Picturing the Moment

by The Musical Jedi

Obi Wan reflects on Tatooine. A song fic. FINE

Title: Picturing the Moment
Author: The Musical Jedi
Timeframe: After ROTS
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Genre: Angst
Summary: Obi-Wan reflects on Tatooine
Notes: This is a song fic. The lyrics are from Jon McLaughlin's Indiana. I highly recommend you listen to the song on his website, www dot johnmcl dot com, by clicking on Audio & Visual and then picking Indiana. (Sorry for the weird formatting. I can't seem to make the browser let me put in a web address.) Many thanks to DarthIshtar for her beta and very helpful comments :)

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I'm glad I never lived next to the water
So I could never get used to the beach

I've been here almost a year, and I think I'm almost used to the way the sand drifts, finding every crevice and crack to wedge itself into, forcing its way and widening the gaps. At least I no longer dream of the crystalline water that ran in the Room of a Thousand Fountains or the large lake inside the Temple where I first learned to swim.

The sunsets are breathtaking; they always remind me of the first time I saw the Lars Homestead, carrying that tiny burden, the hope of the Galaxy. There are colors there I didn't know existed: reds that exist between purple and yellow, blues between black and green, even oranges with tints of pink and grey; a blending of shades that have no names and no way to be described to beings who have never seen them.

The sand overtakes everything, even the light from the twin suns, and I can't help but think of Qui-Gon when I see the vast nothingness. I wonder what his thoughts are on all of this; the fall of the Chosen One, the destruction of the Order, and even my new home here on Tatooine. I know he would have found the beauty in such a desolate place.

Much of the time, I just find desolation.

And I'm glad I never grew up on a mountain
To figure out how high the world could reach

I wonder what it was like for Anakin, to grow up here. I didn't really understand what kind of place this is, when we first came here. I was too busy focusing on other problems to sense what kind of world Tatooine is. Qui-Gon would have been disappointed, with his deep, abiding connection to the Living Force. He could never quite get me to look away from the Unifying aspects, to look away from the general theme within the Force towards the individual melodies and countermelodies playing at that particular moment.

I don't find this any particular failure though. I have the feeling that, now, I have more than enough time to live in the moment. There so little left for me now that being mindful of the future has no bearing on my focus on the present.

It almost seems one and the same.

Is that what he felt here, before the Jedi Knight freed him? The inevitability of day following night following day, with little to set one apart from the other? I know he felt destined for great things, but even that must have been hard to grasp and cling to, when your life is little more than a hovel for a home and a blue master to rebuke at the slightest misstep.

Of course, to say I've come much further from that would be laughable.

I loved the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street

The serenity here seems to seep into my bones, though. I never understood how chaotic life was on Coruscant until I became a Padawan, because it was a stark contrast to life in the Temple. Here, though, even the gentle breeze is languid and indolent, and the pace of life is so radically different than the one I've known since I was old enough to know such things that I can almost hear the Force speak to me.

No – it's not speaking. It sings.

I haven't heard the Force sing since I was in the crèche..

I wonder if this is more what the Jedi life was supposed to be. A communing between sentient and his environment, hearing every living thing as the blood that courses through its veins or the sap within its trumk or even the cytoplasm in its one-celled body join in a chorus older than the stars themselves, making the music of existence until it envelopes us all and holds us close.

Or maybe I've just grown too old before my time. False sentimentality seems to be replacing the emptiness I've carried within me for so long.

And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

If I close my eyes, I can almost picture the domestic scene at the Lars Homestead. I can see Beru bustling around their small home, making sure that it's tidied and the small supper is set out for when Owen comes home. I can sense Luke, curled up in a corner somewhere, where Beru has tucked him into a pile of blankets so that he's close to hand.

