Author: Sarah
Rating: PG
Age (Obi-Wan): 24
Genre: Angst (veeery angst), AU
Summary: 'Even when I hated you...'
Author's notes: This fic is probably very confusing, like I'm sure a lot of them are. Oh well. It wasn't meant to have a lot of plot anyway...Basically, Qui turned to the Dark Side after Tahl died and left, thus making Obi get sent away to the Agricorps. And now they've met up again, purely by chance, and have been trapped my some villain in a building that happens to be on fire. Yes I will try and write that in a proper story someday. Anyway..
I sit upon the stones alone;
The fire is burning red,
the tower is tall, the mountains dark;
all living things are dead.
In western lands the sun may shine,
there flower and tree in spring
is opening, is blossoming;
and there the finches sing.
But here I sit alone and think
of days when grass was green,
and earth was brown, and I was young:
they might have never been.
For they are past, forever lost,
and here the shadows lie
deep upon my heavy heart,
and hope and daylight die.
But still I sit and think of you;
I see you far away
Walking down the homely roads
on a bright and windy day.
It was merry then when I could run
to answer to your call,
could hear your voice or take your hand;
but now the night must fall.
And now beyond the world I sit,
and know not where you lie!
O master dear, will you not hear
my voice before we die?
~J.R.R. Tolkien
After It Ended
The light had been the end.
A flash of green light in a dark room and an enemy slumping lifeless to the ground. That had been the end. Darkness had come and he'd been powerless to stop it taking him. He'd been too blinded and too weak to stop it.
All the light had gone when Tahl's killer had fallen. All the light lost to revenge. Tahl was gone. Xanatos had gone years ago.
A shaking voice from behind him: "Master?"
All the lights-except one.
But the Dark was inside him now, laughing gleefully at any weakness he had ever had, any thought, any doubt, turning his mind upside down.
-You're his enemy now. He will hate you. Kill him while you have the chance.-
[No!]
-You have nothing left to live for! Your life has ended. Put the child out of his misery.-
[You can't...]
-Isn't there a chance he will turn to the Dark Side now? Like Xanatos?
Better to kill him then to have him fail-
[No! He'll never turn, nothing would make him evil....]
-You've failed him too.-
There was no sound but panicked breathing.
"Master...?"
Qui-Gon turned around, the green light shining sickingly.
"Is that the only word you can say?"
[That's not my voice...]
-It is, it is, it is.-
"Master," Obi-Wan said, eyes wide and desperate. "You-"
"He murdered Tahl!" Qui-Gon screamed. "Do you value her life less than that of-this?!" He gestured wildly at the body.
"I...."
"Silence!" And he hit Obi-Wan on the arm, with the lightsabre. And the power of the Force- not his Force, not the one he'd just rejected...
[Two things I love I just rejected!]
-the Dark Side of the Force sent the boy crashing back into the wall.
The crash did not bring him back. It only made him see through the blackness.
"Padawan!"
Obi-Wan looked up, whispered "Master." and then a pair of hands grabbed him. It was Mace.
There hadn't been a day of his life when he wished that something...anything...could have stopped him doing what he did. He'd rather, much rather, have died that day.
And then he'd decided that he had, and should stop thinking about it.
That lost him his soul, as well as his life. Or had he lost his soul a long time ago, too?
He hadn't completely ruled out the possibility that Obi-Wan had killed him, and sent him to hell. If any place in the galaxy could pass for hell, this was certainly it. Even more so now. Fire was slowly reducing the beautiful- but oh so fake-furniture to dust, licking at the painting on the wall, licking at him, starving hungry...and Obi-Wan Kenobi was glaring at him.
Qui-Gon couldn't quite find it in him to glare back.
"You caused this," he said quietly. The tone of his voice suggested he was unafraid to die-he'd probably felt like he was dead already, too,
Qui-Gon thought wearily-but concerned instead for other people. The fire could easily spread to the rest of this tiny village.
"You've put people in danger-and we are both going to die," Obi-Wan continued, staring at his Master, hoping to get any sort of reaction from him.
