Qui-Gon sat on a pilfered chair beside his apprentice's narrow sleep-couch in their tiny, shared quarters, his elbows digging into his thighs and his fingers laced together as he studied Obi-Wan's sleeping visage. The young man appeared peaceful, his breathing normal, his lips curved in a small, serene smile. Nothing seemed to be wrong; Obi-Wan looked to be in a calm, deep sleep.But Qui-Gon knew something was wrong, and it wasn't simply because he'd felt it. Obi-Wan didn't sleep like this.
As tightly controlled as his presence was when he was awake, it shocked everyone to discover that Obi-Wan slept like a child. He sprawled out wherever he happened to fall asleep, his arms and legs askew and the blankets tossed haphazardly aside. His pillow usually wound up in the strangest of places, leaving everyone to wonder how it had happened.
And he snored.
Dear Force did he snore. Most of the time it wasn't so bad, but there had been one night early into his apprenticeship that Qui-Gon had seriously considered giving up being a Master just so he could get away from the racket. Missions were made difficult at times when the nightly soundproofing Qui-Gon placed around his oblivious apprentice failed (which thankfully happened only once in a while, and he had since taught Obi-Wan how to properly reinforce them). The noise was so terrible that Qui-Gon always somewhat guiltily looked forward to negotiation missions that held the promise of distantly separated rooms, and if that turned out to be impossible, he always had a pair of heavy-duty earplugs on hand.
Obi-Wan was not snoring now, though. If Qui-Gon hadn't known better, he would've sworn that his padawan was in a deep healing trance, but that was impossible. The only people who could've put Obi-Wan in a trance like that were either him or a Temple Healer. But since neither of those two could've possibly done it, there was only one conclusion Qui-Gon could draw.
But Obi-Wan couldn't have put himself in one this deep. He's just a padawan. He doesn't have that kind of skill yet, he thought, frowning a little as he moved to touch his fingertips to Obi-Wan's cool forehead, trying once again to access their tattered training bond. He failed to gather anything from his unconscious apprentice and he had to fight the flash of worry that ignited in his heart.
What happened to you, my insolent padawan?
Earlier, right before Obi-Wan had completely collapsed, the bond had been stronger than ever. Qui-Gon had gone to introduce Anakin and a muffled, tortured scream had echoed along their link, cutting him off and demanding his attention. He'd watched Obi-Wan clutch his head, his blue-green eyes glazing over in pain, and just as Qui-Gon reached out mentally to his apprentice, some of the strongest shields he'd ever encountered had slammed around Obi-Wan's mind.
For one heart-stopping moment, I thought he'd died.
Then Obi-Wan had shuddered, his gaze twitching as he attempted to focus on the voices calling him back to reality. Qui-Gon had been screaming into the bond, trying to batter the shields down with all of his might, praying that his apprentice was all right-
He'd succeeded for one brief instant.
The pain that had flooded him then would have knocked him to the ground if he hadn't been there already, and he'd felt Obi-Wan clinging to the bond, trying to draw strength to bolster his weakening connection.
I was burning, he thought, recalling the way he'd fought off the pain while trying to soothe Obi-Wan at the same time, trying to wrap some semblance of comfort around the shaking young man. He'd heard a loud mental sob of joy before his apprentice had finally relaxed and collapsed, the shields slamming up and kicking Qui-Gon back into his own mind.
He still had no idea what had happened. Part of him was convinced it was some kind of vision, but another wasn't so sure. Obi-Wan had never collapsed from a vision before, no matter how terrible it happened to be, and he'd never experienced such excruciating pain. Qui-Gon's heart told him this was something truly out of the ordinary, but he had to wait for Obi-Wan to wake to be sure.
"Mister Qui-Gon, sir?"
A timid voice broke him from his reverie and he looked up to find Anakin standing in the doorway, his clear blue eyes watching Qui-Gon eagerly. Beside him stood one of the queen's many handmaidens, and Qui-Gon suppressed a small smile when he recognized Padmé. Part of him wondered if she really thought she was fooling him with her act, but he hadn't said anything yet, and he didn't ever intend to. He understood the advantages of a decoy.
"Yes, Ani?" he asked and the two stepped into the room, their gazes flicking to Obi-Wan briefly. "I gather the queen decided to send one of her handmaidens," he continued, his eyes meeting Padmé's briefly, and she looked away hastily.
"Yeah. That's why Padmé's here," Anakin said before plunking himself down on Qui-Gon's empty sleep couch, his feet kicking slightly. "She seemed really worried about the attack and the way Obi-Wan fainted."
"What did you tell her, then?"
Anakin nodded. "I told her everything that had happened and how you said that there was nothing to worry about and we were safe. I added the part about being cautious when we reach Coruscant, just to show that you were thinking ahead and everything."
