Ewan's girl Thanks! Liz Neither of them are bad, but are only overwhelmed by a situation and their own insecurities. That's a very good observation. And thanks for the comments. Athena Leigh Indeed it's only hurting himself--and it ain't over yet, unfortunately.
Qui-Gon watched Obi-Wan's face, storming as the sky, but motionless, a still core in the chaos. "What do you blame yourself for?"
Obi-Wan looked down at his hands, where the swelled knuckles were splotched blue and bloody red. He flexed his fingers. "For what's happened…E-Everything that's happened." His voice was a fragile note coming softly through the silence. He inhaled, forced to stop a few times during to gather enough breath. "I knew it all along. That it w-was me." He ascended his eyes to Qui-Gon. The lids were heavy, but the irises were a grim, cobalt flourish of clarity surrounding the pupils. "I knew I was the reason for everything. B-But then, I started hearing other things. In my head. At first, they sounded almost the same as what I always thought. Then after a-awhile, they were different.
"I started hearing them tell me you w-were hiding, that I could find you. So I tried. I tried so hard." He swallowed. "A-And Anakin was trying too. Trying to get me to stop. I didn't understand why he would do that. I became so angry with him." He paused, wiping at his face, wincing at the pain. "I wanted to be with you, because you could make everything so much easier. You could take over, like you always did and things could be more like they were---before. But Anakin wouldn't leave me alone. He started to involve other Jedi. I felt as if it w-were a betrayal. That made it simpler for me to blame him, for my resentment to be justified. Then, when I found you h-here, I could've just let go--but Anakin would hold me back. I promised to train him." He looked at his former Master. "I promised you I would train him. Letting go would break my promise…and I was so tired…my head…So then I began to blame you, for asking me to pledge myself to Anakin. I wanted to lose my trust, my faith in you, so I could just let go and not h-hurt anymore and not f-feel the guilt…"
His head dropped into his hands. "But it's not working anymore. Something's--changing, in my head, and I know I'm to blame for everything, for my emotions, for the way I begin to feel sometimes."
Qui-Gon gingerly touched his back. "What do you feel, Obi-Wan?"
Obi-Wan recoiled from the gentle hand. "No." He rasped. "What I said…gods what I said…And the bruises are on me. It's been me all the while. I know it. B-Because I can't be what I need to be. What everyone needs me to be. It's because of what I feel. I-I don't want to feel it…"
"But you do, Obi-Wan. You do the way we all do. We all feel things about other people, jealousy, anger, resentment, things we wish we wouldn't." He ran his finger along the bruise-mottled jaw. "But if we didn't, if you didn't, then we would lose what makes us human."
"N-No. I'm his Master…I can't resent h-him…I can't wish you were back, that the mission to Naboo never happened…B-Because then he wouldn't be here." Huge drops of tears fell from his eyes. "But if I wasn't here, if I just let go now, then someone else could train him, that could fulfill the prophecy as you wanted, as you both d-deserve."
Qui-Gon cupped his face. "What about what you deserve, Obi-Wan?" The heavens crashed above them.
Suddenly, Obi-Wan began to walk, his bare feet treading the rough, battered terrain. He walked until he broke through the rolling fog and continued into the distance.
Qui-Gon ran to follow, attempting to ignore the dwindling strength of his own steps.
Bant put a hand to her chest, sensing the flex in the Force before the machine could confirm it.
Prila, who had wordlessly been monitoring the work of the healing team, walked over to her.
She noted, with an incredible rush of discord, that the antennae atop his head was moving in response to some sort of pain--outward pain. "What?"
"Well, his rapid heartbeat has slowed and they're removing much of the blockage."
There was a small measure of relief in her salmon eyes. "So his body's responding?"
"Yes. From what I can tell, the malady that was affecting his brain function is being knocked out. Which means any delirium, paranoia or psychosis should be erased along with it."
Erased. Thank the Force. "If Anakin can bring him safely out, he'll be alright? They'll both be alright?" She couldn't help her gaze, straying to Prila's physical sign of someone's distress.
"As long as he can convince him to come back." Prila agreed, but his voice lacked veritable confidence. "We--We just don't know what's going on inside Knight Kenobi's head.
"Or Anakin's."
The anguish was sending Anakin careening, beyond the grips of his Master's nightmares, into the horrible familiarity of his own.
There were so many times during his apprenticeship when he forced himself to block out a memory, to shield himself from the insecurities that could so easily dominate his mind.
Whenever he caught Obi-Wan holding a holocube of Qui-Gon, saw the dimmed aura that was always so beautifully effervescent, and knew, in a buried section of his heart, that his hand was banking that flame.
Or when Obi-Wan struggled to impart a particular shred of wisdom, not quite sure how to explain it to his young student, his brows knitting. Anakin felt a needling, an uneasiness, a thought of 'I'm not supposed to be here'. And he was always afraid that Obi-Wan was privately lamenting that same fact.
He was. He IS. I'm a damnation. HIS damnation, the reason…the reason why he can't be FREE…
And HE'S the reason I can't be free.
A glacial stone was pitched inside him. Are we holding each other back?
Anakin went very still, his thoughts rolling. Is our partnership wrong?
//Anakin.//
The Padawan felt a deep gurgle of shame, a heat in his cheeks, for thinking such harmful thoughts.
Then there was a dark shadow that fell over him, cast over his soul. No different than what HE'S thinking. A comforting shade, whispering that his musings were merited, and he could very well be right in his ideas.
//Anakin.// Qui-Gon called again, more insistently. //I can't hold on long…I can only say you must find him quickly. I CAN'T give him what you can.//
And then the ragged voice was gone.
