Author's Note: For some bizarre reason, this idea came to me when I was watching Episode II (I love since I can watch Star Wars even at college with it), and I just had to give in to my impulse to write a scene like this. This will be a once shot unless someone has suggestions for another chapter. This takes place just before the Naboo mission.
Disclaimer: If you believe that I am George Lucas, go play chess with a pineapple, and please don't have a heartattack when the tropical fruit wins.
Reviews: Review or I'll send Dooku after you. (Yes, I am Sidious, but don't tell the Jedi. I hate being killed.)
Wasted Talent
Qui-Gon Jinn had been meditating on his favorite rock in the Room of a Thousand Fountains when he felt a familiar ripple in the Living Force. As the ripple gradually transformed into a wave, he knew that the being who was producing it was approaching him, and, although he hadn't sensed this presence in years, he knew that his former Master was deigning to meet with him again. The thought alone wearied him. Discussions with Dooku were always tiresome.
When he had started out as a Padawan, he never would have imagined that he would feel that way. Ever since he was a crecheling, he had been more attuned to the Living Force than his peers, and he had longed for a deep connection to develop between him and his Master. Yet, that had never happened. As an apprentice, he had blamed himself for this, but now he didn't. Now he knew that Dooku simply wasn't wired for emotion. Like Obi-Wan, he was built for logic, but, unlike Obi-Wan, he was all reason with no room for feeling to intervene. People did not matter to him except as means to an end. Thus, if he was seeking out Qui-Gon, it was because he wanted something, and that something wouldn't be a bonding experience.
"I hope you don't mind if I sit down with you for awhile," Dooku said, as Qui-Gon reluctantly opened his eyes. For an instant, Qui-Gon wondered what would transpire if he stated that he did mind if his old Master intruded on his solitude, but he decided that was a pointless line of inquiry. The fact was that he could not be unjustifiably rude to Dooku now any more than he could have been when he was his apprentice, because the only good thing about a conversation with Dooku was that it made him feel like a fifteen-year-old again. Of course, if Yoda and the rest of the Council were any indication, he wasn't the only one who had difficulty refusing Dooku. The man was certainly charismatic when he wanted to be, at any rate.
"Please make yourself comfortable," Qui-Gon answered, as Dooku settled himself onto the rock beside his former apprentice, looking as though it offended his dignity to do so. "After all, I don't own these rocks."
"No, of course not, because Jedi aren't permitted to have possessions except their lightsabers," Dooku observed with his usual knack of pointing out the pitfalls in everything. Casting a disdainful dark glance over the stones they were perched upon, he added, "Even if Jedi were allowed to own things in their own right, I don't see who would want to buy these."
"I do," Qui-Gon commented as levelly as he could, wishing that Dooku would leave him alone if he didn't like sitting on a boulder.
"Well, yes, I forgot that you were always a nature lover." At this point, Dooku offered what was doubtlessly supposed to be an affectionate smile, but instead succeeded in being a condescending one, as though Qui-Gon were a youngling rather than a Jedi Master in his own right.
Making a mental note never to smile at Obi-Wan like that, Qui-Gon responded dryly, "The logical person might want these rocks, too, because all elements of the natural world can be sold at a premium on Coruscant."
"A fair point," conceded Dooku, bowing his head in polite acknowledgement. "That's why we should talk more, Qui-Gon. You haven't spoken to me in years."
"I have been busy on missions," Qui-Gon reminded him. Thinking that both parties were always responsible for a breakdown in communication, he pointed out, "You know my comlink number. You could have called me any time."
"Maybe I have been busy too," remarked Dooku in a typically enigmatic tone. "Tell me, is your Padawan around?" As he posed this question, he looked hopefully around the room, as though expecting Obi-Wan to materialize abruptly from a fountain.
"He is on a mission in Crimson Corridor," Qui-Gon informed him, naming one of the worst Coruscanti slums where the neighborhood heroes were the drug dealers. "Darsha Assant disappeared during her Trials, and her Master apparently was lost when he attempted to find her. Obi-Wan has been sent to investigate what happened."
