Chapter Text
Qui-Gon had promised him once that he would be a Jedi, and Anakin had held on to that promise, all through the cold strangeness of hyperspace on their return to Coruscant, when none of them had known whether Qui-Gon would live or die from his injuries.
Anakin clung on stubbornly. I will be a Jedi, I will be a Jedi, he repeated to himself. He had closed his eyes and willed the thought into existence, because it just had to come true. If he could be a Jedi, if his wish came to pass, it meant Qui-Gon had come through with his promise. And Qui-Gon would have to be alive in order to do that.
He didn't want to picture a universe where Qui-Gon did not survive.
He'd held up the image in his mind, to make it permanant: Qui-Gon, strong and whole again, and Anakin himself, a true Jedi; the two of them fighting side by side. Anakin had gone wild with his imaginings. When you’re free, you can do that, he had reasoned. Anything was possible when you were no longer a slave. He’d pictured Qui-Gon teaching him how to use a lightsaber, and how he would become a knight and then set off to free worlds.
Anakin hadn't had much in the way of actual expectations - his upbringing did not allow for those - but if he’d had any preconceived notions of what being a Jedi would be like, the reality is about the furthest thing from what he might have pictured. Coruscant is far grander and larger than anything he had the knowledge to come up with. And nothing he could have dreamed up could have prepared him for being Qui-Gon’s padawan.
When Anakin imagined himself as a Jedi, wrapped solemnly in crisp robes and outfitted with a lightsaber, he had pictured himself at standing at Qui-Gon’s side, as his apprentice. But he isn’t even that for a very long time. Mostly because of Qui-Gon's slow recovery.
Weeks pass before Qui-Gon is allowed back to his own quarters, with many days that pass in a blur of activity. There are some spots that stand out from the sheer shock of strangeness, in the weeks where Obi-Wan had walked with Anakin to every place he was supposed to go: To see the Council, to visit a recuperating Qui-Gon in the halls of healing, to have his own health assessed by the healers, back to be frowned at by the Council again. But after a long stretch of cycles where Anakin feels alternatingly ignored and like an insect under a pair of specs, his wish comes true, and Qui-Gon leaves the halls of healing.
When Qui-Gon finally returns to his own quarters, he insists on throwing open the doors to the balcony and lowering himself painfully to the floor, Obi-Wan close by his elbow and ready to assist.
“I must meditate,” Qui-Gon says stubbornly, in response to Obi-Wan’s look of exasperation, and rather to Anakin’s surprise, instead of arguing, Obi-Wan simply folds himself neatly to the balcony floor at his side.
“I didn’t know those doors would open,” Anakin says, awed. He has been living in Qui-Gon’s quarters since their return from Naboo. The Council had allowed him this privilege, while not guaranteeing anything else. It’s hard not to feel like a stranger here, even in Qui-Gon’s private rooms. He walks around carefully, half-afraid to touch anything. You break it, you bought it, Watto had drilled into him, and though the Jedi don't seem to seem much interested in currancy, he knows better than to handle anything that doesn't belong to him.
He can see that Qui-Gon is still in pain from the long walk back to his quarters, yet he manages a smile aimed at Anakin’s direction. “You’ve made a practice of mediation already, I’m sure, Ani,” he says, and Anakin squirms.
“Not exactly,” he hedges. Well, he’s sat next to Obi-Wan while he meditated - that must count for something.
“You’ll learn, in time,” Qui-Gon remarks, and he closes his eyes, breathing deeply. The air has a faint scent of flowers, drifting up to them from the gardens below, and soon Qui-Gon is deep in a trance, breathing out his own pain and releasing it. Anakin can see how far into the Force Qui-Gon has gone. And then Obi-Wan joins him, drifting along in a lighter trance that allows him to keep a watchful eye, so to speak, over both his charges. So Anakin dutifully closes his eyes as well for a moment, until he is sure that no one will notice if he opens them again.
The balcony opens to a courtyard below; if you look up, you can see Coruscant’s sky above your head, past the Temple’s dome. Anakin looks up, but none of the star systems here are familiar to him at all. The night skies of Coruscant are nothing like Tatooine’s. His mother had told him the names of the constellations, back home. She could not tell him the names of planets, but she could tell him the names that the slaves gave to the shapes they found in the night sky: The Twins, the Kryat, Maiden’s shield. He can still see them in his mind, as clear as being there.
He doesn’t have a name for any of these stars.
