Lacuna
by Nimori (nimorii@yahoo.ca)
Category: AU, Q/O, first time, angst, h/c
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: implied rape
Disclaimers: Star Wars characters and universe belong to George Lucas. This is a work of fanfiction, and no money is made from it.
Archive: MA, my site, and The Archive at the End of the Universe only.
Summary: Qui-Gon cannot teach his new apprentice if he the old still haunts him.
Notes: First published in the MA fundraising CD zine. This was written in response to a challenge Master Ruth issued to the MA list some three years ago. The specifics of the challenge are end so you can enjoy the story without distraction.
Thanks: KatBear, Master Jenn, The Rose, MerryAmelie, Neotoma, and most especially Dr Squidlove, without whom I would have given up on this ages ago.
Pain.
There were three of them now: master, padawan, and the ghost of one whose memory would not die. In the midst of a throng of beings or just the two of them in their quarters, the third pressed heavily upon them, holding them apart.
Between them, around them, the ghost was with them in all they did. Silent observer at sparring, looking over shoulders at study time, sleeping at night in their beds... stirring a storm of guilt and fear in the padawan, and guilt and regret and agony in the master.
There were three of them now, and though two were housed in flesh, they might as well been ghosts too for the thin veil creeping around them, shrouding them, a slow death to the living. Jealous memory.
Three.
"I'd do anything to be a Jedi knight."
The voice of memory woke him, and he sat with a gasp, light sweat a slippery film on his skin. He'd been dreaming of Bandomeer again, a young voice, hope and desperation... Shaking himself, he brushed away the wisps of ghost. Obi-Wan had never said such a thing to him, had been resigned to the will of the Force in the end, and brave, ready to sacrifice himself. And yet the words haunted him.
Qui-Gon ran a hand over his face, pushing back pearls of sweat and old tears, dampening his beard, then rose in the dim room, hearing Anakin's light breath from the other bunk, feeling the vibration of the deck, and above all sensing the third flowing over everything; filling the cabin, and hollowing it.
He moved to stand by the port, stared out across the blurred stars, and felt the other coalesce, run down his back in lines of moisture, cool fingers trailing.
Obi-Wan.
He had been resigned in the end, and brave, ready to sacrifice himself once more for his master's errors. No... not even a mistake, that final mission, but a choice. Qui-Gon closed his eyes, leaned his head against the cold transparisteel, shutting out a starscape warped by thick material and lingering sleep-freed tears.
They would reach Maura within hours, and their first mission together would officially begin. Qui-Gon smiled, a bitter curling of lips. They were a Jedi team now.
The master and his padawans.
They had run entirely out of options, and Qui-Gon had grown weary of arguing with Obi-Wan.
"The boy is a distraction, Master. If he is, as you say, the Chosen One, then we can return for him once we get the queen to safety."
"Anything may happen between now and then, Padawan." He kept his arms tightly in his sleeves, where they would not be tempted to throttle his apprentice. Or perhaps pull him close enough to kiss... and Qui-Gon could only imagine his straight-laced Obi-Wan's reaction to such an improper action. "If we pass up this opportunity, the Force may not offer another."
"Forgive me, Master, but... what opportunity? We have no options. We cannot even leave the planet ourselves. You should be concentrating on our mission."
He raised an eyebrow, and Obi-Wan flushed, and bowed, airborne sand swirling lightly around worn hems, the queen's ship looming over them in silent accusation of the delay.
"My apologies, Master. It is not my place to question you."
Qui-Gon flushed a little himself, well aware it was a padawan's duty to speak if he felt his master going astray, and the master's duty to listen. Self-conviction led to arrogance. "No apologies, Padawan. This mission has been an unexpected disaster."
Obi-Wan brightened, and Qui-Gon braced for the coming quip. "It is our mission, Master. Of course there would be disaster. If the Council had assigned another team, the Trade Federation would have happily negotiated with them, I assure you." A sly grin joined the twinkling eyes. "And besides--"
"Don't say it."
"--I told you I had a bad feeling about this."
"Padawan."
"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan heaved a great sigh for his humour-impaired mentor, and Qui-Gon hid a smile. It felt good to relax with Obi-Wan after several days of arguing, too much heat, and far too much sand. "Perhaps we could barter the ship for passage to Coruscant," Obi-Wan said, returning to the subject with patented Kenobi tenacity.
Qui-Gon shook his head. "There are no direct transports. Passage would take weeks with all the transfers and layovers, and there is the matter of the Trade Federation. The queen would certainly be recognized in any Republic port."
"We could steal the parts," Obi-Wan said, blithely ignoring the look Qui-Gon gave him.
"And have Watto send security our way. We're the only ones looking for a hyperdrive generator--"
"Don't fancy repairing the ship under fire?" Obi-Wan grinned. "We've done it before."
"Only when there's no other choice."
"Well, I suppose you shall just have to barter me then."
He opened his mouth to deliver an acid comment on wit and appropriate timing, when he realized Obi-Wan's statement was expectant and solemn. "You're not serious."
"Of course I am. I'm young, strong, intelligent, and pleasant to look at. I'd fetch a good price. You could probably get the hyperdrive generator and your boy."
"Don't be absurd. I am not selling you for parts."
"It would not be permanent. Two days to Coruscant, drop off the queen, report to the Council, two days back -- with funds suitable for this part of the galaxy this time. I can survive five days in captivity, and I doubt the auction house will sell me so quickly -- they will want to advertise the auction so they can get the highest price."
"It's too risky."
"We are Jedi. Breathing is risky."
"They'll collar you with dilurium." Too many beings with psychic talents and minor Force gifts in the galaxy.
Obi-Wan looked uncomfortable, but his chin stayed up. "I've been cut off from the Force before."
"Padawan--"
"Master. Consider. We may arrange transport off planet. We may arrange the boy's freedom. But I doubt anything we do will accomplish both." His padawan was manipulating him, and he knew it. "I trust you will come back for me as quickly as possible. I can fight my way free if it comes to that, and if you must hunt me down, well, it's nothing we haven't done before. The longer we wait, the stronger the Trade Federation's grip on Naboo."
What could he say to that? Obi-Wan wore that stubborn look, the same expression of selfless determination he displayed on --
Bandomeer
-- any number of missions where he had bantha-headedly decided to act, even if he must sacrifice some part of himself for the greater good.
"If I say no?" Qui-Gon asked, hearing mingled defeat and respect in his own voice.
"Then I sell myself for whatever passes for cash around here, and you can dicker with Watto yourself." Quick grin. "And I doubt you could afford to buy me back."
"I am beginning to understand why my master never took another padawan."
Obi-Wan smirked. "Thank you."
The master blinked, realizing Obi-Wan had taken the oblique comparison to Qui-Gon as a compliment, and suddenly had to look at the ground as his serene mask slipped. When he looked up again, Obi-Wan was holding out his lightsaber.
"Keep it safe for me."
"As long as you keep yourself safe." For me, he added, silently. Unable to bear the tension, he accepted the saber, took Obi-Wan's wrist with his free hand, and pulled it to his lips. He placed a kiss on the callused palm, earning an odd look and a puzzled smile before Obi-Wan visibly drew an air of long-suffering padawanian propriety around himself.
Then Qui-Gon set off across the sands, padawan behind, and half a step to the right. As was his place.
Maurese culture was wrapped around their economy, twisted and warped until the planet actually prided itself on being the home of the galaxy's largest retailer of Praavian tubas. Industry and commerce and thousands of gimmicky enterprises had turned Maura into a young Coruscant, lacking both the veneer of taste which coated the Galactic City's upper levels, and the stratum of aristocrats and wealthy playbeings. Sharp-eyed businessbeings and the prevalent crime syndicates ruled the planet.
Qui-Gon stepped from the transport, his padawans close behind, Anakin with their bags and the ghost between them. Silent, they moved into the seething mass of beings, smog, and blinking hoverads that surrounded the dock, and caught a transitube to their hotel. Signs flashed by, and Qui-Gon noted with hollow amusement that 'ToobäVorld' appeared to be something of a tourist attraction. Not that Maura attracted many vacationers.
"Master?"
"Yes, Padawan?" Padawan was safe. Padawan could be anyone. Better Qui-Gon rip out his own heart by calling another by the title than crush Anakin's with the wrong name.
"Will... will I have time to visit anyone while we're here?"
"Who would you know on Maura?"
Hesitation, and a glance out the clear wall of the transitube, before Anakin's brashness spoke up. "My mother."
"Shmi is here?" Startled, Qui-Gon felt the wispy veil separating them tear for a moment, before serenity reasserted itself. The ghost reared, angry. "How? Why?"
