Master Apprentice Archive Moving Day Quick search:

Archive: MA and my site. All others please ask.

Category: Humor, Romance, Harmless Fluff

Rating: G

Pairing: Q/O

Feedback: Onlist or off, good, bad or ugly, I can take it

Disclaimer: "This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Lucasfilm, Ltd. No money is being made and no infringement is intended." That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Summary: Five years after Obi-Wan's Knighting, a move is causing Qui-Gon considerable distress.

Notes: I posted this on my LJ some time ago when I was nine months pregnant and in the middle of a house move. And yes, there were boats in my house. Long story ;-)

Big Qui-Hugs go to Obi-Ki for the fast and thorough beta. I tweaked after she looked at it, so all mistakes are mine.

"No, thank you, I won't need any help."

"It's generous of you to offer, but I have everything under control. The hoverlifts I've scheduled for Tuesday will be enough to handle everything."

Qui-Gon Jinn, Master of the Jedi Order, had managed to neatly and politely turn down all offers to help him move. Jedi rarely needed to relocate quarters, and Jinn had occupied the same spacious rooms for over twenty-five years. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that since Obi-Wan had moved out after his knighting five years ago, things had gone somewhat downhill in the housekeeping department. Down a mountain slope in a hurricane, he mused sourly, and he was too embarrassed to let anyone inside.

I'm a Jedi Master, not a housekeeper, he told himself, yet Obi-Wan and the other 9,998 Jedi living in the Temple seemed to be able to handle household chores so that their quarters didn't look like...

"A bomb must have gone off in here!"

Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon winced. Back from his latest mission, he must have heard his old Master had to move, and had come to help.

Qui-Gon stood up from behind his dining table, where he was trying to separate an assortment of books and dataslates from the five years of disposable junk mail that had fallen off the table's edge and onto the floor.

"Padawan! So good to see..."

"My hidranuus plants! They're not just dead, they're fossilized!"

Using a bit of Force, Obi-Wan had managed to wade past the broken computer parts that Qui-Gon couldn't quite bear to toss out (they really needed very little work to be functional again, he kept telling himself.) He'd jumped over a couch whose surface was covered with unfiled mission reports and old clothing Qui-Gon intended to sort out and donate to the Coruscant Orphan's Charity, and was standing in front of a bookshelf, staring at dried husks planted in ornamental pots.

So that's where the plants had gotten off to. Qui-Gon remembered vaguely that Obi-Wan had left the rare, flowering blooms with him as a gift after his knighting.

"Ummm..."

Obi-Wan spun to face him with an accusing look, and promptly tripped over a broken folding chair that Qui-Gon had wanted to throw out, but could never safely get to.

"Oow, my ankle."

Using the broken chair as a support, he tried to stand on one leg but slipped again on a dirty pair of underwear, falling out of sight behind a pile of packing boxes.

"Obi-Wan!"

Unable to physically get to Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon fell back on the trick he used to get food in and out of the kitchen, whose entrance was largely blocked by a hoverboat motor, two Alderaani musical flat harps and three boxes of office supplies.

He levitated his injured former apprentice out of the trash pile and onto the room's only functional, uncluttered chair by the dining table. He knelt beside Obi-Wan and started unbuckling the boot of the injured foot. Dirt from the floor, which had needed sweeping for four years and fifty weeks, bit painfully into his knees.

"Master, can you tell me what's going on here? I realize it's been five years, but I left the place spotless..."

Qui-Gon had managed to remove Obi-Wan's boot, and was busy massaging the swelling ankle, infusing it as best he could with healing Force energy.

"I'm sorry, things have simply gotten a bit out of hand lately. I thought I would get things straightened out eventually, but now I have to move so the air-conditioning ducts can be replaced in this section. I'll get it sorted out. I'm...sorry about your plants."

"Oh, forget the plants!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, still reeling from the deplorable condition of his old home. "Are you all right? Are you...coping...with...things..." he trailed off helplessly, waving his hands in the general direction of the worst of the clutter.

"I'm fine, Obi-Wan, physically AND mentally if that's what you are implying," Qui-Gon said a bit huffily. "I've been undertaking and succeeding on numerous missions of great complexity these past years, I'll have you know."

"Then what is all this about?" Obi-Wan asked quietly.

Qui-Gon didn't answer for a minute, but continued to massage Obi-Wan's ankle, even though the swelling had gone down.

Finally he said, softly, "I guess I haven't coped as well as I should have since you left." His hands stilled, but he didn't break contact with Obi-Wan's leg. "I suppose I've missed you, Padawan."

