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A/N: This is my first Star Wars story, so I would very much appreciate reviews! Be kind and
leave one, will you:)
Have fun reading!
Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to George Lucas, which is most unfortunate, but
the truth.
Leaving Coruscant
Master Jinn woke up feeling as tired and exhausted as though he had just made a long and trying journey, and had gone without any rest at for weeks on end.
It was not like this, though, and he should not be waking up like this, weariness as deeply written into his bones as a burn mark into wood.
All the same, however, he was not too surprised at all. He had gone through quite a few nights like the last during the past five years, and this one had been just like all the others in every way.
Qui-Gon's sleep would be fitful in those nights, and would be disturbed every couple of hours, two or three maybe, by – something.
Not a sound outside the windows, not a movement in the shadows of his bedchamber. Not a nightmare and not an alarming notion in the Force. Nothing that would still have been visible, tangible, there for him to put his finger on afterwards.
The wakeful minutes that ensued, though few, always stretched the night into an eternity.
For minutes, he did not move at all, only his eyes blinking and chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of his breathing.
Lying in the dull semi-darkness, letting the greyness that seeped through the slits between the long curtains, engulf him and weigh him down. Take away his ability to move, and the reality that forced memories back into his mind.
The air in the room felt clammy and stale, like a huge ghost, spread out into every corner, old and empty.
Daybreak was still almost far away, the Temple would still be quiet, slow-paced life going on instead of daytime's vivid activity. Sunrise was still to come, no need to get up just yet. Still, Qui-Gon knew he would find no more sleep.
He knew because he recognized the stale taste on his tongue.
He would often doze off again after waking in those nights, but for that last, final time, he always woke with the same ice-cold, disgusting feeling; a heavy, hard lump in the pit of his stomach, that made swallowing taste bitter and breathing hard to do.
The feeling that you have when a sentence, or a revelation, makes you realize that something unchangeable had happened, and you want nothing more than to make it undone. And know that you cannot.
The feeling always, always had a name.
Today, it was Katalaan.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes once more and tried to detect a gentle shade in the name's resonance, but there was none. Finally, he moved, pushed away the white cotton sheets that were cool and stiff. They did not seem to have soaked up the warmth of his body at all, as if it had fled, was not there at all, or he had not been there tonight, but only a phantom.
He got on his feet and crossed the dark room, leaving it without bothering to wash or dress.
He covered the distance between the bedroom-door and the sofa in the living area slowly, feeling the coldness of the floor beneath his bare feet creep into all of his body. For a moment, he paused and gathered up his dark brown robe. It was cold in here.
He wrapped himself in the somewhat coarse, heavy material and sat on the sofa.
From the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the entire length of the apartment, the twinkling, never-fading lights of Coruscant blinked at him, lights that had been burning all night and would ignite again before sundown already, like a landmark, symbol of the life that never paused in this sleepless, breathless world.
Cloud cars hummed by in close distance, shuttles, ships arriving and departing, people, stories, lives.
Gossip, good news, bad news from simply and literally everywhere, the heartbeat of the galaxy drumming in the fading twilight of a Coruscant morning, in front of a blue-grey, darkness-smudged and star-spotted sky.
But Qui-Gon did not see any of this. He saw Katalaan instead.
Not that he had ever been there. In fact, no on had in a very long while. But, one way or the other, everyone somehow knew what it was like.
was a planet far from the galactic centre, far away from Coruscant, in the Outer Rim, and even there far of the beaten track.
A location that seemed, in a quite sad, or morbid way, fitting. Far from everything, cut off from everything, forgotten. Or, perhaps, suppressed. Almost.
Almost, but not entirely. It was a phantom in the minds of those whose concern and task was galactic peace. A small, huddled, whimpering phantom.
No one ever went there these days anymore, though. No one went, no one came. Only passers-by, those brave enough to risk entering Katalaan's atmosphere for a brief while, occasionally told of what could be glimpsed of the happenings on the planet. Which was, naturally, not much, given the distance of the beholder from the site, but enough to report 'unchanged state'.
Katalaan was a world that had always been wrecked by wars, at least very few people still remembered a time when it had not been so. Hardly anyone got to reading back the history records far enough to end up in a time of peace.
Sometimes, it seemed Katalaan had come into existence covered in war.
It were bloody fights, cruel and ugly. Some halfway organised group against the people, the people against the people, or just everyone against everyone.
And it was only them, the people, there had been no such a thing as a government in a very long time.
Once, Katalaan had been a wealthy planet, inhabited by a people who were competent in trade, turning their far-off small world into a trans-shipment centre for all imaginable kinds of goods, with the tree longest trade routes that spanned from Coruscant into the Outer Rim running together there.
Aside from wares, however, Katalaan had sold progress. Scientific research had always been immensely successful and innovative, adding to the planets' wealth.
But, at some point, and for a reason Qui-Gon could not quite remember now, a civil war had broken out, and their wealth and progress had become their doom. Eventually, those clever people ended up using their finances and the weapons they had developed themselves against themselves, and so it had been ever since the fights had first begun.
Naturally, by now the weapons they were employing would no longer be called advanced,
but that only made their situation worse.
By now, their weapons were illegal, certainly. Fatally dysfunctional in many cases, or invented by some ill mind, glued and screwed together without expertise. Acid that ate away at skin and flesh and bone, poison that ate away on the inside, that stole sight, or feeling, or sanity, or everything.
Katalaan might have been quite lovely, dated images proved it. Not outstanding, not exceptional, just lovely average.
But it was not. It was a place of horror, raked soil, broken, dead plants, rocks that had maybe never been shaped to fit a house-builder's needs; all dirty, brown, black.
The climate had eventually suffered, and it was mostly cold, humid, though neither rain nor lakes or rivers and seas were anywhere near clean.
True, a being could survive in such and unfriendly environment. But no one survived for long on Katalaan.
It was a marvel – no, a curse that, after centuries, life on Katalaan had not at some point just, mercifully, ceased.
Those people were trapped on their planet, shut off from the rest of the galaxy, abandoned, left alone.
