eyes with his bare hands.
Mace glared at him and Anakin felt the Force equivalent of a smack upside his head.
Qui-Gon stopped directly in front of them, Padmé standing off to one side. Anakin clenched his lightsaber tighter and tried to bury the feelings of hatred and anger.
Qui-Gon stared at him, a brief smile crossing his lips.
“Qui-Gon Jinn,” Mace said, his voice tightly controlled in a way that Anakin had heard quite a few times the first few years that Obi-Wan had taken him on as his Padawan.
He was pretty sure that Obi-Wan had learned that voice directly from Mace Windu.
Because that was the ‘lecture’ voice.
Anakin hated that voice, typically he’d done something horribly wrong or misguided in Obi-Wan’s eyes to get that voice and the subsequent lecture.
Mace Windu on the other hand had never needed for him to do something wrong in order to use that voice on him.
“Mace Windu,” Qui-Gon had his hands shoved up into his sleeves, he looked calm and serene and Anakin was only held back by his promise to Master Yoda to allow Mace Windu first opportunity to diffuse the situation.
He still couldn’t feel Obi-Wan.
“Where is Master Kenobi?” Mace finally came to the whole reason they were here.
Anakin frowned when he saw an expression of fear dart across Qui-Gon’s face, quickly banished. Not quickly enough though because Anakin had seen it as had Mace Windu.
Qui-Gon remained silent, Padmé a silent shadow at his side.
Anakin broke, his Master was somewhere on this ship, locked away from the Force and him and everything that he knew.
It took two steps forward and he was directly in front of Qui-Gon staring him in the face, he was hit with the idle thought that he’d thought him taller when he’d first met him.
He’d thought Qui-Gon utterly fantastic, larger than life and incapable of making the decisions that he’d made.
Oh how the mighty had fallen.
“Where is he?” he snarled. Mace Windu stood behind him, and Anakin thought that he felt a wave of reassurance and calm, which had to be a mistake because Mace would take him aside and reprimand him for losing control before he’d stand beside him.
Qui-Gon just stared at him, an appraising look his only answer.
“Where. Is. He?” he repeated, slowly. Enunciating each word. He allowed his hand to clench tighter around his lightsaber, allowed the other to clench into a fist because it was better than reaching out and placing the hand around Qui-Gon’s neck and squeezing the life out of him like he wanted to.
He hadn’t forgotten Mace Windu’s threat to kill him if he became a threat to himself or those around him and Anakin was pretty positive that if he got himself killed that Obi-Wan would find a way to resurrect him just so he could kill him himself.
He could be contrary that way.
Qui-Gon continued to remain silent, just studying him with that appraising eye that Anakin really didn’t care for in the least.
Padmé was the one that finally broke the silence. Her voice very quiet, very hushed.
Very scared.
And her words caused his heart to stutter.
“He escaped in Qui-Gon Jinn’s ship, half a day ago.”
***************************************************************
The possibility of escape arrived on a bright and sunny day.
TITLE: Between Space & Time
RATING: R - because Ewan likes to cuss
PAIRING: nothing yet, will end up (eventually) Ewan/Anakin
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Heh, I own nothing. Ewan owns himself as does anybody else that is a real person in real life. George Lucas owns everyone that that is property of Star Wars. I make no money off of them. Don’t sue.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 /
Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17
Between Space & Time – Part 18
The possibility of escape arrived on a bright and sunny day.
At least Ewan thought it was bright and sunny (it had to be bright and sunny somewhere in the fucking universe after all) he couldn’t really tell as his tiny cell (which was shrinking and that wasn’t him just going crazy either) had no windows and actually very little lighting.
He wondered if the ship had paid its electric bills or if it was Qui-Gon and Padmé’s idea of mood lighting.
He’d made two subsequent trips to that bright place where Obi-Wan was no longer hanging out. Ewan made a mental note to ask him how his girls were, how Jude was, how The Island premiere had gone.
It amused him that Obi-Wan might have had to walk the red carpet pretending to be him.
He wanted to be on the red carpet, he’d really like to be in a restaurant. He’d even take fast food at this point he was so tired of gruel. He wondered if that was how Qui-Gon and Padmé proposed to break him, by feeding him horrid food.
Because it was the same thing every day, the same routine every day.
Except for the day he escaped.
The guard had arrived as usual, that hadn’t been different. What had been different was the fact that the guard had set the tray down on the floor and left.
