Archive: Master-Apprentice, want it? just ask me :-)
Classification: OW POV, angst, very short story
Series: prequel for "To Need"
Warnings: Angst; Jedi Apprentice series spoilers, minor TPM
spoilers
Summary: Obi-Wan's thoughts during and after Qui-Gon announces
his intent to train Anakin.
Feedback: Please? With Obi-Wan on top? Or bottom, I guess that
depends on you :-) Seriously, please email me if you think it
worth it.
Notes: Possibly, this is a companion piece to "To Need" that I
sent out a few days ago. It wasn't started as such, but it
seems to have other ideas. Oh, and there could be implied slash
here, I think it depends on how you read it. Either way doesn't
bother me. :-)
Disclaimer: Um, I won them playing sabbacc? Didn't think so.
Dang it. Okay, great George, they are yours. But I like the way
we play with them better at times. Meesa maka no monies. Thanks
to James for beta reading this for me!
In the span of a moment, I discover what true heartbreak feels
like. A coolness slides around my heart, hearing his words. The
words my Master spoke so calmly upend my life's balance and
leave it suddenly and unexpectedly uncertain.
Because of the fate of a boy.
A boy that my Master now stands behind, his hands resting
proudly on his shoulders. While I stand across a separation too
wide to breach. Suddenly, I find myself feeling as if I'm
standing alone before the Council, even though I know I am not.
The pain of loss and rejection is great enough. Did he see fit
to add humiliation to it as well? I think not, or at least I
would have thought so, once. Abruptly, I find certainty in
anything is beyond my grasp.
I see the reserved glance my Master extends to me, and in that
instant I raise thick shields around my emotions. It's almost
humorous that I should be more wary of his discovering my
distress than any of the other Masters.
The meeting goes on. I even hear myself speak, only to be
refused. Then, some time later, the meeting is blessedly over
and I am allowed an honorable retreat.
Solitude never seemed so welcoming, nor so foreboding.
As I walk, my eyes focused only on the walkways ahead, I am
reminded that I sought this path. Master Qui-Gon made it clear
that he wanted no Padawan when we were forced together on
Bandomeer. It was my need that allowed this bond we now share
to happen.
For the first time in a decade I find myself wondering if he
regrets it.
A step in front of me, just to the right, he leads the boy
through the maze of the Jedi temple. I follow out of respect
for my Master, nothing more.
I long to reach out to him, for it to be my shoulder he
squeezes reassuringly as he once did. I do not recall having
seen him smile as much in the past year as he has the past few
days since finding the boy.
Moments later, both he and the boy go to speak with the Queen.
Finally I have the solitude I longed for in the Council's
chambers. Yet, I find that it is less comforting than I had
imagined.
I do what I must to prepare for the journey ahead, going to the
chambers we share whenever we are on planet. The room feels
starkly empty - although physically it's no different that
before. The sterile walls of the Jedi temple glare back at me,
as if mocking my loss.
Even now, I am uncertain what exactly I am losing, what I might
already have lost. My place at his side? My place in his life?
Or worse, my place in his heart? To think of the last hurts
worst of all.
An uncertainty unbecoming even the lowliest Padawan befalls me.
Is it possible my training merely a practice for the day when
my Master, he whom I hold the closest, would find the Jedi he
was truly destined to train?
That thought more than any other drives me to seek him out. So
strong is the urge to find him, that it pushes away my
compulsion for solitude. I have to see him. I find him,
standing on the landing platform of the Nubian cruiser.
One might think Master Qui-Gon Jinn infallible, standing tall
and proud amidst the hustle of the loading crews. After so many
years by his side I know him better than that. I can read my
Master's weaknesses, and I can love him for them as much as his
strengths. I fight a bitterness that creeps up inside when I
wonder if the boy could ever say the same.
The words that leave my mouth seem to flow of their own accord.
I bite back the harshness that seeks to seep out, instead
managing the tone befitting a Padawan learner.
Yet, the rebuff, when it comes, carries the physical impact of
a slap. I nod, careful to guard what I allow to filter into my
eyes. Too easily he could read the hurt, a hurt that as much as
I wished didn't exist, I even more so do not want to be seen.
As I board the ship, I hear him speaking with the boy. My back
remains rigid, no sign of weakness in my posture. I will not
allow it. As much as I find myself needing my Master in my
life, I will not be the wall between him and his destiny, if
that is what the boy is meant to be.
It is the nature of love to sacrifice. This is my offering to
him, my pulling away to allow him to walk the path for which he
was chosen. I do not know why something still feels wrong about
the boy, but my Master does not share this thought. For one of
very few occasions, I am torn as to whether to mention it to my
concerns to him.
As always when traveling with limited space, we share quarters.
A fleeting moment of something akin to panic first crossed my
mind when I wondered if this time my Master would instead
quarter with the boy, yet he did not. An act of tradition, love
or pity, I cannot say. In this case, I do not want to reach out
with the Force and find out.
My Master is quiet, merely insisting that I sleep first.
Nodding, I remove my outer tunics and boots, noting with
interest that he is slowly lowering himself into a meditative
trance. Again, the impulse to reach out fills me, but I push it
away.
I will not let myself need.
Laying there, I can feel the hazy tendrils of dreams sneaking
across my mind. Thoughts of loss are great, even when countered
with the love I feel for my Master. Images of him, with the
boy, remain in my mind, imprinted there. It is becoming clearer
to me his role regarding the boy.
No matter how much this loss might hurt, for you my Master, I
will sacrifice my need.
There will be a time, soon I think, that you will no longer be
in my life. I will not welcome this change, when you leave my
side to train the boy. Yet, I know I will have to accept it. I
may lose your physical presence in my life, but I will continue
to hold you near to me in my heart.
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