FULL CIRCLE.....Qui-Gon--Obi-Wan

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

FULL CIRCLE
by Anne Davenport


“And we will be back in a minute with more shocking revelations about our second minister’s double life,” the pretty announcer finished. He was a fine, slender Nigan male with well groomed features and carefully striped hair. The screen changed from the announcer to a large, red, rolling creature that promised to smooth over all your droid’s cosmetic needs.

Qui-Gon Jinn sighed and lowered his gaze from the screen overhead. The planet Niga loved their political gossip every bit as much as Coruscant. The only difference he could see was that the Nigas seemed to favor personal melodrama over fiscal corruption. The screen on the opposite wall droned on in a low volume, but he ignored it. Since the Jedi Temple was on the Republic’s capital city-planet, Qui-Gon, like all Jedi, was expert at tuning out excesses of media and advertising.

Next to him and sitting up on a medical couch, his young apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, finished scruding his bowl for the last of his yedo porridge. Most of the rest of the breakfast they’d shared was gone from the tray in front of him. Three days of fever and lethargy seemed to have disappeared like a summer storm. The were both dressed and ready to go; they merely waited for the formality of one more examination from Y7G. Their ship was parked on the medical center’s space platform. The Jedi who had delivered it would get a transport back to Couroscant on her own. Qui-Gon would pilot them back to the Temple. Under quarantine.

Qui-Gon Jinn was in a lot of trouble with the Jedi Council. More than usual. He’d calmly considered his position and decided if he could do anything over again...he would have avoided the planet Niga entirely. But Jedi did not waste time regretting past actions and given a similar situation he would argue in favor of the same action. He greatly hoped that he would never be in such a position again.

Obi-Wan was eyeing Qui-Gon’s half-eaten sweet roll. With a gesture he invited his apprentice to take it. He got up from his chair to look down the hall for the droid. Halfway to the door the announcer caught his attention.

“...and the rumor is that the impasse was so severe that the Longear and the Longnose Factions arranged for Jedi intermediaries to act as couriers between the various parties. Our inquiries yielded only a single, terse communique, directly from the Jedi Council. ‘The Jedi Temple currently has no Jedi operating on Niga.’

Qui-Gon stared at the screen as the announcer handed over the show to a small crowd of pompous commentators. He was astonished. The Jedi Council did not respond at all to any media inquiries about any missions. Ever. Obviously, he was not the only one the Jedi Council was displeased with.

Finishing the last of the roll, Obi-Wan looked up at the screen as well.

“Master, is that why you asked them to turn the viewer back on?”

He gave Obi-Wan an affirmative gesture. Obi-Wan frowned and lowered his blue eyes and wiped his sticky fingers on a napkin. Qui-Gon had told Obi-Wan what he’d done while he’d been ill. Obi-Wan felt uncomfortable about it but had said nothing. He stole a glance at the other Jedi, standing calmly by door to the room and wondered at his master’s certainty. He very much wanted to support his master, but it did seem that Qui-Gon Jinn had strayed from their assigned mission.

Obi-Wan’s disapproval amused Qui-Gon; he wasn’t sure if it came from his young padawan’s inexperience (his single, thin braid barely reached down to his shoulder) or just his own relief that Obi-Wan was well enough now to disapprove at all. The medical droids had assured him that with proper care the khamuz virus was rarely fatal, though it insidiously seemed to favor younger victims. Qui-Gon had not fallen ill, but he was still isolated as a potential carrier.

“...and Minister Reen Unistoful had no comment...” came from the screen. Qui-Gon frowned. He was actually glad for the days that the quarantine had allowed him to consider the situation, and the minister.

Master Qui-Gon Jinn rarely ever felt rage; the ways of the Force did not allow it. But real anger had burned in him when he’d found out that the minister had sent them to meet the former planet’s former finance minister without telling the Jedi about the quarantine. They were supposed to act as discreet, impartial intermediaries, collect the “compromising” data disks about the previous and current administrations and leave. So, it had not seemed odd at all that they were given a fast transport and a hidden route to the former minister’s estate. Nor had it seemed unexpected that they’d seen almost no people during their brief stay. The whole exchange was supposed to be secret.

