Master Apprentice Archive Leaving Quick search:

Archive: MA, or ask me

Category: Q/O Angst POV

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: None. Well, follows canon.

Summary: Old Ben is leaving his home in the wilderness.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to George Lucas, not me.

Feedback: Yes please

Note: Thanks and hugs to my Master Cuimne for inspiration and laughs, and to Bonny for the super-fast beta. You two ladies are the best. Thanks also for being my friends!

I have to acknowledge that this bunny jumped me after seeing "Calendar Girls" (Very funny - see it if you can), and in particular after hearing the terribly moving and beautiful song from the soundtrack "I Find Your Love" by Beth Nielsen Chapman. Besides being a comedy, the film is about bereavement and how people deal with grief.

I won't be coming back. It feels strange to be leaving here after all these years. Now, what do I need to take with me? Apart from my lightsabre, there's nothing here, nothing among all these accumulated things, accumulated memories. I know, Master. Jedi aren't supposed to set much store on personal possessions. Humility and simplicity. Well, despite my best efforts I seem to have ended up with more than a few. Tools and equipment, artefacts, a few mementos I didn't have the heart to throw away. It must be from living in one place for so long – not normal Jedi behaviour. Well, not in the old days.

I truly believed when I first came here that it wouldn't be for long. I would stay long enough to be sure Anakin's son was safe, cared for, hidden. Yet here I still am.

The boy asked me if I used to be a Jedi Knight, and, you know, I answered him "Yes. I was." I'm getting old. I don't think as quickly any more. I should have said "I am" because, old fool that I am, I still think of myself in that way. It's better than thinking what I really am – a daft old man who lives alone, waiting to die. But to the boy, the Jedi are a thing of the past.

I did think at one time that I would die here. I used to wonder how long it would be before anyone found my bones. Oh, that's not as bad as it sounds, Master. Some of the time that thought was comforting – no more battles to fight, no-one to defend, to protect, to look out for. Just grow old and die - we could be together at last. Still, I carried on. I always knew it would come to this, that I would have to face him again. And it feels strangely exciting – I feel like I'm setting off on an adventure!

It's like when we used to be preparing for a mission, Master. I was so excited, ready to jump up and down, to burst with enthusiasm. It never showed, but of course you knew. You could read me so well, right from the beginning. Read my feelings, my joy, my pain. My love.

I know you're with me. You always have been. But it's been hard. Sometimes I've been so lonely.

I thought I could feel you, your arms around me, your fingers on my cheek. But, of course, it was a small disturbance in the air, the wind wrapping my cloak around me, tugging on a sleeve for attention. Not you. Never really you. So I touch myself and remember.

Ah, it's been a long time now. You know I let others touch me. Of course you knew, you were always here. So you knew how they only satisfied my body's needs. But how could they fill the place inside me that you left? I never expected them to.

I thought nothing could ever hurt like the pain of your death, but what he did tore me apart. And I thought I'd understood your pain over your own apprentice's fall. I couldn't possibly have, of course. Not until that time when he turned against me and everything I stood for.

And at times when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself – after the nights of pitiful weeping or furious railing at the Force – I have wondered what would have happened if I'd been the one to die and you had trained the boy. Would he have turned? The thought that he would have succumbed to the Dark regardless gave me a little comfort. That the Council was right all along and he was too old to start training, already tainted with a slave's trials. I can sometimes convince myself that it wasn't completely my fault.

No time now to get maudlin – one more quick look around. Everything in order. Soon, Master. Very soon we can be together. No, I'm not coming back here ever again.