Qui-Gon gave Anakin a warm smile before placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You did well, Anakin." The boy positively beamed. "What else did the queen want to discuss?" he continued, his gaze shifting to the handmaiden.
"She wanted to ask if you had any further qualms about sending messages," Padmé asked, her tone just a touch irritated. "She also wanted to know if your apprentice collapsing had anything to do with the enemy you faced."
Qui-Gon watched the girl coolly, easily sensing her frustration and impatience. "Calm yourself, young handmaiden. Tell her majesty that she may send as many messages as she wishes, so long as they do not delay our arrival at Coruscant."
Padmé bowed slightly, her gaze dropping to the floor, and some of her frustration vanished. "I will tell her to wait then, until we reach our destination."
"A wise decision," Qui-Gon responded. "As for your second question, I do not think the two events are related. I do not sense that we are in any danger."
Padmé frowned lightly, her gaze flicking back to Obi-Wan. "Then what happened? What could've made him collapse like he did?"
"It is most likely a particularly intense vision," Qui-Gon told her, hiding his urge to grimace. "I have found no evidence to suggest that he was drugged, and given the nature of his collapse, I am convinced that it is Force-related."
Padmé nodded slightly and Qui-Gon gave her a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "Tell her majesty not to worry about it. He is my apprentice and my concern."
"I will do as you suggest," the handmaiden said, bowing a second time before backing out of the room and vanishing from sight.
Once she was gone, Qui-Gon turned to Anakin, who was studying the storage shelves that surrounded the sleep couches. The quarters he and Obi-Wan had been given were remarkably large, considering the size of the ship, but were still small in comparison to a normal room. It was longer than it was wide, with the two walls adjacent to the door set with cabinets and storage closets that were meant for personal effects. Since Jedi owned next to nothing, most of them held the remainder of the queen's extensive wardrobe.
At about half a meter from the floor, sleep couches were inset into those two walls, surrounded by the cabinets, and came complete with a privacy curtain that wasn't particularly needed. It felt rather like sleeping in a cave, walled in on three sides and then curtained off on the other, but the cushion was thick and Qui-Gon, being just under two meters tall, found he could actually lie on his back without scrunching uncomfortably.
Still, he had hit his head on the overhead cabinets several times upon waking before learning not to sit up hastily.
"Are you getting hungry, Ani?" he asked and watched as the boy's expression brightened. "Would you mind running to the galley and requesting a meal for us?"
"Sure!" Anakin said, pushing himself off the sleep couch. "Padmé showed me where it is. Do you want anything in particular?"
"Just get whatever is available. I doubt they have much of a selection," he said and Anakin nodded before vanishing out the door. Qui-Gon smiled at the retreating figure; Anakin was much like Obi-Wan in that respect. Given the opportunity to eat, they would.
And as much as possible.
Ah, padawan, Qui-Gon thought with a mental sigh, his smile fading quickly. What can I do to make you wake up faster?
Anakin...
Obi-Wan drifted along the currents of the Force, allowing it buoy him up with its quiet strength, letting it wash though his soul and dampen the fires that ravaged his body. He felt like he was bleeding, grief eating away at his very flesh, gnawing down to his bones and sinking its fangs into his heart.
Anakin...
He was drifting somewhere, but it didn't really matter, did it? He wanted to forget everything that had happened; he wanted to erase it so he could rest peacefully.
His treacherous mind, however, had different plans.
"Anakin!"
He clenched his teeth as the memories flooded him, refusing to vanish quietly. They kept ricocheting around in his head, destroying the little serenity he'd managed, and bringing tears to his eyes from the pain they unleashed.
"Anakin! Watch out! Don't fly-"
Too late. They went zipping through the arching energy, and Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut in pain.
Why couldn't he forget? Why couldn't he let this go? He had failed; he'd been knocked off a catwalk to his death. Why wouldn't the Force help him to silence these searing memories?
"How many times have I told you, Anakin? The droids around the Temple are not there for your own personal enjoyment. You frightened the life out of the kitchen staff when one of the serving droids started attacking innocent Initiates, who were only trying to get some food!"
"But Master, how do you know it was me? You've got no proof!"
"Anakin, how many other Jedi would bother tinkering with a droid?"
A sullen grumble answered him.
"That's what I thought."
"Go away," he muttered, wrapping his arms around himself and curling into a ball. This wasn't fair! Hadn't he suffered enough? Would he be trapped in this forever, doomed to relive every memory until he completely lost his mind?
"If you're going to kill me, Anakin, then do so."
An incredulous, if haughty, stare. "That's it? You've exhausted yourself already? And here I thought the great Obi-Wan Kenobi would be more of a challenge!"
He shut his eyes and bowed his head. "Even if I managed to best you, Anakin, I couldn't kill you."
"No," he whispered, clamping his hands over his ears. "Don't make me. Please don't make me see; I can't take it. Not again. No more!"