Anakin, flesh padawan, looked at his feet. "She got enough money to buy her freedom."
"From where or whom did she get this money?" The air thickened with deceit, and Qui-Gon frowned. "Anakin."
"Me, I guess." Small whisper, but meekness, especially that he knew to be wrongly assumed, could not appease the ghost once its ire was raised.
Money to buy herself, when I paid for her son with my Obi-Wan. "You guess. I want an answer, Padawan. A clear one."
"You aren't going to like it."
"So then perhaps you should simply not tell me? You know better than that, Padawan." The title was no longer an easy avoidance of names, but a stick with the weight of a thousand generations of Jedi.
"I... I had your friend Didi place some bets for me, at the speederway."
Qui-Gon pinched the bridge of his nose, swaying with the conveyance as it changed tubes. "Dare I hope you are only guilty of underage gambling?"
"But I knew who was going to win! I can't help it if I see things. And I made enough to free my mother. My friend Senator Palpatine says using my gifts to help can't be wrong."
"Senator Palpatine is not your master." Senator Palpatine has no business sniffing around my padawan. He pinched tighter, and the ghost screamed at him, You traded me for this? You traded your bright, honest, selfless, honourable padawan for a temperamental boy who, in spite of four years of effort, has picked up only the semblance of morality?
The headache blossomed, despite his efforts to stave it off. I'd do anything to be a Jedi knight.
"He said you wouldn't understand," Anakin muttered.
"That a padawan of your years could abuse his gifts in that manner, and then," and Qui-Gon held up a hand to silence Anakin's impending outburst, "question the order's stance on abuse of power... When did you do this?"
"The year after I came to Coruscant." Sullen. Obi-Wan was never sullen. Angry, impatient, defiant; never sullen.
"You have lied to me for two years."
"I had to! No one else cared about the slaves."
"Obi-Wan cared."
"Obi-Wan is dead, the raiders shot him, and you stood there and watched it! And I am not Obi-Wan, so stop thinking about him." Shaking and rage and tears.
"You will control yourself, Anakin Skywalker." Mask of serenity. A Jedi master's weapon of choice. He wished he could wield it better.
Turbulent quiet reigned while the boy visibly diffused his anger, and tears fell more freely, faster, until it was a silent, miserable padawan standing next to him, and even the ghost seemed embarrassed to be there.
Four years, and Qui-Gon had not instilled adequate ethics, had not formed even a rudimentary bond, had not broken the possessive hoarding of emotions; too much like Xanatos, with his justifications and instinct for deceit.
If it would not negate Obi-Wan's sacrifice, Qui-Gon would have left the boy's training to others, or let him slide into one of the side programs. AgriCorp, or the PilotCorp. He'd been in a similar state after Xanatos Turned, and he'd avoided taking another padawan for years, ignored all Yoda's urgings to take Obi-Wan as he had ignored the advice to let Anakin go . The Council might soon take the choice from him; the saber rattling grew louder with each progress report but Qui-Gon would fight as long as he could because --
("You could probably get the hyperdrive generator and your boy.")
-- he'd paid too high a price for the chance.
In the silence of the transitube, he could almost hear the ghost speak.
This farce is no tribute to my life.
He left Anakin at the hotel. He had been mistaken, thinking the boy was ready to go on missions just because Obi-Wan had at his age.
Obi-Wan had more training. And the unformed thought behind that: Obi-Wan had more character.
He felt he was sinking, mired in Anakin's emotions, in Obi-Wan's ghost. The boy's unfortunate background had seemed surmountable, what with his enormous talent and early apprenticeship, but Qui-Gon had not reckoned with Anakin's instinct to hoard. Not objects, but feelings. Relationships. Knowledge. Things a slave could possess.
Obedience did not come easily to Anakin. Qui-Gon resolved to take a half-year, in temple, away from the Senate Dome, before attempting another mission. They would ferret out the minor flaws that would only grow under the pressure of the field. Gambling, misusing the Force, freeing his mother and then hiding it while Qui-Gon spent years devoutly battling the Council over their decision not to show favouritism towards families of Jedi... and all the while Shmi had been free.
Trust between them was already fragile; Chosen One or no, Qui-Gon could not rely on Anakin the way he had Obi-Wan. We need time. He needs more training. I need...
What Qui-Gon needed was gone.
Officially they were on Maura to oversee a complex business merger that had already seen bloodshed; unofficially, the planet's largest port was said to be a critical juncture in several spice-trafficking rings. A pre-investigation scout mission, easy enough for a padawan's first assignment, became even easier if said apprentice was confined to quarters for the duration of the mission.
Qui-Gon made his solitary survey of his objectives despite his abstraction, and found both to be in line with the Interplanetary Investigations Subcouncil's information. The merger would progress as scheduled, and a more stable team would be sent to investigate the other matter. Qui-Gon returned late in the afternoon, satisfied but unaccountably morose. It's not as though Anakin's troubles are new, he told himself as the lift deposited him on his floor, even if he has been trying harder of late. Down the hall, thumb to the printpad, doors sliding open to an empty room.
Empty as it could be, with the ghost lingering.
Cursing, but unsurprised, Qui-Gon set out to find his wayward padawan. A search through the immigrant employment database turned up a Shmi Skywalker working at the Beldon Sun, and Qui-Gon abandoned Anakin's trail in favour of a direct route. He had planned on a visit to Shmi at the end of the mission, assuming Anakin's behaviour improved, but now... Qui-Gon walked, needing the time to collect himself, but increasingly aware of the presence at his back, a half-step to the right. His spirit padawan, faithfully following as his flesh padawan could not bring himself to.
Obi-Wan is dead, the raiders shot him, and you stood there and watched it!
The image never faded, never blurred. Still a sharp, clear picture in his head, burned into his retinas. Looking back over his shoulder as he herded Anakin onto the queen's ship, only to see a too-familiar figure inexplicably sprinting over the dunes, half a dozen Tusken raiders in pursuit. Before Qui-Gon could even step off the ramp the figure jerked and crumpled, dropping head-first into the sand.
In a heartbeat there was nothing. Obi-Wan's presence in the Force, dimmed the moment the auction master snapped the collar around his neck, stuttered and skipped and--
Nothing as he ran, nothing as the raiders circled, then departed, satisfied. Nothing as he reached the empty flesh, nothing as he touched the warm body, half the skull gone and with it any last moments of hope, green eyes gone out, harsh chemical scent of the powder that drove the projectiles lingering, too much blood all dark and speckled with clinging sand.
Nothing.
And the next he knew they were almost to Coruscant, and he was sobbing, Anakin's small hands frantically stroking his back.
Don't cry, Master Qui-Gon, sir. Please, please, stop crying.
He had pulled himself together somehow, wordlessly left his charges with Senator Palpatine, all unknowing the queen and her party would be dead within the week. Made his report to the Council, took Anakin as his fourth padawan, determined to wring some good out of Obi-Wan's death. Passed along the mission details to the team escorting Amidala back to Naboo, Jedi doomed to die with the queen. Flung himself into Anakin's training.
The ghost had been waiting there in their quarters, hanging thick over every room, every object. And no matter how he tried to purge the memory, his Obi-Wan's final moments would not leave him, refused to dim.
Qui-Gon blinked, realizing slow tears were leaking from his eyes as he walked, earning him odd stares. Not the first time his control had slipped. Perhaps this mission's simplicity was less for Anakin's sake than his own.
He shoved memories away, gave them to the ghost at his heels to hold for the moment. His face had mostly dried when he reached the institution.
Beldon Sun was a decrepit, blocky building, and Qui-Gon had little trouble gaining entry -- the mental hospital was designed to keep people in, not out, after all. Once inside he let his senses guide him to the second floor, trying to block out the disturbing swirls of madness in the Force. The corridors were dim with old lighting and wiring in need of repair, and noisy in a muffled, echoing way.
With his concentration already divided, Qui-Gon missed the being's approach until a lurching eddy of the madness swarmed over him. He spun, kicked out, sent a furry creature howling. The Force jolted against his senses. He'd used violence in a non-threatening situation.
Qui-Gon winced, seeing blood and realizing the creature -- a black and white ewok in an open hospital robe -- had been armed with nothing more dangerous a Praavian tuba.
"Ow, ow, ow," the ewok moaned, clutching his paw. "You are not a nice man, Qui-Gon Jinn, and you deserve to be haunted." He sat down in the middle of the corridor, sucking his paw and staring up at Qui-Gon with large, wounded eyes. The other paw retrieved the instrument from the floor, and cradled it protectively.