I know that he has night terrors, and I don't know why. But he cries through the Force, which eddies around him to hide his distinction in the muddied currents, and wakes up with tears on his face. I can feel his dreams, pushing on him, and I know that Beru can instinctually feel them too, even if she can't sense the Force. This is why she keeps him close by – to calm him as swiftly as possible – and because his screams frighten Owen.

I know because I see the same thing Owen does when Luke has night terrors – Anakin's blazing eyes. I see fiery lava and heat in his eyes that shadows that burning world.

I see his love, inert and close to death, and the hatred on his face.

And sometimes, I have night terrors too.

For some, the world's a treasure to discover
Your scenery should never stay the same

In my better dreams, Anakin is always flying his fighter, darting in and out of traffic as he loved to do. Top speed, he could slide between holes I didn't even know were there, just to make such a sharply angled turn that I was sure it would never pull out. That's how I prefer to think of him now – almost convincing myself that the man I loved is more than just gone. Perhaps he's flying somewhere, his essence captured in the Force.

Of course, I know that it's not true, but sometimes it's preferable to tell myself that fiction than remember the truth.

It's not like I could forget the drive in Anakin that thrust him beyond the edge to plunge into the dark. I wonder now if he kept moving in an effort not to see – to forget the things he knew that pained him.

Oh yes, I knew about those things, even when he didn't speak of them. I knew how the last sight of his mother when he first left Tatooine gnawed at the edge of his being, and how she looked the last time he stepped foot here haunted his very soul.

Even if he knew, I doubt he could bring himself to come back to Tatooine, even for Luke.

They're trading in their dreams for explanations
All in an attempt to entertain

I've wondered a thousand times before how it feels for Anakin to have become pawn in the Emperor's massive dejarik game. I can only shake my head when I think of shouted platitudes about what the Republic had come to and the evilness of the Jedi.

It's easier to shake my head than cry.

All I ever knew of Anakin was independence and self-reliance. To see him on Mustafar, to understand what a distortion he had become of himself – I have a hard time even contemplating now, even after so much time has passed. It leaves me yearning for different choices. I should have talked to him about her – I knew! How could I not have known and not wanted to help them both!

How do you love someone so much and not want to help?

Even in those last few moments, we were doing what we did best – a trap had been laid and I was the bait. It just never occurred to me that Anakin himself would be a trap.

I'm not sure I would have believed even if I had known.

I loved the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street

In the quiet moments, Qui-Gon speaks to me. I can hear him laugh, as he teaches me once again, and even in my darkest moments, he is there. I can feel him, cradling me to his chest like he did so many years ago, when I was first brought to the Temple, away from my mother and her man, a man who taught me those sweet lessons.

I had night terrors then, too, and somehow, the Rogue who had lost so much – who had vowed he would never risk himself or, more importantly, another by caring too much like he did with Xan – would come to hold me close, to keep the monsters at bay with nothing by gentle touch and rock-solid presence.

He knows what it is to lose someone you love. He's cried those bitter tears and felt that achingly complete loss.

And if I quiet myself enough, Qui-Gon is there. I know that he is proud of the Padawan he taught, that he feels none of the shame and anguish at what has happened that surrounded me when I first came me.

That still surrounds me when there is too much solitude.

And he keeps it at bay, healing me as I healed him so long ago – by his presence and unflagging constancy.

Ever the Rogue, Qui-Gon can even do that and still be a true Jedi. He understood what most Jedi never do: it's not that the Jedi aren't allowed to love. It's just that we must learn to do it without wanting to possess or influence, to treasure while letting it pass from us. To have without holding.

And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

Does Anakin dream of her? Is there still enough left of him within that monstrous shell the Emperor built to remember her? Does Anakin and Vader still intersect enough for him to long for her?

Vader. Even after everything, I have a hard time remembering Anakin is dead; the man he was no longer exists, replaced by that monstrosity that neither looks nor sounds like the boy who was my Padawan and later my best friend.

My brother.

What does he think about in the quiet moments, when the galaxy stops moving long enough to leave him with nothing but those thoughts?

