A/N: This is a pretty angst-based chapter. I mean, not much really happens, it's just like three pages of Qui-Gon's thoughts. I think I probably ramble a little too much in this chapter, but I guess I was trying to capture what it might be like to really be in this situation. And, besides, Qui-Gon has a lot of thinking to do—he's been bad! But, I am not an anti-Qui-Gon person (no matter how much this story may suggest that) so I tried to make his thoughts very real, you know? Well, if you do, that's one of us, because I don't know what I'm talking about. Hope this isn't too long and drawn-out. I hate the idea of being one of those stereotypical melodramatic writers, but I think I fall inevitably into that trap. So, let me know what you think—I do still believe in revision if it's needed. And more should actually be happening in the next chapter. Thanks for reading and even more thanks to those who read and comment!
Chapter 10
Time passed, the ship sped silently through hyperspace. The galaxy continued to thrive in chaos and decadence. People died and children were born. Atrocities lurked in the dark corners of every world and heroic feats conquered hatred. Celebration and mourning coexisted in the Force. But in the small medical bay on the Nubian cruiser, the scene had not changed. On a lone examination bed, draped with blankets, an unconscious figure laid, barely moving, save the slight rise and fall of his bandaged chest. And by his side, an older man, with hollow eyes and features sunken with exhaustion and anxiety, holds a silent yet unwavering vigil.
Running a hand through his greasy hair, Qui-Gon allowed himself a sigh. Ever since bringing Obi-Wan here, his thoughts had been strung across his lifetime, reflecting on mistakes and joys that he could never again relive. Regrets also haunted him in the silence, threatening any future he hoped to have. He wished reverently that he had never been a Jedi, but rather a simple man, living a simple life, in some simple corner of the galaxy. He would be married and have children. Children…but Qui-Gon had never been a father. There had been moments when he thought that role suited him in some fashion. Sometimes that child he could never have seemed to call to him, with an angelic voice, beckoning him, waiting for him just outside the Order, just beyond the Code. There had only been one woman in his life that he had ever loved truly, in the way that defied the rules of attachment and that threatened his position in the Order. In that woman, he had nearly felt as though his images of children would be fulfilled. Her beauty and his stately figure, her wisdom and his defiance—the child would have been dynamic and independent. He would have loved that child more than anything in the galaxy. But that opportunity died with that woman, forever shattering the distant dream of fatherhood.
Though he had no child of his own flesh and blood, staring down at Obi-Wan he realized that he knew quite how a father might feel. The sheer helplessness of his position boggled his mind, testing the edges of his sanity. But, unlike a father, he was to blame for this position. After all, no loving father forsook his son in his time of need?
When he had taken his first apprentice, he had understood very little of the Master/Apprentice relationship. No one had ever doubted his affection and pride in the Xanatos—especially the boy himself. Qui-Gon had fancied himself as his apprentice's father and doted over Xanatos, spoiling him and fostering his abilities. Those were years of pure bliss. But Qui-Gon's fault, and he could not deny his responsibility in the matter, was that he failed to realize to full role of the father. A father's love does not just exist in indulgence, although at times that is necessary. A father's love must manifest itself in sternness and discipline. A father recognizes what a child lacks not only emotionally and physically, but in their personality as well. His first born son had turned on him as a result, leaving him jaded and confused.
At that point, Qui-Gon neither wanted a child nor an apprentice. He wanted nothing. He placed all his value in maintaining the Code and the Order. Flitting from assignment to assignment, he allowed himself to be absorbed by other people's conflicts; he fought for other people's causes. Justifying his closed-off emotions, he cherished the neutrality of the Jedi and often quoted the danger of attachments to himself. The Force, however, seemed to have different plans.
Every excuse had worked for so long. That child was too small. That child couldn't focus well enough. That child's personality did not compute with his own. He had avoided a Padawan for years, despite the Council's subtle prodding and the Initiates' hopeful eyes.
Obi-Wan had been too reckless—he struggled with anger. In Qui-Gon's calloused mentality, Obi-Wan was unfit for Knighthood. He was unfit for Qui-Gon. Now, at Obi-Wan's bedside, Qui-Gon lamented that Jedi can be wrong too. How many times had been wrong? And how many of those moments had hurt Obi-Wan?
