Chapter Seventy: To the Hilt

Qui-Gon is dreaming.

This is not a memory; it is not a vision. It is a dream; no more, no less.

On Aquilae, the sun is just rising, trailing an orange path across the sea. Waves inhale and exhale against the shore; the calls of seabirds float on salty air, carried inland by the breeze. It's cool enough that Qui-Gon should be shivering—her clothing is loose, and has no sleeves—but she's quite warm. Her feet, bare against the grass, can feel the wet of the early morning; her hair streams out behind her, lifted by the gentle wind.

When she looks away from the ocean, Jesmyn is beside her.

It's an older Jesmyn—the luster of their pearl hair is streaked with off-white, and their fingers, as they clasp Qui-Gon's, are bonier than they once were. Qui-Gon, too, has aged—she can feel the ache within her bones brought on by the moist air, can picture the lines on her face. Still, some things don't change. As she lowers her head to the Arkanian's shoulder, letting its warmth embrace her cheek, she feels as young as she was when they first met.

Perhaps, somewhere, another Qui-Gon lives this life. Perhaps what the old legends say is true—for every thread of fate, a different universe exists, your "self" merely one of countless variants living out your choices.

Or perhaps this is it—perhaps when she wakes, this Qui-Gon and this Jesmyn will be gone, their brief lives fading in an instant to a mere half memory.

It doesn't matter, she thinks, running her fingers through snowy hair. What matters is that you're here.

"A pity," Jesmyn says aloud, their breath tickling her ear. They sound sleepy, and content. "That you were never able to get that place to give up its secrets."

In the distance, atop the cliffs, the lighthouse stands vigil. No one has touched it in a long time—moss has crept up along the stone, rust has eaten at the hinges of its door. Gazing at it, part of Qui-Gon wonders what precise moment could have given her this outcome—which visit to the old monument was the one to seal her fate, the one she should have avoided.

"I don't know," she murmurs, caressing the back of Jesmyn's head. "I think maybe it was for the best."

Their kiss, when it comes, tastes of salt and anise and something bitter. Qui-Gon lets it linger—presses gently back, swaying.

I love you, she thinks.

Then she wakes up.

"Madam Jinn," the intercom buzzed, "you have a visitor."

Qui-Gon held onto the dream for a moment longer—let the phantom sensation of another's lips linger on her own, kept her eyelids squeezed shut to fix the sunrise in her memory. Then, exhaling softly, she opened her eyes.

Here, it was not sunrise but midday. The spires of Coruscant gleamed from outside the window, the reflections bright enough to hurt. Blinking hard, Qui-Gon groaned and hauled herself to her feet. The mattress here, she'd found, was too comfortable, to the point of inducing panic—the living-room floor had been her bed for the last week. "Understood," she croaked. "Let them in."

She sensed the presence on the other side of the door before it swept open. The last time she'd felt it, about a week ago, she'd been struck by the same contradiction she felt now—it was at once familiar and utterly alien, something she knew reflected in a hall of mirrors until it bore no resemblance to what it had once been.

"Anakin," she said, when the door had closed.

The boy lowered the hood from atop his head. Twitching, he tried to force a smile, then simply nodded. "Qui-Gon," he managed, the name rasping across dry lips.

She gestured at the modest furniture that filled the room. "What a pleasant surprise. Have a seat, please."

As he awkwardly lowered himself into a chair, she eased down onto the couch. "I imagine I must have you to thank," she said. "For these new accommodations."

"Yeah," he murmured, his eyes trailing up and down the walls and the view through the window and anywhere but her. "I told the chancellor that house arrest made more sense than Tarkin's hellhole."

"I'm grateful."

For a moment, there, he met her eyes—looked into her with a sudden, almost animal gratefulness of his own. "I, ah . . . I'm so sorry," he said, squeezing his eyes shut. "It's good to see you."

