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Quinlan Vos appears like a phantom—his presence is sudden, startling, and usually a bad omen. A fact Obi-Wan has known since childhood, when Quinlan got them both assigned to garbage duty for borrowing Master Yoda’s Delta-7 starfighter from the Temple shuttlebay, an event which Obi-Wan insists to this day was neither his idea nor his fault.
Now, it’s 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and Obi-Wan is finishing up his final paperwork to make his Knighthood official when the phantom practically kicks down his door.
Quinlan is striding into his quarters without even a hello.
Obi-Wan drops the data pad in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
“Babysitting,” Quinlan says pleasantly.
“What?”
“Babysitting,” he repeats. He crosses the small living space and pulls out a kitchen stool with his foot, climbing on and starting to eat the crackers Anakin must've left out. “Well, actually Luminara is babysitting. You and I are getting drunk.”
“What?”
“For fuck’s sake, pick a different word. And go comb your hair. I don't wanna be seen with a Wookiie.”
Obi-Wan stares in bewilderment, just stopping himself from asking the question for the third time. He shouldn't still have this reaction to Quinlan—shouldn't still be surprised that this strange person is his friend, and that he is here, digging through Obi-Wan’s conservator as though it belongs to him. He's even more surprised that he finds it—heaven help him—endearing.
“So where is the terror?” Quinlan says, face now stuffed with Obi-Wan’s leftover giju slider from a few days ago—lovely . “Nap time?”
“He's ten, Quin. They don't take naps anymore.”
Quinlan huffs. “You're never too old for naps.”
Obi-Wan stands from the couch and crosses to his bedroom. And, begrudgingly, does flatten his ruffled hair into something mildly presentable.
“He's in class,” Obi-Wan finally answers, calling back into the kitchen. “And I have to pick him up in twenty minutes so we can go to the training dojos and—”
“Correction—Luminara has to pick him up in twenty minutes.”
“I—no. I'm not going anywhere tonight. You and Lumi go on and have your fun. I have...you know,” Obi-Wan says. “My life is different now.”
And as the words land lightly between them, Obi-Wan steps out into the living room again and stares at the space around him—a space he hardly recognizes now. When Qui-Gon lived here, the rooms had been filled with plants and vines and flowers from planets Obi-Wan couldn’t even name, and most of which he was forbidden to touch after he’d killed a few trying to “water” them. Qui-Gon’s boots and other various belongings had littered the floor. The kitchen sink had usually been full to the brim with dishes, Qui-Gon’s unfinished mugs of tea on the counter.
Now, Anakin’s little shoes are the ones blocking the doorway, his unfinished breakfast on the table. There’s crumpled homework in the corner by the meditation pads, and a few mechanical parts near where Anakin usually likes to sit. This is not his home—it is , he knows. But still it can’t be.
The phantom appears in front of him again—suddenly Quinlan is there, reaching for his shoulder.
Obi-Wan dodges it.
Quinlan drops his hand. “I know,” he says. “It is different. But not everything has to be. We’re still your friends, Obi-Wan. That’s not changing.” He turns, starts back toward the kitchen. Obi-Wan isn’t looking, but he can practically hear the ridiculous grin on his face as he says, “so let’s get wasted!”
He starts drumming on the kitchen counter, then the oven handle, before throwing open the cabinets with such force they probably dent the wall, singing loudly and off-key to a song Obi-Wan doesn’t even recognize. The sight is so ridiculous, and so contrary to everything he’s encountered in the past few weeks, that Obi-Wan actually has to choke back a laugh.
Obi-Wan is still standing in the doorway when Quinlan cries out, “score!”
He manages to unfreeze and return to the kitchen. And— ah, there it is— Quinlan has discovered Qui-Gon’s old supply of liquor.
“We can’t drink that,” Obi-Wan says automatically.
“Why not?”
“It’s not ours.”
“Oh my god, Obi-Wan, what are you, seventeen? ‘Oh nooooo, Quinlan, we can’t steal my Master’s tequila! That would be unethical!’ ” he sings in an obnoxious falsetto. Obi-Wan crosses his arms. “You’re an adult. Qui-Gon is gone. Therefore, his liquor is our liquor.”