"You don't seem worried about him," noted Dooku, arching an eyebrow. "Am I to take this as evidence that you have fully embraced the Jedi stricture forbidding attachment?"
"No, you can take it as a sign of my faith in Obi-Wan's abilities," Qui-Gon declared calmly. At this juncture, he chose to turn the questions on his former Master. "Why are you so interested in my Padawan?"
"You are my apprentice, and he is yours. Since the bonds between Masters and their Padawans are often equated with those between parents and their children, you could say that I am like his grandfather in every sense but a biological one."
"And the sense of actually having met," Qui-Gon muttered, shaking his head. "For Force's sake, Obi-Wan is twenty-five. You can't just show up with a bag of candy and become his friend now."
"I don't want to give him candy," scoffed Dooku. "I want to give him guidance."
"At this late date?" It was Qui-Gon's turn to raise an eyebrow. "He's a few weeks away from taking the Trials."
"Around the Temple, rumor has it that he is one of the most talented apprentices. Even Master Yoda speaks highly of him." Dooku's voice was casual as he established as much. "It never hurts to be connected with greatness, does it?"
"I wouldn't know." Qui-Gon couldn't keep a trace of disapproval from entering his tone. Dooku was too ambitious for his tastes.
"Come now, Qui-Gon. This isn't time for Jedi humility," Dooku chided. "You chose Xanatos as your first apprentice, because he was the most skilled, and you selected Obi-Wan only when you were certain that his anger wouldn't lead him to the Dark Side and taint your reputation by extension."
"You're wrong," Qui-Gon announced, shocked that at his old Master's slant on events. "I am not you. I refused to be Obi-Wan's Master because I was afraid that I would fail as a teacher again. It was all about my inadequacies, not his. I was guilty of fear, but I wasn't guilty of using him."
"You wouldn't be using him any more than I was using you when I maneuvered to get you as my apprentice after I saw you win that lightsaber tournament when you were eleven." Dooku shrugged, apparently oblivious to how callous he sounded. "You were gifted, and I would have been a fool not to involve myself in your training. A Master uses his apprentice to enhance his own standing, and an apprentice uses his Master to gain knowledge. Affection is of no consequence to either party—only what they can gain from one another matters."
"Yoda wouldn't agree with you," Qui-Gon said, appalled. Sure, he had always suspected that his Master harbored feelings like this, but he never knew they ran this deep, or that Dooku would ever express them aloud.
"Yoda isn't always right," countered Dooku, his manner as smooth as engine lubricant. "In fact, he and the Council have become increasingly misguided, in my opinion. The Council once conducted itself with honor and thought for itself, but now it has become a mere tool of the immoral politicians in the dunghill that is the Senate."
"The Jedi Council takes requests from the Senate and then decides whether or not to act on them," Qui-Gon responded, finding it odd to defend the Council for once.
"Theoretically, they do, but they never refuse requests anymore," snorted Dooku. "They didn't even refuse a request to wipe out the Mandalorians."
Flinching at the memory of that debacle, which he had been infuriated at the Jedi Order for being part of, Qui-Gon hesitated for a long moment before answering, "That was a mistake. Every large group makes mistakes. While the Council undeniably should have investigated the circumstances more closely instead of believing the stereotypes of the conduct of Mandalorians, they meant well."
"Maybe." Dooku looked as though he doubted this. "Doubtlessly, they meant well the way a reek honestly wishes the best for the animals it tramples over and gobbles up."
"I don't always agree with the Council." His lips tightening, Qui-Gon shook his head resolutely. "However, I don't believe that they are that incompetent."
"They are as long as they allow themselves to be ruled by corrupt politicians," Dooku contended.
"What alternative is there?" demanded Qui-Gon.
"We could be in charge." When Dooku made this pronouncement, his companion gawked at him, certain that he was jesting.
