The Memory Garden

Summary: A single garden is the connection between a former Sith Lord, and a Jedi Master and his Padawan. M!Revan.

The festivities had reached Coruscant, along with the news that the war had, at last, ended. Wherever Eran stepped, he caught the flash of camera glow-bulbs going off. More wanted to whisper—everyone wanted to know about the mysterious Jedi Knight who'd killed Darth Malak. Even in the Temple, he caught apprentices trying to get a glimpse of him, ducking behind marble pillars the moment they thought they'd been caught. Knights and Padawans went up to him, trying to shake his hand, trying to speak to him.

They were all relieved, he thought, tiredly. The Sith Empire, under Darth Malak, had looked to be an unstoppable force. Even with Revan out of the fighting, the razing of Dantooine had been a sign to the Jedi, that things were still in dire straits.

Eran had gotten a hero's welcome, and that was exactly what he hadn't wanted.

He didn't feel like a hero.

Jolee found him, a few days later, leaning over the balcony of one of the unused meditation rooms, staring out at the thousands of spires and glittering lights that made up the Coruscanti nightscape. "There you are," said the old man. "Thought you'd gone and run away. I'd have done that, sonny. Plenty of good places on Coruscant to get yourself wasted, if you want to."

Even now, Eran had to admit that Jolee's past left him curious. "You trained on Coruscant?"

Jolee joined him at the balcony, and took a great, dramatic sniff of the air. "Ah," he said, at last. "Nothing like the stench of a hundred different emissions and pollutants to make you realise you're on Coruscant."

"I don't remember," Eran said, simply. "In all my memories, I'd never been to Coruscant. Maybe that means I spent some time here." The Council, he suspected, wouldn't have wanted him to retain any memories that might have even hinted at a vague connection to the Jedi.

"Maybe," Jolee said. "If there's anything I've learned, sonny, it's that it's hard to fathom what's going through the heads of those Council members."

Jolee would know, Eran thought. He remembered what the hermit had told him: he'd taken it on himself to train his wife in the ways of the Force, despite the Council's objections. When his wife had turned to the Dark Side and Jolee had been forced to confront and stop her, the Council had perversely promoted Jolee to the rank of Jedi Master, figuring that he'd gained something valuable out of the experience. As they had Knighted him, for killing Malak.

It was the sort of thing the Council did.

Jolee cleared his throat. "Well, what's on your mind?"

Eran just looked at him.

"It's chewing on you like a kinrath on a Wookie's arse, sonny. Out with it."

Eran choked back a startled laugh. "That wasn't an image I needed," he murmured.

"Believe me, it's not something you're in a hurry to remember either."

"I'd imagine." He took a deep breath, and then said, "Malak." Trust extended both ways, after all. And as one of his companions, Jolee knew his deepest secret: that he had been Revan.

"Nasty piece of work," Jolee said, after a while. "Any regrets?"

"Perhaps," Eran admitted. "Do you know what he told me, right before he died? He wondered about what had happened if our positions had been reversed. If he'd gotten the second chance." He tightened his grip on the cool durasteel of the balcony railing. "Or what would have become of him if I hadn't led him down the path to the Sith."

Jolee closed his eyes, enjoying the coolness of the night breeze. "Regrets," he said, at last, in his cracked voice. "They'll eat you up, sonny. You spent enough time wondering about what you could have done better, or what could've been, and you find yourself running away to become a crazy man on Kashyyyk."

"Is that what you did?"

Jolee sighed. "Yes. I couldn't face them." He opened his eyes, looked Eran in the face. "I won't tell you what you should've done because sometimes you have to solve problems with a lightsaber, and you should know that too."

"Many would've said that Revan didn't deserve mercy either," Eran said. "I had that chance. Malak didn't. I gave Bastila that chance. I switched off my lightsaber and invited her to strike me down." He smiled, tightly. "Sometimes, you have to take that chance. And she was a friend—I dislike having to cut down friends. Seems to me that they're in short supply these days." He looked down at his hands. "I really shouldn't have gambled so much on whether Bastila would've actually killed me, but all the same."

