She was in the kitchen when he came home, cooking once more. Her messy black hair was still wet from a recent shower, and it clung to the back of her neck and her temples, a spiky cowlick still in damp peaks. She usually didn't look up at his arrival, and hardly spared him a glance when he would greet her, but tonight she made eye contact and flashed him a small smile. It was, he reflected, the first time he had ever seen her smile. It wasn't a full smile, certainly not, but at least it was an improvement. He couldn't help but think that it aided her features quite a bit when she smiled; for the briefest instant, a dimple formed in her left cheek. Then it was gone, and she resumed fiddling with four plump blue jawas, which were fruits the size of a fist and encased in a thick shell. The paring knife she was using was half embedded in the casing, and she was working on the crack she had created. Qui-Gon went silently to the living room and slipped out of his outer robe. The apartment was cool, and it was a welcome relief after meditating in the hot sun for several hours. Padding back to the kitchen, he observed her in a different light, trying to see her as Clah'Diam and Master Wathearu saw her. He noticed a few things that he had overlooked during his training with her; she walked on the balls of her feet, trying to make as little noise as possible; she ran her hands through her hair when she was frustrated or tired, and she usually kept her eyes half closed.
She was still struggling with the jawas, so he went over to her and touched her shoulder gently. "Do you need help with that?" he inquired. She met his eyes for the second time that night - a record, as far as he was concerned - and shrugged carelessly. But she didn't relinquish the paring knife and she began trying to saw through the shell. It was a very good thing the jawas were a delicious fruit, otherwise all of this trouble would have been for naught. He saw her jaw lock subtly, and for an instant he saw her as Wathearu must have seen her: a stubborn child chock full of passion and rebellion, ferociously attacking an innocent fruit who was defying her wishes. Fighting back the urge to laugh, he put his large hands on hers and showed her how to cut into one. The tip of the paring knife dug into the only vulnerable spot on the fruit; it's small stemlike protrusion. Slicing it off carefully, he guided her hands to make three slits in the shell from top to bottom. Then he rapped it smartly on the counter; the shell peeled off.
Ana caught her breath. She had been noticing all day how quick Qui-Gon was for a man of his considerable size, and now, his hands on hers, she realized just how large his hands were. True, she had a small frame, and her fingers were positively tiny compared to his, but his calloused palms swallowed her hands completely. A one-note laugh escaped her at how easily Qui-Gon had dispatched the fruit after all of her fighting, and she began slicing the small, soft interior of the fruit and breading them in a mixture of crumbs and a flour paste. She felt his dark eyes on her; dark, smoky blue orbs that followed you everywhere. She felt slightly unnerved by his constant watchful gaze, but she had long learned to ignore slightly unnerving or unpleasant things. She layered the jawas on a flat baking pan and slid it in the cooking unit, setting the timer for forty five minutes. "Thanks," she offered. Her voice came out smaller and meeker than she had intended, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "I didn't know how to peel one of those things. Thanks for helping me." Her tone had reached a more strident, confident tone, and she was pleased. She tried to imply Well, if you hadn't helped, I would have managed.
She went into the living room and shrugged off her outer robe, leaving her clad in a pair of brown leggings and a cream colored tunic. Ana folded both her outer robe and Qui-Gon's, then fed them into the laundry processor. After this menial chore was done, she went into her room and unearthed her bag of trinkets. She put the smooth pebbles back in with the rest of toys, and fondled the multicolored feather for a moment. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door to her room hissed open and Qui-Gon ducked under the lintel. Sitting down on her bed, his sharp eyes noticed her hand darting underneath her pillow. "And what would a girl your age be doing with a diary under her pillow?" he asked with a blanket of amusement layering his words. Ana fought the urge to scowl and instead withdrew the pouch.
"It isn't a diary, not really," she admitted. Part of her - actually, the part closest to that ugly, wizened black stump - was shrieking that she was exposing one of her last connections to Wathearu to a man she barely knew and hardly trusted. But her sensible side - the sensible side that had almost always been sat upon whenever her passionate fire had leaped up - whispered that he was, after all, her Master, and there shouldn't be secrets. "It's a bag full of things that I've collected." she said, and spilled the entire contents out onto the bedspread between them. She held the two pebbles in her hand and fingered the blue bottle which had been worn soft and opaque by the constant churning of the ocean in which she had found it. The feather floated gracefully in midair for a brief instant, then settled to rest on a peaked corner of the blanket. She rattled the two stones in her hands.
"May I ask why you have collected them?" Qui-Gon asked, examining the blue bottle with interest. He stroked the satiny soft surface of the bottle, feeling the minute scratches it bore from constant rattling around in the pouch. She sighed and the two pebbles ground together as she made a fist, then relaxed it. It would do no good to become angry at Qui-Gon; he was merely ignorant of her tokens, and it wasn't his fault. She stirred her finger into the contents of the pouch, and fought an insane urge to cry.
