Warnings: Death story, but not like you think. No sex... yet.
Spoilers: Yes! Lots
Summary: The end of TPM from the other side of the mirror, and
the consequences of a choice. Thank you, Kirby for the quick
beta! ;)
Feedback: Please? <begging look> to firecat@elite.net
Silent sobs shook the muscled frame. He pressed his face into
the tunic, breathing in the scent of the cooling body in his
arms. Pain, loss, grief, despair, failure... they all flew away
in the wake of something a hundred times blacker, something
that no one had survived long enough to be able to confine into
a single word.
Too late... too late...
He'd thought the touch of the lightsaber was a pain that seared
to his soul, now he knew the real meaning of agony. A shaking
hand reached out to stroke the soft hair, the other body
forgotten. "Obi-Wan," the Jedi whispered, the name a plea, a
promise, a longing and a cry to come back.
But his apprentice was dead, all because he'd failed to react
more quickly. He drew a deep breath that shook, his eyes
burning with tears that he refused out of pride to let fall.
His Padawan's face was so young in repose, almost surreal, and
Qui-Gon had never seen anything more beautiful. The life and
light and fire was gone from his features, and a veil of
sadness touched the tranquility, but that only made his face
all the more exquisite.
Obi-Wan, I'm sorry... so sorry...
He had taken too long. When the Sith had struck him down, he'd
found himself standing next to his own body, watching the dark
one pace restlessly before his furious apprentice. The moment
froze, and his surprise at the sudden cessation of movement
from the two restless men was interrupted as his attention was
caught and pulled down by a swarm of sparks. His eyes had
widened as he stared at what looked like a tiny tempest of
light inside his body. Was this what the midi-chlorians looked
like?
The glowing blue mist lifted out of his corpse, rushing up into
a tiny vortex above it. The light swirled together, moving
faster and faster until the sparkles blended together and he
faced an amorphous column of azure iridescence.
Choose.
What?
The light waited. Choose. He'd wondered. Choose
what?
As the apprentice becomes a master, as night becomes day, as
the seed becomes a tree, so does a life become more.
Death, he'd realized. But what choice do you mean?
You and your kind know more of us and our way. We offer you
a choice that few beings have. You may join us, become part of
what we are, part of what you call the Force.
Or?
Stay, and be as we cannot.
I can go back? he asked. His thoughts were of Obi-Wan.
In a way.
Then he was back in his body, gasping fire and air into a
charred chest. He heard the lasers deactivate, then the
frantic, angry sounds of lightsabers clashing. He wanted to
rise and help his apprentice - the Sith had overcome him, he
had no illusions that Obi-Wan would not soon fall to him as
well - but everything hurt too much. Just letting his head roll
a little to see was agony enough to whiten his vision.
He almost cried out when his love disappeared into the pit. His
hand twitched for the lightsaber he knew was just a few inches
from his feet. He closed his eyes and summoned the Force to
bring his weapon to hand, but to his shock, the feeling of the
Force was beyond his command.
In his mind, he saw the column of light again. Still outside
his body. Still waiting for his choice. It rippled as if in
reaction to a greater surge in the Force, and Qui-Gon sensed
his apprentice jump up and out, vaulting over the Sith's head.
The iridescence shuddered again when Obi-Wan cut him in half.
Obi-Wan... I'm so proud of you...
Could he really stay? How could he go forward into death and
leave Obi-Wan?
Then his apprentice was cradling him, crying. He tried to let
his eyes show all the love he felt, and the joy that he'd be
back soon. "Master," the younger man sobbed.
"Too late, my young Padawan," he murmured. Too late to heal
this shattered wreck of a body, but there was no longer any
need for that, was there? He believed the Light.
"No!" Obi-Wan shook his head violently.
Qui-Gon had no idea just how he would be staying, or how
soon he could go back, the midi-chlorians had left that
information glaringly absent. He had so many things to tell
Obi-Wan, and too many had to be said first, before his body
completely died. "You must be the teacher, now... Obi-Wan,
promise me you will train the boy."
His love nodded frantically. He was agreeing to anything, as
Qui-Gon would have, even tethering the moon, capturing the
stars, or wrestling the sun itself... "Yes, Master."
He smiled and reached up with a hand he could barely feel now
to touch that beloved face. "He is the chosen one, Obi-Wan. He
will bring balance to the Force. Train him well."