"You've acknowledged it was a damnfool thing to do. So why did you do it?"

"Instinct," Eran said, with a shrug. "I knew Bastila. She…throws herself into things she believes in, deeply. Malak couldn't break her by torturing her. He could turn her to the Dark Side by telling her she'd already fallen, and he was just showing her what she'd become. He was giving her permission to do those things, because she could tell herself that she'd already lost control. The Dark Side…" he breathed, almost remembering. "You tell yourself you don't have to hold back, because you've given up control. But you're the one, behind every single choice you make. Every excess, every monstrosity…"

"Thought you said you didn't remember them."

"I don't. It was just intuition." Eran glanced over at him. "I was lucky to be correct. I didn't sense that sort of ambivalence in Malak. And he was the better swordsman. He had me, several times. But he didn't kill me." He added, "I'm not proud of it. Killing him."

Jolee said, in a low voice, "No one's saying you should."

"No one?" Eran wanted to know. He breathed to try to release the helpless anger that welled up within. "Out there, right now, thousands of beings are celebrating Malak's death. They're happy. They're proud of it. To them, I'm a hero because I killed him." His laugh was bitter and short. "I suppose it helps that they don't know I'm Revan."

"But you're not them, are you?"

"Should I be?" Eran asked, ignoring that. "That's what keeps bothering me. I was given a chance at redemption. Bastila was given that chance. So was Dustil, Yuthura…Malak didn't get that chance. Everyone tells me we were friends. The best of friends. I remember…only a little. I suppose the rest of the memories are gone for good. I was willing to do that much for Bastila, for Dustil and Yuthura—what about Malak?"

Jolee was silent, for a time. Finally, he said, heavily, "I think you're confusing two things, sonny." He stretched stiff limbs with a soft groan before continuing. "If you'd somehow managed to take Malak alive, he'd probably have been executed. Crimes against humanity and all that. Nevermind what the Council says. There'd be big trouble if they hadn't handed him over to the Republic. Fierfek, sonny, I'm still not sure how they managed that with you. They'll be in plenty of hot water when word about you gets out. There's plenty that'd speak for Dantooine, Telos, and Taris. And mind you, anyone who says you should've taken him alive has never been in a lightsaber duel with a damned powerful Sith Lord before. But now, them that's happy that you've gone and killed him…" Jolee heaved a sigh as he watched the distant horizon. "I never meant to kill my wife, did you know that? Oh, I'd meant to stop her, and I'd drawn my lightsaber on her, even though it was breaking my heart to do so, but even at the end, I'd never meant to kill her…Taking a life's never easy, sonny. Not even one such as Malak's, for all some people need killing. And to send you after him was harsh. But the Jedi would do it. Just as well you don't remember anything of him, or it'd be harder yet. Don't get me wrong; it had to be done. But there's little to be proud of."

It was the most Eran had heard from him, in a long while. "I've killed," he agreed, studying the skyline illuminated by the glittering fires that were the lights of distant buildings. "It's just never…felt like this before." He thought about that final, fatal pass—his lightsaber burning through Malak's lungs and the Sith Lord's last, wheezing words before he died. It had always been Revan and Malak, but try as he might, Eran couldn't recall anything at all except a memory of laughter, a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair, a name, and a planet. Alek. Quelli.

Perhaps he could speak to Master Vandar. Vandar had been part of the Council that had seen Eran's memories stripped and discarded, burned clean from his mind, his identity implanted and changed. How did one trust the Council after such a shattering event, he wondered. He knew, somehow, that he would spend the rest of his life always looking over his shoulder. It was a mixed gift, even if the Jedi seemed inclined to give him that second chance.

"Killing's never the same," Jolee said, sharply. "Best you don't get too used to it."

Easy to say that, Eran thought. All his life, all his remembered life, he'd been a soldier. He couldn't remember being anything else. Sometimes, in the few moments between waking and dreaming, he felt the phantom hilt of a lightsaber in his hand, even if he couldn't quite grasp it or where it had been conjured from.

