Title: Aftermath
Genre: angst, drama
Characters: Qui-Gon Jinn, Xanatos duCrion
Summary: Qui-Gon Jinn was dealing with the aftermath of Xanatos's betrayal and turn to the Dark as best he could.
Notes: I'm experimenting again, this time with sentence fragments and disjointed plot flow. This follows immediately after my story, Broken Circle.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Qui-Gon Jinn, Xanatos, or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm and Jude Watson do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
He looked like hell.
They say that reflections do not lie, that there is nothing in a mirror but truth, that a person's heart could be seen in the silvered glass.
It was true but it was not until this moment that Qui-Gon Jinn realized just how true it was.
Grabbing at the 'fresher basin with fingertips shaking in exhaustion, he leaned forward and stared at the poor fool in the mirror. Eyes, blood-shot and rimmed with the crusted remains of grief, glared back; an unsteady hand pulled at matted hair, skin waxen in desperation, smeared clots of dried brown across one cheek, a pulpy trail of gore from nose to beard. The man he saw there seemed almost broken - as if he had fought the demons of old legend and lost and had been dragged down into the depths of the underworld to die.
But it was his own face staring back at him.
He shook his head, trying to deny the truth. Surely, it was some other victim of fate's cruel tricks there in the glass. It could not be his face, not that of the Master of one of the brightest students of the age, Xani's Master - not the face of Qui-Gon Jinn.
But he could not lie, even to himself. The mirror kept reminding him of life's harsh reality, much as he would wish to deny it. The lines of sorrow etched into his skin, the nose, misshapen and throbbing, twice its size and still stained with blood, purple bruises framing his face – he knew that it was his punishment for being such a fool.
He was in hell – and it was of his own making.
Xan was gone. Xan was... it seemed impossible but Xanatos duCrion, his bright and energetic Learner, the brilliant example of just what an outstanding Padawan should be and, more importantly, the boy he had thought of as his own son, had turned to the Dark and tried to kill him.
No, that was not... Xan would never do such a thing. And yet the mirror did not lie.
Blinking in the unendurable light, he stared at his swollen face, not really seeing anything, not really thinking. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to think about that life so cruelly torn from him.
But the memories kept returning like slimy ooze seeping past his shields and staining his heart with darkness: Xan's face contorted in rage, hate-filled words splitting the air, the stench of burning flesh as his Padawan pressed the red-hot ring into his pallid cheek, skin melting liquid under the onslaught, the raw ozone hum of a lightsaber swinging close.
The shorn black braid of a beloved apprentice thrown with contempt into clotted blood.
Denial anguished deep in Qui-Gon's throat. Closing his eyes for a moment, he curled inward, leaning his head against the cool surface, trying to fight the images, trying to push it all away.
Reality was not so kind.
He wanted, desperately wanted, to make everything return to the way it was a few hours ago. Qui-Gon had looked forward to a long and happy partnership with his beloved apprentice, his Xani knighted, and the two of them sharing missions and briefings and laughter, relaxing into family.
Fool. Poor pathetic fool in the mirror, surrounded by cold tile and duty. It was his fault, that pathetic lifeform staring back at him in the silvered glass, his fault that Xan had turned to the Dark.
But he could not turn back time nor undo his actions. Now there was nothing left for him but regret.
He did not know how long he stood there, remembering the bloody past. His whole body ached as if it had been hours but it could not have been more than a few minutes.
Then a soft knock at the door startled him back into focus. After all, the people he had come to help were still waiting for him, just outside his room.
There was a gentle, "Master Jedi, are you well?"
He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Well… he would never be well again.
But he knew where his duty lay and so he answered just as softly - that he would be with them in a few moments, that he was just cleaning up and then they would continue with the negotiations, that he was ready to do his duty and help the people of Telos. That seemed to satisfy them for there were quiet footsteps leading away from the door and he was left in peace. Alone, always alone.
His thoughts tried to skitter back to the battle, the hatred on Xan's face phasing in and out as the grief pushed past his shields. But he would not allow it. He would not. Instead, he concentrated on the cold tiles beneath his feet and the echoing white stillness, concentrated on trying to pull himself together and put on the facade of a Jedi.
Jedi - serenity personified. Untouchable and untouched.
Besides he had a job to do and duty, Force help him, duty was all he had left.
With that, he began to swipe at the blood and the sweat, dabbing at gore encrusted in his beard, gingerly cleaning his broken nose. He could not remove the stain on his spirit but he would look the part at least.
That is until he tried to undo his matted, disheveled hair. It lay snarled and stiff with blood, wild tendrils glued to his wet cheek. Somehow, too, it was uneven, as if it had been cut or melted under the heat of a lightsaber blade - not that it mattered. Not that it...
Pain twisted him back into the moment. Blinking into the glass, he could see that his fists were full of hair, as if he had tried to pull it out or removed the offending impediment to his duty. He didn't remember doing such a thing. He should have been disquieted at the thought but he could not seem to make himself care.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he concentrated on the task at hand. The people he had sworn to protect were waiting for him and he needed to think about them above his own petty problems.
Clenching his jaw and looking closely at the reflection, he realized that he would have to cut off the offending hair or try to balance it somehow. He would have to do it slowly and carefully - not this wild destruction. And for that, he would need a knife.