Obi-Wan scoffs. Leave it to Quinlan to put things bluntly. Still, though—ever since it happened, everyone he knows has tip-toed around the situation, offering the gentle clichés of “I’m sorry for your loss” and “I’m here if you need anything.” For once, Obi-Wan is grateful for someone who can just state the facts, no sugar-coating involved: Qui-Gon is dead.
And, Obi-Wan decides—they are, perhaps, going to get drunk.
Quinlan mixes the drinks. Meaning that they come out much stronger than Obi-Wan probably would’ve made them, only a little less painful than doing shots.
When Quinlan picks up the handle of vodka, he almost sets it down. “Wow.”
Obi-Wan is sitting at the kitchen table, finishing his second gin and tonic. “What is it?”
Quinlan laughs. “Your Master had some wild times the last time he drank this.”
“What? No way. What are you seeing?”
Quinlan still has his hand on the bottle—his eyes far away, the look he always got when sensing the memories attached to something. Obi-Wan is still fascinated by his psychometry even now.
Quinlan laughs again. “Wow. Okay. Also, Master Windu can dance. That’s something I certainly didn’t know.”
Maybe it’s the alcohol, but Obi-Wan finds himself laughing. He doesn’t remember the last time that happened. “You’re kidding.”
“And not just dance—dance on a table.”
“No!”
It goes on this way—Quinlan describing the scene, Obi-Wan wishing he could see it for himself. Growing up, they used to make a game of this. They’d pick a random object, Obi-Wan would dream up a backstory for it, and Quinlan would touch it to see if he was right.
Obi-Wan doesn’t remember many of them, but he does remember this—once, after he’d just become Qui-Gon’s Padawan. Quinlan had come over to his new quarters in Qui-Gon’s place, and looked around, and they’d played the game then. Obi-Wan had picked Qui-Gon’s lightsaber, and came up with a heroic history of all the places it had once been.
But when Quinlan had touched it, his smile faded. He never did tell Obi-Wan what he’d seen.
Quinlan must see Obi-Wan’s attention wane, because he stops describing Master Windu’s slightly inappropriate dance moves. On their fourth round of drinks now, they’ve settled into the living room, sitting on the floor with their backs to the couch.
Qui-Gon’s lightsaber—the one Obi-Wan has been using, ever since—sits on the table. They both stare at it.
“He didn’t want a Padawan, you know,” Obi-Wan says quietly. He doesn’t even remember deciding to say it—the gin has made him spill. “He didn’t want me.”
Anyone else would’ve denied it—assured him it wasn’t true. Quinlan just says, “I know.”
“And I don’t think I ever really forgot that. Feeling like my connection with him was…conditional. Like I was a liability.” He gives a shaky sigh. “I know, logically, that he did come around. He saw goodness in me. He raised me. But…”
His voice trails off. He is glad that Quinlan is never at a loss for words.
“But you still wondered if he doubted his choice.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t answer.
Quinlan sets his drink down on the table. Obi-Wan’s vision is swimming as he watches it, but he takes another swig of his own.
“Remember when I touched his lightsaber? And what I saw…I wouldn’t tell you?”
Obi-Wan nods.
Quinlan opens his mouth, then closes it. “There were…a lot of reasons why. Why he didn’t want to train anyone else,” he says. “But not one of them, Obi-Wan—not one of them had anything to do with you.”
Obi-Wan nods again—that seems to be all he can do.
“I know,” he says. “Like I said. Logically.”
He waves his hand vaguely, as if that will help explain the unexplainable. Of course, it doesn’t.
Obi-Wan leans his head back against the couch, feeling the hard ground slide beneath him as he slouches further down. Beside him, he hears Quinlan breathing. Focuses on that.
Which is why he notices too late—that Quinlan has sat up, then stood.
That Quinlan has reached for Qui-Gon’s lightsaber.
