Scars

by Ruth Gifford (lady_volumna@yahoo.com)

Archive: MA and Emu's page

Series: Sequel to "Nailed"

Categories: angst, POV implied Q/O

Rating: uh R, I guess.

Warnings: Makes *no* sense if you haven't read "Nailed." May make no sense if you have. This is nothing like "Nailed" although pain is equated with pleasure herein.

Summary: Obi-Wan and Anakin have a talk about Obi-Wan's scars.

Disclaimer: Obi, Ani belong to George, the scars are mine.

Notes: I just changed my wallpaper to the pic of Master Obi-Wan in the rain and it was so mournful and my mind was still tres unsettled after writing "Nailed" that this just came out.

Feedback: Ja sure, you betcha!

"Master Obi-Wan, sir?"

"Yes, Padawan?"

"Those scars on your wrists? Where did you get them? What are they?"

Oh my poor Padawan. I don't want to lie to you. I don't want to start our relationship, strained as it already is, with lies.

But neither can I tell you the truth.

"Reminders," I say, and he looks at me oddly.

"They must hurt."

"Every time I move my hands," I reply, and this, at least, is the truth. My wrists are a torment to me and they keep me in the moment more than any Jedi teaching I ever received. They are also traps, keeping me lost in that one past moment when I received them, pure and shining and white-hot with agony.

"But Master, sir, how can you fight, write, even pour tea?"

"Just Master, Ani," I correct him automatically.

Anakin is curious. He hasn't learned that new Padawans are to be seen and not heard. I have to smile; I learned it too well and it took time before I realized the folly of that notion.

"How indeed, Padawan?" I reply, properly Masterly. "And yet, I do."

"Is that one of those koan things that I'm supposed to figure out?"

"No, Anakin, it's just the way things are. Think on this: I could have them repaired. Why don't I?"

"Well if you don't know, how the Sith should I?"

I laugh, perhaps more than I should. He blushes and tries to look repentant, but my laughter encourages him.

"Oh, Ani, you have to learn to balance that 'Master Obi-Wan, sir,' with your tendency to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind."

"Yes, Master. Balance becomes a Jedi, right?"

"Right." I find myself hoping the subject is closed, but he looks again at my wrists.

"You got them when you got your other scars, didn't you, Master?"

I bow my head then and look away. How can I possibly explain a night of pure perfection to this child. How can I tell him that the man he idolized nailed me to table and injured me terribly, wonderfully, incandescently? All he knows of pain is that it is a punishment or the result of an error. I would not have him equate that big, gentle man of his memory with the sadist I knew and loved.

And I stop myself suddenly. Why that thought? I was never ashamed of what Qui-Gon and I did. Everything in the Force told us that what we had was right and natural and perfect.

Oh.

Perfect for us.

I know, somewhere, that my eyes are going blank and wide, and I feel my knees lock, but that is all far away as I fall into future memory . . .

Anakin, older now, a lovely boy with a serious face and a knife in his hand. A man is standing naked before him, old scars white on his body. He is bleeding from new cuts and it is wrong . . . wrong. . . WRONG . . .

I scream, high-pitched, as I have not screamed since the last time Master hurt me, and my knees give way and I fall to the floor.

"Master? Master?!"

"A moment Ani," I say, and I recognize the harsh sound of an over taxed throat. My wrists throb with each pulse and all I want to do is curl around the pain and treasure it. And mourn my lost innocence.

"Someday," I say, forcing myself to become the Master again, "you will See things. You have the gift."

"Did I . . . . Master, did I bring it on, by asking about . . . what happened to you?"

Already he is convinced I was tortured on some terrible mission, and I know I will have to leave him with that lie.

"No, Anakin, it comes when it will. Some Jedi, Master Yoda, for example, can call on it at will, but for most of us it simply . . . happens."

"What did you See?"

Our downfall. The foolishness of trying to find something that only happens once in a lifetime. The final terrible price of my selfishness.

"That it is time to be rid of these marks," I reply, knowing my words for truth.

Later, when I have sent the boy off to his classes, I allow myself the luxury of tears.

Oh Master . . . . Must I lose this too?

I know the answer and I cannot flinch from it.

In Anakin there is the same awesome power to create pain that existed in my Master. Only with Qui-Gon it was tempered by his Jedi upbringing and his deep connection to the Living Force. Anakin will always see pain as failure, and his connection to the Unifying Force will not lend him the compassion that was Qui-Gon's from birth. It is not a bad thing; I too had to learn compassion, for the Unifying Force is a cold hard road.

Anakin will not learn compassion if my hunger puts a knife in his hands.

I want to scream, I want to rage at the very thought that I would use my Padawan for my own needs. Did Qui-Gon, I wonder, feel that way once? I search my memories, looking for a time, any time when I sensed a hesitancy in him. I do not find it. If he wrestled with his conscience, he did where I could never see him do so.

"The boy is dangerous," I told my Master. Little did I know that I spoke of so personal a danger.

I cannot lose him. Qui-Gon believed in him. I believed in Qui-Gon.

For the sake of all of us, the scars must go.

The dataslate is clean now; the love letter erased.

Why, if I love pain so much, do I hate what I feel now?

The End