Anakin feels the hot stinging building up behind his eyes. Sand blasting hot in his face, suns scorching down on his head. Even Tatooine’s memory is hot. He shakes his head, pushing those molten thoughts as far from him as he can.
When he surfaces, too fast and his brain reeling from his rushed exit, Qui-Gon is standing up slowly. Obi-Wan does not hover over him, but waits for his master to make the first move, and then smoothly steps in to offer him assistance without a word.
Anakin watches the way his soon-to-be master and his master’s former apprentice circle around each other and thinks, abruptly, of two suns, and how one rises first in the morning, followed by the other. The first star always leading, the second star always in its wake.
Binary systems, Anakin keeps thinking, long after that first night they spend together in Qui-Gon's quarters. Who’s orbiting who? he wonders. They know each other so well. Will I ever be able to understand Qui-Gon that way?
Anakin had expected Coruscant to be different. He had expected to feel out of step, out of place, missing vital pieces of information. But he had not expected to feel so out of place at Qui-Gon’s side.
Coruscant is many things. Right now it is a holding pattern, a waiting game. Anakin has no official status yet. He is still Qui-Gon’s ward. This means that Anakin can live in Qui-Gon's quarters, that Qui-Gon - and by relation, Obi-Wan as well - is in charge of his welfare. But it is not long after Qui-Gon is released from the healers before everything changes once again.
A docent appears at their door after the last evening bell, holding a datapad in her hand. “From Master Windu,” she discloses, and passes the datapad to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan reads the information silently. Then he stands, lost in thought, for a long moment.
The moment drags on. Anakin makes himself a bit smaller in the Force, pulling himself in so that they do not think to send him away. He wants to know what the datapad says. His heart is thudding in his chest. He knows about this kind of thing - it’s news, whatever it is, and it means change. For all of them.
Qui-Gon gets up with difficulty in order to stand behind Obi-Wan and read the datapad over his shoulder, rather nosily, in Anakin’s opinion. But then again, Obi-Wan is still his apprentice. And Anakin is still only - well, whatever he is to Qui-Gon. “What is it?”
“You should be sitting down,” Obi-Wan says automatically. Then he seems to collect himself and he passes the datapad to Qui-Gon.
Qui-Gon’s expression changes to one of understanding. “Oh, padawan,” he murmurs, and then sinks back down on the couch, passing his hand over his chin, lost in thought.
Anakin waits patiently for one of them to let him know what’s going on. Then he realizes that being smaller in the Force might make noticing him more difficult, so he pushes himself back into the room, and Obi-Wan falls into focus on him again.
“I’ve been summoned to the Council tomorrow morning,” he tells Anakin. The line between his eyebrows is back, Anakin noticies with interest.
“Good luck with that,” Anakin says with feeling.
Anakin is allowed to come with them as far as the Council antechambers. He watches Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan disappear through the chamber doors, and sits down to wait.
Left behind again, he thinks, and stifles a sigh. He’s pretty sure the Councilors can sense his impatience even all the way in another room. He can guess why Obi-Wan was summoned. A mission, finally. Waiting for Obi-Wan’s first assignment is what has kept them all together these past several months. Waiting for this holding pattern they’ve found themselves in to change. For Qui-Gon to recover - for Obi-Wan to be promoted - for Anakin to finally become a padawan.
Anakin looks out the tall windows displaying a view of the Coruscanti sunrise and wishes that he had something to do, a task to keep his hands and mind occupied. Patience is the Jedi way. But it is not his way. Not yet, anyways.
But in less time than he expects, the chamber doors open again. Anakin takes a good look at Obi-Wan, trying to see what, if anything, has changed about him. Obi-Wan’s padawan braid had vanished right just before they had left Naboo, and now his hair has grown a trifle longer in the months since then, but that is the only difference he can see. He would have thought that Obi-Wan would be smiling at least in celebration. But Obi-Wan still looks about the same as usual: Tired, and a bit cross. Anakin’s thinking maybe that’s just his default expression.
To his surprise, Obi-Wan addresses him first. He crouches down next to him. “I’ve been assigned a mission, Anakin,” he says without preamble.
Anakin does not quite understand at first. He glances at Qui-Gon, who looks unusually solemn. And then he realizes: Obi-Wan really will be leaving them. He feels a choking feeling rising up in his throat. He hadn’t realized until that moment how Obi-Wan had become someone he didn’t want to lose.
