8.

OBI-WAN KENOBI

The scene in the queen's palace hangar was very different upon the fighter pilots' return than upon their leaving. The droid scraps and the body of the sole pilot who had died in the battle had been removed by Queen Amidala's attendants—the former to the incinerator, the latter to a temporary resting place with the other fallen Naboo in the palace. The Gunguns were taking an accounting of their own dead. Many had died before the destruction of the droid-controller ship and Padmé's capture of the viceroy had put an end both to the battle and the Trade Federation occupation of the planet entire.

The pilots flew in to overjoyed security guards and servants, already beginning to return from the dispersing detention camps. Sweethearts and spouses embraced; comrades clapped one another on the back. Everywhere Obi-Wan looked, there was celebration, laughter, tears, and an all-present gladness. And in the center of it all, lifted on the shoulders of several new admirers, the unlikely young hero of the battle.

The Force was with Anakin Skywalker indeed. The boy had flown off with his damned astromech in clear violation of the spirit if not the word of Master Qui-Gon's orders, and he had done still more. Intuitively grasping the controls of the Naboo fighter, he had not only managed to elude pursuit but to fly the thing into the shielded heart of the droid-controller ship and blow up the reactor. The fighter pilots gushed about his talent and his bravery in language Anakin certainly shouldn't be hearing, let alone using. Obi-Wan had heard the boy use several Huttese curse words before. From his position in an alcove near where Anakin had hid upon first entering the hangar before it had occurred to him to fly, Obi-Wan heard that Ani had picked up several new vulgarities in Basic.

He had thought Anakin would be near impossible before.

It was funny, from a certain point of view. Anakin, whom he had thought a doom upon the battle, a constraint in their planning and in their available courses of action, had turned out to be quite possibly the biggest reason for the Naboo victory. While Padmé's capture of the viceroy had gone according to plan, Anakin's destruction of the droid-controller ship at nearly that same moment had given Queen Amidala nearly unbelievable leverage in negotiations. Not only did she have the viceroy himself, his droid army was in ruins. The Trade Federation had taken a loss of some millions of credits in the Naboo venture. The viceroy's compatriots were unlikely to commit to further extortion of the Naboo. Moreover, the viceroy himself was likely facing lengthy and extensive punishment, both politically and in his business operations. Such was the penalty for the crime of losing in this gamble. A nine-year-old boy and a fourteen-year-old girl had effectively ended a war and crippled a major interstellar corporation.

Funny, how one forgot over the years what the young could do. And funny, how the Force would always endeavor to keep one humble just when one was filled most with a sense of one's own self-importance. Had he been proud to finally be acknowledged as worthy of knighthood by Master Qui-Gon? Flattered that this child looked to him and not his master or any one of the more experienced Jedi for guidance and protection? Had some part of him reveled in being sent against the first Sith the Jedi Order had encountered in centuries for his Trial of Courage? Here was the Force to remind him exactly how foolish he had been.

Well, it was wisdom he could pass along to Anakin. Unless Anakin was so favored by the Force to be protected every time he got a little cocky, which might not actually be out of the question, Obi-Wan could tell him one day circumstances would conspire to humiliate him in his turn.

Just not today.

The boy had a horrible case of helmet hair. His face was flushed, and the grin across it as he celebrated with the pilots could outshine the stars. The joy radiating from him now was as "loud" as every wave of anger and pain he had ever broadcast, and the "sound" of it was as beautiful as a symphony orchestra with a full-voice choir. The sentiment of every brave heart on Naboo was from Anakin's a near-tangible rhapsody that Obi-Wan could put to words if he liked:

All is well. All is right. The evil one is defeated, and we are here, we are here, we are here! We are victorious. We are together. We are one. All is well.

Obi-Wan himself was filled with conflict. This was a gift; this was Anakin's gift—one of so many he could share with the galaxy. Anakin's confidence and his courage would be reflected in the hearts of all his friends. His faith and hope could strengthen armies and nations and worlds entire. If he received even a modicum of training to do on purpose what he did so naturally on his own—even discounting his prodigious talents as a pilot, even discounting the fierce love and protectiveness that made him guardian and champion to all his friends even despite his age—he could be a more powerful force for good than any Obi-Wan knew of in the galaxy, certainly than any he knew centered in one person.

But Anakin's gifts, though expressed through the Force, were not a Jedi's giftings. Jedi training could help him control the power that so oppressed him; could help him protect himself against the onslaught he probably was not even aware he experienced every day, parse and analyze it, and find peace. It could teach him how to harness the abilities he used clumsily, instinctually now, keep from hurting those he did not wish to hurt and learn to help those he wished to help in a way that would be helpful.

It could also be the harnessing of a wild creature, the shuttering of a star. Anakin could be a Jedi Knight like no other, or the training could rob him of something essential to himself. The discipline of a Jedi Knight was difficult for anyone to learn. Obi-Wan wondered, though, if it might actually be counter to something within Anakin's spirit—not the Darkness he had felt before but an irrepressibility, an openness to the galaxy, giving and receiving. The warrior nature he sensed within Anakin now could be an incredible asset to a Jedi, as it was to Mace Windu, or it could lead him down a path of aggression.

Obi-Wan himself was not immune to that. He could teach Anakin to guard against that instinct within himself, but would he now be a hypocrite when he did so?

