Notes: Started this series before TPM stuff came out, and now skewed because of the books I've read - although *definitely* not the way that George is going! The chronology is all over the place, I shifted (on purpose) between first and third person, and if you don't want spoilers for Ep 1, don't read this. Also, no specific ages are mentioned; I didn't put any in "The Final Lesson", so I just stayed on that way. Obi-Wan is 'youthful', but feel free to enter any age that you are comfy with.
Pairing: Q/O (and pre-Han/Luke)
Posted: May 8, 1999
Rating: PG. Non-explicit discussion of sex.
Series: Third in "Twin Destinies"; sequel to "Careful" and "The Final Lesson"
Spoilers: Specifically, "The Phantom Menace" (Ep 1), and "A New Hope" (Ep 4); "Empire" and "Jedi" only superficially.
Summary: Ben tells Luke a story about a young Jedi, in response to his questions about his father.
Warnings: I don't use betas. :( Any mistakes are solely my fault and the fault of my *#^&@ spellcheck.

It was inevitable that he would ask; I'd been waiting for the questions from the first moment that I met the boy. Every young man in the world longs to understand his father, whether he knows him, or not; Luke was no different. But I'd had time, and we were sufficiently distracted, so that I didn't have to give him the answers that I didn't believe he was ready for.

And, added to that, I didn't have to talk about things that I knew I wasn't ready to remember. Memory is a wicked thing, however; there is no luxury in it, it is something cold and brutal, even in its happiness.

When he pinned me down, finally, in the Corellian's ship on its way to Alderaan, and asked me, bluntly - "Ben, tell me about my father" - there was nowhere for me to go, anymore. Perhaps I knew instinctively that we were walking into something more than we had planned; I don't honestly think I was considering farther ahead than our journey's destination. But I couldn't put him off anymore. I recognized something in him that I had seen, before, not only in his father - my student, my apprentice, my Padawan - but in myself, and in my Master.

Master. The word comes uneasily off my lips. I've often wondered what would have happened to me if I hadn't grown up quite so quickly, all of a sudden, and if the same thing will happen to Luke. He seems to be handling the loss of his family and his life on Tatooine well, under the circumstances, and yet -

There is a spark in him that is unmistakable. I see it, and I remember. He doesn't know, not yet. He doesn't see it, but he cannot see through my eyes, cannot watch himself watching the tall, dark-haired, insouciant rogue pilot of the ship that we are travelling on. I wonder if that's the way that I looked, at his age, when I was in his shoes; if my every thought appeared on my face, and in my eyes, for the world to see: respect, worship, desire.

It isn't enough simply to tell him about Anakin Skywalker; in order for him to truly understand, he needs to know the line of the Jedi that led down, from my Master, to me, to Anakin, and now to Luke. We are all so much the same, each pinning our fragile hopes on the one who came after. Luke is the last; if he cannot succeed where we have failed -

But I cannot believe that. He is young, and he knows very little about the world, save what he has been told about it by his uncle and aunt. They did the best that could be expected, I understand, but they were always limited people, with small dreams. Luke was never meant for the world that they lived in, not truly. I suppose I must tell him something of what the world was, when I was a boy, for he is looking at me, and he wants to know about his father.

"The life of a Jedi is a difficult one: it is long hours of instruction, of tests, of tutelage at the hands of a Master. A Jedi has no home, no family, save others of his kind; a Jedi is of everything that is made up of the Force. The Force is life, and all life is a part of the Force.

"But it is also an exciting life, especially for a young man who knows nothing of the world beyond 'mother' and 'father' and 'home'. You give up a part of yourself as an individual to become a part of a Force that is beyond anything that can be explained, or understood. You fight, and you live, and you work for a goal that you might never truly understand, but you do it with the belief that it is right. In its purest form, it is the Light, and everything else - hatred, and pettiness, and jealousy, and anger - that is the Dark.

"I was afraid of the dark as a child, and I never understood why; I slept on a pallet with a cousin of mine until we were both reed-thin, tall youths. And then, I came to be a Jedi Apprentice. There were many Jedi, then, Masters and their Padawans, throughout the galaxy, working, training, learning together; my Master chose me to be his student. I still remember that day, the first day, when he called me Padawan; I remember the soft pride in his voice whenever he used that word. We were together for a long time, as student and teacher; at the time, I ached for the day when I would be a Jedi Knight, as well. I was often impatient, and reckless, and my Master had infinite patience with me. He would rebuke me gently for my foolishness and my impetuosity, and I worked hard to serve him, because I wanted to be someone he could be proud of. I suppose that a large part of me never expected that the life that I knew would ever end.

