WARNING: Death of a cannonical character, not Obi-Wan or
Qui-Gon
PAIRING: Q/O
CATEGORY: angst, no sex
RATING: PG-13 at best
ARCHIVE: M_A only. If anyone else really wants it, please talk
to me.
DISCLAIMER: Lucas owns 'em. I just wish.
SUMMARY: Obi-Wan loses his best friend.
NOTES: 1.) Thanks so much to my betas - Michelle, Amber, Miriam
and Eliz-Mar Von. 2.) Thanks to Elton John for a remarkable
song, from which I have borrowed the title. 3.) I can see my
beta readers going "HUH? What is this doing on the list???"
This was originally written for the Journal E-Zine, but it
didn't quite fit with that format, so I'm tossing it up here.
:)
FEEDBACK: As I've said before - If I didn't care what you
thought, would I show it to you? Good, bad or indifferent, send
it to waldo@elnet.com
I've never had to do anything more difficult in my life. And I
pray that I'll never have to anything like it ever again. I
couldn't even do it by myself, but, as ever, my master was
there to help me.
I haven't been able to write in this journal for a while. My
master says I was in shock, but to me it just felt like... like
nothing mattered.
Bant died on her last mission with her master. They both died
actually, but I didn't know Master Atiri well and somehow that
makes her death less important. I know how wrong that is, but I
can't help how I feel.
It seems something of an odd coincidence that Qui-Gon and I
were here on Coruscant when it happened. Most of our missions
take us so far away I would certainly not have been able to
return for the funeral. So I suppose it was fortunate that we
were between assignments. Fortunate. Right.
I was... well... I suppose I can admit to it here, I was
showing off for the children I'd been asked to supervise in the
training gym. Nothing major, just running around the room.
...Only I was running across the floor, up one wall, across the
ceiling and down the next wall. I had just reached the top of
the first wall when I thought someone had snapped my spinal
cord. I couldn't feel my body and when I reached for the Force,
I couldn't feel it either. I must have dropped like a stone.
But I don't remember it.
Memories are coming back now. Things that I couldn't remember
for the first few days. I remember the children gathering
around me as the oldest boy - I think he's Padawan all ready -
gave a girl almost ready to be Padawan the order to mind the
children as he ran for my master. At the time there was just
this blankness. And the knowledge that my best friend from so
early in my life had died.
I've only 'Known' a few other deaths in my life. When I was
eight, Knight Yatak, a favorite gymnastics instructor, died of
some disease I couldn't pronounce then, and can't remember now.
I felt the death of one of my master's best friends when we
were on Malaster about five years ago. That was more through
our bond than the Force, but it still was a horrible
experience.
Never before had I felt so completely overwhelmed by the
absence of someone's Force signature in my mind. Bant and I
never bonded or anything, but we were so close. I'm told I have
a brother, though I have no memory of him. To my knowledge I
don't have a sister. Not biologically anyway. But Bant was the
closest thing I've ever known to the feelings I read about
between siblings. We fought and got angry with each other on a
regular basis, but we loved each other far more than we were
ever angry with each other. I could tell her the things I could
tell no other; about feelings that came and went, and those
that came but didn't go. She was the first I told when Qui-Gon
and I became lovers. She rolled her eyes and congratulated us
on finally seeing the obvious. It was so like her to take
life-altering events (hers or mine) in stride. I'll miss that
temperance. I'm constantly reminded that I'm too emotional.
Bant taught me balance. Bant taught me unconditional love at a
time when I was so unsure of myself and my place at my master's
side. And this at a time when she was learning her place with
her master. I hope I gave her something back. Anything.
We're told from the time we are tiny infants that when a Jedi
leaves this life they become one with the Force, but I'm not
sure I believe that now. Like I said, I don't remember much of
the few days between her death and her funeral, but I know I
kept trying to feel her in the Force. It took almost a day
before I felt the Force at all, and I never once felt anything
that I can specifically identify as her.
At any rate, after he'd assessed that I really hadn't
snapped my spinal cord when I fell, Qui-Gon took me home and
sat me on the couch. He knew. I could tell by his face even in
the fog I was in that he knew, so he didn't speak beyond asking
where I needed to put ice after my fall.
I think he made dinner. I know I sat at the table for a while,
but I have no recollection of having eaten. Or having not
eaten. Qui-Gon didn't press me to eat, but whether that was
because I ate on my own or because he knew it was useless, I
don't know. I suppose I could ask him, but I'm starting to feel
ashamed of how poorly I reacted then. What if we had
been on assignment? What if we'd been somewhere dangerous? I
could have gotten us both killed as well.
Four days after it happened, Bant and Atiri were returned to us
by the winning faction of the war they had been trying to
prevent. Most Jedi have no other family. We are, the theory
goes, all we need to each other. The tightest sense of nuclear
family any of us ever get come from the Master/Padawan lineage.
