Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit speculative fiction. No infringement on the copyrights of George Lucas is intended.
Summary: Obi-Wan's last thoughts in the chapel.
Cold. His hands, once so expressive, were cold. Obi-Wan laid his own touch lightly over the still hands, releasing a soft breath as the chill passed into his palms and stung his finger tips.
The quiet of the room was broken only by the crackle of the waiting torch, it's flickering light casting dancing shadows upon a strong face smoothed of pain and care. Touched with the warm glow of the firelight, Qui-Gon might have lain merely in quiet repose, poised to draw breath, to move. An illusion, born of soft light and shadow, of wishes and broken hope.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes painfully, feeling the hot ache of tears already shed. His breath pulled at his chest, tight and closed, unwilling to perpetuate a motion that would no longer be echoed. His own heartbeat was damningly loud in his ears, single and solitary where before it had been part of a whole.
Another breath, drawn loud in the still silence. It was time, and only these last few precious moment belonged to him.
"It's done," he whispered, his voice cracking into the air, roughened. "It's done, Master. The Council has given me the boy to train, as you asked."
Pointless words; they fell from his lips without meaning, without thought, but it seemed only right to speak them aloud. To confirm the final wish. Once spoken they vanished, insubstantial and fleeting in the face of all else that remained unsaid. Obi-Wan bowed his head to the cool hands, pressing his forehead to the remembrance of a touch as dear as life. So many things, so many words, and he could not find a way to say it. The words fled from him, fading like mist as he reached for them.
"My Master." Was that his voice, that choked thing, so broken with grief? A million things in two simple words, portrait of loss and love, of all that was and now would not be. It hung in the still air, surrounding them, binding them even now. Tears welled up in eyes long since cried dry, running hot down cheeks and over hands that would never again brush them away. "Master. Qui-Gon."
The sobs were soft, shaking his chest, and even the renewed grief could no longer wring the cries from him that had come at first. It was a quieter grief now, an ache that would not leave, that throbbed and pulsed in time with a heart that had been cut asunder from its other half. Empty and cold, it haunted him, eating at thought and soul from within where its ravages could not be seen.
Obi-Wan pushed himself upright with shaking hands, forcing himself to look again at the body before him. To see each feature, each line of the beloved face. To take the image to himself, memorized, traced over and over again, the last sight he would have. Reaching out with a trembling hand he brushed light fingertips across the broad arch of one cheekbone, over the soft feather of hair at one temple. Cold, all of it, with a texture never found in life. Empty, a shell only, devoid of the spark that had been the Jedi Master. Empty of the soul Obi-Wan had loved, of the man who had shaped his life.
He drew a slow breath, forcing it to steady. It was easier to do that with the illusion stripped away, easier to distance himself when he forced himself to see it for what it was - a shell, the remnant only. This... this was not Qui-Gon. Cool beneath his hands, without the response of life - this was only a shade, the last seeming without any substance.
Drawing his hands away, Obi-Wan reached up to brush back the hood of his cloak and wipe the last trace of tears from his cheeks. The cord of his braid tangled with his fingers, the last remnant of his years as an apprentice, declared over and done only hours before. He tugged on it, an unconscious gesture, touch skimming over the soft rope of it with long familiarity. There, the rougher texture of the lowest band, mark of a Padawan. Many years before those large hands, now cold, had deftly wrapped that first band about the lone lock left on his newly clipped head. Accepting him. Claiming him. In the years since Obi-Wan had rewrapped the cord himself, when necessary, but never without thinking of the hands that had first put it there.
A span of neat braid, measuring a space of years, and then another cord - a token of a level attained, a trial passed. A moment of pride, a step taken. Each band, originally wrapped by those same stilled hands. Obi-Wan touched each in turn, remembering countless times when blunt tipped fingers had reached out, trailed the length, a path of tactile memory that had brought pleasure and pride to eyes of darkest blue.
