Athena Leigh I think that's the problem with posting my fic in small installments, as I have been. I know this fic will rely very heavily on backstory, so there might be things that will be hard to swallow, without much rational explanation to back it up. Which is not to say that everything in this will be rational, or even well thought out. I can't read my fic all the way through, not even when I finish it, which is why I get embarrassed by the typos I find in old stories down the road. Hee hee. I just hope you'll trust me, and remember that you can always say what you think is a little screwy or unbelievable. We're all on the same level around here, after all, so there's definitely no stepping out of place. I really appreciate your reviews and I always will. Thank you.
Fudge It might just come back to haunt Qui-Gon…who knows?
Lmoonshade Thank you so much!
Shanobi You're just spoiling me, ya ol' softie! Hee!
Kynstar Your replies are always so surprising and so sweet. Thank you.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Never had a name held such sick weight, saturated with ugly memory and soiled by deep-seated hatred. To hear it uttered was to be transported to his days as an initiate, walking deserted corridors where that name echoed, in the voices of peers, instructors.
And Qui-Gon Jinn.
The man was a master of many things, in life and career. An expert swordsman, adept mediator and negotiator--revered mentor. He was also possessed of a unique, if somewhat rare, sense of humor and had an acute sensitivity tuned to the suffering of others. Above all, he was a champion of the underdog, a man who would chase a wispy petal on the wind, otherwise ignored in a glorious cluster of full blooms. Qui-Gon appreciated unrealized potential.
Perhaps that was why he had honed the unusual, unenviable talent to transform the name of his third, brief Padawan learner into a number of emotions: revulsion, woe, grief, indignation.
Bruck refused to address the possibility of 'regret'.
All of these were exhausted feelings that gnawed at the moniker as if it were meat, sucking at juice and flesh and marrow until all that remained was a twisted carcass, dried out and stinking of rot. It was well past due for Qui-Gon to take those shriveled husks and pitch them to the dogs, where the final remnants could be crushed to ash and, at last, forgotten.
But now, here came a fresh, dark slice.
For Bruck, the recognition of the wild warrior had been slow in coming. There were too many dusty pieces to interlock, so many edges that were ragged and torn. Twelve years could do much to an adolescent boy, aside from the black wash of hair dye and sinister attire.
There was a single, undeniable fact that stood above all else in this mess he and his Master were currently entangled: time had not held many kind days for Kenobi. His basic facial structure was intact, but the skin had paled to a drift of snow surrounded by midnight locks. He was taller, leaner, though muscled. And that which had always been his bane, the trait that was a source of laughter and ridicule for a certain sect of the initiates, was gone altogether.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was not clumsy anymore. His grace was cold, a ribbon of ice lashing perfectly through the Dark. His eyes were cut from that same, hard frost.
The light…The Light had abandoned him--he had abandoned it--and it showed.
An abomination. That was the word that leapt to the forefront of Bruck's churning mind. Then again, that was my belief before Naboo.
The apprentice laid on the smooth, linen-decked bed in his quarters, watching a slat of light streak from under the blinds. "An abomination," He whispered, "And I should have killed it."
Wouldn't that have been a crowning moment in his life? After the horrible little legacy Obi-Wan left for his successor, to have the barrel pointed, and the fateful shot made by Bruck? It had been so close, and the savoring of what euphoria it could have been flooded his mouth.
Could have been, but wasn't. His initial thoughts were painted stark, in bright outrage and vivid anger. There they were, in total rule of the situation, standing above the eternal villain of their lives, and all that needed to be done, to finish him off, was another bolt. Or two. Even a strike of a saber, in his gut. But none of those were done, the opportunity squandered.
When his Master hoarsely ordered a healer to be retrieved, Bruck was flabbergasted, livid, one step away from just repeating that pull on the trigger. But he had to do as he was told.
And now, with the fever of battle and surprise cooled within him, the boy was glad Kenobi still lived. He even understood his Master's refusal to deliver the killing word.