In the cases where a master dies or cannot finish his or her
Padawan's training, the master's master finishes it where
possible. If they can't, another Knight the master trained
might step in.
Bant had none of that. Her master had died and she had been
Atiri's first apprentice. I don't know who Atiri's master is or
was, but apparently he or she wasn't available.
So the healers came to me. Her best friend.
The responsibilities to a dead Jedi are minimal really. Two
things to do, that's all. But they are, to date, the hardest
things I've ever done.
I first had to distribute her belongings. Jedi don't accumulate
much, but deciding who to give the odds and ends to becomes
that much more difficult because of it.
Qui-Gon had to tell me many times that it wasn't selfish to
keep some things for myself. At first I was angry, and I did
something I'd never done before. I yelled at him. He didn't
seem surprised. When I calmed down and we talked later he told
me that he'd been waiting for me to have an emotional release
eventually and better on him than one of the children or a
Council Member.
This 'release' was rather loud and uncontrolled. Much more so
than I've been since I was a small child. I told him that I
didn't want any of her stuff I wanted her. And I
didn't need constant reminders that she was forever gone and
that I carried a pain that no amount of time would heal, that
no other friendship could ever replace. I told him that he
couldn't possibly understand what it was like to lose
the one person who truly understood you and cared for you more
than themselves, who you understood and cared for in return.
It was the next day when I realized I probably hurt him with
those last comments. I knew Qui-Gon was being as patient with
me as he could as both his lover and his apprentice, but I'd
basically told him that I didn't understand him, he didn't
understand me and that perhaps I'd cared for Bant more than
him.
I never meant any of that. When I apologized he said that I had
long been forgiven and that the only point he felt the need to
argue was that he could understand what I was going through,
because he'd lost his own best friend a few years ago. I felt
very small right then.
I suppose it was probably even harder for him. He'd know
Endarka for a lot longer than I'd known Bant. Endarka had
looked after me on the few missions Qui-Gon had had to attend
to alone early in my apprenticeship and we'd housed Bafta'mir,
Endarka's last apprentice, a few times when it had been
necessary.
Anyway, Bant didn't have much. Her clothes and bedding and
other impersonal necessities went back to the Temple stores.
She was very close to a little girl named Teempa who will be in
the next cycle's Padawan candidates. She wanted one of Bant's
robes, so I gave it to her.
I understand why she wanted it. If Qui-Gon can't be with me
when I'm hurting - inside or out - I'll wrap myself in one of
his robes and try and pretend that it's him, his arms. It's
nowhere near the same, but still a vague comfort.
I've spent a lot of time wrapped in one of his robes lately. He
tries to stay near-by, but when the Council calls, or he's
asked to teach a class...
I try to have it put back when he comes in again, but sometimes
I fall asleep. I'm ashamed of how weakened I feel by another
person's death. I'm ashamed of having a 'security blanket' as
if I were still a toddler. If I manage to put it back before
the door opens, he makes no comment, though I can usually tell
he knows and is sparing me. If I'm caught, he simply holds me.
He wraps us both in the long folds of fabric and just holds me.
Those have been the only times I've been warm since I fell in
the gym.
Reeft and I split the 2D pictures Bant liked to make. She would
spend hours converting holos into flat pictures she could paste
on the walls. Most of them were of the group of us who grew up
together. I carry one of the two of us, cropped so that just
our heads and shoulders are showing - smiling and hugging each
other - in my belt pouch now. I know that it's likely to get
destroyed the first time I get dumped in a lake on some
unforsaken world, or lost in the snows of a Hoth-like planet,
but for now I can't let it go. Qui-Gon says that eventually
I'll put it on a shelf, but that if it makes me feel better,
there's nothing wrong with carrying it for a while. Sometimes I
feel that he's being far too understanding.
I gave her Journals to her writing teacher, Knight Blom. Bant
was a fantastic writer. She was the one who encouraged me to
start this journal. She had to do one for a class and she said
that putting the words down helped her sort things out. I
remember telling her that that was dumb. So of course it became
a challenge. I was fifteen then, and still pretty confused. And
as usual, Bant was right. I've sorted out a lot of difficulties
here.
Qui-Gon and I once talked about our legacies. As Jedi, we all
share a legacy - that of a more peaceful galaxy than we would
otherwise have known. I think that this journal might be Bant's
legacy to me. Some day I'll have a Padawan of my own and I'll
have to see to it that he or she does this. And that they know
why and who's idea it was.
It scares me that in a few years no one will speak of her. She
never completed her training, so her name will never appear in
the mission logs. She was never someone who was... outstanding.
She was very skilled in everything she did, but rarely did
anything ... showy. She didn't much like attention. Qui-Gon
says that it's my responsibility to make sure her name is
remembered.