Obi-Wan moved through the dense atmosphere, his face waxen, his arms loose at his sides. For so long, his heart had trembled when it should have beat, and now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he could hear the reverberations echoing in his head, steady and strong.
He had never been certain of anything. Not of the devotion or dedication of others--and never of himself. For three decades he waited for the traces of doubt to lift from the eyes of his instructors, his friends, his Master.
Even Anakin.
But it didn't matter how far into the flames he jumped, what burdens he accepted.
They knew. They all knew the private shame he carried. They were aware of the weakness of his heart. The doubt haunting his own eyes.
Now, his conviction was absolute, and how ironic that it came, finally, at this moment.
Obi-Wan stopped and wiped the last tear from his eye. Ahead of him was a wall of gray cloud. Beneath him, past the crumbled edge of the cliff on which he stood, was an abyss.
Anakin sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them tight, pressing them closer to his body. His lips were a sullen, bruised purple, and they quivered slightly in the twilight.
'I can't hold on long.'
The words gnawed at him. For Obi-Wan, the supposed return of Qui-Gon Jinn was a blissful, rapturous event. He thought his responsibilities could be shed, that all his worries would spiral off into nonexistence.
It was ridiculous to believe that a single man could bring about such change, with merely his presence.
Anakin looked into the darkness, panting, tears streaming down his cheeks. But he did. For me--he did.
And he wants me to save Obi-Wan.
Combating a numbness that had spread to his body, the Padawan stood. For him--I will.
He never saw me as a damnation…He never thought I ruined his life.
At the outside fringe of the ledge, Qui-Gon stood perfectly still, his hair falling in a silver-threaded drape around his face and shoulders. "Obi-Wan." He called softly, so as not to jar the Knight in his precarious position, but with an underlying current of firmness. "Come away from there." In his head, he knew this was a created plane, that the sharp rocks and dark clouds were a vivid projection of Obi-Wan's emotions--but in his soul, Qui-Gon was convinced that Obi-Wan's feet were his own, and they could very well carry him off into the shadowed pit below--and there would be no chance to wake from the nightmare anymore.
"Obi-Wan--Just come away from there."
The young man's shoulders were slumped, the skin bleached and awash with gray rain. Obi-Wan turned his head slightly, to align his jaw with them. He breathed out. "You've helped me, Qui-Gon. You helped me to realize what I've needed to do all along. I know I've never had faith in myself…that almost everything I've done is because I've held faith in someone else. Even when I trusted myself to accomplish something--I think it was because I trusted those who taught me.
"But I don't resent you for helping me this time. Because I've ultimately brought myself here. You want me to stay--and I know I need to leave."
Qui-Gon shook his head. "No. Obi-Wan, no---"
Obi-Wan looked at the face of his mentor, recovered from aged cinder and cleansed of ash, saw the piercing blue eyes that, even after years, could still puncture his heart. He smiled. "I know this is right. And when I think about it, I didn't require mind-altering illness or your words or Anakin's. I've known from the beginning, since before the first bead was worked into my braid."
Qui-Gon took a step closer. "No."
"I've known, but I beat the voice down, so I could go on. But it was still there, always there in my head. Now I can't ignore it anymore. You know this is right. You know this is what I deserve."
"No one deserves an eternity spent sunk into a void." The Master swore. "Especially you, Obi-Wan. For all the lives you've saved, all the lives you ushered into the light from the darkness, you don't deserve to be thrown into that darkness."
"I was only breaking even." Obi-Wan whispered. A drop of rain glistened on his bottom lip. "But I can never possess a true balance."
"This WON'T solve anything."
Obi-Wan swallowed. "But it will, Qui-Gon." He looked down at the bottomless pall. "Because there will be nothing left to solve." He took a step and Qui-Gon moved, his face grave.
"You can't, Obi-Wan. If you go, we'll never find each other again. It isn't the Force you'll fall to."
"Don't do this. Just let me go. Let me do something, for once, without questioning myself." Obi-Wan took a shaking breath. "Let me do what I know is right."
"And what about me?"
A coarse, deep voice caused Obi-Wan to turn around.
Anakin stood a few paces behind Qui-Gon. His face was outlined in shadow, and he could barely control the intense quiver of his lips. The boy had never felt so angry--or betrayed. "Am I a problem that will just disappear, that you won't have to 'solve'?"
In ear-shattering unison, lightning and thunder exploded within the ruined sky.
Obi-Wan blinked. "A-Anakin?"
Qui-Gon glanced at the Padawan. Fury was rolling off the youth in heated waves and he sealed his eyes in despair. //He isn't here because of you, Ani. He believes he's doing this FOR you.//
Anakin's eyes, a roiling, dark blue, flickered over to the apparition of the man he had known, all too briefly, once. //I know.// In their short days together, Anakin had never known what if was like to lie to the great Master.
He knew now.
//Ani I…can't stay anymore.// Qui-Gon's message was tethered down by weariness. //I want to. You must know that I do. For you--and for him. But it's taken so much…//
//I know, Master.// Anakin responded, without thinking. He reached out and squeezed the fading hand. //You can go. It's alright. I'll take care of him for you.//
Qui-Gon smiled at him, then at Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan heard distinct words enter his mind, a comforting warmth--that winked out as Qui-Gon Jinn's form vanished, to mingle with the dismal shades of night.
An involuntary gasp escaped Obi-Wan and a huge, abiding sadness welled in his eyes.
For the second time in his life, the arrival of Anakin Skywalker had marked the death of Qui-Gon Jinn.