Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

By LuvEwan

Summary: Obi-Wan celebrates. A completed vignette

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.

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The black gloss spilled from ethereal hands, ink escaping the crystalline jar and staining the soft mandarin slowly, soaking and spreading, until it was only dark, save the persistent jewels that rose from the pall, scattered in a random harmony of pulsing silver.

And Obi-Wan stood from his quiet little vantage point, watching, feeling stray flecks of the ebony pool in his eyes, rimmed by still settings of sapphire.

He turned away and his hand slipped from the lusterless gray curtain that now covered the scene.

For a moment, he thought he heard the tight pop of exploding color, the shimmering kaleidoscope that rose in the sky, but he quickly corrected himself.

It was too soon for such festivities to begin.

And besides--how could he account for the closeness of that sound, as though it were outside the door, or within his chest, when that was impossible? He was not prone to wild bouts of imagination. In fact, he would not allow them.

So he bit down on the swell of his bottom lip, speared the outrageous notion, and walked into the kitchen.

The chronometer displayed the time, hour and minute separated by a blinking colon that seemed to keep in time with the measured beat of his heart.

Obi-Wan sighed, running fingers quickly through his hair, auburn strands falling in his eyes.

"I think it's way past due for a trim, don't you think?" A voice berated lightly, laced with warm mirth, speaking somewhere behind him.

Obi-Wan removed a green-tinted glass bottle from the cooling unit, face expressionless, intent on maintaining the silence.

But then there was a slightly quickened rhythm in his ribcage, and he glanced at the clock.

Suddenly, their unison was breached. He placed a palm fleetingly to his chest, then moved to find a clean goblet.

"Today, of all days, you ignore me?"

And the base of the goblet was slammed on the stone countertop. Obi-Wan was faintly surprised it had not shattered. You know why I am. He could not speak the words. He refused.

With a graceful calm, he began to pour the deep violet drink.

"I would hope you'd understand that this will only hurt yourself."

Obi-Wan did not bother with finishing filling the chalice; he shoved the rim to his mouth and drank. When he brought it away again, his lips glistened in their compression, the cleft beneath them given definition.

"Brooding?" The question was a melding of melancholy and humor, sadness and ruefulness. "I suppose you've learned from the best."

Obi-Wan tried to ignore the blossoming warmth inside him, the traitorous reaction of his body, and reached for the slim neck of the bottle.

But the conflict was evident. His forehead creased, his eyes focused too keenly on his simple task…And then they closed. His form, clad merely in loose sleep pants, trembled.

A hand ghosted across his shoulder.

His eyes opened to the darkness of the room. "I did learn from the best." He said softly, and smiled.

"But do you choose to forget what you've been taught?"

Obi-Wan looked down at his fingers. The warmth became heat, burning in his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Master." A weak whisper.

And the traces of aged duty were so familiar…comforting.

He flinched as he stared out at the shaded living area from the kitchen. "But it can't be the same. How can I when---it's not the same?"

The other man chuckled. "What tradition can be the same on its every occasion? When was it ever the same?"

Obi-Wan took the goblet absently in his hand and drifted to the armchair.

Shadow engulfed the humble space within the walls, and against the dark canvas he could see wraiths, moving under the illusion that the nightfall was one of years before, and the past was not the past at all--but the present moment.

He rested his chin on the goblet's lip as they crowded the room, spirits oblivious to their audience, wearing faces of younger versions of himself--happier versions of themselves.

"You don't have to shut me out, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon murmured. "Neither of us…have deserved that sort of punishment."

"I wish I could believe…the fault didn't lay at my feet." Obi-Wan found himself rasping, his eyes entranced by the various scenes surrounding them.

"No one can say they're sinless…and no one should take possession of guilt that isn't their own."

Obi-Wan ripped his gaze from the bittersweet spectacles. "I'm sorry, Master." He wanted to say what was festering in his soul, the words branded there, the wish that he sorely needed granted…

But nothing could change. Nothing would change.

Not now.

And never for him.

"I'm sorry." He said, yet again.

Obi-Wan stared down at his palm, the web of lifelines deepened by death.. "My hands are stained." His lips barely parted in a husky whisper. He sought the refuge of the peaceful, unmoving night, but met with the colorless shroud of the drapery, hanging in a deliberate separation between he and the luminous horizon.

It was right for the beauty to be sealed from him.

"Stained with the blood of those you fought to save."

Obi-Wan's eyes were burnished, falling dully to the floor, the pale shadow of the wraiths lending light. He wanted to feel their echoed joy, a happiness that had once been his own--but he could not. "What use is there in fighting when all you garner is loss?" He moistened his drying lips. His accent thickened. "Y-You speak of what I deserve. I certainly don't deserve what you believe I do. The ritual--"

"It's no ritual, Obi-Wan. One candle burning--"

"And I will be reminded of what no longer belongs to me." Obi-Wan interrupted, his grip tightening on the glass. He spoke slowly, every syllable a struggle in itself. "It will remind me that it truly isn't the same. I would be a fool to grapple for something that isn't there anymore."