Qui-Gon gaped at him, then belatedly sent out a tendril of inquiry, encountering pure chaos and a mild Force sensitivity almost buried under the effects of long-term substance abuse.
"Ai now, don't you try to talk to my demons; they don't want to speak to you. 'Sides," the ewok added, "you got 'nough demons in your own head."
Qui-Gon forced his heart rate to slow. The ewok obviously had just enough sensitivity to read him, and just enough mental instability to elude the master's shields. "Are you injured?" he asked, not knowing what else to say.
The ewok ignored him. "Qui-Gon Jinn made a bad deal, so the demons say." He struggled to his feet, awkward with one paw injured and the other cradling the tuba, and further hindered by his round belly and short legs. The tarnished brass smelled of urine.
Revulsion twisted through Qui-Gon. Inexplicable, unacceptable revulsion. The ghost laughed. Qui-Gon Jinn, disgusted by a pathetic life-form? How the master has fallen!
"How the master has fallen!" the ewok howled along, laughing with the ghost. "Your demon knows you well, and knows you wrong. Perhaps it's just as well. Your boy would have done some very bad things, and we're all better off without that happening. Mind you don't lose him like you lost the last one. He's still dangerous."
Qui-Gon took a step back, unthinking, nearer the ghost. The ewok looked past him with mild eyes. "Sorry, ma'am. My demons sent me here."
Quiet voice behind him. "It's all right, JoJo. Go back to the lounge now."
Clutching the instrument, the ewok waddled away.
"I've never seen them off their native planet," Qui-Gon said, nodding after the ewok. He turned to face her.
"He was found wandering the spaceport, so spiced he could hardly walk," Shmi said. "JoJo is harmless. If you've come for Ani, I already sent him back."
"Thank you."
"He was very upset."
"I know. He must understand that what he did was wrong."
She looked away, jaw tight. "He never said where he got the money, and I just assumed the Jedi..." She trailed off.
"It's done now, and though I'm disappointed with his method, I can't say I'm unhappy with the result."
She laid a hand on his arm, smiled warmly. "Thank you. How is Obi-Wan? He must be a knight by now."
Oh, pain. "He... he's dead."
"I'm sorry." Her eyes turned soft and sympathetic. "He was a nice young man. I rather liked him." She hesitated, lowered her head. "I hate to ask, but how did you get him away from the Weasel King?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh! I assumed you followed him from Tatooine, but I suppose Jedi have other ways of doing things. I'm sorry for presuming. It's... it's a personal matter."
Confusion, swiftly followed by sharp pain, and he had to pinch the bridge of his nose again. I'd do anything to be a Jedi knight. Why could he not stop thinking of Bandomeer and words that were never spoken there?
"Are you all right?" Shmi asked. "Come with me." She pulled his arm, led him down the corridor to a small closet, settled him on a crate amidst the cleaning droids and supplies. "Sit. Deep breaths." He obeyed, bemused that a Jedi master needed such cosseting, only half-listening as she prattled on.
"I spoke with Obi-Wan several times during his stay," Shmi was saying. "Watto was thinking of buying him, but the price went too high. Remarkable young man. How did he die?"
"He ran, the day we left Tatooine." Qui-Gon's voice was a bare whisper. Confusion from Shmi, and he waited with an prickling from the Force running down his spine. The ghost was curiously silent, as though listening too. "Tusken raiders shot him before he could reach the ship."
Shmi's hands, always rough with labour, twisted the front of her uniform. "But you left two weeks before the auction."
"The auction?"
"Yes. The house sold Obi-Wan to the Weasel King." Shmi's mouth firmed into a hard line, but her expression remained puzzled. "He asked me to tell you who purchased him when you came back, but when you never returned I thought you found out some other way or he had escaped."
The vision burned with undying clarity into his mind screamed that it was a lie. Obi-Wan was dead, long dead, and they'd held a funeral and --
Why had there been no body? Why hadn't he brought Obi-Wan's body to the ship? No time, he answered himself, but that made no sense. They were not in that much of a hurry.
It's not true. Obi-Wan is dead. But he wanted to believe.
Dead. Not dead. Dead. Not dead. He wanted to believe.
Bandomeer. Jedi knight. Do anything. He wanted.
He wanted that perception and that reality, and logic and desire allied against memory, spiking the pain in his head until the pressure behind his eyes caused him to turn to the ghost in desperation.
Tell me it's true.
The ghost was silent, and Qui-Gon could now see little of Obi-Wan in it. Himself, yes. Anakin, yes. The thing they had created together, a shadow of guilt and fear, loneliness, grief, rage, and at the center a small spark, a bond interrupted by a Force-dampening dilurium collar, clumsily severed, never healed... because there was no clean break of death to heal from.
He closed his eyes, had to swallow.
Obi-Wan would never be so cruel as his ghost.
The truth lay deep within him, a tiny light, shining in the mist and shadows and liquid pain in which he had cloaked his life.
"I'd do anything to be a Jedi knight."
"Oh, Ani. You have to be prepared if the Council decides you're too old for that type of training." Qui-Gon tugged the blanket higher under the boy's chin. "I will make certain you have a place, but it may be in a different branch of the Jedi. The order has a pilot program, you know."
Anakin brightened briefly, then returned to an unhappy pout. "But I'm going to be a knight. I saw it."
"I think you will be, too. But the future is always in motion, and you must be prepared for all eventualities. Even if the Council approves, you may have difficulty finding a master."
"Can't you be my master?"
"I already have a padawan, Ani. The code forbids having two." Qui-Gon hated seeing the boy's agonized disappointment, but he could not create hopes if there was a chance Anakin would not be accepted -- and it was not too early to begin training him to let go of his expectations and trust the Force. Qui-Gon thought the Council would make an exception for this one, with his astronomical midichlorian count and natural talent with the Force, so obviously the Chosen One. Some other master would see it too, and Anakin would be a knight.
If no one else would, then Qui-Gon might make arrangements to speed Obi-Wan's trials. No need to tell Anakin though. No need to linger on thoughts of Obi-Wan as Qui-Gon's equal...
A small hand touching his face drew his attention back down to the boy. "You don't have to go back for him," Anakin said, anxious, biting his lip, sudden fear swirling in the small cabin. "He's a Jedi. He can take care of himself."
"That is not an option."
Anakin's face twisted up, a knot of grief, then smoothed to determination. "I have to be a knight. You... you can't go back. Obi-Wan is dead."
"No, he's not." Of course Obi-Wan was not dead. He-- Pain began behind his eyes.
Yes.
"Anakin --"
-- saw it with your own --
"But --"
See it.
Pressure and pain a rancor battling a whomp rat, threatening to send him past sanity and --
I'd do anything --
-- it hurt and --
-- to be a Jedi knight.
-- he did see it, exploding across his mind in perfect surreal detail, burning, sinking into neurons as raw, clumsy power etched the scene in his memory.
The deckplates hummed; he couldn't remember lifting off, but it didn't matter.
Dead. Obi-Wan could not be dead; Qui-Gon would not allow it, not his brilliant, capable, beautiful padawan, his Obi-Wan. A sob tore through him, then another, and serenity shattered under the weight of grief. He crumpled to the cabin's bunk, pain lacing his soul, barely feeling the boy's sudden alarm as a maelstrom of half-denied emotion swept through the Force.
Obi-Wan! I wanted so much more...Oh, Force, I hope he knew how much I loved him. Love him.
The severity of his grief shocked him, on the level of his mind that remained rational. He could not release it to the Force; he could not let it go -- or the Force would not accept it -- and it burned inside like nothing he had felt before. He thought, distantly, that he might hyperventilate if it continued.
"Don't cry, Master Qui-Gon, sir. Please, please, stop crying." Small hands rubbed his back, pleading with him, fright and guilt growing, spinning shadows in the turbulent Force around them. "Please, please, I'm sorry!"
The raw panic in the boy's voice did what the Force could not (should not), and dammed the torrent. Anakin. Qui-Gon needed to be strong. "It's not your fault, Ani," he whispered, hoarse with his grief. "Obi-Wan chose to buy your freedom with his. The life of a Jedi is..." He could not continue, pain and loss mocking platitudes.
There is no death; there is only the Force.
Later, as they debarked, he caught sympathetic looks from the queen and her handmaidens, but had no time to speak with them, other than Padmé's quick whisper. "The queen is grateful to you and your apprentice, Master Jinn. She will not forget this sacrifice."
It did not matter in the least if Amidala remembered; she and her people were all dead within days, killed attempting a foolish coup on the Trade Federation.
And his own life went on, with little outward change, except that there were three of them thereafter: master, padawan, and the ghost they created between them.
