Authors Notes: Hehe... these two chapters and whenever i finish the third one were supposed to be in one long prologue...but after "Of Diverging Destinies" it was looking to be really long... so i split them. Hopefully the point should be here a-sap!
Another big hug and thanks to Shanobi for the tips she gave me last time... maybe this one will be a little more... y'know... there.
Disclaimer: Read the first chappy legal peeps. Too lazy to repeat :)
Review Thank Yous...
Snow-Glory: Soon enough? Sadly I four exams (i think) this coming week... so i'll be writing when i can :(
jedi71: Aw thanks :D Ones where Qui-Gon survives are my favourite too! Actually, pretty much any AU are my favourites...
opals: my gut? icky... reminds me of the biology revision i've been doing! Let's hope it leads me the right way
kyer: ta very much :D
Shanobi: pats her Yoda hehee -i was watching my brothers tape of ESB (which is sorta unofficially mine..) so hopefully that's what helped it, lol. Oh gawd i hope the comfort comes soon!
Heehee... I don't like Anakin... so he'll be. Yeah. MUAH HA. Hopefully you'll like what I do with him
Picturing the scene? gulp in future chapters i'm gonna try to do that -not sure if this chapter worked out to well that way :S
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Chapter One: Of Waking and Discussions
Obi-Wan rose to consciousness like a swimmer trying to reach the surface of a deep lake. He knew where he wanted to be, but getting there was taking a long time.
His eyelids felt like Bantha's had decided to sit on them and it took him more strength than he felt like he had to pry them open.
"Master?" If he could, he would have cringed at how weak his voice sounded.
Qui-Gon wasn't by his bed like he usually was when he woke up in a hospital room, and even though he wasn't a child any more it was something he'd become accustomed to.
"Welcome to the land of the waking, Jedi Kenobi." A Healer walked in smiling warmly and picked up a data pad from the end of his bed. "You gave us quite a scare for awhile."
Obi-Wan smiled back gently, "Sorry about that, Healer…"
"Tia-ni Lismari. So how are you feeling?"
His immediate response would have been tired but experience taught him to use the Force to give him a better idea of any other injuries, finding none however he told the aging woman that he indeed simply felt tired.
She nodded in an understanding manor, making an entry on the pad and placing it back in it's holder, "From the information about Jedi that Master Yoda has been telling me, and what Master Jinn could tell me about what you did, I dare say I'm not surprised. Do you remember what happened?"
Ignoring the weariness that even now was beginning to tug at his eyes, Obi-Wan thought back to the last thing he remembered.
Qui-Gon! The Sith!
He felt Qui-Gon's presence dim and falter in his mind and he knew there wasn't much time left for his Master. If he was going to do anything he would have to do it fast, or he would have broken the unofficial code among Padawans… letting his Master die… …Time seemed to stand still, though logic told him otherwise, as the hole in his Masters chest closed painstakingly slowly.
But he killed the Sith, and healed his Master… yet there was nothing after that.
The black spots were quickly overtaking the majority of his vision as he stumbled to his feet and took a step towards Qui-Gon's fallen lightsaber. His head began to spin and he faltered, his sight dimming around the edges and he fell to the floor with the next step, letting unconsciousness lay its claim upon him.
"I remember healing my Master, calling for a Medic, but nothing more after that -I passed out."
"Nothing wrong with your memory then." She smiled dryly as she placed two fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse in an old fashioned manner.
"Nothing wrong with memory of his? Hmph, if nothing wrong then ignored teachings on Force healings he did. Dangerous was what he did. " Yoda hobbled slowly into the room, stick tapping on the hard floor.
"Master Yoda!" Obi-Wan tried to sit up further in the presence of the revered Master but found both his strength to do so lacking and Healer Lismari's hand on his shoulder forcing him to stay still.
"You're not leaving this bed for at least a week, Jedi Kenobi." she said firmly.
Though he sorely felt like sticking his tongue out he restrained himself to nodding instead. Besides, there was no way he would be staying in bed for a week.
Yoda lifted himself into the plastic chair next to the bed hit Obi-Wan on the arm.
"Remember, no getting up!" Lismari reminded him as she swept out of the room, leaving him alone with the apparently annoyed little Jedi.
