"You deserve better of me," Shmi's murmur echoed her thoughts quite closely. She stood near my seat in the passenger compartment, a welcome interruption from my half-hearted attempt to study a treatise on Galactic probate law. "I'm sorry."

As I turned to look at her. The fear I had felt earlier - of what I had done, what I could do - was still there, but had faded greatly in a matter of hours. Instead, it was gratitude I was feeling now, with an undercurrent of… attraction. Nothing on the surface, though: a harmless and wistful fantasy, likely to be quashed soon. The lack of hope in her core made me want to weep.

"As I said, you're a free woman. You owe no debt to me," I insisted, putting warmth into my own eyes as I met her.

"Padme told me," Shmi swallowed, "the money that took my Annie and me away from there, away from him, was your own. Not Naboo's or the Jedi's, but yours. You spent a fortune on us."

"Hardly a fortune," I scoffed, but she shook her head.

"You're a telepath, aren't you?" she suddenly asked, and I balked at the change of topic.

"If you're asking if I can feel your fear of me, the answer is yes," I nodded. "I can keep my distance from you."

The fear suddenly sharpened, but… not of me. Of something else. "No, see… that's what I was worried about. I'm used to having to censor my words, but not my feelings. I didn't mean to hurt you with my fear; I know it's not fair to you."

It came into focus, now: the stronger fear was tinged with guilt. She was genuinely concerned that she was being unfair to me. It was both surprising and touching. I let my genuine smile appear on my face. "I'll… not avoid you, then. Unless you ask me to."

"I won't." She swallowed again, and with a nod, she turned away as abruptly as she had come… passing my Master as he entered the compartment.

"Obi-wan? A word please." Qui-Gon's shoulders were squared, as I often saw him before or during a battle. He used his 'teacher' voice-perhaps a shade or two deeper than his usual candor, and several degrees more formal. He led me to the ship's small diagnostic chamber and gestured to sit: me on the patients' bed, and him in the only chair.

"Give me a full accounting of your actions on Tatooine." He began, careful to keep his edges soft, "I want to hear what happened from your point of view."

I centered myself and reflected on the past two days. "I re-established my personal and business relationship with the Lars family, collecting the money needed for my plan to rescue the Skywalkers."

Qui-Gon kept his voice neutral, "What is that relationship?"

I responded in kind. "I sought Lef Lars out two years ago. I gave him the capital to upgrade his equipment and get the most out of his land. I expect to see a fifty percent return in three years."

"And what led you to invest in a moisture farm?" On this point, at least, he seemed more curious than concerned.

"He was the only person I knew of on Tatooine that would be trustworthy enough to leave the money with."

I could see the confusion on his face-I hadn't exactly told him about that trip. "How did you come to know of him in the first place?" he said in that same even tone.

I considered evading the question, but the matter was past now. "If I had not intervened, Cliegg - Lef's son, the widower - would have eventually bought Shmi and married her."

Qui-Gon frowned, "Those visions of yours are that precise?"

I nodded, my mind moving through different scenes, and finally deciding to describe two. "Yes, Master. As clear and precise as though I am standing there, seeing and hearing the events unfold. I watched Shmi Skywalker take her dying breath in her son's arms. And I saw Anakin weep as, later, he confessed to the vengeful slaughter of the Tusken raiders that had killed her."

Qui-Gon's frown started taking over his face. I had seen him so concerned before, on occasion... but hardly ever regarding me. "How far in the future is this event? This slaughter that you've described?"

My mind retreated further, dates and scenes moving through it. "Ten years. Shortly before his secret marriage to Padme Amidala." I mused, almost to myself, "Both events handled entirely wrong by the Jedi, and both entirely correctable."

"Padme Amidala..." Qui-Gon repeated, "the same Padme Amidala we are currently guarding? The Padme Amidala he would never have spoken with more than once had you not purchased him?"

My attention returned to the present as I heard the implied accusation in my Master's voice. "When I first saw these events seven years ago, you won him in a bet, so you could take him to the Jedi Council. All I did was bring Shmi along as well."

