Little 12-Inch Jedi

by Raina

Archive: yes please, M_A; nuttersinc (elsewhere please ask for distribution)

Paring: Q/O

Category: ahem.. 12-inchQui/12-inchObi, Romance, Alternative Reality? Weirdness?

Rating: G

Disclaimer: I don't own 12-inch Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. All merchandising rights for them belong to the Fiend in Flanel. Don't believe me? Check my bank account. I also state that I never owned a 12 inch Jedi in my life, though I'd like one. Christmas, anyone?

Feedback: Well, if it's not too much trouble. Feel free to call me crazy ;-))

Summary: Little 12-inch Qui-Gon's journey to find his other half

Warning: Should one warn for weird?

Spoilers: Oh, Force, I hope not.

Notes: This tiny fic was inspired almost entirely by the song "Little Tin Solider" by Donovan. If you know the song, you pretty much know what happens in the fic. If you don't know the song, you should listen to it, for it's a beautiful song and a heartwrenching story. This is the story the four-year old in me wrote, for the four-year old in all of us.

Thank you's: Temve for the beta and for not laughing in my face, Leandra for not calling the men with the white jackets.

Once upon a time in a far away land there was a gifted toy maker, in whose ancestry a special gift ran. His forefathers had all been the most gifted toy makers of their generation, and children loved and cherished their toys, but nobody had ever found why.

For the toy maker's family had long ago discovered a deep and mysterious secret, and their toys all reflected this gift that only this family of toy makers could impart. The secret they uncovered was so old that its origins were long since lost in the mists of time, and not even the toy makers themselves knew of its nature. They followed the ancient ritual out of tradition, but they did not know what made their toys special.

The children who bought their toys never guessed or even knew that there was something different about the toys they bought from the toy maker's little shop in the small village in the middle of nowhere. All they knew was that for some reason they loved these toys more than any others.

And that reason was simple: every toy made by the toy maker and sold in his little shop had something no other toy would ever have: a soul.

Little 12-inch Qui-Gon Jinn never asked questions like "where do I come from?" or "what is my purpose in life?". He knew where he came from. The toy maker had crafted him. And as far as he was concerned, his purpose in life was clear. Watching his little 12-inch Obi-Wan.

The toy maker had crafted both of them as a set. He'd made them from the same material, at the same time, for the same purpose. When Qui-Gon looked at his foot, he saw the number he'd been given by the toy maker. He was number 125a. Obi-Wan, he knew that without ever having seen the other toy's foot, was 125b. Only together they would ever be 125 whole.

There was never a time in his life where he hadn't watched Obi-Wan, and where Obi-Wan hadn't watched him. His first memory was of waking up in his plastic box and seeing Obi- Wan waking up in his own plastic box, face to face with his on the opposite shelf. He'd looked at his Obi-Wan and could never look away again. He didn't care what happened around him, didn't look up when children with their parents came into the store. Sometimes he wished faintly that the boxes didn't separate them, that maybe they could talk someday, but most of the time he was content with their eyes speaking.

Time passed, and the two of them were happy sitting on their shelves, looking at each other.

But one day, the unthinkable happened. At first, neither Qui-Gon not Obi-Wan thought much of it when the little boy with the sticky fingers picked up Obi-Wan's box and looked at it. It often happened that children looked at one or both of them, but never had any child given them a second look. Most children seemed to find something amiss about one or the other of them.

But this boy didn't seem to care. He turned Obi-Wan's box around several times, and for the first time since his creation, Qui-Gon's view of his counterpart was blocked. And before he knew what happened, the little boy carried his Obi-Wan away, towards the toy maker.

"I want this one," the little boy said. The toy maker took up Qui-Gon's own box. "These two are a set, don't you want the other one as well?"

Hope flared up in Qui-Gon, for from his position in the toy maker's hands he could once again see Obi-Wan. But the child shook his head. "No, I don't like that one. I want this one."

The toy maker sighed and put Qui-Gon's box down on the counter. Qui-Gon did not worry. From this place he could still see Obi-Wan, and as long as he could look at his counterpart, nothing bad could ever happen.

The child's mother gave the toy maker some money and the little boy began to move out of the shop with Obi-Wan's box tucked under his arm. Qui-Gon looked at the box and the child that carried his world away.

It was impossible. They could not be separated. Steadily, he kept his eyes on Obi-Wan for as long as he could see him. As long as they looked at each other, nothing could ever happen to them.

But then the door closed behind the boy and he could no longer see Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon did not understand. How could they be separated? How was he supposed to exist without his other half there to look at day in, day out?

He was only 125a, he could never be whole without 125b. For the first time in his existence, little 12-inch Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn was unhappy. If it had been possible, he would have cried.

For weeks, Qui-Gon waited. Stared. Waited. He was convinced that if he just looked at the spot where his other half had resided, he would return. He had to. For after all, they weren't complete without each other.

But weeks passed, leaves fell outside the window, and Obi-Wan did not return. And after a while of waiting and staring, little 12-inch Qui-Gon lost hope. He knew he would never be whole again.

And with that realisation, he started to wither. His paint started to peel off, little cracks appeared in his body, and his eyes went dull and lost much of their colour, his hair started to fall out. The toy maker repainted and repaired Qui-Gon, but the next morning, all the cracks and flaws in the paint were there again, and his eyes would lose their sparkling blue colour time and time again.