There was no way Obi-Wan could have performed with such precision without substantial training, lessons definitely not received from the Jedi. Then who, or what, could be credited with the tight axles and flawless application of battle dance?
Bruck sat up, his bleached white braid sliding up from the pillows. They would know. The Order would not grant Kenobi leniency, despite his past among the ranks. Punishment and harsh inquisition would eventually extract from him the coiled, filthy secrets.
Obi-Wan.
It had been a long, long while since he heard his Master speak it. But, for the first time, Bruck couldn't be sure what sentiments consumed the accursed syllables.
"Obi-Wan." And there was no mystery behind those that colored his own pronunciation. None.
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Through the dismal wasteland of his mind, breaking past that single, perpetually playing memory, Qui-Gon could sense Bruck's waking movements. A sigh slipped from his lips, and he turned from the sweet tableau of Naboo morning, leaving with it the traces of a darker, deeper mourning. The smolder of coal skirted around his nostrils, though there were no fires brewing.
"You speak of someone long dead." But yet, the charred ghost cloyed, lifted in thin tendrils from the pyre built years before. Qui-Gon had done everything within his considerable power to rid his senses of the recollections. He had banished every last holo from his quarters, raided his desk for any residual artwork or scribbled note in that specific, slanted script.
And the room that Obi-Wan Kenobi had made his own for that blink of time, Qui-Gon had made sure it was eradicated of marks. He stripped the bed of its dressings, recoiling in disgust, in overwhelming sorrow, when the faint scent of the boy mingled in the air. He tore the portraits from the walls, ripped the model ships from their clear strings, gutted the modest closet of clothes, books, personal affects.
When he was through, chest heaving and sweat dripping from a haggard mop of hair, it was but a featureless, white box. It was as if Obi-Wan Kenobi had never stepped foot inside of it.
Since that moment, it had been a private quest of Qui-Gon's to will his mind to emulate that unaffected room. He needed to save his thoughts from the decay of incomplete memory.
But now, he knew it had been a coat of whitewash, rolled away in diluted drops at this onslaught of cold currents. Obi-Wan had taken up residence in the Master's soul, regardless of how abbreviated the stay turned out to be.
And he had wondered what became of the boy, even after his world was repopulated by teaching. Sometimes, it was only a whisper, teasing the borders of his mind. But for a few instances, it became a howl, a demand. Where was his Padawan?
Then came the stringent denial. Obi-Wan was not his Padawan. In the history of his own life, such a brief interlude amounted to the barest of footnotes. Not even a year, in the company of at least fifty others.
Qui-Gon quickly, mechanically washed his face and ran his palms over the wrinkles in his tunic. He was an acquaintance, really. He avoided the mirrors of the lavatory and bed chamber, beyond caring that the weary lines of his face were forming ridges over his skin and his beard was a little too thick. And, perhaps it would be different…if I believed I ever knew him in the first place.
Still, he had to fight off the hitch in his chest when that ivory face was there, in the sour aftertaste of yesterday, to usher him into the new stage of his mission.
Qui-Gon stood near the end of his lavishly decorated bed, posture slightly bowed, eyes closed. Force damn me, another child taken by the dark. Even this child, who was so easily seduced from the Jedi.
Lids opened, to reveal slits of dusky, disenchanted sapphire. This creature…whom I should have spared from utter depravity. I should have run him through that day. Let the Jedi blade save him from himself.
A humorless half-smile touched his face. But it wouldn't have been an honorable act. No…It would have been for me. It would have been…
Revenge.
Was that what this was? Was Obi-Wan Kenobi's convoluted want for retribution the reasoning behind his intricately executed plan, the omnipresent cloak sewn to his shoulders, in blood-red thread?
But Qui-Gon was not a stupid man, nor a naïve initiate. He knew there had to be more. No one lived by passion alone.
Unless the formidable figure standing at the hangar doors had been a malformed man, more a child, still nursing the sting of decade-old wounds. And if that was the ability contained in an unfinished form, then what possibilities awaited Obi-Wan upon maturity, if he was able to emerge from the tender, angry flesh…as something whole in its strength and less emotional in its drive?