Obi-Wan's death remained real, and that was the worst part. The scene carved so clearly in his mind refused to fade under logic; the truth could not erase the lie. It hurt, knowing he might see this unnatural memory, see his padawan's dead body in his mind every day for the rest of his life.
Grimacing, curiously devoid of anger, Qui-Gon strode into the hotel room, already knowing it was empty. The short braid and a kitchen knife lying on the desk next to a holodisc did not surprise him, nor did the conspicuous absence of a lightsaber.
Xanatos had made similar choices, once upon a time.
He flicked the disc, and Anakin's tear-streaked face appeared above it.
"Master Qui-Gon, I... I know you remembered what happened. I felt it. Oh, please don't hate me. I know what I did was unforgivable, but I was so desperate, and I really needed you and I thought Obi-Wan would be able to take care of himself, and... I know better now." Holographic eyes closed briefly, then opened, and the recorded voice emerged rough. "Do you know what it's like living with ghosts? You never bonded with me, but, Gods, I did to you. I heard everything, every time you thought of him, compared me to him. I disappointed you. I was a terrible Jedi." Gaze turned sharp, biting. "I never would have wanted this so badly if I'd known what it would be like. I never... Gods. He warned me I never should have made a martyr out of Obi-Wan Kenobi."
The disc fell silent, and the face flickered and winked out. Qui-Gon picked up the braid, turned it over and over in his hands. He had three of them now, and only Adi's carried any honour.
Shmi came after her shift at the hospital ended, as she had promised.
"He's gone," Qui-Gon said in greeting, fiddling with the pad containing his mission notes. "He resigned from the order."
"I know."
They sat in silence for a while, the ghost hovering, despairing. Knowing its nature had not exorcised it. "Tell me."
She knew what he sought. "He was very pleasant to me. Polite and patient through all the nonsense the auction house insisted on putting him through before they would list him. I think the collar made him uncomfortable, but he never complained. By the second week, he started to wonder if something had happened to you, and he asked me to tell you, or any passing Jedi, who purchased him. Watto brought me to the auction, so I saw the buyer."
"The Weasel King."
"Yes." Her face tightened.
"You know him." The ghost skittered closer, a child at story time, anxious of the ending. He projected dispassion at it, but it knew him too well.
Well and wrong.
"I wasn't always a slave, you know," Shmi said. "I had a life, a husband, two children..." She sighed, stood, made a restless circuit of the room. He wondered how many ghosts she had of her own; he suspected three. He thought of JoJo and his demons, wished he'd listened more closely.
Mind you don't lose him like you lost the last one.
Had he intended the words for Qui-Gon or Shmi?
"We were moving to Dantooine," she said, picking up Anakin's message disc. "We hoped to find work there, but the travel company didn't hire enough escorts, and slavers ambushed the transport at its first fuel stop. The Weasel King was just the Weasel back then, a small-time pirate... now he has several slaving rings under him." She cast him a wry glance. "And a few spice rings as well."
If he squinted, would he see her family behind her? "You came here looking for him."
"Ani was to be a Jedi, so I no longer had to protect him. My husband and older children are untraceable, or so the authorities tell me. I have little else to do with my life besides track down the Weasel, and hope he has records of Luke and our boys."
"What will you do when you find him?"
"I don't know. I was trying to decide that when you came."
Qui-Gon closed his eyes, fingers of premonition on his spine. Don't lose him like you lost the last one. Was it Obi-Wan that he'd lost? Or Xanatos? The ghost taunted him, armed with the ammunition of his second apprentice, the one whose likeness stood in the Hall of the Lost next to Qui-Gon's own master. He'd disowned his first apprentice as much as she would allow, to divorce her of the taint. She protested, but her voice on the Council proved him right.
I cannot afford to let you cripple me now. He didn't know if he meant the ghost or the shadow of Xanatos or both.
He opened his eyes. "You know where the Weasel is."
"He makes his home on Sceox Three, at the moment. Will you go?"
"Yes. Once my mission is done here," he added, an afterthought.
"I'm coming with you."
He thought of protesting, but knew it was futile. She would only follow him, and perhaps get herself into trouble. "Very well. We will leave in four days."
There would be three of them on the journey, he knew -- he was beginning to suspect the ghost was as permanent as the false memory of his Obi-Wan's death.
Don't lose this one.
Sceox Three had borne a race of spindly arthropods who had, once upon a time, conquered the entire sector. Overconfident, they challenged the neighbouring petty empire, and the Burosians, mammalians whose projecting topknots earned them the nickname 'hats', happily obliged. In little more than a decade they had obliterated each other.
The insect-hat wars were millennia over, and little remained of the Sceops but tunnel-riddled hillsides and the enormous craters, scars from the war, which were visible from space.
Qui-Gon observed the dark circles, green on green, pockmarks in the lush vegetation that covered a fair percentage of the planet, and wondered if his Obi-Wan was down there somewhere, severed from the Force, alone.
Waiting for a master who never came.
"It's very sad," Shmi said, nodding at the dark circles as the ship descended, the scene obscured in places by stripes of pregnant clouds. Qui-Gon nodded in silent agreement.
The scars faded as they drew closer, pattern overwhelmed by detail, lost in the close-up. They landed to the patter of heavy rain on the hull, grey skies dulling the prevalent vegetation and casting a melancholy cloak over the spaceport. The air, striking them forcefully when the doors opened, wound up into Qui-Gon's soul, imbued with the living Force, rejuvenating him. The soft gasp at his side reminded him Shmi had spent more than half her life on a true desert world, and that Sceox, the very opposite of Tatooine, must shock her.
"Oh!" she breathed. "It's just lovely." He smiled and offered his arm and tried to pretend it was just the two of them, strolling through the rain.
The short walk from the landing strip to the transportation center soaked them, and Qui-Gon liberated an umbrella from the lost and found box before they ventured out again. Together they stepped out into the rain, joining the sparse, miserable crowd of wet travelers and commuters, a thin sea of colourful umbrellas and slickers.
A few discreet inquiries during their quest for lodgings confirmed the Weasel King -- whose real name was either Han Alterpa or Brogat Yekt, depending on who was asked -- did reside on Sceox, and turned up the general location of his house. They rented a set of rooms in the scholars' district of the capital, posing as siblings working on a xenthropology grant. A small bribe got them an audience with the 'king'.
"Scientists, huh." The Weasel King was an older human, with longish silver hair which he wore in a tail, and restless eyes that seemed to see everything and nothing at once. He regarded Qui-Gon and Shmi in short bursts, but Qui-Gon noted the motion did not extend to his body, which was lean and hard and poised for action.
"We understand you have, in the past, acquired various small expensive items--"
"Pi-rat-ing," the Weasel said slowly. "I'm sure you've heard of it. Get on with it and tell me what you're looking for."
Qui-Gon launched into his tale of a lost relic, grateful, for once, for Mace and his annoyingly dull hobby; having been trained to recall long, boring speeches on command, Qui-Gon was able to draw on his friend's enthusiastic and interminable lectures on obscure artifacts, and at least sound like he knew what he was talking about.
The Weasel King waved a hand airily, cutting him off mid-recital. "I no longer deal in miscellany, except for very special items." He caressed his wrist as he spoke, and a dull rage tore through Qui-Gon, leaving him incoherent and staring at the dark red-gold braid circling the man's wrist.
Obi-Wan.
Not Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan is dead. You saw it with--
Obi-Wan had been here.
Not Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan is--
Here.
Dimly he heard Shmi step in to cover his lapse, and the only thing that kept him from charging through the Weasel King's palatial home was the knowledge the pirate's men would kill her before he'd gone a meter, and maybe kill him--
Not possible because he's already dead.
-- as well.
"The Vase of the Lucid Moon would have passed through your hands several years ago," Shmi said, still earnest at playing a man who craved respectability even as he scorned it. "Perhaps twenty-five, thirty years. Do you keep records that far back?"
Another smirk. "I used to, but apparently you aren't the only ones looking for this pot."
"What do you mean?" Shmi asked sharply.
"Someone broke into my archive last week, and wasn't happy with what he found. Bastard trashed the 'base. All records older than twenty years are cyberdust."
They were both silent as they returned to their rooms, Shmi mourning a renewed loss, Qui-Gon fighting the urge to draw his saber and tear the Weasel's ostentatious manor apart until he found Obi-Wan. The persistent rain dragged each deeper into their respective moods, copious runoff mocking their beginning on sandy Tatooine.
It was a sodden pair that climbed the stairs to their tasteful but inexpensive suite. Crossing the threshold, Qui-Gon halted, jarred out of his anger by a hint of familiar presence, and an instinctive thickening of the Force veils surrounding him. Shmi continued past him.