I want to write about... well, yesterday, but I find myself
writing anything else to avoid thinking about it. I'm crying
again and I begin to wonder if I will ever stop. My master
promises me that time will dull the pain, but I have to wonder
if 'time' means decades or just years.
Yesterday... yesterday was the funeral. It was odd, since most
Jedi are cremated at the place where they fell. But the Yrag
have very strict taboos against the remains of any non-Yragians
being left on their world. Even in the form of ashes and smoke.
So Bant and Atiri were sent back to us.
For the few cases where a Jedi actually dies at home, a section
of the garden was set aside for a fire. A place where the
sprinklers won't come on and the smoke will be released into
the atmosphere instead of into the recycling system. Healers
took the responsibility for dressing her and laying her out.
Since I seemed to be the one named to be responsible for her, I
had thought that that task would be left for me as well, but
was infinitely glad when it wasn't. I still had the hardest
part before me, so I was relieved to be spared this.
As Qui-Gon and I walked up the path to the pyre, it occurred to
me that it was unfair for Bant to be ... cremated... here. She
was so alive and so full of the Force. I think she would have
liked to become one with the Force of a forest moon or ocean
world. I spared a small bit of the welling emotions in me to be
angry with the Yragans for denying her this.
The moon shone through the windows that lined the garden. The
lights were down, since soon, the fire would be light enough
for people to see.
Bant's friends circled the pyre. Her teachers and her students
- the children she taught between missions. Her childhood
friends and those she met as she grew older. Friends of her
master came to be sure that Atiri's Padawan was well cared for
in Atiri's absence. Qui-Gon and I were the last to arrive. As
we neared, Mace Windu handed me a torch. I was sure I would
drop it my hands shook so hard. I handed it to my master while
I approached her and said good-bye.
She didn't look dead. Well, she did, but she didn't. Jedi don't
bother with cosmetically altering a body before committing it
to the Force, so she was a bit... pale, and a bit... sunken,
but her body was whole as far as I could tell. I searched for
her in the Force. Hoping that somehow this was all a disastrous
mistake. I knew that if I lit that fire any chance I had of
getting her back would be gone.
I couldn't find her.
After several long minutes, Qui-Gon approached me and returned
the torch. I reached for the pyre, but pulled back. She didn't
look dead. Dead to me had always been missing limbs, and
grotesque facial expressions, or eyes that should have closed,
but didn't. Bant was nothing like this. What if there was a
chance?
I searched the Force again, and she still wasn't there.
I reached for the pyre, but once again my hand fell back. As I
started to pull away again, my eyes so full of tears now that I
couldn't even be sure what I was igniting, when Qui-Gon covered
my hand with his and guided me to where a trail of accelerant
was shining against the pyre wood.
The flame that leapt up in front of me moved so quickly that I
was startled and I jumped back against my master's body. I
think I nearly set his hair on fire.
He took the torch from me and handed it to someone near-by.
Then he turned me in his arms and held me tight. He turned us
sideways so I could watch the fire with my cheek pressed
against his heart.
I've always loved listening to his heart, since we became
lovers it's been my favorite way to sleep. And I needed the
sound of his life while I was surrounded by the sights, sounds
and smells of my best friend's death.
It takes a very long time for a body to burn. And although
neither the body or the ashes are anything difficult to look
at, the in between time is... horrific.
I knew it couldn't hurt her. She'd long ago shed that shell,
but except for at the very beginning and the very end, I'd been
unable to watch.
And during those intervening hours, Qui-Gon folded me in his
robe and held me.
I cried on and off throughout the entire process. After the
first hour or so, people began to leave, until Qui-Gon and I
were the only ones left. Once everyone else had gone, and there
was little more than ashes, bones and smoke, we sat on the
ground. Well, Qui-Gon sat on the ground. He pulled me onto his
lap. He wrapped his cloak around me once again and gently
rocked me, rubbing my back and saying quiet words of comfort.
I'd never felt so loved in my life. It occurs to me now that
it's easy to love when life is good. When all you have to
concentrate on is solving someone else's problems and keeping
your body intact. It's so much more difficult to love someone
who has become unpredictable from grief, impossible to cheer
and not in the least interested in sex. But when he held me
there, in front of that pyre, I knew that our love was solid.
That it wasn't the kind of thing that had to be tread upon
lightly, that it would withstand the trials of daily life for
the Jedi. For a short time, my tears were those of gratitude
and relief.
Not relief like I didn't believe him when he told me he loved
me, but the relief of having your beliefs proven.
It was very late when the fire had burned down. Council member
Windu and the healers came to clean everything up, so Qui-Gon
helped me stand and led me home.
It's been... I don't know a year, two? A while at any rate
since the first time we made love. I remember how Qui-Gon was
especially careful with me. Making sure I was relaxed, calm,
ready... but that tenderness was nothing compared to that which
he showed me last night.
