Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
By Burning_Tyger
Summary: Two years later, Obi-Wan is still grieving over his master's death. When he visits Qui-Gon's memorial, he finds solace from an unexpected source.
I'm trying to post this in HTML, which I've never used before, so if the formatting is bad, you don't even have to try to read it -- I'll fix it up in plain old text and everything will be all right. ;p
Rating: No slash, no sex, no swearing, no violence...just angst. So I'll give it a PG rating.
Pairing: The cast of characters numbers two. One you already know, and if I were to tell you the other one, it might ruin things.
Spoilers: Some characters from the Jedi Apprentice books are featured, but their presence is fairly well-explained. There is some speculation on events in Jedi Apprentice #15, which I have but am too afraid to read right now. (Those of you who have read #14 know what I mean.) So I took the worst-case scenario and went with it. *crosses fingers and hopes the book doesn't really happen like that* So this could be slightly AU...I don't know.
Disclaimer: I just torture 'em, I don't own 'em. They belong to Flannel Man himself. The song is from the incredible Phantom of the Opera, which I desperately wanted to see when it came to Cincinnati in September...*sigh* But I don't own that, either, just a copy of the cast recording. Tahl and Xanatos belong to Jude Watson.
Author's Notes: I know that this is Christine's song in the musical, and that even Ewan could obviously not sing it exactly the way she does. But imagine it an octave or two lower, in that wonderfully warm voice he has...
Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
It had been two years: Anakin was eleven, Amidala was sixteen and a Senator now, and Palpatine was up for re-election as Chancellor.
It was Obi-Wan's twenty-third birthday. Ten years ago, Qui-Gon had given a tiny gift to his new padawan -- one that, like everything Qui-Gon did, sought to teach him a lesson as well as help him.
It seemed fitting that today, for the first time, he was on a turbolift heading down to the sepulcher.
He'd been down there only once before, when he'd been eighteen. Qui-Gon had come there to lay flowers on Tahl's grave in the middle of the night. He must have assumed that, while Obi-Wan was asleep, he wouldn't pick up on the endless grief his master felt for the woman he'd loved.
But his angst had permeated Obi-Wan's dreams. He'd awoken nearly crying, and he hadn't understood why until he'd realized Qui-Gon was gone. He'd followed his master down to the memorial chamber.
He'd found him kneeling by Tahl's grave, lost entirely in solemn memory. Obi-Wan had been far too old to simply hug his Master and trust that it would be all right; so he'd merely knelt beside him. There they'd spent the night, waiting for the dawn and remembering Tahl.
Qui-Gon had cried that night, silent tears that, like everything else about his master, had an air of tragic elegance to them. It was the only time Obi-Wan had ever, or would ever, see him break down. At the funeral, his master had seemed to be made of granite; an unfeeling presence, hurt beyond repair by the loss of yet another friend. It hadn't been until that night that he'd finally found release.
Obi-Wan had always wondered: if he hadn't found Qui-Gon that night, would his master have been able to let go?
So here he was, deep inside the Temple, stepping off the turbolift into a warm, comforting glow that seemed to refute the midnight darkness outside. It was said that this level had no light panels, but was lit instead by the gathered Force of the thousands remembered here.
And, as he could detect no artificial lighting, he was inclined to believe it. The light was warm, but...solemn, somehow. He couldn't explain it, but the impression was that the chamber itself was mourning.
The hall was by no means full, and it stretched on in front of him, seeming that it would never end. He panicked briefly, wondering how he would ever find one man in this expanse of memories.
But he knew the Force would guide him. He closed his eyes, following a path that seemed to be marked by mental laser flares. He stopped, opened his eyes, and even smiled briefly. Where would Qui-Gon be, but next to the woman he loved? Tahl's memorial stood beside Qui-Gon's, and Obi-Wan appreciated the unity it represented.
Both simple stone markers (they didn't rest over any bodies; the ashes of Jedi were scattered to the winds, but Obi-Wan still thought of them as tombstones) were surrounded by small things that others had left, tokens to their memories.