"Ani's been here," she murmured, seeming unconcerned as she headed for the 'fresher. She emerged with a stack of towels before Qui-Gon could move from the doorway, her casual display of Force-sensitivity rooting him to the spot as much as the surprise at finding his padawan -- former padawan -- following them.
"Do you always know where your son is?"
"Mm. It's handy. Anakin was always into something or other."
After a change of clothes they sat, drying their hair, picking at a meal of seed cakes and strong nuirro cheese.
"No one is actually looking for the Vase of the Lucid Moon," Qui-Gon said at last. "Mace Windu has it in his living room. I hesitate to make connections where there are none, but this feels like more than coincidence." He realized he himself was not sure what his former apprentice would do; a noble crusade against slavery seemed as equal a possibility as a vengeful rampage. His head felt thick with Obi-Wan's possible-nearness and the figure in his mind he saw collapse into the sand again and again. "Would Anakin have broken into the files?"
"Perhaps. He knew I would eventually approach the Weasel. But why destroy the files?"
"Maybe they contained something he thought would hurt you." He did not state the obvious reason: that her family was dead.
Qui-Gon sighed, wondering if he had ever truly understood Anakin; their mutual ghost had kept them too separate. The thought of Obi-Wan got him moving, propelled him to the respectable comp station standard for the intellectual quarter's lodgings.
The Weasel King was a public figure on Sceox, having brought the spice trade, and thus the endless jaru and aheixa farms and a steady climb in the planetary economy. His name flooded the local news, and Qui-Gon finally narrowed his search to the holo-casts.
Finding his objective startled him more than it should have, and he clutched the edges of the desk, watching the short clip of a gala inside the Weasel's house. The pirate was making some speech about the increasing demand for jaru spice, but Qui-Gon could only focus on the man kneeling gracefully next to the Weasel's chair.
Older. Thinner. Longish red-gold hair falling in eyes, brushing shoulders. Enveloped in a veil of dignity, serenity, quiet grief. Chin up, eyes on the camera as though ordering the holo-cast be seen by someone who would recognize, and care.
And it had.
Desk edges dug into his palms as he watched the short clip play out, loop back, begin again. Qui-Gon finally spared a glance for the date -- little more than a month old.
Obi-Wan.
Not Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan is--
"Shut up," he hissed, and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. Blood ran over the sand again, and an empty green gaze implored the sky.
"How will you rescue him?" Soft voice from his shoulder. He took a shuddering breath.
"I don't know. I will trust the Force to guide me." Almost as though summoned, the Force leapt within him, and he stood abruptly, tipping back the chair. "I must go. Now."
"I'll come with you."
"No."
"But--"
"Stay here!" He said it sharper than he intended, and though it did not faze her, she conceded the argument.
"Be careful."
Qui-Gon nodded and, four years late, left to reclaim his padawan.
For all the intervening years, it came down to mere minutes.
The Weasel King's house churned with slow confusion; no one was sure precisely what happened, but everyone agreed something had. The Weasel himself was dead, and the cauterized flesh where his head once joined his body left little question as to the murder weapon.
The area was fairly flooded with Anakin's Force signature, and all the signs of a careless mass memory adjustment. Without further inquiry, the Force urging him, Qui-Gon appropriated a speeder from amidst the confusion, and sped off through the light drizzle in the direction his senses pulled him.
Field and forest rushed by, smudged with speed and rain and inattention. Qui-Gon focused his entire being on his target, trusting the Force to guide his flight and keep him from crashing. Without it he might have missed the vehicle tucked in the shadow of a large, curiously round hill.
Not hill. Sceops mound.
As he landed next to the abandoned speeder the sky chose to stop teasing, and a torrent poured down, as though a dozen Tatooine water-tankers had collided in the heavens. Qui-Gon was soaked through in seconds and, blinded by sheets of rain, he let the Force carry him to the entrance.
Straining his senses beyond the dark opening, Qui-Gon heard running water splashing, echoing, a thousand trickles racing through hollow depths. Faintly over it he thought he heard a voice.
Without further thought, he plunged into the hill.
Smooth walls slid under his fingers, earth lacquered in what xenthropologists assumed was a natural excretion of the long-extinct Sceops. Regardless of origin, it was watertight and harder than stone, and for that Qui-Gon was grateful.
Water ran confident and fast across his feet, deepening as he descended, dependent again on the Force to lead him through the labyrinth. In the heavy blackness the ghost reclaimed him by inches, but its hold seemed less certain with the song of the Force in his heart. Every whispered goad to abandon this fruitless quest for a padawan he had bargained away for a generator and a hunch flowed over him, but like the water it washed away. He followed the Force. There had never been room for doubt when he heard it call.
Smooth lacquer eventually gave way to natural stone, and the passage roughened, skipping water into noisy rills. He was forced to slow as cracks and small crevices appeared in the floor, but at last a familiar voice echoed up from the lower level, wavery over the splash of running water.
"You're going to disappear so deep no one will ever find you this time."
"Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice, calm and rational and impossible. Qui-Gon stopped out of sheer disbelief, and another round of dead, not dead scurried circles in his thoughts.
Obi-Wan.
"Think about what you are doing. What have I done to you?"
Alarm sprang up, sharp in Qui-Gon's throat, but the ghost paralyzed him. That is not Obi-Wan talking Anakin down, because Obi-Wan is dead.
"You," Anakin hissed, the word blending into the white noise. "You had everything that was supposed to be mine, and now you think you can steal my mother too? I may not be able to go back, but I'm going to make certain you can't either."
The raiders shot him.
"Anakin, you don't want to kill me."
You left his body in the sand for the rats.
He never would have left Obi-Wan. Cursing softly, Qui-Gon scrambled forward, hoping the rushing water would cover his splashes. He strained to hear Anakin's response.
"No, I don't want to kill you." Very soft. "I only wanted you to go away. I didn't even know you were here until I saw the Weasel's files. Gods, I was only trying to help Mom! I don't want to hurt you, but the speeder's out of fuel and Qui-Gon was so close-- Qui-Gon!"
"Master? Here? How--" Shock and hope and joy, abruptly cut off.
"Shut up. Master! Stay back!"
Qui-Gon slowed but did not stop until he came into sight of his padawans. The dim green glow of a lit saber illuminated Anakin, wild-eyed, ragged end of a severed braid standing out in accusation, eerily reminiscent of Xanatos standing over his father's body.
Only the body this time was Obi-Wan, alive, kneeling, bound, and staring at Qui-Gon in almost comical stupefaction. "Master!"
"Master, I'm warning you! Stay back." Unbelievably, the saber crept up to Obi-Wan's neck, and Qui-Gon saw red-speckled sand and bone fragments and the ugly alien concave curve of skull. He blinked, and the red was only a burn to the skin above a thick dilurium collar.
"Padawan!" The word burst out, a blaster shot tearing the air with all the weight of a master's displeasure with his apprentice, demanding instant, unthinking obedience. He avoided Obi-Wan's eyes, though he felt the gaze thick and steady on him, and focused on Anakin.
Coward.
There is no fear.
No? said the ghost. Then what burns in your belly?
"Disengage your saber, Anakin. Now."
Anakin was halfway to obeying before reason overtook habit. "No! Master, why did you have to come? I would have found him another home, and now..." He trailed away, the earnest misery on his face incongruent with the lightsaber held up to a helpless man's neck.
"You've cornered yourself, Anakin," Qui-Gon said quietly. "I warned you about your impulsiveness. You have nowhere to go, and no hope of escaping. Release Obi-Wan, and we can all go back to the temple and try to figure out where things went wrong, try to fix it."
Wary hope flared in the Force, quickly suppressed. "You'll punish me."
"Of course. You've made mistakes, Anakin. But that doesn't mean things won't work out," Qui-Gon said, dazed to be using hostage negotiations on his own padawan, dazed his padawan had not recognized the speech from his textbooks. Why did connection between him and his apprentices always come late and over drawn sabers? "Trust the Force, Padawan."
Anakin's saber dropped momentarily, then snapped back up.
"Anakin--" Obi-Wan said.
"Shut up!" Anakin tilted his head, listening.
"Ani?" Shmi's voice, and without looking Qui-Gon knew she was making her way down the slope, water swirling mid-calf now.
"Mom?" The lightsaber wavered along with the horrified tone. "Mom, what are you doing here?"
"Ani, you're in trouble. Let Qui-Gon help you." Shmi was moving too fast for the footing, glancing behind her. Qui-Gon reached for the sounds of pursuit, heard none, felt a flicker of warning. They had minutes. None of them were stable enough for this new pressure; they needed days, weeks, years to resolve the knot of issues.