Stupid, he tells himself fiercely. Nothing’s the matter with you. You’ll stay here with Qui-Gon. Nothing will be any different. This is what you’ve been waiting for, after all. He gulps and manages to ask, “When are you going?”
“I’m leaving now,” Obi-Wan says gently. “Anakin, I’m sorry.”
Anakin can’t look at him, so instead he stares at Obi-Wan’s boots, the lightly-scuffed leather worn and creased along the toes. “Don’t forget about us,” Anakin chokes out. Obi-Wan’s hand is on his shoulder, squeezing gently.
“I won’t,” he says. “I couldn’t. Goodbye, Anakin. May the Force be with you.”
Anakin can’t help himself, he throws his arms around Obi-Wan’s neck. He feels Obi-Wan’s huff of surprise. He repeats the words in a mumble. “Take care of him,” Obi-Wan says under his breath. “He’ll need you.”
The words are just for Anakin’s ears.
Then Obi-Wan lets go, and he stands up. Anakin can see those lighter brown boots step closer to Qui-Gon’s darker boots, and he looks up in time to see Obi-Wan shaking his master’s hand before turning away.
Qui-Gon watches him go with an expression that Anakin can’t read. He can almost see the way a string emerges from his master’s chest and disappears out into the universe after Obi-Wan as he strides away.
Then the door closes quietly behind him, and Qui-Gon and Anakin are left alone.
They don’t seem to know what to do with each other, Anakin and his master. They drift around their quarters, abandoning any pretense of a routine or schedule.
Qui-Gon is strange in the days after that. Unfocused, as though he is walking around half-asleep. Qui-Gon shuffles around with his cane, moving potted plants around on the balcony, emptying out the drawers in the kitchen and then tiring before replacing anything.
Doesn’t he miss Obi-Wan at all? Anakin thinks, aggrieved. I do. But his master does not express any theoretical emotions he might be having to Anakin.
Anakin wonders if it’s the pain in a silent, frantic kind of way, not quite sure enough of himself to ask Qui-Gon if he’s hurting more than usual, or if he should fetch a healer or comm Obi-Wan for advice. But really, his master is no slower than usual when he walks, limping gamely along on his cane. It’s more to do with how, when Qui-Gon sits down to rest, his eyes close slowly and the lines in his face seem to grow deeper.
Anakin stands by Qui-Gon’s place on the couch and asks hesitantly what the problem is, but it takes three tries before Anakin can get his master to hear his words.
“Just aches and pains, Ani,” Qui-Gon assures him. But he doesn’t really smile when Anakin tries to joke him out of his mood.
It’s all my fault, Anakin thinks wildly. He’s spent all this time coasting by, content to let Obi-Wan handle Qui-Gon, and now he doesn’t know how to help his master. Should have been paying attention, he reproaches himself. Should have asked Obi-Wan before he left. Should have, should have... Well, too late for that now, he thinks, forlorn.
They have both grown used to Obi-Wan being there to do simple things, to notice when Qui-Gon begins the process of standing up from the couch, or when he is looking around for his datapad, and how Obi-Wan will have a hand under Qui-Gon’s elbow before Qui-Gon thinks to ask for help, how the datapad will handed over before Qui-Gon realizes it has gone missing.
“He did a lot for us, didn’t he,” Anakin says, finally realizing. He does not have to specify who he is thinking of.
“Yes,” his master sighs, “he did.”
Qui-Gon has to think a bit before remembering to ask Anakin for assistance. After a meal, he will move back to the couch from his chair in the kitchen, his cup of tea left forgotten on the table, then blink around the room moments later.
“Er, Anakin-” he begins.
Anakin stands quickly, so fast his chair ricochets backwards across the floor. “I’ll get it,” Anakin says hurriedly. “Don’t get up.”
He spills a few drops of tea on the floor in the process, but Qui-Gon accepts the cup with gratitude. “Thank you, Ani,” he rumbles while Anakin is hunting down a cloth to wipe up the mess.
Tea, thinks Anakin, right. I can do that, at least. And he throws himself into making tea with gusto.
In the days afterward, Anakin makes dozens of cups of tea that Qui-Gon will thank him for absently, take a single sip of, and then abandon on tables and windowsills. Preparing tea is calming, in a way. It’s something to do with his hands. And he can stand in the small kitchen area of Qui-Gon's quarters, watching the kettle heat up on Qui-Gon’s illegal heating coil until it steams over, and set the tea in the old chipped pot to steep. Making tea becomes a schedule in itself. Just when you've finished one, you can start another.
