The Spoiled Sun

A Vignette by LuvEwan

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PG

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. Title taken from the Lee Alexander/Norah Jones song 'Toes'.

A Master reaches a difficult decision and years later, makes amends. AU from TPM. .

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The mists drifted like ghosts over the surf.

And the sand was like ash, staining the skin of his toes down to the cracks. His feet were smeared gray as he walked along the beach, the wind lashing his ratted leggings and pulling at his sleeves. It was another strain, another battle.

But today, he thought he would lay down his arms, and leave the fighting to stronger warriors in far-off places. He let the breeze take his breath and the weight from his back, until he was braced by cold mounds, and the dense air crept over his bare flesh. The sky was a splotched composition of slate and cobalt.

It was his day.

His dominion of the hours, during which he would be unchained. There was to be no instruction or brutally repetitious reprimand. He would not bow or grimace or balance his body into flawless kata position or smile. No one would demand anything of him.

Until tomorrow, when it began again.

His student had been elevated to that bittersweet status, when the lessons of a mentor were finished...and when they became most potent. But, in another observance of the irony of life, he knew he wouldn't witness his decade of advice and guidance put to use. He would forever feel that warm welling of pride in his chest, instantaneously, whenever he thought of his former apprentice. There were few things you could truly claim as your own, so when he recognized it, he grabbed hold. But despite the tenacity of his fingers, he knew he would rarely, if ever, see Anakin Skywalker again. He couldn't expect the young man to delay what would surely be an illustrious career, merely to travel the dull distance to this place and roam through an ever-shifting fog.

The boy was meant for better things. He would forget his old teacher, willfully marooned on a humid, lusterless seaside.

Yes, he had decided. It was his day of rest and rebellion, but there had been a purpose to his excursion. It was here that he would make a home, out of the ghosts, out of the memories.

Tomorrow he would return to Coruscant, one last time. And he would bring back what he could never let go.

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The Jedi Temple stood as a polished silver monument, reminding him of simpler times and gentler eras, without the feverish pulse of greed and hidden agenda. The Universe would continue in its gradual decay, nothing could stop that, but the Order would never crumble among the rubble. It was a comfort to him, whenever an assignment pierced another patch of his heart, that the Jedi were solid and good to the core.

Some might accuse him of rather blatant blindness in that respect, but he dismissed it. They couldn't understand why he bound his faith to what was secretly referred to as a dying creed. He alone knew it was a forced-and necessary- confidence.

He needed to believe the Jedi were safe in their natural prosperity. It was the only way he could leave them without his soul collapsing. And more than he needed them to survive, he needed to leave them.

He strode through the halls, and couldn't hear the murmurs, spoken softly behind hands. The somber words fell in the distance, beyond his reach. Soon, it would all fade in the mélange of quiet hues and howling surf.

If his mind would have been open to such speculation, he would have noticed it was easier to maneuver through the corridors. He would have noted that it seemed to clear a little more with every passing year, as more Knights were dispatched on missions from which they would never return. But in the controlled perimeters of his thoughts, he attributed it to the unpopular hour, and was thankful for the spot of luck. He wanted to arrive at his destination as soon as possible.

The walls slowly paled to cream, and an acrid, sterile scent sharpened in the atmosphere, standing the hair on his arms. Earth-toned tunics melded with translucent smocks.

A familiar conflict rose within him. In some ways, the Healing Ward was beautiful, a source of warmth and assuredness, because he would always be there, in form if not spirit. He was there in the maze of rooms, waiting. And he was like a remnant of a beloved age since passed. Unbroken. Untangled.

But the chains of the place were there, clear tubes and solemn monitors, empty walls. It was a bitter trade he made, coming here. Yet, for all the glances at cool steel machinery and white sheets, there was still him, overwhelmingly.

He had no need for pause at the reception desk. There was a rotating schedule of Healer Padawans who sat behind it, but they knew him well, and never bothered him with inquiries. He tried to remember their faces, but they mixed in a blur, and he doubted he could distinguish them outside of the Ward. His memory had been keener, once. But he was no longer young. His days of recklessness and maverick adventure were caged. And it seemed the things he did remember should have best been forgotten.

None of that would matter now. The years for Anakin were over, his day was done. Tomorrow, and every tomorrow afterwards, would be dedicated to the present. To him.

It was a plan first devised a decade before, on a dark afternoon of brewing rain. It had been a moment of devastating sacrifice, for the greater good. For Anakin, the Chosen One, and for the Jedi, who so needed him and the purity of his power. But he had promised himself it wouldn't last into eternity, that there would be time for redemption.

And there was. The streamers had fallen, the braid was severed and good-byes were painfully uttered. So the time had come. The Council wouldn't approve. But then, the Council never approved.

He rounded the final corner, until he was standing at the door he knew as well as his own. He inhaled deeply, one last calm breath, and stepped inside.

The music was constant, streaming from slender twin speakers in mild, graceful minstrels. It was played during every stage of the sky, whether the room was flooded by moonlight or sun. It was played despite the strict policy of silence in the Ward. It was played to drown out unwanted voices.

A sigh broke away from Qui-Gon, and he moved to the center of the room, stopping beside the bed. He reached down to stroke the silken locks, grown out of the closely shorn spikes, but still cropped. A shaft of gold bleeding through the blinds slashed across the relaxed face, and he smiled, taking in the softly illuminated features. "Good morning, Obi-Wan."

