Once in a Lifetime
by Glass Houses
09/2002
* * *
"He was one of those who are damned to love once."
--Ursula K. Le Guin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_
* * *
Anakin found me almost as soon as I set foot in the Temple from my latest mission. I nodded acknowledgement to him, but didn't stop or even slow my pace. The information I had was vital to Jedi still in the field, and I needed to brief the Council immediately. That's what I told myself, anyhow, and it was mostly true.
My respite was short, however. Anakin was waiting for me outside the Council chambers. He fell into step beside me, pent-up energy and sadness rolling off him. I don't run from unpleasant situations, I told myself. And that is mostly true.
I finally broke the silence. "How is he?" But now that Anakin had my attention, he wasn't speaking.
"Much worse. I don't think he'll survive the week." His voice was hoarse, and I felt a quick stab of sympathy for him. Qui-Gon had always been good to him. Was responsible for Anakin having a life as a Jedi instead of a slave. I could understand how hard this must be for him. To see the closest thing he'd ever had to a father in pain...
"I'll make time to come by and see him before my next mission."
At that he stepped ahead of me, turned to face me, and stopped. A solid wall of Jedi Knight, but it wasn't his physical stature that drew me up -- it was his determination. He wanted something of me beyond informing me that my old Master was dying, and he was going to get it.
Anakin's sense of what was honorable had been incubated during his childhood as a slave, but Qui-Gon and his unorthodox methods had nurtured it. He wanted to repay Qui-Gon for all the kindnesses he'd been shown, and I had a bad feeling that repayment meant an action on my part that I would find unpleasant, or counter to the Code. Or both.
And Anakin knew this. Qui-Gon and I had been estranged since my Knighting day. My Knighting night, to be more specific.
I don't know how much detail Qui-Gon had passed onto Anakin -- and I didn't really want to find out -- but there was this immovable Jedi object in my way, when all I wanted was to go to my small suite of rooms. I suddenly felt old, and very tired.
I raised my eyes to his. "What?"
* * *
We talked while sitting in comfortable chairs on a balcony that looked out over the vast interior of the Temple. A hundred levels of quarters, training rooms, meeting rooms, libraries, balconies and more stretched above and below us, a hive of beings in tune with the Force. I felt out of place, like a sharply misplayed note in a soft sonata.
"He's in the last stage of the illness. He can't even see anymore, and he's not lucid. He keeps asking for... him. It's all he wants before he dies. He can't remember what really happened. He's convinced I'm keeping him away."
Anakin closed his eyes, but not before a tear leaked out from under his fair lashes. "I want to give Master Qui-Gon what he wants. I'm somewhat skilled at disguising my Force signature, but he knows me too well. He'd see through me in a second. But you..."
My throat tightened. "No," I managed to whisper.
Never. Not that.
"Obi-Wan, you don't understand! He calls for him constantly. It's all he cares about. I think he would calm down and allow me to ease him into the Force if he could see him again!"
I heard the hurt and need in Ani's voice, but how could he ask this of me? I stood and began to walk away.
"Obi-Wan, wait -- please!" He caught my arm. "He's blind, he's constantly on the verge of hysteria, terror." I jerked it out of his grasp and didn't stop. "He deserves to die in peace! How can you be this petty?"
I wheeled on him. "And just what do you know about it! What do you know about being led on for years, about keeping your heart *only* for one person because you thought you were destined for him -- hells, *were* destined for him, only to have him deny you and the Force for someone who didn't deserve..."
I broke off. I was yelling at him -- in the Temple.
"Anakin...I'm sorry," I finally stammered in a softer voice. "I know what you must think of me. I don't hate him. I just don't know that I can do it."
Chosen One though he might be, he couldn't force me to do this.
He stepped close and put his hands on my shoulders. "You *can.* You're the only one who can. Maybe you need this as much as he does. It's been fifteen years, Obi-Wan. And...I know you don't want to hear this, but I really don't think he can help it. If he could have, he would have. He was only able to love once..." His hands tightened. *"You've helped me before. Please..."*
I hadn't expected him to beg. His urgency, his unexpected kindness, and gods, the *truth* behind his words had beaten me down. I'd do it, but he was wrong about one thing. I *didn't* need this. I could have gone forever without it.
I nodded to him.
