They were
boys again, playing in the river behind the Jedi Temple. All was well,
and nothing could hurt or come between them.
Then one boy
cringed in pain, looking down at a hole in his chest. “How could you
do this Qui-gon? I thought we were friends?” The young voice of Jaron
said hurtfully.
A young Qui-gon looked at his friend,
frightened. “I’m sorry Jaron...I didn’t mean...please forgive me!” He
pleaded.
But before he could receive an answer, Jaron fell. And
the river carried him away...
***
Qui-gon woke with a start,
bead of sweat trickling down his face. It had been a dream.
He
sat up in the cabin’s bed. His wound had been bandaged, but had not
healed.
‘If only this had all been a dream.’ He thought. But it
hadn’t. Jaron was gone, killed at his hands. Obi-wan was hurt,
perhaps not by his hands, but in a way it was so. The guilt that had
never gone away had come surfaced again. How was he ever to forget
it?
Just then the door opened and Mace Windu strode in. “How are
you feeling?” he asked.
“Is Obi-wan all right?” Qui-gon asked,
ignoring what Mace had just asked him.
Mace nodded, “He is
stable. The injuries in his mind are more severe then the ones on his
body.”
‘Obi-wan. This is all my fault.’ Qui-gon thought, his mind
brimming with guilt.
Although Mace could not sense exactly what
his friend was thinking, he knew what he was feeling. “You are a Jedi
Master Qui-gon.” he said. “Jedi Masters know when they have made a
mistake, then they act on it, ask forgiveness if it is needed, they
may even feel guilty. Yet they shouldn’t do those things if the fault
is not theirs.”
“Jedi Masters also shouldn’t get their Padawan’s into
situations such as the one I allowed Obi-wan in.” Qui-gon countered,
staring out the window at the purples and blues of hyperspace.
“No
one could have foreseen what would happen. The Dark Side is hard to
see, you know that as well as I do. Jaron was the reason for this
Qui-gon, not you.” Mace comforted.
“I should have tried to save
him long ago. I could have brought him back then, stopped this before
it happened.” Qui-gon said painfully.
“He chose the path, he
followed it to its end. You killed him yes. But in the end it was the
path destroyed him Qui-gon, not you.” Mace said, placing a hand on
his friends shoulder.
Yes, Mace was right he knew. Qui-gon did
not lead Jaron to the Dark Side. The choice had been his, and Qui-gon
could not have changed that. True there are things in the past that he
would have changed, but those things were behind him, and they can not
be recaptured. He was always telling Obi-wan to concentrate on the
Here and Now. It was time that he start taking his own advice.
“All will be well in time, my friend.” Mace said, interrupting
Qui-gon’s thoughts. “However may I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.
Please don’t stop speaking your mind on my account.” Qui-gon answered in
a playful fashion.
“Oh don’t worry I wouldn’t dream of it.” Mace
said cheerfully. His cheerfulness suddenly vanished, becoming more
serious. “I suggest you go see your Padawan.” he said, “He has been
asking for you in his sleep. The darkness still has some hold on his
mind.”
Qui-gon nodded.
“And give him this.” Mace added,
pulling a lightsaber off of his belt. Obi-wan’s lightsaber.
Qui-gon stared at it, almost in disbelief.
“I found it before we
entered the temple.” Mace said before Qui-gon could ask where he had
uncovered his Padawan’s weapon. “It was on a stone table. Judging from
the dried blood, it was where sacrifices were once made.” Mace said,
looking at Qui-gon thoughtfully.
Qui-gon stared at Mace for a
second, but said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Slowly he
let his hand grip around the cool metal of the lightsaber. The Jedi
gazed at the weapon; wondering what would have happened if things had
not gone the way they had.
After a moment or to he remembered
where he was, and what was important. Obi-wan needed him now. He
stood and headed toward the door. Yet before he left he turned toward
Mace. “Thank you, my friend.” he said. Then he made his way down the
ship to where his Apprentice lay injured.
***
There was
no where to run from it. It was all around him, and it would not
leave him alone. There was no light, there was only darkness. It was
holding him, speaking softly into his ear, whispering words of evil.
All was lost.
“Obi-wan?” a voice said to him though the blackness.
He recognized the voice.
“Master?” He said doubtfully. Because it
couldn’t be his Master. His master was dead. He had seen him cut down
by the darkness, as he did all of the people he cared for.
Yet...
No, something wasn’t right. It was slowly coming to him.
His master wasn’t dead. They had escaped. He had been in the light,
the warm, beautiful light. The darkness had given up his hold on him
then, but it had reclaimed him. But he would not let it continue. He
had had enough of their words, their evil. He remembered the light,
and remembered that he was a Jedi, and he would fight.