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He said it every morning, as dawn saturated the black sky. And every morning, he was met by quiet eyes, and was left unanswered.

Naboo stretched around him in pastel loveliness, but he had come to despise the lush greenery and ancient chisel work. It was like a single painting hung in a blank cell. Eventually, he sealed the shutters and closed the drapes. He hated waking to the too-familiar landscape, knowing he was such a great distance from the life he-they-had known.

Qui-Gon shifted in his chair and wiped the remains of a scant, three hour night's sleep from his eyes. He sighed. In the beginning, thoughts had swarmed his mind during all the solitary hours. Flickers of a brilliant smile, scraps of missions won and hopes lost. The cultured dulcet had been there, speaking of spar technique and danishes and why he was too old for curfew and too young to attend the dance with the elderly Queen of Bejia, who smelled like a 'fermented vegetable'.

But there was static now. Soon, he thought, the silence of the room and the stillness of that mouth would be enough to erase the last noise from his head. And the Sith would take another victory, though its mutant form was no more than dust lining a generator core.

He shuddered and sat forward, taking a hand between his own. The fingers were limp and cold. If the eyes had not been open, and he wasn't aware of the situation, he would have assumed...

No. He wouldn't cross morbid lines. Obi-Wan was here, body unharmed by the enemy's blade. The Master was told, with great certainty, that his apprentice would live. A conviction that depended on what one considered to be the true functions of 'living'. His chest moved, and several monitors sounded a regular heartbeat.

Yes, Obi-Wan was alive. He just didn't sleep, or eat--or speak.

Qui-Gon's first thought when he found him, once the rapture of simply seeing his student ,breathing, had passed, was not one he was proud of. He looked down at Obi-Wan, curled on the icy generator floor with horribly vacant eyes, and the word exploding in his mind had been shell. The body crumpled at his feet was not Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had the face, but inwardly, nothing was the same. The waters were flat.

Shock was an early diagnosis, but four days later, that explanation was abandoned. Qui-Gon had never known a mind as stable and organized as Obi-Wan's. Not even the reemergence of the Dark could have caused such a reaction. Physicians encircled the young man for another week, running countless tests and sketching out a tentative list of possible conditions. But every theory was dashed, each hypothesis disproved.

Twenty eight days after his inexplicable collapse during the Sith duel, Obi-Wan was still completely unresponsive. He sat upright, supported by pillows and staring with a glossed, unblinking gaze. He kept the anonymous vigil through endless nights, despite his Master's efforts to coax him into rest.

And it took on a new cruelty, when Qui-Gon surrendered to a moment of weakness, the questions and fear, his own crushing sense of futility, and gathered Obi-Wan in his arms, only to feel the rigidity of the posture, the cold detachment of the mind. He let go then, not wanting to embrace the statue of a once-warm soul. It was that instant, he supposed, that his separation from the events began. He existed in a state of disbelief, mind swept clean. He watched the daily trudge of the doctors assigned to the case, but wouldn't allow the bright burn of prayer into his heart. It never helped. They never found anything new.

So Qui-Gon had convinced himself that this day, a few shy of a month spent in this room, would offer no miracles. A Temple mind healer would be arriving, along with Master Yoda, within the hour. And they would sift through the report, the motionless figure would undergo yet another examination. They would ask Qui-Gon to repeat words that blistered his lips. Finally, they would step back, chew the facts like an animal gnawing meat lazily from a bone, and admit defeat. He could picture the entire scene--after all, he had witnessed it half a dozen times before.

He blinked, realizing he was caught up in a trance, and felt shame ignite within him. If only his Padawan could be cured so easily.

He closed his eyes and grasped the frail imitation of his center. The Force swelled around him, but it was bereft of color or vibrancy. It merely was.

"Where are you, Obi-Wan?" He rasped, opening his eyes to damp slits, "Why can't you come back to me?"

The young face was frozen and suddenly, Qui-Gon was seized by the impulse to shake the stiff shoulders, to force movement however he could. It would be better than this limbo, this cold valley of stares and silent breaths. His hands were reaching when his mind jolted, and he was in the present again, revolted by what he was about to attempt.

Obi-Wan wasn't in the throws of a tantrum. He wasn't punishing Qui-Gon for his recent mistakes. He was ill, and behind the thick gates of his thoughts, he was alone.

Qui-Gon raised his hand, but it was with tender fingers that he caressed a cool cheek. "It will be alright, Obi-Wan. I promise you." He searched the dusky blue depths of the eyes, and in a sober tone, "I know you can hear me," He smiled, which had become foreign and awkward to him, " Hells, you could hear me a million light years away, even when I didn't want you to. So you must hear me now, Obi-Wan, when I tell you that I won't let you fade away in whatever prison you've been locked. I won't abide it. Not ever. Not MY apprentice."

Amid the tumult of emotion and ferocity of dedication, Obi-Wan sat, mesmerized by whatever had been scrawled over his consciousness. There was no indication, not so much as a sliver, that he had heard.

"It doesn't matter what they say." Wearily, Qui-Gon leaned his temple against Obi-Wan's, and waited.

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