Obi-Wan simply gazed at the headstone for a moment. Softly, he began to sing.
"You were once my one companion
You were all that mattered
You were once a friend and father
Then my world was shattered..."
With a sigh, he knelt by the memorial. Alderaanian lilies -- they'd been Qui-Gon's favorite -- lay before it. The flowers could have been there for two years, but they still looked as though they'd been picked five minutes ago. Perhaps that was another aspect of this chamber: nothing seemed to have decayed at all.
A small holo of Qui-Gon, standing beside Tahl and smiling, lay between the memorials. It had to have been taken years before Obi-Wan had become his padawan; Qui-Gon's hair was shorter and mostly brown, but his eyes radiated the tranquil joy that Obi-Wan knew so well. Had he loved Tahl even then?
"I don't know why I can't get over this," he admitted shyly. "I know, you're at peace, you're one with the Force...but that's pretty small comfort to me. I miss you so much. I guess I'm just…
Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed
If I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here...
"But that's childish, a dream for someone Anakin's age. You know I'd give everything I own, and all that I've had in the past, for just one more day. An hour, even. To be with you, talk to you, or just listen. Life just seems so empty without hearing you call my name, or even tell me off. I want more than anything for you to be proud of me...and to hear you say so. I treasured every word that ever fell from your lips.
Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you
Won't help me to do
All that you dreamed I could
He looked up. It seemed for a faint moment he'd heard bells, the kind that tolled out the hour in little town squares all over the galaxy. Exactly the sort of simple melody he'd never taken the time to notice.
Had Qui-Gon noticed them? Had he known what would happen, and had he really looked at things for the first time? Obi-Wan couldn't imagine what it must be like to know the time of your death. Would you try to avoid it, or face it like a Jedi? Would you fear it? What would you tell the ones you loved if you knew you would never see them again?
"I am proud of you, my Padawan," Qui-Gon had said, the night before they'd recaptured Naboo. Seven words Obi-Wan had treasured above all else since he was thirteen. His master had called him Obi-Wan often enough, but he called him Padawan because it was an honor to have a student of his own.
"I shan't be able to call you that much longer," he'd continued sadly. Oh, if Obi-Wan had known why there had been so much sorrow in his Master's voice! "Soon you will be a Knight, and no one's apprentice."
Obi-Wan had smiled then, at the thought of kneeling before Master Yoda with Qui-Gon standing beside him. He conveniently blanked out the looming Trials, instead focusing on the ceremony to be held afterwards. How liberating it would feel, when Qui-Gon severed his Padawan braid...but it would be bittersweet, this coming of age. The symbolism in the cutting of the braid meant that Obi-Wan would be independent; a twenty-one-year-old man who needed no one to hold his hand, but who knew his Master would always be there to turn to.
But Qui-Gon hadn't been beside him at the ceremony, and Obi-Wan had cut his own braid. There had been no sweetness in the bitter tears he'd shed that day, though. The memory brought them back, and he blinked hard.
A tiny angel sculpture lay before his grave. Obi-Wan recognized it as the one Qui-Gon had kept on the mantel of their Temple rooms. It had never aroused much curiosity in him before; it had simply always been there. With it was a note that had yellowed slightly with age, and obviously hadn't been given to its addressee until it was too late. It read: To my angel -- If I cannot give this to you myself, I know you will find it. I shall always love you, Qui-Gon. ~Tahl
Who had brought the angel down -- Mace? Yoda? And how long had Qui-Gon and Tahl loved each other without saying a word?
They were things he'd never thought to ask his master. Faced with so many questions that could never be answered, Obi-Wan nearly came undone.
"Passing bells and sculpted angels
Cold and monumental
Seem for you the wrong companions
You were warm and gentle...