And she could sense it was—that even though it was making him sick to be here, to look at her, his whole being was almost quivering with relief. For a moment, overwhelming pity welled up within her, looking at this man whose power hummed in the air and yet who felt like nothing so much as a beaten dog. For a moment, she wanted to tell him It's good to see you too.

But she remembered Kit, Adi, Saesee, their bodies sprawled out on the landing pad. She remembered the reason she was here in the first place. Pitying Anakin Skywalker, she thought, is a dangerous occupation.

In the silence that followed, she wished for the voices. They hadn't spoken for a few days now—and deep down, she supposed, she knew they wouldn't be returning. You have to take this last part of the journey alone. That was the whole point, wasn't it?

But it wouldn't do at all for her visitor to sense that thought. Banishing it to the corners of her mind, Qui-Gon said aloud, "I don't suppose you come bearing news? The people from the chancellor's office who've been stopping by to ask me questions have been telling such outlandish stories. It would be helpful to speak to someone who knows what's really going on."

At that, Anakin's presence retreated inward—his eyes slid from sorrowful to guarded. "Yeah, he . . . Palpatine mentioned you still hadn't been talking."

"Well, when I'm asked to address outright absurdities, I really don't know what I can say. All these stories of some Jedi plot to overthrow the Republic? A coordinated assault on the Senate years in the making? Surely you could have told them how ridiculous the idea is."

Shaking his head, Anakin half rose from his chair, frustration rising from his presence. "I—they shouldn't have been asking you about that. I told them you weren't a part of it."

"A part of what, Anakin?"

For a moment, he looked almost hurt at the sharpness beneath her question, as if he couldn't fathom what he'd done to make her angry. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, holding them there for a long moment as if preparing to recite something memorized. "Mace Windu and four other Jedi tried to kill Chancellor Palpatine. I saw it myself. Senate security figured out that they . . . somehow, they'd known about an emergency entrance into the building that only Senate staff are aware of. Which means they had to have a mole inside the building. It was the same night Kit and the others tried to grab you—almost got you killed—"

"Ah yes, Kit and the others. I don't seem to remember them being the ones who shot me."

Red swept across Anakin's face like a brushfire. "Tarkin's paying for that, I promise. He no longer has any access to you while you're in Republic custody—"

"Which is how long?"

He turned his head, suddenly intent on the nondescript department-store painting that hung on the wall. "I told you, Qui-Gon, I'm so sorry. But Palpatine . . . he listens to me. I got you out of prison. I can get you out of here too, if you just talk to me."

All of a sudden, he whipped back to face her. The old lopsided grin was painted across his face, but his eyes stayed flat—his voice, when he spoke, was uneven, as if he were trying to slide into the right octave and just couldn't quite do it. "Hey, you remember when we tossed the half of Maul's lightsaber I stole from him into the clouds? I don't actually have it to show you, but he must have built another one—and I got the whole thing. Valis's too. Maybe once you're out of this, I can grab them out of storage. We can go back to Stratum Apolune, throw them over the side. Good riddance."

They burned you away, Qui-Gon thought, and all at once it didn't matter what he'd done, what she knew he had yet to do. Practiced resentment dwindled—grief rose within her, sharp and hot and overwhelming enough that she had to struggle to choke it down.

Let's create a future where he's trained by the Jedi, she'd told Obi-Wan all those years ago, floating amid a sea of coma. Where he destroys things that are meant to be destroyed.

And now, here was the result—a man whose old self was a mask that no longer fit. Who had to playact at friendship, desperately hoping if he performed it just right it would become real again.

"Anakin," she whispered, suddenly unable to look at him. "Please just tell me what it is you want of me."

In the silence, she felt his presence throb with fear, and puzzlement, and below them a growing flame of directionless frustration. When he spoke, the words matched the flatness of his gaze, the puppeteered happiness collapsing to the ground. "Look, I know you've been gone a long time. I know you left because of what the Jedi were becoming."

Not the way you mean, she thought, but it would be pointless to correct him—he wouldn't hear. Keeping her eyes squarely on the same painting he'd stared at a minute ago, she swallowed and said nothing.