Usually the guard would stand in the doorway, legs shoulder width apart, arms crossed over his chest watching him eat something that could only be called food on a good day, if you gave it the benefit of the doubt and didn’t look at it or taste it in any way.
But this day, the glorious day of his escape the guard had left. He’d shut the door behind him but beggars couldn’t be choosers and to say he’d been shocked would have been an understatement.
He contemplated eating for about half a microsecond.
Decided that really if he was going to die he’d rather it be on an empty stomach.
He dumped everything on the floor, kept the tray (which was metal of some sort and would probably hurt if he hit someone upside the head with it) and the fork (because the tongs were sharp and would most definitely hurt if he stabbed someone with it).
When the guard returned (adjusting his pants as if he’d just gotten lucky or used the loo) he was ready.
The door opened and Ewan swung the tray, connected with his guards head and watched him drop like a sack of potatoes.
He spared a half a second to wince, because hell that had to have hurt.
Then he was off. Dropping the tray to the floor with a loud clatter and clutching the fork in one hand.
Then dropped the fork because really that was just stupid, a fork against a blaster, he’d be dead with a gaping chest wound before he could even lunge at anyone.
He ran as quietly as he could, ducking into corners when he saw guards and it was like he was filming a scene from the movie. Except this had never been in the movie.
Also... unless some of these guards were blind they had to have seen him.
All the time he ran and hid and thought about stupid movie scenarios he was trying not to wonder if the ship was big enough to house other ships.
He could multi-task when his life was in danger it seemed. His agent, his assistant and his publicist would be thrilled he was sure.
He decided that he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the guards were blatantly looking the other way (like that one that had just stared at him, shook his head and walked in the opposite direction as the way he’d been originally been headed) then he wasn’t going to complain.
And the ship had to be big enough for at least one other ship. Because Qui-Gon hadn’t appeared out of thin air after all. Ewan decided that Qui-Gon would surely have been detected by the Jedi on Coruscant (he was thinking positively here and not reminding himself of the fact that the Emperor had been under the Jedi’s nose the whole time and had been none the wiser) either Padmé’s ship had docked with Qui-Gon’s or vice versa.
No alarm had been sounded so either the guards were continuing to look the other way or his escape really hadn’t been noticed. And really he hoped to be off the ship by the time that happened.
Which was looking less and less likely as he moved down corridor after corridor having no clue where he was going.
It would help if one of the guards that was busy not seeing him would at least point him in the right direction.
It was highly ironic, and really he had expected nothing less… he found the landing bay at the same exact moment that the alarm sounded.
Fate was a sonofabitch and really, truly hated him.
There was a small spaceship in the landing bay, but Ewan didn’t think that one of his girls could fit into it, hell he didn’t think Kenny could fit into it and he’d fit into Artoo’s robot body for years and if they couldn’t fit into there was no way in hell that he could.
He was short yes, but he wasn’t that short.
He questioned (only for a split second because really he didn’t have the time and he highly doubted that Obi-Wan would try to kill him since it was his body after all and Ewan thought he might want it back at some point) the wisdom of escaping a perfectly good ship.
A guard shouting at him to stop got him moving toward the breadbox and he moved with grim determination.
He would fit in the damn thing if he had to bend himself fucking in half.
It really was like a gift from god that Qui-Gon and Padmé seemed to not want to hurt him.
That feeling lasted until a guard shot at him, and while the guards it seemed were incapable of hitting a barn with a mile high bulls-eye and a handicap, he still thought that being hit by a blaster shot might hurt.
And that was only if the wound didn’t kill him.
He clambered into the cockpit; it was a bit larger than expected on the inside but not by much.
Reminded himself quite forcibly that he was not claustrophobic and then called Obi-Wan a fucking liar.
“It’s very easy; most of the controls are marked.”
Bull, fucking, shit.
He punched buttons, pulled at controls. He tried not to think that this was the absolute stupidest thing that he’d ever done and that was counting that thing with Jude and Jonny that they had sworn to never speak of ever again.
He managed to get the canopy to close and moved a short distance, but before he could pat himself on the back the ship came to a shuddering halt.
“Obi-Wan get out of there right now,” Qui-Gon yelled. Ewan ignored him, or tried to anyway. He was pretty sure that he wasn’t moving because Qui-Gon didn’t want him to move.
He punched a few more buttons and felt a bit of fear at the sight of Qui-Gon stalking toward the ship with an ‘I will punish you within an inch of your life’ expression.
A guard slammed into the other man, the whole time looking horrified at what he was doing, had done and the little ship began moving again.