Anakin caught sight of him from within the crowd. The joy directed at the galaxy in general before now turned full force upon Obi-Wan himself, like a lance of Light. Obi-Wan was hard-pressed not to gasp. Anakin didn't even hesitate. He broke away from the circle of pilots excitedly recounting his exploit to the onlookers, or asking questions if they had not observed, away from the servants and civilians crowding into the hangar from every direction to hear what had happened, how they had won. He extricated himself from half a dozen people trying to touch him, to shake his hand, embrace him, muss his hair, and thank him for all that he had done, and he ran full-tilt for Obi-Wan in the corner.

And Obi-Wan fell to one knee, held out his arms, and let Anakin run to him, embrace him just like friends and family were doing all over the hangar. He hugged Anakin back, slipping from his Jedi discipline for a second time that day to allow himself to feel his own joy, his own relief and gratitude to the Force and all the powers of the galaxy that his small friend had returned to him. That Anakin was whole and healthy, that he was victorious, that he was good and brave and well after the battle. He mussed Anakin's already disastrous hair himself, felt Anakin's heart beat against his own, and knew just how far he was from the perfect Jedi, the perfect master, especially for this small boy who would have so much difficulty to begin with.

Yet, he would train Anakin. He would help him to the absolute best of his imperfect ability. He would watch this young whirlwind grow and change and no doubt be humbled by him many, many more times in the future. Because as a Jedi should, Obi-Wan wanted the best for Anakin Skywalker, and now he knew the boy, he trusted no one else to provide it as well as he would—because, as a Jedi absolutely should not, he selfishly wanted to keep the boy close to him. Because he understood where Anakin might fall short in the future. Because he shared in those faults.

"Obi-Wan, did you hear, did you know, I blew it up! Artoo and I did it, we flew up into that battle and right into . . ."

Obi-Wan pushed the boy out to arm's length but didn't let him go. He let the boy's words wash over him, letting Ani himself tell him what he had indeed heard from about a dozen people since the battle's end. "Yes, I understand you've been quite the hero," he said. "Piloting a machine you've had no training on in an attacking force you weren't to join in a battle you had no business even being present for, you somehow managed to be the person to destroy the primary objective instead of getting yourself blown up." He watched the excitement drain out of Anakin, felt the sense of hurt and injustice begin to build, and relented with a smile. "Well done. You really must take me flying sometime. I always seem to miss all of the excitement."

There would be time to discuss all the ways Anakin could have got himself killed later, all the reasons caution and training would be assets to his future, even though he hadn't shown much regard for them up till now. For the moment, Anakin's happiness felt more important.

"Yeah, how are you always gone when I fly, Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked, pressing in for another hug and forgetting that always now encompassed a grand total of two instances.

"Planning," Obi-Wan deadpanned, "or else the mercy of the Force, sparing me the harrowing experience." He stood, extricating himself from Anakin.

"Harrowing?" Anakin asked, frowning. Obi-Wan had forgotten to change his vocabulary to suit the child whose first language was Huttese.

"Terrifying," Obi-Wan explained. "'Tense.'"

"Oh, yeah, it was at first," Anakin agreed. "I didn't know what all the buttons did, and that fighter had some really dumb automated protocols that could've got me and Artoo both killed. But he overrode 'em, and when I was really in charge, we did okay. I mean, there was this one scary part where we crashed into a hangar and the shields were overheated, but Artoo got 'em back before the droids in there realized what was happening."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan broke in, taking the boy's hand and starting the walk toward the hangar exit. "You do realize that none of this description is revi—changing my opinion about 'terrifying,' don't you? It sounds like you were lucky to escape with your life."

Anakin shrugged. "Maybe a little," he admitted, "but I knew I could handle it. A lot easier up there than down here without a blaster!"

Obi-Wan looked sideways at his small charge. "You were looking for a blaster during the fighting?"

"Well, yeah!" Anakin answered, as if it should be patently obvious that a nine-year-old would want such a thing. "I was sitting bantha poodoo otherwise! And everybody else was fighting!" He looked around then, frowning. "Hey, where's Mister Qui-Gon?"

Obi-Wan had been considering for the past hour whether it would be better to break the news to Anakin with his shields up or down. Anakin had tended to respond better to a measure of openness than otherwise, and there was merit to presenting the boy both with evidence that he was not alone in his fear and turmoil and with an example of how to cope with those feelings. They had learned this as well in their brief time together.

Yet—Obi-Wan couldn't do it. He was not strong enough.

He had yet to find his peace with what had happened, both to Master Qui-Gon and within himself. His feelings were not those of a Jedi. Not yet. He did not want to show them to Anakin—and, if he was honest, he did not want to experience Anakin's feelings. His own emotions were more than enough. Anakin was strong enough to break in on him if he chose, or simply if he lost control, and it might happen, but . . .

But Obi-Wan would not let him into this moment by choice. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

"Master Qui-Gon was injured in the battle," he said, focusing hard on the floor beneath his feet, the pattern of his breathing, Anakin's hand within his own. Maintaining his shields with every effort of his being.

Anakin stopped dead. "Wait, what?" he asked. "That guy you were fighting got him? How bad?"

"Fairly badly," Obi-Wan answered. "Master Qui-Gon lost his right leg, Anakin, several centimeters above the knee. He is in the queen's infirmary now. Because his injury was from a lightsaber, he has not lost blood as he might from a vibroblade or metal sword injury, but he will still require treatment for the burn, and the shock and trauma of the limb loss is still quite dangerous."

Anakin was silent, but his grip had suddenly tightened on Obi-Wan's hand. The flush of victory had faded from his cheeks, and he was pale beneath his desert tan. "How dangerous?" he asked. His voice was small. "Is he . . . is he gonna . . ." he couldn't say it.