"I expect it was a surprise only to myself when we became lovers - " Luke's eyes grew, slightly, and his head perked up, but Ben kept talking, "there was nothing to prevent it in the Code of the Jedi, but it did not happen often. I loved him deeply from the first, but I never believed myself worthy of even the hope of the return of that love. He was too great, in my eyes; my worship of him was clear to all around us, but I was a boy, and it took me a long time to realize that, rather than the god I had placed on a pedestal high above me, my Master, like me, was a man.

"I think my youthful desires disappointed me, somehow; I fulfilled them with friends who I met on our travels, and yet I felt myself unworthy of the baser pleasures that I was indulging in. That, like everything else, must have shown on my face, and in my studies. He could, of course, share my thoughts if he so chose, but he respected my distances and let me experience the full brunt of my growing body - hormones, emotions, and all - alone. It's the only thing to do with an impatient teenager who wants to grow up too fast. I think I knew, even then, that there was something greater waiting for me.

"Of course, the way I discovered what it was was typical of my actions at the time; often, I had more enthusiasm than sense. There were times, rare at first, when we worked together so in tandem that I could feel what he would do at every move, and he knew the same of me. Those times delighted me so - it was when I felt closest to truly understanding the power of the Force - that I hugged him, once, very close, and very nearly embarrassed myself in public." Ben laughed softly, remembering. "There is something good to be said for a flowing cloak and tunic, when you're a young man." Luke grinned at him, flushing slightly.

"That night, as we prepared for bed, my Master stilled me. When we first started travelling together as teacher and student, whenever we'd gone anywhere, our hosts always gave us a single room, with two sleeping-couches, assuming that we would want to stay close together. It was normal practice for a Jedi Master and his Padawan, but I'd asked to stop sharing his room at night when I started to feel 'betrayed' by a body I could no longer completely control. Luckily, he'd agreed without asking me any questions which, I believed at the time, would have killed me from sheer embarrassment.

"But he stopped me that night, and drew me into his room, and talked to me about what was happening to me. I gave him a mumbled confession about my furtive activities with those boys - all of which he'd known about, of course, through our bond - wishing the entire time that the floor would miraculously open up and swallow me whole.

"I think he wanted to laugh at me, but he spared me that further humiliation. Then he asked me what I'd felt when I hugged him, earlier that day.

"I couldn't speak. I didn't know what it was that I felt, other than everything that I'd always felt for him. He was the absolute centre of my world, and I adored him. Adoration isn't even a strong enough word, I don't believe, but I don't know that there is one in this language, or any other, to suffice.

"Sensing that I couldn't - or wouldn't - answer him, he did something that stopped me absolutely cold in my tracks: he kissed me."

Ben stopped, remembering. The silence stretched on for so long that Luke began to fidget, and then asked, "And then what happened?"

Ben merely smiled at him.

'You still have nothing to say, Padawan?'

'Master - '

Qui-Gon tilted the youth's chin up, with his hand. His lips still glistened in the half-light. 'You have merely to walk away, Obi-Wan, and your feelings will be known. You put your apprenticeship with me in no danger by doing so.'

The boy swallowed, hard. 'You know my feelings, Master.'

'Do I?'

The smile on his elder's face emboldened the young Jedi apprentice. 'Yes,' he said, his voice gaining in strength. He stood straighter as he spoke, Qui-Gon noted with approval in his eyes.

'Then you choose to stay with me tonight?'

'Yes.'

"We bonded that night, more deeply than we had before. It was the first time since we'd met that he slipped a little off the pedestal that I'd created for him in my mind, and I saw him as a man. It changed our relationship - strengthened it. It gave me an understanding that I didn't have before."

"You loved him," Luke said. It wasn't a question.

Ben nodded his head. "I did. And I believe that he loved me - at the time."

"Something changed his feelings?" Luke asked, a frown on his face.

"It wasn't something that changed our relationship, my boy, it was someone. Your father entered both of our lives. After that, nothing was the same." He smiled, a shadow in his eyes. "My Master and I had many years together - that is something that I cannot regret. I grew under his tutelage, learned about control, strength, instinct. I became a man, and a Jedi. But my need to leave his side lessened as the years went by; and my rebelliousness and quickness to anger eased, as well. Perhaps it was a mistake that we became lovers; I cannot regret it, and yet - " He shook his head. "In any case, it could not last. It is the nature of the relationship between Master and apprentice that, at some point, the child becomes a man, and then must take an apprentice of his own. Otherwise, there would be no Jedi.