Then the
darkness lifted like fog, and there was light once
more.
Obi-wan’s eyelids felt like they weight a ton, yet
he forced himself to keep them open. His vision was blurred, and could
only make out the faint lines of the objects around him.
“Obi-wan?” he heard the voice beckon him again. He turned his head to
the direction where the voice came. His vision was still clouded, but
he knew who the voice belonged to without having to see the face.
“Master?” he said weakly. He felt Qui-gon place a hand on his forehead.
Moments later his vision cleared, and he was able to see what was
happening around him. He was on a ship, moving quickly through
hyperspace. To Coruscant? To home? And there was his master,
standing over him, always watchful. But his eyes, they seemed
different somehow. They were distant, and sorrow filled.
“Are
you all right, my Padawan?” Qui-gon asked him, his hand moving from
Obi-wan's forehead to his hand.
“Yes,” Obi-wan said, his voice
not as curtain as he would have liked it to be. “I think so. Are you
all right Master.”
Qui-gon’s eyes looked deeper into Obi-wan. He
knew that all was not well with the boys mind. “Are you all right,
Obi-wan?” he asked again, his voice stronger than before.
Obi-wan closed his eyes, not able to keep his master’s gaze any longer.
“There was...so much darkness.” he said quietly with a hint of fear
that he dare not show. He did not want fear to bring them back, the
voices, the whispering, the darkness.
Qui-gon must have sensed
this. His hand griped tighter around Obi-wan’s. “I know.” Qui-gon
replied comfortingly. “And I am very proud of you.”
Obi-wan looked
at his master, surprise written all over his face. “Proud of me?”
“There comes a time in the life of every Jedi when they must face
a place filled with darkness.” Qui-gon began. “At times it is a test
that the master will give to an apprentice. Other times it is
unexpected, and unprepared for. The darkness sends forth images of
evil, images that will sway a person from the Light Side of the Force
to the Dark Side.
“Many times the person will give into their
anger, and use that to fight the images. Not realizing that this is
what the darkness wants, until it is to late. They give into the
darkness. Even if it is only for a few moments.” The Jedi stated, he
said calmly and purely “But I did!” Obi-wan cried, his voice
straining. “I was angry. I called to the darkness. I wanted revenge,
I wanted it to feel pain for what it had done. And it spoke to me...”
He closed his eyes again. Afraid that if he talked of it any longer
the voices would return.
“But you pulled away, Obi-wan. Even in
the mists of all that darkness, all of the anger and evil, you were
able to remember the light and call on it. You succeeded where many
have failed. Where I once failed.” Qui-gon smiled down at him. Then
said in a softer manner, “And because of that we are alive. You
saved us both, Obi-wan.”
The weary Apprentice turned to his
master and smiled slightly, yet it faded quickly. There was still
something in Qui-gon’s expression, in his eyes, that told Obi-wan that
not all was well in his master’s mind. He saw the bruise on his Master’s
jaw. The realized then what it was. “I’m sorry Master.” he said with
regret.
Now it was Qui-gon who was barring a look of utter
surprise. “For what?”
“For Jaron.” Obi-wan said simply, yet his
voice remorseful.
Qui-gon’s composure changed at the sound of the
name. “There are many things,” started the anguish filled voice, “in
the past which we would go back and change were we given the chance.”
The heartache that was written on Qui-gon’s face made Obi-wan want
to burst into tears. He listened on though. Not wanting to miss one
of his master’s words.
“Things always seem different when we look
back on them. Jaron had been a good friend, and that was what I
looked back on. Our friendship. But that was not the Jaron who I knew
in that room. The Jaron I remember would not have taken someone who I
care about to make me suffer.” The Jedi said.
“It was because of
his master’s death.” Obi-wan said before he even knew he was speaking.
“He wanted revenge on you, the Jedi Council, everyone who didn’t help
him. He felt betrayed.” Obi-wan didn’t quite know why he was saying
these things that Qui-gon already knew.
“And what do you think,
Obi-wan? Did I make the right choice by refusing to help the person
who was my most trusted friend?” Qui-gon asked, knowing his Padawan’s
answer before it came. And it came quickly.
“Of course.” Obi-wan
said without a thought. “You could not do what he asked you to do. You
could have helped him work though his feelings of his master’s death.
But he didn’t want that. He only wanted revenge. He made the wrong
choice, not you.”
Qui-gon smiled at his Apprentice’s words.
