A Few Words

Written by LuvEwan

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.

Summary: On the way to Naboo. Again.

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There was a static to space. In the absence of day or night there remained something, so it could not be called a void.

Obi-Wan was not speaking to his Master, but he was not ignoring him, either. What did you call that, he wondered? It had to be something, because the tumult working inside him was definitely not a void. It edged every thought, although he tried to push it down beneath his immediate awareness. His mind was disloyal to him now, ever straying to that moment.

Straying. Strays.

On a mission once, a sudden rain hammered the streets, emptying them. Only a few furry, bedraggled creatures, too wild to be domesticated, dashed through the pure curtains of moisture. Obi-Wan had pulled up his hood, crossed his arms, and ducked under an alcove. But Qui-Gon stood in the storm, long hair growing dark as it was quietly soaked, watching them streak into the pale and foggy distance. When Obi-Wan was younger, he would have thought the man was merely reflective, pitying the unsheltered little ruffians. But in his place beneath the alcove, apart from Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan knew that wasn't the case.

Qui-Gon wanted to go with them. Obi-Wan could see it in his eyes. The desire. To be free, in a way.

As an initiate, and then as a new Padawan, Obi-Wan always worried he was seen as nothing but a mongrel himself, unworthy of his position in the Order, or as the student of the legendary Qui-Gon Jinn. Now he knew he wasn't a mongrel. He was polite and well trained. Domesticated.

Anakin Skywalker was a mongrel.

Perhaps that was why Qui-Gon thought so much of him, why he had been willing to—

Well, there it was again. The root you couldn't dig out, the shadow stuck to your steps. A Knight would not dwell on one, brief Council meeting. But then, Obi-Wan was not a Knight. And could you really be a Padawan anymore, if your Master declared, in full confidence, his intention to train someone else?

What should he call himself?

Obi-Wan leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands together. In the cycle-less monotony of space travel, each body relied on natural instinct to guide them towards sleep or waking. He could sense the Queen and her coterie, the girls each a slightly altered reflection of Amidala herself, slumbering in a separate section of the starship. Anakin, too, was unconscious. No doubt exhausted. His entire life had changed, after all, because of---

The pilot was in the strange, scanning state of flight. Captain Panaka was not far from Amidala's closed door. Jar Jar was immersed in a deep, sloppy sleep; Obi-Wan could hear him snoring from here. It sounded like someone was strangling the overly vocal Gungan. The notion brightened a tiny corner of Obi-Wan's mind, but he immediately released it to the Force. Almost immediately. Whenever Qui-Gon befriended an especially…challenging castoff of society, Obi-Wan always guarded his thoughts a bit closer. But it rarely helped.

Qui-Gon always knew who Obi-Wan disliked.

It was petty to dislike a child. Qui-Gon would have told him so, if Qui-Gon was willing to tell him anything, presently. But since they left the Temple for their second sojourn to Naboo, Qui-Gon had merely doled out clipped, flat orders.

Ordered around, like a fresh-faced trainee.

It felt like there was a hand inside his chest, flexing and unflexing. He put his own hand over his heart, willing it to be calm.

He didn't dislike Anakin. What he disliked was that feeling in his chest, the same uneasy sensation that gripped him when the Naboo assignment began aboard the Trade Federation ship. It felt sharper now, compounded by the silence from his Master. He stopped himself from worrying about that silence, from comparing it to the usual thrum of communal thought, if it meant that something was dead between them now.

"Is it still there?"

Obi-Wan looked up. His Master was standing a few feet from him, arms loosely crossed. He couldn't prevent a frail stir of surprise; the man had not spoken to him casually since before they walked so calmly into the center of the Council Chambers.

"Is what still there?" Obi-Wan asked in a quiet voice. He decided that he would not sound interested.

"Your bad feeling."

Oh. "I suppose it is."

Qui-Gon nodded, sitting on the bench, leaving a wide space between them. "You said that it wasn't concerning our assignment. Do you still feel that is the truth?"

Obi-Wan did not look at Qui-Gon's face, focusing instead on the ship's slick floor. What could he say? He didn't know if he could completely trust his feelings, if he was capable of separating his earlier concerns with his very private, very recent wounds. Did the future actually hold the darkness Obi-Wan sensed, or was everything now tainted by the tendrils of his own persistent anger and hurt pride? He exhaled. "It's difficult to say. So much has changed."

Qui-Gon leaned back against the wall. "It has. Faster than I would have liked."

"You still made your decisions." Obi-Wan felt a bitterness seep into his words. He had meant for them to sting Qui-Gon, but it was shame that stung Obi-Wan, for this adolescent behavior he had failed to control in himself. Despite his flashes of emotion in the Council meeting, Obi-Wan knew that Qui-Gon was not vindictive, that he would not purposely slight his apprentice.

It was just that the chance was there to run straight into the rain again. He could not fault Qui-Gon for being who he was.

But Obi-Wan could not bear to sit here with him, not now. Not yet. He stood and drew his cloak close against the familiar chill of hyperspace. "And I still have much to learn."

He walked away.

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