Chapter Text
"…there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force."
Obi-Wan watches as the flames rise around his Master's body. Grief and anger are like a heavy weight on his chest. He tries to just breathe, to let it go with each breath, but he's not strong enough to move the weight. Qui-Gon's absence in the Force is like hard vacuum - maybe it's sucking his air away.
He hasn't slept well since the battle, but that night he stares at the stone ceiling of his room in the palace until his body's exhaustion pulls him under.
He does not dream.
When his eyes open he sees metal panelling, and startles the rest of the way awake. He bangs his head when he sits up and he realizes he's in his bunk on the Royal Starship, and he has no idea how he got there.
He can feel Qui-Gon coming awake in the bunk below him, roused by Obi-Wan's burst of confusion, and it feels perfectly normal for a moment before he remembers that no, it isn't, at all. He throws himself down to the floor, landing badly in his haste, and stares. Qui-Gon is somehow returned to him. And then it hits him: he's in Marmota.
***
The re-lived day is one of the strangest mysteries of the Jedi: a passage in a Jedi's life when the Force knots Time itself around their individual consciousness, allowing them to revise and repeat their actions until harmony with the Force is achieved.
***
Obi-Wan can hardly begin to name the emotions he must be throwing off - relief, terror, desperation. Qui-Gon is reaching his mind out in all directions, trying to find the threat to his padawan, peering at him with concern.
Obi-Wan makes himself choke out the words: "Master," he says, "I am between tomorrow and yesterday."
Qui-Gon relaxes, and raises his eyebrows at him, all warm interest. "Ah, Obi-Wan! Marmota now? Unexpected."
That isn't the ritual response, but Obi-Wan is only too glad to abandon custom. "You're alive," he breathes, "Oh, Master," and he sinks down, resting his forehead against the backs of Qui-Gon's fingers where they curl over the edge of the mattress.
He feels just a flicker from Qui-Gon as he takes in the implications; hears one deeper breath. And then Qui-Gon strokes his other hand over Obi-Wan's hair, projecting calm. "In the Force there is only today," Obi-Wan hears him murmur, the formality he had discarded before.
***
Although a few non-Jedi have undergone Marmota, it is rare; in contrast, almost all Jedi will experience the looping at some point in their lives.
***
Obi-Wan isn't sure how long he kneels there, soaking up Qui-Gon's presence. Finally he remembers that if they're going with traditional Marmota customs, his Master isn't going to ask him anything; it's up to Obi-Wan to decide what he wants to tell him. He lifts his head; Qui-Gon is looking down at him steadily, patiently.
He wants to tell him all of it, he's just not sure where to start.
"I've only just gone in," he tells Qui-Gon. "I mean, this is my first time back. My second today."
Qui-Gon nods. "I had guessed - "
"When is today?" Obi-Wan interrupts, then catches himself. "Forgive me."
Qui-Gon sets one big hand on the crown of his head. "There is no shame in being off-balance," he says. "The first turn of your Marmota must always come by surprise. You will find your center soon."
Obi-Wan closes his eyes. "You died," he says, "In three, or four days. The warrior you fought on Tatooine was there, will be there, in Theed. He killed you." He's not sure he will ever feel properly centered again.
"Here and now, I am alive," Qui-Gon says. "Meditate with me, and put your thoughts in order. I think your loop is not so short that you must act immediately."
***
The archetypal Marmota comprises one wake-to-sleep cycle for the individual in question, but this is by no means universal.
***
They meditate, and rehydrate some of the ship's rations for a morning meal. Qui-Gon busies himself with Anakin and Jar-Jar and Captain Panaka and the Queen, leaving Obi-Wan to compose himself until he thinks he can talk without falling to pieces. Then they close themselves in their tiny bunkroom, and Obi-Wan tells his Master every detail he can think of: the Gungans, the assault on Theed, the probably-Sith warrior, the generator room and the force fields. Anakin's unlikely flight.