But as soon as they tried to cross back over the provincial border they were immediately set upon by the authorities. The Jedi had evaded the troops and escaped without any communication. After all, something like that had been expected, that one side or the other would renege on the deal and try to take the data from them. That was why the Nigans had asked for Jedi intermediaries. But Minister Unistoful had tried to use an existing epidemic to cover his attempt. They’d made it all the way into the middle of capital city, Zager, before Obi-Wan had collapsed.

One exceptionally well groomed man on the screen above with matching mauve and teal shirt and hair spikes pronounced, “Our politicians, our supposed leaders are so disreputable, so unsavory that even the Jedi won’t have anything to do with them. And these are people deal with some of the lowest, most despicable characters in the galaxy every day. What does that say about the state of affairs on this planet?”

Qui-Gon wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t too far off the mark.

At last Y7G appeared with a squat attendant droid to clear them to leave. They scanned Obi-Wan, had him stand and then scanned him again.

“...and Health Minister Howif wanted to assure the public that the recent outbreak of khamuz in the capital city has been completely contained.” Qui-Gon glanced up at the screen again as Obi-Wan walked across the room for the droid. “A total of only four cases have been reported with no more new cases in the last two days.” The announcer briefly disappeared for a few brief images of the medical facility that they were in. The other three cases had been quickly rounded up from the area where Obi-Wan had first fallen ill. And there were a few dozen others like Qui-Gon who were kept isolated because they’d been exposed, but the media didn’t seem to think that these were important enough to mention. “Now, back to our leading news. Deputy Legislator Eeolin had no comment about her very strange double life with a...”

Qui-Gon sighed. Health Minister Howif’s prediction had been absolutely accurate. Reports of a nearly missed epidemic just weren’t as enthralling as fresh and juicy scandal, so they received only passing interest. Which was very convenient for a health minister determined to avoid panic in the population.

Of course, she wouldn’t have had that convenience if Qui-Gon hadn’t told her about the data disk. And then given it to her.

He had simply broadly interpreted the “Niga governing authority” who was supposed to receive the disk to include the health minister as well. It seemed to him that Minister Howif had a far more noble and practical use for the data than Unistoful had. Qui-Gon straightened and mentally chided himself; it was not his place to judge. And the Council would do that soon enough anyway. On the other side of the room Y7G seemed to be satisfied. Qui-Gon appraised his apprentice as well. Though considerably recovered from just the day before when he could barely lift his head, Obi-Wan did not quite look fit. He didn’t look tired, but his step was not as firm or sure as it should have been. Through the Force, he sensed his apprentice’s waning illness.

Qui-Gon handed Obi-Wan his brown robe and he put on his own, long, darker brown robe as they left the room. They were just as stiff as the rest of their clothes. He pulled his long, brown hair out from under the wrinkly material and let it fall back over the hood. He didn’t particularly care for the local laundry, but it had been necessary to sterilize all their clothes and equipment, and the data disk he’d carried for this mission. He’d even had to disassemble their lightsabers so that each part could be sterilized before he put them back together. The medical droids were overly strict but Qui-Gon had no cause to deny them. Not after seeing first hand how swift and devastating the khamuz virus was. At the worst times, Obi-Wan could do little but suffer through the weakness and lethargy, his sleep disturbed by nightmares and fever. The droids’ medicines spared him the worst of the headache and nausea, but Qui-Gon could not even lend him strength through the Force. The virus would take it all. Before it finally burned itself out.

“You will of course pilot your ship under strict quarantine procedures,” Y7G reminded Qui-Gon.

“Of course. I am familiar with the procedures,” Qui-Gon assured the spindly, blue-metal, medical droid. He was tall for a human and towered over the smaller droid that was barely as tall as Obi-Wan. Y7G nodded its ‘head’, but it still kept one eye sensor on Obi-Wan as they exited together.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Y7G repeated everything about quarantine procedures as they walked down the hall toward the lift tubes, what it had sent to the Jedi Temple medical center, the probability of whether or not they were still contagious and what to do for the extremely unlikely event of the Obi-Wan’s khamuz virus reoccurred during the trip back. Qui-Gon patiently listened, but he did not quicken his slow walk to shorten the lecture. Obi-Wan remained quiet between them and kept his head down. Qui-Gon saw him close his eyes in the lift, as if he were conserving energy.

