A/N: Thank you for your wonderful reviews! They make me very, very happy and motivated. Now, for those of you who begged for a happy ending, I refer you to my other fics. Do I seem like the kind of writer to leave it all as messed up as it's about to get? ;) Nope, no more hints. You'll just have to read it as it comes up. I have a feeling you're all going to hate me very, very much in just a couple of chapters, though.

Chapter 20: Unwoven Threads

Supper was eaten in near silence. Obi-Wan kept his eyes on his plate, steadily eating his way through the savory meat and peppers. It was delicious, of course, but he barely tasted it. If only this was another day—Julune and Qui-Gon would be chatting about her job, and teasing each other about who was the better cook, and perhaps he would even find the courage to join in the bantering and insist that it was actually his perfect preparation of the jili that made this meal so unutterably tasty—but it wasn't another day. It was today, and everything was gone, and the two people who had come to mean more to him than any other adults in his life were silent, the air strained and heavy between them.

The patch of clear water in the polluted pool was that Obi-Wan actually enjoyed the food, and had had to push aside only a slight twinge of nausea at the beginning. He was getting better. Another day or two and he would have been strong enough to go back to the Agri-Corps. So what was he missing, then? Another twenty-six hours of freedom? Not worth so much heartache, was it?

He could not believe it.

He knew he was just trying to fool himself. He had heard the sincerity in Julune's words, and felt the surge of emotion from Qui-Gon, fiercely sorrowful. They wanted to keep him. They really did. Not because he had potential to be a great Jedi, not because he had an unknown power or special gifts and talents or anything like that. Just . . . because. Because he was Obi-Wan, and both Qui-Gon and Julune had begun to think of him as their Obi-Wan. Because threads had woven between them and drawn them close, knitting them into a whole that was greater than its parts.

And now all the threads had to be severed. It would not be clean, and it would not be painless. The universe was cruel that way, Obi-Wan supposed. Not that he had really expected it to be otherwise.

At last Obi-Wan pushed his plate back, only a few strips of nerf steak still laying neglected in a corner, and raised his eyes. Qui-Gon and Julune immediately paused in mid-movement, utensils held poised in the air, and met his gaze with something that looked terribly like dread. Obi-Wan winced, sorry beyond words to know that he was causing them pain. Such an evil, ungrateful return for the immense kindness they had shown him. But he could not do otherwise.

He opened his mouth and said the words that sealed their fates in frozen stone.

"I have to go."

Julune made a small sound of distress, but stilled herself at Qui-Gon's sharp hand signal. Neither pair of eyes, dark brown and deep blue, wavered from Obi-Wan for the smallest moment. "Why do you say that?" the man asked gently. He didn't have to ask what Obi-Wan was referring to. They all knew. "Why do you feel that you must go? Do you feel obligated to the Jedi because you have lived among them all your life? Do you think that you have nowhere else to go?"

Obi-Wan shook his head, his shoulders hunching slightly. "No. No, that's not why at all. I know . . . I know that you . . ." He had to swallow thickly to get out the last part, feeling small and beleaguered under their unwavering regard. ". . . that you want me to stay."

"Then why . . .?" Julune shook herself suddenly, staring away to the wall, as if it held the answers to all the questions behind its obdurate blankness. "No. Let's . . . let's straighten up the kitchen, and talk in the common room."

The menfolk leaped to agree, glad for any excuse to delay the words that had to be spoken. For a few moments it seemed that things were almost normal again—they had to battle for space in the small kitchen, as usual, dancing around each other, squeezing up against the wall and counter, ducking under dangerously jutting elbows. There was even a bit of giggling at near-collisions, so bright and ordinary-sounding that Obi-Wan could have wept for pure joy. But it could not last.

Too soon they stood awkwardly in the common room, looking at each other, trying to figure out how to talk. They hadn't had this problem for days. Words had flowed with easy strength in lighthearted rhythm, comfortable and homey, comments and stories, witticisms and affectionate insults. Now the stream had suddenly dried up, and they stood stranded on opposite banks, the dusty bed a chasm of loss between them.

It was Qui-Gon, always instinctively making peace, who made the first move to bridge the gap. "Here, now, Obi-Wan, why don't you sit on the couch? I'm sure we have a lot to talk about, and we might as well be as comfortable as possible."

Obi-Wan gratefully sank down, expecting one or the other of his kind guardians to sit on the recliner. But in the end it seemed that neither could bring themselves to be that far away—they settled on either side of their young ward, both laying an arm over the top of the couch cushion behind his head, which meant that they were consequentially touching each other as well. Obi-Wan felt surrounded, but no longer under siege. They were enveloping him physically in their presence, as if that could keep him safe forever, safe at home with them. But all three knew that this could not be.