He closed his eyes and tried desperately not to think of other times, of the light touch of those hands carded gently through his hair as his heart beat in rhythm to the strong pulse that lay buried in the chest beneath his cheek. Of dark eyes darkened still further, or the not-so-gentle touch that licked with tongues of hungry fire, tempered always by the unburned warmth of love.
Gone, all of it. The final trial passed, and now he must put it all behind him, laid to rest with naught but the cold burning ember of grief to mark a passage he had once looked forward to with high hopes. The last step taken, but the hands that should have reached out to him to share the joy were still and cold, resting upon a motionless chest in a mockery of life.
His hands fumbled at his belt, nearly as cold as those they had touched. A tiny blade slipped into his grasp, no longer than his thumb, a tool for repair and the occasional small use. Winding the supple length of the braid around his other hand, he tugged it taut, feeling the pull of it against his neck. "It's done, Master," he repeated softly, his voice firmer now. Phantom strength, drawn on like a mask, but it had seen him through the previous days and would see him through those to come.
It was an awkward angle, only emphasizing the way it should have come from other hands, hands larger and stronger than his own that would have tilted his head and severed the cord even as they had first placed it upon him. The blade caught and pulled painfully before the edge found its mark, severing the first strands. The others parted in a slow rush, one after another, a sound just behind his ear that he could hear as the last remnant of the past was cut away.
And then it was done. His braid lay limp in his clenched hand, the severed end beginning to fray, the strands loosening as they untwined. Longer than his forearm, no thicker than his smallest finger. The markers twined duly around the darker rope of hair, each cord wrapped and tied neatly as they had always been. He unclenched his hand, fingers tracing once more down the length of the braid. His head felt peculiarly lighter, unbalanced, the space behind his ear cold.
"You should have been here," Obi-Wan whispered, his voice pitched not to the abandoned body that lay before him but to the air around, to the very Force that hummed within it. "Mas... Qui-Gon. This... it means nothing without you."
No reply came but the crackle of the torch. Time was passing, the others waiting. Ceremony would only wait so long and for the living the hours and minutes of the day continued to pass, demanding action. Winding the braid between his hands, Obi-Wan reached automatically to stow it in a small pocket of his belt, along with the blade. Keepsake of a different time, a better time, one when he had been happier and whole.
Hesitating, he paused, then drew it forth again. The coil of it fit within his palm, soft and heavy. A Padawan's braid, twelve years of his life marked off in neatly arranged inches.
He had passed the trials but it felt like a hollow victory, a mockery of what should have been. There was no Master to greet him as equal, no one to tell him, beyond shadow of doubt, that he had won the rank of Knight with skill and pride. No one to be proud for, no one on whom his passing or failing would have reflected.
"Would that you were here," he said at last, his voice breaking again, the mask slipping. The hands upon the broad chest were heavy and cold but the coiled braid slipped easily beneath them, as though even the shell left behind would acknowledge the rightness of the gesture. Clasping them one last time, Obi-Wan let himself remember those hands - and the man - as life had painted them upon his memory. Let himself focus upon what had been, rather than upon the still and quiet picture that would be his last.
The tears burned but he held them back. Words of farewell died upon his lips, unspoken. Hollow and unnecessary words. Settling the hands more firmly upon the chest, Obi-Wan drew his own away, reaching automatically to raise the hood of his cloak. His finger tips brushed stubble behind his ear, sharp and prickling. Hesitating, he reached out once last time, not quite touching the pale face. "The ties that bind us are greater than that," he whispered, the words falling hushed beneath the crackle of the torch and the dim noises of those gathering beyond the shuttered doors.
There was no more time. The shaft of the torch was rough in his hand, the heat unable to touch the empty chill within him. The flame crackled brightly, as though eager to begin consuming the remnants left behind in Qui-Gon Jinn's passing. Closing his eyes once more, Obi-Wan drew what waning strength about him that he could and stepped from the dais to swing open the doors and let the others who would pay their respects enter.