Author's Note: Um, I don't particularly like this chapter, but you might, and, yes, the scene with Qui-Gon is of my own invention, which is why it sucks. (Everything seems better in my head than on a computer screen, sadly.) Anything else you want to know, feel free to ask in a review.
I am considering maybe doing some scenes from Episode IV from Obi-Wan's point of view, so if you would like me to do so as a sort of epilogue, please let me know. Otherwise, this is the end of our journey together through the Star Wars movies in Obi-Wan's head.
An Uncertain Future
The conference room on Senator Organa's starcruiser was too white and shiny for my tastes—I would have preferred it if the color scheme had been a gloomy one as black as my mood. Similarly, I would have appreciated it if the chairs were harder, because, at the moment, the last thing I deserved was anything soft. Of course, even if the chamber had been decorated austerely according to my present tastes, I wouldn't have wanted to be here.
I felt as if I was as qualified to be making decisions about the future as the average Neimoidian or Hutt was too teach an ethics class. Yet, Yoda, Bail, and I were the only ones in the position to make these choices, so I would have to do my duty by contributing to the discussion in any way I could, even though I was convinced that at this point I was a liability rather than a help to this particular universe. Oh, well, at least contemplating the bleak future took my mind off the dark past that I could not alter, so there I sat, feeling useless and trying to bully my exhausted brain into thinking about what we were going to do with Padme's body and with the two infants who—at the risk of sounding like a melodramatic actress in a holofilm that never did well at the box offices—might very well be the galaxy's last hope.
"To Naboo, send her body," Yoda declared heavily. Looking at him I thought that recent events seemed to have added more wrinkles to his already creased features. If they had, that made sense. After all, I was willing to offer a credit back guarantee that I had gotten at least fifty gray hairs over the last day. "Pregnant, she must still appear. Hidden safely the children must be kept."
"Someplace where the Sith will not sense their presence," I added quietly, knowing that if Sidious ever learned of the Skywalker twins he would either kill them or turn them to the Dark Side as he had done to their father. As this thought occurred to me, I hoped that an attraction to the Dark Side wasn't genetic…No, it couldn't have been. When I had met him, Anakin hadn't been any eviler than a typical nine-year-old, so the Dark Side hadn't been something he had been born with an inordinate amount of. It had been something he had chosen, and if I had been a better Master or a better friend, he would never have selected that path—
"Split up, they should be," announced Yoda, interrupting my musings, which I hardly minded, since my brain wasn't journeying to anywhere pleasant and probably never would again. Perpetual misery would be my penance for failing the Jedi, Qui-Gon, Anakin, Padme, and the Republic, and I only wished that it was within parsecs of atoning for my crimes.
"My wife and I will take the girl." Bail's head shot upwards suddenly. "We've always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us."
Yes, she would be. Bail could never resist a charity case, which was why so many Clone Wars refugees flocked to Alderaan, and, as a close friend of Padme's, he would want to care for her daughter as best he could. As for Breha, his wife, I didn't know much about her except that she was barren. However, I was aware that most infertile women adored children all the more because they couldn't conceive any themselves. Apart from caring parents, Leia would be raised on a peaceful planet, would be cared for in a palace in Aldera, would be well-clothed and well-fed, and would be impeccably well-educated. She would want for nothing, and she would be hidden in plain sight. Bail's idea was as flawless as anything in this hideous new Empire Sidious had constructed could be, and I nodded my approval of his plan.
"What about the boy?" I asked now that we had resolved the problem of what would happen to Leia.
"To Tatooine, to his family, send him," Yoda remarked, and I winced, recalling that harsh desert world that wasn't about to appear on any list of the galaxy's ten thousand most hospitable planets any time in the next eon. However, sending Luke there made sense. Anakin had a stepbrother there, and the stepbrother would feel obligated to take Luke in, because he was family, and family was the group that had to let you in when everyone else locked you out. Better yet, Tatooine was a marginal world ruled by Hutt crime lords who wouldn't be any more eager to share their power with the Empire than they had with the Republic. The very insignificance of Tatooine would shield Luke, and the savagery of the place would instruct him in the resilience he would need if he and his sister were ever to battle the Empire.
"I will take the child there and watch over him," I stated, thinking that exiling myself to Tatooine with its endless expanses of sand and punishing heat would be a good way of torturing myself for my failures. Seeing Anakin's son grow up would be both a torment and a pleasure, because, as he matured, Luke would probably display characteristics that reminded me of his father and mother. It would be comforting to behold those traits as a reminder that they would live on in some form, but it would be a source of agony when I remembered how Anakin had perished in a river of lava on Mustafar and Padme in childbirth. Witnessing Luke's development would hammer into my head the fact that neither Padme nor Anakin would see either of their offspring grow up. Both of them would have paid high prices to be parents—higher even than most sentients had to pay—and would know none of the joys of parenthood.