* * *
I went to my quarters to unpack, change, and meditate. I'd agreed to come to Qui-Gon's rooms at seventh hour, and I needed every second of the intervening time to examine my feelings. If this was going to work, I couldn't bring old resentments with me. Resentment. Such a mild word for what I have felt all the years after *that* night.
I needed to start with remembering what I'd worked so long to forget. So after a shower and a light meal, I sank into meditation – not to forget, as I'd done so many times, but to remember.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We'd begun to desire each other physically a few years before my Apprenticeship came to an end. I'd been through the infatuation phase years before: Qui-Gon was *my* Master and could do no wrong – that sort of thing. But I'd never lusted after him. On the contrary, as a teenaged boy, I found my age-mates far more fascinating. Although (as in everything) a Jedi is discreet, I'm sure he knew about my relationships. He was happy for me. If he saw me as more than his Padawan, he kept the feelings to himself.
So it wasn't more than two years before Naboo that it started -- in a training hall, of all places. I was shadowing him in step-for-step while learning one of the most advanced 'saber techniques he knew. By then, we both knew that I would eventually become the better swordsman. Qui-Gon gloried in this knowledge, although like so many other things, he kept his pride to himself.
It was hot, and he'd removed his tunic to demonstrate a new move. It was part of a series I could not seem to get right, and I fell out of the movements to stand back and watch.
And I saw.
He was aging, his beard was grizzled, his body was scarred. His gait while sparring always seemed a bit lumbering to me, although I'd long since learned never to underestimate his ability. His feet were big, even on a man his size, and his stomach always seemed a bit fleshy, even though he was all muscle. His face was weathered, with heavy worry lines furrowing his brow, an uneven nose, and eyes set too close. He preferred to wear his hair severely pulled back, which did nothing to minimize a too-prominent forehead.
He was beautiful.
After he demonstrated, he began the series of moves again, expecting me to join in. When I didn't, he looked up and saw me watching him. Recognition flared in his eyes (how I loved those deep blue eyes!) and I realized my gaze was welcome. Overdue.
Well. Where had *I* been all this time?
He lowered his 'saber, and we simply regarded each other for a few moments. I think I was wearing a tight grin. Then I removed my own tunic and wiped my face with an exaggerated motion, watching him as I did so.
It was his turn to smile.
I could have stood there all evening, wasting valuable training time, but he was too much the Master to allow it. He motioned me to begin the movements with him, and the matter was dropped, but not forgotten.
That night, after he'd showered and was combing his hair out at our common table, I startled him by removing the comb from his hands and gently working out the tangles myself. That was the start. There were more brushes in narrow hallways, more tight quarters on missions. We became bolder with each other regarding our state of dress -- or lack thereof. Towels became the only items we wore after showers and until it was time to sleep. Qui-Gon took to re-plaiting my braid while we faced each other and stared into each other's eyes.
I finally realized it was up to me to make any kind of move beyond flirting. One night, as I brushed his hair while he sat, I leaned down and began to gently kiss his forehead, eyes and nose. He lifted his head, and I sat right down by straddling his lap and kissed him in earnest. I was so keyed up at that point that it was a very passionate, wet kiss, and the next thing I knew, he had enveloped me with those long arms and we were gasping at each other's touches, strokes and nips. We quickly shed what little we were wearing, and I slid down between his knees to take him in my mouth. The gasp -- nearly a shout -- he made was perhaps the most satisfying sound I'd ever heard a lover make.
Because it was about love, not just making love.
Such fancy thoughts were soon relegated to another part of my brain. I couldn't get enough of him. I began pumping myself with one hand even as I sucked him, and stroked his sac with the other hand. I think he wanted something more... elegant for our first time, because he made a half-hearted effort to pull me up, but then sank back in the chair, spread his legs, and began petting me by stroking my hair and twisting his fingers through my braid.
As loud as he was when I started, I only knew he was about to come because his whole body stiffened and he thrust up into my mouth once, twice. As he filled my mouth, I shifted my gaze up to see his head thrown back, eyes tightly shut and mouth open in a silent shout.
I came myself, pulling my mouth away to shout at the sudden completion, then dropping my forehead to his thigh as I tried to even out my breathing.
After a moment, he reached down and drew me up into his arms, unmindful of my somewhat sticky state. He cradled my head in his large hands, his thumbs gently stroking my cheekbones. I leaned in, hesitant, but he eagerly met my lips, breaching my mouth with his tongue to taste himself.