There are many canisters of tea in the cupboards. Anakin investigates and finds several he likes. There’s a Noorian blossom blend, almost entirely gone, that Qui-Gon seems to prefer. There is one blend that smells like pondwater. Must’ve gone bad, Anakin thinks. He scrunches up his nose and pours it down the drain.
“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says with baffled appreciation, when Anakin sets another cup of tea in front of him “but I’m not sure this is entirely necessary. Despite what Obi-Wan may have told you, I don’t require tea in such vast quantities, Ani.”
“Are you sure?” Anakin says doubtfully. “You sleep such a lot. You might need something to wake you up a bit.”
Qui-Gon chuckles a bit at that, and Anakin feels a little better. “I’ll try to stay awake long enough to meditate with you tonight,” he says dryly, and Anakin makes a face of despair. Obi-Wan had done his best, in their limited time together, to get Anakin interested in meditating. Anakin can’t understand why. It’s like falling asleep, but more boring. Obi-Wan actually likes to meditate, which tells you everything you need to know about him. And even Qui-Gon, otherwise a sensible person, approves of the activity.
All the same, Anakin can’t help but think that when Qui-Gon had first offered for him to become a Jedi, this wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. He had sort of been looking forward to having all of his master’s attention, once Obi-Wan left.
It’s not that he’s jealous, he thinks. He doesn’t want what Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have. Not exactly. He would just like to be that close to somebody, here on Coruscant. The way Qui-Gon used to bend his head to catch Obi-Wan’s eye, and how they would exchange a look that he could never decipher. He can see the way Qui-Gon’s head comes up when he overhears Obi-Wan’s name come up in conversation with another master or knight. He would like to be important to someone that way.
If he can’t be that, than he can settle for at least having an official status at the Temple. He goes back to the Council chambers with Qui-Gon, this time to be told that he is no longer Qui-Gon’s ward, but a padawan in his own right.
“This is important,” Qui-Gon explains to him later, back in their quarters. He is carefully braiding the short strands of Anakin’s trimmed hair. “Hold this,” Qui-Gon says, and Anakin obediently pinches the end of the braid between his fingers.
His master takes up a packet of red thread. Qui-Gon winds a length of the thread around one thumb, then breaks the string off with a quick tug of his fingers. He looks at the string for a long moment, rubbing absently at his chest. Then he turns to Anakin. Qui-Gon ties the end of his braid with the length of thread, knotting it firmly and tucking the corners underneath the binding in a practiced movement.
Anakin touches the braid. The wisp of hair at the tip brushes his neck when he turns his head. This will take some getting used to. “I thought there would be a ceremony,” he remarks. In his limited experience, he has discovered that the unwritten law of the Temple is, There’s a ceremony for that.
Qui-Gon chuckles. “There is a speech, if you’d like to hear it.” Anakin shows what he thinks of that by making a face. His master continues, “The only part of it that you truly need to know, Anakin, is that this braid is a connection. To the Force, first and foremost. And to the other Jedi who have come before you. That is what traditions are, after all.”
“Oh,” he says. He can’t stop touching the braid. “Will you cut it, when I’m a knight?”
“Yes,” Qui-Gon answers. He has a faraway look on his face. Is it the pain again? Anakin wonders, distracted out of the moment by worry. But the distance on his master’s face is gone before he can ask about it.
“I look forward to that day,” Qui-Gon adds. There’s a slight smile almost hidden by his moustache that gives Anakin a boost of confidence.
This is the first time that Anakin feels good about being here, that this is right , that his hair belongs in this braid and that he belongs in the initiates’ clothes he has been wearing since he arrived. He feels awed, in the kind of way he had felt once when his mother had taken him to hear the holy women singing on the outskirts of Mos Espa. He thinks Qui-Gon feels it too, this rightness.
He was meant to be Qui-Gon’s padawan, Anakin thinks with some satisfaction. This sense of belonging sort of makes it all worthwhile.
It’s a good moment.
But afterward, Qui-Gon takes himself back to their couch and lies down, one hand covering his face. He looks as though he is resting, but Anakin can sense his pain, an ache that doesn’t appear to go away no matter how long his master keeps his eyes closed.