"You weren't supposed to see this, Mom," Anakin moaned.
"It doesn't matter now, Ani. I'm here now, and I love you." She stretched out her hand. "The Weasel King's men followed me. We have to hurry. We'll go anywhere in the galaxy you like, just let Obi-Wan go."
Anakin tensed at once.
A tortured cry, and the mad taste of the Beldon Sun came swirling in with the grimace twisting Anakin's face as his fist twisted in long red-gold hair. Qui-Gon didn't know what Shmi had said wrong, but the veils and shadows shifted, offered unsettling glimpses of thought and future and Force, and the ghost howled a protest for the hand wrenching Obi-Wan's head back.
Break a bone for every hair harmed.
Fear led to hate, yes it did. Qui-Gon would swear it before the High Council.
Anakin stepped backwards, one hand twined in Obi-Wan's hair, the other holding the lightsaber high. Obi-Wan squirmed back with the pull, awkward on his knees in the rising water, hands bound behind him, collar denying assistance from the Force.
Qui-Gon followed slowly, struggling for footing. "Anakin--"
A shout resounded from the tunnels behind them, and Anakin jerked, a momentary lapse, but all Obi-Wan needed to dive forward, losing a fistful of hair, gaining freedom. Qui-Gon's own saber flashed to life and he darted between his padawans.
The sudden jerk and abrupt loss of tension stole Anakin's balance and the flood sent the boy to the ground. The surge of Force Anakin drew to save himself aborted when the lit saber hit the water; the crystal's baffles failed and green sparks flared, tainting the air with ozone. The light halved to Qui-Gon's saber, and only a faint cry of pain, swiftly receding, marked Anakin's passage as the water swept him away.
"Ani!" Shmi darted past Qui-Gon, fell, protested as he caught her.
"Move with caution," he said, and released her to catch Obi-Wan's shoulders.
Real shoulders, solid. Stark, chilling emptiness where his presence in Qui-Gon's soul once lived. The limp body Qui-Gon eternally rolled over in his memory had sand on its cheek. The living one before him had water and a purpling bruise.
"Hold still," he whispered. Unnecessarily. Foolishly. He'd been cutting Obi-Wan out of binders for more than a decade. Metal hissed, and bonds fell free. "Can you live with the collar a while longer?"
Shmi was gone from sight, after Anakin. Faint but angry shouts echoed from the other direction.
"I'll have to." Wry or bitter. The ghost jeered, offered a new target.
Left your apprentice for dead, Master Jinn. Look at your handiwork!
He turned away from the man before him, who was far from the man he'd cradled dead in the sand. He started down the tunnel after Shmi, Obi-Wan -- flesh and blood and breath -- at his heels once more, unquestioning and attentive to the problem at hand.
They gained perhaps a yard before a flash lit the tunnel ahead, and a muffled explosion shook the mound.
"Ani!"
Qui-Gon examined the sharp bend in the corridor, freshly scarred and blackened. He guessed the water had shorted out Anakin's lightsaber, disrupting the electronic baffles and leaving it with no safeguard against sudden impacts. When the lightsaber struck the wall, the power crystal exploded. Of Anakin there was no sign, but the swelling sounds of pursuit spurred them onwards.
Another dozen yards and they came to a trench in the floor.
Shmi moaned low, sound lost in the rush of water over the edge, and Obi-Wan squeezed her arm.
"How deep is it?" he asked Qui-Gon.
"Very." It was also too wide to jump unassisted, but the far edge was mercifully dry. No damp footprints led away, but they weren't needed; Shmi always knew where her son was, and her eyes stayed on the trench. With unspoken accord -- oh, he had missed the ease, the synchronization -- Obi-Wan leapt the chasm, propelled by a Force-boost from Qui-Gon. The master tossed a limp and unprotesting Shmi across, guiding her to Obi-Wan's arms, then made the jump himself.
Qui-Gon sent his thoughts down, felt nothing but the overpowering gap in the Force that was Obi-Wan, standing next to him, peering down as well.
For once no ghost, but flesh; Obi-Wan-shaped but silent in the Force. Qui-Gon's mind skittered away from Anakin to gnaw at that absence. He felt nothing but the lack of Obi-Wan, heard nothing but water and closing blaster fire.
Releasing all his might-have-beens and should-have-dones, Qui-Gon gathered his charges, and led them deeper into the dark.
Two days later they stumbled back into the world of light, sunshine through the thin cloud cover tinting the air silver, softened by a feathery drizzle. No explanations had been exchanged in the dark tunnels, beyond a hushed, 'I thought you were dead,' and 'I thought you were dead.'
Birdsong, wind, and the faint patter of rain made pleasing sounds after days of hollow echoes, and the fresh, moving air was a blessing. They heard nothing more of the Weasel's people in the Sceops corridors, and the forest offered no sign of trespassers.
Shmi revived somewhat in the fresh air, but remained pliant. Qui-Gon led her and Obi-Wan away from the mound, setting a course for civilization, but he did not push them far before stopping to make camp. Shmi volunteered to forage, Qui-Gon's food capsules long gone among the three of them.
"Thank you. Obi-Wan and I have some matters to attend, so we will be gone for a while." He handed her the small survival kit from his belt. "Keep the fire small and smokeless." She nodded, and the two men silently left the camp.
Tranquility bathed them as they walked, going where the Force willed their feet, passing likely clearings over until, in mutual agreement, they stopped in a particularly lovely glade. Rain sparkled off every surface, the damp cool but not uncomfortable, sunlight playing peek with clouds.
Obi-Wan turned to him, nodded his readiness, and lifted his chin as Qui-Gon drew his saber.
"You're certain? The Force will take you hard."
"Yes. Get it off me."
Without further delay, Qui-Gon set about the delicate process of removing the Force-dampening collar.
A moment and an eternity later, the slick metal parted, leaving behind an unavoidable score from the lightsaber and a ring of raw, abraded flesh. As the collar fell away Obi-Wan gasped and doubled over, then sank to his knees, trembling as the Force surged through him, painful in the manner of blood-starved flesh after circulation returns.
Qui-Gon sat nearby and murmured nonsensical words of comfort as the afternoon progressed and Obi-Wan continued to shake. He wanted to rub soothing circles on the shuddering back, but Obi-Wan pushed his hands away. He tried to ignore the stabbing disappointment as the empty place a training bond should fill remained hollow, and mourned the loss as Obi-Wan recovered slowly.
Did you think it would be that simple? the ghost whispered, teasing, until Obi-Wan silenced it with a sudden glare.
"Why are you shielding from me?"
Qui-Gon flinched, closed his eyes. "It's not intentional. For so long I thought you dead, and I suppose some part of me just refuses to believe you are not."
"I thought you dead as well. A month after the auction I heard Queen Amidala had been killed. I thought perhaps you did not make it to Coruscant. I... the auction master suspected I was a Force-user and..." He gestured at the triple-thick dilurium collar lying on the grass. "I'm a Jedi. I should have found a way."
"It's not your--"
"Don't say it. What happened back there?"
A dozen answers crowded Qui-Gon's tongue, all excuses or blame or confessions. "I'm not sure. He'd been unstable the last few weeks--" Years, corrected the ghost. "He found something in the Weasel King's database--"
"I meant on Tatooine."
More excuses. He said none of them. "I sold my padawan for parts and a demon that knows me well and knows me wrong."
Obi-Wan only looked at him.
"I wanted to kiss you outside the queen's transport."
"You did," Obi-Wan said, and he recalled pressing his lips to a salty palm.
"I'm sorry." His voice broke.
"As am I." They stared at one another for a long moment, until Qui-Gon tentatively held out a hand. Obi-Wan made no move, but that his gaze shifted from Qui-Gon's face to the extended limb, and the master felt his throat close tighter with each second expiring.
Then, with great care, Obi-Wan accepted the hand, and allowed himself to be pulled into an embrace, stiffening as Qui-Gon's arms closed around him.
"Shh. All will be well. We are together." Together, both. Still a third between them, and he wished it the death Anakin had conjured for Obi-Wan. "This veil is only in my head," Qui-Gon said, "but it is real and it separates us. Tear it down, Obi-Wan. Touch my mind; make me believe in you." Long streams of whispered words, murmured against damp hair, and after a moment he felt a feathery brush across his thoughts, familiar and dearly loved, yet also alien and frightening under four years of the unknown.
He grasped the touch anyway. Shadows thinned, and contact followed -- blessed, soul-warming contact.