"Stars, it hurts!" he shouted. "Why couldn't you have stayed with me? Or in my place? I'd have done anything -- died myself -- if you could have lived. You knew that. So many people needed you: Anakin, the Queen. I was nothing to them, but you were a hero! I had to comfort them, I had to tell the Council, I had to train the most dangerous, most important kid in the galaxy when I'd barely been Knighted myself. I don't know how I survived those first weeks. I hardly remember them.
"But you knew. You knew that battle would be the end of you, and you went on. You didn't even tell me! There are so many things I wish I could have told you, things that always seemed to get put off by one disaster or another. I loved you, Master. You were the best friend I ever had...and I miss you. He tasted salt, and only then did he realized he'd been crying. He wiped at his eyes, half-embarrassed even though he was alone in that huge room.
"Too many years
Fighting back tears
Why can't the past just die?"
He set the angel back down, and for awhile he just remembered. The day Qui-Gon had asked Obi-Wan to be his padawan; the day they'd defeated Xanatos; countless hours listening and talking and meditating. A snowball fight, a cup of tea: little memories that would mean nothing to anyone else. They meant the world to him now.
He was thinking about one of a thousand no-stakes sabaac games when something curled around his neck. Fighting the automatic urge to yell, realizing that he was in the Temple and there could be no attackers here, he turned around quickly...
And started breathing again. Anakin pulled away, looking a combination of terrified, concerned, and ashamed. "I'm s-sorry, Obi-Wan, but I had a bad dream, and when I woke up you weren't there...so I just sort of followed you down here. Are you mad at me?"
"No, Ani, not at all. You just...startled me, that's all." He turned back to the memorials.
Anakin simply crawled into his lap. Obi-Wan was mildly surprised by the kid's total lack of self-consciousness as Anakin settled his head against Obi-Wan's chest.
Anakin could hear his master's heartbeat, still pounding fast with the aftereffects of the brief, needless adrenaline rush. "Wow…I guess I did scare you, huh?"
"Indeed." Obi-Wan tried to return to his silent contemplation.
Anakin scanned the seemingly endless chamber. "Where are we?"
So much for quiet. Obi-Wan suddenly realized how much of his life was going to be spent answering this kid's questions. But it was hardly the kid's fault, was it? If anyone deserved the blame for this situation, it was Obi-Wan himself. After all, he'd only managed to be a little bit faster...Qui-Gon would be here to train Anakin, and Obi-Wan would wither be a lone Jedi Knight or dead.
Either way, Anakin would be in far more capable hands. Obi-Wan exhaled slowly what would have been a sigh. "It's called the Mausoleum, even though there aren't really any bodies here. Each marker is a memorial for a Jedi who has - has died." The term the Council used was 'becoming one with the Force,' but why confuse Anakin? Qui-Gon was gone, and they both needed to understand that.
"All of these people were Jedi? There must be a million of them!"
"There could be."
Anakin twisted around so he could see the stones in front of them. He frowned; he could read Basic well by now, but script like the writing on the marker confused him. "Is that Qui-Gon's?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan replied steadily. He was all right; he had to be strong for Anakin, and he would not cry.
"Whose is that?"
Obi-Wan gambled and figured he could talk about Tahl and trust his voice. "She was a Jedi Knight named Tahl, and she...she loved Qui-Gon."
"Qui-Gon was married?"
"No, but the were friends their whole life. When I was sixteen, we were sent to find her after she disappeared on a mission. We did find her, but instead of dragging her back to the Temple we decided to help her. She told Qui-Gon to leave, that she didn't want him or me to get hurt...and he told her he loved her and wouldn't leave her.
"She was kidnapped that afternoon and killed a few days later. We'd trailed the kidnappers, though. We were too far away to help her, but...but we saw." So much for trusting his voice; it was shaking uncontrollably in the grip of that awful memory. "Qui-Gon got to her, but she was dying. She said, 'It is too late for me, dear friend,' and it was. He kept telling her that it would be all right, that we'd get her back to the Healers on Coruscant and she'd be okay, but he couldn't even convince himself that it was true. At the end, she just told him she loved him, and...then she was gone."