After that, he is an official padawan, with his own passcodes and datapads and official records. Not much has changed, from Anakin’s perspective, except that he suddenly feels more adrift than he had even those first few weeks when Qui-Gon was in the halls of healing. So what, he wonders, has changed now?
It takes him a while to realize that though the structure of their quarters has not changed, he is missing a rather important pillar of support. He had not realized, until then, how much Obi-Wan had done to make sure that Anakin was looked after, fed, given something useful to do. Obi-Wan had, if not quite taken a shine to him, at least taken charge of him. It was Obi-Wan who rounded up clean clothes for him, taught him to use the water showers - he still doesn’t like them, how can anyone stand being so wet is a mystery to him - and how to find the refectory.
Now he is floundering, trying to decide where to focus his attention. Obi-Wan had kept them on a schedule. Meditations first, more for his and Anakin’s benefit than Qui-Gon’s, a morning meal. Lessons for Anakin, to catch him up to the other Temple students, reading history and geography texts and explaining complicated and esoteric forms of arithmetic. Obi-Wan had been in the process of teaching Anakin the Aurebesh before he had left.
“Can’t you read Basic?” Obi-Wan had asked in horrified amazement early on, and Anakin had squirmed under his attention.
“Of course I can,” he had replied defensively. “Most things. Almost everything, really. I just need more practice.”
There had been physical therapy and health visits for Qui-Gon, while Obi-Wan had accompanied Anakin to the gardens to, as he wryly put it, commune with the living Force. This statement had always made Qui-Gon chuckle when he said it, though Anakin could never understand why. Now he has a class schedule, but it does not occupy all his time. And Qui-Gon still has his therapies, but he also finds a considerable amount of time to doze off on the couch.
Anakin has repaired an inefficient cooling unit and the broken door now chimes with the arrival of a new presence at the threshold. Qui-Gon does not seem particularly grateful for this act of kindness. He usually covers his eyes with his hand whenever the door chimes to announce a visitor. Anakin tries to find other things that need to be done around their quarters, but he only has so much patience for wiping down walls and tables, and they don’t make very many dishes between the two of them.
“What should I be doing?” he finally asks Qui-Gon, who has been drifting off on the couch again, and his master startles all the way awake. The Council could have waited to send Obi-Wan away until after his master did not need quite so many naps, Anakin thinks privately.
“Well,” says Qui-Gon, struggling a bit to sit up. “You might as well take yourself out and explore a bit.”
Anakin has. He had spent the first few weeks of Qui-Gon’s extended stay in the halls of healing exploring as much of the Temple as he could get access to with Obi-Wan’s passcodes.
“I’ve done that,” he says patiently. “I’ve been to all the meditation gardens, and the archives, and the common areas. Everywhere I’m allowed to go.” Obi-Wan had explained once that you had to be patient with Qui-Gon, when you wanted to make a point. He likes to come to his own conclusions, Obi-Wan had said dryly. He was right, Anakin thinks. He can tell when Qui-Gon comes to a realization, because he sits up straighter and rubs at his untidy beard.
Qui-Gon sighs. “I know this isn’t exactly what you pictured, Anakin, when I first gave you the idea of becoming a Jedi. You were not expecting a master who could barely manage to walk to the Council chambers. This is hardly fair to you. I’m afraid I haven’t done enough for you. For that you have my deepest apologies.”
“It’s not that,” Anakin protests, feeling horribly guilty for reasons he does not quite understand. “I just - I keep feeling like I’m waiting for something. Only I don’t know what. And I can’t rest until I figure it out. I know you’re still healing,” he hastens to add. “I don’t mind, I really don’t. I can wait as long as it takes.”
“I think,” admits Qui-Gon, “that we both have much to learn about waiting, Anakin.”
So Anakin keeps on puttering around their quarters uselessly. He finds other things that need to be fixed and spends long hours working on them, well into the night. My nighthawk, Shmi had always called him. He’s never needed much sleep anyways. He likes staying up late, feeling the Temple settle around him. The noise and bustle from all the other beings seem to fade from his mind, and he is left with only his own thoughts. In the quiet, he can finally get a sense of himself.
Qui-Gon is much the same way. After dozing through the day, he will stay up well into the night, restlessly combing over datapads and paging through texts that he has the archivists deliver to him. The two of them stay up long past the last bell most nights, Anakin fiddling with mechanical parts and electrical wiring and Qui-Gon reading through his catalog of philosophers, until Qui-Gon notices the time.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?” he asks curiously, and Anakin looks up from the old FN-278 model droid he has been scavenging for parts.