"The medi-droid and medical professionals say that every hour that passes, he is in less danger. I believe in him, Ani, and you should too. Master Qui-Gon has been fighting battles as a Jedi Master for decades. He will likely live just as long as he might have before the battle."

"But he might not," Anakin said, zeroing in on the obfuscation with his characteristic mix of bluntness and acuity. "That's what you're really saying! Mister Qui-Gon might die because of me!"

Obi-Wan turned and gripped Anakin by the shoulders. "No," he said. "I do not believe Master Qui-Gon will die, Anakin, and even if he does, it is not because of you. He might die because a Sith cut his leg off. You, I, and Master Qui-Gon all bear some responsibility for what happened here, but what happened is not our fault. Do you understand the difference?"

"No!" Anakin cried. "How is any of this your fault or Mister Qui-Gon's? If I'd never even come here, he wouldn't've either! Neither of you would've fought that guy, and—"

Obi-Wan cut him off. "And the Sith might have gone on to kill and injure many other beings in the future, or the Naboo pilots might have lost the space battle. Instead, we fought, you and I, and we prevailed. That Sith is in two pieces at the bottom of the Theed palace melting pit now. The droid-controller is destroyed, and our friends are victorious. Justice was served.

"The will of the Force is not always clear," he continued. "I would have prevented you from coming to Naboo, Anakin. I would have kept you and my master safe. I would have kept you both from seeing what you have seen and suffering what you have suffered here today. And I would have been wrong."

"How have I suffered?" Anakin demanded. "I dreamed my whole life of flying in a space battle. I wanted to help you!"

"There were not only droids on that droid-controller ship," Obi-Wan answered, rising and turning away again. "You killed beings when you exploded the reactor. To take a life is one of the greatest forms of suffering a being can experience."

Anakin frowned. "But they were bad guys," he reasoned. "They were trying to take over this whole planet! You don't think it was bad to kill that Sith that cut off Master Qui-Gon's leg, do you?"

Obi-Wan was silent. He didn't have an answer. Or rather, he had too many, and felt them all to be true.

Anakin took his hand again. "Can we go see Master Qui-Gon?" he asked. "I want to see him. I wanna make sure he's okay . . . and apologize."

Obi-Wan wanted to argue with Anakin again, tell him he didn't need to apologize. But he was out of energy for a moral debate, and right now, Anakin's desire was perfectly in line with his own. "I placed him into a healing trance after his injury," he said. "The doctors have decided not to wake him until his life sign readings demons—until they show that his body will handle that well. They are treating him unconscious."

"Like me during my surgery, except without all that nasty dope," Anakin said. "He won't feel gross after he wakes up like I did, will he?"

"I doubt he will feel himself," Obi-Wan said, "but he is unlikely to be sick. We can go to him. He will not know we are there until he wakes."

"That's okay," Anakin said. "It's better to wake up with somebody. Mister—Master Qui-Gon was there for me after my surgery. I wanna be there for him now."

"He may not be himself," Obi-Wan warned again. "A leg is a lot to lose. And Anakin—I may not be able to stay. The Council is on their way—"

"Oh, no! Don't tell me I'm in trouble with them too for leaving!"

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "From the conversation I had with them before coming here, they aren't pleased with you, or me or Qui-Gon or your healer back at the Temple for allowing you to slip past us, but no. In actuality, an apprentice's escape from the med wing is not as important to the Jedi Council as the illegal occupation of a Republic world, the election of a new chancellor who happens to hail from that world, or the discovery and death of a Sith after some hundreds of years. Shocking, I know."

Anakin seemed unsure whether to be relieved or annoyed at that. He was tired of being lectured about his foolishness and inexperience, no doubt, but his ego did not approve of being less important.

"Would you prefer the entire Council travel to Naboo merely to tell you that you've been naughty?" Obi-Wan asked the boy.

"I guess not when you put it like that," Anakin grumbled.


It seemed the entire Council had traveled to Naboo to tell him that he'd been naughty, Obi-Wan reflected a little later. He spent near the entire meeting with them being lectured, and mostly to no purpose.

On the whole, the Council was more comfortable with a dead Sith than a live one running around and making trouble. They could hardly discipline Obi-Wan for defending himself and a master of their Order against a disciple of evil who would not have hesitated to kill in his turn. So, they settled for expressing through a number of empty reprimands that they were not pleased that Obi-Wan had essentially failed the mission they had given him. He had been unable to locate any trace of the Sith's camp. Any further evidence of who the Iridonian might have been or who might have sent him, for what purpose, had gone into the melting pit with his body. They did not know whether he had been the master or an apprentice, as Obi-Wan's vision and feelings had led him to suspect.

For a thousand years, Sith had come in pairs. Master Yoda swore it, though there had been precious little evidence of them for centuries. If there was one Sith, if Obi-Wan had fought him here on Naboo, somewhere there was another. And whether the other was master or apprentice, if they survived, eventually a second Sith would rise again, and the two of them would come for their revenge. They would continue working against the Jedi. When Obi-Wan had killed the Sith, he had also killed the Jedi's best hope of finding and defeating their enemy.

Yet, Obi-Wan had killed a Sith. The Council respected that, preferred it really, though they couldn't say so, and so they didn't really know what to do with him.

Anakin was another thorny little problem. They could hardly punish him for what had in fact been a breathtaking display of bravery, loyalty, and competence; an act that had ultimately resulted in the liberation of a Republic world. Anakin's victory supported everything Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had told the Council of Anakin's potential, and there were the politics to consider.

