"What the Force do I do?" Qui-Gon cried out, silently. He usually had answers, or would find them. But this was unprecedented, tragic, and unanswerable. His heart ached and he didn't know if it would ever heal. He wasn't sure he even wanted it to.
It had started, a routine call before the Council, a routine mission. He could sense Obi-Wan's disquiet during their briefing, the young man stood straight and silent, as a Padawan should. Qui-Gon had spared a glance sideways at him, ready to raise an eyebrow to settle the young man down, but his emotion was internal, not displayed before the Council. Obi-Wan turned his eyes to his master and blinked, as if surprised that his master was aware of what he felt.
Daring to relax, for the minute, Qui-Gon let Obi-Wan drop out of his awareness. They would speak later. Obi-Wan seemed to softly shut a door, as if on a sleeping being, as their bond quieted and the apprentice shut himself away and switched into an awareness of the Living Force. Now Qui-Gon was troubled; his apprentice was not normally attuned to the Living Force – his disquiet, then, was related to his Force perceptions, the Unifying Force.
After they were dismissed and the Council doors closed behind them, Qui-Gon stopped and faced the young Jedi. "What is troubling you?"
"I…am not sure…" he answered upon reflection, raising eyes to his master's. Seeing there the patience, almost a threat, that there they would remain until Obi-Wan spoke freely, he sighed. A Padawan was not allowed to lie, obfuscate, or speak less than the truth at any time. While his unwillingness to speak did not meet any of those criteria, it did skirt too close for comfort.
"I have a bad feeling about this, Master," he admitted. He waited for Qui-Gon's smile, the admonishment to live in the present and stop worrying about the future. It was a conversation they had frequently enough that they merely needed to exchange looks without the need to actually exchange words. But Qui-Gon merely nodded and he laid a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder.
"It is more than your usual worrying, Obi-Wan. I know you too well. It is different this time. What do you sense?
"A great…silence, like everything went – blank," he tried to explain, shaking his head. "I don't understand it, Master, but it is there, and there is sorrow."
"Whose sorrow?"
"I – I don't know." That was the truth, he really didn't know. But somehow, he suspected, it was Qui-Gon's.
Deep blue eyes gazed deeply into blue-gray eyes, and accepted his words. "There is often sorrow during and after a mission. This is a lesson you should have learned by now, my young apprentice. We can hope to settle disputes peacefully, guard the weak against those who would prey on them, but we can never repair the wounds of those we help. We cannot ban pain with the Force; we can only try to prevent its happening."
"One can only help to shape a brighter future and bring healing to the wounds of the past," Obi-Wan recited gently. It wasn't really the proper saying, but he liked it better this way. Qui-Gon must have approved, for his lips curved in a smile and he patted his shoulder. "Well said, my young one. Well said."
They left hours later.
"Will he wake?" Qui-Gon whispered, hands clutching at the blankets covering the still figure, eyes never leaving the face below his. Lashes were closed over blue-gray eyes, hiding the light behind them. The serious look that so often exploded into joyous grins was gone, the face smooth in rest. "Does he feel pain?"
"We don't know, and we don't think so," the healer said gently, standing beside the tall Jedi Master. He now knew common wisdom was wrong, the Jedi did feel emotion. The proof was beside him in the trembling hand, the catch in the voice, and the unshed tears in the eyes.
"If he…when he…wakes, will he?" the Jedi couldn't finish forming the words.
"We can't tell the damage to the higher brain functions while he is in a coma," the healer said carefully. "We might not know for days, weeks, or even years."
"Years?" the Jedi echoed, and his fingers tightened. He had heard of injured humans lingering decades, a shell of who they had been, no brain function and no awareness. Families arguing about continuing life or if meaningful life even existed – if life even needed meaning to be continued.
Would this be a dialogue the Jedi Council would have amongst itself? Would Qui-Gon even have a voice, and if so, should it be his, or Obi-Wan's? His eyes dropped back to that beloved face.