“Shouldn’t you?” Anakin counters, and his master sighs and motions with his hand.
“Off with you,” he says mildly, and Anakin puts down his spanner and heads to his room, sighing loudly as he goes.
Anakin has a sleeping alcove of his own in their quarters. He is sure that it formerly belonged to Obi-Wan, but there are no traces of his master’s former student there. Obi-Wan must have emptied the room of his things at some point after they had returned from Naboo, perhaps while Qui-Gon had floated silently in tanks of bacta and while Anakin had spent an uncomfortable night in the healing wing under the careful watch of a novice healer who administered vaccines until Anakin’s arm ached and then removed his transmitter implant. He does not know what Obi-Wan had done with his own possessions, because the room had been empty except for a bed and clothes hanger when Anakin had arrived. Obi-Wan had slept on the couch while Qui-Gon convalesced in his own room and while Anakin adjusted to sleeping on his own for the first time in his life.
That, Anakin thinks, might account for the way he can’t seem to sleep with the door closed. He has programmed the door to stay slightly ajar at night, illuminating his room with two inches of light from the glow-panels of the common room that leak across his bed in pale stripes. From the angle of his head on the pillow, he can see his master’s door.
“Many beings feel safer if they are able to close themselves in at night,” was all his master had said when he noticed.
Anakin had looked at him suspiciously. “Then how do they see what’s coming?” he demanded. On Tatooine, better to keep a line of sight to the exit at all times. The Temple is a safe place, or so his master claims. Still, he sleeps better when he can see the exit.
Perhaps he ought to enjoy the privacy, a luxury in no large supply even here in the Temple. But it feels wrong to be unsupervised. Dangerous, somehow. Anakin does not know what he might get up to, if he is allowed to do exactly as he likes. In his previous life, he had always been watched, during the day by Watto, then by Shmi at night. His sleeping alcove in their slave quarters had no door, only a thin sheet strung in front of his bed. He had always been able to see the low lights his mother had kept in their kitchenette, to glance around the sheet and see his mother asleep on her cot in the main room...
He shakes his head fiercely, blinking back a sudden onslaught of tears. He can’t let his thoughts go down that path.
Jedi don’t have attachments, he tells himself, over and over, until his eyes stop aching. Haven’t you learned anything, being here?
Anakin puts his clothes away neatly in the wardrobe before curling up on his sleep couch. He can still see Qui-Gon sitting in the common room.
If his master gets up to go to his own bed, it happens sometime after Anakin has fallen asleep.
Anakin’s master is trying to teach him patience. It is an honorable goal, but a strenuous task.
“Let us meditate,” Qui-Gon says a few evenings later, and Anakin sighs. The one thing Qui-Gon seems to have the energy to do at all times is meditate.
He knows he is supposed to sit still, but he can’t. Or, rather, he knows he can make his body sit still. He thinks he might be afraid of what happens if he allows his mind to quiet down as well. It’s easier when Qui-Gon lets him leave their rooms to go for a run, long laps around the garden paths or on the dirt path that encircles the arboreum. It tires him out, empties his mind, but then leaves him wrung-out and too exhausted to think, or to feel. He keeps busy enough most of the rest of the time, with classes and Qui-Gon’s intermittent, unpredictable reading lessons and his own mechanical projects, letting his mind get cluttered up with ideas and plans. Their meditation sessions have been a spectacular disaster so far. Anakin is prepared to let tonight be another one.
But tonight Qui-Gon has other plans. Anakin settles his legs underneath him on the pillow, and Qui-Gon brings out a string of beads. He hands the string to Anakin.
Anakin examines the string curiously. It might be a necklace, he supposes. Each bead is different, some rough-hewn and asymmetrical, others with polished facets. There are round beads so smooth they feel like septsilk. “What’s this?”
“This is a strand of meditation beads,” Qui-Gon tells him. “Here, see. You hold them in your hand, use your fingers to feel each stone. Concentrate on the feel of each one. Examine the colors and patterns. See, how this bead is green glass? It came from the moons of Pellinor. I found it by the seas there.”
Anakin’s fingers trace the green glass bead, with its frosted tint of color. “Did you find all these beads?”
Qui-Gon gazes down fondly at the string of beads. “Some,” he says. “Others were gifts.”