No one ever escaped. No one ever even tried to flee. Like war was natural to them.
Once, Qui-Gon had heard someone say that on , people did not speak of peace. They did not remember the word. They would live for a while, somewhere, without anyone nearby dying, perhaps. But there was never a state that would have required, or deserved, the existence of an expression describing peace in their language.
Naturally, the Jedi had tried to help, to set things right.
To ease their impossible lives, at least, to start getting people off the planet and to somewhere else.
Anywhere was better than Katalaan and for once that phrase was entirely true.
But it had never worked, nothing had ever been accomplished through the centuries and millennia of trying.
It was too hard, too impossible, to a reach a people that had no one to speak for them, to be spoken to in their stead. Impossible, to communicate proposals, offers of help when the din of fights was so loud and constant that a single voice never stood a chance of being heard. Or noticed at all.
When those haunted people never assembled because they could not, never had the time, the place, the trust in each other, the safety. When they were always running, criss-cross across their devastated world, ever one step ahead of a death that, in the end, always was one step too fast for them.
Hardly anyone – any Jedi – had ever returned form Katalaan, and bit by bit, the missions headed there had grown fewer and fewer.
Thus, up-to-date information was rare.
No one truly knew what the planet's surface currently looked like, or who was fighting whom. Maybe every inch of soil and water were contaminated now, maybe all was burning and crumbling.
Everyone always was a few steps behind when it came to Katalaan, the latest holo always a few decades old. At least.
But, truth be told, it did not matter anymore.
Even among the Jedi it was, by now, accepted to say that there was no use going to . That nothing could be done, and the risk was too great.
That, sometimes, and harsh and heart-wrenching as it might sound, even the Jedi were better off leaving a people to die.
Still, Obi-Wan had decided to go.
Qui-Gon knew he would, someone had told him yesterday, although the master could not remember now who that had been. Someone who had known nothing about the reasons for the mission, at least nothing that would have been convincing, acceptable.
And Qui-Gon was left to wonder why.
He leaned back on the sofa and released a long, slow breath. He was sick and tired of that question ringing through like a bell chiming on cue with unnerving accuracy, every time Obi-Wan left Coruscant.
Every time, because for year now, Obi-Wan's missions had, in a scary way, all been the same.
Not that they were very much alike. They were not all particularly far away, or close to the centre. Not all requiring diplomatic skills rather than fighting abilities, nor the other way round, they were not linked at all.
Only downright dangerous. Critical, inscrutable, unpredictable.
Of course, to consider something like that worrying was a bit of a strange thing for a Jedi to do. Missions only existed because something became dangerous, at least the best part of them.
And, of course, someone had to take care of the more dangerous ones. But did that mean that Obi-Wan had to insist? Qui-Gon did not think so. Being on the Council, Obi-Wan would not have been expected to take any missions at all.
So why?
When that particular question had first become to very unnerving, Qui-Gon had taken it to his former apprentice, handed it to him and had hoped the young master would help him with it. Like you took a document written in a language you did not know, to a native speaker and counted on him to translate for you.
But Obi-Wan had not provided answers, none at all. If he considered it necessary, he could be annoyingly evasive.
Looking back, Qui-Gon was not sure what he had been expecting. Some clear and logical explanations? Well, that had been stupid then.
Because Obi-Wan never let Qui-Gon see too deeply down anymore. Ever since Anakin had come into their lives.
Not that he avoided talking to his former teacher, or made any effort to keep their paths from crossing. They could talk, give and take advice, bring out the old memories and joke about them. Around Qui-Gon, the young master was as perfectly Obi-Wan as always, as around everyone else. But that was, probably, the trouble.
There were the kindness, the dancing eyes, the friendship, and then there were the shields.
At some point, Obi-Wan had just nudged his master out of his mind, so gently as if he had just guided him next door, saying 'Wait a minute, I'll be right with you', so gently that Qui-Gon had hardly noticed for the first one or two moments. Like overnight, while sleeping.
But quiet and clean as it had been, in its pure simplicity and utter finality, it had hurt like nothing else. Obi-Wan just did not want Qui-Gon in his life anymore.
And that made it so very hard to really talk to him.
And it was why Qui-Gon, from time to time, had silent, nagging doubts about whether the talks they had had about Anakin and Qui-Gon's decisions after the mission on Naboo, had been as resolving as they appeared to have been.
But starting to talk again, Qui-Gon knew, would only lead him in a circle, lead him through the same words and sentences, end him up at the same conclusions.
He sat on his sofa, the light from outside gradually washing out to a brighter shade, and stared at the table, as if there, all the loose ends that kept ghosting about in his head were lying on display, some on the left and a few on the right.
He wondered if he was just too blind to realize how they fit together.
Obi-Wan had a sense for loose ends. On their missions, he mostly used to be the one to suddenly come up with a (occasionally rather wild) net of knots and strings that tied all the seemingly unrelated events together, and he had rarely been wrong.
Thus, asking Obi-Wan would seem like a prudent thing to do.
Yet, Qui-Gon knew that he would not do it. He knew all to well how the tale would continue.
He would keep sitting here like this for far too long, mulling over the same contemplations endlessly, watch the minutes steal from the display of the chrono and hop off the drawer to disappear forever. At last, sometime, he would get up and dress, and do whatever his schedule told him, pass the days without being aware of them, and start breathing again when he finally found out that Obi-Wan was back, sound as safe.
Stupid, he thought, and let time slip through his fingers like desert sand.
The sky outside his windows grew busier and more crowded, the routes that wound around Coruscant filling up with vehicles until the planet's atmosphere looked like a checked shell enclosing the city. Morning traffic.
"I talked to Adi", Siri said, quietly, staring at her long, slender fingers that rested beside her fork on the white cantina table. A gentle, empty smile crept across her strangely pale lips. "But she didn't talk to me.
He's going. They said Yes without asking one question. That's all I know."
Qui-Gon shook his head, and almost invisible movement, wondering and once more failing to understand why in the universe the Council would let one of their members do such a thing.
