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Figments & Forgeries

by Tem-ve H'syan (tem-ve@gmx.de)

The rumble from the darkest corner of the dilapidated structure was almost enough to rival the combined roaring of the sea and storm outside. Dithering for a fleeting moment, the tiny rodent sniffed the air on either side of the overgrown threshold and decided in favour of the cold bright rain- lashed outdoors where a thick oily grey sea was currently struggling to meet, and obliterate, an equally sticky and frowning sky across which clouds were chasing each other to an unseemly end, impaled on ragged bolts of lightning, spilling their heavy cold blood on to the soggy earth and washing it out from between the rocks which seemed to take this as a personal offence. The island was holding out, stubbornly.

The house would long since have given up and crumbled back to the random pile of rocks it had once been erected from - it had been deserted some decades ago in a rush, its inhabitants fleeing for more promising climes, leaving behind half their belongings and all their worries. The roof had caved in under the lashing rains, the windows shattered into angry splinters and the walls of what used to be the bedroom had crumbled into jagged obstacles for the rain and wind to lash against. In the little leeway left by the slowly eroding stonework, hardened grasses and herbs were preparing the ground for the local plant life, pioneering patches of despondent green on the stained carpet.

The rumble came from what used to be the kitchen and was now the only remotely habitable room in the house. The broken windows had been covered with pieces of plastic and sacking found adrift on the shore, and the chinks in the wall stuffed with dried moss and flaky wool that had come here on the wind, and the finest cracks filled with twined strands of grey human hair, carefully cut with a salvaged shard of broken glass from the now- darkened windows. The house was holding out, stubbornly.

On a makeshift pallet in the darkest corner of the former kitchen, a pile of dirty furs stirred with a groan, and the sleeper slowly began to burrow his way out of the nest. A large bony hand emerged first, throwing the matted fleece aside to reveal a long sinewy arm. One, then a pair of broad shoulders. A back criss-crossed with scars, skin smooth but pale from the lack of light. The hand slid upwards to rub the back of the head, rubbing at short unevenly cut grey hair as if to dispel a lingering headache.

Long muscular legs swung out over the side of the pallet, the short brown and grey hairs on the shins standing on end with the wet cold enveloping them. Huge dirty feet clawed their toes into the loamy floor, and the whole body stretched in an almighty yawn, joints popping, nerves persuading muscles to begin another day. He opened his eyes.

They showed no different view than yesterday's, and that of the days before that, and the weeks and months and years before that as far back as he could, and would, remember. With a sigh, he padded over to the walled- in hearth and prodded at the embers with a piece of what passed for firewood on the island. It hissed at him angrily, sending up steam. Patiently, he set the sooty dented kettle to boil and leaned against the cold wall for a few seconds to fully wake up.

He dipped his hands in the pail of icy river water, picking up some of the sand at the bottom to scrub them clean, and splashed a handful of the cold water in his face, shuddering. He scratched his short beard, almost white now, bleached from the years of exposure to the acrid sea winds, and carded his fingers through the shock of dirty grey hair on his head to dry them. When they were no longer clammy, he rubbed his face dry, smoothing large rough hands over pale lips, long broken nose, wrinkled forehead, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. He opened them again, reluctant to let in the oozy grey daylight, and blinked.

They were bright blue, easily the bluest thing ever to have existed in this place where the sky and the sea never were anything but grey, or black. Their depth was that of the ocean, a thick enveloping drowning blue that told of sadness and quiet shoreless distance. Eyes adrift in the face of an old man that may once have been strong and handsome. Now, they were moored by lines and wrinkles, a brightness trapped under a layer of suffocating dullness, staring out into the middle distance as the hands idly prepared the morning concoction of strong hayflower tea sweetened with a dash of blackberry juice at this time of year. Shivering in his nakedness, leaning against the cold wet stone wall, he cooled it down with fresh water and drank it from the kettle, a tepid brew the colour of old blood.

It was the berry season, so he helped himself to a handful of small crumpled blackberries from the chipped plate on the far end of the hearth. Not that there was much in the way of seasons here, and only the rain giving way to snow for longer periods of time marked the passing of another solar cycle. A sun that he had never yet fully seen since he came here. And how long ago had that been? He had no way of telling.

He spent his days trying to learn as much of this inhospitable place as possible. Where to go for shelter, food, firewood. Over the years, he had coaxed the overgrown garden plot at the back of the house into yielding edible vegetables again, and the former bedroom was fast being taken over by a colony of well-meaning vines that produced large, pumpkin-like fruits. Patience and infinite care had transported some of the island's wild berry shrubs into a small orchard at the back, hidden behind wind-lashed reeds and warmed by a thick cushion of weeds constantly on the verge of suffocating the bushes. Fish was abundant in the babbling brook ten minutes' walk from the house, and more often than not he would find himself with an impromptu meal swimming around in the water he'd fetched for his drinking and washing needs. After a while he had found that the occasional dead quadruped was in fact edible, and the same went for most of the smaller non-sentient land-dwellers. He had not yet stooped so low as to kill one for his own sustenance, and doubted strongly that he could, with no more than broken glass for weapons.