Anakin can see that the string is special to him. “And I can use it?” he hazards. He has known since he was a small boy that it is better not to assume that anything is a gift.
“It is for you to keep,” Qui-Gon acknowledges. “Now. Let us meditate.”
Learning to read is another exercise in patience. Qui-Gon goes over the Aurebesh alphabet with him, time after time. Anakin tries to speed through, thinking maybe if he can go fast enough, the words will fall into place, but he only trips over his own tongue. He wonders darkly if anything was ever this hard for Obi-Wan.
“It takes time,” his master says. His eyes are kind. “Just go slowly. Letter by letter.”
Anakin takes a deep breath and tries again.
Qui-Gon takes a little more interest in Anakin after that. He brings Anakin to the salles to watch other master-padawan pairs spar with their lightsabers and to provide a running commentary of what Anakin is watching.
“Watch Master Drallig,” Qui-Gon tells him. “He will show you how sun mok is done correctly. Padawan Tisko hasn’t noticed yet that Drallig has him cornered.”
They watch the matches go on for a while longer, until Qui-Gon is satisfied that Anakin understands what’s going on, and on their way back to their quarters, Qui-Gon is stopped by a Togrutan master Anakin doesn’t recognize.
“Where is your padawan, Master Jinn?” says the master. Anakin almost says, I’m right here, before he realizes the master is not asking about him.
Qui-Gon smiles. “The Outer Rim, I’m afraid, since his knighting.”
The master peers at Anakin. “And who is this?” he asks.
“My new learner, Anakin Skywalker," Qui-Gon replies, and the Togrutan master makes a sound of surprise.
“I hadn’t thought you would take another apprentice after Kenobi.”
Qui-Gon puts his hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “He is special,” he says quietly, and Anakin feels a rush of pleasure. He had been thinking that Qui-Gon might have come to regret taking him on after all. For all his talk about Anakin being the Chosen One, Anakin has lately felt more like a mistake, something Qui-Gon had tacked on his to-do list as an afterthought and then promptly forgot about.
“May the Force be with you,” says the Togrutan master, and he and Qui-Gon part ways.
“Come, padawan,” Qui-Gon says absently, and begins to walk in his halting way down the corridor. Then he jerks his head, seemingly startled, and blinks down at Anakin in bemusement.
It’s a mistake, Anakin knows instantly. He was not the one Qui-Gon was thinking of, when he used that word. There are boundaries here, ones Anakin isn’t always aware of, and others that he is. This is one. Qui-Gon calls him the nickname his mother gave him, or by his full name. Just as Anakin does not call him Master, but rather, Qui-Gon or simply Sir .
They are an odd pair in some ways. A teacher who isn’t called master , and a student who isn’t called padawan . But these names mean different things to each of them, and though they have not spoken of it, there is an understanding between them, about these things.
“I’m sorry,” Qui-Gon says at last. He does not seem to know what to say.
“It’s all right,” Anakin says. “I know you didn’t mean me.”
Qui-Gon gives him a crooked smile. “I ought to get used to saying it. You are my student, Ani.”
“You don’t have to call me that yet,” he says, risking a look up at his master. “These things take time.”
“Yes,” Qui-Gon murmurs. “Yes, they do.”
One day, Qui-Gon checks his messages to find a voice message from Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon sets it to playing while he goes through his morning routine, watering plants and setting their table to rights and placing a pot of water on the heating coil.
“Qui-Gon and Anakin, I arrived on Helios a tenday ago -”
It’s nice to have Obi-Wan’s voice in the background, even if he is only telling Qui-Gon a story about negotiations on Helios Prime that makes absolutely no sense to Anakin himself. Qui-Gon chuckles at some parts and frowns at others, and makes a tssk noise in his throat when Obi-Wan tells him the details of a trade summit he attended in his capacity as a guardian of the peace.
Anakin is gratified to hear his own name mentioned. “And Anakin, I thought of you when I saw the royal fleet - all Miossk-type class D starfighters. You’d like to see one of those in action. Smooth as septsilk.”
Obi-Wan ends with a footnote on the local flora that seems to please Qui-Gon. “Take care of each other,” says Obi-Wan’s voice, hollow with distance.
When the message winds down, Qui-Gon doesn’t say anything, but after a while he goes back over to the terminal and sets the message to playing again.
“ Qui-Gon and Anakin- ”
“He is doing well,” his master murmurs, almost more to himself than to Anakin. He doesn't say much after that. He just goes on standing by the terminal even after the voice message ends.