"I think," Bant said slowly, "that it is time you talked to him, Master Jinn." Her silvery eyes flicked to her yet untouched plate before she went on: "After all, you know what's behind all of it, don't you?"
It was a somewhat tentative question, certainly not rhetorical, but more than a mere guess all the same.
She studied him intently, as if searching for some sign that would confirm her – their – suspicion. Worry was written clearly in her delicate features, much more than in the others'. Being a healer now, she at times showed her feelings more clearly than they would have.
After Tahl's death, Bant had asked for the permission to take a few more classes and retake a few tests, focussing on healing arts rather than on fighting and diplomatic skills this time. She had been bound to become a very fine knight, surely, talented and promising as she had been as a padawan under Tahl's teachings. But with her master she had lost her eagerness in pursuing that path.
Look how a master could at times change a padawan entirely.
Qui-Gon was brought back from his straying thoughts by the other female's voice. Siri, always a bit impatient.
She was gazing at him with her intensive dark eyes, as if daring him to evade her, but her voice was soft. "You know, Qui-Gon", she began, absently chewing on her lower lip, a rare sign of uncertainty, "anyone would be blind not to realize that your relationship with Obi-Wan is very deep. We certainly do know that." She paused and seemed to ponder her next words for a moment.
Siri usually did not make such a fuss over how she put things she wanted to say, and Qui-Gon could not quite shake off the impression that, between her and Bant and Garen, there had been a lot of talking on this particular matter going on beforehand.
"Best friends or not," the blonde Jedi went on at length, "we've run out of ways to talk to him. I do doubt that Maters Windu or Yoda have any deeper insight here than we do, so…now there's only you."
Qui-Gon leaned back in his chair tiredly, assuming a slightly slumped posture that was quite unlike him. He sighed and massaged his forehead with his fingertips, as if to chase away a headache.
He did not bother asking questions like What do you mean, What makes you think that I could do something?, just because he had been asking himself those questions for long enough, and by now they were sounding foolish, ridiculous and stupid to him.
Instead, he shook his head and replied, voice heavy: "Obi-Wan's my superior, not my padawan. Whatever would I say?"
"If we knew that, Qui-Gon", Siri said softly, "we would have said it ourselves already." She turned her head minutely towards Bant as if intending to address her, but when she continued she did not seem to be talking to anyone at all, rather to herself: "It's never been like this before. Suddenly we're a bunch of people just sitting here, not knowing what's going on or what to do."
After a while, Bant rose, said good-bye and left, then Siri, then Garen, and Qui-Gon was alone again.
It was a little after seven o'clock, just about the busiest time of the day in the Temple safe for lunch break, perhaps.
Classes started at half past seven, so, presently, the cantina was bustling with younglings and padawans getting ready to leave, and the corridors were full of small groups making their way to classrooms or the training area, chatting and joking and exchanging news and rumours all the while.
Qui-Gon left the vibrancy of this early hour, finding it to be, in his very own world, very much out of place.
He swiftly wove his way through the vivid labyrinth of groups and people, glad that either no one had anything to say to him today, or he was too quick for them.
The library was almost empty at this time of day, no younglings looking up things for essays or exams, only a few Jedi quietly sweeping through the tall rows of shelves.
Usually, Qui-Gon would have gone to the Gardens on a day like this, when his mind was troubled and he needed to get his world into order, but he had had enough mornings with names to know that meditating would, for once, be of no use. Centring himself just seemed to be pretty hard while everything centred around Obi-Wan.
The master gazed up at the distant ceiling, numberless vertical rows of blue symbols climbing towards it, all the history of the galaxy, every tiny fact, every sliver of knowledge anyone could wish to obtain. It were only aquamarine lights, but somehow they radiated the weight of the millennia they recorded, all the events that had woven in complex interplay a composition that, today, was the galaxy.
Wars, peace, small successes and great ones, defeat, treaties, flora and fauna, geography, physics, distances, customs, laws, victories, losses, the people of Sham'tu will avoid violence at any price, and don't give a Callian citrus fruits, the acids won't agree with him.
Qui-Gon had always found it strange that so many things that must have been like (or had really been) explosions when they had happened, and had been accompanied by screams of fear or joy, tears, fireworks and whatever, could be so silent and, with their blue glow, soothing.
Although, today, nothing really soothed him.
So much quiet, he thought, when there really was need for words.
Qui-Gon had been wandering aimlessly through the shelves, allowing his thoughts to wander as well, maybe hoping that they would just get lost somewhere and leave him alone.
At some point, however, he found himself reading up about Katalaan, which certainly was the most effective way to guide his worries back to him. Clever, he thought with a sigh.
He was sitting at one of the desks in the wide middle aisle of the archive hall, eyes fixed to the screen in front of him.
The entry on Katalaan was not long. It began with the usual description of the planet, then a detailed record of decrees, scientific discoveries and so on. Until the word war was mentioned, then the chronicled events grew continually vaguer and fewer.
Qui-Gon read everything he found, searching for some hint about what might be luring Obi-Wan to that place, but ended up knowing as much as before.
He closed the file and rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling weary. Whatever am I doing here, he wondered. Wasting time sitting in the library and reading things he already knew, when time was really slipping away.
Qui-Gon got up and made to take the data stick of Katalaan back to its place on the shelf and, suddenly, found himself standing in front of Obi-Wan.
The seasoned master had been caught so off guard, that, for the moment, he was glad to let etiquette take over and bowed like he was expected to, facing a Council Member.
Obi-Wan actually smirked, after five years he had not quite gotten used to his master treating him as a superior.
His eyes fell on the stick in Qui-Gon's hand. "I've been looking for that one", he said, "whatever have you been doing with it?"
Qui-Gon made no reply, well aware that, according to etiquette, that was rather offensive. Instead, he studied the younger man. Obi-Wan looked pale, and somehow worn. His eyes were still alight with the same vividness as ever, yet they seemed tired, and Qui-Gon tried to figure if he was just imagining it, or if those cheeks were really a tad more hollow that usual.