Qui-Gon's frown softened, "Did I?" he asked quietly. "All I see is a boy strong in the Force, and my padawan insisting - with cases full of money I didn't know he had and blaster bolts that killed seven living beings - that said boy is the most important person in the galaxy. Whatever I saw in the boy in your visions, I haven't be given the chance to see now."

"Is that all you see, Master? All you sense?" I replied with some eagerness. "You don't feel his pull? Nor have taken his count, for that matter? I do not exaggerate when I call him unique."

"No, you don't exaggerate." Qui-Gon conceded. "The flow of the Force around him is like nothing I've ever seen. He has the potential to be a truly great Jedi." He sighed, "But the price of obtaining him... You said I won him in a game of chance, yes? Did anyone lose their life because of me?"

I shook my head, "No, Master, at least not directly." I looked at him sharply. "Is that what this is really about? If I had let Watto and the rest of those criminal killers live, and taken Anakin bloodlessly as I originally intended, you would not have faulted me?"

Qui-Gon looked stricken a moment. "I do not fault you for defending yourself, Obi-wan." his voice took on a tender note, "Those men tried to kill you, that was their choice. Watto hired those men wishing you dead, that was his choice as well." Another breath. "What I fault you for is taking choice," he stated plainly. "From Watto, from me...and especially from Anakin."

"Taking..." my stomach churned, a sensation I had seldom felt since coming to master this new body. "Taking choice? I do not understand."

Qui-Gon looked tired all of a sudden, "Obi-wan… I am not a perfect man. Force knows I have made mistakes in my day...many mistakes. People have died because of me: people who depended on me, people who opposed me, and even people who were just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time." His eyes took on a certain intensity. "But those choices were mine. I made them with all the knowledge I possessed at the time, I suffered their consequences, and I learned many hard and painful lessons in the process. I am who I am today because of those choices. And changing or removing even a single one of them would alter me completely."

He breathed carefully, forcing himself to keep centered. "And if your visions are true, you have robbed me of one of those choices. I may have made the choices you have seen, I may have not. But we'll never know, will we? You decided what would be best for Anakin - best for me - years before I could even wrap my head around the choices I could make."

I shook my head. This was a trying conversation - I felt every bit as exerted by it as my Master looked. "I do not think that is a fair assessment. In the future I saw, you made decisions based on what you knew, and that altered the actions of others. It changed the course of the Skywalkers' lives, and Watto's, and mine. But it didn't stop us from being able to make our own choices alongside yours.

"The only difference in what I did here is having far more information about what might happen, and therefore a far greater responsibility to make my own choices. I no more decided for you in choosing to act, Master, than I would have been deciding for you had I known what I knew and done nothing. Your choices were and are still yours. Except now we are in a better position to make good ones, because we have Anakin without taking him from his mother. And the boy can make his own choices without that fear controlling him."

"But do you even intend to allow that to happen?" Qui-Gon probed, and my guts churned further. "That apartment that you purchased in Coruscant is for the Skywalkers, is it not? All those trips off-planet, the coded messages, sneaking off into the bowels of the planet at every opportunity…"

"There are good reasons not to tell you," I insisted. "Dark forces gather. I have told you this!"

"Yes, and with that excuse, you've clandestinely planned all of our lives out years ahead. Did you leave any room for our own choices in it? Any place for the flow of the Force between us, life playing out in our interactions and assertions of will? Or is the dance laid out, with you as the only choreographer?"

I shook my head. "There is so much... so many things I know, that I cannot and should not share with you. The consequences -"

At this my Master stood up. With his usually relaxed posture and unassuming presence, it was easy to forget how tall and imposing a man he really was. "The consequences are for us all to bear, my Padawan. And so the choices need to be as well. You need to tell us." I stood to join him as he continued. "Me, Padme, and Shmi. Today."

"Now, Master?"

He nodded. I could see the apprehension in his gaze, but his will was also strong. "And tomorrow, you will tell it all again to the Council." He put his arm on mine. "You do not know better than the rest of the Galaxy, my young friend. Let us help you."

Just outside the diagnostic chamber, Padme and Artoo waited for us. With a nod from my Master, I went to invite the Skywalkers to join us as well.

All I could think as I collected them, is how thankful I was to have Qui-Gon on my side in the trials to come.