The next day, Qui-Gon does not rise with the morning bells. Anakin doesn’t think much about it at first. His master is not always particularly punctual. But when two hours go by and still Qui-Gon hasn’t risen, he starts to feel concerned.
Help! He thinks frantically. I don’t know what to do with him. Obi-Wan would know how to help. He had always managed Qui-Gon before.
He stews about it for a little while longer, but he can’t go on pretending nothing’s wrong. And Obi-Wan told me to take care of him, Anakin reminds himself firmly, so that’s what I’m going to do. So he waves his palm in front of Qui-Gon’s door.
Qui-Gon’s sleeping alcove is spare except for a sleep couch programmed to hover rather higher than usual off the floor, and a table that holds several half-drunk cups of water, pieces of flimsi and styluses, a bottle of medication, and one plant with drooping leaves. He notices for the first time that there is a holocard on the table. So Qui-Gon has personal belongings, after all, in spite of being a Jedi. Anakin hasn’t ventured into his private room much. Obi-Wan mostly accompanied Qui-Gon there to help him change the dressing on the wound.
His master opens his eyes. “I’m a bit slow getting up this morning, Ani,” Qui-Gon says apologetically. His voice sounds dry with misuse. “Forgive me - I think I might rest a while longer. Can you manage?”
“Of course, yeah,” Anakin says. He asks, feeling doubtful, “Don’t you need help?”
“I’ll be all right,” Qui-Gon assures him, which is most likely a dismissal, but Anakin’s attention is caught by the holo.
The capture is of Qui-Gon, looking much the same as usual, with his attention on something beyond the frame, with one arm crossed in front of his chest and the other stroking his moustache absently, and of Obi-Wan, much younger than Anakin has seen him, imitating his master’s stance with his learner’s braid draped over his upper lip. Obi-Wan’s face is solemn, but there is a decided look of mischief in his eyes.
“Is that Obi-Wan?” he demands.
Qui-Gon coughs a bit. “Yes, it is.”
Anakin takes a closer look. “I didn’t think he had a sense of humor, that’s all,” he explains.
“Oh yes,” Qui-Gon says. “He would say the most irreverent things. He always made me laugh.”
He did? Obi-Wan? Anakin considers this point of view. It is different from the one he has held of Qui-Gon’s former padawan. Well, Anakin had always suspected a great deal of Obi-Wan’s usual cross expression had mostly to do with him.
He lingers at the door for another moment. “Sure you don’t need any help?”
“No,” Qui-Gon says in a voice that brooks no opposition, and Anakin beats a hasty retreat.
Anakin keeps a close eye on the door, but his master does not appear until late afternoon.
Am I doing something wrong? he wonders, feeling helpless and hating it. He can’t stand feeling like this - knowing something’s not right but not understanding how to fix it. With machines, there’s a diagram to help you repair a problem, diagnostic tools to identify an issue. With people, there’s only words - and Anakin’s no good at that.
When Qui-Gon finally emerges, it is almost evening. Anakin is waiting, resigned, for Qui-Gon to notice him and to initiate their nightly meditation.
“Let’s try somewhere different tonight, Ani,” Qui-Gon says unexpectedly. He opens the balcony door and beckons Anakin to follow him.
They have not used the balcony for quite a while. But during the time it had been the three of them in these quarters, Qui-Gon had liked to come out here. Far below them, Anakin can hear water cascading from a fountain. Far above them, the transparisteel ceiling is open to the Coruscanti night sky. If he cranes his neck to look directly up, he can see a small sector of the sky, crowded with ships and transports, and the few faint stars bright enough to be seen against Coruscant’s light.
Anakin feels like there is a string that goes from under his chest out into the galaxy. He can never feel entirely present in his own body, because he will often feel a tug on that string that pulls him out of the present and back across the millions of black sky and stars back to Tatooine. Perhaps his mother is thinking of him in those moments, worrying over him, remembering him with love and affection. It comforts him to think that his mother might feel those same tugs, so he thinks of her the way he would pull on her sleeve when he was much younger, Notice me, remember me.
He thinks, from the look on his master’s face, that Qui-Gon feels the same way. They sit on the balcony and look up at the bright Coruscanti sky, too bright to see most stars, and yet Anakin thinks he can tell where two suns might be, for Tatooine, and Qui-Gon’s eyes are drawn to an empty corner of the sky.