Pair/Rating: Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, still more or less PG
Spoilers: TPM
Summary: Obi-Wan's last farewell before the funeral.
Series: It doesn't have a name, but the dysfunctional temporal
series goes in the order "Weaving", "Healing" and "Ties". And I
wouldn't call this an AU, but I am taking some creative license
with Jedi tradition.
Archive: m_a, swal, wwomb and anyone else just ask
Feedback: Yes, please! Yet another rousing chorus of "Feedback
makes the world go 'round"...
George Lucas owns everything - the rest of us just
surreptitiously play with them and then put them back where we
found them.
Thank you to everyone who wrote such encouraging things for the
first two stories! Some of you asked for less angst... and,
well, I was going to... in fact, I've got one in the works! But
then I went and saw TPM again and this little angst fest crept
up on me. So here's one more PG angst piece, and I promise the
next one will be unangstful and at least R rated!
Cold. His hands, once so expressive, were cold. Obi-Wan laid
his own touch lightly over the still hands, releasing a soft
breath as the chill passed into his palms and stung his finger
tips.
The quiet of the room was broken only by the crackle of the
waiting torch, it's flickering light casting dancing shadows
upon a strong face smoothed of pain and care. Touched with the
warm glow of the firelight, Qui-Gon might have lain merely in
quiet repose, poised to draw breath, to move. An illusion, born
of soft light and shadow, of wishes and broken hope.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes painfully, feeling the hot ache of
tears already shed. His breath pulled at his chest, tight and
closed, unwilling to perpetuate a motion that would no longer
be echoed. His own heartbeat was damningly loud in his ears,
single and solitary where before it had been part of a whole.
Another breath, drawn loud in the still silence. It was time,
and only these last few precious moment belonged to him.
"It's done," he whispered, his voice cracking into the air,
roughened. "It's done, Master. The Council has given me the boy
to train, as you asked."
Pointless words; they fell from his lips without meaning,
without thought, but it seemed only right to speak them aloud.
To confirm the final wish. Once spoken they vanished,
insubstantial and fleeting in the face of all else that
remained unsaid. Obi-Wan bowed his head to the cool hands,
pressing his forehead to the remembrance of a touch as dear as
life. So many things, so many words, and he could not find a
way to say it. The words fled from him, fading like mist as he
reached for them.
"My Master." Was that his voice, that choked thing, so broken
with grief? A million things in two simple words, portrait of
loss and love, of all that was and now would not be. It hung in
the still air, surrounding them, binding them even now. Tears
welled up in eyes long since cried dry, running hot down cheeks
and over hands that would never again brush them away. "Master.
Qui-Gon."
The sobs were soft, shaking his chest, and even the renewed
grief could no longer wring the cries from him that had come at
first. It was a quieter grief now, an ache that would not
leave, that throbbed and pulsed in time with a heart that had
been cut asunder from its other half. Empty and cold, it
haunted him, eating at thought and soul from within where its
ravages could not be seen.
Obi-Wan pushed himself upright with shaking hands, forcing
himself to look again at the body before him. To see each
feature, each line of the beloved face. To take the image to
himself, memorized, traced over and over again, the last sight
he would have. Reaching out with a trembling hand he brushed
light fingertips across the broad arch of one cheekbone, over
the soft feather of hair at one temple. Cold, all of it, with a
texture never found in life. Empty, a shell only, devoid of the
spark that had been the Jedi Master. Empty of the soul Obi-Wan
had loved, of the man who had shaped his life.
He drew a slow breath, forcing it to steady. It was easier to
do that with the illusion stripped away, easier to distance
himself when he forced himself to see it for what it was - a
shell, the remnant only. This... this was not Qui-Gon. Cool
beneath his hands, without the response of life - this was only
a shade, the last seeming without any substance.
Drawing his hands away, Obi-Wan reached up to brush back the
hood of his cloak and wipe the last trace of tears from his
cheeks. The cord of his braid tangled with his fingers, the
last remnant of his years as an apprentice, declared over and
done only hours before. He tugged on it, an unconscious
gesture, touch skimming over the soft rope of it with long
familiarity. There, the rougher texture of the lowest band,
mark of a Padawan. Many years before those large hands, now
cold, had deftly wrapped that first band about the lone lock
left on his newly clipped head. Accepting him. Claiming him. In
the years since Obi-Wan had rewrapped the cord himself, when
necessary, but never without thinking of the hands that had
first put it there.
