Chapter 16: Not a Jedi

Obi-Wan seemed dazed. He looked at Qui-Gon as to the only steady point in a shifting world. The man felt the eyes on him after a moment, and turned from staring at the door to smile at the boy. "All right, Obi-Wan?"

The youngster blinked, then swallowed, swaying slightly even though he was sitting down. "Did . . . did I just do that? Did I just give an order to a Jedi Master?"

Qui-Gon chuckled gently. "Yes, you did. And he obeyed."

"Wow." Obi-Wan looked down, at a loss for words. He swayed again, very slowly and gently, like the frond of a plant growing beneath the sea moved by a current. Thin, shaking hands cupped around his temples as if to contain any stray thoughts that might escape. "Don't know where that came from."

"From the Force, perhaps?" Qui-Gon knelt by the couch on one knee, trying to look into the boy's face without intruding on his thoughts. He remembered something Dooku had said. Destiny fairly clings to him. New paths are being laid and as quickly discarded with every word he speaks, every move he makes.

This marvelous child. With Dooku's words, Qui-Gon could see it for himself. Obi-Wan was especially open to the Force while asleep or in the moments just before waking, obviously, but at all times, he maintained an instinctive connection that most had to struggle for years to achieve.

And now Qui-Gon understood what he had sensed in the boy from the beginning. It wasn't that he was particularly powerful in the Force—watching Dooku work within the realm of mind and spirit had reminded him of what true power was—but where others tried, Obi-Wan did. Without thinking, without struggling, Obi-Wan simply was, existing in the Force as a bird existed in the sky—because it could live nowhere else.

Again the boy swayed, and Qui-Gon reached out to steady him. "Perhaps you should go back to sleep," he suggested quietly. "This afternoon was a bit much for you, I think."

Obi-Wan grimaced. "I don't want t—to sleep." He belied himself by burying a yawn in the middle of his words. "Sleep too much."

Qui-Gon smiled. "No, it would appear that you don't sleep enough." When the boy did not respond, he frowned lightly. "What's wrong?"

Obi-Wan shot a guilty glance toward him, and looked away. But Qui-Gon noticed his hand push against the couch cushion beside his thigh, as if testing it. He grinned again.

"Tired of sleeping on the couch? I know it's lumpy. And you've certainly spent a lot of time on it these past few days. I would certainly be sick of it."

The boy nodded reluctantly. "I . . . I know I shouldn't let it bother me . . ."

"No worries. Let's just try something else, shall we?" Qui-Gon hesitated for a bare second, but again, Dooku's words came back to him. Don't hold back.

Without another thought, he scooped the boy smoothly up in his arms and sat on the couch, cradling him to his chest. "Is this more comfortable?"

When Obi-Wan stiffened, though, he regretted his impetuous decision. "I'm sorry. I'm making you uncomfortable, aren't I?" He began to shift his arms to set the child down, but his muscles barely had time to twitch before Obi-Wan protested.

"No, no," the boy said meekly. He immediately relaxed, as if in contrition, and leaned his head more heavily against Qui-Gon's chest. His fingers rose of their own volition to twine in the man's tunic, preventing him from taking back his hasty action. "Not uncomfortable. Just . . . surprised, a little." The words came slowly and haltingly, as if he didn't particularly want to say them, but they managed to escape against his will, struggling free of the bars of his lips in unsteady bursts. "I've never . . . I haven't . . . it's only that . . . I'm not . . . not a little child."

"Ah. I see." Qui-Gon folded his arms a bit more closely around the chilled figure and rested his chin on the unruly shock of reddish hair. "You may not be a little child anymore—though you will always be 'little one' to me, I'm afraid—but you are still a child. Aren't you?"

"Well . . . I suppose. It's only . . . I never really was. I don't think." Obi-Wan released a tiny grunt of frustration. "I don't know how to say it."

Qui-Gon was surprised to hear sadness in his voice. "Don't the Jedi allow their young ones to be children? Or are you taught early that you must act with calm and dignity, like miniature adults? Never laughing at your friends' childish jokes, never crying when you fall and scrape a knee? 'There is no passion, there is serenity?'" He drew in a small breath as a new insight struck his eyes with the pain of a beam of white light after walking in darkness. "Or was it something you imposed on yourself? To never be a child, to always act like a Jedi?"

A muffled sound of distress told him that he had seen well, and correctly. The sadness in Qui-Gon deepened, the heaviness of a gray afternoon drawing on to a thunder-clouded night. "My poor little one. But I might as well tell you now, just so it's clear between us—I am not a Jedi. And if you don't mind, I'll treat you as the child you are."