They arrived at the hospital roof and Y7G finally left them. They walked up an incline to the landing platform where the cruiser waited for them. It was a small blunt-nosed craft, its short wings had red Republic markings; it was not very new but fast enough for their needs.

Obi-Wan stumbled on the landing ramp. He didn’t fall, but Qui-Gon looked after him with some concern. The ship had a single cabin, pilot and co-pilot seats in front and a few amenities in back. Qui-Gon put a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and pointed him toward the recessed bunk in back. Obi-Wan hung his head, so Qui-Gon could only see the top of his short, brown hair.

“I’m sorry, Master. I thought I was feeling better.”

Qui-Gon put his hands on his padawan’s shoulders. “There is no blame here, Obi-Wan. Illness is something that all of us must bear from time to time.” Obi-Wan had seen his master injured a few times, but never ill or weak, but he sensed sincerity in his master’s voice and accepted that Qui-Gon did know how he felt. He swallowed his embarrassment and nodded.

“And we will both still have to be quarantined once we get back to Coruscant,” Qui-Gon added. “So, we will endure this together, my padawan.”

Obi-Wan smiled just a little bit. “So, you won’t have to report to the Council right away?”

“No.” Qui-Gon answered, surprised. He hadn’t thought of that. “I expect not.” He wondered if the Council would chose to berate him over a comlink, or wait until they could do it in person.

Obi-Wan sat, removed his belt and lightsaber and put them on an inset shelf in the bulkhead over the bunk. Then he lay down while Qui-Gon went forward to the pilot’s seat. He was warned by no less that three different authorities on the comlink what his travel plan was, that he was not to deviate from it at all and that he was to leave the quarantine signal on throughout. The Jedi pilot who had left the ship for them had already left it activated. Qui-Gon patiently acknowledged all of the warnings as he activated pre-flight controls and displays. The sublight and hyperdrive engines came up. Qui-Gon glanced back at Obi-Wan before he engaged the antigravity lifts and followed his mandated flight path up and out of the atmosphere.

Qui-Gon considered himself an adequate pilot, but his interest in spaceflight extended only as far as his needs. The navigation coordinates were already set, and locked he noted. In fact, the auto-pilot back-up was preset to take the ship all the way back to Coruscant. He didn’t really need to do anything at all. But he manually proceeded to the jump point and sent the ship into hyperspace anyway. He stared at the netherworld of interstellar spaceflight that had replaced the stars and then back at his padawan. Obi-Wan was clearly dozing and Qui-Gon did not want to disturb him.

He pulled the hood of his robe up over his head and folded his arms before him. Time to think, to meditate. He had felt anger at Minister Unistoful, unfocused, but intense fury that any being could be so selfish to risk an epidemic for his own political gain.

He’d been angry about being used. Qui-Gon admitted to that spark of pride.

And his anger had wound up into his fears for Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon had never seen the effects of the khamuz virus firsthand and he hadn’t recognized it when his padawan had first fallen ill. He’d simply sat down in the alley where they were hiding. When Qui-Gon had gone to his aid, he’d collapsed completely, weak and feverish when less than twenty minutes before he’d been fit and healthy. Without knowing what the illness was, Qui-Gon had abandoned his mission and sought the nearest medical help.

But when he’d been quarantined, his mind had wandered too many times to his fears for Obi-Wan’s life and the consequences for the Niga government if he’d died. Realistically, Qui-Gon knew there would have been none, but his thoughts had sometimes strayed to some very unrealistic and dark possibilities. Qui-Gon was disappointed that he had strayed into such lapses during his inactivity.

Since he was already exposed, he’d been allowed to stay with Obi-Wan, though there wasn’t much for him to do. The droids took very good care of him. A Jedi could draw strength from the Force. But Obi-Wan was young and had never suffered such a serious illness before and the virus seemed to steal strength even faster than even a Jedi could summon it. The droids had been better at providing relief, though Qui-Gon did sense his padawan’s relief when he recognized his master’s presence.