He had wandered the length and width of his side of the island, learning the topography and smell of each rocky outcrop and each moor and hollow. Sometimes he amused himself by giving them names that he would contest the next day, and rename them, endlessly, until he tired of the game and laid it off until he'd forgotten the names he'd given the places. Then he would start again.

For a few years, he had spent every single one of his waking hours hunched over a soggy pile of old newspapers he had discovered in the ruins of a collapsed shed a few paces from the house. They were covered in the alphabet and language of what he assumed must be the former inhabitants of the island. Humans, if the grainy black-and-white pictures were anything to go by. With time and infinite patience he had taught himself the rudiments of their written language, matching up pictures and patterns of letters and words until they appeared to make some sort of sense, and then committing them to memory, storing them in the archives of his mind until he could be reasonably certain that this combination of black ink markings on grey conveyed the notion of 'child', and some other one that of 'complaining'. The images were a great help with this, and often he found himself lingering for hours over their grainy depths, dotted with mould and age, feeling an unfathomable sense of loss at the sight of fading human faces eaten away with time and the moisture from his hands holding on to the paper for hours on end. And the rain that was always hanging in the air here when it felt no obligation to actually fall.

He had undertaken little experiments with this new-found language in places he deemed far enough away to avoid attracting immediate attention to himself in his dilapidated house. He had scrawled short notes on to exposed rocks and left what he thought they signified next to them, as if to check the potential islanders' reaction to his tentative understanding of their tongue. Food, please take and give. He remembered as if it was yesterday his delight at one day finding the little pile of squash-like fruits he had left on the flat rock replaced with a handful of half-ripe and very sour oversized berries, and a scrawl in chalk that to him resembled a word of greeting. He had welcomed the distant communion with the other life forms on the island, and for a few seasons they had exchanged scrawled words and goods with him, taking his fruits and vegetables and fish and replacing them with other foodstuffs he was not familiar with, and sometimes small worn round pieces of metal he was even less familiar with. He kept them on the hearth and sharpened his glass shards on them.

He had never felt the urge to venture out there during the day and watch any of the islanders approach, much less approach them himself. First off, while he fancied himself understanding of their written form of communication, he had never heard it spoken and was quite at a loss as to what sort of sounds these patterns of letters would translate into. If they communicated by speech at all. And no... speech was not something he wished to hear still. Something in him resisted the urge to probe deeper as to the why, content instead to bury itself in the constant rushing of waves and wind, the acoustic equivalent of the cold grey of sea and sky, cool and impassive.

Then, one day, and mercifully only one day and not another, they had come anyway. A bunch of young humans with pale complexions and red hair and brightly coloured clothes riding flimsy two-wheeled transports and talking to each other loudly in that strange tongue, or another, he couldn't tell. They had come very close to the house, so close he could almost smell them through the half-covered windows, so close he imagined they must have sensed his horror at their sight too.

Not that they were terrifying to look at - they had been perfectly normal humans, shorter than him on average, and slighter, unarmed and unimpressive, and had retreated soon afterwards, doubtless driven away by the forbidding aura of decay that emanated from the house. But he had ceased his attempts at communication that day, sticking to his own produce and honing his reading skills purely for himself. They had been... too close. Something about them had made the scar on his chest ache beyond redemption.

He sighed and fingered the scar, a roughly circular patch of hardened white skin just right of his sternum. The skin had healed, but the flesh underneath ached and twinged as if it had no way of remembering how it had once been one piece. Ragged, jagged edges of pain flared through him at irregular intervals, and no amount of cold, heat, or gentle touches of his own fingertips could assuage the hurt. Sometimes the pain would recede for weeks, months, years at a stretch, only to return at the most random of moments, as if a single thought could bring about the breaking-up of that old wound. If he remembered correctly, and he was not sure he could remember correctly any longer, the ache had got worse in recent years, flaring up more and more frequently and with greater intensity, making his old age a painful one.

Of course he remembered the origin of that scar - it was hard to ignore, being in the place it was. And even if he should ever forget, the state of his clothing would serve as a permanent reminder. He had worn the same clothes he had arrived in, washed and mended and washed and mended again until their pale earth tones had faded to a bony grey...

He put down the kettle, wiped his mouth and reached for the jaded familiar pile of cloth. The trousers first. He sighed with relief as his feet slid into the damp warmth of his boots, ever close to the fire and as indestructible as he had always hoped. Next, the shirt. No amount of washing or mending had been able to erase the memory of that wound from the fabric, and underneath the patched bits in the front and back he could still discern the near-perfect circles burned into the cloth, exactly matching his scars. Absent-mindedly, he tied the sash around his waist, reached for his belt and stooped to cast a glance outside. It was raining. He would need some cover if he didn't want to catch his death.

And although he was not quite sure he did not want to, he rooted around the pile of bedding until he had found what he wanted. Sighing, he slipped into the wide frayed sleeves and drew the hood up over his face to keep the lashing rain out.

Stoking up the fire for his return, he closed his eyes to avoid the sight reflected in the calm surface of the pail and the kettle, and the fractured shards of glass he was forced to treasure. The face and attire of a man he had once known and loved. The man he had once been. The man who had once been Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

He had meant to let him down carefully, with all the gentleness of a Jedi Master's hands and mind. After all, it was not like the problem at hand was a new one, or even an unusual one. Ever since Odan-Urr's time apprentices had had crushes on their Masters, and ever since then Masters had dealt with these crushes in never less than a gently aloof fashion. And the Padawans would see the error of their ways, and seek and find love and intimacy elsewhere, and come back to their masters early one morning with rumpled tunics and lopsided smiles and a confession to make, and they would have breakfast together and laugh about the silliness of it all and live happily ever after.