Anakin also had not officially been in Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon's care at the time of his escape. As a padawan himself, Obi-Wan had not yet taken up responsibility as Anakin's guardian, or indeed even made a formal submission of his intention to train Anakin, though it had become widely understood that Obi-Wan would at some point make this submission after he became a Jedi Knight. But when the Council had agreed to accept Anakin for a provisional apprenticeship, legally, Qui-Gon's guardianship of the boy had terminated, and the Order's had begun. Technically, Qui-Gon's presence in the med wing at the time Anakin had chosen to stow away on Queen Amidala's ship had been coincidence, and he had pursued Anakin afterward as a matter of conscience. The Council themselves bore the brunt of the charge for the negligence which had permitted Anakin's adventure. They knew this.

Yet, like Obi-Wan himself, they were embarrassed. And being several years older and more dignified, they were less used to it and more put out.

Several were expressing new doubts about Anakin's suitability for the Order. Against expectations, Anakin had acquitted himself rather well before them on Coruscant, considering his disadvantages in age and situation. Now they had discovered his system-wide rebellious streak. The first thing he had done upon being accepted to the Jedi Order had been to abandon his post and responsibilities as an apprentice to go along on Obi-Wan's mission. Upon being duly scolded for that, he had then gone on to fly a fighter in a dangerous space battle. That he had won said dangerous space battle said nothing at all about the character that had led him to make such a series of reckless decisions in the first place.

The Council was in a difficult position. Obi-Wan had failed in his mission but done what no Jedi had done for centuries in the failing, as well as defeated a dangerous enemy of the Order. Anakin was a youngling and unable to be held to account for his own actions, yet there was no one the Council could legally hold to account but themselves. In the meantime, Queen Amidala and the newly elected chancellor, both of Naboo, had already been vocal and profuse in their praise for both Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker. Queen Amidala wanted to present them both with ceremonial awards, though as members of the Jedi Order, they of course could not accept.

The Council was not pleased, yet their hands were tied, by the court of public opinion if nothing else. So, after many long-winded reprimands about recklessness and the caution and responsibility required when supervising bold, upstart younglings—Obi-Wan wanted to challenge them to do better—they let him go. They said nothing of his trial, but he had a hunch that despite his avowed naughtiness, he had impressed them more than he hadn't. And he had his own feelings about that.

Obi-Wan was left alone with Master Yoda at the end of the Council meeting in one of Queen Amidala's numerous opulent reception rooms. He let himself relax a little. He had known Master Yoda since childhood. The Grandmaster of the Order took an active hand in the education of the Order's younglings, and he had been particularly involved in Obi-Wan's own education. For whatever reason, Master Yoda had always been a friend.

"Sadness I sense in you, young Obi-Wan," the little master observed. "Frustration. Yet we hear Master Qui-Gon will recover."

"Yes, they sent word just before the meeting," Obi-Wan agreed. "He is out of danger. He will have months of pain and adjustment. Above-the-knee amputations, I understand, are particularly difficult. He may never be the lightsaber duelist that he was."

"Mmm. New strength he may find within the Force," Yoda answered. "That he is with us still, I understand, we owe to you."

"I don't know. I put him into stasis, yes, after the battle. I held the trance until he was strong enough to feel through our bond what he needed and maintain it himself."

"Great focus you needed for this," Yoda remarked. "Great strength within the Light Side."

Obi-Wan knelt on the floor of Queen Amidala's reception chamber, looking inward. "Master Yoda, I thought I was a servant of the Light. Yet, when I slew the Sith, it was no great act of skill or courage. Afterward, Master Qui-Gon asked me, 'What have you done?' And I knew what he meant. I answered aggression with aggression and hate with hate. As I cut down the Sith, I saw in the act the very image of my enemy's own Darkness. And I am unsettled."

Master Yoda walked slowly over. He sat opposite Obi-Wan, his gimer stick across his knees. "Ahhhh," he sighed. "So subtle are the ways of the Dark Side. So easily twisted, tainted our feelings of friendship, protection! We carry our own destruction with us, always. Recognize this, every true Jedi must. After the Sith was dead, how felt you?"

Obi-Wan reflected. "In the moment, I felt only satisfaction. Afterward, I was sorry I had lost control." He looked up and met Master Yoda's large, wise eyes without fear. "Understand, I feel no regret for killing him. I doubt I would have had the ability to take him alive. But—the way I killed him. The reason. There, there is reason to regret."

Yoda closed his eyes. His ears went back. "Yes," he said. "Sense your honesty, I do. And after? After the regret, after the slaying, went you to your master then?"

"He was hurt," Obi-Wan confirmed. "Possibly dying. He needed me."

"Saved him, you did. Why?" Yoda demanded.

Obi-Wan understood what Master Yoda was getting at. Had he saved Qui-Gon to suffer, because selfishly, he could not let his friend and master go? Or had he saved him out of compassion, out of respect for his master's life? Because he felt a conviction or a leading that Qui-Gon Jinn had more to do?

"I don't know," Obi-Wan answered. "I knew he didn't have to die. I knew I didn't want him to. But, Master Yoda, I honestly can't say which consideration weighed more upon me in the moment. I acted, as I acted in the battle with the Sith. Which is better: to commit a good act in the wrong way or a foolish one in the right way? Which is worse? I thought the Council wise in their decision to send me to Naboo alone, yet, as it turns out, without Anakin, the entire battle might have been lost."