"You're a fool only because you believe it's gone." Qui-Gon countered gently.

Obi-Wan took a long drink, nearly choking as the next words filled the air.

"My little fool."

He smiled, unsure whether the moisture welling in his eyes was due to the brief constriction of air--or the shock of smothered memory, given breath. Fine wrinkles appeared on his face and he dipped his head back for another taste of the smooth, cool wine. "My little fool." He repeated wistfully, watching a pair of the specters in play on the crackled stage of the room's walls, a novice Padawan of fourteen and an amused mentor, locked in the single episode he remembered so well. "You called me that so often--back then, in the beginning."

A weightless chuckle. "That's because you were very often a fool, Obi-Wan. Especially when you so valiantly attempted to stay awake--when you were dozing before the flame ever hit the wick!"

Soft embarrassment touched his features, a hint of crimson in his cheeks. "I wanted to impress you. More than anything I wanted to. And sleeping through a valued tradition wasn't exactly the way to go about it." He shrugged. "But after three continuous hours of sparring, I suppose my expectations were unrealistic."

"At least I set you straight about that…Although, I didn't exactly appreciate the puddle of drool you left on the couch or the, shall we say, less than harmonious snoring."

Obi-Wan grinned, sloshing the dark liquid around in the goblet. "I personally find snoring to be endearing."

"Ah, that would be because you've never heard yourself." Qui-Gon chortled. A fake revulsion threaded his voice.

Obi-Wan returned his focus to the preserved yesterdays hovering around him. Instances when the holiday was acknowledged at huge distances, Obi-Wan on a solo excursion and sending his regards to his Master in a forcefully quick communication, Qui-Gon snowed in and only able to hope fervently that his mental message to his apprentice would be received.

Quiet observances, the candle's muted orange incandescence caressing their faces. An initially stilted celebration, when teacher and student were locked in disagreement --

Yet witnessed as their ire melted among cinder, the topic of controversy losing its importance beside the treasure of the moment.

But Obi-Wan was no longer a child, an apprentice ruled solely by the Jedi law and his own private longing.

And, on this last day of another year, he knew that something had finally interfered, long ago--a rift that could not be absolved, a curtain spread eternally between his world and his Master's.

His anger was not going to be diluted by the warm glow of fire…

For fire had become a twisted symbol in his life. Once a commemoration of jovial times, of a shoulder to rest on, of a sweet shred of normalcy and routine, of sips of drink he was normally forbidden to come near…it was now a scorching reminder of what he had done…

The room was cold as he sung the lyrics.

"A farewell to yesterday and the day before

On fresh wings I shall soar

Past the final night and its thorns

Through to where new morning's born."

More spirits materialized from pale azure mist. Anakin holding the match, he standing careful guard at the boy's shoulder. Divided by ice-rimed bars, eyes closed on their opposite sides, together visualizing a calm flame.

"But the scrapes I carry forward

And memory I ever do hold

To stand taller on lush hills

With the… p-power… of my will."

He leaned into his hand, shutting himself off from the onslaught of visions, the moving scraps of a holo album he shoved under the bed and left to dust.

"There's no way to apologize, is there?" He rubbed wearily at his eyes. "With every step, I'm sorry. 'I'm sorry.' But there isn't anyone to listen…No one left to forgive me." No one to set off the firecrackers tonight. "And damn, they shouldn't forgive me. There shouldn't be anything in the sky."

A tingle of a touch on his neck, but he would not look up to see the familiar visage--that just wasn't there. "My little fool again. Who sees blood on clean hands and drinks wine as though he's always thirsting…

"But still sings more beautifully than angels."

Obi-Wan shook his head and bowed it, his chin pressed to his chest. "You would know about angels, my Master." His face was damp, the moisture gleaming identical blue to the vanquished wraiths. "Your little fool hallucinates a ghost…only so that he might have someone to talk to."

And in reality there was nothing save silence. Phantom words would not comfort him.

Qui-Gon was dead. For more than two decades-gone.

He did not believe in angels.

Obi-Wan sat in the darkness, clutching the empty chalice.

"You don't need to believe in angels, my Padawan. I always have--because I've always believed in you."

Obi-Wan clenched his eyes shut. "No." It was far easier to hold faith in one's lunacy, than in the possibility that his hopeful mirages were not borne of a slowly deteriorating mind--but were true.

Crazy. Yes. I'm crazy.

But that acceptance proved the hole in his theory. The insane were not aware of their sickness. And so he was not crazy, though he had spent the evening engaged in conversation with a dead man.

"Ridiculous." Obi-Wan mumbled. It was not possible for them to be together, to mark the occasion as they always had…

And then he was rising from the trembling cold cave of his chair, darting to the closet and rummaging until he touched upon the surface of a lone candle.

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A handful of hours later, the cream column had been reduced to a pile of molten wax on the table.

Obi-Wan stooped down to blow out the flickering light that wreathed his tired countenance…but before he could gather a breath, a single tear trickled from the rounded edge of his jaw and fell with a hiss, drowning the flame.

And in a blink, swallowed him in the black.

"Happy New Year's."