Qui-Gon listens to the details of his death soberly, but seems more concerned with what Obi-Wan can tell him about the failure of the Bravo Squadron attack on the Droid Control Ship.
"When I said he had a great future as a Jedi I didn't mean that soon!" Qui-Gon says, almost chuckling; Obi-Wan supposes he deserves to be proud, but it's hard not to feel the minutes slipping by. He doesn't want to spend them talking about Anakin. "But that is a great weight for a nine-year-old boy, to turn the tide of a battle, and I don't like that the Gungans' lives hang on a fortuity." He frowns. "Nothing happens by accident, but if the Force is in motion in your Marmota, we cannot assume events will play out identically. We must advise Bravo Squadron to target the hangars."
"And we must go over our tactics against the Sith warrior," Obi-Wan says. He's actually getting a second chance; there's only so much he can worry about whether Anakin can repeat his improbable stunt. "If we can deny him the advantage of separating us I'm sure we can defeat him together."
He isn't sure; he's still half-terrified that knowing is not enough, that he's going to fail his Master again. That he might have to watch him die again, perhaps more than once. He refuses to think about what he knows about how Marmotas go; there is only the moment, the plan, the enemy to be defeated.
***
Jedi from species without circadian rhythms sometimes find their Marmota synchronized to some other chronobiological cycle, particularly those relevant to memory consolidation, for example cud-chewing in the Aus Bovii people of Rochsant.
***
Obi-Wan had woken up from his first night of sleep on the ship, so they have one more night before they reach Naboo. Then three nights with the Gungans while they mass their army, then the battle. Obi-Wan does exercises and saber katas and tries not to stare at his Master like it's the last time he will ever see him. It is not. It is not. He's going to live. This time they will defeat the Sith together.
He tries to enjoy their little moments of foreknowledge, the smile they share when Padme announces herself. Qui-Gon, he thinks, had already known; Obi-Wan is glad to be in on the secret this time. They haven't told anyone else about his situation. While there is no prohibition on speaking of the Marmota outside the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan knows that outsiders usually find it hard to believe, or react badly.
***
The termini of a Marmota loop are not bound to quiescent moments for the individual. Many Jedi have reported Marmota experiences beginning or ending in the midst of action, including training, piloting, public speaking, and combat.
***
They sneak into Theed. The Sith, Obi-Wan thinks, the Sith will be in the hangar bay, and so he's hardly paying attention to the streets around him when a stray blaster bolt catches Qui-Gon in the back. Qui-Gon doesn't even get a chance to speak; blaster fire to the spine is quick. One second he's next to Obi-Wan, the next he's on the ground.
I didn't have his back, Obi-Wan thinks in horror.
Obi-Wan wants to lie down in the street and die with him, but he knows he has to get the rest of the party into the palace. He takes Qui-Gon's lightsaber, instead, and when the Sith severs the hilt of his he's ready, he draws his Master's weapon and delivers a death blow before the warrior even realizes he's not disarmed.
The warrior hisses at him as he dies, and Obi-Wan starts the long walk back to Qui-Gon's body. At some point, the battle droids turn off - Anakin again, or improved Bravo Squadron tactics, he doesn't care.
The body is, at least, still there. Obi-Wan sits down and picks up his Master's hand. "Some second chance," he says bitterly. At least, the first time, he had fought with all his skill, and had only been stymied by the force fields. He can't believe he just lost his Master to something as stupid as droid-fired blaster bolts, something the least experienced padawan should have been able to deflect! How many times had Qui-Gon told him not to focus on the future at the expense of the moment? With all his concentration on the approaching duel, he had forgotten that other things could go differently as well.
The thought starts to bubble up inside him like acid: and they still could. He's in Marmota - this might not be any more final than Qui-Gon's first death. If he loops again, he can still make this right.
He goes through the days again, counts on his fingers, then on Qui-Gon's for something to do. Last time, he had contacted the Jedi Council the night of the battle. They had arrived three days later, he had told them about the warrior, they had decided to count the duel as the main part of his Trial, he had gone through the rest of the formalities and Knighthood meditation, and they had Qui-Gon's funeral on the evening of the fifth day after the battle.