It would have been that way with Obi-Wan too, doubtless. He had been so close to his Knighting anyway, and Qui-Gon's plan had been flawless in its gentleness and righteousness. Above all, it would simply not have been right to inspire hopes in such a bright young man, to allow him to lose his heart and soul to a man more than twice his age, and his Master at that. To see Obi-Wan hurtling headlong into a bonded love that was doomed from the outset, one that would never leave him a choice, never enough room to develop all that bright potential within him was just... not something Qui-Gon could have done with a clear conscience. True, he loved Obi- Wan, as a father loves a son, or a teacher loves a student, always wishing for the best and the easiest way for their bright one, and he was far from repulsed at the sight of his Padawan's clear warm beauty, but to give in to this hunch and his own mute base instincts despite knowing better would have resulted in nothing but terminal embarrassment and unhappiness for both. No, he wanted Obi-Wan to go his own way, to get what he deserved instead of wasting his love on an unsuitable object and objective.

Just this one more mission, and he would have declared his Padawan ready to be Knighted, and surely Obi-Wan would have leapt at the opportunity and proven himself a worthier and more impressive Jedi Knight than even his own doting Master dared imagine. He would have gone off on missions on his own or with his peers, putting time and distance between himself and what Qui-Gon was determined to see as his foolish adolescent obsession with an old man. It made him shudder to think of how the age difference between the two of them made up more than Obi-Wan's own age, and he was certain Obi-Wan had not even considered the implications of spending the best years of his life with someone inching closer to death with every passing year. Oh, he knew he was not ancient and decrepit yet... but by the time Obi-Wan would be even halfway to his present age, Qui-Gon would be well over 80. Decaying. And a burden to a young man who, Qui-Gon was positive, couldn't even be quite sure what he was doing now, much less so in the future.

Most of all, a young man who was not at all aware of what he would be letting himself in for. A young man who had blissfully, and incredibly tenaciously it had to be said, given his all to be accepted by him, as if that was the very goal his life had. As if young Kenobi, in his almost wrathful insistence, had seen something that Master Jinn himself no longer knew he had.

That they had kept on calling him Master Jinn throughout all this was something he was simply too weary to contest. He - the other one whose name had been excised from the Jedi Order's records - had not even attained the rank of Knight when he... departed. Fell. Turned to the Dark, turned out the dark side that must have been nestling inside this perfect student all along. That he, Jinn, had not perceived it in the least had rattled his world to the very foundations. The admired Master of the extolled Padawan had suddenly found himself with nothing but an empty Padawan robe. And a very empty feeling.

He had not spoken about it much, not beyond the casual comforting words from his friends telling him sweet nothings and to trust in the Force. After a while, he had not needed to speak about it, and the Force went its accustomed way again, not a speck of darkness in it. And yet, he had resisted another attempt at raising a Padawan, and had only taken on young Kenobi at Yoda's insistent pushing. I have in effect used my own Grandmaster as a litmus test, he thought with bitter amusement. Still, it had been better at the time to rely on the judgement of somebody who had never been proven wrong in any major way.

And Kenobi - Obi-Wan - had breezed along so beautifully. Jinn almost dared to be proud of him, allowed himself to hope he'd expended his energy on the right kind of boy this time, and expended the right kind of energy. It had felt right, but Qui-Gon had lost the innocence of trusting himself to what simply felt right.

This was surely just a crush.

Yes, better to let him go. Anyway, hopefully one day he would return and visit his ageing Master and announce that he was about to form a bond with some doubtless bright and beautiful and deserving young Jedi, and Qui- Gon would smile and be happy for him.

That had been the plan.

Except that one last mission had been... well, it had been his last mission. There was no way he could have stayed where he was after what he had seen and... felt on that mission. The blinding bright Force light emanating from the tiny hut, the unmistakable certainty that had hit him over the head and smashed his hardened doubts - this was where they were headed, and the whole trade dispute was just a cover-up for something far bigger looming on the horizon, and the way the Force had torn him off the beaten track and into a searing light and rightness that he was shocked and humbled to be the one to find... Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn's world had been a drunk kaleidoscope of opportunity and bright hope.

And it had come crashing down about his ears in the space of a heartbeat.

True, they had managed, with a bit of manipulation that was excusable under the circumstances (and the Force, oh the Force had guided them!), to salvage the child from his pitiful existence. And the glimmering hope and joy in the little boy's eyes when he found his rescuers to be Jedi was permanently etched into his memory. Such promise. Such strength and brightness. Such a treasure for the Order, for the Light.

It had not bothered him too much that the Council had expressed concern. Force knew, even he had not been expecting to find such an overwhelming untrained Force presence centred around a world-weary nine-year-old slave boy. And ultimately the Council could do little to prevent a senior Master from taking an apprentice and teaching him in the ways of the Light. Especially when said Jedi Master already had a reputation for confronting the Council.