"All I'm asking for," Anakin said, the flatness wavering a bit, "is for you to help me make sure no one else gets hurt. The Order is—they're leaving, Qui-Gon. Starting up new settlements they could attack from at any time. If I can't get into the Temple now, while some are still here, we won't have any leads to trace them. It'll be . . . you think the Clone Wars were bad?"

When she forced herself to look at him, a sort of dazed realization had glazed his eyes. "Thousands of Force users, ready to strike at the Republic, all across the galaxy. If we can't make the leadership at the Temple tell them to stand down, bringing them all to justice would take years. Decades."

He'd fully risen from the chair now, pacing a circle across the room without understanding where he was going. "But there have to be some of them," he continued, keeping his eyes locked on hers as he prowled back and forth, "who want to end things. Jedi like you. You—you always understood, Qui-Gon, right? I told Dooku he was the one who got me to see, but he wasn't, really, it was you the whole time. And if you help me, we can end this whole thing right now. We can—we can make things right." A fevered smile had painted itself across his face, real where the old one had been a mask. He really believes it, Qui-Gon thought.

Aloud, she said, "The Temple entrance . . . Anakin, you know where it is."

He shook his head, feet freezing in place. "They filled it in. By the time we find the new one, it'll be too late. But if you knew things, before you left . . . if you knew where we could get in . . ."

She was glad that she didn't have to lie to him. "I left the Temple two years ago. There's no reason to think that whatever backup route they're using would be anything I'm familiar with."

Anakin stared at her. Then, swallowing, he said, "But you do know some alternate ways in and out. Ways that would give us a head start."

Perhaps it was the desperation pouring off him, infecting her; more likely, it was her own weakness. But for just a moment—a split second's hesitation—a voice rushed into her head. All you have to do is cooperate. Give him the name of a single tunnel the Order have probably filled in anyway. And then . . . just walk away. Go back to Jesmyn. Live out your dream. The voices have gone, now—they can't make you finish out their path.

Looking into Anakin's eyes—irises cracked, the blue split by fractures of amber—Qui-Gon thought, I made you a promise, Anakin Skywalker. I promised you—promised Jesmyn—that when I went searching for answers, I would make it matter. I'm going to keep that promise.

"I can't help you, Anakin," she whispered. "And you know that."

As he gazed deep into her eyes—as his jaw clenched hard enough to tremble—Qui-Gon felt his head race with a dozen different pleas. Felt the furnace of his heart roar with fury—a fury he'd been working so hard to hold back, she realized, insisting to the rage over and over that she would come through, if only he could make her see.

When he spoke, it was calm, measured. "Fine, then."

Qui-Gon let the grief surge through her bloodstream for a few moments more. Then, with a long, slow exhalation, she squeezed her eyes shut, and let it go. "I'm sorry. Truly."

She'd half expected him to be gone when she opened her eyes. Instead, he remained locked in place, looking at her with a mix of deep anger and childish bewilderment—as if he couldn't quite believe she'd let him down. "And Malachor?" he murmured, his teeth clenched together.

"Nothing you could use," she told him, once again grateful that she didn't have to lie to him. "After all, the man who told you that story is your new master, isn't he? You can get your answers from him."

Shock passed over his face, and she wondered if he'd truly thought she would never put the pieces together. Rising, her back crying out, she stepped forward, reached out, and rested her hand upon his shoulder. "It did teach me something, though. Something I should have learned a long time ago."

His jaw spasmed. "What?"

She let her hand fall back to her side. "There is no death. There is the Force. Funny thing to learn on a Sith battlefield, huh?"

Wordlessly, he turned and walked away.

When she was sure he'd gone—when all that remained was the guard outside the door—she returned to the floor, lay down, and closed her eyes. Things are fast, now, sliding. Out of anyone's control. All you can do is play your part, and play it to the hilt.

Lying there, alone, she prepared herself to do just that.