Minister Unistoful had been out of his reach. And Qui-Gon and the disks had been out of the minister’s reach. Even a greedy, corrupt minister couldn’t get past the quarantine to get at the information he still carried. The only person in the government who had any access to them had been Health Minister Howif. And she had mostly only been interested in finding some way to cover up the emergence of the Khamuz virus in their capital city. If she could have denied the news of it to the media, she would have, but she didn’t have that power. So, Qui-Gon had given her something that would make the news of the virus look insignificant. The data disks.

Qui-Gon wound through his thoughts and feelings for some time. They were past halfway on their trip through hyperspace when something disturbed him. He opened his eyes.

He heard a noise. It was Obi-Wan.

He turned and got up. He sensed intense distress from his sleeping padawan. Another nightmare from his illness? He bend over and touched Obi-Wan’s forehead, checking for any sign of fever...

...rivers of molten fire. Smoke and more fire. The great halls of the Jedi Temple strewn with bodies. Fighting with the feeling that it had been going on for a very long time. Black smoke in the sky over Couroscant. Younglings, padawans much younger than Obi-Wan cut down by lightsaber, bodies nearly cut in half, heads almost severed...

*** =============================== ***

Ben Kenobi started awake. He stared up at the dingy gray ceiling of the hovel he had inhabited for years on Tatooine. He blinked rapidly, wondering why this part of the nightmare wasn’t gone as well.

The terrible realization crept into him. This was the reality; the rest had melted away into the past and the Tatooine heat. His eyes teared up from the crushing reality. All gone, all dead. Everything.

The grief filled him up and he let it. An injury that deep could not be contained. He hadn’t felt such anguish in a long time. And illness was still there. His head hurt. He felt weak. He knew he had a temperature.

After awhile he wiped his face on the sleeve of his long under-tunic, rolled over and picked up the covered water cup on the improvised table next to his sleeping pallet. It tasted stale and metallic, passably drinkable, but only barely refreshing, even with a burning desert outside.

He felt like he’d completed some weird, psychic circuit. He hadn’t though about that dream in ages. Really, what he remembered most about it was how badly it had shocked Qui-Gon. It had been a vision, they’d both known it. Though neither he nor Qui-Gon had ever been especially prone to visions, all Jedi had them to some degree. What would he have done, had he known then what that vision meant?

What could he have done?

It was days before either of them talked to any of the Jedi masters at the Temple. Upon returning, Qui-Gon had fallen ill with the virus and though he’d been incapacitated for only a day they hadn’t discussed the vision for days after that and the intensity of it had faded. And there wasn’t much you could or should do about a vision. But that didn’t mean you didn’t want to try anyway. Obi-Wan let the possibilities spin wildly for a time before banishing them. He knew better than to wallow in what might have been.

//Keep your mind on the present, Obi-Wan.//

Obi-Wan stared. His master, long dead for many years, smiled down at him. His spectral image ‘sat’ on the edge of the bed. Just seeing him, not just hearing his voice, was heartbreaking, coming so close after that last dream. Or had it been memory? And why had it seemed to be from Qui-Gon’s memory. Why...?

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened. To die from an illness that he was sure he’d caught from the very boy he was supposed to protect at a chance meeting at Anchorhead? How pathetic was that?

Qui-Gon looked amused. //You’re not that sick, Obi-Wan.//

Obi-Wan’s head fell back on the pillow. Of course, he knew he wasn’t that sick. But that hadn’t stopped him from that brief moment of panic anyway. Real illness was what he’d gone through back on Niga. This was more like an inconvenience.

They’d called it “minimal” life support on Niga, but it had hardly felt minimal to Obi-Wan at the time. The medical droids had put tubes and sensors and machines into every available orifice. Well, he had to admit that he didn’t remember that they’d put anything into his ears, but he just might not have been aware of it at the time. The only thing that made it at all tolerable was that he’d been too ill to care. And that Qui-Gon had been with him. And now that he was so totally alone in the galaxy, Qui-Gon was with him.