Trying to persuade myself that something positive would emerge from our suffering despite the fact that the odds of anything good happening over the next century seemed as great as a Hynoi slug's chances of survival in a black hole, I focused intently on Yoda and asked, "Master Yoda, do you think Anakin's twins will be able to defeat Sidious?"
"Strong the Force runs in the Skywalker line. Hope only we can," sighed Yoda, and I noted grimly that I could not. My ability to hope had died along with Padme, Anakin, the Republic, and the Jedi Order for which I had sacrificed everything. "Done then, it is. Until the time is right, disappear we will."
Nodding his understanding, Bail rose and exited the conference room to give his pilot directions. Copying him, I got up and started to leave as well only to be halted by Master Yoda's voice, "Wait a moment, Master Kenobi."
Wondering what new burden was about to be slung across my reluctant shoulders, I pivoted and returned to my seat.
"In your solitude on Tatooine, training I have for you," Yoda informed me, as I settled myself.
"Training?" I repeated, flabbergasted. I hadn't been aware that any training apart from the typical exercises that Jedi did to remain in peak physical and mental form existed for a Jedi Master. Not that I was complaining. After all, extra training would be something to occupy myself with during my long days alone in the desert.
Yoda smiled, and I had just enough time to marvel that he was still capable of that expression after our lives had been so thoroughly wrecked by Sidious before he went on, "An old friend has learned the path to immortality—your old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Qui-Gon?" I echoed, not caring if I sounded like a broken holorecord, since I was so shocked. In my mind, the dead merged with the Force and did not retain any sense of individuality once they did so. Yet, from what Yoda had said, Qui-Gon had managed to do just that. Such a feat was impossible as I perceived it, but my Master had always excelled at achieving the impossible and succeeding in ventures that a vast majority of the galactic population would classify as insane. Yes, there had been plenty of occasions since the Naboo mission when I had heard Qui-Gon's voice inside my head dispensing advice, but I had been confident that it had been my memory and my imagination conspiring to provide an illusion of his presence in my brain. Now, though, I was wondering if there was some other more supernatural explanation for this phenomenon. Perhaps I wasn't as crazy as I had thought I was. Well, if Yoda was speaking the truth, as he always had in my experience, I surmised that I would discover the answer to this shortly. "But…how?"
"The secrets of the ancient Order of the Whills he studied," replied Yoda. "How to commune with him, I will teach you."
"I will be able to talk with him?" The notion was simultaneously wonderful and awful. It would be so soothing to confide in Qui-Gon and to receive his calm, sage guidance again. However, it would be appalling to admit to Qui-Gon that I had failed in training Anakin. Despite all my best efforts, I had let him down, and knowing for sure that he was disappointed in me was another blow I couldn't take right now.
At Yoda's nod of confirmation, I felt my eyes water and my throat clench. A peculiar combination of elation and misery made my muscles tremble as Yoda explained, "How to join the Force, he will train you. Your consciousness you will retain when one with the Force—even your physical self, perhaps."
How ironic it is that us Jedi should learn this awesome new power now when the Jedi are no more, I observed inwardly, stubbornly clinging to my cynicism in spite of the revelations that were repeatedly rocking my galaxy. Then, taking a stab at optimism, I looked at Yoda and reminded myself that the Jedi might endure much longer if Luke and Leia were educated in our ways, and that Yoda and I weren't dead yet, either. Hearing the thin, high-pitched wail of an infant echoing down the hallway, I almost grinned. Maybe there really was hope for the future, after all.
In the end, it transpired that talking to Qui-Gon wasn't that complicated as I discovered in one of the starship's bedrooms while we were on our way back to Naboo for Padme's funeral. At any rate, physically being able to communicate with him wasn't difficult, but figuring out what I wanted to say to him was. I must have been crazier than an irate reek, since, after all these years of longing to converse with him, I was now at a loss for words. Well, my failure to communicate with anyone effectively was just another fault that I could add to my ever-expanding list of shortcomings.
"Master, I'm so sorry I failed you," I burst out when I could finally speak. The instant the words came out of my mouth, even I thought they were pathetic. Apologies worked when you were a toddler and had dismantled the crèche, but they were not useful when you were an adult who had indirectly managed to destroy the Republic and the Jedi. Sorry did not even begin to make things right in that instance, but, unfortunately, asking forgiveness that I didn't deserve was the only action I could take at the present. "Anakin's joining the Dark Side was all my fault—I let you down."
"Obi-Wan, you didn't disappoint me." Qui-Gon's tone was gentle, but I didn't believe him. There was no way he couldn't blame me, since whatever blame I felt towards myself for all the horrors that had engulfed the galaxy, he must have felt multiplied by a thousand.
"I was supposed to train Anakin, Master, and I made a total mess of it. That was your last request of me, and I couldn't even do that right," I insisted so he would know I wasn't completely stupid. No, my curse was that I could see all my mistakes, and yet I could do nothing to fix what I had done.
"You did the best you could," Qui-Gon pointed out mildly.
"It wasn't good enough, Master." I shook my head rapidly, dismissing this.
