Don't Ever Look Back

By: Song

Summary: Qui-Gon survives TPM leaving ObiWan to decide if his future lies with the Jedi, or along another path.

A/U: Been feeling awful lonely lately... hence why I wrote this. Help combat my loneliness by REVIEWING!

He should have expected this. He really should have. It was so... naive of him to think that one day his master might actually care for him.

All in all, he was a place holder. A place holder for twelve long years until the so-called 'chosen' came along. QuiGon's protégées. Xanatos. Anakin. Xanatos, then Anakin.

Why did The Force or God or whatever higher power existed do this to him? Had he committed some unforgivable sin in a previous life? Accumulated some horrendous amount of bad karma? Or was there no higher power at all and everything was a game of chance- without rhyme or reason?

He shook his head, purging the thoughts. He couldn't think like that, lest he fall into a depression.

Staring around the room that used to be his he grimaced at the small items littered about. The little things, the ones that hurt the most. A holo taken during an unsuspecting bought of laughter between master and padawan. A collection of model fighters assembled in his younger years. A portrait that he had painted of his master but never had the guts to show him. The old cloak that QuiGon was still under the impression was lost on a mission nearly a decade ago. A red-striped pebble.

Had it all meant nothing?

He sat on his-no, Anakin's sleep couch. It somehow felt foreign to him now.

Resting his face in his hands he was ashamed to realize that he was crying. The old mantra "There is no emotion, only peace" flitted through his mind. He fought the urge to laugh bitterly. Perhaps that was his failing.

Decision made he stood. There was no place for him here. He wondered if there ever had been. He shrugged on the worn cloak that still smelled of his master. He slipped the pebble into a side pocket and took the holo of one of the many laughs they had shared together, stowing it under his tunic, next to his heart.

Taking the only true possession of his own- his light-saber, he hacked off the braid that symbolized so much - and now so little. Resting both the saber and the braid on the bedside table ObiWan walked out of the apartment, through the halls of the temple and out the door.

His ex-master would understand.

So ObiWan began to run. Away from the Jedi, away from Coruscant and away from the only life he had ever known.

And he never looked back.

Fin