"Anakin, you were my brother! You were my son! And I loved you, more than you could ever realize!"
"Liar!" came the panicked retort. "You never cared! You're a Jedi! Jedi don't love!"
"But I did," was the whispered reply. "I do. And I would've helped you, Anakin, no matter what it was. All you had to do was ask."
"Liar! That's all you do, is lie! You turned everyone against me! You're the reason I killed them all! It was your fault, Obi-Wan!"
All his fault…
"No!" he screamed. "No more!"
The Force began to shift around him, finally letting him shove the memories down, letting him lock them away, and killing the pain that lanced through his heart.
He turned as his surroundings grew lighter, whispers echoing through the dying blackness that encircled him.
Where am I?
Obi-Wan became aware of the lilting timber of voices before he was able to make out any words; he felt as though his ears were clogged with water.
He opened his eyes then, his lids slowly parting to reveal a blurry white ceiling, and he frowned before blinking, which helped bring things into focus.
It didn't help the sudden nausea that descended and he uttered a soft groan before squeezing his eyes shut. The sick feeling subsided a little but he still felt as though he were spinning rapidly.
Where was he? What was going on?
Why wasn't he dead?
"I think he's awake!" a distantly familiar voice exclaimed, betraying the person's excitement.
Betray...
No, he told himself roughly, shoving those memories away before they could choke him completely. He had to focus on the present, to figure out what had happened and why he had survived…
"Obi-Wan?" asked another, even more familiar voice, the person's tone tentative. "Obi-Wan, are you conscious?"
He peered upwards through barely opened eyelids, swallowing around the tightness in his throat. He called upon the Force weakly, wrapping it around himself like some kind of invisible armor, and stretched out with it, hunting down Ana-Vader's dark presence-
He found nothing.
Startled, Obi-Wan pulled back to himself. Had Vader plucked him from the lava and brought him to some kind of Healers? Or had the worker droids rescued him and commed for assistance? He hadn't sensed any malicious intent, only a strong desire for him to be all right.
Surely, these weren't Vader's people then.
He turned his head slightly, his vision foggy and his head spinning. He siphoned as much nausea as he could into the Force, fighting down the bile that rose in his throat, and he struggled to focus. He could see one larger blurry figure sitting beside him, the person a tan haze, and a second, smaller figure sitting across from him.
He blinked when his gaze landed on the second person, his vision slowly focusing to reveal a little boy with shaggy, sun-bleached hair, deeply tanned skin, and the clearest, unmistakably blue eyes.
Anakin.
He jerked upright without thought, and his forehead smashed against the shelving above the sleep couch.
"Sithing kriffin' hells!" he shouted, clasping a hand to his abused forehead, and adding several nasty Huttese phrases he'd picked up over the years with Anakin as his apprentice. The young man had certainly uttered them enough, as he'd spent a good deal of his training frustrated with everything.
"Obi-Wan!" the other figure exclaimed, his tone scandalized, and Obi-Wan mentally rolled his eyes. He wasn't a child, after all, and he'd said worse things over the years.
The boy, however, was laughing.
"What's so funny about this, Anakin? Do you enjoy seeing people in pain?" Obi-Wan snapped without thinking. "Haven't I always told you to be respectful?"
Stunned silence met his statement, and he cracked open an eye to frown sternly at the boy.
"How…" the boy began, staring wide-eyed back at him. "How'd you know I'm Anakin?"
"What do you mean, how do I know?" Obi-Wan asked with a look of exasperation, but it melted swiftly to confusion when he realized something.
"What happened to you?" he asked tentatively, stretching out with the Force to verify that the person sitting before him was indeed who he thought. "Why do you look like a child?"
"What?" Anakin asked, and if his eyes could get any bigger, they did. "Why wouldn't I be a kid? I'm only nine standard years old."
"That's absurd," Obi-Wan shot back, frowning when he met with the boy's familiar presence. "The last I recall, you were twenty-two standard years old. This is a joke, right? You're playing a joke?"
"I'm afraid not, padawan," the second figure began and Obi-Wan froze.
No.
"Anakin is nine, not twenty-two, and if we had the proper medical facilities to prove it to you, I would," the hauntingly familiar voice rumbled, and part of Obi-Wan shivered. "Now, would you mind explaining how you know who he is without me introducing you? And what makes you think he's an adult?"
Obi-Wan turned his head slowly to the second figure, his heart pounding. He knew that voice, as distinctive as it was, but what it suggested was impossible. He'd watched the man die, had held him in his final moments. There was no way he could be sitting beside him, unless he'd figured out a way to come back from the dead…
"And where'd you learn those Huttese phrases? I've only ever heard them from other podracers!" Anakin added but Obi-Wan gaped at the man sitting at his side.
