What to do when your Padawan tells you he loves you?
by Alyse (alys4@easynet.co.uk)
Archive: m_a and my own webpage
Category: Q/O, romance, Qui-Gon POV, AU (didn't happen!)
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Set after TPM, spoilers for That Scene
Summary: Qui-Gon ponders a very significant question. Told in
the first person.
Feedback: Yes please, to alys4@easynet.co.uk. Constructive
criticism welcome, flames will be used to melt chocolate, and
we all know what I'll do with that :)
Kudos: Many thanks to my excellent betas, Binky and Teri.
Without their constant encouragement and nagging, I'd never put
fingers to keyboard.
What to do when your Padawan tells you he loves you?
There is a question that I've been worrying at for months.
Whenever my mind grows tired at the end of the day, or I pause
to catch my breath after a difficult bout of training. When I
meditate. When I eat, and I look up from the table to catch his
eyes on me briefly before he returns to his own meal. When I
try to sleep, as elusive as sleep has been lately, and I find
myself staring at the ceiling instead, listening to his calm
breathing from the other bunk. A question I have been turning
over and over in my mind. What to do when your Padawan tells
you he loves you?
I still remember it vividly. How could I not? I'd been a little
concerned about him for a while - he seemed to have withdrawn
from me slightly. Perhaps most masters wouldn't have noticed,
but I did. My memories of Xanatos haunted me. Obi-Wan's shields
had strengthened with each passing year and while I had read
the boy with ease, the man was almost an enigma to me, much as
my last apprentice. But I held my tongue, tried to tell myself
it was only his increasing maturity that lead him to this need
to put some distance between us, and that if anything were
truly bothering him that he would come and discuss it with me.
I left my door open as it were, and waited, hoping that along
with the Jedi code I'd instilled him with, I'd instilled some
trust of me.
I was not wrong. Some six months ago we'd taken some time for
ourselves once a particularly difficult diplomatic mission was
over, and concentrated on his training. It had been two months
of tense negotiating, and although he hid it very well, I could
still sense Obi-Wan's impatience. He's a man of action, my
Padawan, and while he can negotiate with the best of them,
there are times when I can almost see his muscles twitch with
the need to be in motion.
It was a well deserved break for both of us, and I can still
remember the pride with which I watched him as he leapt and
twisted in a deadly and beautiful dance, his lightsaber
flashing, as he completed the kata I had set him with ease. A
kata normally only attempted by knights. I knew that he would
be ready soon. While his grasp of the living Force could
occasionally be erratic, his skill with a blade sometimes,
although rarely, surpassed my own and I am acknowledged one of
the most skilled knights in battle currently in our order. In a
few years, if he continues to improve and I continue to slow
down, I think I will find him defeating me more often than not.
And then there is the fact that he defeated the Sith when I
could not.
That was a dark time for both of us and I force myself in the
here and now not to dwell on it. It is past, and any lingering
fear and anger I have I release to the Force. Instead my
thoughts return to that day, the day I told him he would soon
be a knight and the day that he told me he loved me.
I remember smiling indulgently as he skidded to a stop in front
of me, his chest heaving with exertion and his eyes shining
with the joy he always feels in exercise. And I told him,
knowing my own eyes were shining with a pride I could not deny
him, that he would take his trials before the year was out. It
was only late winter then, but what is time to a Jedi? He'd
been training for this for more than a score of years, first in
the Academy and then as my Padawan, so ten months, maybe less,
was nothing. His eyes brightened even further, and I could
sense his bubbling joy and relief through the Force. And then,
almost before I'd had a chance to secretly enjoy his emotion,
it was quenched, and he was shielded as tightly as ever. Only
his eyes showed anything. They darkened with something I didn't
recognise, and fear coiled in my stomach. Fear and remembrance
of Xanatos. Xanatos had also been this close to his trials
before I realised what the Council had known for months - that
my former apprentice was already flirting with the Dark Side.
Was I also to lose Obi-Wan to the Dark? I didn't think that I
could bear it - not my laughing and joyous Obi-Wan.
I remember fighting down the fear, and replacing it with
acceptance. I decided that whatever demon it was that Obi-Wan
was battling with I would let him make his own choices, just as
I had with Xanatos, and pray that he'd chose better.
I acknowledged his request for time to meditate with as much
calm as I could muster, and while he reflected on the changes
in store for him, I did some meditation of my own.
It was evening when he roused himself from his meditative
state, and came to kneel before me. I'd ended my own meditation
hours earlier, and was busy preparing a light meal - normally a
task attended to by my Padawan. I paused, and acknowledged him
with a gentle touch on his shoulder. He raised his head, and
for a long moment those sea-green eyes searched my face before
he spoke.