Wake up, little one; spare me from an empty future without you in it. I shouldn't love you, Jedi are supposed to remain free from attachments, but how a master cannot love his Padawan, when the master is I and the Padawan is you – come back.
But there was nothing. Only hope. And fear.
"Both sides seem willing enough to accept a mediated settlement, my young Padawan," Qui-Gon remarked as they left the meeting room the first day.
Beside him, Obi-Wan just nodded dubiously. He cautiously expressed his doubts with a slight cough. "They do…seem…willing enough," he conceded. "Too eager. They don't seem to need mediation. One side proposes something and the other side eagerly accepts, then offers a proposal and it is promptly accepted in return. It's too easy."
Now it was Qui-Gon's turn to pause and quirk an eyebrow in thought. It was definitely unusual behavior. It merited careful consideration. Obi-Wan seemed on his game this mission; he was fast becoming a man and no longer the young boy that Qui-Gon had initially been so reluctant to accept as his Padawan.
"You seem quite perceptive and attuned, so continue analyzing the situation," Qui-Gon encouraged him. "If the mediation is unnecessary, why are we here?"
"It could be cultural," Obi-Wan admitted, "but nothing in the briefing suggests that the presence of outsiders would cause this level of mutual cooperation. It could be a trap for us – either us personally, or for whomever the Order sent, but I am not aware of any reason anyone on this planet would have to trap Jedi."
"A fair analysis, Padawan," Qui-Gon agreed. "Let's try another angle. Were they this agreeable all along, or did their attitudes change at one point, and if so, when?"
"Both sides were squabbling over who first asked the Jedi to intervene." Obi-Wan grinned as he remembered the Hologram message the Council had played for them. "Master Yoda had this look on his face that I well remember from when I was a youngling caught in one too many idiocies for his liking." From the reminiscent smile on his master's face, Qui-Gon remembered the look from his own younger days. They exchanged smiles.
"Master Windu looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue," Qui-Gon added with a wicked chuckle. He looked at Obi-Wan, and they both added with huge grins, "or shake a finger in their faces."
"Ah, Obi-Wan, I never knew you were such a trouble maker as I was. Well, we agree they were arguing like younglings when they contacted us."
"Master, they went very quiet when we introduced ourselves, and immediately tried to cover it by trying to out talk each other. So, is it fear of us, respect, or something else?"
They both reached for their comlinks at the same time; Obi-Wan let his hand drop to his side as Qui-Gon called the Temple and asked for a search that connected either or both of them to this planet, any of the leaders, or any connection, however remote. Until they knew more, they would be very careful and very observant.
Obi-Wan had sensed blankness, a void. Qui-Gon wasn't sure if he had sensed his own lack of awareness, or the hole in his own heart. Perhaps both. And the sorrow – he now knew whose sorrow it was, and for whom.
Obi-Wan, you didn't have to sacrifice yourself. We could have found a way. I would have found a way, had I known ahead of time, what you knew.
He should accept what had happened and move ahead, face the future. It was the Jedi way. But moving ahead would be leaving behind – what, he wasn't yet sure. Something that looked like Obi-Wan, but was it? He couldn't leave it behind, even if it was only a shell that resembled his Padawan. Unbidden, words of Yoda came to him: luminous beings we are, not this crude matter. Fine, then where was Obi-Wan's luminous being, why did the shell that housed his bright spirit lie beside him, a mockery of life?
You were learning so much, growing so fast. I was looking forward to standing beside you, Jedi Knight Kenobi. Will I lighting your funeral pyre, my Padawan, sometime soon, instead?"
The Force didn't supply an answer. The healer didn't want to.
"Will he live?"
He turned his head and caught the healer's eyes, begging for an honest answer. There might not be any answers he would like to hear, so he would like to know the truth.
"His vital signs are weak, but steady. It is truly impossible to say at this time."
The truth did hurt, but so would a lie. It was all because of a mistranslation, a miscommunication and a fanatic religious cult. It was because of one young man's firm belief that a better future lay ahead for those for whom he'd sacrificed himself.