Qui-Gon felt like he should go to him, but there were separated by fire.
"You need not have come with me. In fact, I seem to remember I warned you against it."
"When I saw you again, what else could I do?" Obi-Wan said bitterly.
"If I'd been the one who'd...left, and you only just seen me again...what would you do?"
"I don't know."
There was a crack. A piece of wood came to the floor, pulling several other bits of ceiling down with it.
"I suspected this might happen," Qui-Gon said. "I wanted you to stay behind. But you didn't listen to my orders." He found himself adding "But that isn't your fault."
Obi-Wan shrugged. The smoke was slowly beginning to overcome him. "They never assigned me to a new Master."
Qui-Gon nodded.
"They sent me to the Agricorps. I'm not a Jedi Knight anymore." The sorrow and acceptance hung in the air. "I don't carry a lightsabre anymore. You do, though, don't you?"
That caught him of guard a little. "Yes....I do."
"Very much against the rules," Obi-Wan said. Was he smiling, or was that a hallucination brought on by the heat and the smoke?
"You know all about me and rules," Qui-Gon tried a smile too.
"Did you...use it?"
"No. No I didn't. The Force left me, you know."
There was wariness, but also some pity in Obi-Wan's voice. "The Dark Side? Did that leave you?"
"It may have done," Qui-Gon said broodingly. "Every night I'd wake up wishing for death. I had nothing to do, nowhere to go...I hope you never feel anything like that as long as you live."
"It's a little too late for hoping."
Those words seemed to sum everything up so perfectly.
Obi-Wan coughed. "I wanted you back." he said. "I'd loved you. And then you left."
"I know." Qui-Gon whispered.
"You should have stayed," Obi-Wan said. "Me- the Jedi- we could have helped you."
"After all I did to you? They'd have thrown me right out, I think....I would have tried to make sure you stayed, though." he added.
Obi-Wan suddenly gave a cough. Without even realising it, Qui-Gon got up, darted around the flames and found himself by his one-time Padawan's side.
"Are you all right?" he found himself asking as Obi-Wan continued coughing. Of course he isn't all right. But for a split second, they'd seeming like Master and Padawan again.
"I'm fine," Obi-Wan managed to say, although he very probably wasn't.
"You know..." The flames were hotter and higher now. "...I always dreamt of seeing you again...even when I thought I..."
Then his eyes closed.
NO!
He wasn't dead...was he? No, thank the stars, he was not. Qui-Gon could guess what Obi-Wan had been about to say, too.
"Even when I hated you."
The flames were stronger. Maybe he was really dead now, dead and in hell.
Well, if he wasn't...
"Padawan," he whispered. "I would so much rather you hated me then I ever found again that I could hate you."
Or had it been hate? It had been something dark and terrifying, whatever it was, and he'd let it take him.
He sighed and gathered the boy up in his arms, wishing more than anything, anything, anything that his Padawan could live.
I led you to despair and I led you to death. Please forgive me...
Please, Force, he silently begged. Save him. Take me,
seperate me from him, but save him. Please.
Darkness was creeping in. Obi-Wan was still alive. And even though everything was wrong and they were both going to die and it was his fault anyway and love no longer existed and probably never did...
"I love you, Padawan."
He lay down, and then suddenly noticed another presense that hadn't been there before.
Could it be?
Thank you. Thank you so much. Now you can do with me what you will.
He drew a protective Force layer around his apprentice. Then something struck him. He leant over the boy, and braided his hair- it had grown longer, much longer, over the years they'd been seperated...and then he pulled a knife from his belt, and cut off the braid and put it around the boy's wrist, and pulled his own lightsabre-looking slightly worse for wear now-out from his belt and wrapped Obi-Wan's fingers around it. Then he touched his Padawan's face, and stood up.
He heard a voice say, slightly tearfully, "I love you too, Master." He smiled, and hoping against hope that Obi-Wan wouldn't wake up and have to witness his Master being consumed by the flames.