His voice was grave and calm as he told me that he'd been aware
of my concern at his distance from me, and he was sorry for any
grief that he had caused me. He told me that he was proud to
have been chosen as my apprentice all those years ago on
Bandomeer, that he would not exchange one day of our time
together for anything. His voice remained calm as he told me
that he would do his best to live up to my teachings, and to
make me proud of him. I was touched. And then he told me the
reason for his distance, his voice still calm. He told me he
loved me, not as an apprentice loves his Master, but as one man
loves another, and that he had not wanted me to read anything
inappropriate from him.
Inappropriate! My mind buzzed with a thousand questions. The
one I asked myself was how was it I hadn't known? Oh, I'd been
aware of the crush he'd had on me when he was in his teens, but
that was almost normal. 'Expected it is, for a Padawan to
desire their Master,' as Master Yoda is fond of saying,
although I can say with certainty I felt no such desire for
mine. When your hormones are leaping around the place you tend
to focus your attentions on the one constant in your life -
your Master. But since then, I'd had no inkling of anything
besides affection. He'd obviously grown very good at shielding
- or my mind was slipping.
The question I finally asked him was, "Why now?"
His answer, when he gave it, was calm and considered. He'd
sensed my disquiet over his withdrawal and sought to ease it.
The fact that I believed that he was close to his trials had
given him the opportunity, and meditation had told him that it
was right to tell me. He told me gently that he didn't expect
me to do anything about it, as he was well aware that such
relationships between Padawans and Masters, while not
forbidden, are strongly discouraged. And then he rose
gracefully to his feet and plucked the spoon out of my suddenly
nerveless fingers, turning his attention to the bubbling pot I
was ignoring.
I watched him for a moment, my eyes following the clean, lithe
lines of his form, before I abruptly recalled myself. "Why
now?" I repeated. "Why not wait until you passed your trials
and could approach me as one knight to another?"
The corner of his mouth, I remember, quirked upwards in that
half smile that usually puts me on guard for some planned
mischief. "I thought you might appreciate some time to get used
to the idea, Master," he replied smoothly.
There are times when I could cheerfully throttle my Padawan,
Jedi training be damned. And that was definitely one of those
times.
We haven't spoken of it since, not because I sought to avoid
the issue but because once he'd placed the problem firmly in my
hands he seemed content to let things be until his trials, and
I honoured his wishes. I didn't avoid the issue. I don't avoid
issues. Really, I don't.
I avoided this one like the plague.
It wasn't that his declaration didn't spark some interest in
me. Perhaps I'm an old fool, but who wouldn't be flattered when
a boy half his age tells him they love him, especially one as
beautiful as my Padawan. If there had been no interest, there
would have been no sleepless nights. I would have prepared the
words with which I would explain to him that what he wished for
could never be, let him down as gently as I could as soon as I
could and hoped that in time his attention would settle on
someone closer to his own age. No, my indecision stemmed from
the fact that he stirred something in me that night, although
in my more brutally honest moments I'll admit to myself that it
stirred before and was ruthlessly quashed. Expected it is for a
Padawan to desire their Master, but no one in their sane mind
expects the Master to desire back. Maybe that's the problem.
Maybe I've gone insane. That's it - after years of driving me
to distraction with one exploit after another he's finally
driven me mad. All I have to do now is persuade the Council
that I'm quite crazy and find a nice small padded cell in which
to spend the remainder of my days. It shouldn't be too hard -
after the mess with Anakin I think they're already half
convinced that I am indeed out of my mind.
Anakin. There's another problem my mind keeps shying away from.
Four months after that night that I told the Council that my
Padawan was ready for the trials, and I didn't need our bond to
tell me that my Padawan is more than half convinced that my
haste was due to the boy. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it wasn't.
Even now I'm not sure. And there wasn't time to discuss it
before the Sith was upon us.
He fought well that day, my Padawan, better than I did for I
fell and he did not. And although my impressions of what
happened after the Sith's blade slid into me, turning my
insides to fire, are vague a few things stand out - my
Padawan's scream as I fell, the pulse of the Sith's death
through the Force, and my Padawan pulling me back. And
strangely enough given all that happened that day, it's the
last that gives me nightmares.