Qui-Gon could not help the kiss he pressed to Obi-Wan's temple, but regretted the instant tension in the young man's frame. He forced his arms down, forced his heart back into his chest, forced himself to step away.
Obi-Wan inexplicably moved with him, tension only increasing, taking on a desperate edge. "Remake me," he whispered into the master's neck, drawing a moan from Qui-Gon, raising a sudden fear that this too was false memory. His Obi-Wan rebuilt lightsabers and left his socks in the 'fresher and made dry quips that were only kin to funny. His Obi-Wan didn't mouth his master's jaw and rub like an animal in heat.
"You don't know what you ask."
"Don't cosset me." Obi-Wan's tone turned sharp. "I've had four years to know, and my thoughts always came back to you, and this isn't proper at all, but it's what I want, and I need you. Now." A pause. Grit teeth. "Please. Touch my body. Make me believe in you."
Words thrown back at him. An indrawn breath brought him the scent of rain and Obi-Wan. There was a crèche story about a mad rabbit, and he felt he'd fallen into it. "If I touch you I'll never stop."
"Then don't stop. I thought you dead, Qui-Gon, and it killed me. Give me life again."
Don't lose this one like you lost the last.
Make me feel.
Their lips met, frantic amidst the rain and light and life, and veils fell away, and the watching ghost lost its grip on guilt and began to hope for forgiveness.
Qui-Gon lay back on the wet grass, all his senses flooded with Obi-Wan. The vision of clear green eyes gazing so intently back, glossy with a thin sheen of tears, depthless in the odd silver light. The fresh scent of him, sweat diluted with water, skin kissed with rain. The heat and weight of his body, firm and graceful and moving with need. The whisper of his breath over the rain. The salty taste of his lips. Most of all the gentle touch of his mind, muted, but refuting the vision of death still engraved in the master's mind, and lighting the liquid depths of his soul.
He gave over control, easily, entirely, and allowed Obi-Wan to lead their dance. Not passive, but submissive -- first so as not to alarm his edgy lover, then for the joy of surrender and the return of trust it signified. He moaned his appreciation as Obi-Wan straddled him, loosening Qui-Gon's tunics enough to slide cold fingers beneath the fabric, rubbing skin, teasing nipples.
Qui-Gon settled hands on Obi-Wan's thighs, squeezed, ran palms up his flanks, fingertips brushing the thin material of the simple, front-laced shirt. "What would you have of me?" he whispered, willing Obi-Wan to request something impossible so that Qui-Gon could do it, and thus prove his devotion.
"Love," came the prompt reply. There was an undercurrent twisting in the Force that spoke of Obi-Wan's definition of the word. It tasted like safety. "Your love."
Disappointingly easy to fulfill. "You've always had that." A choked moan greeted his declaration, and Obi-Wan wound fingers tightly into Qui-Gon's tunics, then shoved them apart, harsh and needy.
"This is so very inappropriate." The sentiment did not prevent Obi-Wan from leaning down to lick an exposed nipple. "What would our brethren say?"
"They would advise us -- oh! -- advise us to live in the moment," Qui-Gon gasped.
A pause, soft lips still encircling his nipple. "And the future?"
"Belongs to you. If you want it."
Warm lips trailing kisses down his stomach, flutter of breath on his skin. "I do."
Leggings parted, baring the shaft of stone flesh between his legs, cool air a shock but swiftly replaced by wet heat, and the strong caress of tongue and light scrape of teeth. "Oh! My Obi-Wan."
Heat vanished abruptly, and the green eyes reappeared, staring intently. "Do you truly think of me as such?" A hard humourless smile, and Obi-Wan was shifting, crawling up him, letting their erections greet each other through the single layer of cloth. "Am I yours?"
Qui-Gon hesitated, sensing something dangerous in the practiced arch and flex of Obi-Wan's body. "In my heart you are."
The danger faded, and the smile softened. He had missed that grin, that spark of joy lighting the eyes. Obi-Wan laughed, a sound half sob, which turned into a groan as his lover thrust his hips. "Ah!"
"Please, whatever you need," Qui-Gon said.
"I need to be in you."
Qui-Gon was nodding even before the words ended, lifting his hips, trying to slide his leggings down further. A quick snap of the Force undid all the buckles of his boots at once -- a trick he had learned in a hurry the first time he fell fully clothed into deep water -- and he kicked them off, then tangled briefly with the leggings before they obeyed his order to begone.
Naked in the rain, grass tickling him intimately, Qui-Gon gazed up at his still-clothed lover; a bedraggled young man -- not so young anymore, Qui-Gon realized, thinking with shock that Obi-Wan would be thirty in a few months -- with tangled hair and cheeks rough with two days' growth.
But real.
Solid flesh and, oh, the flesh was solid, prodding his abdomen with insistent, urgent nudges. Qui-Gon reached for dangling laces, searched Obi-Wan's face for approval, and once received, undid the shirt. Thin cloth clung damply to skin, protesting separation, but Qui-Gon insisted and soon he had peeled Obi-Wan like some great shivering qanna-fruit.
They embraced then, and he held his trembling lover until he realized the tremours had little to do with the slight chill. "Obi-Wan, are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Even with--"
"I'm dealing with it! I've taken the classes, Qui-Gon, same as you."
"The experience is not the same as the training."
A pause. "No, it's not."
"Just tell me again that you want this, love."
"I want." Lips met again, teeth playing sharply. "I need." The last articles of clothing vanished and they pressed together, naked and wet and straining. "I love you."
The words rang truer than anything else said, perhaps in the history of the galaxy. Certainly in the history of them.
You loved him a little on Bandomeer, for the man you saw he would become. Half the ghost's words, half his own.
Fingers touched Qui-Gon's mouth, and he opened, invited them in and sucked gently, trying to suggest with eyes alone what else he might like to suck. Obi-Wan's quickened breath said the message had been received. The fingers disappeared, only to reincarnate as a spit-slick nudge against his opening, and Qui-Gon let his legs fall open, encouraging.
Increased pressure, then flesh abruptly gave way, and it had been so long since he'd been touched from the inside; longer since a lover had touched more than flesh alone. A moan escaped him as a slender digit stroked deep, and rain slipped past his parted lips to kiss his tongue.
"Yes, love. More. I need... I need..." He reached with his thoughts, fumbled, drew a growl from his lover.
"Stop blocking me, damnit."
"I... trying..."
"Don't try. Do." Pressure increased again, another finger, a nudge against his mind demanding not just contact but permanent residence. "Let. Me. In."
He moaned, thrashed. "Do it. Now." The fingers filling him twisted, thrust once, twice across just the right spot, tearing a harsh scream from Qui-Gon's throat. "Ah, gods, do it now, fuck me, Obi-Wan, love, please, now."
Fingers withdrew, replaced instantly with larger, harder, hotter pressure demanding welcome, and he gave it, raising his knees, spreading himself. A long, slow, inexorable entrance, a stretching burn, driving home.
This is real. Obi-Wan is real and he is fucking me. That is his cock in my ass, his lips at my throat, his moans in my ear. Unbidden thoughts surged: Obi-Wan running, Obi-Wan falling, Obi-Wan lying slack and bloody in the sand, and he looked at the memories, examined them. They existed, would always exist, but the heat slamming into him said there were different shades of reality, and it was Qui-Gon who chose which to believe.
Veils did not part so much as shatter then, and Obi-Wan poured over him, a deluge flooding his being, desperation crashing over him, a voice filling him.
~ Where are you? Stop hiding from me. Please, oh please be real. ~
~ Obi-Wan? ~
Desperation soared into frantic relief, and Obi-Wan was quivering against him, tears a solitary dampness against skin, for the rain had stopped while their coupling evolved into love-making.
Their pace slowed, but deepened, hard thrusts as their minds twined, gentle touches of thought as they reveled in discovery.
~ I hear you, ~ Obi-Wan said, his mind-voice an awed whisper.
~ Yes. Feel me. ~ He sent his love, his wonder, and, in a moment of pure mischievous joy, the glorious pleasure of Obi-Wan's hard cock plundering him.
~ Oh. Oh! ~ And then his lover reciprocated, in mind and body. Sent sensation back -- so tight, so hot, love, so good -- and reached between them to grasp Qui-Gon's erection, even as Qui-Gon clasped the round firm globes of Obi-Wan's ass, pulling them closer.
Climax took them swiftly, hard and magnificent, bodies straining, the Force singing freely where shadows once constrained. For a moment they burned -- pure energy, luminous, unspeakably beautiful -- then they fell back to earth in sated exhaustion, Obi-Wan collapsing to Qui-Gon's chest, the master cradling his lover. One of them pulled Qui-Gon's cloak over their twined bodies.