He hesitated for just a moment, then slipped the data stick into its slit, letting his fingers rest on it as though to prevent Obi-Wan from taking it out again.
"Can we talk?"
Obi-Wan looked at him quizzically, obviously trying to make sense of the other's behaviour, but eventually he answered, not without kindness: "If it is inevitable."
Qui-Gon nodded. "Alone?"
The young man inclined his head minutely, studying his former master thoughtfully with his keen eyes. "This will do, I think", he said at length, "no one is listening."
Qui-Gon suppressed a sigh, but decided that the reply was fair enough. Talking at all was better than silence. Now, however, he had to figure out what to say. He was surprised to find that, apparently, he was at a bit of a loss all at once, something that hardly ever occurred.
He glanced to the side, hand still covering the Basic symbols spelling Katalaan. Their faint blue glow drifted through his long fingers like some magic crystal ball's light, like it was really just waiting to reveal the answers to all of Qui-Gon's questions.
Obi-Wan stood waiting patiently, hands folded, silent.
Qui-Gon met his gaze again and finally thought To hell with it..
"I would like to know why you are going to Katalaan.", he said, calmly and firmly.
For a brief instant, he was sure he saw a spark of surprise in the other's eyes, as though Obi-Wan had not expected him to know about the mission at all. When he spoke, however, there was none of it in his voice: "You may be assured that I do have my reasons.", he said simply.
Again, Qui-Gon nodded. "Which I would like to learn."
The other smiled and shook his head. "Do you demand justification from all Council Members, Master Jinn?" Look how evasive he could be.
"No, only from you and only in this," Qui-Gon replied plainly.
Obi-Wan's expression grew solemn and his eyes narrowed a bit, although Qui-Gon could not quite tell whether it truly was in annoyance, or just thoughtfulness. The young master sighed, as if the two men had had just begun a tiring conversation they had already gone through one too many times. As it was, they probably should have, Qui-Gon thought. But maybe that little sigh at least meant that someone had in fact asked a few questions, had at least tried to talk Obi-Wan out of the whole thing. Maybe his old master could be the last drop.
"We've received a message telling us that they got a new biological weapon somewhere," the young master explained. He paused, looking at Qui-Gon seriously, calmly. The other returned the gaze, objection clear in his eyes.
"They deserve another chance," Obi-Wan went on, in response to Qui-Gon's unvoiced protest. "They always will, until someone, sometime has the power to set things right for them."
"And you think you do?"
Obi-Wan laughed quietly. "You are not listening properly, Master Jinn. And besides, you know me better than this, don't you?
No, I don't think I do. But I do think that they need to be reminded that, at least from time to time, somewhere someone is remembering how they have to live."
Qui-Gon swallowed hard at this sense of compassion, well known to him. "Yes," he replied, almost whispering. "But what will come of it, Obi-Wan? How many of them will ever know? And for how long? You must be aware that there is no use in trying to help them. We cannot help, no one can. Not for now, at any rate."
Obi-Wan studied his former master, aquamarine eyes unfathomable. After a long silence, he shook his head. "You are wasting your time, Qui-Gon," he said, "since it seems you are trying to make me stay."
"Yes, you are right," Qui-Gon answered, suddenly feeling agitated. "I talked to your friends today, Obi-Wan, I read all that the archives hold about Katalaan to help me figure out what you are expecting to find on that forsaken planet." He interrupted himself, forcing his emotions to even out again. "But I cannot even guess," he went on, "and what you just told me does not convince me. So…" He trailed again, looking away as though he had gotten lost in his own thoughts.
"What are you getting at?", Obi-Wan asked, frowning a bit irritably. Qui-Gon's silence, born of a momentary loss for words, gave the younger man time to ponder the conversation, and, in the end, he knew his former teacher well enough. "What are we talking about, Qui-Gon?" he asked.
Qui-Gon drew a deep breath, his grey eyes looking troubled. He gazed at Obi-Wan with very uncharacteristic uncertainty for a moment, but then there was resolve, the kind that just silences every doubt because it has to. "We need to talk about Naboo," Qui-Gon answered, "about Tatooine, Anakin, everything that happened ten years ago."
With that one sentence, and with one breath that was exhaled, a frightening amount of strength seemed to leave Obi-Wan, and suddenly he looked very fragile and exhausted.
Qui-Gon was surprised. He had anticipated to have to wait longer for a reaction he could interpret. Even more, however, he was suddenly worried. Why was Obi-Wan so pale?
"No," the young man said quietly, "I cannot talk about this. Not now." He paused running a hand over his eyes that were distant as they stared at the floor for a moment. "And we have spoken about it, Qui-Gon, not only once."
"Yes, I know", the older Jedi replied intently, "but I can't shake off the notion that something is still amiss."
He was silent then, knowing that there would be nothing else to do than to wait. If Obi-Wan sent him away now, he knew he would accept it, would have to. There were boundaries, in everything, and he was standing at one now. The danger of hurting the one who was still very precious to him, was too great and unpredictable.
Still, Qui-Gon hoped that this would not be the end of the conversation.
Obi-Wan turned to the side and leaned against one of the shelves that towered around them, staring ahead as though he were studying the files opposite of him. He felt endlessly tired and not too steady on his feet, and if he could he would have disappeared on the spot. He had not expected something like this, had not expected Qui-Gon. Not in those last few hours, anyway.
Almost, he smiled. Trust his master to get everything into disarray when you really couldn't use just that.
It would have been a lie to say he would not mind a talk about Naboo, Anakin, and so on. It was the last thing he wanted. But for a reason, his own words kept resounding in his head. Not now. Not now, he thought again. Really, Obi-Wan. If not now, then when?
He straightened up and gave Qui-Gon a short glance, then he started walking. The older Jedi followed, and soon they had left the library and were following the wide corridors of the Temple. It would have looked like a comfortable morning stroll to anyone.
"Well?"
"You always said that it was all fine," Qui-Gon began, "but I think you must have been lying?" He smiled, and that was evident in his voice.