"Hm. Forget did you?"
"No Master Yoda," he sighed, "I didn't forget my lessons."
"So chose to ignore them, you did?"
"Yes Master Yoda. My Master was dying, I couldn't just sit there and let it happen."
"Knew how dangerous what you did was?"
"I knew it probably wouldn't be recommended by the Healers." In truth, he didn't know at all really.
"Recommended, you say? Be dead, you should be!" Another whack from the stick, harder this time. "Force has other plans for you, always in motion the future is."
"Yes Master."
"Hmm. Stubborn you are, like Qui-Gon."
Another memory cut through to the front of his thoughts like a knife.
Qui-Gon's voice became strained with each passing word, "Obi-Wan promise… promise me you'll train the boy…"
Qui-Gon's last words were going to be about Anakin, that's how stubborn he was. Obi-Wan wasn't like that, if he ever got a Padawan he would never do that to them.
Yoda's ears dipped, sensing the sadness from the human, "Taken young Skywalker as his Padawan, he has."
Obi-Wan didn't move, he knew those words would come yet he'd no time to prepare for the blow that reminded him all to clearly of his early years at the Temple, being pushed aside for something, somebody, else.
"Believe you ready, Council does. Trials, your battle against the Sith were."
"No! Master Yoda, I wish to take Trials set by the Council, like every other Padawan of the Order."
Yoda stared unblinking at Obi-Wan a picture of calm even as the other shifted uncomfortably, "Why wish you that? Devise something more challenging, we could not."
"Padawan's complete their Trials alone, Master Yoda, I defeated the Sith with aid first from my Master."
"Hmm. What you did, still no easy task. But if Trials you wish to take, arrange it Council will."
"I want to take the Trials."
Yoda nodded, slipping out of the chair. "Sleep now, you will. When wake next you do, Qui-Gon here will be."
Obi-Wan nodded, needing little encouragement to let the Bantha's on his eyelids have their way and close.
Anakin squeezed an eye open from his meditation stance and watched Master Qui-Gon. His Master.
Meditating was beyond boring -all they did was sit and think about nothing. Not wizard at all. It was the complete opposite wizard.
It was supposed to relax him, centre him on the Force and all but it just so boring. No normal person could sit still for as long as Qui-Gon expected him to.
"Focus, Anakin." Qui-Gon's voice was quiet, "You need to focus, release everything into the Force, empty your mind."
"It's hard."
"Then you must practice until it become easier." Qui-Gon stood up, stretching out his limbs with a slight grimace, "Practice for another hour then go and have some fun outside."
Anakin waited until the man was at the doorway before scowling. If he was their Chosen One why did he have to do all this stuff anyway?
Qui-Gon walked briskly through the corridors of the Palace, nodding to security personnel and other servants in the Palace as he passed them. Earlier Yoda contacted him to say Obi-Wan had woken up briefly, and though was now sleeping again would assuredly be awake again before the end of the day. Hence his direction now: the Medical Wing. Though he had considerably thinned their Training Bond since being told he would be allowed to take Anakin as his Padawan, he had not closed it off entirely. As such he already knew that Obi-Wan was awake, if nothing else, when he stepped through the doorway to his ex-apprentice's room.
"Good evening, Master." Obi-Wan was sitting up against the backboard looking like he had been meditating.
"Obi-Wan," Did he know that he was no longer his Master?
The younger Jedi held up a hand, cutting off Qui-Gon in a way that would not usually have been acceptable, and "I know that you have taken Anakin as your apprentice, Master Yoda told me."
Silence stretched between them that never used to be a problem but now felt like a suffocating blanket, what to say After over a decade of living and working together it was over, for good. No going back, no more meals, no more missions, no more training.
"When are you to be knighted?"
"After I take my Trials."
Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows, "Was the Sith not enough for the Council?"
"It wasn't enough for me. I don't want people calling me the Knight who killed the Sith."
"But you did kill a Sith Obi-Wan."
Kenobi stared at Qui-Gon much as Yoda had looked at him earlier, "But it's not the only thing I've done, and it's not the only thing I'll ever do. It was one moment in my life, and not a very defining one."