The Force did will them to be together, no matter how much Qui-Gon resisted initially. The mission to Bandomeer stretched too far into ironic to be written off as chance. But, still, Qui-Gon had denied Obi-Wan. Time and time again he had crushed the boy's hopes and dreams, all to save himself the pain of living again. To his credit, Qui-Gon did eventually heed the Force, but not before Obi-Wan offered his life in sacrifice for not only Qui-Gon, but an entire city. The talented boy, sentenced to the mundane life of farming, deprived of his greatest aspirations by Qui-Gon's inability, had not forsaken his training or the Force. The Jedi allowed themselves to be forfeited for those in need—Obi-Wan, as a 12-year-old, not only understood that, but lived it. And in the process he saved Qui-Gon's hardened heart.
Obi-Wan seemed to forget the pain of rejection, focusing instead on growing in the Force. His attitude was no less than noble. Looking back now, Qui-Gon's stomach churned guiltily as he viewed his own behavior. When the boy had defied him on Melida/Daan, he had taken the injury straight in the heart, bearing it poorly and allowing himself to slip back into his misery. When the boy had asked for redemption, Qui-Gon had avoided giving it, keeping his love and support from the boy who had caused him so much pain. He gave forgiveness far more cautiously and far less certainly than Obi-Wan. Without reservations, Obi-Wan did not see the pain in their journey, but rather what he gained from it. For so many years, Qui-Gon focused on the anguish that trusting another child had caused, instead of realizing how much Obi-Wan had changed his life for the better.
In the intimacy of their bond, apologies and such words passed knowingly but unspoken. Their bond—the connection between their two minds, their two spirits—smoothed any and all of the inevitable bumps between them. But the bond was broken now.
It had been breaking ever since he met Anakin. Maybe not breaking, Qui-Gon corrected himself, but it was stretching and changing. While he had tentatively felt out his relationship with Anakin and tried to extrapolate Anakin's relationship with the Force, he had still maintained the precious communal with Obi-Wan. Although the young Jedi struggled to reconcile Qui-Gon's decisions and actions, Qui-Gon felt confident that Obi-Wan understood it all on some level.
But when Qui-Gon defied the Council, insisting on taking Anakin as his Padawan Learner, Obi-Wan's entire world stopped. Qui-Gon merely hesitated to compensate for the surge of emotions, sensing Obi-Wan's eyes uncertainly upon him. His words resounded through the room free from doubt, with a deep clarity that had surprised Qui-Gon more than anyone else. It made too much sense. The Force willed it too strongly. The Council, Obi-Wan—they still could not see the Force like he could.
He hadn't lied—Obi-Wan was ready. His skills needed only fine tuning, which would only come about with Knighthood. Qui-Gon had even considered the possibility of the trade dispute on Naboo being Obi-Wan's last mission as an apprentice. Their time together had nearly run its course. But those words he spoke to the Council—they changed everything. Not only did Qui-Gon fail to communicate with his apprentice, not apprising Obi-Wan of his decisions or letting him in on his thoughts, but perhaps more devastatingly, he pushed for Knighthood not out of sincerity, but in necessity of training another. Their bond suffered as a result. Obi-Wan tried to overlook it, and Qui-Gon had been too blind to see it. The growing rift, however, refused to accept a benign role. The fight with the Sith was the only evidence needed to prove that.
During his recovery, Qui-Gon diverted all his attention on recovery and moving on. The Sith—with its dark implications and demanded considerations—simply wounded him too deeply. He did not want to remember how the monster had defeated him. He did not want to recall how Obi-Wan nearly gave himself over to the Dark, seeking revenge. He did not want to think about the sacrifice of his Padawan—and how he had repaid that sacrifice with the bitterest abandonment possible.
How had he fallen to the Sith? How had he allowed himself to be defeated by the Darkness? Had he not respected his opponent enough? Had he doubted the strength of the Dark side of the Force? Or had he overestimated the power of the Light—or worse, his own strength?
The duel drifted through his mind like a detached dream. His lightsaber worked effectively, blocking and slashing in a melodic flow. But it was mechanical. He could not feel the way the hilt felt in his sweaty palms—his arms and hands moved without his conscious knowledge, as if performing some delicate and intricate dance. The choreography flowed through him, well rehearsed and well executed. A flawless performance. Except he danced in tandem with a being who moved to a different melody, a far more sinister tune whose beat throbbed frantically and resoundingly through the Force.
He lost his focus. He forgot to listen to the Living Force.
The menacing being monopolized on Qui-Gon's weaknesses, as well as Obi-Wan's. Qui-Gon had been too absorbed in the future to compensate. It nearly killed him. It should have killed him.