Yoda was silent for a long, long moment. "A shroud there is over the Force," he said. "Notice it we did not, until this occupation began. When came you and Master Qui-Gon with news of a Sith on Tatooine, thought I: 'Here is our old enemy.' A great darkness lifted when young Skywalker won the battle, when you slew the Sith. Yet some darkness remains. Believe you, I do: you slew not the master, but the apprentice. Machinations there are behind this, dark and deep. My vision, clouded it is. I cannot answer you."

Obi-Wan had never heard Yoda admit he didn't know something. It was practically the little goblin's trademark to know everything under the suns. Yet now, Master Yoda sounded . . . tired. Almost afraid.

"Grieve I do, for my grandpadawan's injury," Master Yoda added. "Grieve I do, for the injury to your spirit. Yet, learned have you. The Council sees this. No more trials will there be."

Obi-Wan looked up, shocked. "You'll count them all completed? I know you were considering counting my vision back at the Temple as a sufficient demonstration of insight, but—I failed, Master Yoda. In a multitude of ways. I did not obtain intelligence on the Sith's associates. I did not face him alone. When I killed him, I am certain I touched the Dark Side, if I did not give over to it permanently. Master Qui-Gon paid a flesh price, not I! In what way have I shown myself capable or worthy of being a Jedi Knight?"

Yoda giggled, and Obi-Wan felt the old master's amusement, but also his fondness. "Puzzling, is it not, young Obi-Wan? The greatest teacher, failure is. Confront this, all padawans and masters must. Yes, over and over! Learned your weakness, you have. Your folly, both with young Skywalker and the Sith. You have confronted the frailty within. What is this but a trial of the spirit? Suffered, you did, with your master, and when you lost your lightsaber." He pointed with his gimer stick at the empty place on Obi-Wan's belt. "Go forth, stronger. Grow beyond, a Jedi Knight. No doubts have the Council about your courage."

Obi-Wan blinked. It felt like a cheat, almost. Yet he couldn't deny it would be nice to go home and rest, without having to worry about having to top himself on a second Trial of Courage or think about what he could possibly face in his trials of Flesh and Spirit. "I want to hold off on the ceremony until Master Qui-Gon can attend," he told Yoda. "He deserves to be there."

"Certainly. Attend he should," Yoda agreed. "And Skywalker—intend you still to train him?"

Obi-Wan looked across at Yoda, releasing his surprise and relief and slight indignation at the casual dismissal of his remaining trials into the Force and gathering himself to address this question. He had known it was coming.

"Shouldn't I?" he asked.

Master Yoda pursed his wide green mouth. His ears flipped back and forth. "Powerful, he is," he admitted. "The Chosen One, he could be. Yet—more than one meaning, a prophecy can have. Dangerous, Skywalker is."

"Yes," Obi-Wan agreed without reservation. "As dangerous as you are to your enemies, I imagine." Master Yoda did not refute him, and Obi-Wan felt empowered to go on. "He is volatile," Obi-Wan conceded. "He's old to enter the Order, and he has a predisposition both toward strong attachments to others and to aggression against those that threaten them. At the moment, much of both is based in a fear of loss and change. He's also not overly inclined to follow orders. He has shown no evidence of remorse or regret for those he killed in the space battle, which is . . . troubling."

He saw Yoda nodding, agreeing with everything he had said.

"Yet, we must consider where he comes from and how he's come, Master Yoda," Obi-Wan continued. "Anakin Skywalker comes from a brutal background. Kill or be killed, crime and punishment—however petty the crime—this is all he knows. But despite this, he has a brave and generous heart and a selfless spirit. He thinks nothing of his own safety, nothing of his own comfort, no matter what his sufferings. All his thoughts and actions are for others. He knows the concept of self-sacrifice better than any of us could teach it. And he is brilliant. He uses the Force more naturally than any being I have ever encountered. To him it is natural, like breathing, extending your arm to reach something. He knows no other way to be. I believe he can be trained. I believe he can be a Jedi like none we have ever seen."

Yoda hummed. "Sense this in him, the Council does," he agreed. "Yet, believe you also a great Jedi young Skywalker could not be?"

Obi-Wan was silent for moment. "Yes," he admitted. "He could also be a great pilot or mechanic. He could be a great war commander. He has already made a lifelong reputation. Or—"

"Or fall to the Dark Side, Skywalker could," Yoda finished.

"Yes," Obi-Wan agreed at last, bowing his head. Then he swallowed and looked up. "But so could I. Isn't that what we've learned here, Master Yoda?"

Yoda's ears flipped back and forth several more times. "Determined, you are. Revealed, your desires are. Qui-Gon's stubbornness I sense in you. Need that you do not. Agree the Council does. Our judgment stands. A Jedi Skywalker shall be, if wish it he does. Keep you from taking him as an apprentice, we will not." He raised a claw in front of his face, and his expression grew stern. "But heed what you have learned, Obi-Wan. Heed what we have said, you and I! Agree with this, I do not." He climbed to his feet and looked down at them.

"Go," he said. "See to Master Qui-Gon. Tell what we have said to young Skywalker. We will make arrangements for a return to the Temple after the celebrations."

Obi-Wan watched the little master shuffle out of the reception room, feeling at once a sense of parole and a looming disconcertion. As he had never known Yoda not to know something before, he had never known Yoda to be wrong. Master Yoda knew everything, and Master Yoda was always right. These were some of the basic facts of life in the Jedi Order as Obi-Wan had known it as a youngling and a padawan. Now, he was to be a Jedi Knight, and suddenly Master Yoda was admitting ignorance, and if he was right about Anakin, the rest of the entire Council and Qui-Gon Jinn were wrong, and Obi-Wan might be heading toward a terrible mistake.