Confronting the Council over matters of protocol. Over forms and figures and ridiculous small-built things. Not... this. Not the very nature of the Light and the Dark.

They had sensed Darkness in the boy. Not one of them, not half of them. All of them. Sensed it, without the need to take recourse to discussion, interpretation and all those petty things the Council was famous for.

They sensed it. And he didn't.

What had completely thrown him in the end was Obi-Wan's reaction. Not pride, or joy, or an understandable degree of regret at having to leave the side of the Master he had been with for over 12 years. Not even surprise at being pronounced ready for his Trials in front of the whole Council without having been given a clue beforehand. No, all that had come from Obi-Wan was an overwhelming wave of scintillating sharp negation, of metallic, suffocating accusation and pain and fear and hatred, it tasted like outright hatred.

He had slammed his shields up almost in reflex, horrified at the tide of roiling emotions springing forth from his outwardly calm Padawan. This was much more than a young man's hurt feelings, more even than the despair of a spurned lover. Which he wasn't anyway. This was terrifying, totally out of proportion, and it hurt like hell to see this harsh cutting... dark, yes, it felt dark, oozing out of Obi-Wan's mind. Darkness. No, not from him... Qui-Gon's mind cramped. Could he still sense the Dark at all? Could he be so blind to it where everyone else could see it, and then... was it Darkness that assaulted him now, from the brightest and most stable of young men, and the Council did not bat one of their twenty-three eyelids?

Was that bright light a blinding light, was he blinded? Or insane? Or quite simply incapable of perceiving that Light and Dark that his entire world had been built on since as far back as he could remember? Was he... how could he then be sure he wasn't tainted with the Dark himself? Whether he was mistaking his apprentice for Darkened now, just as he was mistaking the boy for Light - who could tell? Who would tell?

The boy, the man. Light and Dark come loose from where his mind had secured them in long years of trying to convince himself. The man, the boy. Spinning.

What hurt even more was the realisation that all of this was centred around him, Qui-Gon Jinn. How - why? The answer was obvious. The answer was right there, physically between the man and the boy, in the Council chamber. The answer was Qui-Gon Jinn.

He had been the focal point through which Anakin's Force presence had been filtered, he had been the one to discover him, and to read him out loud to anyone who would listen. All evidence of the boy's chosenness rested on his testimony, and what he had received from the Force. What he had believed he had received from the Force. The bitterness in his mouth rose to such an extent that he choked on trying to swallow. That Obi-Wan, the greatest source of Light he had had the pleasure to meet until that day on Tatooine, should react instinctively with such revulsion had added the final blow to the battlements. Delusion. Delusion, that's what it had been. He had not known any better, had fiendishly hoped and told himself that the path he had chosen had been the right and Light one, and here he was, standing amid the twelve most revered Jedi, being pronounced wrong by all of them, and then proven utterly wrong by his own Padawan at that.

Blood rushed loudly in his ears, swirling maddeningly with his thoughts behind high shields. Delusion. You should have known, Jinn. You should have resigned after running headlong into the disaster that was... Xanatos. Hells, why did you ever make it to Master anyway, with so little understanding of the Force? Thousands of little incidents bubbled to the surface again, all indelible proof that he had been wrong, was wrong, wrong to be in this place, wrong to be relied on at any rate.

Thoughts whirred through Qui-Gon's mind, and none of them seemed to make any sense to him, and he felt more senseless than he had in a long time. Numb. He felt like yelling at the Force for leaving him out of the game, leaving him floundering when all the world thought him a child of the Living Force, in perfect communion with its unsteady voice.

Unsteady, he thought, the word a shaky focus in his head. No, not in his head. His head was empty, swept by the whirlwind of thoughts. The unsteadiness focused lower, in his chest. His heart? Beating unsteadily? Obi-Wan unsteady too, showing none of the serenity Qui-Gon had seen blossoming in him. Not ready to take his Trials after all. Then again, how could he pronounce his Padawan unready when he himself was quite unable to come to terms with the roiling mess of emotions, doubts and conflicting evidence that threatened to pull him under? Not ready to be a Master, maybe. Definitely not Master of his own soul.

A retreat - a flight if you so wished. He wanted, needed to run, to remove himself out of this. Regroup maybe, return... maybe. But for now, to be away, as away as possible. Not into the Force. That would be too close. They would come looking for him there. They could take care of themselves, that much he was certain of. There had to be a further away, a duller, smoother away.

When the cold dark fire in Obi-Wan's eyes had flickered to embers, and Yoda spoke up again in his quiet broken grammar, all that was left shielded in Master Jinn's soul was the resolve to leave this life behind as soon as was humanly possible.

And even for that there was simply no time.

Barely time to pack, to commandeer clearance to head back to Naboo, at the Queen's wish. Of course she had no concerns for Master Jinn's inner turmoil, and how could she, when the man's shields were worthy of a Jedi Master? Bitterly, Qui-Gon found himself plotting schedules, watching his still-Padawan as he went about his duties, quietly. He could not bear to face him, much less speak to him. If Obi-Wan was tainted, then... he dared not even finish that thought. If Obi-Wan was entirely of the Light, however, as he had always believed, then the Padawan's instinctive reaction to Anakin's proposed training, and a reaction in accordance with the Council, was fully justified. And Qui- Gon was unjustified in jumping to conclusions based on blindness, on what appeared to him more and more like a spectacular failure to sense the threat, the potential destruction, the phantom menace.