But Obi-Wan—Obi-Wan overcame his faults and weaknesses and for one brief moment, he exemplified everything that was pure about the Light and the Jedi Order. The Sith drove the young Jedi to the brink of his sanity where the Darkness lay in ambush but Obi-Wan had prevailed. Then, clinging by a mere thread left to life, Obi-Wan had overcome the evil and the hatred, and slew the creature of Darkness. That alone made him a hero. But to Obi-Wan, defeating the Sith meant nothing. There was only one thing that mattered—his fallen master.
Finding himself in his apprentice's arms, Qui-Gon could barely even focus on the young man. He remembered reaching a weak hand out to touch the distraught face, trying to convince himself it was real. The Living Force—where had it gone? It rushed out of him uncontrollably, and he felt sever from the moment and the people around him. There was only—Anakin. The prophecy needed fulfillment. If he couldn't do it, he had to ensure that it was. Obi-Wan thrived in obedience. If Qui-Gon had died, Obi-Wan would have trained the boy—not for the prophecy, not for love of the boy, but rather for his master's legacy.
Yet Obi-Wan, out of desperate denial, had nullified the need for the promise for the alternative Qui-Gon hadn't even considered. After all, lying in his Padawan's arms, the only thought running through his head was that he half dead already. In his death, he saw Anakin's floundering training, and its unseen and incomprehensible ramifications for the universe. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, could only bring himself to acknowledge that Qui-Gon was still half alive. Perhaps devotion, perhaps selfishness, but regardless of his motivations, the young Jedi had clung steadfastly to the presence of the Living Force, entreating—no insisting—that Qui-Gon not die.
The action neither supported nor rejected Anakin's future. It merely kept Qui-Gon responsible for it, which worried him somewhat now. His impressions of Xanatos had been biased from the beginning. His attitude toward Obi-Wan initially was also proven wrong. How could he be so sure in Anakin?
Doubt slithered uneasily throughout his consciousness. He could not afford to be wrong about Anakin—not now, not after everything he had sacrificed.
Before his tortured reverie could escalate any further, something from the physical world interfered.
"Qui-Gon?" His commlink came to life, crackling on Qui-Gon's belt. Anakin's voice drifted from the other end. "Sir?"
In his self-doubt and recrimination, he had almost forgotten how to move, and now Qui-Gon clumsily retrieved the device. "Yes?"
"We're back on schedule," Anakin informed him. "We should reach Coruscant early afternoon tomorrow."
Qui-Gon strove to keep his breathing even—it was too long. Obi-Wan was slipping steadily, and Qui-Gon had no means to hold him. "Thank you, Anakin," Qui-Gon said distantly.
There was a brief pause. "Sir?" Anakin finally asked.
"Yes?"
"Is everything going to be okay?"
Nothing was okay, how could anything be okay? He was losing Obi-Wan—his beloved Obi-Wan—and he had already lost the essence that was his apprentice—he had lost the bond. No, hadn't lost it. He had thrown it away. But he could not tell Anakin that. "Of course," Qui-Gon lied.
Anakin was already uncannily perceptive of Qui-Gon's emotions. "Are you sure?"
"We must trust the Force."
The answer did nothing to address the boy's question, but it seemed to placate him with its vague implications. "Okay," he said. "I think I'm going to turn on the autopilot and get some rest. Have you slept at all?"
"I am fine," Qui-Gon assured him. He couldn't leave now anyway. "But I do recommend you get some rest. You will have a long day tomorrow."
"Okay," Anakin said, ending the transmission.
With a sigh, Qui-Gon simply held the commlink, too tired to put it back on his belt. His eyes studied Obi-Wan once again, hoping vainly for a flicker of life. But it remained the same—passive, pale, and hollow. Obi-Wan's heart rate had slowed as he began to succumb to shock. Qui-Gon had covered him with a blanket to try and ward it off, but the blanket had little effect.
Qui-Gon had never felt like more of a failure. As a Jedi he had always learned to accept the will of the Force and know that he would not always understand its ways. He had comforted himself in the solace the unity of the Force offered. He had always known there were some things—sometimes awful things—that he simply could not control. Even with the Force, he could not foresee and predict everything. He could not save everyone's life. Not every mission succeeded. But he had always preserved his Padawan Learner—always.
But then again, he reminded himself bitterly, Obi-Wan was no longer his Padawan. That, too, depicted his great failings recently. He had sworn to honor and protect and train Obi-Wan until his Knighting. Yet, in the matter of only a few days, he had managed to dishonor his Padawan by accepting another Padawan, allowing Obi-Wan's life to be endangered—twice, he had to remind himself, recalling the boy's self-sacrificing actions on Naboo, and he had never finished Obi-Wan's training. Staring down at Obi-Wan lax features, he could decide which burden was worse—the grave physical state of the young man or his damaged mental state.