Obi-Wan inclined his head. "What do you think is the truth, then?", he simply asked after a moment, unwilling to go through endless questions and answers. The shorter, the less painful, he thought. Maybe.
Qui-Gon sighed. Do I seem like I knew?
"I have no idea. That is why I am bothering you with this again, you see?"
Obi-Wan looked at him, eyes switching their shades with the light-and-shadow patchwork they were passing through while walking along a row of high windows.
"Well, I don't know it," he said, offering a smile that stayed miles away from his eyes.
"But you have to help me, Obi-Wan", the other replied. He wished he could find a hint, just a tiny clue that would put the proper words into his mouth. All the conversations they had ever had since ten years ago, were replaying in his mind, but they all looked perfectly clean and straight, no catches or deceitful stray lines. At length, he just said what came to his mind: "Look, I love Anakin. I would not have been able to stand the thought of leaving him there, as a slave, on that desolate planet. Leaving him to nothingness while he is force-sensitive and talented, and clever.
But sometimes I wish I would never have met him, just for the sake of you and me, for the sake of not having to go through this now, for the sake of not having to live with the awareness that I hurt you. I wish we would not have had to land back then, would have gotten a bit further than Tatooine, or a bit less far."
He glanced at Obi-Wan, and found the young master smiling, as if he had known Qui-Gon felt this way. "You would have met him otherwise then," he replied, without hesitation, without rue. "It was meant to be, Master. It was all meant that way. Fated. It was not your fault."
"I hurt you, Obi-Wan."
"Yes", quietly. "You were meant to."
Qui-Gon stopped and when the other turned to him, he found grey eyes staring at him in disbelief, and sadness. "Obi-Wan…is that what I have become to you? In your life? The one that was meant to hurt you?"
Obi-Wan returned his gaze, steadily, but with a tinge of something that looked like helplessness. He gave no answer.
Qui-Gon felt a lump in his throat, threatening to choke him. Suddenly he was certain. He cursed all those names, all those mornings when he had sat in his apartment, thinking, wondering, staring at lose ends that he had never stringed together.
It was his fault, all of it was his doing.
"Obi-Wan," he said, voice pleading, "I'm sorry. I beg you, stay here. Stop taking those missions. Stay here and let me set it right."
Obi-Wan gave him another quizzical look, out of curious blue eyes. The missions?
"What makes you think you can?" He paused for just a moment, then he turned to continue their walk.
They arrived at the entrance of the Hall of Fountains. Obi-Wan turned to his former master and watched him thoughtfully. Then, surprisingly, he smiled. "You think I've been picking out dangerous missions because you hurt me?", he asked.
Qui-Gon said nothing, his throat tightened so much that he knew no words would be small enough to escape. It was one thing having a realisation like that on his mind, horrible enough a thing, in fact. But it was another thing still to actually hear it loud and clear. As if pronunciation only put reality into the truth.
Obi-Wan's smile, though tired, did not falter, though. He pushed the opener of the door behind him and said: "You're wrong."
"I don't believe you", Qui-Gon simply replied. "Don't evade me now, Obi-Wan, not now. We're halfway down the road, let's walk it to the end this time."
Quietness seemed to stream out of the open door to the Hall of Fountains, laced with gentle rushing, and nothing else. It should have been pleasant, but all it did now was to enhance the weight of Obi-Wan's own silence.
The young man was fixing his companion with pensive, somewhat wary eyes, and this wariness made Qui-Gon's heart sting.
"We have walked to the end, Master. Every other step would only take us beyond. And whatever are you hoping to find beyond a road's end?" He paused briefly before adding, in a voice almost too low for the other to assume he was being addressed: "Usually there's only wasteland, nothing worth going."
"Nothing worth going?", Qui-Gon repeated, "Like Katalaan?"
Obi-Wan's gaze flicked up from the ground, suddenly defensive. He turned on his heel and entered the Hall of Fountains. It took only a few moments for the doors to close behind the two Jedi, shutting out anything that was not quiet and calm.
"I never lied to you, Qui-Gon"; Obi-Wan said after a while. "I do understand why you handled things the way you did."
"Then what is amiss?" the other asked, not losing a breath, unwilling to give his former student the time to change his mind and close off again.
The young master shook his head, one hand going up to his brow, as if he had a headache. He took a deep breath and stopped, hesitating just a single moment before looking directly at Qui-Gon. "You only made one mistake, Master", he finally began, "you failed to give me one last explanation." A ghostly smile crept onto his pale lips as his eyes strayed. "I know how foolish that is," he went on. "I know I should have been clever enough to figure out such an issue by myself. On the other hand … I can't even explain it now, you see?"
He fell silent, as if pondering his next words, and when he met Qui-Gon's gaze again, the smile was gone.
"It is just that – you always had the answers, to everything.
On our missions, especially the early ones, I would come across things that I could not comprehend because they were cruel, or unjust or … just sad.
You always could tell me why they had happened. At least the answers were enough for me.
I believe I was simply relying on you to have the answer this time as well. To why the Force meant you to find Anakin and to train him, to why it was destined that there was no other way.
Well – you didn't have it. Which does not burden you with guilt, which does not make you responsible for anything I do."
He ended, and Qui-Gon could only stare at him. So that was it. Suddenly everything was crystal clear, the lose ends joined, and he understood the hurt that the young Jedi still felt.
Deciding to take Anakin as his padawan, Qui-Gon had been sure Obi-Wan would understand.
But, in all honesty, even Qui-Gon with his unshakeable faith in the guidance of the Force, had learned that the fact that something had been ordained, did not necessarily make it right.
And it certainly had not made it right for Obi-Wan.
The younger Jedi was strong in the Unifying Force, he believed in destiny and that some things were meant to be.
But he also believed in one person's power to change everything, and in the possibility to chose and shape the path that led to destiny.
And he had believed in Qui-Gon, he had trusted him to find the path that would have fulfilled Anakin's fate and kept Obi-Wan safe. He had been sure that it had existed, and he had trusted his Master to chose it.
But Qui-Gon hadn't.