Does he dream about her? Remember the way she felt against his skin? Her smell?

I wonder if he remembers hold her so tightly that he crushed her, throwing her aside like discarded toy.

I wonder if I'll ever forget.

I try to remember her at the best of times. The flash of joy at her planet reclaimed, the few victories of the Republic. When Anakin came back to Coruscant.

Somehow they all seem to fade to that look of disbelief and betrayal when I stepped off her ship on Mustafar. And that memory blurs into her face as she bore their children, with tears on her face and his name on her lips.

"There's good in him…"

By the gods, I can't believe she's right, but I can't make myself believe she was wrong.

The trick of love is to never let it find you
It's easy to get over missing out

I used to believe Qui-Gon only took me as a Padawan because Yoda left him no option. It took me a long time to realize that it took more than Yoda to make the Rogue do something he truly resisted. I knew that the Force had marked me for him – my Master would be Qui-Gon Jinn or no one at all.

I just thought that Xan was too much for him to overcome.

There were rumors about him. That Qui-Gon was too soft to train his second Padawan appropriately, that he let his golden boy get away with murder, and it was that lack of discipline that made Xan fall. But I never realized that there was another side – too much discipline – until I met the façade that was Master Dooku.

The man was nothing but ice and durasteel, an unyielding, unfeeling conduit of the Force that cared for nothing but results.

My Master rarely removed his undertunic, a quirk I never understood until I was nearly eight years into my training. He had been injured on a mission, confused and disoriented from a combination of dehydration, fatigue, and physical harm. The mission had been an unmitigated disaster, and as I set about ministering to him, I discovered a fine web of scars that covered his back – some thin and others thick, but clearly a premeditated work.

In his eyes, even through the pain, he saw that I knew. And it took me many years after that to understand his reluctance. He refused to be a Master for whom the ends justified the means, and that resulted in the Dark Side distorting a Padawan, a child he had loved. And with me, he fumbled through the compromise of not being close enough to repeat his own mistakes and not being harsh enough to repeat his Master's.

I hope he found solace in me, and I hope he knew that I love him.

I know the hows and whens
But now and then she's all I think about

Solace is fleeting now. There is little enough comfort when I can still smell the burning fabric and lingering ozone left inside the Temple the last time Anakin was there – and the only time Vader arrived.

I also remember the last time I saw her before the Temple burned.

She was so concerned but managed to pull herself into her Senator guise like a favorite bathrobe. She knew even though I had never told her – I loved Anakin too, just as much if not more than she did. He taught me so much and challenged everything I believed in, helping to forge me into the Jedi I am as much as Qui-Gon did.

She was so beautiful that day, in the full bloom of pregnancy, and I could sense her joy at going home to wait for the baby.

I wonder when she realized that Anakin wouldn't be following her back to Naboo.

I hope her children have found the love and devotion in their new families that she heaped upon them even before they were born.

Unexpectedly, I still find tears in my eyes when I think of that sterile ship, with Yoda looking on. The tears on her face broke my heart in a way I didn't know it could. I wanted her to be able to hold her children, at least once, to see what her pure love had given her before the Dark Side tainted even that.

When she pressed the snippet into my hand, I could feel in it a maelstrom of emotion, the strength of which I had never felt in an object before. I wish she could have told me what it was or why it was so important to her.

I hope that burying it with her was the right thing to do.

If – when – Luke proves her right, I hope that she and Anakin are reunited in the Force.

I wonder how it feels to be famous
But wonder is as far as I will go

One of these days, I'm going to run out of supplies and be forced to go to Mos Eisley. While it's one of the smallest cities on one of the least populated planets in the sparsely populated Outer Rim, I can't help but sense someone will recognize me when I go.

I remember the feeling from when I returned to the Jedi Temple after that last mission as a Padawan. In the halls, people would whisper and point me out to others: Sith Killer were the words that would roll of their tongues, whether in Basic syllables, or clicks, or grunts. The idea never changed, and I never became adjusted to the attention.