The elder Jedi tried to take another breath to say more. All he
really wanted to say now that his time was at an end was...
everything, but he felt his own heart falter to a stop. The
words died unsaid in his throat as his sight darkened and his
body went limp.
I love you. I will be back.
"Master," the Padawan whispered brokenly, hugging the corpse to
himself. "Master."
Qui-Gon was once again outside his body, looking down at his
grieving apprentice and his own heart ached to soothe the
younger man's pain. He looked at the light that still swayed in
midair, a mute witness to everything.
Choose. it said again.
The consequences of either decision?
If you go, you lose the ability to influence others
directly. You will have to whisper to their minds in the most
silent of dreams, and much of what you say will be unheard. You
will be a part of everything you have only begun to imagine in
your years of studying the Force.
And if I stay?
There was a pause. You will be given tasks, most of which
will conflict with what you believe or want. You will have to
finish those, before you can return. And you will be able to
act directly where we cannot.
He gave the figure of his Padawan a loving glance, then his
eyes dropped back down to his corpse. My body is dead,
he said, looking down at himself. Even as he mused, he knew it
didn't matter. The physical was only a state of being, and many
things were more than possible once they were understood.
We will teach you how. We will teach you all you need.
He smiled to himself, realizing that meant he would be an
apprentice once more.
Your decision?
Qui-Gon shook his head. It is not an easy one, he began.
But as he looked at Obi-Wan, what other choice could he make?
Becoming a part of the Force was a pittance compared to
remaining a part of his love's life. He watched, distracted, as
Obi-Wan gently laid his body down on the floor, trembling hands
reaching out to touch face and hair. He frowned as a sense of
wrongness suddenly struck him, something very out of kilter
with normal grief.
"I... I can't..." the young man murmured. Tears ran down his
face and rough sobs tore out of his chest with each breath.
"Master."
With that, he brought the deactivated lightsaber up to his own
chest. Qui-Gon's soul turned to ice and his eyes went wide with
horrified understanding. Obi-Wan, NO!!
His apprentice braced the end of the saber directly over his
own heart. "I know I promised... but I can't do this alone...
I'm not strong enough..."
The Jedi whirled on the column of light. Stop him!
We cannot.
I'll stay! he roared. Send me back now!
"...not without you, Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan whispered as his eyes
slid closed. He reached out with his free hand to touch the
cooling lips of his master, and activated the saber.
OBI-WAN!!!
A moment of disorientation, and everything cleared. Obi-Wan
slumped over the body Qui-Gon had vacated, the saber glowing
ominously from its protrusion out of his back. The older man
flung himself down to the floor next to his apprentice and
reached out to pull the younger man back, to remove the saber,
to try to undo what his hesitation had caused.
It didn't register immediately that he was physically
interacting with Obi-Wan while his own body lay forgotten on
the floor. He flung the saber, the weapon he'd built with his
own hands, that had saved not only his life on countless
occasions, but Obi-Wan's as well, away to clatter against the
far wall. It had taken his Padawan's life now and he couldn't
stand to see it any longer. Pain like he'd never imagined
crashed down on him as he checked frantically for signs of life
and found none.
Obi-Wan...
He hugged the younger man's body close, the tableau a dark
mirror of the scene a few minutes earlier. Grief swirled in on
him as he damned himself for taking too long to decide. That
space of reasoning, of thinking and rationalizing, had cost him
the only thing he valued in this world.
But... he'd been given a choice and he'd taken it. His
apprentice would have the same choice.
Wouldn't he?
Desperate hope snapped his head up to the column, only now he
could no longer see it. "Where is he?" the Jedi shouted.
Obi-Wan would stay, he knew it in his heart. His apprentice
would choose to come back. His lovely, fiery, impetuous
apprentice wouldn't hesitate.
But silence was his only answer. The body cooling in his arms
was his only memento. Memory was his only torment. "Answer
me!!" he screamed, his sharp-edged voice booming around in the
tiny metal room.
At last, a tiny flicker of response, from inside him. He
recognized the feeling, and his own words to Anakin came back
to him. 'When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear
them.'
With the body of his beloved in his arms, quieting his mind was
infinitely harder to do, but when he finally did, he could hear
the tiniest fragment of the resonating tones he'd heard
earlier.
He was given his choice.
"And?!" he demanded.