But why was he here now...?

//You need to listen, Obi-Wan.//

Listen? As one with the Force, Qui-Gon could be especially cryptic sometimes, every phrase a lesson to the learned in its deciphering. But why now? When he really wasn’t feeling up to it?

//You need to listen. Obi-Wan.//

Obi-Wan stared up at the ceiling and listened. There was a gentle but mercilessly hot breeze outside. No vermin, no insect, no reptile of the Jundland Wastes did much more than seek shelter in the midday sun. Sand shifted, a very gentle scratching sound...

“Augh...!” He rolled off the bed, grabbing the lightsaber he always left ready at hand near his pillow. Heedless of whether he was walking though the spiritous Qui-Gon, he quickly rushed to the flatten himself by the door of his hut.

Through the window next to it he saw the Tusken Raider cautiously approaching. It was a male. The raiding parties were always males. Long minutes passed while the sandperson stalked the hut. As cautious as he was, he obviously hadn’t seen Obi-Wan watching from the shadows. There were others, further away, behind some rocks. This one seemed to be chosen for the first strike.

Obi-Wan sensed his fear. He was young, barely an adult. Was this some kind of initiation? Attack the old hermit to gain his adulthood? Sandpeople covered themselves completely in loose, sand colored robes and bandages on the head. Their tribal taboos forbid any exposed skin. They blended in well with the desert, but their goggles were impractical. Sandpeople had no peripheral vision at all, so Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised that this one didn’t see him.

The raider approached the door to Obi-Wan’s hut. It reached out to slide it aside. It was locked. The hut was too primitive for an electronic lock, but a simple bolt and bar did the job just a well. The Tusken jumped back and raised his arms as if to attack. Then it stopped, its head darting to either side, clearly looking for another way to its goal. Obi-Wan had to admit that this one had far more self control than his brethren.

Obi-Wan focused his attention and the Force on his unwelcome visitor. Fierce as they were, Sandpeople were easily influenced by the Force. And the last thing he wanted was a confrontation, with the possibility of vengeance and retaliation from the rest of the tribe.

The Tusken wavered. Door locked. Too much trouble. Nothing but dry bones inside anyway.

But then it seemed to reassert its resolve and began to approach the window. Obi-Wan backed away from it, staying in the gloom of the room. Self control and determination were not good qualities to find in a Tusken Raider. Obi-Wan spotted his brown robe heaped on a block by the wall. He quickly put it on, pulling the hood up to cover his face. He then backed away from the window. He felt the Force, strong around him and transferred his lightsaber to his left hand. He waited until the young Tusken was peering inside the window and then actually saw him.

Obi-Wan’s right hand shot forward and the Raider flew back through the air. He heard the Tusken land on the hard ground several meters away. He went forward and resumed his observation through the window. His visitor had righted himself and now crouched in attack pose, clearly not discouraged enough. However, Obi-Wan noted, his companions had left. It let out a loud, braying war cry. There was no reply. It tried again with the same lack of response. So, now it was just this one.

Obi-Wan concentrated again. Fear. Terrible things would happen. A dishonorable death. The tribe would suffer from ill omens. Again, the Tusken wavered and Obi-Wan focused more intently on it. Long minutes dragged by, but the Tusken did not back down though Obi-Wan could feel its dread. This one had something to prove.

//Use your lightsaber.//

Shocked, Obi-Wan looked about. Qui-Gon was by the door, his bearded image serene, inviting him to go outside.

“What...?”

//Use your lightsaber, Obi-Wan. Let him see it.//

Obi-Wan stared. All Jedi were wanted, hunted by the Empire and the last thing he wanted was for any being on Tatooine to see that he even had a lightsaber, the weapon of a Jedi. He looked out toward the Tusken. Even Sandpeople talked. He looked down at the lightsaber in is hand and then back at Qui-Gon. His transparent image gestured outward.

A bit numb, Obi-Wan went, pausing only to put his boots on. He kept the hood of his robe up. It was noon; the suns blazing overhead. The Tusken assumed a nervous, defensive posture with its weapon. Obi-Wan sensed that it prepared to attack. Obi-Wan held the saber up and activated it, the blade sliding out slowly, bright, glowing blue, even in direct sunlight.