"Obi-Wan," he began, "I'm so sorry. I – we can make this right, I know it. Just stay here
and –"
But Obi-Wan cut across him. He raised both hands in a gesture of rejection and said: "There is nothing to make right, Qui-Gon, none of this has anything to do with Katalaan, please believe me."
Qui-Gon would have none of that, however. "Listen –"
Again, Obi-Wan interrupted him, voice suddenly a bit cooler. "I have to go now, I'm afraid. My transport –"
"Will not be leaving until midday, will it?"
Obi-Wan said nothing. Qui-Gon did not know whether his information was correct or not, but he knew his former student would not lie to him, and read his silence as a confirmation, though reluctantly given.
Before he could speak up again, however, Obi-Wan said, in a voice too low to still be really calm: "I want you to cut this out now, Master Jinn. My missions are none of your business. I have to go now." He turned to leave.
All at once, Qui-Gon had enough as well. He grabbed Obi-Wan by the shoulders and held him back. The young man immediately tensed, eyes defensive, and for the briefest moment the older master thought he felt him sway, but he ignored it.
"No, you cut it out", he said. "We can talk this through, there is always a way. Why are you so trying to leave things undone? Why, for everything in the universe, do you want to die? What is wrong with you?"
"I have leukaemia."
Within one moment, every sound in the Hall seemed to die and the air seemed to vanish.
"What?"
"I have leukaemia, and I do not want to die", Obi-Wan repeated calmly. "Let me go, Master Jinn."
Qui-Gon obeyed, but else he did not move. He was trying to grasp what he had just heard, but the words were like slippery, flexible animals that kept flitting through his hands, always too fast for him.
Obi-Wan let out a deep breath, either a bit unsettled about the turn the conversation had taken, or just downright exhausted. Maybe, probably, he had not really wanted to say that.
Now that it was out, however, he did not make much of a fuss about keeping to silence anymore.
"Well", he said, "my life's dwindling, so why endanger other people with those missions?"
"I don't believe you", Qui-Gon said, the first words that he could bring across his lips, and a lie.
Obi-Wan smiled, and shrugged.
Qui-Gon swallowed hard, painfully.
He had not imagined the hollower cheeks, the slight weakness he had been able to feel touching Obi-Wan. The pallor of the younger man's lips and skin.
He was silent for long while, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down again, waiting for sound to return and waiting for something to remind him to breathe. But none of that really happened, not in a way that would have allowed everything to fall back into its proper place again. The world remained a little wrong, for now and forever after that day.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Qui-Gon asked, voice raspy and empty, like dusty glass.
Obi-Wan laughed quietly. "I would never have gotten rid of you again!" he replied, as if they were talking about some silly habit. Then, however, he grew solemn again. "You never would have let me out of your sight again, would you?"
"Of course not." Qui-Gon said, his grey eyes dancing between a few invisible spots somewhere in the grass behind his companion.
The young man smiled. "And for all the times that you would have been with me, I thank you.", he said.
"I wasn't with you," Qui-Gon responded flatly.
In his life, he had received many bad news. More often than good news, in fact. Maybe that was just part of the job. But how, he wondered, how does it feel to get that kind of news? And how does it feel to deal with them all by yourself?
Somehow, these two questions stole the air from his lungs right now, after all the difficult ones that had already been answered today, these two were almost unbearable.
"No, and that would never have worked, Qui-Gon. How could you have?
Your life can't be turning around things that don't belong there. You have Anakin. He is your life now, you have to be there for him, not for me."
Qui-Gon looked at his former apprentice, searching his aquamarine eyes for anything that would have made this easier. For something that screamed anger, hatred, disappointment, anything. Something that told him that Obi-Wan had not kept all of that to himself because he believed it did not concern Qui-Gon's life.
"Yes", he said helplessly, "Anakin is my life now. But you still are incredibly important to me, Obi-Wan."
"I know. And it's good to know."
Qui-Gon swallowed hard, and was not quite sure whether he was just imagining the taste of tears.
"Sometimes I don't know what to answer you", he said quietly. "I made the choices that paved the road that brought us here. You've got reason to hate me."
Obi-Wan laughed again. "I'd be a fool if I did that, and I would not want to."
He inclined his head, staring at his hands for a moment. Hands, Qui-Gon suddenly noticed, that were suddenly so thin, they looked breakable. "I need to go", Obi-Wan said. He glanced up at his old master and smiled. "Really, this time."
Qui-Gon drew a shaky breath, his eyes, for some reasons, stinging all at once. "Obi-Wan…", he began, his voice faltering, but he willed it to go on: "Don't go, still. Katalaan is too …" Words failed him and he paused, collecting himself. "What about your friends?", he asked then. "What about Bant – I spoke with her today, and with Siri. She seemed so down.
Do they know?"
"No", Obi-Wan replied, "only the Council knows. And you." His pale lips curved into a faint smile. "You won't find any loose ends to tie me to here, Qui-Gon.", he continued. "There are none. I said my good-byes … in certain ways. They will understand, in time."
Qui-Gon ran a hand over his eyes, as if he wanted to wipe something away, a veil that blurred his sight and put all these untrue things into his life. He sighed and looked at the younger man again.
Obi-Wan said nothing, just held the other's gaze for a little while, with steady blue eyes that looked as calm as though nothing would ever be wrong, nothing at all.
Then he turned as if to leave, but halted even in mid-movement.
"Will you promise me something?"
"Anything."
Obi-Wan nodded. "Promise that you will not spend the rest of your life looking for that answer I am missing. And wondering what would have been if you had found it in time. Because nothing – nothing would have been.
You made small mistakes, master. Not the fatal ones.
Things just go the way they do. You taught me that, but, to be honest, I don't think you've quite learnt that lesson yourself.
Learn it. Do that instead of looking for answers that, perhaps, do not even exist.
And promise me to know that you are not guilty. Of nothing."
Qui-Gon was silent. He looked at his former student, hear all this words resound in his head. How long, he wondered, would it take for him to comprehend what this long conversation had told him? How long would it take for him to grasp the reality of it all. For now, he barely felt the ground beneath his feet.
