Re-Entry: Cold

by Flamethrower (flamethrower@thedeadcat.net)

Archive - M_A of course, anyone else... ask away!

Category - Q/O, Drama, Slash, Point Of View

Rating - NC-17

Warnings - Possibly a tear-jerker... but who am I to judge? Today I bawled over laundry. ::shrugs::

Spoilers - Oh, yes. For Re-Entry: Waking Dream, of course. Reference to an event in E2. If you haven't seen it yet... uhm... dude.

Disclaimer - I've misplaced my normal disclaimer for the time being. George, they're not mine. I have no money. They've been borrowed and they're getting great sex in the meantime. Bugger off.

Summary - This is kind of a... preview, for events to come in further installments of Re-Entry. But it's actual fic, not a fic summary. Unlike this thing. *g*

Feedback - Oh yes. Any kind of feedback, even a "Good grief, what are you THINKING?!" comment.

Notes - Yes, more Re-Entry is being worked on. But this spat itself out with Muse-Spit all over it, so I thought I would share. It skips way way way ahead, but don't worry. All will be explained in time.

Series order so far is:

Waking Dream

Cold <-- You are here.

Bits and Pieces - Will be revamped eventually.

Diverging Paths

Diverging Paths II

Diverging Paths III

Diverging Paths IV

Attainment

Attainment II

Thank you, every single one of you who sends me pleading e-mails wanting to know where more Re-Entry is. I love you people. You make the Muses blush and quiver. (Among other things!)

Oh yeah: Unbeta'd. Read at own grammatical risk.

From the Journal of Qui-Gon Jinn, Republic Date 5212, Post-Clone War Era, Alderaanian Hold of the Jedi Order


I never again thought I would have to bear this.

My entire life is silence. Silence of voice, silence of mind, silence of heart.

Once again the bond I share with Obi-Wan has fallen quiet. It's not the same as the bond we once shared, when he was a young sixteen year-old Padawan. Training bonds are durable, yet very transient things. He was in my mind, in my thoughts, but those meldings were gossamer. Bright but insubstantial, they were, and I treasured them with all my heart. He was my charge, my student, and slowly, he was becoming my dearest friend.

The bond that he risked his life to re-form between us is most commonly referred to as a LifeBond. A choice made between two (or sometimes even three!) beings, to join their minds on the most intimate of levels. A bond for lovers, those who would give and give up everything for the one that possessed their heart. But even those words fail to describe what that bond is truly like. LifeBond seems a trite title for such a connection! It blazed in my mind, but its touch was whisper-soft, promising nothing but love, nothing but everything one could ever ask for. I willingly admit that I basked in this thing for the years that the Force granted us together, secure in light and warmth and peace, despite the fact that the Republic was slowly yet steadily falling apart around us.

When that bond was severed, I quite literally went insane.

It's easier to consider this way, that time when I was lost, entering it in data logs late at night. I can detach myself from those years, look at them clinically, dissect them. There are numerous entries in my journal, flipping back the pages from this entry to the very first, hesitant outpouring. I have worked to purge myself of the memories, of things I did when sanity was lost--

No.

It is a convenient excuse, claiming that my mind was broken when I tore so many lives asunder. The Healers are quick to tell me that I had no way of recovering from such an injury, that none of it was my fault. Hells, Mace is quick to tell me so. Mace of all people, the man that once had his fingers wrapped around my throat! If it hadn't been for Anakin...

No. You see, I know better. I know myself better. I did those things because I was enraged, and nothing would lessen the rage. Nothing except... what Obi-Wan did for me, bless his foolish heart.

His love, his fire. That smirk that enchanted and annoyed me by turns. The adorable way his eyelids would flutter when I touched him just so... All of that is gone now. And I would give up my very blood to see any of it just once more.

I sit up at night and watch the stars, and I listen to him breathe. I listen to the silence.

I owe him my life. I owe him my sanity. I owe him everything I am, everything I ever was. And I can't even say thank you. There have been so many times I have dropped down beside him and begged his forgiveness for what I made of us. I plead, I beg, I scream. Mostly I pray, to the Force, to the gods, to whoever might listen.

The bond between us is as strong as it was when we first created it, a lifetime ago on Naboo. I send my strength and my hope through it, and it echoes back to me brokenly.

There are other journals here, each of their memory banks filled to the brim as I strive to record everything that happened to us. I want him to be remembered. Not the silly banal tripe that will no doubt find its way into the Archives, possibly under some glorious title. An amalgam of the "Chosen One", possibly. I can almost hear the snide comments that Anakin and Obi-Wan would have once made of that.

I can trace our steps from the very beginning, from the first silence to the last. There are gaps, but within me I still carry the hope that another hand will one day take up the proverbial pen and fill in the blanks.

Force help me. I miss you, Obi-Wan. I miss you, my heart.