It's horrible to imagine waiting five days to find out if he gets another chance, but Obi-Wan doesn't see what else he can do. Put himself in a trance, but Qui-Gon wouldn't like that; Qui-Gon would want him to take care of Anakin, even if this Qui-Gon never got the chance to say it. Besides, Obi-Wan is a Jedi Knight (or he was, last time, and might be again soon; he has no idea how rank changes work during a Marmota). He's supposed to be courageous. He can get through five days.
***
Although called the re-lived day, the duration of the Marmota episode can vary wildly. The shortest known Marmota cycle was experienced by Master Strai Sacchra, who found herself walking down a hundred-foot corridor in the teaching wing of the East Temple on Paffress, returning to the beginning of the hallway whenever she reached the end. Feeling no need to sprint or dawdle, she continued to walk the corridor at a comfortable pace, taking about twenty-five seconds each time, until on the four hundred twenty-second traverse she passed through the far archway and reached the top of the stairs.
***
The Council Masters arrive, but Obi-Wan really doesn't want to have to explain how stupid he was.
"I'm between tomorrow and yesterday," he tells them, as soon as he is expected to begin his report. "Can we just - wait? If this still happened three days from now, I'll tell everything then."
"In the Force there is only today," Master Windu says reprovingly, but Master Yoda motions him to silence.
"Meditate you should," he tells Obi-Wan, not unkindly. "Hard for you this mission has been."
As an official order, this comes as a relief; Obi-Wan leaves Anakin to the Queen and her people, and retires to his room. In the discipline of meditation, he can acknowledge his grief and set it aside; he can let his fear pass through him, and still be there when it has gone.
He has to come out for Qui-Gon's funeral, and it is, if anything, harder than the first time. The first time, there had at least been certainty. Now there is the possibility of hope that it might not have to end this way after all, and it stabs. Obi-Wan stares into the fire and his lungs fill with the sharp edges of fear, catching his breath and cutting him from the inside. This cannot be his only cycle. He needs another chance.
***
The longest Marmota loop is thought to be that of Marco Stoneheaper on Dian, who, dying of senescence at the age of eighty-seven, was surprised to find himself suddenly a young man of twenty again. Stoneheaper shepherded his people six times through a difficult societal transition from feudalism to a parliamentary system, until on his final cycle he instead traveled to the remote Jedi monastery on Mhichil and spent the remaining sixty-six years in meditation, declaring that they could "just as well sort it out themselves this time".
***
He wakes up on the ship again, a gasp of relief and joy. Now that it's happened twice, he feels like he can trust it: he's going to get to do it again and again until he gets it right.
Obi-Wan laughs until he cries. When he finally winds down, he sees Qui-Gon standing on the floor beside their bunks, looking in on him with concern.
"Marmota," he says, helplessly, and Qui-Gon makes him meditate for an hour before he tells him anything else.
***
The story of Stoneheaper's six eventful lives on Dian, as written down by a fellow monk over the course of many years, is one of the few Marmota narratives to be widely known outside the Jedi Order. Most outside commentators have read it as pure fiction, and even serious investigators have been hard pressed to identify any character matchable to a real person whom Stoneheaper could not have already known before leaving for Mhichil.
***
Obi-Wan is centered, mindful, flowing with the Force. They make it to Theed, to the hangar, to the catwalks, and Qui-Gon dies when the warrior kicks out his knee and stabs him in the gut.
Obi-Wan is two catwalks down when it happens, where he fell from his own kick, and he jumps back up and kills Maul almost on autopilot.
Qui-Gon is still alive when he reaches him.
"Hold on," Obi-Wan tells him, "You are not dying this time, we're going to get you to a bacta tank and you're going to be just fine."
Qui-Gon, maddeningly, shakes his head. "There will be many injured citizens, I can not - " he coughs, black blood oozing from the corner of his mouth - "live at their expense."