Jolee elbowed him. "Stop that," the old man ordered, and Eran realised he'd said that aloud. "You've got your second chance, sonny. And you're still alive. I'd bet you anything that that's the one thing the Council didn't really plan for. They thought they'd throw you at Malak and let the two of you kill each other for them. Except that they were wrong. You killed him, and you walked away. So what's going to become of you now?"

He hadn't thought of that. Since the Endar Spire, his only thoughts had been of the next moment, of contingency plans—what-do-I-do-if-I-can't-find-Bastila, how-do-we-escape-Taris, and then how-do-we-win-the-war, how-do-we-beat-Malak. There was no time to think of what he wanted, what lay in wait for him after the war. Part of him hadn't even planned on surviving. He'd almost-died more than enough times, in the past two years. He'd done what needed to be done, with no second-guessing, and now he found himself the last one standing, with no idea what he wanted.

Jolee nodded, as though he'd guessed the direction of Eran's thoughts. "Decide," the old hermit ordered. "It's all wide open for you now, isn't it? Stay with the Jedi, rebuild the Enclave on Dantooine, help the people leaving the Sith Academy, wander the galaxy, become a grumpy old hermit on some backwater planet…" he coloured as Eran glanced at him, but stood his ground. "Don't just think of him," he ordered. "Think about him and what you're going to do with that second chance. They aren't exclusive. And you may just find your way to come to terms with this, while you're at it."

"I suppose you have something in mind?"

Jolee snorted. "All I have in mind right now, sonny, is that I'm going to hit The Drunk Side while I'm still on Coruscant and see if they still have that good old Deralian whiskey. I plan to be thoroughly, thoroughly hammered."

Eran gazed wistfully out at the cold, distant fires for a last long moment. "I'll go with you," he said, and allowed himself to be led away.

While he often took walks there, basking in the glory of the Living Force that surrounded him, Qui-Gon seldom meditated in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Instead, Obi-Wan found his Master in the small conservatory just between the Knight's dormitory and the senior student's dormitory in the housing spire. It wasn't prominent: just a small garden in a tiny, unused room attached to the right wing as an annex. And it was old, Qui-Gon had told him, once—it had been there since the days when his Master was an apprentice, and Janek Dooku had said that it had existed since before Master Yoda's time.

Obi-Wan marvelled at the idea. The Temple was old, he knew, but to think that the gardens had somehow survived all the outrages of the years…that was something, indeed.

In fact, as far as Obi-Wan knew, and he'd searched the structural plans of the Temple on a whim, the records of the conservatory here went back further than he could trace them. There was little trace of who had the garden built, either. As far as the Jedi Archives were concerned, the answer to such questions had been lost with the ages.

Temple Maintenance took care of the plants here, the same way they gently maintained the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and the many other tiny gardens in the Temple. A small, stencilled plaque by the access panel to the conservatory pronounced this the Memory Garden. As always, Obi-Wan let his fingers linger on the bold lettering and wondered why. In memory of what, or who? He passed his hand over the access sensor, and the door slid open. He stepped forward, into the cool illusion of sunlight, feeling the warm breeze on his skin.

The temperature controls here were often set slightly cooler than in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The plants here, too, were different: they favoured the cooler temperatures. Obi-Wan couldn't identify most of them. He hadn't been the best student in his botany classes. There was something he thought could be a Kashyyyk starblossom, and—and—

"Mirklas," Qui-Gon said, quietly, and Obi-Wan started. He would, Obi-Wan thought glumly, never get used to how well his Master could conceal his presence and sneak up on him just like that. Qui-Gon laughed softly in amusement. "A rare plant, Padawan. I saw it once, on a mission to Quelli." There was no admonition to maintain his awareness of his surroundings, but Obi-Wan flushed and determined to do just that.

"I've never seen it before, Master."