"Maybe not, but if you have done all that you can to accomplish something, and your goal isn't achieved, it's not healthy to blame yourself," Qui-Gon responded, and I listened, doubting that anything could lessen my guilt, but at the same time hoping that something could. After all, I didn't think I could live for very long with a heart as weighty as mine was. "Sometimes we pour everything we have into something, and the Force decides that venture is going to fail anyway. In that case, we gain nothing by berating ourselves for not being stronger than the Force. Instead, we should just step back and trust that the Force has a master plan that we can't see or comprehend from our position. If we can have that faith after everything we have worked so hard to build is destroyed, we will know true peace."
"Anakin was the Chosen One, Master," I argued. "He was supposed to bring balance to the Force, not join the Dark Side."
"Or maybe it was the Force's plan for him to turn to the Dark Side," countered Qui-Gon, and I wished I could believe this, so that I would feel less guilty. "Becoming one with the Force has inspired me to take a long view of things, something of which you doubtlessly approve. The Republic was old and rotting from within. Perhaps Anakin was the Force's way of bringing about its downfall."
"Even a corrupt Republic is better than an Empire ruled by a sadistic megalomaniac like Sidious," I protested vehemently. Just about anything would be better than that. Even government by unicellular organisms would be preferable, since at least there would be some level of freedom, although there would be no legal protection and no semblance of order.
"Yes, but a government as harsh as Palpatine's will cause sentients to appreciate their rights, and they will be compelled to fight for their liberties," Qui-Gon reasoned. "With time, this could lead to the formation of a new Republic that could better protect and serve its people."
If that was true, then the Clone Wars had been even more pointless than I had thought. Deciding that even I could not bear to space down that depressing lane, I stammered, "But Anakin can't have been destined to join the Dark Side, because he wasn't evil to begin with. It's too cruel for the Force to just create someone and sentence them to become evil."
"In that case, he chose to become evil, and it is still not your fault," maintained Qui-Gon firmly.
"It is, Master, because if I taught him better, he would never have fallen to the Dark Side," I insisted.
"Obi-Wan, you can't take responsibility for every action that Anakin took. He was his own person, and he made his own choices," Qui-Gon responded sternly. "No teacher is accountable for every error his pupil makes."
"He is if he is supposed to have shown that student not to make that error, Master," I persisted, discovering that I was not used to being a Padawan after all these years of being (an obviously substandard) Master.
"And what if he has and the student didn't listen?" Qui-Gon arched an eyebrow.
"Then the teacher should have made him listen," I murmured.
"Theoretically, perhaps, that is so," conceded Qui-Gon, "but in reality, no Master is perfect, and it is unfair to expect that of ourselves. Besides, if you blame yourself for Anakin's downfall, then you also need to blame me for demanding that you take him as your apprentice when you were so young, and any Padawan, nonetheless one of his power, would have been a tremendous challenge. Then, you have to blame Yoda and the rest of the Council for accepting your request to train him and for doing their part over the years to alienate him from the Jedi. If you split the guilt you feel among Anakin, Sidious, myself, Yoda, and the rest of the Council as well as with yourself, you might find it less crushing."
At his words, I found that some of my guilt was trickling out of me, and I felt inside my chest the faint stirrings of what might one day become a separate peace that nobody in the galaxy could deprive me of. However, before I could say anything else, Qui-Gon left me.
I was alone again with my memories of Anakin, of Padme, of the Jedi Order, and of the Republic. These memories still drove vibroblades into my vulnerable chest, but at least they were dull vibroblades this time, because Qui-Gon's comments had provided me with some of the distance that I needed to step back and examine occurrences with the tranquility and the wisdom only the Force could offer.
As silly as it sounded, thanks to Qui-Gon, I was starting to convince myself that out of the chaos that had torn through the galaxy recently, the Force would ultimately weave a breathtakingly gorgeous tapestry. Maybe I was sitting on a stool below the Force, and I could only see the tangles in the tapestry, but I could still tell myself that the knots served a beautiful cosmic purpose in the end, even if I could never hope to comprehend what precisely the significance was. Sometimes, as Qui-Gon had reminded me, the greatest peace was in acceptance and faith. Sometimes, even though it might seem like the universe was governed by a temperamental drunkard who had less brain cells than a piece of Noki wood, you just had to believe that the Force knew what it was doing. Otherwise, you would drown in an ocean of misery, and there was no profit in that.
We would take Padme back to Naboo for the state funeral that she richly deserved after she had given so much of herself to the citizens of her planet and the Republic, and then I would hand Luke over to his aunt and uncle. After that, I would step back and trust in the Force to guide me as it saw fit. There was a reason for everything, and I had to remember that it was there even if I could not see it, since there would have been no point in believing in the Force otherwise. Then, when the Force finally decided that it was time for me to join it, I would be able to merge with it without sacrificing my identity. Perhaps I warranted a far worse fate, but the Force was merciful, and it wasn't going to give me what I deserved. I could take some measure of comfort in that as I endured my lonely exile on Tatooine.