The Tusken froze. It dropped its gaffing stick and went to its knees. Obi-Wan sensed an unnatural terror from it and he realized that it had seen a lightsaber before. He approached, bringing the blade level with its head. Obi-Wan closed his eyes; the lightsaber hummed loudly in the still, heated air.

Massacre. Death. Dismemberment. Everyone. By lightsaber. This one had survived.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes, another terrible reality crushing him, worse than the heat. He looked down at the Tusken.

**Go.** **Never.** **Speak.** **This.** **NeverReturn**

Obi-Wan could only manage the singly worded warning in the Tusken Raider’s harsh tongue, but his meaning was clear enough. The Tusken’s paralysis seemed to break and it hastily snatched up its weapon and fled.

Obi-Wan’s shoulders dropped and he wearily turned and went back inside. He dropped down onto his pallet without taking his boots off and wept again.

A long time later, he turned over and stared up at the ceiling. Qui-Gon was still there, his ghostly expression concerned.

“It was Anakin, wasn’t it? When his mother died. The Sandpeople killed her,” Obi-Wan said, his voice cracking just a little.

//Yes.//

“I never knew.” Obi-Wan felt the full weight of his failure pressing down him. To not know that his own padawan had done something so terrible. A mere taste of the horrific things he would do later.

//Do you fear it will happen again?//

What? Obi-Wan lifted his head and looked at Qui-Gon’s ghostly image. What was he asking? Anakin was gone. Did he fear that Darth Vader would arrive on Tatooine to exterminate Sandpeople? Obi-Wan let his head drop down on the pallet, which was a mistake. He still didn’t feel well, his encounter outside only a distraction from his illness.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

And now Qui-Gon had shown up to deliver a lesson. There was no point in asking Qui-Gon to clarify his question. He’d just get another question. Obi-Wan sighed and rolled off the pallet. He ignored the expectant presence of his old master’s spirit as he went to the refresher. As bad as he felt, his body still had needs.

He looked worse than he felt in the battered mirror. Like everything else in the hut, it had be cast off by some better off resident of Tatooine; he’d gotten quite good at salvaging things. But his somewhat battered reflection showed more age than illness. His hair had gone gray and gotten thin; his beard was nearly white. His exile in the desert had aged him terribly. He was barely as old as Qui-Gon had been when he’d died, yet he looked, and felt, years older.

Barely as old as Qui-Gon...

His mind caught on that thought. He sensed a hint of interest from Qui-Gon through the Force. The problem with having a master who was one with the Force was that he could tell what you were thinking. He ignored it, went to the bedside table, poured some water and ate the simple dried food and biscuits he’d left for himself. He hadn’t been sure how unwell he would be when he’d first felt the illness coming upon him, so he’d put most things he might need within easy reach of his pallet. He let his thoughts play out while he silently ate. Qui-Gon waited.

Obi-Wan felt better after eating. Not well, but somewhat refreshed. The midday heat was oppressive, but Obi-Wan was used to it. And the cool shade inside was mild compared to the burning suns outside.

He took a cushion from the end of the pallet and placed it on the floor. He sat down on it and made himself as comfortable as he could. He’d gained weight and his hermitage had no medical droids to keep old injuries from getting stiff with age. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

“Am I afraid that Luke will become like his father?”

//Are you?//

Obi-Wan hardly dared contemplate such a nightmare. But when he looked inward he felt relief.

“No. I don’t think he will.”

//You never expected Anakin to go to the dark side.//

“I know. And if I am wrong about Luke, then I will be wrong. But I sense no darkness in him.” He recalled the child with his aunt and uncle in Anchorhead when he’d seen them the day before. He’d been waiting for the shopkeeper to collect his supplies for him when they’d come in. Owen Lars had given him a disgusted look and grunted a greeting, but his wife, Beru had been polite enough to wish him a good day. Luke had looked up at him curiously, but otherwise quietly minded his uncle. In retrospect, Obi-Wan realized that the boy likely hadn’t been feeling well at the time.