"Are we to meet with the Queen now, Master?"
Bruck's voice was a welcome bell, tolling blissfully in his melancholic musings. Qui-Gon shirked the gloom, as much as he could, and turned around. "I imagine so." His voice was weighted by his conscious passing of the night, "If for nothing else, then to collect Anakin."
The comment brought a minor flinch to Bruck's face, quickly schooled.
Qui-Gon easily caught the reaction in the familiar, blunt features and offered a smile. "You needn't worry, Padawan. Anakin Skywalker will be trained, but he doesn't have an immediate need for intensive, Master-involved training. There will be time spent in rudimentary classes, learning basic skills. I hope we can both be there, in support of him," He reached out to clap a shoulder, "But the last chapters of your apprenticeship will have to be written, you know." His spirit had been pulled down to the dregs, but Qui-Gon managed a wink. "And I don't think you'd fare well without me to offer some guidance."
A heavy breath was unchained from Bruck, but he didn't visibly share the light joke. "I know I wouldn't fare well without you, Master." He looked away. "I got that distinct feeling yesterday, when I saw that….bastard, that death in his eyes."
Normally, Qui-Gon would admonish him for his coarse language, but he could forgive his student the error. The battle had left both of them battered and bruised--and not just externally. "It seems I am in equal need of your assistance, Padawan. I have to admit, seeing him was…"
But for the Master, there were no words.
"It was like a kick in the stomach." Bruck supplied, after a beat of awkward silence.
"Yes," Qui-Gon agreed, trailed away into a daze, reliving the moment for the umpteenth time, feeling that resounding thud against his abdomen. The palace quarters were decadent around them, with carved stone pillars and expansive windows, huge, heavily blanketed beds. The air was perfumed, the food was gourmet.
For the Jedi, it was not an uncommon scenario. They so often served those in the pits of poverty, but the actual work was done in surroundings such as these, in luxury that was almost a form of gratitude.
Padawans had a different way of handling the things to which Masters were politely accustomed. Especially the younger of the Order's proteges. Bruck had always shown the same, natural hungers of teenage boys, and took wide-eyed inventory of the complimentary packets of salted nuts and sweets. Xanatos was geared towards material perks, velvet throws and impressively wide holo screens. And on his very first assignment with his new Master, Obi-Wan had run to the window to see how spectacular a view they had been granted…
Qui-Gon's eyes clamped shut as he shook off the floating notion of a fragment of repeated past. For a weak, fanciful mind, this situation, standing here, in this extravagance, with a Padawan, could bring the thought that perhaps no years had separated him from his fallen apprentice, and that when he opened his eyes again, he would be looking at the handsome, gold-tinted visage of Obi-Wan Kenobi, ginger braid dangling at his ear.
There was a tiny tremor in his heart, and he did open his eyes. Bruck was staring at him with a pair of sharp, black pinpoints, surrounded by disks of pale blue. Strange, how in the pulse of battle, those pupils could expand and block out the icy color. "I couldn't sense him at all." Qui-Gon murmured. "Even with the wear of years, a Master can always feel the presence of their apprentice."
Bruck's chest tightened with the mention of Kenobi as his Master's student, but he said nothing about it. "He was never a friend of mine. Not even close. But there was always…" He shrugged, as though to diminish the importance of the topic, "Something very…" He wouldn't say 'special'," Weird about his signature in the Force. You could always tell it was him.
"That feeling in the hangar. That wasn't Oaf--That wasn't Kenobi. Not like I remember him, anyway."
"No." Qui-Gon shook his head, hands loose on his hips. "It wasn't like him at all. It wasn't until I saw him up close, when I really saw him," He had to steel his bones against an intense shiver, "That I knew."
They started walking down the elegant corridor, settled in the comfortable quiet of the late years of their relationship, strides long and clean.
"I thought he was dead." Bruck said abruptly.
Qui-Gon swallowed the jagged boulder in his throat. I didn't want to. But the thought never reached the boy's ears.
Which didn't necessarily mean it didn't reach his other senses.
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