Then he was in space, there was no one following him, no one shooting at him… just him, his tiny breadbox of a ship and the collar that he’d not managed to get off.
This really was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
He wanted to cry and laugh, but mostly just cry.
Because he was in space, flying a spaceship. It was beautiful and lovely and he wanted to share it with everyone that he loved.
But then he remembered that he had no idea where he was or how to get home and he was pretty sure that he was going to die and no one was going to find him.
Also it seemed he had turned into the stereotypical guy.
He was lost and he absolutely refused to stop and ask for directions.
Obi-Wan had swore they could do this on their own, so he would.
And when he died he’d go haunt the moron that had thought this was a good idea.
They’d rendered the ship unable to move but from the looks of the landing bay Anakin thought that possibly hull integrity had already been compromised and the ship wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
They were still cautious when they departed their own ship. You could never be to cautious Obi-Wan had drilled into his head, he’d never really understood why Anakin continually rushed into crisis situations head first without checking the severity of it first.
Anakin had his lightsaber out as did Mace Windu. The guards that Chancellor Palpatine had forced on them had blasters drawn.
The feeling in the landing bay was subdued, quiet.
There were feelings of distress and Anakin glanced over at Mace to see that he was looking around with a pinched expression.
Obviously he wasn’t the only one that felt the disturbance.
The guards stiffened when the doors to the landing bay opened. Qui-Gon Jinn with Padmé by his side sweeping in looking as if they were royalty.
Anakin wanted to cut Qui-Gon in half with his lightsaber and gouge out Padmé’s eyes with his bare hands.
Mace glared at him and Anakin felt the Force equivalent of a smack upside his head.
Qui-Gon stopped directly in front of them, Padmé standing off to one side. Anakin clenched his lightsaber tighter and tried to bury the feelings of hatred and anger.
Qui-Gon stared at him, a brief smile crossing his lips.
“Qui-Gon Jinn,” Mace said, his voice tightly controlled in a way that Anakin had heard quite a few times the first few years that Obi-Wan had taken him on as his Padawan.
He was pretty sure that Obi-Wan had learned that voice directly from Mace Windu.
Because that was the ‘lecture’ voice.
Anakin hated that voice, typically he’d done something horribly wrong or misguided in Obi-Wan’s eyes to get that voice and the subsequent lecture.
Mace Windu on the other hand had never needed for him to do something wrong in order to use that voice on him.
“Mace Windu,” Qui-Gon had his hands shoved up into his sleeves, he looked calm and serene and Anakin was only held back by his promise to Master Yoda to allow Mace Windu first opportunity to diffuse the situation.
He still couldn’t feel Obi-Wan.
“Where is Master Kenobi?” Mace finally came to the whole reason they were here.
Anakin frowned when he saw an expression of fear dart across Qui-Gon’s face, quickly banished. Not quickly enough though because Anakin had seen it as had Mace Windu.
Qui-Gon remained silent, Padmé a silent shadow at his side.
Anakin broke, his Master was somewhere on this ship, locked away from the Force and him and everything that he knew.
It took two steps forward and he was directly in front of Qui-Gon staring him in the face, he was hit with the idle thought that he’d thought him taller when he’d first met him.
He’d thought Qui-Gon utterly fantastic, larger than life and incapable of making the decisions that he’d made.
Oh how the mighty had fallen.
“Where is he?” he snarled. Mace Windu stood behind him, and Anakin thought that he felt a wave of reassurance and calm, which had to be a mistake because Mace would take him aside and reprimand him for losing control before he’d stand beside him.
Qui-Gon just stared at him, an appraising look his only answer.
“Where. Is. He?” he repeated, slowly. Enunciating each word. He allowed his hand to clench tighter around his lightsaber, allowed the other to clench into a fist because it was better than reaching out and placing the hand around Qui-Gon’s neck and squeezing the life out of him like he wanted to.
He hadn’t forgotten Mace Windu’s threat to kill him if he became a threat to himself or those around him and Anakin was pretty positive that if he got himself killed that Obi-Wan would find a way to resurrect him just so he could kill him himself.
He could be contrary that way.
Qui-Gon continued to remain silent, just studying him with that appraising eye that Anakin really didn’t care for in the least.
Padmé was the one that finally broke the silence. Her voice very quiet, very hushed.
Very scared.
And her words caused his heart to stutter.
“He escaped in Qui-Gon Jinn’s ship, half a day ago.”