I broke the kiss and sat back on his legs, straddling him again on the generous chair, and just looked at him, seeing him as I had in the training chamber, seeing him simply as a man. He was flushed, excited, and yet languid from release. I reached around his head and pulled at the leather tie I'd put in place only moments before, and his hair fell around his face as I slid it down and off.
I also reached out to touch him using the Force, through the bond we shared.
Now, many non-Force-users misunderstand bonds, especially the way Jedi use and create them. They think bonds allow Jedi telepathy, but it's more like empathy. The level of empathic awareness varies by the individual Jedi and the intensity of the bond. A strong Master/Padawan bond will allow each partner to know the general physical state of the other. Some pairs, like Qui-Gon and myself, could also sense some emotions as well; mostly the stronger sort, like fear, surprise and grief.
Then there's the popular theory that Jedi are constantly aware of each other because of bonding, that they can track each other's physical movements like a Kelnhar bloodhound follows the scent of its mate -- but that's not the case at all. A bond is simply an extension of a Jedi's mental awareness. A person trained in the Force can easily control the projections and mental "chatter" that feed a bond, much like having a built-in thought filter. Just as each humanoid has a unique retinal pattern, each strong Force user has a unique mental frequency. Tuning your mental senses to detect another requires compatibility and consent, but also skill.
Quite a bit of skill and practice. It's the mental equivalent of being in two places at one time.
As we sat holding each other, basking in the physical serenity of our act, I reached out to the unique mental signature that was Qui-Gon within the Force. It seemed as natural as breathing, as natural as the act we'd shared, to attempt to take more from the bond than affirmation of life and general mood. Just as our relationship had expanded irrevocably and exponentially beyond what it had been, I wanted matching intimacy from this.
I reached out with all the love and respect I had for him centered in my mind. Qui-Gon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, savoring and sorting through the new projections. Then he smiled, a most tender smile, and sent a similar set of feelings back to me. His sending -- the enhancing of our bond by Qui-Gon -- was more subtle and elegant and soothing coming from him. It was the difference between a sudden gust of wind and a sweet breeze. He was teaching me by example, even in this.
I felt a kind of mental tingle, and then a pain, the sweet pang of love that anyone can feel in their body, in their gut, but with my whole mind. I was surprised to see his eyes water, until I realized I had tears blinding my own eyes.
I felt small again, younger, and found myself hugging him tightly. When he wrapped his arms around me and stroked my back, I understood why he'd wanted a different, less urgent first time for us.
He stood, and I wrapped my legs around his narrow waist. While much smaller than he was, I was completely grown and fit, and I smiled against his neck as he called the Force to assist him in carrying me to his bed.
"Hush, you," he said, and I could feel his amusement in my mind.
* * *
Our new relationship made the remainder of my apprenticeship paradoxically harder and easier.
Our teamwork benefited, because of the ease with which I could *feel* Qui-Gon during training exercises and missions, but my teamwork with others suffered. I was so used to relying on our bond that I kept second-guessing my partners and myself when I had to work with other Jedi.
I began to resent the time I spent in training that took me away from him, and the missions and appointments he kept on his own. Yet I learned a patience that comes from being deprived of what had become my seventh sense -- the five all humans are gifted with, my Force sense, and the accustomed, welcome, loved, taken-for-granted new sense that was Qui-Gon.
I remember one evening with clarity, despite the number of years between action and remembrance. Master Emil had taken a group of Padawans through a series of scenarios, the culmination of each being a situation seemingly impossible to resolve within the confines of the Jedi Code. Yet we each had to play the scenarios out. No one Padawan was wrong, but none was entirely right, either. The point was to tear down the training we'd received since the creche -- that following the Force in the Light would always bring about a satisfactory result.
The exercises are collectively called the Menjordan Conundrum, and I was droning on about it early one evening like an excited Initiate. Qui-Gon was busy in our common area, accessing via terminal the data he needed preparatory to a short solo mission, and told me he didn't have time to discuss it.
Qui-Gon's Padawan would have respectfully, if impatiently, backed off. Qui-Gon's new lover effectively distracted him with some well-placed kisses along a particularly sensitive patch of skin on his neck, and proceeded to prattle on with my own personal theory of how the Conundrum might be solved. After a while, it sank in that he was saying nothing, and I asked him if he'd ever thought about the exercise.