"Now, my little one," Qui-Gon said, with the slightest emphasis on the word my, which Obi-Wan knew had to be completely unconscious. "Why don't you tell us why you have to go?"

Obi-Wan pulled in a deep breath and released it, pressing his head back into the lumpy cushion. "I have to be a Jedi."

"You say that as if it is a duty, no longer a dream," Julune observed gently.

Obi-Wan blinked. "Well . . . I suppose that's true. I've had time to get used to the idea of not being a Jedi. It doesn't . . . hurt me the way it used to. I found purpose and . . . and happiness, in life outside the Temple." He glanced tremblingly up at Qui-Gon, and saw only warmth and acceptance there. "My dream was taken from me forcibly, but in the end it died quietly, in peace. Trying to raise it now would be like trying to breathe life into a corpse."

Julune shuddered delicately beside him. "What is it with men and gruesome imagery?" she muttered. Qui-Gon's mouth quirked, and Obi-Wan understood that this was an ongoing complaint, so he smiled too, in acknowledgment.

"Why then do you feel that you must be a Jedi?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Do you feel obligated to them?" Julune asked, and a shadow of fury re-entered her voice. "Because you must believe us, sweetheart—you owe them nothing."

Obi-Wan huffed out a breath in wordless frustration. He did not know how to say this. "No, I don't feel obligated to the Jedi. Certainly not to Knight Xanatos. We fought together against the pirates, against the draigons, but it was never an equal partnership, and he never offered me anything. He was afraid to, afraid I would beg more earnestly than I already had. I made such a fool out of myself on that trip."

He said the last bit quietly, disgusted with the person he had been two weeks ago. He knew now that none of that had been necessary, that the Force would make things happen as they had to regardless of how long it took. The path might bend and twist, but it would always reach its destination in the end. All that was required of individuals was obedience.

"But you still feel a sense of duty," Qui-Gon said tentatively, trying to help Obi-Wan figure it out, express what he felt and knew instinctively. "If not to the Jedi, than to who? Or . . . what?"

For a time Obi-Wan was silent. At last he sighed, slumping wearily against the welcoming side that seemed to waiting for him to lean there. "The galaxy. I have a duty to the galaxy."

Qui-Gon's hand rose to cup his face, holding him where he lay, too drained to hold himself upright any longer. On his other side, Julune laced her fingers through his and began to stroke his forearm in smooth, gentle lines from elbow to wrist, an action that prodded at memories that hid under fever haze, but spoke of comfort and rest and healing. He found himself relaxing, unable to fear anything in the presence of this affectionate attention.

"You speak of your visions," Qui-Gon said quietly, realization thrumming beneath his tone.

Obi-Wan nodded slowly. "The Force is telling me these things for a reason. I must be meant to prevent those horrors, somehow. Or tell others who can. Or something. It must be something. Why else would I see such things? I never had such premonitions before my twelfth year. It's not like I have any great talent for it—the Force chose me. I wish it hadn't, but you can't exactly refuse the Force."

Qui-Gon chuckled, gently and sadly. "No, I don't suppose you can."

"Most of the visions have something to do with the Jedi. I see people I know, from experience or from stories, I see places I've lived in all my life. And if I'm going to affect this future, I must be a Jedi. So you see, I have to go. I have no guarantee of success, nothing so firm, but I can do the most good as Jedi. So that is what I must do."

He raised his head slowly, then craned upward as if to whisper a secret in Qui-Gon's ear, though the man was too tall for him to reach even in this slumped, relaxed position. "I don't want to, though. I don't want it at all."

He slid back down, letting his head rest on Qui-Gon's shoulder for a (last?) time. He could feel the tension in the solidly muscled arm beneath his cheek, the trembling in Julune's fingers on his arm, but he could not comfort them. He could not comfort himself. Things would proceed as they had to, and he could no more deny the will of the Force than he could fly.

Obi-Wan knew that Julune was quivering to tell him, "Well, don't then!" He knew that Qui-Gon was suppressing his urge to crush Obi-Wan in his arms and never release him. And he admired them both for their restraint.

"Are . . . are you sure, my little one?" Qui-Gon whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

"Yes," Obi-Wan said sadly. "I'm sure."

His temporary guardians pressed him just a little closer, but it made no difference. One by one, the threads that wove between them continued to snap and unravel, curling away from the points of breakage as if in pain, recoiling from the severance in tight knots and whirls of broken cord. And each one hurt a little more.

But it had to be done. It had to happen this way. Inevitability was crushing in on them, and neither Qui-Gon's enormous, gentle strength nor Julune's fiery, incandescent love could forestall the footsteps of destiny, nor even slow them.

Obi-Wan only hoped that it would all turn out all right in the end. As a Jedi, he would have a part in making the galaxy safe for decent, wonderful people like the Jinns. That would have to be enough. As long as he didn't fail in his task, his duty.