“Jaron forgot a great deal.” Qui-gon stated. “Such as how his master
would live on in death.”
“Because he went back to the Force.”
Obi-wan replied.
“Yes, Obi-wan, but in another way as well.”
Qui-gon explained, staring at his Padawan who looked genuinely
confused. “One day you will become a Jedi Knight, and you will take on
a Padawan as all Jedi do. You will train them with the best of your
ability using the teachings which I have taught you. Then when your
apprentice is a Jedi, they too will take on a Padawan and teach them.
And so on and so forth. So you see Obi-wan, we do not die, because
we live on in others.
“And even though Jaron never took on an
apprentice, his master still lives on because he is remembered. He is
remembered by those who cared for him, who will not let his memory
die.” Qui-gon paused, his smile fading slowly. “Which is why that I
hope that the memory of the Jaron I remember from our childhood will
live on, not the Jaron who was consumed by the Dark Side.
“That
man in black was not a friend, was not my “brother” from long ago.” The
Jedi Master said. He looked warmly at Obi-wan. “He was a man who was
trying to steal my son from me.”
At those words, Obi-wan felt a
tear roll down his cheek. Obi-wan sat up and embraced his Master, who
returned the gesture.
“These are hard times, my boy.” Qui-gon
said to him softly. “But we will get though them. Not only as Master
and Apprentice, but as Father and Son.”
A few more tears slid
down Obi-wan’s face. The embrace seemed to last for a lifetime. It was
broken when the sounds of footsteps which entered the room.
“Forgive me, Obi-wan.” The familiar voice of Mace Windu said. “But your
master needs to rest as do you.”
“Yes, Master Windu.” Obi-wan
said while wiping his damp cheeks with the back of his hand.
Qui-gon helped Obi-wan back down to the pillow. “Rest now, my Padawan.
I’m curtain that by the time you awaken we will be home.” Before
standing to leave Qui-gon placed Obi-wan’s lightsaber beside him on the
bed.
Obi-wan’s hand found his weapon which he had thought was
lost for good. Glad to know that it was with him once more.
His
Master smiled down at him, then turned to leave the room.
“Rest
well young Apprentice.” Master Windu said, then he too left the
room.
Obi-wan closed his eyes, but did not sleep. After all that
had happened, being on a ship on his way back home seemed so unreal.
Being back in the apartment in the Jedi Temple would be a welcome gift.
But once they were there, would things return to the way they were?
Would things ever be the way they were ever again?
His mind
wondered to thoughts of Jaron, who was dead, gone back to the Force.
He truly believed that Jaron was not a bad person. Just someone who
had gotten lost. Obi-wan still wished things could have been different.
But it could only be that, a wish.
Not wanting to think
anymore for the moment, Obi-wan quieted his mind. After a short time
he was deeply
asleep.
*****************************************************************************
Back at Coruscant, things still were not as they should be.
They had been home for three days now. Although the healing
proses should have already begun, it had not.
Qui-gon’s wound
had not healed, and the pain was still there as well. It had been
made with evil and such things take longer mend. As was true for the
pain in his mind.
Obi-wan had not gotten a full nights rest since
their return. He would thrash in his sleep, pleading with the
darkness in him to leave him and the one he cared for be. He would
awaken in a cold sweat, taking quite awhile to remember where he was.
Or he would not awaken, and Qui-gon would have to take the boy by his
shoulders and send him warm and caring thoughts through the Force. At
those thoughts he would wake in a frightened start. Qui-gon would hold
the stiff figure then. Reminding him that he was safe, that the
darkness couldn’t touch him, because he was stronger than it, that
*they* were stronger than it.
But Qui-gon wondered, if they
were stronger than it, why wasn’t it going away? Even with the hours
of peaceful meditation they put in to clear their minds. With the work
the healers had done to help their bodies recover. And the work the
Masters had done to help put their spirits at ease. Nothing seemed to
be helping. A worried thought crossed Qui-gon’s mind. ‘Something is
still in us both, something that wont quite let go. What will help it
let go?’ He could only wonder.
Night had fallen, and
the lights of the capital of the Republic had come on like that of a
star filled sky.
Qui-gon sat in the comfortable chair in their
apartment in the Jedi Temple. Watching his resting Padawan.
Obi-wan had tried to stay awake as long as possible. Although he did
not admit it to his Master he didn’t want to fall asleep. He knew that
once he was in that state, the darkness would return as it had for the
past two nights. But his weariness soon caught up with him. And there
was nothing he could do but shut his eyes and let the sleep take
him.