Unfortunately, he knew just where to find one.
He turned away from the glaring lights and cold tiles of the 'fresher, stumbling out into the darkened room, over to his sleepcouch where he had awakened with a happy heart and contentment just hours before.
Reluctantly, he looked down. Qui-Gon knew what was there. He had seen it when he hobbled back into the room after battling his fallen apprentice. Gleaming bright among the torn sheets and shredded pillows, an ornate knife had been plunged deep into bedding and Qui-Gon's spare tunic.
It had been his Pad... Xani's blade, the one that he had brought back with him from Telos, all those years ago.
They had often joked about it. A gift from Xan's father to his young son, the blade was jeweled and sharp and deadly beautiful. His Learner had kept it as a token of love from one he should have let go long before and could not. And Qui-Gon, his fool of a Master, had loved the boy too much to deny him such a gift. Force help him.
He had assumed, wrongly, that Xan would have taken the knife with him, a final token of his father's esteem.
Instead Qui-Gon had found it in his bed, at the centerpoint of a cutting swath of destruction that could only have one meaning. The blade had been thrust, oh so deliberately, into the left side of his tunic - where his heart would have resided if he still had one.
But even with such an obvious gesture of contempt and rage, Xanatos apparently wanted to make sure his old Master truly understood. So, beside the knife, a sheet of flimsiplast lay on the bed with a single word written there - Revenge - and a small broken circle drawn in dried blood.
Leaning over, he pulled the knife out and stood there, staring at the blade. Its glint of grey durasteel, jeweled hilt and wickedly sharp edge spoke of wealth and power and death. Turning it over in his hands, staring at ruinous beauty, he wondered how easily it could slip into skin, the fine edge like gossamer silk slicing through flesh. He wondered, too, if anything so lovely could possibly hurt him any more than he already was.
For a long time, he was silent and still, gazing down at the gleaming line of blade in his hand.
Finally, aching with regret, he turned again and walked back into the 'fresher. Much as he would want to give in, to let go, to fall into despair, he could not. It was not his time and, although he desired an end to the pain, he would not go against the Force, not even for Xan or his own peace of mind.
So he took the blade and began to saw at his hair, trying to even it out - balancing a little here and a clump there, cutting through the symbol of his previous life. Cutting through the joy and laughter and the love of a master for a son in all but name. He was cutting, tearing through the fury and the terror and the grief, removing the tangled remnants of the past.
And he cut a little more and a little more until the floor was littered with the debris of his life, a soft brown carpet of loss.
He would have sliced through it all, leaving a bloody trail of hair and skin and...
Another knock at the door, louder this time and he could hear the uncertainty, "Master Jedi, are you all right? It has gone past third hour and we were growing concerned. Do you need assistance?"
Startled, he jerked back into focus. Blinking rapidly at the glaring lights and white gleam of tiles, his vision blurry with exhaustion, at first he could not see what he had done to tidy his errant hair. He rubbed his eyes clear of the gritty grief and stared in horror at his image in the glass.
Uneven clumps of coarse brush, spots where his scalp was shaven almost clear and there was a wet trickle of blood where the knife has eased into flesh. Gone was the silken mane of his Mastership, his own foolish vanity. Now, there was only raw flesh and bristling accusation.
Qui-Gon stood there, in disbelief. He did not even hear the blade clattering on the floor.
Gazing at the stranger in the reflection, he realized that he didn't know who he was anymore. Jedi stoic, indulgent Master, fool... He was lost, truly lost, in grief, in despair, in emotion. He had lost his way and did not know how to find it again.
But there was no time for recrimination. Beyond, in the hallway, the knocks had turned into pounding and the voices were strident with worry.
Qui-Gon knew that it would be only moments before the lock would open and the crowd would pour in. Gathering what little remained of his strength, he hobbled wearily to the entrance and, swinging open the door, he gazed out into the cluster of alarmed faces.
One heavyset man stood in front, all jeweled opulence and puffed up self-worth, his eyes bulging with surprise, his mouth in a wide oval of astonishment. Stuttering in alarm, the man backed up a step and asked, "Master Jedi, what has happened? You look..." His voice trailed off and he retreated further in confusion.
Qui-Gon waited a heartbeat, looking out into the crowd, feeling their stunned dismay. There was nothing to do but say, "It is nothing. A small accident." He looked at the leader, nodding, "I believe that there is much to do and not much time. Shall we go?"
As he closed the door behind him, limping through the shocked clutter of Telosian nobility, his tall form all stoic dignity and silence, he understood just what he had done. He had been selfish, irrational, foolish.
He had not acted as a Jedi should in the last few hours. Instead, he had indulged himself in a fit of grief and despair, refusing to let emotion go as he had been trained, allowing the dark to pull him close. He had failed Xanatos, he had failed himself and, more importantly, he had failed the Republic and the people he had sworn to protect.
In the years as Xani's Master, feeling the love of a father for a son, feeling emotion like a joyous celebration of life, he had forgotten that to be Jedi was to be untouchable and untouched.
But never again would he allow himself to fail, never allow him to feel again, to love. He would bury his grief in duty and the service to others - as it should be.
For he was Jedi. Untouchable and untouched.
In that moment, he finally realized that he had been right after all. The mirror had not lied.
He was in hell.
The end