Obi-Wan stands too slowly, shouting “No! Don’t touch it!” as the whole room seems to spin around them, and then his hands are against Quinlan’s chest as he shoves him, knocks him to the ground.
He lands on his back on the living room floor. Still clutching the lightsaber.
The moments that follow feel endless—Obi-Wan, standing frozen as the galaxy swirls around him dizzyingly. Quinlan, knocked to the floor. The scuffle took down one of the glasses of liquor, and the carpet is soaked gray where it’s fallen. And Quinlan’s face…his eyes—
Obi-Wan looks away. But he can’t escape the words that follow.
“Oh,” Quinlan says. “Oh, Obi-Wan. You were…when he died, you…”
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. They can both see it now. And so when Obi-Wan speaks, all he needs to say is this:
“Yes, well. All those years, feeling like I was failing him. I finally failed him one last time.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t know when his body started to shake, but the next thing he knows Quinlan is standing again, standing beside him, and they both sink back down to the carpet together. Quinlan’s arm is around him, and when he closes his eyes and sees red ray shields, he opens them to find two hands holding both of his, holding them steady, the only thing anchoring him to the ground.
He doesn’t know when he started to cry either.
But then he is closing his eyes again, and when the ray shields flicker, instead of the sound of his Master’s last breath he hears this—Quinlan’s voice, over and over again, repeating:
It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
Obi-Wan turns his face into Quinlan’s shirt and buries it there.
It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
And he tries. He tries to believe it.
The next time he opens his eyes, his head is on Quinlan’s shoulder. Quinlan has one arm around him, a hand in his hair, running lightly through the strands before letting them fall. Obi-Wan is still crying a little, but quietly now.
He doesn’t know what happened to Qui-Gon’s lightsaber. It isn’t on the table anymore, nor on the floor where Quinlan fell. He wonders if Quinlan has it. He also doesn’t really care.
“You know,” Quin eventually says, when he’s been quiet so long he could’ve been asleep. “You really ought to make a new one. A lightsaber, I mean.”
Obi-Wan nods, his head bumping against Quinlan’s. “I know.”
Quinlan’s hand slides from his hair down to his shoulder, and squeezes. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”
Obi-Wan shakes his head, but he isn’t sure if he really means no.
His mind is wandering instead to Anakin—who has been bothering him endlessly about constructing his own lightsaber, one of these days. So often Obi-Wan has no idea how to respond to the boy’s questions, his antics. He wishes he remembered how Qui-Gon had answered him. He should’ve paid better attention. Should have saved every shred of memory, for when there would be no more. Now, he just pawns through the collection of days he half-remembers in search of the answers he needs. He finds none.
“Qui-Gon asked me to train him,” Obi-Wan hears himself say. “Those were his last words to me—train the boy.” He exhales. “I want to do it right.”
And somehow, Quinlan hears the hidden meaning there—
I don’t want to fail him, too.
Quinlan shakes his head. He sits up. And then Obi-Wan can see it again—Qui-Gon’s lightsaber in his hands, as he says—
“No.” He turns the metal hilt over in his hand, and says it again. “No. Obi-Wan, when I touch your Master’s blade, I can see what happened. I can see him fall, can see you finish the fight and win.” He turns to face Obi-Wan now, looking him in the eye so hard he wants to look away. “But I can also feel the love he had for you, the complete and utter faith that of anyone in the world he could choose to complete what he felt was important, it had to be you. As he lay dying, staring up at your face for the last time I am telling you—there was not an ounce of regret there. Only faith. And pure, unbridled love for the boy he’d raised. And who you’d become.”
Quinlan turns the lightsaber over in his hand one more time. Then, he presses it into Obi-Wan’s palms, and lets go.
“I wish you could feel it too.”
Obi-Wan holds the lightsaber in his hands, staring at it. As if sight alone can extend his senses, can make him feel what Quinlan claims is there.
Instead, he draws the lightsaber close to his chest. Listens to his heartbeat against it, and lowers his head back down to Quinlan’s shoulder, and waits for the wave of grief to pass.