Blue eyes were studying him intently, and, finally, he drew a deep breath.
"Promise," he whispered. He would do his best, if this truly was the only thing he could do for Obi-Wan.
The young master smiled, and let himself be enfolded in Qui-Gon's arms.
"Farewell, Master Jinn", he said.
Qui-Gon swallowed hard once more. "Can we talk when – you're back?"
He had no idea where the words had come from, and they sounded silly.
There was no answer for a very long time, the silence in the wide Hall oblivious to the light-hearted water's rushing. Eventually, however, Obi-Wan nodded, a slow and hardly detectable movement. "Of course," he said, very quietly.
Then he gave his old master a nod and left him. It was almost midday.
It was the same silence, every time he was here, the same soft warm silence that filled the entire room and smiled kindly at its visitors.
For the first time (at least as far as he could remember), it struck Qui-Gon as somewhat strange that there was never so much as the tiniest change in the atmosphere here. Perhaps that was just telling when it came to the other people present, though.
Evening sunlight filtered in through the generous windows, and beyond them a muted Coruscant fluttered by, following its own fast pulse, the racing heart that sometimes seemed just a trifle away from skipping a beat.
But inside it was all silent. Calm and quiet.
Qui-Gon's gaze was glued to a sky-scraper far off in the distance, and elegant building, pointing up into the dissolving blue like a needle of gold.
Another thing the seasoned Jedi could not remember having ever done before: standing in front of the Council with straying thoughts.
He had even asked for this audience himself, so his behaviour was a still greater wonder to him. But maybe, just maybe, he had forgotten a tiny detail when deciding to make this appointment. Tiny, but crushingly powerful.
Now, of course, he wondered how he could have missed it. Or maybe he had not really missed it at all, just … well, just what?
The golden needle disappeared, everything vanished from his sight as he reluctantly followed that line of thought, back to the feeling of shock that had grabbed him upon entering the Chamber some minutes (only a few minutes, right?) ago. The stupid, silly feeling of shock that really should not have been there at all, because he had come upon nothing unexpected at all.
It only looked very strange, the empty seat between Mace Windu and Ki-Adi Mundi.
And Qui-Gon had to admit that he had, obviously, just not been prepared for that.
So, now, although the shock was gone and had been replaced by something indefinable, he was staring out of the window as if he were nowhere important at all.
"Master Jinn", Mace Windu said at long last, forcing sea-grey eyes to look straight ahead again, back at what they did not want to see.
Windu's dark eyes studied him intently, but he kept whatever observations he made to himself. Instead, Yoda spoke up.
"A fight there is within you", he remarked in his raspy voice. "Tell us about what it is, you want to?"
Qui-Gon drew a deep breath and shook his head, a gesture that said I don't know much more than it would have signalled refusal.
"Fear, I sense in you", Yoda said emphatically. "A long time ago it was that last this happened. But all the deeper it runs now, after so many years, it seems." He paused, watching Qui-Gon out of attentive eyes. "Careful, you must be."
"What brings you to us, Master Jinn?" It was Mace again.
Qui-Gon met his dark gaze, hesitating. Finally, however, he answered: "I was wondering … whether you have received any word from Master Kenobi."
How the Chamber remained silent! The same silence, all the while. It was unnerving right now, no notion, no hint, nothing at all. Twelve pairs of eyes rested on him, steadily, calmly, unspeaking.
Some padawans tended to get nervous before the Council, and it was understandable. The silence was gentle and warm, but it was utterly unrevealing.
Yoda fished his gimer stick from where it was leaning against the side of his seat, planted it in front of him and put his wrinkly, three-fingered hands onto its top.
"Go to Katalaan, you want to?", he asked, eyeing Qui-Gon with an unreadable expression on his face.
Inwardly, Qui-Gon sighed. That is not an answer. The thought shot through his head faster than the unease at Yoda's question.
Certainly, silence was an answer as well. Maybe, it had been the answer.
The long-haired master inclined his head, as if the Council Head's enquiry made him feel a tad ashamed.
"I came to ask your permission for that, yes", he said quietly. "But now I'm not sure."
He did not see the look Masters Windu and Yoda exchanged, caught up in a game of pro and contra, yes and no that had preoccupied him for days on end now.
He only looked up when he hear faint rustling, looked up to find the tiny green master slipping from his seat and coming towards him.
In front of Qui-Gon, Yoda stopped and blinked up at the tall man with his huge green eyes.
After a moment, he lifted his stick and tapped Qui-Gon's arm with its knobbly end.
"Come with me, you will", he declared, and promptly began to make his way towards the door.
Qui-Gon stared for a second or two, then he pulled himself together, bowed to the remaining Council members and followed Yoda.
Outside the Chamber, they rounded a corner and ended up at another line of windows, one of which Yoda chose as his vantage point. His keen gaze wandered through the airy lanes between the buildings of Coruscant, but not for long. Soon, he turned to his companion.
"Your doubts about your wish", he said, "come from where, they do?"
Qui-Gon looked at him, troubled, but gave no reply. It was complicated, at least to him, and there would have been so much to explain, so many words that would have needed to be carefully chosen, and he would say either everything – or nothing. And he was tired, so he stayed silent.
Yoda did not rebuke him for that. He hardly ever minded missing answers, maybe because he knew most of them already anyway. And so it was this time. "Because of your talk with Master Kenobi, doubts you have, hm?"
Qui-Gon nodded. He frowned, looking away now. "I just don't understand how the Council could –"
" – allow it to happen?", the troll finished, his long, spiky ears lifting minutely with the quizzical intonation of his words.
Qui-Gon's chin went a tad forward, as if to defy what he probably knew was to come now.
Yoda well noticed the reaction, but did not spare the other a little monologue all the same.
"What was there for us to forbid, you reckon?", he asked, not without kindness in his croaking voice. "Power over fate, we hold not. And if Obi-Wan's leaving it is, that referring to you are, then tell you this, you will let me: One of those creatures, your little padawan is, that one must not fence in. Lucky we were that, apparently, like our cage, he did. Else, flown off like a bird, he would have, as already we have seen in the past."