Qui-gon stared at Obi-wan minuet after minuet; half
expecting the boy’s nightmares to begin once again. Qui-gon would have
to pull him out before he got to far into the dream. But his Padawan
seemed to be sleeping soundly for the time being. Yet that may change
at any given moment. So he sat watchfully, not paying attention to
how exhausted he was. The guilt was still there, still the thought
that he had done this to his ever eager apprentice. Therefore his
pains could wait.
Perhaps it was his tiredness, perhaps it was
the pain that still wracked his body, or perhaps it was his state of
mind. Whatever it was, it made him turn his head to the back of the
room. What he saw had him in a state of shock.
For standing in
the corner of the room was Jaron. His body was transparent, with a
slight green glow around him. He wore off white trousers and tunic,
brown boots, and a brown Jedi Robe. His hair was caught up in the
style of a Jedi Padawan.
Qui-gon realized then that this was not
the same Jaron that he faced on Randon. This was a younger Jaron, the
way Qui-gon remembered him.
A vision through the Force.
The
figure moved across the room and stood beside the Jedi Master. “I have
come to say goodbye Qui-gon. And to thank you.” The spirit of Jaron
said to the still stunned Jedi. “I was not able to let go just yet.
That was why you and Obi-wan have remained somewhat in the dark since
what happened on Randon.” He explained. “But I know now that I must
move on. It took me this long to understand that, but I finally did.
You never betrayed me, my friend. If anything I betrayed you.”
“No
Jaron, that is not true. You were consumed by the Dark Side. That's
not your fault.” Qui-gon soothed.
“Never the less, I was wrong.
You were right long ago when you offered to help me move on, but I
refused. But you were right now as well. I am at peace now. More at
peace than I believe I have ever been. I will have to pay for what I
have done, but I am prepared for that.
“But you were right
Qui-gon, about a great many things. You always believed in me, even
up till the end. There was still some good in me, you were the only
one who saw that.” Jaron said.
“Honestly I had my doubts.” Qui-gon
said truthfully. “I couldn’t believe what you had become.”
“And I
don’t blame you. Looking back, I can’t believe what I had become. But
even after all of that. After my taking your apprentice, filling him
with darkness, injuring you. You still wished me peace when I felt
the life draining from me. You saved me Qui-gon, by saving me from
myself.” The spirit explained.
“I only wish I had done so sooner.”
Qui-gon said while shaking his head.
Jaron smiled at him and said.
“It was not to be. I would not have let it go in that directing. I
had chosen the path before I asked you for help that day. I had
already taken those fateful steps.
“Your Padawan was right. If
things had been turned around I would have made the same decision you
did. The fault was by no means your Qui-gon. And now it is time to
move on. I have, and I am at peace. Now you must do the same.” Jaron
placed a transparent hand on Qui-gon’s shoulder. “But I must ask one
more thing of you, my friend.”
Qui-gon nodded. “Anything.” he
said.
“Please forgive me. Even if you don’t blame me, just forgive
me.” Jaron pleaded.
“I do not forget the times we had Jaron.” The
Jedi said gently “You were not always an agent of evil, and that is
not how I plan to remember you. You were a good person, and a good
friend. And I forgive you.”
Jaron smiled at the words. “Thank
you.” he said softly. He then looked down at the sleeping figure of
Obi-wan. “He is an extraordinary boy.”
“Yes he is.” Qui-gon agreed,
smiling.
“Train him well Qui-gon. He will become a great Jedi
some day. This I am sure of.” Jaron said affectionately, a warm smile
creeping across his face.
“It is time that I go. You must rest
now Qui-gon. You are weary and wounded and you must heal. I will see
you again.” The figure said, slowly fading and becoming more and more
transparent.
“Yes.” Qui-gon replied. “Some day.”
“Until then, I
bid you farewell Brother.” The spirit of Jaron bowed, then faded into
the night.
Instantly Qui-gon was
asleep.
*****
In the morning Qui-gon woke, feeling
strangely calm. He had not forgotten the conversation with Jaron’s
spirit.
He had no more guilt, no more regret. Jaron was at
peace...and so was he.
He put a hand to his midsection, but
there was no pain. He saw that the wound was gone.
And then
noticed that Obi-wan had slept peacefully though the
night.
The
End
Author's
notes:
Just a few people I’d like to thank. The people who are
kind enough to post my fanfic on their page. Thanks so much! To my
sister who gave me the idea for the invisible lightsaber. She’s always
thinking. To Gorge Lucas for making the characters Qui-gon and
Obi-wan. Because if he hadn’t I would have had much of a story now
would I ;D
And finally to all of you who took the time to read my
story. Thank you all!