***
His arms ached. His chest heaved desperately but could not get enough air. Everything felt numb—he had no sensation. Stopping, he tried to gauge his progress. The land on the horizon now glimmered as a mere dot—barely visible. Despair rose up within him. He was swimming with every ounce of energy he could muster. Yet still he made no progress. Perhaps it was the current that he been sweeping him steadily out to sea.
He was going to die. The thought occurred to him suddenly with neither fear nor anger, just abstract truth. His legs treaded water, keeping his head bobbing upon the surface. The salty waves lapped at his face, burning his eyes.
Straining, he turned his eyes upwards, hoping to find some kind of consolation in the sky. The muted sun had retreated farther, now a mere faint beam of light. But it was hope. He clung to it with the remaining strength of his soul. As long as he had the sun, he could still move. He could still live. He was not dead yet.
The sea was growing deeper. The land was growing more distant. And the sun was flirting with the clouds.
And Obi-Wan treaded water.
***
The eerie blips of Obi-Wan's heart rate, given voice through the monitors, kept time in an uneven cadence. The time Qui-Gon had spent in silent grief and anxiety began to take a toll on him. His eyes drooped helplessly, and he caught himself continually lolling to the side, seeking sleep against the wall. His perceptions dimmed, focusing more so on the rhythm of Obi-Wan's heart. Each beat meant another moment of life, another chance for survival, another chance for absolution.
The room seemed suddenly to shrink, closing in on him from all sides. The impersonal medical equipment stuck out in his vision hideously, cruelly reminding him of that which he already knew. Even the unmoving form on the bed seemed to taunt him—flaunting his failures and his inadequacies and, worst of all, his mistakes. In a burst of frustration and anger, Qui-Gon turned away from Obi-Wan, storming out of the medical bay. Once outside, his resolve crumbled, and he fell back against the far wall hopelessly, staring bleakly at the now closed doors. What was he doing?
Slowly, his breaths evened out, returning to a normal rhythm. The surge of emotion mellowed out to a simple and pure despair.
How had it happened? How had he allowed everything to spiral so quickly beyond his control? Ever since Tatooine, he had felt drawn toward Anakin Skywalker. Something unknown—the Force, Qui-Gon surmised—attracted them to one another like magnets. The boy idolized Qui-Gon—how could he not? Qui-Gon had come into his life and as a Jedi saved Anakin from a life of misery and hopelessness. Then, being flung into a new and foreign setting, the boy had clung to Qui-Gon for a sense of familiarity in a suddenly vast galaxy. And with Anakin's sensitivity to the Force, he had immediately began to build a bond between them. Qui-Gon had grown more confident and more protective of Anakin since the Council's desire to reject him. Anakin was the Chosen One. He needed to be trained. Since he had encountered the boy and taken him from all he knew, it was his responsibility to ensure that Anakin ended up as a Jedi. If the Council refused him, he would break the rules for the boy. Not because he liked Anakin—although he did find the child endearing—but because the Force demanded it. This determination in face of Anakin's attempts to form a bond only strengthened their relationship, deepening the bond.
But he had been careful not to open the bond. After all, Obi-Wan was—had been—his apprentice. While the intensity of his bond with Anakin had been extremely high, Qui-Gon would never deny the importance and depth of his bond with Obi-Wan. Theirs was a bond that had grown and matured with time. Qui-Gon had envisioned Obi-Wan's knighting in the not too distant future. Even by taking on Anakin, he had assumed he would finish out Obi-Wan's training by guiding him through the Trials. Then, upon Obi-Wan's knighting, he would initiate the bond with Anakin and their training would begin. It would only take a few weeks.
So how had it happened? He hadn't even noticed the shift. One moment he had been connected to Obi-Wan, but then—then there was so much confusion. There was Obi-Wan but there had also been Anakin. Anakin's voice laced his brain with more energy and more force than Obi-Wan's. It had called to him more insistently, and Anakin's reach in Qui-Gon's mind floundered more evasively. Surely, though, Obi-Wan's calm and caring and open bond had still been there. It had been there to the end. He just couldn't hear it anymore. Anakin's voice just kept growing in his head, more and more with each passing second, beyond his control. The boy had demanded his attention. With his passionate nature, Anakin simply reached for it on an unconscious, but strong, level. The Force had gone to great means to bring them together. It wasn't his fault.
