Title: Voices in the Dark
Timeframe: End of TPM
Characters: Obi-Wan/Anakin
Genre: Angst
Summary: Obi-Wan and Anakin grieve for Qui-Gon.

Part 1 – Obi-Wan

I hope you can hear me.

I am finally alone and relief washes over me. No more pretending, no more holding back.

No more hiding inside.

I fall. My knees crumble and I slip to the floor.

I can't keep it inside.

My sobs echo through the apartment and my thoughts linger on you 'on us' and my heart shatters over and over.

It grows dark as I sit on the floor; time has no meaning and I bring my knees to my chest and rock myself back and forth. I alternate between tears and silence, happy memories and sad – everything comes back to you.
Then the boy, Anakin, murmurs in his sleep and I jump at the sudden noise.

Wiping my eyes. I shakily rise to my feet.

The boy is my link to you and my promise. I will follow your training to the end, my Master. I only hope I am ready. I'm so proud to have been your Padawan.

Am I ready?

I walk to my room - no, his room - and stand by the door. After our trip back from Naboo the boy was exhausted and so I placed him in my old bed and sat with him. I stroked his hair and told him that I would look after him as you did for me. Do you remember Master? You soothed me when my dreams were painful, you held me when I was ill and you caught me when I fell.

Who will catch me now?

I know what I must do, but it is hard – harder than I ever could have imagined.

I take a deep breath and rub my hands over my hair; automatically I go to touch my braid before remembering it is gone. Gone.

I walk the five paces from my room to your own. My hand is trembling as I tap the control and the door slides open. Fresh tears fall as I look into the space that was yours.
I feel you within it.

I am lost inside.

I have to smile as I enter the room, but it is a smile tinged with sadness and soon fades. The bed untouched since we left for Naboo and half-made in your usual style. A few garments lay on the floor of the closet rather than hung up. I walk over and kneel to pick them up, and immediately my fingers find your spare robe. I carefully lift it from the floor and wrap myself in it. It swallows me and I inhale deeply stroking it as if it is made of the most precious material in the galaxy. It radiates peace, it radiates you.

The few possessions you had are scattered on a low table, a well-tended plant among them. I reach out to touch it, my fingers buzzing as the living Force runs through me, and I find I am weeping again.

Slowly I sit on the bed. I cannot bring myself to change the room, to take out what is yours and replace it with my own. Exhaustion floods though me and I recline, laying my head on your pillow and tracing the lines with my fingers. I remember the way you teased me for the meticulous way I'd straighten my sheets and pillows and I remember the jibes I gave you when I glimpsed a look into your quarters. So meaningless. A hundred meaningless conversations that now mean everything – I'd do anything to have them back. But you're gone and so are they.

I cry into the sheets and my body aches with all the tears I've spent. I never knew it would hurt so much to loose you.

Why did you have to go?

My sobs subside and I look up at the ceiling, at the spot you must have gazed at a thousand times or more. I wonder what you thought of. I wonder what I will think of a night from now, a month, a year. Will the pain have left me or still linger beneath the surface. Will Anakin help to ease the heartache? Will he become to me what I was to you?

I wish I could ask you. I wish I could know.

I miss you.

I pull the cloak up over me. Sleep has evaded me since you left, but now here in your room I feel calmer. I'm not alone here and I sense your presence - you are within me, a part of me as I am a part of you.

My eyes grow heavy now and I can only hope for a dreamless sleep...

Goodbye my Master - I hope you can hear me.

Can you hear me?