"No, Obi-Wan, I've *never* pondered the mystery of the Menjordan Conundrum!"
The teacher would have been subtler in his chastisement. The lover was simply irritated at my behavior.
Stung, I left our shared quarters and headed for a study node frequented by Padawans of my age and station. But when I got there I deliberately avoided their company, and listlessly punched up entries on the Conundrum from a terminal at the far end of the hall.
Even then, I knew I'd set down a path that set me apart from most other Padawans. It would have been a comfort to seek diversion in their company, but I certainly had no desire to divulge information about my new relationship, which I would have been forced to do if seeking their sympathy.
I'd reread a Jedi theoretician's thoughts on the Exercises about five times, without actually absorbing any of the text, when I sensed Qui-Gon settle beside me. I felt his mental presence at the same time I felt his physical presence. Either he was muting his emotions, or I wasn't listening. Probably both.
A miffed lover might have ignored him, or waited for him to make the first move of apology, but the Padawan was simply heartsick and turned to him right away.
We apologized to each other and ran through what had gone wrong and why. He wanted me to return to our quarters then, but I could think of at least a dozen more ways I wanted to distract him, and he did have a tremendous amount of work to do in a very short time. I remained at the study terminal until he left Coruscant several hours later.
He only raised his voice to me one other time during my Apprenticeship. Naboo.
It's still difficult to think about those days and nights. What started out as a simple, hush-hush mission at the request of the Chancellor turned into one of the defining moments of the Republic. The difficulties of our equal relationship as lovers, yet unequal status as Jedi, were never as apparent, and culminated in a nasty argument over Anakin. Yet the advantages of our enhanced bond were never as apparent as when we successfully fought and defeated a Sith.
To say the pluses outweighed the minuses would be the understatement of the millennium. As the creature began to retreat, then panic under our coordinated onslaught, he reached out for guidance to his Master, and Qui-Gon was able to follow that Force thread to its intended recipient.
After the fact, every Jedi who knew Palpatine claimed he or she had always had a bad feeling about the Senator; but, truth be told, we had all been caught unawares.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
TBC...
by Glass Houses
09/2002
* * *
"He was one of those who are damned to love once."
--Ursula K. Le Guin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_
* * *
Anakin found me almost as soon as I set foot in the Temple from my latest mission. I nodded acknowledgement to him, but didn't stop or even slow my pace. The information I had was vital to Jedi still in the field, and I needed to brief the Council immediately. That's what I told myself, anyhow, and it was mostly true.
My respite was short, however. Anakin was waiting for me outside the Council chambers. He fell into step beside me, pent-up energy and sadness rolling off him. I don't run from unpleasant situations, I told myself. And that is mostly true.
I finally broke the silence. "How is he?" But now that Anakin had my attention, he wasn't speaking.
"Much worse. I don't think he'll survive the week." His voice was hoarse, and I felt a quick stab of sympathy for him. Qui-Gon had always been good to him. Was responsible for Anakin having a life as a Jedi instead of a slave. I could understand how hard this must be for him. To see the closest thing he'd ever had to a father in pain...
"I'll make time to come by and see him before my next mission."
At that he stepped ahead of me, turned to face me, and stopped. A solid wall of Jedi Knight, but it wasn't his physical stature that drew me up -- it was his determination. He wanted something of me beyond informing me that my old Master was dying, and he was going to get it.
Anakin's sense of what was honorable had been incubated during his childhood as a slave, but Qui-Gon and his unorthodox methods had nurtured it. He wanted to repay Qui-Gon for all the kindnesses he'd been shown, and I had a bad feeling that repayment meant an action on my part that I would find unpleasant, or counter to the Code. Or both.
And Anakin knew this. Qui-Gon and I had been estranged since my Knighting day. My Knighting night, to be more specific.
I don't know how much detail Qui-Gon had passed onto Anakin -- and I didn't really want to find out -- but there was this immovable Jedi object in my way, when all I wanted was to go to my small suite of rooms. I suddenly felt old, and very tired.
I raised my eyes to his. "What?"
* * *
We talked while sitting in comfortable chairs on a balcony that looked out over the vast interior of the Temple. A hundred levels of quarters, training rooms, meeting rooms, libraries, balconies and more stretched above and below us, a hive of beings in tune with the Force. I felt out of place, like a sharply misplayed note in a soft sonata.