"Just what would you consider defining Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon questioned, leaning forward into his chair.
He blinked purposefully and breathed out steadily, considering his answer. Killing any being should not be taken lightly, even one so dark as a Sith, but that wasn't what either of them meant. Defining moments of his life? "When you took me as your Padawan, when you gave me the river stone… when I completed my lightsaber… when I completed the thirtieth Kata for the first time without any mistakes.
Whilst taking the life of that Sith was not nothing, it doesn't define me. I'm not just a killer; a Jedi only uses violence as a last resort. "
The Jedi Master allowed himself a moments reflection on each of the memories Obi-Wan had mentioned and another to realise he'd just had one of the most important Jedi teachings thrown into his face.
"I apologise, Obi-Wan, I didn't mean to insinuate anything. So when are you to take the Trials?"
"As soon as I can get out of this Medical Wing and back to Corusant the Council will notify me of where I am to complete them." Despite his conviction to take them, Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel apprehensive -they weren't called the Trials for no reason. He had to run a hand through his hair to stop from fiddling with the white sheets.
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon actually shifted uncomfortably in the seat, obviously trying to decide as to how to phrase his next words. Until finally, he decided to just say it exactly how he meant it. "Would you still allow me the honour of cutting your braid?"
Once more a silence fell between them as Obi-Wan considered the question.
This was the man who'd just cast him aside again the minute he thought the Force was guiding him another direction. This was the man who'd refused to take him as his Padawan to the point where he'd been on a ship to AgriCorps. This was also the man that had been his mentor for twelve years, had seen him broken, bent, and his lowest… yet had still stood by him. Trying to imagine anybody else cutting the braid, which now neared his elbow in length, seemed impossibly wrong. Half his life had been spent with the man beside him, even if the few bad times were awful. Like only a few weeks earlier. But still…
"Yes, Master."
For one last time.
---------------------------------
Post A/N: Reviews make me right faster, don't they?
Obi-Wan: Yup. So maybe they shouldn't review...
Lani: HAY! You don't even know what i've got yet!
Obi-Wan: Maybe not -but i've seen what you do to other characters you like!
Lani: Just ignore him folks... he's just scared! Review! I live on reviews!
Another big hug and thanks to Shanobi for the tips she gave me last time... maybe this one will be a little more... y'know... there.
Disclaimer: Read the first chappy legal peeps. Too lazy to repeat :)
Review Thank Yous...
Snow-Glory: Soon enough? Sadly I four exams (i think) this coming week... so i'll be writing when i can :(
jedi71: Aw thanks :D Ones where Qui-Gon survives are my favourite too! Actually, pretty much any AU are my favourites...
opals: my gut? icky... reminds me of the biology revision i've been doing! Let's hope it leads me the right way
kyer: ta very much :D
Shanobi: pats her Yoda hehee -i was watching my brothers tape of ESB (which is sorta unofficially mine..) so hopefully that's what helped it, lol. Oh gawd i hope the comfort comes soon!
Heehee... I don't like Anakin... so he'll be. Yeah. MUAH HA. Hopefully you'll like what I do with him
Picturing the scene? gulp in future chapters i'm gonna try to do that -not sure if this chapter worked out to well that way :S
-----------------------------
Chapter One: Of Waking and Discussions
Obi-Wan rose to consciousness like a swimmer trying to reach the surface of a deep lake. He knew where he wanted to be, but getting there was taking a long time.
His eyelids felt like Bantha's had decided to sit on them and it took him more strength than he felt like he had to pry them open.
"Master?" If he could, he would have cringed at how weak his voice sounded.
Qui-Gon wasn't by his bed like he usually was when he woke up in a hospital room, and even though he wasn't a child any more it was something he'd become accustomed to.
"Welcome to the land of the waking, Jedi Kenobi." A Healer walked in smiling warmly and picked up a data pad from the end of his bed. "You gave us quite a scare for awhile."
Obi-Wan smiled back gently, "Sorry about that, Healer…"
"Tia-ni Lismari. So how are you feeling?"
His immediate response would have been tired but experience taught him to use the Force to give him a better idea of any other injuries, finding none however he told the aging woman that he indeed simply felt tired.