I remember it clearly, etched as it is in my mind despite my
best efforts to forget. The desperation he felt as he entangled
his life-force with mine, ignoring my pleas for him not to. The
fear and the rage in him as he fought to tie me firmly to this
plane of existence. The grief, oh the pulse of grief through
him, an almost living thing, sinking its claws into him. I
could feel the Dark Side then, floating at the edges of his
consciousness, gibbering, demanding entrance, demanding
acknowledgement. Demanding submission. Too high a price to pay,
my Padawan, I told him, the breath tearing its way out of my
tortured lungs. You're too high a price to pay for me.
He didn't listen. But he didn't turn, and for that I would
gladly have died twice over.
I'm not sure I'll ever know just how close he came. Perhaps my
pleas held him anchored in the light. Perhaps it was his own
strength. Perhaps it was the love he bears me. It's a mystery,
one of many. Like how he saved me. Not even Yoda understands
how he did it - none of the Council do, and I think that
worries them - worry because of course fear is not permissible.
All that is known is that somehow he kept me tied to him, and
somehow he used to Force to heal the worst of the damage - not
completely by any stretch, but enough so that what was a mortal
wound merely became a life threatening one.
Merely. I snort as I remember. I spent nearly a month in a
bacta tank while the Jedi healers tried to repair that wound.
And my Obi-Wan spent almost that long under the care of the
healers too. Exhaustion they called it. What they meant was
that he'd given so much of his energy, his life-force to heal
me that he barely had enough left to keep his own heart
beating. A month I spent in the bacta tank, and a month he
spent on his back, being poked and prodded and cosseted and
studied. He hated every second of it I'm sure of it, but he
endured it like the good little Jedi Padawan he is.
Was, not is. The day I've been equally anticipating and
dreading is upon us. He's taking his trials right now and by
the end of the day he should be my Padawan no longer, but a
Knight in his own right, which is forcing the issue a little.
The time for prevaricating is over, and I can't help but
wondering if I've left it too long, if it's too late.
He is shielded from me now, as tradition demands. It should
seem very strange not to feel the touch of his mind against
mine, but unfortunately it's a feeling I've grown used to over
the last few weeks. In fact, ever since I came out of that
accursed bacta tank. I should have spoken to him then, but
something in his face when he finally came to see me stopped
me. There was a distance between us that has never been there
before, a distance I created. He was shielded from me even
then. The last time I felt the brush of his mind against mine
was before they put me in.
Throughout the journey to Coruscant, he held onto me. He kept
my heart beating, my remaining lung working. No matter how much
the Nabooian healers claim the success as theirs, I know
different. And throughout that time his mind touched mine, a
constant presence in the darkness that still occasionally tried
to claim me. My Padawan became my anchor to this life, and at a
high cost, both to his health and to my peace of mind. As
linked as we were, he could not hide his pain from me, and what
I have found hardest to bear since is the depth of that pain.
Not just from the wounds I inflicted in the Council Chamber,
although they were the freshest and still raw, but the
countless small injuries I have inflicted unknowingly over the
years, building on the pain I first inflicted on Bandomeer.
Insecurities building on insecurities, rejection upon
rejection. I suppose that it is an indication of my Padawan's
inner strength that he overcame all of this and found the
courage to tell me how he felt, even if he didn't know how I'd
respond. And it was the depth of the love he bears me that
astounded and humbled me most of all. No matter how many times
someone tells you they love you, it can never match feeling
that love surround you, warming you, holding you to life.
While I have attempted to make amends for my first rejections
of him, building his self-esteem as best I could and helping to
make him the mature and confident man he is... was, I undid a
lot of that by rejecting him for a child I barely knew. Anakin
is, indeed, special, the 'Chosen One'. I cannot deny that, not
when the rightness of it sings through the Force to me. Why it
does not sing to others, like the Council or my Padawan, I
cannot say. Perhaps it is because I am supposed to train him,
and no other, although I must be wary of the pride inherent in
that idea. It is meant, I am sure of it. Meant that I found
him. He will be a joy to train, I'm sure - entrancing and
irritating in equal measure - like every Padawan before him,
and every Padawan who comes after. But... but... he will not be
my Obi-Wan.
Master Windu has entered, while I have been lost in this muse.
He stands there watching me, as impassive as always, and
catching his eye I wonder if I have always seemed so impassive
to my Padawan, if that was why he waited so long to tell me his
heart, and if I could not tell him mine because I needed to
maintain that pose of serenity. He gestures for me to follow
him, although I know where we are bound. To the Council Chamber
where I will find out if I have lost my current Padawan to
knighthood, and whether I am to gain a new one. And then... and
then?
And now I have the answer to my question, so simple I don't
know whether to laugh or weep.
What do you do when your Padawan tells you he loves you?
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