"It's the national plant of Quelli," Qui-Gon murmured, absently. "It's native to Quelli, but mostly just ornamental, and valued for its fragrance rather than medicinal properties. They call it the memory plant, and it grows all over graveyards there." He frowned. "It might be the mourning plant—their language elides the distinction there. It's not easy to render it into Basic. All the same, I believe Senator Squinquargesimus has a pot of it on his desk." His eyes gleamed in amusement as he regarded his Padawan. "Almost, in fact, like the claing."

Obi-Wan made a face at that last comment. The claing was thorny and apt to dig deep into the flesh of any unfortunate being who'd gotten caught in it. Like his national plant, Senator Sauno Sauro was prickly. Obi-Wan shivered slightly at the memory of his last encounter with the Senator. Yes, he thought, the claing was appropriate. "But why is this called the Memory Garden, Master? Do you know?"

Qui-Gon gave a slow smile. "Come, Padawan," he said, leading Obi-Wan to the back of the conservatory, where a cluster of trees grew. Obi-Wan breathed in the mingled fragrances of the different flowers as they moved. He thought he could see why his Master came here when he needed peace. The Room of a Thousand Fountains was peaceful enough, but the silence was often broken by the sound of Initiate laughter. Here, there was a strange sort of watchful stillness, as though the Memory Garden had witnessed history pass before it and turn to dust and still it remained.

There was a bench there, beside the ornamental pond, reflecting the pale blue that was meant to be the sky. All carefully-wrought by the Jedi, of course. The sky on Coruscant wasn't really that shade of blue, and Obi-Wan suspected the air would kill the plants soon enough. Although he often found Qui-Gon meditating on that bench, Qui-Gon did not sit down today. Instead, he gestured towards the trees. "Do you know what that tree is, Padawan?"

Obi-Wan frowned, and finally gave up. "It's familiar, Master, but I can't place it."

"It's a wroshyr," Qui-Gon said softly.

Obi-Wan wasn't convinced. "But wroshyr trees are far bigger than this, Master!" He'd seen the trees: towering primeval giants, on a mission to Kashyyyk. They'd impressed him, although he hadn't said as much. His connection to the Living Force left much to be desired but the ancestral trees of the Wookies had left a deep impression on him.

"It's an art form," his Master explained, studying the trees. "On Tagur, the craftsmen have an art of shaping miniature trees. They take a tree and wrap it cunningly with wire, and prune them, and grow them in pots."

"A tree?" Obi-Wan demanded. He was certain Qui-Gon was joking, and he saw the grin that twisted his Master's lips.

"Not quite a tree," Qui-Gon acknowledged. "The process is more complicated than that. Often, they take clippings from larger trees, and so on. This—something like this—is what has been done here, although a craftsman has more to work with when the tree doesn't have to fit a pot." He added, a few moments later, "And when they have the Force to aid them."

"What does this have to do with my question, Master?"

Qui-Gon did not chide him for impatience. Instead, his Master pointed at the plaque set into the bole of one of the trees—Obi-Wan realised he'd never seen it before. He'd never taken a close look at the trees. He'd only entered the conservatory everytime he wanted to locate his Master. Inset were the words, "In memory of Alek." All else was faded; worn away by the ravages of time.

"Who was Alek?" Obi-Wan wondered, aloud.

Qui-Gon could only shrug haplessly. "I do not know, Obi-Wan." He studied the tree, intently. "I don't think we ever will. Some answers are lost to us, now."

The breeze sighed through the starblossoms, through the mirklas, through the other flowers in the room, and rustled the leaves of the wroshyr trees. Master and Padawan stood together in silence, embracing the stillness. It was just a single moment—a single ripple—in the larger river that was the Force.

But it was, here and now. And that was all that mattered.

Housman One line for his monument!

AEH Virgil wrote a poem for him: how much immortality does a man need? - his own poetry, all but a line, as if he had never been, but his memory alive in a garden in the northernmost province of an empire that disappeared fifteen hundred years ago. To do as much for a friend would be no small thing.

—The Invention of Love, Tom Stoppard