QUI-GON JINN

He could still feel his leg. Pins and needles from a lack of circulation. The Naboo silk sheets upon his toes. The knee which had been sensitive to weather changes since a mission when he was thirty-seven. At the same time, he could feel the dull numbness of the heavy medication they were using to keep him from feeling the full agony of the still unhealed lightsaber burn. He could see his right leg ended just below his mid-thigh. It simply . . . stopped.

Yet he could feel it.

Qui-Gon could not stop looking at it. He knew he should not; he was not ready. He could not begin to accept what he had lost, that if he rose from the bed and tried to walk, he would only fall. Until the burn healed, he would be confined to a bed or a chair, dependent upon others to move him. When it was sufficiently repaired, it would be months of rehabilitation, trial and error with different prostheses and mechanical replacements. None would feel or function like the leg that he had lost; all would cause him pain from the pressure of his weight upon the amputation site. Like a youngling, minus a youngling's elasticity and adaptability, he would have to learn to walk again. He would have to learn what his body now would permit him to do with a lightsaber, how the Force could and could not compensate.

There was pain and grief and anger that could not simply be resolved through a simple sharing with the Force. It would return, and return, until one came at last to acceptance of a galaxy that was not as it should be, of hurts that could not be healed and wrongs which could never be made right. Qui-Gon had felt it before. When he had lost Xanatos—every time. Tahl's injury, and later, her death. This would be the same.

It was not the same.

This time, he was to bear the scar upon his body as well as on his spirit, to accept it each time he stepped.

Tahl had learned how with the Force, even the gravest losses could be overcome.

Tahl had always been so much stronger than he.

He was thirsty.

There was no water upon his bedside table. He could see a pitcher and a glass on a table across the room. No one had thought to place it closer. If he wanted a drink, he would need to ask for it. The humility of it, the depth of his need was staggering.

There was a tapping at the door. Qui-Gon wished to see no one. At the same time, he craved a diversion from his thoughts. He did not know which feeling was the stronger.

"Enter," he called.

He closed his eyes against the wave of joy that washed over him then. It was like the shriek of a seabird on the beach on the loveliest day of the summer. Ani. Blocking him out would require more strength of will than Qui-Gon possessed at present, yet his feelings ran so counter to Qui-Gon's own. He braced himself and shifted to face the boy.

Behind him, quieter, tightly shielded and expression taut and carefully blank, Qui-Gon's own apprentice, his best apprentice. Through no effort of my own, said a dark and bitter voice within his mind.

Obi-Wan crossed immediately over to the nurse's table beneath the window, open out onto one of Naboo's many stunning vistas. He picked up the clay pitcher so far out of Qui-Gon's own reach, filled the glass beside it, and brought it over without a word.

Qui-Gon drank, avoiding his apprentice's gaze. Obi-Wan was a gifted diplomat, skilled at maintaining his composure and his shields in even the most trying of circumstances. He was a talented card player and could probably make his living as a gambler if he chose. He would be wearing the face he wore to bluff their way past hardened rogues and villains now, but Qui-Gon feared what he would see in his apprentice's eyes.

Obi-Wan would blame himself. He had made a mistake early on in their duel with the Iridonian, before they had both become accustomed to the unconventional physical strikes the Sith added to his style. It was that mistake which had first caused them to become separated, yet it was Qui-Gon's own mistake which had led to his injury. He had become overconfident, allowed himself to be drawn into an overextended position. Obi-Wan was not to blame for his injury. Yet today, Qui-Gon had no power to assuage Obi-Wan's guilt. It was all he could do to keep his own composure.

Obi-Wan would have to be strong for himself, for a time.

Ani looked very small beside Qui-Gon's apprentice. One grew accustomed to the way Anakin felt—the lightning and flash and fire within the Force—and forgot he was nine years old. His initial happiness at finding Qui-Gon conscious had, thankfully, dimmed, but now Qui-Gon had to face the first trial of a dance he knew would prove routine. Ani tried—he did try—to keep his eyes on Qui-Gon's face, yet they kept dragging downward, where Qui-Gon's own gaze and every sense was attuned. His face was solemn, yet now, Qui-Gon sensed him attempting to gather his pathetic little shields around himself again, trying to hide his feelings as Obi-Wan was, trying to give Qui-Gon that small mercy.

"I'm glad you're up, Mist—Master Qui-Gon," Ani said. "I thought you were gonna sleep forever."

Qui-Gon replied automatically. "Not forever. I woke some time ago. And what have you been up to?"

"We were at the victory celebration in the plaza," Anakin answered. "The whole Jedi Council was there, and the new chancellor guy, and Padmé, and Sabé and everyone else who survived the battle, and a whole regiment of Gunguns! You should've seen their crazy dances! We missed you, though."

"It sounds like quite the party," Qui-Gon told him. "I'm sorry that I missed it."

"They're saving an award for you," Anakin informed him. "Me and Obi-Wan—Master Obi-Wan—we both got one. The Council didn't want us to, something about us being outside of our mandate in the battle, but the chancellor said it'd be a bad prece-something if the Republic didn't honor bravery like we showed."

"Precedent, Anakin," Obi-Wan interjected. "It means it would set a bad example."

"Right," Ani said. "So, we all get awards. Padmé gave them to us herself, all done up in her Queen Amidala get-up and everything. And the chancellor says he wouldn't be surprised if they built a statue of me."

"A statue?" Qui-Gon asked, frowning and looking toward his apprentice. The conversation had begun as routine, a mere diversion from emotions he could not yet confront or dismiss, yet now he was interested despite himself. That Obi-Wan should receive some sort of award made sense, if only from a secular perspective. He had killed a great and deadly enemy of the queen. Yet why should Anakin be honored?