"Wathearu loved details," she began softly. "He loved finding little things that everyone else wouldn't look for, or not see at all, and bringing them home. It became sort of a game between us, trying to find the most intricate and beautiful things while we were on missions. These are things I know he would have loved to see, because he liked little junk like this. So after his…passing…I continued the game, for reasons I still don't understand. But I did, and these are some of the things I've collected. I used to have more, but I culled them down when I moved back into my old room so I could fit them on the windowsill."
Qui-Gon handed her back the blue bottle, and helped her gather the things up and put them back in the bag. She slipped the bag under her pillow once more and buried her head in her hands. Why was she doing this? She didn't trust Qui-Gon, not really, but why was she suddenly showing him things she vowed she would never show another living creature? What was possessing her to reveal these things to him? She didn't understand, and it would have to be meditated on. She peeped out sideways from her fingers and saw Qui-Gon looking at her with a mingled expression of sympathy and grief. And then she saw it; the crack appeared once more in his stormy blue eyes. That serene wall had a small fissure that she could peek inside, and it was more visible now than it had been ever before. It was then that she fully understood; they were both grieving for things long past.
"My Padawan…" Qui-Gon began, interlacing his fingers. "Xanatos. He was a handsome, bright young boy. I found him on Telos IV, an small planet known for mining, when he was three years old. I had always been amazed - and I suppose I still am - at his Force-potential. His father, Crion, was a political leader of some sort, and he reluctantly agreed to allow me to bring him to the Temple." he paused, and Ana was shocked to see there was a dampness to Qui-Gon's eyes. He snorted one weak chuckle and continued. "He was always aggressive, Xanatos. The Council didn't like how he handled matters, and they sent us on a mission in the final test of his Knighting Trials. We were to return to Telos IV. His father corrupted him and turned him against us. I had to kill Crion."
There was a long pause, and a guttural breath from Qui-Gon. His head was very light, and he had no earthly reason to confide in Ana. He had never told any of this before to anyone except Tahl, and he wondered distantly why he was doing it now. But there was the vague sensation of hurtling down a hill on a speeder; he knew the painful ending was approaching, but there was that exhilarating rush of adrenaline that kept his foot on the gas pedal. "Xanatos never forgave me. We sparred…viciously. When it was over, he fled, but before he did so, he burned himself on the cheek. With his father's ring. It had cracked, giving it an open end, and it soon became his trademark."
"A broken circle," Ana breathed. "Oh, Qui-Gon…" She didn't know what to say. She saw the pain and hurt in his eyes, saw the brokenness in his stance, and she knew he would never get over this. A part of him would always fan into flames whenever the name Xanatos breathed onto the ember. She suddenly reacted instinctively and gripped his large, calloused hand hard. Then she understood with blazing clarity why Yoda wanted Qui-Gon to be her Master. They were both grieving, both broken circles, and their circles would never be fully healed. They would continue on the loop of their life, jumping over the crevasse that marked their painful scars whenever they came to the jutted end of their circle. He looked up at her, and they recognized each other in their eyes. It was as though they were glancing into a mirror. Ana looked down at their interlocked hands and took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Wathearu died because of me." She paused again, then licked her lips nervously. She experienced the same thrilling rush of recklessly surging at a breakneck speed down some rocky cliff, knowing that she would regret it later, but she was a slave to the adrenaline. "I…we were on a mission on Al-Kahrid. There were politicians corrupting the trading system. Good families were going hungry, and we were sent there to oversee the restoration plans for the trading system. It wasn't supposed to have any combat. It was routine." she hesitated for a beat, then surged forward again wildly. "I went exploring with Wathearu when we had been there for a week. We stumbled across a tribe of natives doing some kind of ritual. We were chased, but we got out all right. Afterwards, that night, I… I went back there by myself. They recognized me and chased me again, but this time they caught me. I don't know what would have happened if Wathearu hadn't arrived. He rescued me, but he was killed."
There was a long silence, and suddenly all of Ana's quiet composure shattered into jagged pieces in a moment. She burst into tears, huge shuddering sobs that racked her small frame. He held her closely to his chest, and she gripped a handful of his tunic as though he were a life raft. She cried, tears blurring her vision and painting her face. After a long while, she wasn't sure if she was crying for Qui-Gon, herself, or Wathearu. All of their hurts flamed up into one huge bonfire that was leaping higher and higher into the sky, and the black stump was screaming with simultaneous joy and derision. Joy that she was in so much pain, joy that she was grieving so terribly, joy because her tears were nectar to that hated lump of twisted black coal that had burrowed into her thoughts. Derision because she was crying in the arms of Qui-Gon, spite because she was feeling protected by his strong arms, hate because she was crying for him as much as she was for her. And if she had looked into Qui-Gon's face, she would have seen a single tear making a track down his face.
A/N: Again, huge thanks to my one and only fan, Solo! Round of applause, please, and have another cookie!