Eventually, the designation was lost as the Clone Wars inexorably drew Jedi away from Corsucant, flinging them out to the farthest reaches of the Republic.

I'd like to think that the citizens at Mos Eisley wouldn't be savvy enough to realize they have one of the two remaining Jedi in their midst.

No, that's probably not true. I can still sense one or two pinpricks of manipulation out there beyond this system. There are presumably more beyond my limited view within the Force. I wonder how they manage to stay hidden? Have they all but renounced their training? Or taken a path, like local healer, that resembles a Jedi's life enough to compromise their life's work and the desire to survive?

For the first time in my life, I hope they just think I'm crazy. I know enough of the residents who live on the outskirts have seen me roaming around in the wastelands to question how much I really want to survive.

A question that, if it weren't for Luke, probably wouldn't even merit asking.

'Cause I'd probably lose myself in all the pictures
And end up being someone I don't know

I'm beginning to wonder if this is what the ancient Jedi who established the Order had in mind. I reflect on the past so much, because it is the only think I have left to meditate on effectively, that it blends into my current existence and my hopes for what's to come - what few I have - to the point where I have to truly focus to tease apart past from present from future.

Even the man I was stepping off that ship on Mustafar seems a far cry from who I have become in this last commission to the Jedi Order. Yoda himself said that the Order didn't adapt to meet the new demands, to fight the next war against the Sith.

I've often questioned what he would have changed, armed with his new knowledge? I know that I will have to give Luke those first few tidbits to guide him towards the Force and its infinite mysteries.

What do I need to do differently with him than I did with Anakin?

And how do I reconcile that important distinction when I can't even unravel my feelings for my Padawan - my brother - from my failure to him as a Master?

At least I have the time to find the answers to these questions, as well as the others that plague my thoughts.

So it's probably best I stay in Indiana
Just dreaming of the world as it should be

The light is almost gone, and I have to remind myself to go inside before the cold seeps into my very bones. In these instants, lost to time and place within the Force, I remember who I am and what I worked so hard for - fought to become. I've yet to find a moment of despair so dark that I lose myself to it. I can still release my emotions into the Force and even find purpose in the silence with which it greets me.

For without the silence, he would have already found me.

And if he finds me, he will certainly find his child.

And within the silence here, I can listen for the ebbs of the Force, gently pushing me towards my destiny. I know it will take patience, but I learned to quiet my restless thoughts so many years ago on that flight when I thought I was bound to be nothing but a farmer instead of a Jedi.

Will Luke be as surprised then, when he realizes he is to be a Jedi instead of a farmer?

I learned to listen even when I didn't agree through so many years as Qui-Gon's Padawan.

I even learned to learn when I thought I was supposed to be teaching from being Anakin's Master.

My faith is in the Force; it maintains its patterns without my seeing them, and I will trust that its vision is greater than mine.

And if I'm wrong, perhaps I'm as crazy as the migrants here on Tatooine believe.

But I'd rather die a Jedi clinging to that belief that makes me so.

Besides, it's the only thing I have left, other than my two friends in the Galaxy, one who's arguably a figment of my imagination.

Where every day is a battle to convince myself
That I'm glad she never fell in love with me

Sometimes, I can sense her.

I don't know if she comes near because she knows I'm watching over her son or if she has some other reason.

All I know is that I find peace in her presence, a presence that makes even less sense than my Master's.

I've swore to protect Luke because it is my duty, the last one lain before me. But it is a duty made sweeter because it's something I could do for her, after everything that happened.

And, perhaps, I'll someday feel her hand on my cheek and dream about her looking at me the way she looked at Anakin.

But even if I never do, seeing Luke grow to be a young man, Luke who is the son of the two people I loved most even before my Master, it will be enough.

It is enough.