DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
The next spark of lightning lights up the sky like daytime. Its jagged arms stretch across the sky as if the great spanse is being ripped at the seams and lay wide so the Gods can look in at mere mortals. You watch as the light plays of his face, changing his skin from ink to flesh in the space of a heartbeat. His eyes spark like an electric current, shooting across space to pierce your own. Hot, glowing and powerful, they stare at you. His mouth is a firm line; his mustache and beard support a quantious amount of liquid. His skin glistens, reflecting the light from the firmament. Nature is crying, attempting to wash you both in its cleansing torrent. There are not enough tears in all of heaven you think.
The world goes black as the lightning passes and the crash of thunder shakes the sky and earth.
You gasp; fighting for air as nature steals the very air from between your lips. Icy spikes drive into your legs and torso, coating you with moisture until you are unsure that you are solid. The silk is full of the water, letting it seep through to course down your body in sheets. Frozen, cool…you are heated by his gaze. And trained on you that gaze still is.
He moves slowly, coming toward you. You see the earth sucking at his boots, pulling at his feet, grounding him. The loam is the same color as his boots. He seems to stem from the earth itself, an extension of its eternal solidity. Ecru, sand, chestnut, mahogany -his clothes meld to skin, clear and pale in the night, only to melt into the sable of his hair, made nearly black by the night and moisture. He mirrors the earth, the ground that he walks on...the colors mimicking the very essence….does he know that he appears like a part of creation?
He steps bring him to the edge of the porch, and you release another breath. His eyes blink in the deluge that runs down his face. His eyes have yet to leave yours and you struggle to remain strong under the weight of them. The heavy clump of his boots fights to be heard as the next round of thunder collapses the sky over head. Loud, so very loud…close…heavy..
Qui-Gon’s body is outlined perfectly in his clothes as they mold to his lines. You see his thighs tighten and release as his body moves to stand on you porch, climbing the stairs there as if they were simply a thought and not an expenditure of energy. Oh so dark, this man. Oh so absorbed in all that he does, in every waking moment…
“Tira.” His voice is low, barely to be heard over the pounding of the rain, the grumble of the thunder, and the relentless knocking of your own heart.
You stare at him, unable to look away. You see him in a different light, a different manner. He is not the man that you fell in love with all those years ago, rather he is a better man now…honed by fire, tested by life and made into the mountain of strength that he is now. Physical, emotional, spiritual, it does not matter; he is more than he was before. And you love him all the more for the change…and the thought strikes like the lightning over head.
A sudden gust of wind whips your clothes against your body, sounding with a loud crack like a whip. It is a very cold, very sharp whip. The wind also graces you with the smell of the sea, sand and trees…so wet…so beautiful…
“Tira…”his voice is choked and broken. Scratchy, as if claws were tearing the words from his thick neck.
You turn and move to the door, not speaking. Your feet fight against the slipperiness of the deck below you, and you make a little headway. As your hand goes to grab the railing by the door, a larger hand lands on yours. Warmth where there was the coolness of death before, your hand reacts instantly arching up into its mate’s grip.
“Inside…” you get out, before he turns you to face him, his large hands like liquid fire on your hips. The silk acts not as a barrier, but as a conduit, allowing his hands to connect with your skin on a molecular level.
“Out here..” he grits back, towering over you. You can see the skin of his chest through the V of his tunic. Even the hair there appears ebony, like his skin has been dusted by night, like his soul had been with the Dark side. “Talk to me out here, Tira…in the nature that you love so much. Feel the power.”
“Qui-Gon…” you are shaking, his presence is so strong, so overwhelming that you can barely feel your own soul.
“Obi-Wan was conceived out of love,” he says, his voice still almost guttural. He lifts you and puts you against the wall near the door, which has thankfully closed. His body presses against yours, like diametrically opposing ends of charges. “Tell me he was…tell me that you acted out of love for me, Tira…out of love for both of us.”
You try to nod, finding yourself unable to as his hand presses into the back of your neck, making your nape become an arch. He continues, staring at you. “I think I understand….” His words are cut off as thunder sounds around you. “You wanted me free..”
