Work Text:
Qui-Gon's body was still in the building.
That's all Obi-Wan could think about, during the endless post-battle meetings and discussions and organizing.
He'd had to go, he told himself. He had to leave. They were in the middle of retaking a capitol--a planet--back under control from occupation. They didn't have time to go about finding all the bodies yet. Not even of Jedi.
He had to show control, diligence, dignity, responsibility. Everything Qui-Gon had told him, taught him.
But he'd never been responsible for something like this by himself. And he kept thinking about the fact that not so far away, under the very same roof, Qui-Gon's body was sitting on the ground, lukewarm, lifeless, bloody, and stiff.
He'd told them. He had to. Someone had to. He’d told everyone what happened to his Master, how it happened, and later, where his body was.
That is, after he'd finally managed the strength to actually get up and leave the room of the battle, to stop crying as he held Qui-Gon's slowly weakening and slackening form, to stop whispering pointless protests over and over under his breath, holding the man who'd raised him, taught him, cared for him.
Were it not for the Force, he wouldn't have even known the moment Qui-Gon was gone . The silent death of their Force bond accompanied it--it was there one second and then gone the next as if it had never existed, despite the proof he held in his arms and rested against his legs. Despite the tears that ran down his face. But there was no moment in Qui-Gon's body that signified his immediate death. And why should there be? There never had been for any other death Obi-Wan had witnessed.
The idea that someone he loved had died within a span of time he knew for certain, but he could not tell at which moment his grief became true, it seemed unthinkable. Unbearable.
But he held it together. At least after he stepped outside of that room. After he collected himself, biting his lip and resting his chin for only a second on the body that was still and growing noticeably cooler without an internal system to keep itself warm, before raising his head and moving.
He'd laid his Master down again, as gentle as possible, as neat as possible, crossing Qui-Gon's arms together carefully across his chest--it was usually the stomach, for Jedi, but--
He'd knelt next to his Master, his mentor, and now--his corpse to maintain. And every moment had felt like another last one, like he needed to make them count. Make them worth something. Obi-Wan had whispered carefully that he'd be back. He knew Qui-Gon couldn't hear him. But he had to say it.
And then he stood. And he was a Jedi on a mission again, and not just a Padawan grieving his Master.
And he told them, once he had dashed back into the fray and found that most of the damage that would be done, was done, and all of their main goals of the mission were completed. It went better than expected, actually. There were casualties and destruction and the short- and long-term effects of such a monumental political issue, but it had gone so well, so much better than expected, for a situation so delicate.
They should have been celebrating. Would have been celebrating. He could already hear in his head what Qui-Gon would be saying--he knew his Master had been preparing for the post-mission chaos and structure, relying on it, to be able to talk to him properly when they were not needed and working, about so many things that needed to be discussed.
That wouldn't happen now.
There had been many smiles when he returned, if also many harried faces. Though he tried to look the part of an unburdened, serene Jedi, the smiles were gone as soon as they'd seen his face.
Where is Master Jinn? they had said. They knew by his face already what the answer would be, but still he was forced to say it.
When he mentioned, as briefly as possible, the necessary information of what had happened, some looked sad. Some looked politely sympathetic. Padme, for all her youthful composure, looked genuinely upset. Captain Panaka expressed his strongest sympathies. And Anakin… he was more distraught than anyone else on the entire planet except Obi-Wan, but he was almost more contained than those among the current company who barely knew who Master Jinn was.
Obi-Wan knew what it looked like when a child had been through too much too early in life. He'd been that child.
He comforted Anakin, as well as he could in a public setting and without breaking down himself. The boy followed him now, with nowhere else to go, no other tether to connect him to anything else in this moment.
Anakin was afraid. He was unsure. He was distressed.
Obi-Wan felt the same.
He had to tell the Council, too. He had to make the call, had to answer that same damned question, had to give them the details himself, give his own interpretation and summary of the events of what had happened on Naboo. At least enough for now--there'd be a report later where he'd have to go into more detail.
They said they'd send an envoy right away--Jedi did not die in battle every day. There were rules. There were traditions. There were things only Jedi could do to look over the body of a fallen member.
He walked around the rest of the day, feeling lifeless, empty and too-full, scooped out and hollowed, as if when Qui-Gon had died, he'd taken parts of Obi-Wan with him, too.
(He thought about the Force bond, and figured maybe he had.)
Obi-Wan went about the necessities required of him, and when he wasn't needed, he tended to Anakin. It should've felt tedious and long, but he'd had very few days that passed so quickly.
The envoy was there before night fell.
Obi-Wan sent Anakin away: to be with Padme and the others. He suspected the boy had seen much, but that didn't mean he had to see more.
Masters Windu, Koon, and Mundi were sent. Master Mundi had stayed behind with the Queen, while Masters Windu and Koon followed him silently, traversing calmly through the levels he had fought through earlier, slowly and steadily to where Qui-Gon had fallen.
It was exactly the same as before. The only difference now was that those damned ray shields were properly deactivated. He didn't even know what purpose they served, besides aiding that monster in determining Qui-Gon's fate.
The Masters didn't have much to say. Slow inhales, sad head shakes, soft words meant for the dead alone. Obi-Wan tried not to react. He tried not to cry. He tried to look at the stiff, dirty body on the floor directly without feeling something terrible and ugly rise inside him.
He failed.
They comforted him. Master Windu was a man of few words, but he made them count, and he had a disposition that made it easy to trust he could take care of anything he was put in charge of. Master Koon was kind and gentle and more than once, he placed a hand on Obi-Wan's arm or shoulder or back to steady him, speaking quietly.
Both traits reminded him too much of Qui-Gon.
Both of them he’d be forever thankful to for their arrival and the fact he didn't have to tend to the matters of managing what to do with Qui-Gon's body alone after that. He didn't think he could've held his composure if he had.
There was a celebration on Naboo a few days afterwards, hastily put together, but sincere.
Qui-Gon's body was waiting in the morgue by that point.
By the time the celebrations were over, it had been two days since Qui-Gon's death. By the time that the Masters had settled in whatever other business they had to look over, Obi-Wan had given his long and painful report to them personally, and they had relayed it back to the Council, it had been three. By the time they finished arguing about the matter of Anakin, and Qui-Gon's final wish, deciding it better that they all return to Coruscant before making a decision, it was five.
Seven days passed, and Qui-Gon's funeral was held. The Queen was there. Anakin was there--of course, he had nowhere else to go. Satine was there. Other Jedi were there, now, too. A lot of people Obi-Wan had never met but apparently had a lot to say about Qui-Gon Jinn were there. Obi-Wan had been knighted the very same day, earlier. Both Mace and Plo told him in private that they were uncertain how the Council would fall on the matter of Anakin, but it could go either way. Obi-Wan held himself together as best as he could, staring into the flames as they consumed what remained of his Master.
Since he had been knighted with no living Master, Master Windu had cut his Padawan braid for him earlier, in a much quicker and smaller moment than traditional that the man had kindly lended as much weight as he could. Obi-Wan was grateful.
The braid was in the pyre now. No matter what, Obi-Wan couldn't imagine giving it to anyone else, had no one else to give it to. It only belonged to one person, and one person only--he'd placed it carefully in his Master's still hand before they'd moved his body out for the ceremony.
And then they--the Master, Anakin, and Obi-Wan--were gone. There was nothing left on Naboo for them, nothing important left on the whole planet where Obi-Wan's whole life had changed in the course of a single moment, a single battle, a single mission. They were headed back to Coruscant.
Qui-Gon Jinn was dead.