She nodded in an understanding manor, making an entry on the pad and placing it back in it's holder, "From the information about Jedi that Master Yoda has been telling me, and what Master Jinn could tell me about what you did, I dare say I'm not surprised. Do you remember what happened?"
Ignoring the weariness that even now was beginning to tug at his eyes, Obi-Wan thought back to the last thing he remembered.
Qui-Gon! The Sith!
He felt Qui-Gon's presence dim and falter in his mind and he knew there wasn't much time left for his Master. If he was going to do anything he would have to do it fast, or he would have broken the unofficial code among Padawans… letting his Master die… …Time seemed to stand still, though logic told him otherwise, as the hole in his Masters chest closed painstakingly slowly.
But he killed the Sith, and healed his Master… yet there was nothing after that.
The black spots were quickly overtaking the majority of his vision as he stumbled to his feet and took a step towards Qui-Gon's fallen lightsaber. His head began to spin and he faltered, his sight dimming around the edges and he fell to the floor with the next step, letting unconsciousness lay its claim upon him.
"I remember healing my Master, calling for a Medic, but nothing more after that -I passed out."
"Nothing wrong with your memory then." She smiled dryly as she placed two fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse in an old fashioned manner.
"Nothing wrong with memory of his? Hmph, if nothing wrong then ignored teachings on Force healings he did. Dangerous was what he did. " Yoda hobbled slowly into the room, stick tapping on the hard floor.
"Master Yoda!" Obi-Wan tried to sit up further in the presence of the revered Master but found both his strength to do so lacking and Healer Lismari's hand on his shoulder forcing him to stay still.
"You're not leaving this bed for at least a week, Jedi Kenobi." she said firmly.
Though he sorely felt like sticking his tongue out he restrained himself to nodding instead. Besides, there was no way he would be staying in bed for a week.
Yoda lifted himself into the plastic chair next to the bed hit Obi-Wan on the arm.
"Remember, no getting up!" Lismari reminded him as she swept out of the room, leaving him alone with the apparently annoyed little Jedi.
"Hm. Forget did you?"
"No Master Yoda," he sighed, "I didn't forget my lessons."
"So chose to ignore them, you did?"
"Yes Master Yoda. My Master was dying, I couldn't just sit there and let it happen."
"Knew how dangerous what you did was?"
"I knew it probably wouldn't be recommended by the Healers." In truth, he didn't know at all really.
"Recommended, you say? Be dead, you should be!" Another whack from the stick, harder this time. "Force has other plans for you, always in motion the future is."
"Yes Master."
"Hmm. Stubborn you are, like Qui-Gon."
Another memory cut through to the front of his thoughts like a knife.
Qui-Gon's voice became strained with each passing word, "Obi-Wan promise… promise me you'll train the boy…"
Qui-Gon's last words were going to be about Anakin, that's how stubborn he was. Obi-Wan wasn't like that, if he ever got a Padawan he would never do that to them.
Yoda's ears dipped, sensing the sadness from the human, "Taken young Skywalker as his Padawan, he has."
Obi-Wan didn't move, he knew those words would come yet he'd no time to prepare for the blow that reminded him all to clearly of his early years at the Temple, being pushed aside for something, somebody, else.
"Believe you ready, Council does. Trials, your battle against the Sith were."
"No! Master Yoda, I wish to take Trials set by the Council, like every other Padawan of the Order."
Yoda stared unblinking at Obi-Wan a picture of calm even as the other shifted uncomfortably, "Why wish you that? Devise something more challenging, we could not."
"Padawan's complete their Trials alone, Master Yoda, I defeated the Sith with aid first from my Master."
"Hmm. What you did, still no easy task. But if Trials you wish to take, arrange it Council will."
"I want to take the Trials."
Yoda nodded, slipping out of the chair. "Sleep now, you will. When wake next you do, Qui-Gon here will be."
Obi-Wan nodded, needing little encouragement to let the Bantha's on his eyelids have their way and close.
Anakin squeezed an eye open from his meditation stance and watched Master Qui-Gon. His Master.
Meditating was beyond boring -all they did was sit and think about nothing. Not wizard at all. It was the complete opposite wizard.