“I could not tie you….even for your son…even for me…I thought that I was doing the right thing…” you gasp out, feeling the weight of mixed emotions in him. Your head is against the solid form of the house, and your legs are hanging behind his thighs. Two completely substantial objects…
“Promise me you will never hold anything from me, do not protect me…” his hands bear the weight of you head, tilting it so you can see his eyes. “Promise me…I cannot live with you, be with you if you…” another crash cuts him off and his lips collapse into a solid line. “Let me trust you again…let me in your mind, Tira. Let me be apart of you…please…”
You open your mouth, feeling a stream of water from your hair touch the corner of your lips. You have wronged him, you have hurt him, injured him, and yet here he is. You owe him this, owe him the ability to see your deepest thoughts and motives. It is the only way. The past cannot be changed, and to regret it would nullify all that the both of you have become. You regret his pain that is all. Let him see that. With a gasp, you mouth the word yes.
Like a stream raging to the sea, his mind forces into yours. No natural formation could stand in front of the power of water returning to its mother, and no mental block can shut out the relentless force of his mind. You feel all your bodily presence slip away. You center on your mind, and feel the moment that he breaks through….
Warm. Tender. Sweet. Pained. Pressure. Sounds become solid reality, smells become sight, and sight becomes a dream. You feel your love for him, and the pain of Obi’s birth. You see the world once again, through your memories…the sweat soaked sheet around you as your back arches as another labor pain rips through your body. You hear your own shouts of pain, the cries of Qui-Gon’s name from your lips. The touch of lips to the forehead of your body shocks you.
Your mother’s kind face over yours in the bed. Her whispered pleas to let her summon Qui-Gon, to let the father know of his son. To relive the depths of your pain as you sob, he could never know. He can never be tied to you. The depths of sadness, the rendering of your dream, your heart as you forbid them to tell him. You mind sees the men, their arms reaching out to take Obi from you, and you turning him over with a sharp pain…the ripping of your own heart. The cleansing of the tears that flowed that night.
The joy at the asking of a bond. The profound shout of heartlove as you feel his arms flex around you and you cry with happiness….and the deepest pain when you turn down his offer to save belief systems. The penetrating feeling of mistakes made and suffered.
The pain at watching him suffer through Xanatos…and bone-shattering pain of his whispered plea to leave him. Always the regret at the secret, the press to tell him...
Strong. Aching. Arching. You become one with him. You realize that you have withheld part of yourself from him. Withheld it from him in an effort to keep him free, when all he wanted was to be held. You see that now. See it in his heart that touches yours on a physical level.
You feel his regret at the times he left you. You feel the depths of his soul laid bare before you, as he presses his spirit into yours. Despair. Longing. Wanting. Loving.
Always loving…even now…especially now. So powerful it is like a whirlwind, sweeping you off your feet and hurling you into the reaches of space.
You blink.
The world returns to present. Wet, and glistening and dark and strong. The world captures your mind once again as he pulls back from you, both in body and in mind. But his heart…his heart stays with you. Deep inside, buried in your being like a root in the earth.
“I never knew.” He whispers, pressing his lips to your forehead. “The pain in that decision…”
“I never wanted to hurt you, but I didn’t know what to do...it seemed the only answer to a difficult question,” you whisper back, allowing your lips to touch his chin, nestling into the hair there, seeking for his skin.
“Promise me you will always talk to me…don’t hurt us both again like that…unnecessary…” his voice is rough still. His chest is covered in the rough material of wet tunic and his legs are between yours, warm and wet with rain that still pounds around you. His chest falls in gentle waves. Rising and falling, taking your chest with it, pressing your breasts on a purely physical level. “ I am not the young knight I once was…”
“I know,” you whisper back, your voice catching on the second word. His hand runs around your neck to capture your chin and lift it to face his eyes.
You see him search your eyes… you see the want to push past this…to be together once again…not like it was…differently…with the knowledge of life behind it. You are different people now…with different needs and wants…changed, but at the heart still the same…
He nods, “It will take time…but I want to try…and…get past this…”
His thumb traces your cheek and he presses his head in to taste your lips and you sigh as creation walking nibbles at your lips, forcing them open to receive all that it has to offer.