The Master's Lesson

by Mercutio ([email protected])

After their unsatisfactory discussion on the rumors surrounding Qui-Gon and his second padawan, the conversation had faltered to a stop. Qui-Gon did not wish to discuss the matter any further, and Obi-Wan was quite capable of sensing how upset his master was over the subject.

Obi-Wan wasn't sure whether that upset was directed at him. It felt as though it was, although he clung to the hope that everything really was okay now that his master had promised him that things would be all right between them. He trusted Qui-Gon... or, at least, believed that he would keep his promises. That was a beginning at least.

He sat on the couch, ostensibly studying the information on the hand-held reader. Collapsed into himself, Obi-Wan's feelings of rejection required no reaching out of the Force to read.

Qui-Gon sighed. What was he expected to do? He had nothing more he wanted to say, did not wish to expose himself further. But how could he leave his padawan alone when the boy was hurting like this?

He rose from his chair and came to sit next to Obi-Wan on the couch. Not looking at the boy, he began to speak.

"Xanatos knew he was on the verge of knighthood, and incorrectly concluded that it was my place to decide when he was ready. It should have been, but it wasn't. In his case, it was the Council's to decide whether he could take the Trials."

Obi-Wan looked up at him curiously, uncurling from around his ball of hurt. "You don't have to explain to me, master. I think I understand now why you didn't want to say anything. It's all right..."

Fingers brushed gently across his lips, silencing him. "You understand, perhaps, but it hasn't brought you healing. Let me continue, please."

Obi-Wan nodded, and Qui-Gon dropped his hand. "In Xanatos' pain at being held back, he relied on me more and more for comfort.

I provided such reassurances as I could -- I believed in his ability and in his readiness to become a knight, even if the Council did not. However, they would not allow me to tell Xanatos that it was their decision which kept him in apprentice-status. And I lacked the perception to see how much he had come to hate me for what he saw as my will holding him back."

"Why didn't the Council want you to tell him that they were the ones who didn't want him to be a knight?" Obi-Wan asked quietly.

"They wanted Xanatos to react normally to the situation, not as though he were being tested."

Obi-Wan looked scornful, then hid the expression, a little too late.

Qui-Gon hid his own smile. "I did not agree, but my agreement was not necessary."

"So what happened?" Obi-Wan asked, then quickly clamped his lips shut.

It was obvious that the boy feared he would hear no more of the story if he pressed Qui-Gon too much on the subject. But Qui-Gon did not intend to cut the story short now. He had made the decision to tell his new padawan about the past, and he would.

"Xanatos naturally felt some degree of despondency and helplessness over his situation. I empathized. His was a hard path. To be on the verge of becoming a knight and yet held back, seemingly without reason... It was difficult for him."

Obi-Wan nodded, holding his breath.

Qui-Gon looked out into the room, away from his small audience. His confession brought the memories back, fresh as though they'd happened yesterday. They were not good ones. "And so, one night, when he turned to me for comfort, I gave it. First, no more than any master might give a padawan, then, as barriers lowered between us, I gave more."

He glanced at Obi-Wan to see if he understood. He would not go into details with a thirteen-year-old, but he wanted to be sure that the boy got the gist of it. His apprentice's eyes were large.

"Xanatos became furious when, the next day, I would not repeat what had happened the night before, and instead put a proper distance between us. I knew my prior actions had been wrong, a lapse of control and a breach of the trust between us, but he could not see this. He wanted what I could not give, should not have given, and despite our conversations on the topic, I could not restrain the fury that had built up within him. Worse, he seemed to feel that his..." Qui-Gon paused, distressed again by the vileness of what Xanatos had imagined, "that his sacrifice entitled him to something from me."

"His knighthood," Obi-Wan guessed.

"Precisely." He hoped he hadn't said too much. Xanatos' actual actions weren't the kind of thing an innocent needed to know about. "I had transgressed the boundaries between master and padawan, beginning our dance of pain. It is a mistake I regret deeply. It... it revealed Xanatos' tenuous grasp on reality as the Jedi see it." After that, it should not have been so much of a surprise to find that Xanatos had been fatally flawed, but it still was... always.

"He demanded more from me," Qui-Gon continued painfully, "at the same time as he used this unfortunate new intimacy as a lever to try to gain his knighthood. Which I still could not grant him. All I had was my guilt at having further damaged a person who the Council was already regarding with doubt."

Obi-Wan knew some of what had happened. "Then he failed anyway."

"He did. But how much of that failure was not the arrogance Yoda saw in him, but a desperate desire to handle the situation correctly on his own?" Qui-Gon voiced the doubts that still existed inside him, despite the years between then and now. "Or, worse, to strike out at me, whom he saw as the author of his problems?" Qui-Gon sighed again.

Obi-Wan scooted closer, looking up at his master. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you tell me this."

Qui-Gon smiled a little, wryly. "You were right. You're my padawan, and you deserve an explanation."

"Thank you," Obi-Wan offered.

Qui-Gon clasped his shoulder. "You are welcome, little one, although there is nothing to thank me for. I made a grave mistake, forgetting that I am, despite being a Jedi master, also a man with mortal frailties. There is no defense for my actions, and no way now to put them right. All I can do is ensure that it never happens again."

Obi-Wan looked at him, studying him for a long moment.

Qui-Gon found himself feeling almost as he had in front of the Council, awaiting judgment for his error. Only this time, his future was in the hands of an adolescent he had only come to know a short time before.

"I think it's sad," Obi-Wan finally commented.

"Sad?"

His apprentice nodded. "Uh-huh. It still hurts, doesn't it? And you don't feel you can trust people any more."

That wasn't quite true. Qui-Gon preferred to remain in the company of people he'd known a long time, people whose relationships to him had been in existence before the affair with Xanatos. Untainted by whatever failure in himself now had affected his judgment then and since... He still was wary, even now.

"I'm sorry it hurts," Obi-Wan said. "I don't know what to say. There isn't really anything I can do, is there? I wish there was."

His eyes were solemn as he looked up at Qui-Gon, and full of earnestness. Qui-Gon's heart swelled.

"You've done a great deal already." He hugged the boy. "Thank you, padawan."

-the end-