"Right, you won't have heard," Obi-Wan told him, voice wry. "Due to your brilliant idea for him to hide inside a Naboo fighter, Anakin flew off and won the space battle."

Of course, Anakin had to provide all the details then: how he and the astromech droid he had modified, R2-D2, had intuited the workings of a spacecraft Anakin had never flown before, evaded drones and Trade Federation turrets to fly to the center of the droid-controller ship and blow up the reactor, flying out an instant before the ship's destruction. Ani swore it had been even more tense than the Boonta Eve Classic.

Obi-Wan left the door open, so to speak, through Anakin's explanation, on this matter at least sharing his feelings with Qui-Gon. There was a trace of rueful accusation; Obi-Wan had known, in the moment, that ordering Anakin to take refuge in a fighter would likely backfire upon them. Some self-deprecation—Obi-Wan had been vocal about believing Ani would be useless and a hindrance in the battle, and now, here he was, the preeminent hero of the venture. There was also, however, a great deal more pride and fondness for Anakin than Qui-Gon might have expected.

The bond between Ani and Obi-Wan had now grown beyond a complication of the duties Obi-Wan often undertook for the little foundlings of their misadventures, beyond a psychic link an untrained vergence had created in a moment of crisis. His apprentice no longer felt bound to Anakin Skywalker by obligation, Qui-Gon saw. While both Qui-Gon and the Council had sensed the harmoniousness of the Force surrounding the pair of them, Obi-Wan had acted more instinctively—and had felt himself somewhat the victim of those instincts. Possessed with a full measure of the Jedi virtue of compassion and endowed with a somewhat rarer helping of good sense besides, Obi-Wan had merely responded to the strength of a child's need. He had seen a job that needed doing and done it, in the workmanlike way he had often approached his apprenticeship and partnership with Qui-Gon. In truth, Ani had rather chosen him than the other way around, sensing perhaps a stability and dependability in Obi-Wan to replace that he had left behind.

Qui-Gon sensed Obi-Wan still had a full consciousness of all the challenges serving as guardian to Anakin Skywalker was likely to present. He sensed Obi-Wan still carried some trepidation about his ability to meet them. He was young, grounded and self-aware, and more so now than he had ever been before. Though Obi-Wan did not feel fallen to Qui-Gon's mind, the Darkness of the anger in which Obi-Wan had slain the Sith still cast a shadow on him. Qui-Gon sensed Obi-Wan's regret, his resolve that he must do better. And he felt too, Obi-Wan's resolve to do better for Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan was not only committed to Ani, he was determined to teach him.

Despite the gaping void in the sheets below his thigh, Qui-Gon almost smiled. The determination of Obi-Wan Kenobi was already something of a byword to the Jedi. Qui-Gon's apprentice was known for his cleverness, yes, for his aptitude with a lightsaber—and would be now more than ever—but also for being one of the only Jedi in the Order who could be as stubborn as Qui-Gon himself, with a fierce tenacity that was nevertheless a good deal politer than Qui-Gon's own. If all of that determination and tenacity had turned to training Anakin Skywalker now, little Ani might have met his match.

Over the course of a few weeks, his apprentice had become a man. And there was something else . . . Qui-Gon probed at his apprentice's recent feelings.

"They've decided to knight you for your actions here," he said, interrupting Anakin's description of everything every single pilot who had survived the battle had said about their impressions of Ani's flying and techniques.

The very tips of Obi-Wan's ears turned pink. "Yes," he confirmed. "The Council has ruled our encounter with the Sith a sufficient trial of my suitability for knighthood. I suppose they feel any further test might be anticlimactic. When I've forged a new lightsaber, we've returned to Coruscant, and you're well enough to attend, we'll have the ceremony."

"A new—" Qui-Gon's eyes went to Obi-Wan's belt. He had not noticed Obi-Wan had lost his lightsaber. Things at the end of the duel had been fuzzy. He remembered only the pain, magnified and reflected back to him by Obi-Wan's own experience. He remembered lying helpless in the Naboo power complex waste systems, unable to intervene as the Sith gloated over them, unable to intervene as Obi-Wan's fury rose and turned for a mere instant into something terrible, something he had not seen from his rigidly controlled apprentice since nearly the beginning of their partnership, when he had almost passed over Obi-Wan because of it. Qui-Gon himself walked much closer to that edge than his apprentice most days; he had hoped that because Obi-Wan had witnessed his struggles, as well as what had become of Xanatos, it would steer him permanently away from such temptations.

His heart had broken many times over the years, yet if he ever saw Obi-Wan fall to Darkness, Qui-Gon did not know that he could survive.

He lifted his eyes again to Obi-Wan, and wordlessly passed across his relief that Obi-Wan lived and stood still committed to the Light. Obi-Wan passed back a sense of apology for the times over the years when he himself had judged Qui-Gon's frailties. Until now, no Darkness had ever come close enough to the things which Obi-Wan held most dear. He had found right and wrong easy to define, the high road easy for him to choose. Now he knew it would not always be so, and Qui-Gon sensed Obi-Wan's preparedness now to resist, the preemptive bracing against what he now recognized could be a lifetime war.

"Not everyone is permitted to let another pay their flesh price in the trials," Qui-Gon observed. As Obi-Wan and Anakin recoiled, he continued. "Not everyone feels an injury to another's flesh as though it were his own. The Council judged right, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan had paled. He closed his eyes and the door between them, and Qui-Gon knew he gathered himself. "Thank you, Master," he murmured. "And I am sorry."