Obi-Wan looked up, out at the pair of markers before them. "That was the last thing she ever said to him: 'I love you.' It was two years before he'd healed enough to cry about her...and when he did, it was right here. I'd followed him, just the way you followed me, and he found he could let go.
"I don't think I'll ever get over losing him."
Anakin was quiet for a full minute. "Have you cried about him?"
He chuckled wryly. "More than I ever imagined possible, but...it still hurts."
Anakin sniffled. "I miss him," he whispered, and Obi-Wan felt tears through his tunic. He berated himself for his selfishness: all this time, he'd barely thought at all about how Anakin was faring. He'd been so concerned with responsibilities, with freedoms, with his own grief that he'd all but forgotten about his padawan.
"I miss him, too," Obi-Wan replied gently, wrapping his arms around the boy in a tentative hug. He thought again of Qui-Gon, about how much this paralleled what had happened after Tahl's death. He wondered when exactly he'd stopped being the student. And if he'd ever feel like a teacher.
Would Qui-Gon be proud of him? He'd never know for sure, and the realization brought tears again. He held Anakin more tightly, and it was then that the wound started to heal.
Later -- Obi-Wan never cared whether it was minutes or hours -- Anakin lifted his head and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I'm sorry I'm such a baby, Obi-Wan."
"Baby? Ani, you're nothing of the sort. You're not the only one who's been crying, you know. Stars, if our tears make us children, we'd better send Mace back to the crèche."
The kid giggled a little. "I didn't know it was okay. My mom taught me never to cry in front of a slaver…so I guess I just stopped crying altogether."
"You never have to hide your feelings from me."
"I never will, Master Obi-Wan."
Master Obi-Wan...he smiled just a little at that. "I think we need to get you to bed, Padawan," he said, catching Anakin in mid-yawn.
"I like the way that sounds: Padawan."
"Like it or not, it's still long past your bedtime."
"Okay, then," he said, still yawning. He eased himself out of Obi-Wan's lap and stood up. Obi-Wan got up after him, wincing as his muscles responded in one collective revolt.
"Go on," he told Anakin. "I'll meet you at the lift -- I just want one more minute."
The boy nodded and walked off towards the distant door. Obi-Wan looked after him for a moment, then turned back to Qui-Gon's marker. He lifted a thin silver chain from around his neck. The cool metal pooled in his palm, then lost its chill as the warmth of the stone pendant seemed to spread through him. His original idea had been to leave this down here, as a testament to Qui-Gon's legacy.
"But would that be the best way to honor you? You gave this to me ten whole years ago, on my thirteenth birthday...and I think there's someone else who could use it as I have someday." He fixed the chain back around his neck, feeling the familiar warmth of the river stone against the skin of his chest. "I'll always miss you, Master.
Wishing you were somehow here again
Knowing we must say good-bye
Try to forgive
Teach me to live
Give me the strength to try..."
He followed Anakin to the turbolift, where the boy was waiting patiently. He called the lift down, and they shot upwards through the tower of durasteel and concrete that was the Jedi Temple.
They stepped off the lift on the 204th floor and began walking down the corridor to their rooms. Halfway down the hall, Obi-Wan felt a small hand reach up to grip his. He smiled and held Anakin's hand until they came to their chambers. The trust Anakin seemed to have put in him lightened his mood considerably. He really did like the kid, after all, he mused. It was only the circumstances that had provided an initial opportunity for resentment.
He tucked Anakin into bed and turned out the light. The boy promptly rolled over and fell asleep. Obi-Wan just stood there and watched him for a moment, then he smiled. The two of them would get through this together; they'd survive and be stronger for it.
"No more memories
No more silent tears
No more gazing across the wasted years
Help me say good-bye."
It was in that dark room, overlooking his own apprentice, that Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan truly became a Jedi Knight.
**I just finished #15...If you haven't read it, you must. Start from #1 and go on, if you have to, but READ IT! Qui-Gon's character in Episode I is defined so much by the characters in those books. They are incredible.**