"He's in the last stage of the illness. He can't even see anymore, and he's not lucid. He keeps asking for... him. It's all he wants before he dies. He can't remember what really happened. He's convinced I'm keeping him away."
Anakin closed his eyes, but not before a tear leaked out from under his fair lashes. "I want to give Master Qui-Gon what he wants. I'm somewhat skilled at disguising my Force signature, but he knows me too well. He'd see through me in a second. But you..."
My throat tightened. "No," I managed to whisper.
Never. Not that.
"Obi-Wan, you don't understand! He calls for him constantly. It's all he cares about. I think he would calm down and allow me to ease him into the Force if he could see him again!"
I heard the hurt and need in Ani's voice, but how could he ask this of me? I stood and began to walk away.
"Obi-Wan, wait -- please!" He caught my arm. "He's blind, he's constantly on the verge of hysteria, terror." I jerked it out of his grasp and didn't stop. "He deserves to die in peace! How can you be this petty?"
I wheeled on him. "And just what do you know about it! What do you know about being led on for years, about keeping your heart *only* for one person because you thought you were destined for him -- hells, *were* destined for him, only to have him deny you and the Force for someone who didn't deserve..."
I broke off. I was yelling at him -- in the Temple.
"Anakin...I'm sorry," I finally stammered in a softer voice. "I know what you must think of me. I don't hate him. I just don't know that I can do it."
Chosen One though he might be, he couldn't force me to do this.
He stepped close and put his hands on my shoulders. "You *can.* You're the only one who can. Maybe you need this as much as he does. It's been fifteen years, Obi-Wan. And...I know you don't want to hear this, but I really don't think he can help it. If he could have, he would have. He was only able to love once..." His hands tightened. *"You've helped me before. Please..."*
I hadn't expected him to beg. His urgency, his unexpected kindness, and gods, the *truth* behind his words had beaten me down. I'd do it, but he was wrong about one thing. I *didn't* need this. I could have gone forever without it.
I nodded to him.
* * *
I went to my quarters to unpack, change, and meditate. I'd agreed to come to Qui-Gon's rooms at seventh hour, and I needed every second of the intervening time to examine my feelings. If this was going to work, I couldn't bring old resentments with me. Resentment. Such a mild word for what I have felt all the years after *that* night.
I needed to start with remembering what I'd worked so long to forget. So after a shower and a light meal, I sank into meditation – not to forget, as I'd done so many times, but to remember.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We'd begun to desire each other physically a few years before my Apprenticeship came to an end. I'd been through the infatuation phase years before: Qui-Gon was *my* Master and could do no wrong – that sort of thing. But I'd never lusted after him. On the contrary, as a teenaged boy, I found my age-mates far more fascinating. Although (as in everything) a Jedi is discreet, I'm sure he knew about my relationships. He was happy for me. If he saw me as more than his Padawan, he kept the feelings to himself.
So it wasn't more than two years before Naboo that it started -- in a training hall, of all places. I was shadowing him in step-for-step while learning one of the most advanced 'saber techniques he knew. By then, we both knew that I would eventually become the better swordsman. Qui-Gon gloried in this knowledge, although like so many other things, he kept his pride to himself.
It was hot, and he'd removed his tunic to demonstrate a new move. It was part of a series I could not seem to get right, and I fell out of the movements to stand back and watch.
And I saw.
He was aging, his beard was grizzled, his body was scarred. His gait while sparring always seemed a bit lumbering to me, although I'd long since learned never to underestimate his ability. His feet were big, even on a man his size, and his stomach always seemed a bit fleshy, even though he was all muscle. His face was weathered, with heavy worry lines furrowing his brow, an uneven nose, and eyes set too close. He preferred to wear his hair severely pulled back, which did nothing to minimize a too-prominent forehead.
He was beautiful.
After he demonstrated, he began the series of moves again, expecting me to join in. When I didn't, he looked up and saw me watching him. Recognition flared in his eyes (how I loved those deep blue eyes!) and I realized my gaze was welcome. Overdue.
Well. Where had *I* been all this time?
He lowered his 'saber, and we simply regarded each other for a few moments. I think I was wearing a tight grin. Then I removed my own tunic and wiped my face with an exaggerated motion, watching him as I did so.