The diminutive master picked up his gimer stick once more, and this time pressed it against Qui-Gon's broad chest. "Your padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi no longer is", he told him insistently. "Understood, of course, you have that", he went on, lightly tapping his own head with his finger. ""But comprehended as well?" He tapped his chest, just above his heart. "Your life you have to live, Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan is at peace with his."
He studied Qui-Gon pensively, then, suddenly his thin lips smiled, ears going up in the process. "Know you, your former apprentice did well. Told me that you would end up with me, he has."
Qui-Gon looked at the ancient master, puzzled, and Yoda's smile widened a bit. But then it fell, just a moment later, the ears drooping, though not to point of expressing sadness yet.
"Talk with him a lot, I did", he said quietly, and suddenly, a deep sigh escaped his wise lips. "Sad, Qui-Gon, he wants you not to be.
Amongst the paths that are laid ahead of us, not always is there one that will lead us to a happy ending. And hard it does come to me, too, to be joyful now." He paused, and Qui-Gon had to swallow an oddly heavy lump in his throat. It was a rare thing to hear Master Yoda admit something like that. "But change its ways because of us, destiny will not. Things go as they will, they do. Listen to Obi-Wan, you must. Learn the lesson."
"Yes, I know", Qui-Gon said, tiredly. "It is just that in the end, everything went a bit too fast, I think."
Yoda merely nodded.
"There was so much I would still have liked to say, so much I would have wanted him to know. But all of that only occurred to me much later, long after he'd gone. I'm starting to believe that my head was completely blank the day we talked in the Hall of Fountains."
"No", Yoda replied, "believe so, I do not. But a life, too long it is to be recollected in only half an hour, especially if a shared life, it was. Obi-Wan knows such things, Qui-Gon. What you wanted yet to tell him, know all of it, I am sure he does. Somehow."
"I should not go to Katalaan, should I?"
"No."
Qui-Gon sighed, but nodded. "I don't think I ever really intended to go. Because I know Obi-Wan would not want it. It's just – it's been a long time already, hasn't it?"
He looked at Yoda, and the tiny master blinked up at him calmly, his small hands folded atop his stick.
"Yes", he said, and after a short moment of silence, inclined his head and left Qui-Gon alone at the window.
So Qui-Gon stayed.
The days proceeded to fly by like they always had, one after the other as if they had no time to dawdle, as if they had somewhere to be and could not slow down.
Qui-Gon ran into Siri and Bant, of course, more than once, but he was too tired to evade their questions, to pretend he had not heard them or give meaningless answers.
He just said what Obi-Wan had said: that they would understand. In time.
And he really trusted they would. Siri, with her ardent spirit and her infallible ability to always find a way that would carry her across the next abyss. Bant, with her optimism and her habit of, eventually, seeing only the good and beautiful things of the past.
And Qui-Gon?
He could hardly believe how calm he had been that day Obi-Wan had left.
He had remained in the Hall of Fountains, his thoughts racing, a confusing whirlwind of screams and whispers, and he had closed his eyes, wishing they would stop, leave him a little peace, a little time to get to terms with his here and now and to decide what to do.
It had taken him a while to realize that he had been holding on to them, frantically, that he had not allowed them to calm down. Why? He did not know. Maybe because calming down would have meant acceptance, finality. Maybe because there were, even for Master Qui-Gon Jinn, moments when he failed to understand his very own feelings.
Eventually, however, he had let go, released everything into the Force and stripped off the heaviness of it all, and it had not even been that hard to stay away from the docking bays anymore.
He'd had promised Anakin to watch his 'saber practice after lunch break, and, after all, Anakin was his life now, right?
Yes. But how he had been fool enough to believe that the confusion and emotional upheaval had been gone for good!
Of course thoughts returned, one by one, when he was not paying attention for a brief moment, too focussed on a task at hand. They would sneak up on him, following around like shadows of light, invisible and less substantial than air, and just wait for the smallest instant of carelessness – and they were there.
They would stop him dead in his tracks, freeze every movement, suck his breath out of his lungs and soak up his surroundings with frightening entirety.
For a while he tried to battle them, but not for long. Soon, he learned to live with them, loose his touch with reality a little less each time they came to visit, feel a little less light-headed and paralysed. He learned to sit with them, welcome them even, because at long last he knew that this was what Obi-Wan had asked him to do, asked him to promise he would not run from.
Because, in due time, he found himself staring across the table at the very same question that Obi-Wan had struggled with: It was meant to be like this, but why?
That particular one ghosted about in his world for long, and it was the only thing in his entire life that ever brought him to tears. Real, hot, free-flowing tears.
But, in the end, it also was what finally taught him Obi-Wan's lesson, and he had to smile.
All those years, he thought, you never came to me and asked me why the Force commanded me the way it did, why it had to chose us, why it could not just leave us alone.
Because, naturally, you knew I could not have given you the answer.
That we would be standing, helpless and powerless, in the face of a overwhelming reality and there would have been nothing within our might we could have done to once be able to say 'like we used to'.
You were afraid of that, I believe, but you did not run from it all the same.
Things go as they do, no way of changing that.
And in the end, Qui-Gon just knew. He opened his eyes, sitting cross-legged in the Hall of Fountains, and knew it.
It was strange.
It did not feel like something was being ripped out of his soul, like a part of him was suddenly gone, or like a stab in his heart. Nothing like he had expected it to feel like.
It rather was as if someone took their hand away after it has been resting on your shoulder for a very long while, and afterwards the air feels cold against your skin there.
You made it all so easy for me. So painless, Qui-Gon thought. Because you have been keeping our lives separate for such a long time already, it almost didn't hurt.
Still he waited long before the grass beneath him became tangible again and the world around him was stable enough to live in it. The old, new, forever changed world.
Note: I know that, in a galaxy far, far away, people will probably have found a way to heal leukaemia, but the story was somewhat inspired by an episode of Scrubs (the one in which Jordan's brother Ben is diagnosed leukaemia) and I didn't want to make up an illness.