It was supposed to relax him, centre him on the Force and all but it just so boring. No normal person could sit still for as long as Qui-Gon expected him to.
"Focus, Anakin." Qui-Gon's voice was quiet, "You need to focus, release everything into the Force, empty your mind."
"It's hard."
"Then you must practice until it become easier." Qui-Gon stood up, stretching out his limbs with a slight grimace, "Practice for another hour then go and have some fun outside."
Anakin waited until the man was at the doorway before scowling. If he was their Chosen One why did he have to do all this stuff anyway?
Qui-Gon walked briskly through the corridors of the Palace, nodding to security personnel and other servants in the Palace as he passed them. Earlier Yoda contacted him to say Obi-Wan had woken up briefly, and though was now sleeping again would assuredly be awake again before the end of the day. Hence his direction now: the Medical Wing. Though he had considerably thinned their Training Bond since being told he would be allowed to take Anakin as his Padawan, he had not closed it off entirely. As such he already knew that Obi-Wan was awake, if nothing else, when he stepped through the doorway to his ex-apprentice's room.
"Good evening, Master." Obi-Wan was sitting up against the backboard looking like he had been meditating.
"Obi-Wan," Did he know that he was no longer his Master?
The younger Jedi held up a hand, cutting off Qui-Gon in a way that would not usually have been acceptable, and "I know that you have taken Anakin as your apprentice, Master Yoda told me."
Silence stretched between them that never used to be a problem but now felt like a suffocating blanket, what to say After over a decade of living and working together it was over, for good. No going back, no more meals, no more missions, no more training.
"When are you to be knighted?"
"After I take my Trials."
Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows, "Was the Sith not enough for the Council?"
"It wasn't enough for me. I don't want people calling me the Knight who killed the Sith."
"But you did kill a Sith Obi-Wan."
Kenobi stared at Qui-Gon much as Yoda had looked at him earlier, "But it's not the only thing I've done, and it's not the only thing I'll ever do. It was one moment in my life, and not a very defining one."
"Just what would you consider defining Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon questioned, leaning forward into his chair.
He blinked purposefully and breathed out steadily, considering his answer. Killing any being should not be taken lightly, even one so dark as a Sith, but that wasn't what either of them meant. Defining moments of his life? "When you took me as your Padawan, when you gave me the river stone… when I completed my lightsaber… when I completed the thirtieth Kata for the first time without any mistakes.
Whilst taking the life of that Sith was not nothing, it doesn't define me. I'm not just a killer; a Jedi only uses violence as a last resort. "
The Jedi Master allowed himself a moments reflection on each of the memories Obi-Wan had mentioned and another to realise he'd just had one of the most important Jedi teachings thrown into his face.
"I apologise, Obi-Wan, I didn't mean to insinuate anything. So when are you to take the Trials?"
"As soon as I can get out of this Medical Wing and back to Corusant the Council will notify me of where I am to complete them." Despite his conviction to take them, Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel apprehensive -they weren't called the Trials for no reason. He had to run a hand through his hair to stop from fiddling with the white sheets.
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon actually shifted uncomfortably in the seat, obviously trying to decide as to how to phrase his next words. Until finally, he decided to just say it exactly how he meant it. "Would you still allow me the honour of cutting your braid?"
Once more a silence fell between them as Obi-Wan considered the question.
This was the man who'd just cast him aside again the minute he thought the Force was guiding him another direction. This was the man who'd refused to take him as his Padawan to the point where he'd been on a ship to AgriCorps. This was also the man that had been his mentor for twelve years, had seen him broken, bent, and his lowest… yet had still stood by him. Trying to imagine anybody else cutting the braid, which now neared his elbow in length, seemed impossibly wrong. Half his life had been spent with the man beside him, even if the few bad times were awful. Like only a few weeks earlier. But still…
"Yes, Master."
For one last time.
---------------------------------
Post A/N: Reviews make me right faster, don't they?
Obi-Wan: Yup. So maybe they shouldn't review...
Lani: HAY! You don't even know what i've got yet!
Obi-Wan: Maybe not -but i've seen what you do to other characters you like!
Lani: Just ignore him folks... he's just scared! Review! I live on reviews!