Chapter Text
[02.20 hours, 19.11.5199]
Qui-Gon’s dreams were uneasy, full of nebulous forebodings and whispers of the Dark. It was like wading through muck. He felt half-lucid, helpless and trapped, carried along on Force currents he had no control nor knowledge of.
He kept slipping away, unable to focus on any of it. Qui-Gon tried to snatch at even a hint of awareness, but it skittered away from him, continually just out of reach.
Suddenly the Force reared up and screamed in alarm. Qui-Gon had almost wrenched himself free, grasping for that note of panic, when a punishing grip forced him down.
He felt a cold sting in his shoulder, and almost immediately his body fell away from him. He was powerless to fight the sudden weight of his body. A heat spread through him slowly, and it was almost too much, prickling at his nerve endings and eating away at his awareness. He wanted to fight it, knew he had to fight it. But every shred of strength he’d had was slipping away…
“It’s all right, my Master,” a soft, familiar voice whispered soothingly into his ear. “You’re safe, here.”
No, that was wrong. He should be safe here, but that voice…
His companion laughed, not unkindly. For some reason that surprised him, as if he’d expected something colder and crueler. “You always were a stubborn man, my Master. Stubborn, self-sacrificing bastard,” the voice added, laced with bitter regret.
That sounded much more real to him; that bitterness, the caring warmth that masked a cold and calculating edge. He should nt feel safe with this voice, he should pull away—
“Ah-ah, Master, but you can’t go anywhere. You can’t hide from me.”
A dark, viscous and oily presence was pushing against his shields, and it was getting so hard to resist. He’d felt alone for so long…
But that wasn’t right, either.
Obi-Wan! He reached—flung his awareness out desperately and found nothing. He’d shut his Padawan out, blocked their bond on the pretext of some stupid argument—and now he couldn’t find his way back.
“That’s right, Master. How like you, pushing everyone else away to make yourself a martyr. But you’ll never be rid of me,” the voice added with what sounded like a sick smile. “I promise you, I will be with you, always.”
Force and gods, now he knew that voice. He cold never have forgotten it, but the mocking demon with his Padawan’s voice and form had been laid to rest years ago. And Qui-Gon had made his peace with that nightmare, not long after. He’d had a Padawan to train, to protect. He could not afford to be haunted by the ghost of the one he’d trained before.
He thought of Obi-Wan’s pale face, of the tears tracking down his cheeks in the harsh light of the reactor room. He drew on that, on the knowledge that Obi-Wan needed him—even if it was less true now than it had been back then. Qui-Gon pushed with every last bit of strength he had, and then he surfaced, starting awake in pitch blackness.
Cold, electrical prickling danced over his skin, a lingering sensation of being watched. Qui-Gon was terrified of it—too much like the long and empty years after Xan’s Fall, when he’d gone from one mission to the next, feeling a presence hovering over his head like a poised dagger.
Heart racing, Qui-Gon tried to push up on his elbows, but his body was still beyond his command. He tried, then, to turn his head, and dared to steal a look over the edge of his bed before the effort proved too much.
There was a cot at his side, supporting a comically overlarge bundle. It confused him for a moment before the pain drew back enough to let him think, before he realised he’d seen desert-blonde hair, and then his mind’s eye distinguished the small form snuggled up in Obi-Wan’s embrace. Despite their rough start, the two seemed to have found some common ground, now.
The Force had settled into an uneasy hum. It wasn’t quite peace, but it wasn’t an immediate threat. Qui-Gon’s damaged, damaged body gave out on him at last, and he let go, tumbling back into unconsciousness.
He slept without dreams.