"Does it hurt a lot?" Ani asked then, his voice small. Tentatively, he reached out, and Qui-Gon allowed the boy to take his hand.

"Not now," Qui-Gon answered. "They have salved the burn with a numbing agent, but as it heals and I come off the medications, and as I try to find the right prosthesis, I am certain it will hurt."

Anakin absorbed this. A darkness to match the darkness Qui-Gon had felt from his apprentice in the waste disposal system entered the room, but it was not Obi-Wan's darkness. "I'm glad Obi-Wan killed that scum," Anakin said, his voice low and unaccountably ferocious. "I hope it hurt him."

Qui-Gon met his apprentice's gaze over Anakin's head and saw no surprise at Ani's bloodthirstiness there, just grim recognition and resolve. Obi-Wan had seen this in Anakin too when Qui-Gon had not, either because he had spent more time with the boy or because he had always looked beyond the power and the prophecy to the person beneath.

"He was dangerous, and he needed to die," Obi-Wan answered Anakin. "But we should not be happy at the suffering of any being, Anakin. The reason he needed to die is because he was happy hurting Master Qui-Gon. When we take joy in the pain we can inflict upon our enemies, we become no better ourselves. There are no bad or good guys, just wrongdoing all around."

Anakin scowled. "If he wanted to make Master Qui-Gon hurt, he should have hurt too," he reasoned. "That's just fair. Right, Master Qui-Gon?" Obi-Wan's face tightened at the insensitivity of Anakin's appeal, but Qui-Gon shook his head at his apprentice. Anakin's feelings wouldn't go away just because they didn't talk about them.

"There are different kinds of fairness, Ani," he answered. "There is the fairness of doing to others what they have done to you—or worse, as a deterrent—and there is the fairness of doing to others what they should do to you, of acting in the way you believe everyone should. Obi-Wan believes, as I do and as the Jedi Order does, that it is better to act according to the second kind of fairness. If more people did so, it would be a kinder galaxy."

He used the word deliberately: Anakin had mentioned more than once the value his mother placed on kindness. The boy kept frowning, but the expression was more thoughtful than stubborn now.

"But aren't you mad?" he asked then.

"Very," Qui-Gon admitted. "I suspect I shall be mad for a long, long time, Anakin. I will work on it, so it does not affect the way I treat you, or Obi-Wan, or anyone. I would hate it if I was less than fair to you because someone else had been cruel to me. Sometimes, I will have bad days. I had a friend once who was blinded in an adventure. She had many bad days. Days when she felt sorry for herself, when she could scarcely manage a single kind word for anyone. But she worked past it, and she apologized, and became once again a wonderful Jedi Knight, and through all of it, she was my friend."

"Master Tahl," Obi-Wan murmured, remembering. "She was my friend Bant's master," he told Anakin.

"What happened to her?" Anakin wanted to know.

Qui-Gon could not answer. "She died," Obi-Wan replied. "A few years ago, now."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Anakin said. He looked up at Qui-Gon. "I can see how you might want to remember her now, though. You're probably gonna miss her even more than you used to now, huh?"

"Anakin, why don't you tell Qui-Gon about your talk with the chancellor after the ceremony today?" Obi-Wan interrupted, a more graceless transition than he usually made, but effective. Anakin realized he'd been insensitive and accepted the wordless reprimand. Qui-Gon sent Obi-Wan a weak but grateful smile. Obi-Wan returned it.

Anakin shrugged. "He asked me to tea when we've all been back to Coruscant for a few days," he told Qui-Gon. "It sounds pretty boring, but it was nice of him, I guess. He's probably just happy I saved his planet. Helped save," he added, looking up at Obi-Wan quickly. Qui-Gon guessed his apprentice had already lectured Ani once or twice about his boasting.

"It's a big honor, Anakin, and I expect you to be on your best behavior when you go," Obi-Wan told him. "The chancellor of the Republic has many demands upon his time."

"So will I, when we get back," Anakin said. "I've missed about five years and a week of training."

It was a joke—one of the first he had heard Anakin make, and Qui-Gon was surprised into chuckling. Obi-Wan was having a good effect on the boy in more ways than one. A little bubble of delight burst out into the Force—Anakin, pleased at his own cleverness, pleased at having made Qui-Gon laugh—and Qui-Gon felt a rush of fondness for these two young men, his apprentice and the boy who would be Obi-Wan's own apprentice. He had a long, hard road ahead, but he was glad it had not ended in the Naboo power complex.

"We'll see what we can do about that," he promised. "Though I trust you won't be skipping out on more to go win any other wars across the galaxy." Anakin would be too much for even Obi-Wan every day. It took a Temple to raise a youngling. Master Yoda certainly hadn't butted out of his grandpadawan and great-grandpadawan's education, and Qui-Gon saw no reason that he himself should butt out of Anakin's. Obi-Wan would have no cause to charge him with neglect in future, and being there for Obi-Wan and Anakin would give him a reason to recover.

"No promises, Master Qui-Gon, now I've got the taste for it," Anakin smiled.

"Oh, no," Obi-Wan told the boy. "We have a concept in the Jedi Order: Temple-bound. It isn't generally literal, but I will see you glued within a study carrel or to a training salle floor for the next two years if I have to."

It was a risky threat to make, given Anakin's history, but Ani took it in the spirit it was intended, grinning up at Obi-Wan. "You'll have to stay glued with me to make me stay!" he said. "I guess I can handle it then."

"I suddenly have a terrible feeling about all this," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin just laughed.