That's very principled, but Obi-Wan is the one who's up and moving; he starts looking around for something he can use to transport his Master.
But Qui-Gon grabs his hand. "Obi-Wan," he rasps, "You... you have to..."
Obi-Wan has heard this before. "Anakin, right," he says, still thinking there's time, there has to be time. He can run back to the hangar, find some kind of cart there -
"No," Qui-Gon says, voice almost gone, "You work on those side blocks if you loop again," and then his presence in the Force is dwindling and winking out.
They had trained, while waiting for the Gungans to mass their army. Obi-Wan had taken the role of the dark warrior, had tried to imitate his moves well enough to show Qui-Gon what they would be facing. They'd practiced dodges and parries, tried to work out the best combinations to use against his double-ended weapon. It had been a little strange for Obi-Wan to realize that on the basis of two loops, he well might be the living Jedi who had fought the most duels against a Sith.
Side blocks, Obi-Wan thinks, and starts going over all the steps of the latest duel.
***
Ultimately, Jedi know that the reality of Marmota cannot be proven to someone who disbelieves. After all, once harmony is achieved, no evidence remains outside the Jedi's consciousness that any other course of events ever occurred.
***
Perhaps because Qui-Gon hadn't asked him to train Anakin this time around, Obi-Wan feels ironically bound to check in on him. The boy is giddy about his accidental heroics, sad about Qui-Gon, moony over Padme, and it's all about an inch deep. It's hard to believe he could be dangerous, hard to imagine him full of anger and hate.
The funeral is wretched again, if less agonizing than the first two times. The hole in the Force where Qui-Gon should be is like a knocked-out tooth, and Obi-Wan can't stop poking the gap; Anakin, beside him, is like something sharp stuck in his gums. It's all raw and wrong. He can't wait to sleep, to wake up where things are right.
***
The possession of impossible information proves nothing when presented by members of an Order known for prophetic and telepathic powers. No one can remember some one else's Marmota to observe it directly.
***
In the Gungan forest, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon rehearse again for the duel. Obi-Wan tries cutting a sapling, to imitate the reach of the double red saber, but it's worse than useless, far too slow and heavy. A lightsaber blade has no mass, no air resistance.
If they were back at the Temple, he could design a training simulation, but there's no equipment for anything like that here. If he had more time, maybe he could come up with a set of countermove drills that would be useful even if practiced solo, without the right opponent.
"You're between tomorrow and yesterday," Qui-Gon tells him with a quirked eyebrow, when Obi-Wan says as much. And that's fair - if what the Force wants from him is a new set of drills, then Obi-Wan has essentially unlimited time to come up with them. But he doesn't want to, doesn't want to keep looping around watching Qui-Gon die.
"Is it strange for you," he asks instead, "Knowing that if my Marmota continues, it will be like this, now, never happened?"
Qui-Gon opens his mouth a little, then stops. "I was going to say 'In the Force there is only today'," he says, "But that's not the whole answer."
He motions Obi-Wan to sit down on their makeshift training ground.
"If what we do now is going to be overwritten in the turning of time, then in one sense, my greatest responsibility must be to you, to give you aid and guidance you can carry with you to your next today."
Obi-Wan bites his lip; he hadn't thought at all about how his Master might see his role in his Marmota.
"But for the people around us, if this, now, is the only instant these particular consciousnesses will exist, then I am the Qui-Gon that exists for them. You will find your path to harmony in your own time; my responsibility must be to them."
He smiles at Obi-Wan. "So you see, I am pulled this way and that way, and it works out to much the same as always. In the Force there is only today."
***
The Marmota of fewest repetitions has been attributed to the padawan Blo Saabi, who allegedly took a mathematics exam, entered Marmota, took it one more time with greater success, and did not loop again.