The first touch to his hair was so soft and gentle, Qui-Gon wondered for a split second if he were imagining things. But Obi-Wan's hand continued to trace down his face until his chin was lifted, forcing him to look up at his former Apprentice. "I've missed you too, Master. Very much."

Obi-Wan dropped his hand and stood, then reached down to pull Qui-Gon up by his shoulders. "They've been running me ragged, but no matter how tired I was when I returned, or how short my stay here, I could have checked in on you. But I knew I might make the confession I just made if I did. I... wasn't sure if you would feel the same way, or if you were glad to be on your own for the first time in a dozen years."

Qui-Gon pooled his courage and gently cupped Obi-Wan's face with his hands, a little surprised by how soft Obi-Wan's beard felt against his palms "You can see for yourself how well I managed on my own after a dozen years with you." The Master bent his head down so they touched foreheads, waiting.

Obi-Wan didn't disappoint him, raising his face so their lips brushed.

The overloaded box of dataslates on the dining table chose that moment to spill its contents back onto the floor, where they had, after all, lain quietly for the past three years.

The moment broken, Qui-Gon heaved a frustrated sigh at the undoing of the only clean-up progress he'd made for the past two days.

Obi-Wan suppressed a chuckle. "Where are your new rooms?"

Qui-Gon wanted nothing more than to continue where they'd left off, but Obi-Wan was already putting his boot back on, and moving, very carefully, towards what had once been the living room. It was now so densely packed with junk that he could no longer even get to his terminal station on the far wall.

"Floor 89 Northeast, section 12."

"And are they this size?"

"A bit bigger, I'm told," said Qui-Gon sheepishly. "I haven't been down to see them yet"

Obi-Wan turned to him, eyes blazing with amusement and something not quite as familiar. Qui-Gon sincerely hoped it was lust.

"I'll make you a deal. If you help me move the contents of my rooms to Floor 89 Northeast, section 12, I'll help you sort through all this, no matter how long it takes."

It took Qui-Gon longer than behooved a Jedi Master to fully grasp what Obi-Wan was proposing, and when he did, his vocal skills took a bit longer still to engage. Finally, he was able to croak out, "Yes, I'd like that very much."

Time seemed to return to its normal flow, and Qui-Gon's higher brain functions kicked back in. "But if you're constantly leaving on missions, you might not be able to finish..."

"This is my new mission," said Obi-Wan, indicating the room in general.

"Pardon me?"

"I just came from Council chambers. Apparently, a repair droid entered your quarters approximately one week ago to determine the state of the air-conditioning ducts. It was able to send a visual signal of this minefield you call home before it slipped in what appeared to be a patch of mold growing from a discarded food bowl in the depths of your living room."

Obi-Wan pulled a discarded crate to the edge of the living room area, stepped up on it and teetered precariously as he scanned the room. "Between the damage it suffered during the initial fall, and the damage it took when a large pile of books and cold-weather mission supply bags fell on it as it attempted to right itself, the droid became completely disabled.

"There!" he pointed.

Sure enough, when Qui-Gon stepped up on the dining room chair in order to see past the partially disassembled hoverboat, he could just detect the familiar gold gleam of a Temple repair droid's coverings under a pile of never-unpacked bags.

"Err, I see. I thought I heard a scratching sound out here about a week ago."

Obi-Wan turned to reply and saw the hoverboat. "Why is there a boat in..."

"And the Council wondered about my sanity just because a repair droid got... lost, and they sent you to check up on me?" he interrupted testily.

"I volunteered. Apparently, several other acquaintances of yours had declined the mission as too dangerous." Obi-Wan gave him a cheeky smile that would have melted his heart under any other circumstances, but his embarrassment got the best of his humor.

"So when this... 'dangerous mission' is complete, you'll be gone, after a good laugh, is that it Obi-Wan?" He drew himself up to his full height, only to bump his head on the ceiling, since he'd forgotten he was still standing on the chair.

Obi-Wan jumped off the crate and hurried over to where Qui-Gon was now sitting, nursing a nasty lump on the back of his head.

"Please don't be cross with them, Master, they were genuinely worried about you." A glimmer of amusement shone in Obi-Wan's eyes as he continued. "And I think this particular mission will need to be extended."

Qui-Gon's anger dissipated. He imagined the visual image of his quarters in their current state would startle anyone. "Extended?"

Obi-Wan leaned down to whisper in his ear, "Extended indefinitely. If you'll have me, that is."

Qui-Gon forgot about the lump - well, the one growing on his head anyway - and pulled Obi-Wan onto his lap.

Thirty minutes later, as both Jedi struggled to slow their breathing back to normal, Qui-Gon decided that moving was a much more pleasant activity than he had anticipated.

End