He chose to go on.
The floor dropped out from under him. He crushed Obi-Wan's body
to his. "What?" he whispered.
He chose to go on. the voice repeated.
Qui-Gon turned to look back down into Obi-Wan's face. He
stroked the cheek with fingers that weren't steady. "Why?" he
moaned, his soul bleeding. "Why did you leave me?"
It was a rhetorical question, and he didn't really expect an
answer. The feeling of the Force faded and his head bowed. What
would he do now?
A final whisper came to him. He thought he was joining
you...
His eyes squeezed shut at the final cruelty of fate and he
buried his face into Obi-Wan's tunic. Obi-Wan had made his
choice, unknowing, Qui-Gon was sure. He never knew that his
master had chosen to come back. Now that Qui-Gon had made his
own choice, he was bound by the conditions of that decision.
What can I do? he wondered. What can I do now that
you're gone?
His blurred eyes fell on his own corpse, and he blinked away
the tears. How could he be here, and over there too? He looked
down at himself, unable to really see a difference between one
or the other, save that one was vertical - and breathing.
How the hell was he going to explain this to the
Council?
Don't.
In the space of a moment, he decided. He got to his feet,
grunting as he hefted the heavy weight of his apprentice's
body. An idea glimmered into his mind and he hugged Obi-Wan
closer. No explanations would be needed this way, but he still
was reluctant to do as he was quietly prodded.
He tilted the body in his arms to be able to press a last,
loving kiss to unresponsive lips. "I'll finish what I
promised," he vowed. "And when I'm done, I will come to you."
With a last mental farewell, he dropped Obi-Wan's body down the
melting pit. He stared down for a long time after it
disappeared into the depths.
Then he straightened and turned, visualizing - as his new
masters whispered- the new form he must take. His weathered
face shifted and blurred, and his body compacted from its lithe
and lanky frame to one smaller and more wiry. His hair's length
disappeared, save for a thin braid hanging from behind his
right ear.
Qui-Gon, now wearing the appearance of Obi-Wan's face and body,
gathered up his own corpse to take back to the Jedi. He cast a
final look back at the melting pit that now entombed his love
and his enemy. As an afterthought, he summoned the Force to
bring his lightsaber to him and trudged back with a heavy
burden in his arms and a heavier one on his heart.
"Confer upon you the rank of knight, the Council does," Yoda
grumped at him. The tiny green man paced back and forth, his
restlessness a direct contrast to the Jedi's patience. Qui-Gon
had nearly faltered under the collective minds of the Council.
Breezing through the tests so easily had roused their
suspicions, but the tricks whispered to him had kept the
masters from seeing past the Obi-Wan persona.
The elder master continued, "But taking this boy as your
apprentice, I do not agree with!" The tiny Jedi grumbled more
imprecautions as he crossed back.
"I promised Qui-Gon," he said, almost unable to stop the ironic
smile. "I will train the boy."
Yoda shook his head.
"Without the Council's approval, if need be."
The master sighed. "Qui-Gon's defiance, I sense in you. Need
that, you do not."
Qui-Gon fought the smile again.
"Agree with you, the Council does." The wizened face turned to
him, the old man's eyes telling Qui-Gon just how much of a
mistake this was. "Your apprentice, Skywalker will be."
He bowed his head. Finally, he had begun what he needed to do.
It was only a matter of time now, until he could go back.
Later that night, at the memorial, he'd stood silent and
watchful as his own body burned on the pyre. Not many got to
witness their own funerals. Qui-Gon wished things had happened
differently. He wanted his Padawan back with an ache that was
soul-deep and tearing. He knew it would never go away until
they were together again, and he feared it would never lessen.
"What will happen to me now?" Anakin asked.
Qui-Gon looked at him, warmed a little by the boy's grief. He
wanted to tell Anakin the truth, but he didn't dare. Not yet,
perhaps not ever. "The Council has granted me permission to
train you," he murmured. "You will be a Jedi, Anakin. I
promise."
He turned back to stare into the flames, barely hearing the
soft conversation between Yoda and Mace Windu. He nodded to
himself, thinking of Obi-Wan. The tears that welled up at the
thought of his apprentice weren't for the young man at all, but
all for himself. His task would take years, time lit only by
the candlelight flicker of the reunion with his love.
I'll come back to you, my Padawan. And you had better be
waiting.
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