Master Apprentice
Archive
Five Years
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Archive: M&A
Category: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: The aftermath of THAT day
Disclaimers: As always, all things StarWarsian belong to the Mighty Flanneled One. No copyright infringement intended, and no profits generated.
Note: Unbetaed, so all booboos are mine
Five years. Something in me says it can't have been that long. Something else smirks – and observes that nobody can be that stupid.
Five years is nothing. Five years . . . is forever.
In the beginning, it was five tens – fifty revolutions of Naboo under its generous sun. Fifty sunrises and sunsets – during which I sat in one chamber or another, hardly eating or sleeping; hardly daring to close my eyes, lest I release the grip that had held him on this physical plane of existence, denying him the oblivion he sought within the Force.
"Train the boy," he'd said to me, believing it to be the last thing he would ever say to me – and I had promised. If he had bade me fall on my knees and devote my soul to the Sith at that moment, I'd have done it. I'd have done anything – promised anything – for I knew what he did not. I knew he would not die – for I knew I would not, could not, allow it.
He tried to slip away from me, to leave me; I reached into the Force, pouring every ounce of my strength and my will into my efforts – and held on. And if a small voice insisted that what I was doing was NOT according to his wishes – that he would not thank me for it – I chose to ignore it, for I could do nothing else.
For there was one more thing that I knew – and he did not. I loved him too much – needed him too much – to survive without him.
Or so I believed during those lonely days, when I sat at his bedside and held his hand, and tried to reach him through a bond gone strangely silent.
Fifty mornings; fifty instances of renewed hope. Countless hours spent on my knees, struggling to achieve serenity, struggling to release the lingering traces of shock and anger that still coiled and roiled deep within me. Endless hours spent standing guard, to protect him from the curious, the overeager – those who meant well but could not possibly know what he really needed. Not the way I knew, anyway. Anakin, Amidala, Council members, friends – they all had to be kept away, to allow him to heal. He needed only me, and what I could give him.
I really believed that.
Until the morning came, when I wakened, stiff and sore, in the chair beside his bed – and found him staring at me, eyes filled with questions – and more.
I didn't want to see what I found there, but there was no avoiding it.
There was ice in his eyes; there was death in his eyes.
He did not speak a single word. He simply turned his head away – and I knew. He turned away – because he did not want to see me.
I stood there for a moment; I think I even reached out to touch the silky fan of his hair against the pillow. But, in the end, I stopped – and let my hand fall away.
I walked out of the room, out of the building – and out of his life.
I am a Jedi knight, and if my knighting came as a result of a farcical battle that I probably should have lost, no one knows that but me – except my former Master, of course, but he will not speak of it. I do not spend my time wondering if I am truly worthy of my title; I know no other life, and I do my duty as well as I am able. I don't know how to do any more – and my contact with other members of the Jedi Order is so limited that there is virtually no one to critique my performance.
I would like to believe that I am a good knight – but the truth is that I simply don't know. I have no basis for comparison, except for images of old memories. And I will never measure up to those – so I confine myself to living in the moment, when I can.
On the first anniversary of that fateful day, I found myself on Tholatin, helping to rebuild the infrastructure of a small continent devastated by natural disasters. It was dreadfully hard, filthy, brutally exhausting work – but it absorbed the mind and body completely, leaving no time for contemplation or remembrance, for which I was grateful.
The second anniversary occurred on Rodia, where border disputes had erupted into civil war, and my days were spent trying to forge agreements between hostile factions, treat the wounded, and help to relocate the innocents who were so frequently the victims of the violence. Walking through the blood and carnage left me with little energy for reflection.
Only once that day did I take note of the date – and I almost laughed when I looked into my own heart – and found that the pain was still there, as fresh and real and immediate as on the day it formed.
The following year I was on Eriadu, where epidemics of thrembis fever and bioferular syndrome had devastated the population and left hordes of orphans and mutilated children without an adult society to care for them. I had seen much during those intervening years – but nothing could have prepared me for the devastation on that beautiful, tragic world. Sometimes I still awaken to the nightmares.
I thought of him that day – and was grateful that he was NOT there.
A year later, I celebrated the occasion on Sernpidal, having been captured by a group of religious fanatics whose temple had been destroyed by a group of developers, in the name of progress. They threatened to kill me, to placate their gods – and I found that I was strangely detached – without much interest in their ultimate decision. When they decided that a few intense sessions of torture would serve as well – and not call down the wrath of the legendary Jedi Order – I knew some momentary regret.
I wondered if they would have decided differently if they'd realized that the `legendary Jedi Order' would have been largely disinterested in their actions.
It took almost a full year for my wounds to heal, and I have learned that even Jedi skills cannot erase all scars.
He used to say I was beautiful; I don't think he'd think so now.
And now, here I am on Belkadan – preparing to infiltrate the slimy underbelly of a slaver's ring, to try to put an end to the abduction of young children. I have been told that this might prove to be a suicide mission – and I know that it is not appropriate for a Jedi to be unable to summon up at least some small level of concern.
He was disappointed, they told me. Only once have I heard anything of what happened after my departure all those years ago, from a team of knights that I met on Barabi – who had been present at the Temple when my Master returned from Naboo with his new apprentice.
I had broken my promise to train the boy – and defied the will of the Force in refusing to allow him to die.
Since then, he has never mentioned my name.
And, in the galaxy, all around us, darkness grows stronger – and creeps to cover everything, as I keep running.
I'm not so foolish that I don't recognize a pattern here. Each year, the pain lingers – and, each year, I go further out into the galaxy.
One day, I will cross a magic threshold – some final barrier that I have yet to reach – and finally, at long last, I will feel it no more.
FINI