Qui-Gon rubbed his tired eyes
Qui-Gon rubbed his tired eyes. He had spent almost seven straight hours studying the files Mace Windu had sent him.
He would have never guessed so many initiates had failed to be chosen in the past two hundred years, and to complicate the matter, most of them where humans.
Qui-Gon could not help but think of how much the Order would now need all those never-to-be Jedi. The war was killing far too many knights and their numbers had never been so low in the entire history of the order.
The Jedi master sighed as he recalled on the screen the pictures of the children he thought that could have grown up to become the man he saw in his vision. There were thirty-four candidates, all of them sporting light brown hair and clear eyes, but his gaze kept on returning to the same holopic on the top right of the screen.
Obi-Wan Kenobi—he remembered that boy well.
Twenty-five years before, Yoda had been set on convincing Qui-Gon to take another padawan. The old master had said the boy had great potential, but in Qui-Gon's eyes Obi-Wan Kenobi had been another youth with too much power and too much anger inside him.
Back then Qui-Gon had still been recovering from having lost his apprentice Xanatos to the dark side and he had not felt like taking another student, especially not one who had troubles in releasing and controlling his negative emotions. So he had ignored Yoda's urgings and the Force's call and had let young Kenobi be sent to the Agricorps on Bandomeer.
Years had passed, Qui-Gon's heart had healed and by the time Anakin had come along he had been ready to be a teacher again. He had insisted on taking the nine-years-old boy as his Padawan even after the Council had ruled it out—and had never regretted his decision.
He had never been afraid of Anakin's power or of the emotions the young man carried inside him…until now.
As he had told Yoda and Mace, Anakin had changed in recent months. He was not only more silent and brooding, but he was showing a distinctive lack of trust in both the Jedi in general and Qui-Gon in particular.
It hurt so very much to know Anakin did not trust Qui-Gon enough to tell him about his vision or confess his marriage to Padmé. Did not the young man know his master would never betray him?
Apparently not, he did not.
Qui-Gon sighed as he gazed again at Obi-Wan Kenobi's pic.
Why was he so drawn to it? Because he had known that boy or because the Force was indicating to him that Kenobi was the man he was looking for?
Qui-Gon ran a search in the Republican archives for information about Kenobi's life and his face fell.
According to the archives, Obi-Wan Kenobi had been on a ship that had gone missing twenty years before and since then there had not been more news about him. It looked like he had disappeared, probably because he had died when the ship had crashed somewhere.
Qui-Gon rubbed his eyes. He was tired—and hungry. He needed to take a pause and give some respite to his mind. He needed some fresh air and to leave his worries behind for a little while.
He needed… to visit an old friend.
--
Thirty minutes later Qui-Gon stepped inside Dex's Diner.
A droid waitress came to great him, "Can I help ya?"
"I would like to see Dexter, if he is here."
"Waddya want him for?"
"He's not in trouble. It's personal. We are friends."
The droid disappeared in the rear of the place as Qui-Gon sat at one of the table, folding his robe around him.
A few moments later, Dex came out from the kitchen, sporting a smile on his big face.
"Qui-Gon!"
"Hello, Dex!"
"What are you doing here, my friend?"
"I'm here to dine. Is your cuisine as good as in the past?"
Dex frowned as he sat in front of Qui-Gon. "I should feel insulted by this question, but you look pretty worn out, so I will let that pass." The big Besalik studied his friend for a while, then asked, "Is something wrong, Qui-Gon?"
"Besides this blasted war?" The Jedi master grimaced and added, "I'm trying to locate a man of whom I know only the face—but I have no pictures of him to show around. I only know he probably was a former Jedi initiate and that he is blind."
Dex shook his head. "Quite a daunting task."
"Don't tell me! Especially because the former initiate the Force was indicating to me seems to have died twenty years ago—or at least that was the time he disappeared."
"What's this man's name? I've met many people in the past and who knows, I may have heard of him too."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"Kenobi," Dex murmured, stroking his chin with one of his four hands. "Has he anything to do with Ben Kenobi?"
"Ben Kenobi?" Qui-Gon shook his head. "I don't know. I have never heard that name before. Who is he?"
"He is a healer and a damn good one too. Ten years ago I was working in the mines on Langara. One day the ceiling in one of the galleries collapsed. I was able to flee just in time, but others were not so lucky and were trapped without air. When the rescuers managed to free them, most of the workers were more dead than alive. They were taken to Langara City Central hospital and trusted in the care of Ben Kenobi. He saved all of them, but he didn't use traditional medicine on them…he used his hands, or so I believe. I remember he was a young looking man, kind, gentle, with brown hair and beard and a cultured voice. Coruscant accent, I would say. And—oh star's end! He was blind Qui-Gon! You didn't notice it most of the time, so sure he was in his movements, but sometime, after a difficult healing, he was tired and needed help to find his way. Could he be your man?"
Qui-Gon nodded, repressing the excitement rising inside him. "Yes, he could."
He took out his datapad from his pocket and typed Ben Kenobi's name in the search engine. His mouth opened in surprise at the amount of news he found about the man. Apparently he was known in the whole galaxy as "the last hope" healer, the one you go to when everything else fails. People travelled from all over the Republic to reach the Central Hospital in Langara City to be healed by Kenobi. The search engine reported hundred of healings—but not even a holopic of the healer.
"Did you find something interesting?" Dex asked after a while with a smirk and Qui-Gon wondered how long he had been lost in his reading.
He smiled. "Apparently, yes. This Ben Kenobi is a Force healer, just like the man I'm looking for."
"Then I'm right if I say you will now leave without eating dinner, and rush to take the first transport to Langara?" Dex commented.
Qui-Gon nodded. "Yes, my friend, you are." He reached out and squeezed one of the Besalik's massive hands. "Thank you Dex, I would love to eat here, but finding this man is too important."
"Then go Qui-Gon, and may the Force help you."