I had lain awake half the night, deep in meditation and thought, for the healers had spoken to me the prior evening. They assured me of my eventual recovery, but told me I would have a long convalescence ahead of me.

The battle with the Sith had already made me aware of my age. I was no longer a young man. I was slowly losing my strength as the silver in my hair increased. Now I needed to focus my strength on my recovery. How then could I guide young Anakin? The Chosen One needed careful tending, but with a master who could devote full attention to the task. That could not be me.

What strength I had within me had to be focused on fighting the Council on his behalf, but what then? I turned my eyes to the faint light shining through the windows and saw the plant that Obi-Wan had so thoughtfully placed at my bedside. Obi-Wan! Of course.

I felt a bit ashamed of myself of not thinking of him right away, but all my thoughts of him for so long had been tied up in memories and hopes that I had not thought to look forward. Obi-Wan was my past. Obi-Wan had his own future. Anakin was the future.

It seemed so obvious, now, and there was a connection between them already. It was sometimes tense, I freely acknowledged, but no relationship was free from stress. Obi-Wan and I had tried each other's patience many a time and our relationship had been the stronger for it.

I had the solution. Now that I had resolved my dilemma, I found it easy to fall asleep.

It was late morning when I awoke. My eyes went to Obi-Wan, standing staring out the window, hands clasped behind his back. He turned almost as soon as I focused on him and came to sit next to me. He was rested and bright-eyed, seemingly no longer troubled by either his actions during battle or with the status of my health.

"How do you feel, Master?"

"Qui-Gon," I insisted. "Not master, not any longer."

"I shall call you as I like," he said, eyes twinkling at me. "I'm not your padawan any longer. Not unless Master Yoda decides promoting me was premature on the Council's part."

We were both laughing when Yoda came through the doorway. He looked at Obi-Wan with a severe expression on his face and said sternly, "The Council's wisdom you doubt already? Taking your old master's opinions as your own are you? Stubborn, both of you are."

Obi-Wan quickly got to his feet and bowed, daring to look at me and see if I was laughing or hiding my mirth.

"Yoda, you're scaring our newest knight." I said firmly.

"Humph. If scared he is, perhaps change our mind we should." Yoda's ears curled in that way I knew was amusement. "Told you did he?"

I saw a spot of color flare in Obi-Wan's cheeks as if he was uncertain that he should have let this news slip. I softly laughed.

I shook my head. "Not in so many words. No, I expect he would never have told me; left you that honor, but I – well, our bond was wide open and I saw it through there when we were speaking yesterday."

"Ah," that wise head nodded sagely, and swiveled to face my padawan. "Told you we did that pulling back from your rage and achieving full control of yourself and the Force proved your readiness. You would not believe this old Jedi, eh, only your old master?"

Obi-Wan stammered something, but Yoda ignored him and turned his attention back to me. "Fine knight he will be, commend you on his guidance, Master Qui-Gon. Right you were, on his readiness. Enough on the boy - how feel you?"

I merely groaned. "Better when I am not reminded of being run clean through with a lightsaber," I admitted. "I must be drugged to my eyebrows since I'm feeling relatively good – how many days have I been lying here?"

"A week," Obi-Wan said gently, and in his eyes I saw reflected all his pain and the long days and nights at my side as he worried for my life. After my conversation with the healers the previous evening, I knew how close I had come to dying, not just how long my convalescence would take.

"One, very long, week. On the bright side, you missed the celebration." His eyes gleamed suddenly as he sat. "Our 'pathetic friend' was quite…entertaining as he tried to dismount. I believe even you would have been amused. You would have loved the banquet that followed."

He glanced at Yoda and leaned over, whispered in my ear just loud enough for me to hear, "you would have found some of the young ladies quite fetching, too."

"Brat," I swatted at him, laughing as Yoda blinked at the two of us. "I'm sure you were all too well-behaved a young man, and not just because the Council was there keeping an eye on you, but it was nice of you to think of me."

Obi-Wan suddenly sobered and sat up straight. "Also, well, Master Yoda – you want to tell him?"

Yoda frowned and leaned heavily on his stick. He wasn't pleased, I could tell, with the news he was about to impart to me.

"Trained, young Skywalker will be. Disagree I do; much anger in him I see. Clouded his future is. Council disagrees with me."

"Oh." I saw why Obi-Wan chose not to tell me himself. He wanted me to see Yoda's doubts for myself. I was, however, elated. I would not have to spend energy fighting for Anakin. The Council had finally shown its collective wisdom.

Though I had come to a decision myself as to who should be Anakin's master, I wanted to knowYoda's and Obi-Wan's thoughts before I spoke up.