It was his turn to smile.
I could have stood there all evening, wasting valuable training time, but he was too much the Master to allow it. He motioned me to begin the movements with him, and the matter was dropped, but not forgotten.
That night, after he'd showered and was combing his hair out at our common table, I startled him by removing the comb from his hands and gently working out the tangles myself. That was the start. There were more brushes in narrow hallways, more tight quarters on missions. We became bolder with each other regarding our state of dress -- or lack thereof. Towels became the only items we wore after showers and until it was time to sleep. Qui-Gon took to re-plaiting my braid while we faced each other and stared into each other's eyes.
I finally realized it was up to me to make any kind of move beyond flirting. One night, as I brushed his hair while he sat, I leaned down and began to gently kiss his forehead, eyes and nose. He lifted his head, and I sat right down by straddling his lap and kissed him in earnest. I was so keyed up at that point that it was a very passionate, wet kiss, and the next thing I knew, he had enveloped me with those long arms and we were gasping at each other's touches, strokes and nips. We quickly shed what little we were wearing, and I slid down between his knees to take him in my mouth. The gasp -- nearly a shout -- he made was perhaps the most satisfying sound I'd ever heard a lover make.
Because it was about love, not just making love.
Such fancy thoughts were soon relegated to another part of my brain. I couldn't get enough of him. I began pumping myself with one hand even as I sucked him, and stroked his sac with the other hand. I think he wanted something more... elegant for our first time, because he made a half-hearted effort to pull me up, but then sank back in the chair, spread his legs, and began petting me by stroking my hair and twisting his fingers through my braid.
As loud as he was when I started, I only knew he was about to come because his whole body stiffened and he thrust up into my mouth once, twice. As he filled my mouth, I shifted my gaze up to see his head thrown back, eyes tightly shut and mouth open in a silent shout.
I came myself, pulling my mouth away to shout at the sudden completion, then dropping my forehead to his thigh as I tried to even out my breathing.
After a moment, he reached down and drew me up into his arms, unmindful of my somewhat sticky state. He cradled my head in his large hands, his thumbs gently stroking my cheekbones. I leaned in, hesitant, but he eagerly met my lips, breaching my mouth with his tongue to taste himself.
I broke the kiss and sat back on his legs, straddling him again on the generous chair, and just looked at him, seeing him as I had in the training chamber, seeing him simply as a man. He was flushed, excited, and yet languid from release. I reached around his head and pulled at the leather tie I'd put in place only moments before, and his hair fell around his face as I slid it down and off.
I also reached out to touch him using the Force, through the bond we shared.
Now, many non-Force-users misunderstand bonds, especially the way Jedi use and create them. They think bonds allow Jedi telepathy, but it's more like empathy. The level of empathic awareness varies by the individual Jedi and the intensity of the bond. A strong Master/Padawan bond will allow each partner to know the general physical state of the other. Some pairs, like Qui-Gon and myself, could also sense some emotions as well; mostly the stronger sort, like fear, surprise and grief.
Then there's the popular theory that Jedi are constantly aware of each other because of bonding, that they can track each other's physical movements like a Kelnhar bloodhound follows the scent of its mate -- but that's not the case at all. A bond is simply an extension of a Jedi's mental awareness. A person trained in the Force can easily control the projections and mental "chatter" that feed a bond, much like having a built-in thought filter. Just as each humanoid has a unique retinal pattern, each strong Force user has a unique mental frequency. Tuning your mental senses to detect another requires compatibility and consent, but also skill.
Quite a bit of skill and practice. It's the mental equivalent of being in two places at one time.
As we sat holding each other, basking in the physical serenity of our act, I reached out to the unique mental signature that was Qui-Gon within the Force. It seemed as natural as breathing, as natural as the act we'd shared, to attempt to take more from the bond than affirmation of life and general mood. Just as our relationship had expanded irrevocably and exponentially beyond what it had been, I wanted matching intimacy from this.
I reached out with all the love and respect I had for him centered in my mind. Qui-Gon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, savoring and sorting through the new projections. Then he smiled, a most tender smile, and sent a similar set of feelings back to me. His sending -- the enhancing of our bond by Qui-Gon -- was more subtle and elegant and soothing coming from him. It was the difference between a sudden gust of wind and a sweet breeze. He was teaching me by example, even in this.