Either way, Master Jinn would lose.

And as it turned out, he never even had the time to play.

They had stepped off the Queen's transport into the throes of an incipient war, feet falling on moving ground. Decades of Jedi training had kept Qui-Gon on track, directing, strategising, and above all moving. The tension on Naboo had been palpable, the very air a balled fist in his lungs, the sight of the Federation battle droids painful to his dry eyes, adding to the already maddening headache brought about by all the unresolved questions and feelings waiting to brim over the wall of shields between him and Obi- Wan... after this mission, when this was all over, he would retreat. Perhaps retire. Perhaps just leave, disappear to where they would not come after him asking questions and offering futile help.

If Obi-Wan was dark, Anakin was... if Obi-Wan was light, Anakin was...

The thought raced round in Qui-Gon's head, ricocheting off the inside of his skull in time with the thrust and parry of his 'sabre. The racing beat of his heart. Fast. Round and round. In circles. Mechanics. Arcs of light, green and red, of light and dark. Of powerful Darkness. Where was Obi- Wan?? What was Obi-Wan? If Obi-Wan was... faster, his heart breathless with speed. If Obi-Wan... the rhythm of his obsessive thought outran him, and he was terrified at his own stumble. Obi-Wan! What would it mean to drop these shields now, to drag him into this, an uncertain ally against this... Sith...

One thought too many, one heartbeat too little. One more stumble, caught up in the tangles of his own doubts, had been enough. The Sith had struck, hard, on the chin, and as Qui-Gon's eyes flew up to the ceiling, his heart was already slowing down, reflexively preparing for the deadly blow. It tore him apart, searing flame burning into his flesh, ripping him in two.

No, not now, not now, not now. Not now, not with all this unresolved... life in me. Force, all I have... any?... I have. Have what? Have a slow heart, a death blow, have... a chance. The wounded man would not be wanted. He would not be wanted. Now! Flee... now. Close up, seal, protect... protect... heart...

A column of dead matter through his chest, a hole burned into his body and soul, and Qui-Gon's last living effort had gone into the stabilisation of his body, into keeping the blood from springing from the wound as it drained away from his brain, fogging his senses. Out. Out of here. Away, away from the... Sith's last scream. Obi-Wan had... yes, he had killed it... he was of the Light... and... right... and... Qui-Gon was... blind... and needed... needed... out. Time. Not... this battle. Not... others worrying. Not... Obi-Wan. Terms... with himself. Out. Out... of here. Alone. Make it... away. To stay. Or die.

His eyes had slid shut for the last time there and then, closing on the fading certainty that to all the world, Master Qui-Gon Jinn lay dying. Not enough energy to break, retain, question shields, not enough energy to think or follow his plans, forming under the cover of descending mental dusk. Under, Jinn. Out.

The man who had once been Qui-Gon Jinn had found it impossibly easy to escape the scene of his unexpected demise. Despite the frigid numbness that was spreading throughout his body and mind from the charred and cauterised wound, he somehow managed to find enough strength left in him to crawl from the abysmal hall and head for where he knew the hangar to be, the only option left now. He had left his lightsabre behind, for Obi-Wan to find, and Obi-Wan... had done things with it, and had run, and he was alone, alone at last.

Not even reality had stood out as more real than anything. A doorway. Noises. Wind. His body aflare with agonising pain, his mind sleeping away into a fog of oxygen deprivation and shock, Qui-Gon had, on some base level of instinct, realised he had more on his mind than in his body. Maybe twenty more steps remaining in him before he would collapse for good, debilitated by the sheer shock. The door would open... to reveal...

... the hangar.

He had somehow managed, with the last of his dying powers, to hoist himself aboard an only partially damaged tiny one-man craft and do something to the unfamiliar technology that had it doing something in return. Something was all he could expect. Nothing he already had. Out, just out. Fade out. Fade to black.

With any luck, they would not even notice he had discorporated complete with his robes, and would be content with burning his 'sabre and his memory. Maybe there would be no memory, and that would be just as well.

The ship had let him down. Its steering devices had fried pretty much the instant it had hit hyperspace, propelling its unconscious passenger in a straight line across the centre of nowhere until its fuel had run out and it had flopped out of hyperspace like a limp towel.

He had crash-landed off the shore of the island an unknown amount of time later, and it was only the impact and the sudden cold sting of salt water on his wound that jerked him back to a grey stabbing wakefulness. Out. Fade out. What he had not considered was that fade out involved fade into. The water sloshed through the hole in his chest in a sickening fashion, trailing thin wisps of blood on the foamy grey waves. His centre was an empty space now, a hole burned right through him, the place where his connection to the Force had once sat. Even just thinking in that direction sent a 'sabre-edge pain through his mind...

He had gone into stasis then, keeping up a minimum of bodily functions to avoid infection on the one hand and starvation on the other, to avoid thoughts he was not ready for yet and guilt he felt he was not recovered enough to bear yet, and the pain that returned every time he awoke to contemplate the angry scar forming on his chest. He had effectively not existed for an unknown amount of time. For however long it took for the vines to overgrow him and the sea wind to bleach his beard to bone whiteness... only when the pain had become bearable had he reluctantly allowed himself to return to full awareness, for a few breaths at first, then, after more of the bodiless sleep of stasis, for a few hours, until he had graduated to whole days at a time, and finally returned to an almost normal waking-sleeping rhythm, resigned to the task of slowly building a new life that was to have none of the glory and frantic action and delusion and disappointment of his old one.

