Work Text:
Title: Risorgimento 9--Journal of QGJ entry 2
Author: obi-ki
Pairing :Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan
Rating: PG 13
Catagory: Q/O AU
Time Period: About 20 years post ABY
Disclaimer: Everything Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and Lucasfilms. We're just playing in his world, borrowing the boyz and their accomplices and will return them all when I'm through. No money is being made from this, it is all done for entertainment only.
Author's notes: This is the ninth segment in the Risorgimento series and the second journal entry for Qui-Gon. Thanks to Merry Amelie for the thorough beta and thoughtful suggestions. The story would be much less without her valuable input.
Summary: Qui-Gon spends a bit of time soul searching as their journey begins
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Knowing that Obi-Wan has little need of my assistance in the cockpit, I found a secure place to lodge the plants and decided it would be a good time to put down my thoughts on the events that have occurred in the two days since I last wrote in this journal.
Coming to terms with being reincarnated in this perfect body has been hard enough, but knowing that the man responsible for Obi-Wan and me being alive is now dead is another thing altogether. Var-Son Meirr may have used his knowledge in an unusual way, but he was a gifted scientist who sought to redeem the earlier destructive use of his research with more benevolent offerings. I must admit that I've never before thought of myself as an offering, but since it appears that the Force wills it, I'll have to change my self-perception. I spent years telling my padawans that the truths we hold are totally dependent on our points of view. Well, Var-Son Meirr has definitely changed my point of view about a lot of things. Only time will tell if I will live up to his expectations.
And then, there is Obi-Wan. This incarnation of my padawan, or should I say my former padawan, is someone I both know well and don’t know at all. It isn't just that he is fourteen years older than the last time I saw him in my original life. He's no longer the inexperienced padawan looking to his master for direction and support. He's a master in his own right, with a master's experience, confidence, self-reliance and determination.
If age and experience were the only differences, I probably wouldn’t be quite as hesitant. But the events of the intervening years between my 'death' and Obi-Wan's have done more than give him experience. Years of doing his duty to the Order and the Republic, being required to use his skills to serve a Republic descending deeper and deeper into darkness, have taken their toll. We may have had to fight our way out of many hostile situations during our years together, but just as many of our missions required more brains than brawn.
Over the course of the years between Naboo and Anakin's turning, the lives of the Jedi changed dramatically. I trained Obi-Wan to be a negotiator, an instrument of peace, using the power of words and intellect to bring opposing parties together. But instead, he had to draw more frequently on his warrior skills, until he was eventually relegated into the role of general in a war that couldn’t be won. Those events changed him, the weight of them making him jaded, cynical and weary, in ways I never imagined.
He was hardened by the life he lived, wary of everyone and everything, expecting deception at every turn. The sarcasm that had in his padawan years been used in private comments and teasing moments surfaced more often and had a caustic edge. If his Knighthood had been earned in the heat of battle, his Master's rank had been forged in the iron of adversity. Could anyone have endured the traumas of Obi-Wan's life and not become at least a little jaded?
And if all these changes aren't enough, there's the underlying sexual tension between us. We may both have had dreams a lifetime ago, but fate had denied us the possibility back then. It's my hope that we won’t be denied now, but before we can embark on the exploration of our attraction I must come to know this older Obi-Wan a whole lot better.
I guess I will just have to trust that the Force knows what it's doing. When Obi-Wan gets the ship into hyperspace and on autopilot, I will suggest another joint meditation. Something special happened during our session in Var-Son's garden. We connected on a deeper level, as if the Force itself was strengthening our connection. Maybe another round of meditation will bring whatever is hovering in the shadows into the light of day.
TBC