The toy maker tried to find out what was wrong with Qui-Gon, packed him into another case, put him on a different shelf, but since he didn't know the secret behind his own creation, he could not possibly find out his own mistake.

For indeed he had made a crucial mistake when he made Qui-Gon and Obi- Wan. He had made two bodies of the same material, at the same time, had given them the same number and the same nature. But he had given them only one soul. Qui-Gon withered further, until the toy maker gave up trying to repair flaws that would only surface again the next morning. He knew that he could not sell Qui-Gon any more, so one day, the toy maker put Qui-Gon in a box and threw him away into the gutter.

Qui-Gon did not care much, for what difference did it make if he was doomed to wait forever for his other half to return to him on a shelf or in a drifting shoebox?

For days he drifted. From the gutter into the sewer, from the sewer into the river. From the small town into the big city. And there he was found.

A little girl pulled the box out of the water. She felt that even though this toy was soaked and dirty, it was special, so she washed and petted the battered Qui-Gon and put him into a warm box with her other toys.

In this box Qui-Gon met other toys for the first time in his life. There had been others of course in the little shop, but all he had seen in those days was Obi-Wan.

But in this box, he paid attention and noticed others. A golden robot figure, a dark-clad doll like he was with a face painted red and black. A huge hairy thing he dimly recognised as a bear. There was even a little 12-inch Obi-Wan in this box, but Qui-Gon knew at once, after only one look into his soulless, dull, painted eyes that this wasn't his Obi-Wan.

Time passed slowly in the box. At times the little girl would come and play with him or other toys. But most of the time, Qui-Gon spent in the dark, waiting for another who would never come.

The little girl was kind and sweet and she felt that Qui-Gon was different from her other toys. She would spend hours talking to him, soothing him, for she felt instinctively that something was amiss with him. She knew that he was not happy, would never be with her, so when Christmas came, she parted from him with a heavy heart and gave him to a collection for poor children.

So Qui-Gon travelled once again, to a little boy who owned nothing but a small bundle of clothes and now a 12-inch Jedi. But even this little boy, who had never had a toy before in his life, felt that there was something missing in Qui-Gon, and with many tears he gave his companion to the priest who ran the homeless shelter the boy called home.

So the little 12-inch Jedi travelled from hand to hand, from child to child, from city to city, by land and air, by wheel and wing, sometimes even by ship. Every one of his little keepers loved him dearly, but every one found the lonely and unhappy soul they were cradling to their little hearts too much to bear and each of them set Qui-Gon free on his long way to find the other half of his soul.

And Qui-Gon waited. He waited in the plastic spaceship, in the simple shoebox, in the doll bed, in the castle, he waited in the girl's closet and under the boy's bed. He met many toys on his travels, learned many names. He met Mauls and Barbies, Lukes and Teddies, Vaders and Tommy the racecars, Han Solos and princess fairies, he even met a few Obi-Wans, but never did he meet the one his soul longed for.

Years passed, and Qui-Gon waited. And waited. He had long since lost all hope of ever being whole again, but what could he do but wait? What could he do but look into every face of the scores of toys he met and wish that this might at long last be 125b to his 125a? But in all the time, all the bedrooms, all the children's hands he passed through, he never found his Obi-Wan.

His paint had peeled off completely in some places, and large blank patches marred his body. His hair was almost missing completely by now, and his eyes were duller than ever, but still children picked him up from floors, out of garage sales, rescued him from dogs, pulled him out of rivers and garbage cans. And he waited.

One day in spring, his latest owner had abandoned him to the wind and the sky in a sunny meadow. Of all the places he had ever been left, he deemed it the most pleasant. And what difference did it really make where he waited.

But on this day, everything was different, the wind smelled good to him, the sun on his face was warm and he felt that today might as well be the last day of his long wait. Maybe the great toy maker in the sky he'd heard other toys back in the shop talk about would finally take pity on Qui-Gon and take him up into the light.

When a face bent over Qui-Gon, he rejoiced for a moment, thinking that maybe finally he would be allowed to rest. But it was not the great toy maker, it was a girl. Not one of the kind-hearted children that had picked him up on a path, no, this girl was older, already grown up, but her eyes sparkled like all the children's had when they looked at him.

The girl picked him up, smoothed his remaining hair back and smiled at him. "Oh dear, look at you. I have one just like you at home. Come, I'll take you with me. After all, you always had a thing for pathetic life forms." So the girl put Qui-Gon into her handbag and carried him home with her.

And when she opened her bag and set him on her desk, Qui-Gon knew his wait was over. For there on her desk next to her computer sat Obi-Wan, just as battered and broken as he himself, but clearly his Obi-Wan, his own, his other half, and the moment their eyes fell on one another, they were whole again.

The girl put them on the desk next to each other, so that they could look at each other, and then she started to tell them stories. Stories of love, of two people who bore their names and similar faces, who shared a love much like their own, and as Qui-Gon and Obi- Wan sat there, looking at each other, touching each other, being together at last, listening to the stories the girl told them, they were happy, for they knew they would never be apart again.

The End.