For once, the ghost had nothing to say, and only observed them in quiet approval until they slept.
The deep, rich scent woke him; an odd combination of sex, raw and masculine, and sunlit greenery after the rain. Qui-Gon had always loved such scents, for both spoke of the Living Force, intoxicating and liberating.
His drowsy armful of Obi-Wan overshadowed all of this, a thrill mere life could not exceed. Hesitant, doubting fickle memory, Qui-Gon nudged his lover's thoughts.
~ Obi-Wan? ~
A stirring, a slitting of green eyes, and a languid feline stretch.
Joy. They had danced around this for years, the almost-speech collision of thoughts serving them well on their missions, but he had never expected this, never thought he deserved such communion. To hear another's voice in his mind... only a handful of non-telepaths had ever achieved such a union.
~ Morning. ~ Sleepy eyes regarded him, smug and amused.
~ I'm afraid it's still afternoon, my love. ~
Obi-Wan's brilliant smile dimmed and he sighed. ~ I expect this was a colossal mistake. ~
Thoughts could not be misinterpreted as words could, or Qui-Gon's joy might have shattered. ~ Not the best of timing perhaps, ~ he admitted, and stroked the red-gold head resting against his shoulder, ~ but I have no regrets. It's up to you how you chose to regard it. ~
Obi-Wan mulled this over. The teams of healers, psychiatric and medical, that waited to pounce on returning trauma cases would have endless diatribes on their utter lack of good judgment. ~ I think it our business and ours alone, ~ Obi-Wan thought at last, a tad belligerent. "Is that presumptuous of me?"
Qui-Gon snorted. "You forget to whom you speak."
An impish grin. "The Council won't like it either."
He matched the grin, and gave the customary response. "It is the will of the Force."
"One day you will say that once too often, and the Council will have it tattooed on your forehead."
"Good. Then they'll be able to read my answer next time they complain about something I've done." Familiar and sorely-missed banter, and they smiled at each other. Qui-Gon kissed his lover, and reveled in his lips.
Maybe their actions did prove lack of judgment. He'd never had much anyway, not with the Force as his will-o-the-wisp.
"Shall I be your padawan again, my Master?" Obi-Wan asked, voice detached, gaze elsewhere.
"No." Not a second's hesitation. He had always been dominant in their relationship, and Obi-Wan the learner, the apprentice, but the new bond felt stretched and lopsided, and curiously carefree on his end. He knew in the depths of his soul he could not claim any mastery over Obi-Wan; Obi-Wan would not, could not, bear it now.
If this thing between them had developed slowly they might have retained that dynamic. It hadn't, and Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon realized, had his own ghost to exorcise. It remained to be seen whether their precipitous union healed or harmed.
"We shall be lovers," Qui-Gon announced, trying to lighten the mood. "Partners, if you wish."
"Oh?" Obi-Wan lifted his head to regard his onetime master with raised one brow. Some of the guarded edge that separated this Obi-Wan from the one he'd left on Tatooine dulled. "You've run this past the Council, have you?"
"Will of the Force," they said together, and smiled, and shared a kiss.
Ground below them fairly vibrating with life, sunlight falling like dry golden rain through the leaves, dappled with shade and dancing with the wind, they found each other in a joyful meeting of souls.
Civilization was not so far as he thought, and within the week they stood once more in the capital, bustling now that the rainy season had ended. Qui-Gon left Obi-Wan to secure passage to Coruscant, and led Shmi back to their temporary lodgings. Their recent good fortune held; the proprietress had merely tossed their belongings into a storage room when they did not return, and though she charged extra for the courtesy Qui-Gon would far rather pay the fee than face the quartermaster over yet another set of lost luggage.
They returned to the transportation center, and Qui-Gon conscientiously tossed the 'borrowed' umbrella back into the lost and found box, although it would be another eight months before anyone on Sceox would need it.
~ Obi-Wan, love? ~
~ Landing strip eight, o my heart of hearts, my jewel, my shining pulsar of desire-- ~
~ I'm glad we're leaving, too. ~
Silence, and the lingering taste of defensive humour. ~ The corvette with the hideous paint job. ~
Already tasting the usefulness of their new talent at telepathy, he found the transport easily enough, but paused at the top of the ramp, searching for Obi-Wan's presence.
"He's in the cockpit," Shmi said, slipping past him on her way to the cabins.
Qui-Gon stared after her, irrationally offended at her surety and the sheer effrontery of her locating Obi-Wan before him.
Do you always know where your son is?
Don't lose this one like you lost the last.
Perhaps JoJo had been talking to them both.
It was true that the order routinely appropriated Force-sensitive orphans acquired in raids, and reasonable to assume the Weasel King would record a shipment of slaves lost to the Jedi some twenty-six years before. Anakin might have made some logical connections based on those records and his own instincts, but Qui-Gon clung to doubt. There were thousands of children brought to the temple every year from all across the galaxy. The chances of encountering family across so much time and distance...
The Force negated chance.
She paused at the portal, and smiled sadly. "I didn't realize until I saw them together, Obi-Wan and Anakin, what Anakin must have found in the database. I won't interfere with him, you know." Another pause. "You will make him a fine mate."
Qui-Gon gave her a solemn nod, and retreated to the cockpit to join his lover. And paused in the doorway himself. "His brother Owen lives in Moloroaikic, Shersel cluster."
She bowed.
"What was that about?" Obi-Wan asked as Qui-Gon sat down and buckled his safety harness.
"A private matter for you and Shmi to discuss." He stretched in his flight chair. He had no padawan. No ghost. Just himself, his lover, and a jumble of guilt at his heels.
As they left Sceops Three, Qui-Gon Jinn lay back and attempted to wallow in his new freedom.
It felt shameful and derelict. This lack of accountability, he felt certain, was a path to the Dark side.
He heard an odd sound, and turned to find Obi-Wan regarding him with bitten lip and a hidden smile. "Don't worry, love. We'll get you a dog."
"No more strays," Qui-Gon said, and leaned across to kiss him. "Just you."
Just the two of them.
Pain.
It consumed him, devoured his mind as fire and ice devoured his body. There were three of them now: master, apprentice, and a twisted wreck of a boy.
"What shall you do with him, my master?" Maul asked, wondering if his own usefulness was at an end now that Sidious possessed a darkened Jedi padawan.
A black-gloved hand crept up Maul's back, curled around his nape, then moved up to fondle his horns. "I've yet to decide, my young apprentice. Our moment of triumph approaches, so perhaps it is time for certain traditions to change." The other hand slid around to squeeze his genitals, and Maul leaned back into his master's cold strength.
"The traditions have descended from Darth Bane himself," Maul gasped over the sheer wicked pleasure consuming him.
Silence for a moment, and they were ice and fire, heavy breath lost below the scrape of the respirator. Burned, drowned, broken.
"There are other traditions," Sidious said at last. "I wasn't always a Sith, Maul. Before my master found me I had a life. A family." The caressing hand squeezed, bringing sharp, beautiful agony. "Two children of my own."
The black-cloaked shape of his master loomed as Maul slid to his knees. The rasp of the ventilator overrode the whisper, a living death consuming the boy before them.
Far away an old ewok, half-blind from the indulgences of his youth yet more sighted than most beings in the universe, moaned in his sleep.
"Lost 'im like you lost the Lost One, Qui-Gon Jinn, so my demons say.
"And now there are three."
The End
End Notes: Response to Master Ruth's random elements challenge:
Use at least one thing from each category in a Q/O slash story. Points if it's not a
parody. More points if you do all of them. Still more points if you can make that TUBA thing work in a non-parody story.
* Theme: Something shining beneath the surface of dark liquid pain.
* Theme: The great insect-hat wars of 2934-2946
* Theme:The rain had been coming down for days. You couldn't see through it, and the water was quickly becoming a problem.
* Person: a gun wielding desert wanderer
* Person: A woman whose sole purpose, her ultimate goal of life is to capture The Weasel King.
* Person: JoJo, a wandering drunken giant panda bear, who mumbles to himself about ancient demons.
* Thing: goat cheese
* Thing: Gun powder and kitchen knives
* Thing: A stolen umbrella
* Place: a dark forest, patches of sunlight filtered through the canopy, the cool terra firma swathed in a warm glow of life.
* Place: the second-floor janitorial closet of a decrepit mental institution.
* Place: TubaWorld! THE LARGEST TUBA STORE IN THE WORLD! Spanning NINE HUNDRED ACRES of land and comes complete with a 5000 employee factory, TUBAWORLD also has loan agents on hand to help with your TUBA buying needs.
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