Remembrance of love lost
Companion fic to The Gift
Disclaimer: BTVS characters belong to Joss, and Star Wars belongs to G.Lucas. Nothing is mine and I'm not getting any money out of this.
Summary: After Buffy meets Vader. Qui-Gon Jinn's point of view, his flashbacks of his life on Earth and Joyce.
This is 1 out of 4 drabbles.
And now on with it!
Whoever said that the dead don't have any concerns, they were wrong.
I worry all the time, and yet I'm just an observer, I can't interfere, because such interference at this point could mean a disaster too terrible to comprehend.
And that knowledge makes bearing this a little easier. Not much, but it's all I have.
I've watched Anakin since I've died. I remember my pain when he suffered trough many trials, always alone.
Obi-Wan helped as much as he could, but you can't help with something you don't know anything about.
I should know. When I left Joyce and our unborn child, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. And I couldn't tell anyone about it. And even if I could I don't think the Jedi council would understand it.
Anakin went trough the same experience of having to leave family, in his case leaving his mother on Tatooine.
I had every intention of returning and freeing Shmi Skywalker. Unfortunately I couldn't.
Being dead does that.
And she remained a slave.
So many things would go differently if Jedi would think about feelings. But Jedi become so detached, so dependant on the Code, that we're heading to slow extinction.
All because someone in the distant, distant past decided that attachments are a bad idea.
And foolishly it became a rule of forbidding attachments. Ironically, the prophecy about the Chosen one's was made after the rule was firmly placed in the code.
Fate has a cruel sense of humor.
But most damaging to Anakin was the isolation at the Temple. No friends, no family, only Obi-Wan who was dealing with the loss of, well…me.
I didn't like placing that much of a burden on my Padawan's shoulders, but there was no one else who I would trust.
Again all I could do was watch…
Only once I came close to interfering in Anakin's fate… when he felt overwhelming grief and then anger when he killed those sand people.
I forgot my self for a few moments and shouted to him to stop. He didn't hear me, too lost to grief and hatred. I know Yoda heard me, but fortunately he didn't know what happened.
My heart ached on that fateful day on Mustafar when Obi-Wan and Anakin fought. I know he went by the name of Darth Vader then, but for me, he will always be simply Anakin.
Five years have passed since that day and then one day I felt a disturbance. And when I drifted trough the netherworld of the Force to see what caused it…
I saw someone who I never expected to see.
My daughter.
All grown up.
I couldn't believe she was the second piece of the prophecy. The Oracles told me I'd never see my child or Joyce again.
But then again, I'm dead now; I can't be a father to her.
She is beautiful; she inherited her mother's hair color. She is short like her maternal grand mother and she has my mother's eyes. Joyce named her after my mother.
And now when I watch my daughter interact with Anakin I can't help but feel amusement.
They will pull each other through a wringer.
Both are stubborn. And convinced that they are right all the time.
They both have the ability to feel deeply, have suffered tremendous loses. And stood up after them, still fighting.
They are good and cunning fighters.
And will go to great lengths to save a loved one. Even kill.
Despite how much they have in common though, they are opposite in just as many ways.
Anakin will jump into a fight without thinking; he'll decide quickly on a course of action and then do it. Buffy usually thinks things trough. If she has time that is.
He is not patient at all. She has some patience. Again, when she has to.
He is loyal only to people, causes mean nothing to him. If someone he cared for was in danger he'd do anything to protect them, even harm innocents. Buffy, while loyal and protective to people she loves, is capable of making the decision to sacrifice them so that innocents would be saved. It would kill her to do it, but she would be able to.
He trusts the people he's close to beyond reason. Buffy, while she trusts her family and friends, doesn't blind herself to the possibility of them deceiving her. She learned that lesson through experience.
Anakin doesn't think outside of his beliefs. Buffy thinks, as she says, outside of the box.
Oh yes, watching them promises to be very amusing. So will, I suspect, Obi-Wan's reaction to the news that I have a daughter.
End drabble.