He found this easier than he had anticipated. His body had retained enough of his former strength to allow him to sustain himself by fishing and planting and gathering, and he found that this was relatively easily achieved even without the assistance of the Living Force. A Force he suppressed ruthlessly. He needed to read himself first, not the Force. Not something that, for all he remembered when he allowed himself to, was a figment and a forgery. A figment and a forgery like the Master Jinn he had once been, and whom he tried hard to cleanse his mind of.

He would live without it first, to convince himself that living was something he was actually capable of. Something unambiguous. Something right. This would be enough for a long time. And it was.

It was only much later, unknown time measured in hair-lengths, that one night, feeling daring, he had attempted to reach out for the Force, to touch the mocking power that had been so unreadable, so fictitious to him in his previous life, and had felt nothing. No reply. Silence in his mind, blessed, numb silence. He had reached out further, lowered his shields in a frenzy of relief and childish courage, and had heard nobody. No Force-sensitive within light-years of where he was. Not even the faint hum of his Grandmaster's presence, he whose Force aura was rumoured to span the length and breadth of the universe. Nothing. That night, even the dull ache in his chest had stilled, and now when it flared up now and then the man felt no worries, putting it down to the slow painful healing of his torn flesh.

He was here, he was now, he was free of it. They were away from him. He was with himself only.

The thought of returning to them, the one thought he had forever pushed out of his mind, piling up the reasons and the fears (he had had no ship, no supplies, no means of communication... and nobody expecting him) made one last appearance, bowed and vanished. They were no longer there. He could not sense them any more.

Wherever they were... wherever Obi-Wan was, wherever he was, he would be well. He hoped, allowed himself the indulgence to hope. The image was his now, grainy and faded like the pictures in the newspapers, but he would be safe now. Obi-Wan would be safe to love now, here, an image of beauty without fear of corruption. A figment, his own.

His own world.

They had left him alone. His ghosts, his figments and forgeries, had dissolved.

The rain lashed at his robe and tunics, and he felt the cold clinging wetness slowly seeping through the top of his hood, dampening his straggly hair. Still, it felt good to be out in the rain, to breathe the salty sharp sea air, to be washed and stormed clean, to feel one's own body withstanding the elements, the only living thing far and wide. His own world now.

The rocky shore had its own beauty in this weather, smooth pebbles shimmering in an endless procession of shades of grey, calm lidless eyes watching over him without accusation in their stares, just watching.

He found himself staring back, mild veiled blue gaze travelling over the myriads of beady pebbles, the thousands of quiet eyes... until his gaze was captivated by one in particular. A green eye. Ghostly pale green, almost white on the surface but deep and dark within. He stooped to pick up the pebble and run a thumb over its opaque rough surface. It wasn't a pebble. It was... glass. No, too heavy. It had been in the sea for a while, pounded and polished to a smooth oval shape and imbued with the pale green that came from the iron-rich waters around these parts. It had absorbed the green to a staggering extent, much more so than the stray bits of glass he would sometimes find on the shore. No ordinary amorphous silicate lattice. This was... he pushed the thought from his mind. Then clung to it with cramped fingers.

This was transparisteel. This was what was left of the wreck of his ship.

He stared at the nugget in his hand. How long would it take for this hardy material to be worn down to a battered gem like this, to be tinted with the pale green of the ocean? How long had this piece of flotsam been here? How long had he been here, he who had arrived along with it, crashed and broken on the rocky shore? He trailed one finger over the smooth scarred surface of the green pebble and another over the skin of his face. How much older was he now? How much of this had been in real time, and how many years had he spent in stasis, hardly breathing, hardly living, avoiding thought and feeling at all cost?

How much... how much older was Obi-Wan now? He allowed himself the thought, carefully, admitting that really he suspected why his first thought was of Obi-Wan and not of Anakin. Obi-Wan... was he a Master already? A Councillor even? Had he got over the loss of his former Master and proven himself to be a worthy Jedi in his own right? Had he discarded his foolish crush and found somebody worthy of his love? Why did that thought make the ache in his chest flare up into an agony that made him collapse on to the shingle, gasping, barely able to catch his breath, clutching the green piece of glass that gazed at him unwaveringly, green as Obi-Wan's... eyes...

The realisation, when it hit, was almost enough to knock him out. Clutching the rugged green jewel to his chest, he struggled for breath. The bond. The pain was in the exact place where he had severed the bond. And years of shielding and avoidance had not made it any better apparently. It was... it was the memory of Obi-Wan, each thought of Obi-Wan and each of Obi- Wan's thoughts that brought about the crippling pain. Obi-Wan, newly-won figment, away from the treacherous Force, away from all mythology and memory. Obi-Wan. It all fell into place and crashed about the fallen man's body like the breakers splashing him with their uncomprehending rage. The young humans so like him. The memory of his face in those pictures, and the stories of loving relationships he had inadvertently read. The... fool, Jinn.