He must have felt the headache I'd earned from crying so much,
because instead of turning on the normal overhead lights, he
lit one of the candles we keep on the shelf near the table.
On the walk back to our rooms, I had realized I smelled like
the fire and the realization had turned my stomach. I was
mortally afraid that I'd throw up right there in the halls. So
once we'd gotten back to our rooms, Qui-Gon drew me a bath. He
started the water and then, realizing I had no strength of my
own, helped me undress and actually lifted me bodily to set me
in the water.
He stripped to the waist and tied his hair back and then spent
almost an hour very slowly and very gently removing any
lingering scent of smoke from my body and my environment. My
clothes, and those he'd shed, were stuffed into the laundry
shoot. My skin was lightly scrubbed with a gel that smelled
something of sweet grasses and citrus fruits. I was rinsed with
impossibly gentle hands. I've seen those hands grip a
lightsaber so tightly that the metal casing has cracked. I've
seen them tear heavy canvas into strips. (Which, of course,
were needed to bandage yet another of my wounds) I've seen them
restrain an angry tauntaun. I'd never guessed they could be
that gentle. Even after all our time as lovers.
When his hands left a particular patch of skin, it tingled.
Like he was still touching me... or almost touching me... the
way the hair on your arm stands up when you get too close to a
static electric field. By the time he poured a pitcher of warm
water over my hair to wash it, my whole body tingled with that
energy. And I was oddly relaxed.
He washed and rinsed my hair twice to make sure the smoke smell
was out. While he was doing that, my mind did something that I
felt, at the time, was remarkable. It started to shut down. For
six days I'd run Bant's death over and over in my mind. How I
could have stopped it, what she should have done, what her
master should have done - and to date, I've never seen any kind
of report on specifically what happened there, but I had still
managed to feel guilty for being home, and being safe. For not
feeling her danger through the Force...
But with those incredibly strong, tender hands carding soap
through my hair, I felt my mind let go. I wasn't there, I
couldn't be there, it wasn't my fault. I know I'll miss her for
months, years, but the sense of helplessness, uselessness had
finally eased.
By the time my master rinsed my hair for the final time, the
water had begun to grow tepid. He lifted me from the water and
wrapped me in an oversized bathsheet. He held me on his lap -
soaking his trousers - and patted me dry.
Once he'd rubbed some of the water out of my hair he carried me
to bed and tucked me in. Usually, unless I knew they would just
be a... hindrance... I sleep in a pair of light workout pants
and long undertunic. But I didn't mind being naked last night.
There was something... cleansing in all of it. A spiritual
cleansing from something very akin to a ritual bath, and I felt
very secure with myself and with him that night.
With the blankets tucked securely around me, Qui-Gon kissed my
forehead and told me that he was going to take a quick shower.
I didn't smell any smoke on him, but I figured if it had been
in my hair... I didn't like him being even across the
room, but waited patiently.
He was wearing sleep pants when he came back in and slid under
the covers with me. He tried to spoon up behind me, but I
turned so I could lean my head on his chest. I wanted to hear
his heart again. He shifted us so that I was laying over him
and rubbed my bare back until I found the first peaceful sleep
I'd known in a week.
Bant was as avid a reader as she was a writer. She used to
foist these stories upon me - those she'd written and those
she'd read. Stories mostly of great romances and relationships
that should have been damned from the outset. In truth - and I
never told her this, and never would have - most of them bored
me. They were ... unrealistic. Laying in bed last night I
thought of a half dozen she'd shown me over the years where one
of the protagonists undergoes some great personal loss, and the
second protagonist sleeps with the first to make him or her
feel better. I never cared for those. I knew that when my time
came to feel the sort of grief portrayed in those stories, the
last thing I would feel was any sort of sexual urge.
I was right. Go figure.
Qui-Gon understood what I needed more than I did, I think. He
rested my head on his chest and just ran his hands over and
over my body until I was asleep. And the few times I awoke in
the night he'd wake as well and gently lull me back to sleep
with those incredibly strong, gentle hands.
Qui-Gon almost always wakes before I do, but today I'm up
first. I cut up some fruit and ran to the kitchen stores for
some bread, which I have in the warmer now, so we'll have
breakfast when he wakes. Actually I suppose at this point, most
people would call it lunch. The funeral went late into last
night, so we've both slept very late. I awoke about two hours
ago to write this. Qui-Gon will probably be up in the next half
hour or so. And when he does I'll be able to tell him that I'm
ready to move on now.
I still feel heavy and tired when I think of Bant, but I know
she would have just gotten in my face and yelled, "Get on with
it, Kenobi," if she'd been here to see me moping. So today I'll
get on with it. With my master and lover Qui-Gon Jinn and with
the memories and love of my two best friends. One who is here
in the room with me, and one who is in my heart.
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