Obi-Wan smiled. “He is like his mother, I think. He feels his duty to his family...differently than his father did.”

//And the Force is with him.//

“Yes, it is.” There were little signs, exceptional reflexes in games with other children, intuition, the way he anticipated what other people would do. His uncle seemed blind to it and his aunt merely thought her nephew was just very clever. But beyond the physical signs, Obi-Wan could sense the potential in the child. And Luke was the image of his father at the same age...

Obi-Wan opened his eyes. He seemed to have reached a strange milestone. He was about the same age as Qui-Gon had first met Anakin Skywalker. And Luke was the same age as his father had been then. When he’d begun his Jedi training, when he’d become Obi-Wan Kenobi’s student after Qui-Gon’s death. When the Sith had first emerged.

He lowered his head. Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his face. So, much had changed since then. Unimaginable, except for the violent vision of one young padawan long ago, an age away.

//You should let go of your grief, Obi-Wan.// Qui-Gon gently told him. //That moment is past.//

Obi-Wan smiled sadly. “There is rather a lot of it to go through, I think. It takes time.” Qui-Gon silently acknowledged this and waited. Qui-Gon Jinn had lived his entire life within the Jedi Order. He had not had to endure its total destruction in life, suffering all those deaths and then the cruel betrayal of a pupil who in the end, chose the Sith over the Jedi. In that, Qui-Gon acknowledged that Obi-Wan was the master.

There was too much time and not enough to do on Tatooine. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s duty as a Jedi Knight was shrunk down to watching over the male child of Anakin Skywalker, one hope of defeating the Sith. Obi-Wan didn’t know how a the boy could defeat the Sith emperor. And Darth Vader, who used to be Anakin. But that did not diminish his intuition that Luke could do it. It was every bit as strong in him as Qui-Gon’s intuition that Anakin would bring balance to the Force. Obi-Wan still had trouble believing that, but he trusted Qui-Gon.

And they both agreed that fighting the Sith as they had would not work. The Jedi had fought the Sith, and lost. The Clone Wars had been entirely been engineered to raise the power of the Sith and the Jedi had fought in them willingly without knowing where the darkness was coming from. The emperor had served as supreme chancellor for years without the Jedi ever knowing of his evil until it was too late. In the end, the war, the fighting, the power had drown in Anakin and turned him into a monster. It was a terrible paradox; the act of fighting the Sith made him vulnerable to becoming one.

Obi-Wan let his shoulders drop. He was tired.

//You should rest. You’re not well.//

“Oh, thank you for noticing,” Obi-Wan answered sarcastically. He slowly unfolded his legs and used his hands to rise. After taking his boots and robe off, he lay back down on his pallet. Weary as he was, somehow he felt less ill than he had. Qui-Gon hadn’t left; he was still there in the room though his image had faded away into the shadows. There was much more to think about, Obi-Wan thought as he closed his eyes.

*** =============================== ***

“No, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon stopped his padawan from reaching for his lightsaber. “It’s only a vision. It’s only a vision.”

Slowly, the shock and surprise diminished. Eyes still wide, Obi-Wan asked, “Master, what was it?”

Qui-Gon released his padawan’s wrists and sat down on the edge of the bunk next to him. “A vision. I don’t know of what.”

Obi-Wan swallowed, looking up at his master’s worried expression. He sensed the worry, the shock from him. The images had been so real, the sounds, the horror. He could still feel the heat.

“It was terrible. We must do something. Warn someone.”

Qui-Gon’s pulled himself away from his foreboding. His blue eyes focused on his padawan again.

“We cannot do anything about it now.” Qui-Gon laid his hand on Obi-Wan’s forehead, checking for any sign of fever from the khamuz virus. “We will deal with it later.”

=== FIN ===

[Jan-Qui Coran]

That was a very interesting story. It kept my attention since I didn't quite know which way it was going. It had some good twists.

[Jauhzmynn Enz]

Wow. Nice.
It can explain why Qui Gon was so calm beore Maul disspatched him, keeping his identity in death and Obi Wan beging able to keep HIS self identity as well.