Yes, Jinn. Who were you trying to run from? Couldn't believe that such a bright young jewel of a man could just love you, you flawed old Jedi? Refused to believe that he could merely be returning... feelings you had for him? Afraid you could not hold him forever? Fear, Jinn, leads to the Dark Side, and you embraced it instead of embracing him! And now... Obi-Wan could still get through to him, here, without his will?! What on whatever this planet was called did that mean?

The Force was silent, even Yoda no longer projecting... but... Obi- Wan was there? After all this? Still there, and seeking entrance, thinking of his old Master? Not a figment? The shame, and pain, and the sheer relief of it made Qui-Gon's heart tear. He physically felt it, felt the muscle ripping at the brute force of emotion pressing in, and out, felt the gush of warm blood filling up the cavities in his body, the empty space where his wound had been, that ill-fated, ill-inflicted wound of his own making, of his own delusions. He felt his heart fluttering its last beats as shudders wracked his soaked broken body and the wound tore open under the pressure of so much warmth, so much blood, flooding his hand and the green jewel clutched in white fingers, flooding the dried-up bond, breaking clean through the shields he had erected all those years ago and pulling his fading mind under in a stream of disjointed images...

// Darkness, swirls of Force both dark and light, a maddening maelstrom of energies clashing. Broken syllables of words, names. More powerful than you could possibly imagine. Resignation, willingness, a stubborn determination he recognised as his own. Circling figures, menacing hum in the air. Red, brown and black, familiar hands under those gloves, elusive recognition. Then, an angry stab of red light. Surrender - peace?! All was soft, velvet darkness. Not a hint of menace, and for the first time in living memory, the pain had faded from his mind completely, leaving nothing but the soothing presence of the warm darkness.//

A tiny germ of light shimmered at the edge of his vision, and without thinking, he turned his head to see. What he saw made tears well up in his eyes, and he was amazed to find them reflected in the moist glimmer of the other man's green eyes, irises ringed with a faint blue glow. Here was... Obi-Wan, the way he had always remembered him. The way he had last seen him, and the tears overflowed at the beautiful sight, the faint smile blurred with tears, the smooth young face and the soft short hair, the thin braid trailing down the side of his neck and down... down to his nipple, tight and rosy and adorable. And Obi-Wan was... naked, and reaching out a hand - When he stretched out his own hand and touched the apparition, the pinpoint of light flared up into a bright explosion of Force, incinerating all he had known and believed, leaving nothing but what was now. Nothing but the presence of the one man he had loved all his life, and spent most of his life trying to avoid loving.

Arms reached out for the naked body, and the arms felt real. Tears wet his face, and the tears felt real. Qui-Gon felt more than saw his hand reaching out for the apparition, felt the touch of skin barely there, saw his hand and Obi-Wan's reaching through one another, and yet there was touch, cautious, welcome touch.

No, there were no words in him yet, no apologies, explanations, questions. Words would come later. The clarity was overwhelming, humbling. Gentle fingers twined in Qui-Gon's hair and slowly turned his head to face Obi-Wan's. "You. You really had no idea."

"No," Qui-Gon murmured, defeated. "I really had no idea. What... where are we?"

The tiny sad chuckle that bubbled up from Obi-Wan's throat threatened to overload Qui-Gon's brain completely. "Welcome to the Force, Master. Of all people you should have had an idea of what it's like to join the Force... if you hadn't spent the best part of thirty-six years shielding from it! I would hardly believe it, and I only saw you still alive the moment I saw myself crossing the threshold going the other way!"

"We are - dead...?"

Lips thin, a slow tense nod. "All of us murdered, except Yoda, and I only found out now. He's behind the universe's best shields, holding out. All I could do was hide, and try not to get myself killed too. Master... Qui-Gon, you have no idea, have you?" Obi-Wan was yelling now, not in anger but with an obvious and tangible need to release all his pent-up emotion. Release it into the Force that swirled around him, lapping his agitation up like water. "He's... Anakin has turned and joined the new Sith and they were... they were everywhere. They won the war, and defeated us, and... all the Jedi were murdered, Master... I was the last to escape, sneaking away, General Kenobi I was, brave and helpless to the last... they thought I had discorporated but I got away and hid out... on Tatooine of all places, for nineteen blasted years, holding on to thin hope and prophesies and memories... I didn't know you weren't dead. All I knew was I wasn't dead. As much as I knew everyone else we've ever held dear was."

"Anakin's alive."

"Well, yes. The one who once was Anakin Skywalker. He is a Sith now, and glories in the new name they've given him. Darth Vader. It... hurts to hear it, Master..."

The pain seeped through the pulsing space, along with images, the images that had flooded Qui-Gon's mind in his last moments, clear now, and named. "He - he killed you?" Qui-Gon swallowed hard, and decided to give up the battle against his own tears. "How did he find you?"

Obi-Wan looked up, eyes bright with pain and pride. "I found him. I came for him, to distract him. I let him strike me down."

"Distract him? What..."

"There is another Skywalker, Master. And one that fits the prophecy even better. Anakin had a son..." Silently, Obi-Wan laid a hand on Qui- Gon's cheek, and it felt ethereal, unreal, like nothing he had ever sensed before. He let it happen, unaccustomed to how he could allow himself to think of his past, of Obi-Wan now without fearing the pain that came with it.