I felt a kind of mental tingle, and then a pain, the sweet pang of love that anyone can feel in their body, in their gut, but with my whole mind. I was surprised to see his eyes water, until I realized I had tears blinding my own eyes.
I felt small again, younger, and found myself hugging him tightly. When he wrapped his arms around me and stroked my back, I understood why he'd wanted a different, less urgent first time for us.
He stood, and I wrapped my legs around his narrow waist. While much smaller than he was, I was completely grown and fit, and I smiled against his neck as he called the Force to assist him in carrying me to his bed.
"Hush, you," he said, and I could feel his amusement in my mind.
* * *
Our new relationship made the remainder of my apprenticeship paradoxically harder and easier.
Our teamwork benefited, because of the ease with which I could *feel* Qui-Gon during training exercises and missions, but my teamwork with others suffered. I was so used to relying on our bond that I kept second-guessing my partners and myself when I had to work with other Jedi.
I began to resent the time I spent in training that took me away from him, and the missions and appointments he kept on his own. Yet I learned a patience that comes from being deprived of what had become my seventh sense -- the five all humans are gifted with, my Force sense, and the accustomed, welcome, loved, taken-for-granted new sense that was Qui-Gon.
I remember one evening with clarity, despite the number of years between action and remembrance. Master Emil had taken a group of Padawans through a series of scenarios, the culmination of each being a situation seemingly impossible to resolve within the confines of the Jedi Code. Yet we each had to play the scenarios out. No one Padawan was wrong, but none was entirely right, either. The point was to tear down the training we'd received since the creche -- that following the Force in the Light would always bring about a satisfactory result.
The exercises are collectively called the Menjordan Conundrum, and I was droning on about it early one evening like an excited Initiate. Qui-Gon was busy in our common area, accessing via terminal the data he needed preparatory to a short solo mission, and told me he didn't have time to discuss it.
Qui-Gon's Padawan would have respectfully, if impatiently, backed off. Qui-Gon's new lover effectively distracted him with some well-placed kisses along a particularly sensitive patch of skin on his neck, and proceeded to prattle on with my own personal theory of how the Conundrum might be solved. After a while, it sank in that he was saying nothing, and I asked him if he'd ever thought about the exercise.
"No, Obi-Wan, I've *never* pondered the mystery of the Menjordan Conundrum!"
The teacher would have been subtler in his chastisement. The lover was simply irritated at my behavior.
Stung, I left our shared quarters and headed for a study node frequented by Padawans of my age and station. But when I got there I deliberately avoided their company, and listlessly punched up entries on the Conundrum from a terminal at the far end of the hall.
Even then, I knew I'd set down a path that set me apart from most other Padawans. It would have been a comfort to seek diversion in their company, but I certainly had no desire to divulge information about my new relationship, which I would have been forced to do if seeking their sympathy.
I'd reread a Jedi theoretician's thoughts on the Exercises about five times, without actually absorbing any of the text, when I sensed Qui-Gon settle beside me. I felt his mental presence at the same time I felt his physical presence. Either he was muting his emotions, or I wasn't listening. Probably both.
A miffed lover might have ignored him, or waited for him to make the first move of apology, but the Padawan was simply heartsick and turned to him right away.
We apologized to each other and ran through what had gone wrong and why. He wanted me to return to our quarters then, but I could think of at least a dozen more ways I wanted to distract him, and he did have a tremendous amount of work to do in a very short time. I remained at the study terminal until he left Coruscant several hours later.
He only raised his voice to me one other time during my Apprenticeship. Naboo.
It's still difficult to think about those days and nights. What started out as a simple, hush-hush mission at the request of the Chancellor turned into one of the defining moments of the Republic. The difficulties of our equal relationship as lovers, yet unequal status as Jedi, were never as apparent, and culminated in a nasty argument over Anakin. Yet the advantages of our enhanced bond were never as apparent as when we successfully fought and defeated a Sith.
To say the pluses outweighed the minuses would be the understatement of the millennium. As the creature began to retreat, then panic under our coordinated onslaught, he reached out for guidance to his Master, and Qui-Gon was able to follow that Force thread to its intended recipient.
After the fact, every Jedi who knew Palpatine claimed he or she had always had a bad feeling about the Senator; but, truth be told, we had all been caught unawares.
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TBC...