"When your father came into my life, he was just a child. Even at that age, he was strong in the Force. I thought nothing of it, at the time. My Master, however, was deeply affected by the boy. I saw in him a need - to take this boy in, and train him. He wanted Anakin to be his Padawan. I was to be a Jedi Knight myself, with no further need of a teacher. Although it was the culmination of everything that I'd worked for, I couldn't be happy. My world was falling apart.

"I could feel the darkness rising in me, and yet there was nothing I could do about it. Jealousy, anger, despair - I started to punish myself for my feelings, again, and I pulled away from my Master, ashamed to admit my weakness to him. Perhaps, in a way, I hoped that he would see, and know that I was not ready to leave his side."

'You will not stay with me tonight, Obi-Wan?'

Obi-Wan steeled himself, unwilling to turn his back and catch his elder's eye. He stood in the hallway of the ship, bag in his hand, readying to move into the cabin their hosts had agreed to provide for him. He could see Anakin through the open door, already asleep on the couch beside Qui-Gon's bed. 'No, Master. The boy - '

'He's afraid of the dark.' Qui-Gon noted the slight stiffening in the back of his pupil, but chose not to mention it. 'And he misses his home. It isn't surprising. He has been through much, in a short time.'

'He should stay with you, then,' Obi-Wan said, quickly. 'Until he can sleep through the night on his own.'

'He's a boy,' Qui-Gon said, quietly.

'And I am a man,' Obi-Wan said. 'He needs you. I - don't.' Behind him, he could hear his teacher nod his head.

'It appears you are a man,' Qui-Gon said. 'You have the cruelty only a man can possess.'

Before Obi-Wan could say another word, the door slid closed behind him. He turned and stared at it, then walked down the hallway to his own, empty cabin.

"Nothing was the same after that," Ben said.

"I thought my father was a good man," Luke said, slowly. "I thought you said - "

"He was," Ben said. "He was good. It wasn't anything that he did that made me jealous of him, Luke. The darkness wasn't in him, it was in me. I couldn't see that. That's what the Dark Side does; it blinds you, until you can't see anything else but darkness, until you can't feel anything but anger." He sighed. "I shut myself off, turned my feelings off, because I thought that they were hurting me. By doing that, I hurt the one person in the world that I loved.

"I questioned him every step of the way. No-one on the Jedi Council thought that Anakin was a proper candidate for training, and I took their side. I took the side of the people who had always opposed my Master, and his methods." He shook his head. "Master Yoda and the others had legitimate reasons to be concerned about your father; I did not."

"But my father became a Jedi," Luke said, his hand unconsciously resting on the lightsaber at his side. It was Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, the one Ben had given to him on Tatooine.

"Yes. But my Master was not to be his. It was not his destiny." Ben's voice trailed off. "The one thing that I could do for my Master - the only thing, in the end - was to promise him that Anakin Skywalker would become a Jedi. It was too little, too late." He looked, sadly, at the boy in front of him. "And even after he died, I could not recapture what I had destroyed while he was living."

Luke shook his head. "But how could you, if he was dead?"

"The dead only lose their physical presence," Ben said. "Their bodies die, but the life-essence inside them - their spirit - that is part of the Force, and part of all living things. It lives on, forever. So it is possible, sometimes, if you are deeply attuned to someone, to see those who have passed on. They appear to the living as spirits and guardians."

"And yet you never saw your Master?" Luke asked.

Ben shook his head. "No; I never have."

"Do you think it's possible that I will see my father that way?"

"It's possible. Someday."

"I hope so." Luke took his father's lightsaber in his hands. "Do you suppose we have time for you to give me another lesson before we get to Alderaan?"

"I think so," Ben said, standing up. "Not in here, though. We need to go somewhere with more room, or you'll take this ship apart. I don't think Captain Solo would be too impressed if you did that," he teased, mildly.

Luke grinned, flushing a little at the mention of the dark Corellian pilot. As they walked out the door, he said, "You know, you told me more about yourself than about my father."

Ben smiled, as well. "I'm sorry."

"No," Luke said. "I liked hearing it. If I ever fall in love, I'll know - " He trailed off, awkwardly.

"You'll know what not to do?" Ben finished, gently.

Luke smiled at him. "Besides, there's plenty of time for you to tell me about my father."

"Of course there is, my boy," Ben agreed. "Now, come; we must get on to your lesson."

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