"There is hope," Obi-Wan continued. "Certainly in me. I hope I have managed to teach him enough to bring him to the Light he did not know he bore in him."

Qui-Gon sighed, a hollow sound without the need for breath. "The light, Obi-Wan... I am so sorry I thought..."

"Master. I have had time enough to think, perhaps even to understand. Please, whatever you do, don't blame yourself now. You were wrong, I was wrong. You were scared of yourself, scared yourself Force-blind I dare say, I overreacted something terrible. Believe me, I've spent years going over that moment, and couldn't undo it..."

Mutely, Obi-Wan opened his mind to Qui-Gon, receiving all the half- formed explanations and memories and apologies and above all feelings, all those buried and denied emotions that jostled in the older man's mind. Words for all this would not come yet, and there would have to be time to talk. Time to confess to himself, and to Obi-Wan, what a fool he had been. Now, there was time. There was the past, the bright young face of his beloved Padawan, and at the same time there was the future, an incredible shining band of possibilities, for the first time in as long as he had been able to remember. And there was now, and the past and the future were now as well. And now was full of the Living Force.

Overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the moment, he gathered his failing voice: "I... Obi-Wan, I... dare not, but I love you." Mouth opened, eyes closed. Obi-Wan gathering himself, soaking up the words, the first words Qui-Gon had spoken with any certainty in... however long it had been since then.

"Thirty-six years. And... I do too. Have done, all this time. Holding on to a treasured figment. A memory of a future that wasn't to be -" Qui-Gon grabbed the other's wrist, stopping him short. Speechless with shock. "Thirty-six years?" He had lived to ninety-six years and his Padawan had... "Then why do I see you as you were when I last saw you on Naboo?"

Obi-Wan smiled, unreal - real! "This is the way you remember me, and the way you want to see me..." - "And the way I love you," Qui-Gon's words broke, his voice crumbled, his whole head felt like it was dissolving into water, altogether uncertain whether to deepen the contact or let go of that open, trusting hand. "But - you were... old?"

"Force, Qui-Gon, you really were out of this world... you didn't feel what happened just before I died and what I can only assume was the remnants of our bond had the good grace to rip your life from you at precisely the same moment?" Obi-Wan's harsh sense of humour had not disappeared with his physical death, Qui-Gon noted dimly, incredulously. "Would you like to see what I looked like when the man who used to be Anakin Skywalker struck me down?"

Slowly, the apparition of young Obi-Wan faded, gradually replaced by the lined face of an old, weather-beaten man in frayed Jedi robes, short grey hair, white beard and concerned eyes. Dumbstruck, Qui-Gon threw open his last memories and projected the image of his body bleeding on the shore, rain washing the red stain from his faded tunics already. They were very nearly the same man.

They were very nearly the same man as they joined their spectral lips in a kiss that benefited from the fact that neither of them needed breath any more. Lips brushed, hesitantly at first, then more forcefully, in silent understanding and lifelong hunger, the hunger of long lives.

//Obi-Wan.//

//Qui-Gon//, came the mental reply, and for the first time in what must have been thirty-six years, he felt comfortable again with the mention of his name.

//What a fool I've been.//

The lips paused for a moment in their kissing and curled into a wry smile against Qui-Gon's throat. //Count me in. Jealousy to scare a Jedi Master is no mean feat...//

//Ex-Jedi Master.// Qui-Gon rumbled and squeezed Obi-Wan just that little bit tighter.

//Always my Master,// Obi-Wan said with earnest honesty, //always mine.// The smile in his forever-Padawan's voice was overwhelmingly bright to Qui-Gon as Obi-Wan reached out to touch his mind with a finger of the golden shimmering light he bore within himself. Amazed, Qui-Gon watched as it twined around his mind, teasing it open and awake, luring a snaking strand of blinding silver light out to dance in the warm black space between them. The pull of the light was irresistible as the two strands twirled around each other faster and faster, tighter and tighter, and the rising heat in Qui-Gon's body knew no bounds and threatened to destroy him with sheer sensation until he grounded himself against Obi-Wan's warm body, clinging to his beloved for dear life, or whatever it was that they had now. This was better than life. This was... forever. And they were in it.

When the rain of warm metallic stars had subsided and Qui-Gon felt in a position to consider taking up breathing again, however unnecessary it seemed now, the sight that greeted him made him thank his Padawan's legendary stubbornness for all of this. In a small way, he hoped Obi- Wan had learnt it from him...

Smiling mischievously, naked and glorious, Obi-Wan Kenobi was juggling the weightless pearls of the tears his old Master had shed, lining them up for a surprise attack on his beloved's unresisting form. Wet little splashes of cool heavy water hit his chest, one by one, gently massaging the place that had been so empty for most of his life. Trailing one hand down his chest, Qui-Gon sensed the release of the knot that had held him for so long, dissolved into glistening liquid under the adoring and adorable green eyes of his beloved. With a little effort of memory, the touch of Obi-Wan's finger to the place where the scar had been really felt like warm skin. Where once there had been a scar, there was nothing but Obi-Wan now.

Surrounded by the man that was once more, and quite possibly for the first time, Qui-Gon Jinn.

--- The End ---