Again the stifled half-gasp, half-whimper from the boy. Qui-Gon realized distantly that the small fingers were digging into his flesh through the thick fabric of his tunic. "Obi-Wan?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"Qu—" Obi-Wan's voice was so thick that he choked on it, unable to continue.

Worried now, Qui-Gon drew back slightly, just enough to reach out and tip that trembling chin up so he could look into the blue-gray eyes, now swimming with moisture. "What is it?"

Obi-Wan gasped for breath. "I just . . . I just realized. I'm not a Jedi, either."

Qui-Gon's throat seized up, disallowing speech. "Oh," he whispered, and folded the child into his embrace again, as tightly as he dared. Surely this fragile being would break if he pressed too hard.

Obi-Wan clung to him in unabashed grief, allowing himself to weep after what had to be months and years of abstinence. "I wanted . . . I wanted to be. I tried so hard. To be a Jedi. To help save the galaxy. But I didn't do. I didn't . . . succeed. I failed. I failed. It was the only thing I ever wanted . . . needed . . . worked for . . . and I couldn't. I can't. Can't be . . . a Jedi. I'm not a Jedi. I'm . . ." At last the sobs that had been interrupting his whispered speech at intervals took over completely, and all he could do was cry.

"You are Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon murmured, rocking the boy gently, reflexively, almost unaware of what he was doing and saying. Everything within him, everything that he was and had, was focused on the suffering child in his arms. "You are Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's who you are. You still shine with the Light, even if you aren't a Jedi. You will still help to save the galaxy, because you cannot do otherwise. It's just who are. You are my Obi-Wan."

But he was sorrowfully aware that this was not enough to replace this lost dream, this concentrated, pin-point focus of an entire life up to this moment. How he wished that it could be.

"Please don't send me back to the Agri-Corps," Obi-Wan begged, his voice cracking on every other word. "I don't want to go back. Everyone there used to be Jedi. I don't want . . . don't want . . . Please, Qui-Gon, don't make me go back. I don't want to go back."

Qui-Gon felt tears stinging his eyes, and blinked ineffectively. He wanted to promise that that would never happen. But he had already made so many promises to this child, and he was deathly afraid that he wouldn't be able to keep them. How dare he make another? "I don't want you to go back, either," he said instead, his voice rough and broken.

Obi-Wan accepted that as a vow, though, and the tension that had tightened his narrow frame leaked gradually away. Still he wept, not yet done releasing all the grief he'd trapped behind his eyes, afraid to let it see the light. Harsh sobs ripped at his throat, raw and unrestrained, a sound that was as ugly as the pain it expressed. Qui-Gon simply held him close and let him cry, now and then murmuring soft encouragement that he wasn't sure Obi-Wan even heard.

The boy was still weeping when Julune came home, though by that time he had settled to silent tears, the occasional rough sob jerking the body that now lay limp in Qui-Gon's steady arms. The woman stepped quietly to the couch, her eyes as full of sorrow as Qui-Gon supposed his own were, and sat gingerly on the cushion beside him, leaning down to look into the reddened, tear-streaked face.

"He's asleep," she murmured, straightening slightly to look into her husband's eyes. Her gaze darted with questions, but she restrained them to let him speak.

Asleep? Qui-Gon blinked. A quick inward glance at the half-finished bond confirmed her words. The boy had been crying for over an hour, and now it continued as he slept. Force, it must have been killing him, to keep so much bottled up inside.

"He doesn't want to go back to the Agri-Corps," Qui-Gon said quietly. "And I don't want him to go."

Julune nodded easily. "We'll comm Heim Shilbey and work something out."

He tilted his head slightly, feeling his eyebrows wrinkle together. Despite his words to Dooku, he and Julune had never discussed this in so many words. "Are you sure? You realize what I'm asking for? I don't want him anywhere else. Ever."

"I understand," Julune said softly, leaning in to kiss the tears off his cheek. He hadn't realized any had fallen. "Our house on Thyferra is ready for a family. It's been ready for years. We should fill it."

Qui-Gon blinked back fresh liquid. Whatever had he done to deserve this woman? "Love you," he murmured, his heart too full to say all that was in it.

"More than life," she murmured back, leaning in to kiss his other cheek, the one she had neglected the night before.

And that was all the apology either needed. The walls between them were gone, crumbled to dust.

Qui-Gon realized with a slight shock that he was looking forward to their departure from Bandomeer for the first time since he had met this mysterious boy. The house on Thyferra was waiting.