He was older, possibly in his mid to late forties, with long, thick chestnut colored hair that had a hint of distinguished gray at the temples. Half of it had been tied back to keep it from falling in his face, which was sculpted into an expression of utter concern. His brow was furrowed, his deep blue eyes shimmering with worry, and his lips were pressed into a thin line behind a well-trimmed beard.
Qui-Gon.
He looked exactly as Obi-Wan remembered, right down to the tiny scar on his chin, hidden by the beard, and Obi-Wan found he was shaking as he tried to push himself away.
This couldn't be real!
"Obi-Wan, what's the matter?" the man asked, his frown deepening, and he reached forward.
"Who are you?" he hissed, rolling off the sleep couch and backing away rapidly. "Qui-Gon is dead. I watched him die!"
In his haste, however, his heel caught on the hem of his robe. It knocked him off balance and he crashed to the ground.
"Obi-Wan, what's gotten into you? Have you taken leave of your senses?" the man asked as Obi-Wan pushed himself up against the wall. "I'm not dead; can't you feel me?"
Feel?
He jerked a little at that and gasped when he felt someone probing at the edges of his shields. The man was kneeling before him, reaching towards him before he could react, and he felt a sharp tug at a lock of hair he swore he'd cut off years ago.
My padawan braid.
"I think those visions have somehow distorted your sense of reality, padawan," the man said, smiling gently as he sat back, and Obi-Wan could feel the intense gaze burning into him as he reached up to take the lock of hair in hand.
I'm imagining this, he thought quietly. There is just no other explanation.
Perhaps he was dead and this was the Force, part of him mused, with Qui-Gon waiting to meet him, to tell him that he hadn't failed with Anakin, to tell Obi-Wan what he should've said when he'd been on his deathbed, to say how proud he was despite all the things that had gone so terribly wrong.
Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't real.
"Impossible," he whispered as he stared at the braid with its familiar, colorful string tie, one he'd lost years ago.
This can't be, he thought, his fingers tracing the familiar plaits and touching the hard-earned beads. This absolutely can't be. I was falling to my death, not sleeping in some kind of cargo hold.
He must've lost what little remained of his sanity when Ana-Vader had pushed him. This was some kind of twisted fantasy that his mind had come up with to keep him from feeling the pain of his death.
It wasn't real; there was just no way it could be.
He couldn't take it; he had to find a mirror. He stood abruptly, his gaze darting around and taking in his surroundings. There was a door to his right that part of him remembered led to a 'fresher unit, though he didn't bother to question how he knew. He leapt for it, palming it open and throwing himself inside. There, sitting above the basin was a small mirror, and Obi-Wan stared into it in shock.
"This shouldn't be," he muttered, touching the smooth surface of the mirror incredulously. A twenty-five year old stared back at him, looking just as dubious with his mouth hanging open slightly and his red-rimmed eyes roaming over his beard-free face. All the worry lines he'd earned over the years (and with Anakin as an apprentice he'd gained quite a few) had vanished, and his hair…
It was back to that awful padawan haircut, complete with silly little nerf-tail and fuzzy top. The braid he didn't mind so much, though he supposed he'd have to get used to it flapping around again.
If he wasn't just hallucinating.
"Obi-Wan?"
I have lost my mind, he thought, his heart pounding in his ears. The stress of my situation finally caught up with me, and I've gone crazy.
He sank to the tiled floor of the 'fresher, his hands still gripping the edges of the sink, and a high-pitched giggle erupted from his throat. He'd gone mad; there was no other answer. They all knew it would happen eventually, with Anakin trying his last nerve constantly and the threat of the Clone Wars heavy on his shoulders. He had often joked about it, telling people that if Anakin didn't kill him somehow with all those foolish stunts, he'd be driven absolutely insane and carted off, twitching and babbling incoherently.
To think he really did wind up killing me, he thought, his giggles bursting into full-fledged laughter that made him gasp for breath. Again with the irony!
His vision was blurring, though he couldn't tell if it was from tears or from the way the room was spinning. He found himself tilting, trying to grab onto some sense of equilibrium as the room rose up around him, the colors rapidly blending with each other. Nothing was making sense!
That couldn't really be Qui-Gon, he told himself, who was staring down at him, his blue eyes wide with worry.
"Obi-Wan?"
Now his mind was supplying his old Master's voice, pitched just as he remembered. Would this never end?
His laughter grew worse and he twisted onto his back, clutching his sides. What kind of dream was this? Did the Force show him this as another joke, just like when it had Ana-Vader toss him off that catwalk?
If it was, he was laughing now, to the point of pain.
"Obi-Wan, what's the matter?"
It was that Qui-Gon apparition again, peering down at him through the thick, black haze that was swallowing everything. He started to reach for the specter, but darkness crept over it first, and he found his laughter dying as he fell…
Though to where, he knew not.