"Anakin shall be padawan to what master?" I asked. I wanted to be, Force knows, but it just wouldn't be fair to Anakin.

Both Obi-Wan and Yoda looked at me and then at each other. They both then turned back to look at me at the same time, and simultaneously they said, "you." I only shook my head, and explained why I could not.

Once again the two of them turned their heads to look at each other. They both knew me too well, and knew I had a candidate in mind. They waited, Yoda endlessly patient and Obi-Wan with a quirked eyebrow as if he was afraid he knew what I was thinking.

"Obi-Wan?" I said slyly, raising an eyebrow at him. "You can take a padawan, now."

"Master!" he protested. "I don't even have my braid off yet and you want to put me in charge of young Anakin? I'm not ready for such a responsibility."

"Ready you are," Yoda said, turning to look at him. "A knight you are now. Ready, that makes you, to take on any task."

"But…," Obi-Wan swallowed hard. "He has been raised so differently…how would I understand how to deal with him? Besides, he expects you to train him. He was there with you when you said you would take him as your padawan – wasn't that something he held against me, when you came after me? That you were rescuing your padawan – me - when he thought he was to hold that honor?"

I thought I now understood his concerns. It was not Anakin himself, but the circumstances of his early life. It was easier to ignore the last part of his question; I was still uncomfortable with the position I had put myself in, and therefore the two of them.

"He already looks to you for reassurance, my padawan," I said. "I would take Anakin as my padawan were I younger and healthier, but I think it better if I entrust him to you. Who better to train the Chosen One, then the best former apprentice in the Order?"

My tone was gently teasing, for my poor Obi-Wan had, perhaps unfairly, been tagged as the "perfect padawan" in the past.

He had tried so hard to be perfect, hiding his imperfections from all, that very few actually saw his moments of indecision and confusion. As his master, I saw it all, and tried to encourage him to merely be who he was, not the perfection he thought he had to be.

Much of the blame for that lay at my hands.

I had been slow to warm to him and slow to trust, for the trust and love within him seemed a shell of deceit. How could one so young, so new to our partnership, give so much of himself so freely, so soon?

I had come to realize that Obi-Wan really was that trusting and loving a boy with those that he was drawn to. It always surprised me that he wasn't more attuned to the Living Force, and that I had to more than once remind him to amend his focus and seek deeper within. He would drop his eyes and flush with shame when so chided.

I regretted he didn't have a deeper connection to the Living Force, but I didn't consider that a failure, only an unfortunate aspect of his personality needing tending, not harsh words. His strength lay elsewhere, and I acknowledged that.

Yes, he was cautious in many respects, not quick to see the potential in those appearing to have none, and he was prone to quick judgments – usually correct, I had to admit, but far from always.

Some of this drive for perfection had shown up after our trip to Ilum when he had fashioned his own lightsaber. He had muttered of his failures when I had held him close, shuddering as if with a fever, though he seemed unable to remember or speak of his visions. He had made it past those visions, for he had constructed his first lightsaber and returned with it, but the visions had left their mark on him.

The boy who sought to give nothing less than his best became the boy whose best was not enough. Obi-Wan would not allow himself to fail. Since he was only human, he failed to achieve perfection and only tried harder, only to fall again short.

As his master, and his friend, all I could do was stand beside him. Sometimes, that was enough. Gradually, that intense need burned itself out and the boy became less driven, less hard on himself. He never quite lost his fear of failure, but he learned to accept that to do his best was acceptable; he learned to laugh once more.

The first time Obi-Wan had frowned and then smiled at an error, I had silently let go the breath I seemed to have been holding for a year. That was when I acknowledged my student was far more than that to me: he was my beloved son.

Obi-Wan stayed silent and I could see him trying to make sense out of everything that had happened to him so suddenly. He might be ready for anything, but he was suffering from a bit of shock after his sudden freedom, the battle with the Sith that had nearly taken my life and caused him to take one for the first time, and his knighting.

Even a Jedi had to be reeling under all these changes, and his cautious nature was making him hesitate.

I should have heeded that caution, in hindsight.

"It'll do you good, to have something and someone to focus on during your transition back to Jedi life," I insisted. "You left five years ago a senior padawan, only to endure terrible hardship on your own, and now you're returning to the Temple a knight. Your life is already confused; what better time to add the confusion of a new padawan?"

"Master, I don't know," Obi-Wan said, running his hands through his hair. "I can't deny you, if that is truly your wish, but think on it again before you ask me again. Speak to Anakin, if you have not already done so."

My mind was made up, but I nodded anyway. Obi-Wan, not I, needed time to come to terms with my request, and until we returned to the Temple there was no rush. I would speak to Anakin, too. He would understand.

He was a smart child; he would understand.