"Jedi do not seek control over others," Qui-Gon reminded him once he had recovered from his astonishment and once it became apparent that the other man was perfectly serious. "That's the path to the Dark Side."
"You disappoint me, Qui-Gon," admonished Dooku. "I thought you were one of the few Jedi who could think for themselves and didn't go around reciting Jedi platitudes in answer to every uncomfortable inquiry."
"I can think for myself and arrive at the same conclusion as others," Qui-Gon dismissed this.
"Then you honestly believe that the Jedi would do a worse job governing the Republic than the Senate?" Dooku eyed him dubiously, as though he had just argued that muja fruits were sentient. "At the very least we could balance the budget better than the current Senators, who have the proven fiscal management skills of glitterstim addicts."
"At the beginning, we would probably do a better job of running the Republic than the present Senators," allowed Qui-Gon. "However, once we were in power for awhile, it would corrupt us. We would think that we had the right to make decisions for others that we had no business making. I may not like the Senate, but I can't deny that these are the leaders that the citizens of the Republic have elected for themselves."
"Voter participation rates have been declining steadily for decades, and a Senator is basically guaranteed to be re-elected as long as he or she isn't caught naked in his or her conapt smoking hookah on the sleep couch with a nek dog who isn't his or her spouse," Dooku sneered derisively. "An allegedly representative government like that is a Republic in name only and deserves to be overturned."
"If the people feel that way, they will overthrow their government themselves," Qui-Gon pointed out.
"The people don't always know what is best for them. Not everyone has the insight that only the Force can grant."
"Those who don't have as strong a connection to the Force as we do are not inferior to us." Qui-Gon really couldn't believe that his old Master was talking like this. It sounded like he was slipping gradually into the obsidian fathoms of lunacy. "We have no right to force our judgment on them, and we have no business making them conform to our standards of how the universe should be. That is the path to the Dark Side."
"Maybe Obi-Wan will feel differently." As he pushed himself to his feet, Dooku heaved a disappointed sigh.
"While he is my apprentice, you won't make contact with him," Qui-Gon ruled, his pulse rising at the notion of Dooku trying to tempt Obi-Wan as he had Qui-Gon.
"That is very commanding talk for someone who believes control is the path to the Dark Side." Dooku's face twisted as he made this ironic statement. "Are you nervous that he might have an independent thought, agree with me, and refuse to enslave himself to the Jedi as you have done?"
"It isn't slavery if you can leave any time you want." Qui-Gon didn't know how he managed to establish this through a clenched jaw, but he did.
"It is if they train you ever since you are a crecheling to be a perfect Jedi and not question the Council or the Code, so that by the time you are old enough to choose for yourself, what you decide is a foregone conclusion." Dooku chuckled bitterly. "Face it, Qui-Gon. We are what our enemies call us: baby snatchers. We sentence children who have a high midichlorian count to a dangerous life of service just because their parents want respectability points or can't afford to clothe another body, and then we have the gall to tell them that they should be grateful to have a life that contains none of the pleasures that others know."
"An individual strong in the Force who is not trained in how to use his or her gifts is a peril to everyone and will be unfulfilled." Qui-Gon turned away from the other man, disgusted at the bile emerging from Dooku's mouth. "If you ever do speak to Obi-Wan, you'll find that he will be even less apt to agree with you than me, because he follows the dictates of the Council and the Code to the letter."
"Then he is lost, too." Dooku pivoted and strode away from the rocks he and Qui-Gon had sat on. As he walked away, he tossed over his shoulder, "If he is like that, he is a wasted talent, just like you, and he is as useless to me as you are."
Staring at the rigid retreating back of the man who had trained him, Qui-Gon was surprised at how tainted he felt just after one conversation with him. Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he bent over and dipped his palms in the fountain, hoping that the water would soothe and purify him as only nature could, as he whispered defiantly, "I'm not lost, and neither is Obi-Wan. You are, and you're the wasted talent. You're the one who could have given so much more to the galaxy, but all you did was take from it as much as you could."