***
They fight the warrior on the catwalks, lightsabers whirling in lurid arcs. Obi-Wan leaps, slashes, blocks, and they're doing it, they're forcing the warrior onto the defensive. They've got him pinned between them, and Obi-Wan can practically feel a gap in his defense approaching, they're so close, when -
It's a blade pass that takes Qui-Gon, a particular whipping lunge they haven't seen the warrior use before. Obi-Wan swings to parry the closer blade of the double saber, but the warrior deactivates it at the last second, continuing the motion with only the far blade extended. Qui-Gon has already moved to attack, anticipating Obi-Wan's block, and the unimpeded motion intersects exactly with his neck.
The desperate move has left the warrior unguarded, and even as Qui-Gon's head is tumbling down from his shoulders, Obi-Wan is plunging his blade into the warrior's unprotected flank.
And then Obi-Wan is the only one standing on the catwalk, two bodies at his feet.
His Master's head has rolled a little bit away. It's face down, facing away from him. Obi-Wan could go and pick it up, could go and have one last look at this Qui-Gon's face.
Obi-Wan notices long, fine strands, grey and brown, scattered across the catwalk. When the lightsaber severed Qui-Gon's neck, he realizes, it also cut through the length of his hair.
He doesn't want to pick up the head. He doesn't want to look at the body. And somehow, most of all, he doesn't want to step on the helpless, fallen strands of his Master's hair.
They find him there, later, still standing, stilling the tiny breezes that move through the generator complex, so that none of the little strands will blow away.
***
Padawan Saabi also being one of the younger Jedi to ever report Marmota, some Masters at the time questioned whether his experience was truly that of Marmota, or whether he might have dozed off, dreamed he was taking the test, and then woken up when it began in fact. However, Saabi never reported a second more substantial Marmota, lending credence to the idea that, in fact, the Force just needed him to pass that exam.
***
The next time he fights the duel, he's aggressive, pushing the attack where his normal forms would concentrate on defense. The Sith can't strike down Qui-Gon if Obi-Wan keeps him too hard-pressed to make the kill.
Obi-Wan can feel Qui-Gon's concern for him, but he tries to ignore it, to focus only on the rhythm of blades. Until Qui-Gon's worry flares into panic, and the Sith's lightsaber bites into Obi-Wan's groin, severing his leg at the hip.
It is a pain beyond fire. It is unimaginable. Obi-Wan crumples. Dimly, through greying vision, he sees the warrior transfixed on Qui-Gon's blade. Yes, he thinks, of course, of course this was the solution. How easy. How perfect. He finally got it right.
He thinks he hears Qui-Gon's voice, but everything is black.
***
Marmota cannot be initiated or controlled, only lived. Perhaps Saabi would rather have saved his re-lived day for more dire circumstances. The Force chose otherwise.
***
Waking is an awareness of the pressure of the bunk against his back, then the scratchiness of the sheet brushing his neck and hands.
Obi-Wan stays still, eyes closed, and feels the blood moving in his arteries. The beating of his heart in his chest.
He stretches, a little bit, ankles, knees, wrists, elbows. The motion-sensitive lights notice and the black inside his eyelids turns red.
The metal panelling of the bunkroom is decorated with a pattern of tiny indentations. Behind the walls he can feel the struts of the starship's skeleton, the flows of energy and coolant, the breathing of the atmospheric system taking his exhalations, like lovers passing a breath back and forth.
He can hear Qui-Gon breathing in the bunk below, slow, deep, and measured, catching just a little as Obi-Wan moves his fingertips to his forehead and down over his own face, down his neck, his chest, his intact, marvelous body.
"Did you ever die, in your Marmota?" he asks.
"You know this," Qui-Gon rumbles. "I did not."
"I thought maybe you could tell me now that I'm in mine," Obi-Wan says, "Maybe it's one of the mysteries that can't be shared before the right time."
The blood in his femoral artery is like a torrent. How does he walk around every day not thinking of how he has a rushing, raging river inside his leg?
"Oh, Obi," Qui-Gon says. "Oh, my padawan."
***