With a new sense of resolve, he reentered the medical bay. But as soon as his eyes landed upon the unconscious young man on the bed, his makeshift absolution crumbled. Nothing—not Anakin, not his own weakness, not even the Force—could justify what he had done to Obi-Wan. But then again, nothing could ever undo what he had done. However wrong and however painful his actions were, they were now permanently sealed in the bond of history.
Tears stung behind his eyes as he approached Obi-Wan's bedside. After so many years and so many memories, he now had nothing to show for it. The lessons he had learned so long ago and repeated to Xanatos, to himself, even to Obi-Wan, now seemed so futile. The Jedi clichés, which usually still resounded with utter truth, fell lamely on his tormented soul. Like broken recordings, they repeated in his head anyway, in a perverse and ineffectual mantra: learn from the past but do not dwell in it, accept that which you cannot change and let it go, do not regret but rather learn. Learn but do not dwell, accept and let go, no regrets but learning. Learn, accept, no regrets. Do not dwell, let go, learn.
Before the mantra overtook his sanity, a voice pervaded his awareness. "Master Qui-Gon?" Anakin's voice called him back to reality.
Turning around, he saw the boy standing sleepily in the doorway. His eyelids drooped and standing appeared to be a struggled. He could not keep the bond between them from reporting back to him that the boy's mind was clouded in his tiredness. He should be in bed. "Anakin, you should be sleeping," he admonished ever-so-gently.
"I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay," he said. Probing the bond, Qui-Gon knew the boy was truly half asleep. Likely he had drifted away at the controls. "Autopilot is set for Coruscant. We haven't lost too much time."
"Very good, Anakin," Qui-Gon said approvingly. "Now, you really need go to bed."
"I know," the boy's voice was wispy. When he had been very young, he used to recall dreams in vivid detail. Some were humorous, reflecting his antics in Watto's shop, or with his friends playing among the sand dunes. Some had been pleasant, passing strangely over his mother's quiet idiosyncrasies. But some, these he could remember with the most clarity, took him beyond Tatooine. They gave him tastes of freedom and power. Sometimes he found the tracker under his skin and disabled it, slaying the gangsters that maintained the slave trade and freeing his mother and his friends. Other times, he simply seemed to transcend his servitude, acting on behalf of some greater power he could neither understand nor explain. Victorious, he heard the people cheer gaily, as he took his deserved bow. Kissing his mother gently on the cheek, he then boarded his ship—the fastest ship around—and sped off into Tatooine's blazing skyline. These dreams, intoxicating and exhilarating, always ended when he awoke in the morning. The glory of the dream—the sheer giddiness of freedom—crashed suddenly down upon him as he had to face another day of slavery. After such dreams, the walk to Watto's shop stretched over more sand, the wind grazed against his skin more coarsely, and the work in the shop trudged along with more desolation than usual. Learning to resent the disappointment, he strove to forget his dreams his unconscious mind, opting to engage in the daytime musings, in which he could always keep his consciousness grounded firmly in reality, even if his thoughts should stray to far away planets. The intensity of the recent events—the podrace, the Council, the battle—suddenly struck him as surreal, and, while sleep pulled insistently upon his tired body, he was reluctant to succumb to it for fear of losing it. Looking hopefully at Qui-Gon, he asked, "This isn't a dream, is it, Master?"
"No."
"Everything's really okay?"
"Yes."
Anakin smiled dreamily and turned to leave. He had hardly moved two steps before he turned around. "Thank you, Master," he said suddenly, and Qui-Gon could feel the affection radiating in his direction from the boy.
He could not keep back a reserved smile. He could not fight the Force. "You're welcome, Padawan."
***
The sea had turned into an ocean—an endless ocean. It spanned as far as he could see. Land no longer graced the horizon line; there was only water, water, and more water.
Coldness suddenly pervaded his senses. The traces of sunlit had vanished from the now gray sky which loomed endlessly above him, neither ominous nor inviting. It simply was.
The gray sky and the gray sea slowly met in his dimming vision. They became one infinite existence, encompassing everything he could sense. It was so cold and his legs were so tired—too tired. The futility came upon him next. There was no where to go, no where to reach for, no one to hope for. He was alone. His existence simply was, not brilliantly but not nothing. Shivering now, nothing sounded inviting. Nothing couldn't be alone because nothing didn't exist.
The remnants of his will to live slipped away from him, blurring distantly into the gray world around him. His mind stopped reaching for the emptiness, knowing he would never find the sunbeam that could save him. It was gone now, ripped from his world.
He laid himself on the water's surface, the air brushing frigidly over his tired body. There was no sense in trying anymore. It was over now. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to drift into the grayness, apathetic where he ended up.
Obi-Wan floated on.