A span of neat braid, measuring a space of years, and then
another cord - a token of a level attained, a trial passed. A
moment of pride, a step taken. Each band, originally wrapped by
those same stilled hands. Obi-Wan touched each in turn,
remembering countless times when blunt tipped fingers had
reached out, trailed the length, a path of tactile memory that
had brought pleasure and pride to eyes of darkest blue.
He closed his eyes and tried desperately not to think of other
times, of the light touch of those hands carded gently through
his hair as his heart beat in rhythm to the strong pulse that
lay buried in the chest beneath his cheek. Of dark eyes
darkened still further, or the not-so-gentle touch that licked
with tongues of hungry fire, tempered always by the unburned
warmth of love.
Gone, all of it. The final trial passed, and now he must put it
all behind him, laid to rest with naught but the cold burning
ember of grief to mark a passage he had once looked forward to
with high hopes. The last step taken, but the hands that should
have reached out to him to share the joy were still and cold,
resting upon a motionless chest in a mockery of life.
His hands fumbled at his belt, nearly as cold as those they had
touched. A tiny blade slipped into his grasp, no longer than
his thumb, a tool for repair and the occasional small use.
Winding the supple length of the braid around his other hand,
he tugged it taut, feeling the pull of it against his neck.
"It's done, Master," he repeated softly, his voice firmer now.
Phantom strength, drawn on like a mask, but it had seen him
through the previous days and would see him through those to
come.
It was an awkward angle, only emphasizing the way it should
have come from other hands, hands larger and stronger than his
own that would have tilted his head and severed the cord even
as they had first placed it upon him. The blade caught and
pulled painfully before the edge found its mark, severing the
first strands. The others parted in a slow rush, one after
another, a sound just behind his ear that he could hear as the
last remnant of the past was cut away.
And then it was done. His braid lay limp in his clenched hand,
the severed end beginning to fray, the strands loosening as
they untwined. Longer than his forearm, no thicker than his
smallest finger. The markers twined duly around the darker rope
of hair, each cord wrapped and tied neatly as they had always
been. He unclenched his hand, fingers tracing once more down
the length of the braid. His head felt peculiarly lighter,
unbalanced, the space behind his ear cold.
"You should have been here," Obi-Wan whispered, his voice
pitched not to the abandoned body that lay before him but to
the air around, to the very Force that hummed within it.
"Mas... Qui-Gon. This... it means nothing without you."
No reply came but the crackle of the torch. Time was passing,
the others waiting. Ceremony would only wait so long and for
the living the hours and minutes of the day continued to pass,
demanding action. Winding the braid between his hands, Obi-Wan
reached automatically to stow it in a small pocket of his belt,
along with the blade. Keepsake of a different time, a better
time, one when he had been happier and whole.
Hesitating, he paused, then drew it forth again. The coil of it
fit within his palm, soft and heavy. A Padawan's braid, twelve
years of his life marked off in neatly arranged inches.
He had passed the trials but it felt like a hollow victory, a
mockery of what should have been. There was no Master to greet
him as equal, no one to tell him, beyond shadow of doubt, that
he had won the rank of Knight with skill and pride. No one to
be proud for, no one on whom his passing or failing would have
reflected.
"Would that you were here," he said at last, his voice breaking
again, the mask slipping. The hands upon the broad chest were
heavy and cold but the coiled braid slipped easily beneath
them, as though even the shell left behind would acknowledge
the rightness of the gesture. Clasping them one last time,
Obi-Wan let himself remember those hands - and the man - as
life had painted them upon his memory. Let himself focus upon
what had been, rather than upon the still and quiet picture
that would be his last.
The tears burned but he held them back. Words of farewell died
upon his lips, unspoken. Hollow and unnecessary words. Settling
the hands more firmly upon the chest, Obi-Wan drew his own
away, reaching automatically to raise the hood of his cloak.
His finger tips brushed stubble behind his ear, sharp and
prickling. Hesitating, he reached out once last time, not quite
touching the pale face. "The ties that bind us are greater than
that," he whispered, the words falling hushed beneath the
crackle of the torch and the dim noises of those gathering
beyond the shuttered doors.
There was no more time. The shaft of the torch was rough in his
hand, the heat unable to touch the empty chill within him. The
flame crackled brightly, as though eager to begin consuming the
remnants left behind in Qui-Gon Jinn's passing. Closing his
eyes once more, Obi-Wan drew what waning strength about him
that he could and stepped from the dais to swing open the doors
and let the others who would pay their respects enter.
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