The Best Among Us 1/3
by Rebecca Mitchell (armgb@hotmail.com)
minor augst, romance, A/U
DISCLAIMER: Star Wars is owned by LucasFilm Limited. This story is for fan enjoyment only and is not intended to infringe on that copyright.
WARNINGS: Includes SPOILERS for all four movies, Jedi Apprentice #2, and Visions of the Future. Non-canon warning.
Rated PG-13.
This story ranges from Jedi Apprentice to 50+ years after ROTJ. Thus, it includes character deaths.
ARCHIVE: Master_Apprentice, yes. Anyone else, ask.
Summary: In the afterlife Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon help Luke accept the loss of an favored student and help Luke prepare for the arrival of his wife.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please. I have written fanfic and slash before, but this is my first Q/O story.
*****
Luke Skywalker felt the Force flow through him as he faced his opponent. The Sith Lord was powerful, but Luke was the greatest living Jedi. He was also the oldest living Jedi. For over 50 years he had studied the ways of the Jedi. For over 50 years he had faced the most dangerous opponents in the known universe. He and his sister were the backbone of the New Republic. For over 50 years they had worked to create a new peace for the galaxy.
For the most part they had succeeded. Leia had retired only recently. For over 30 years she had served in the government, using her impressive diplomatic skills to help people. Luke had spent those years training Jedi and defending the New Republic.
The time sped by for Luke. He was an old man now. His youngest child was already an adult. Mara had initially resisted kids, but she had agreed to adopt an orphan of one of his students. They also had one child of their own, a son, who had been the light of their lives.
'I will fight you father,' Luke could feel his opponent's voice through the Force. He glanced sideways at his nephew Anakin Solo who fought beside him as a Jedi hoping Anakin had not heard. He did not want Anakin to know that the Dark Sith they were fighting was his cousin. Anakin believed that Wedge Skywalker had died fighting a Sith.
"It is true... from a certain point of view," Ben's words sounded in his mind. At the time Luke had been hurt and angry at Ben's deception. Now he understood. He understood too much. Wedge's turn to the Dark Side was Luke's greatest shame, one that threatened to destroy him. He had resisted having children for fear of one of them turning. Leia's children remained fully in the light, Anakin Solo was certain to succeed him as the most powerful Jedi, but his son had turned.
'I am getting too old for this,' Luke thought and with that thought he knew that this was his last battle. He felt a calm wash over him and knew he bore the same expression Ben Kenobi had worn years before seconds before Darth Vader cut him down, orphaning Luke for the second time.
'I am sorry, Leia and Mara,' Luke sent a message through the Force to his sister and wife. 'I wish I could stay with you, but it is my time. And when your time comes father and I will be waiting for you.'
He felt sadness from both women, but also acceptance. Neither woman expected to live much longer. Leia had lost much of her joy when her husband of 40 years, Han Solo, died. They had been happy together and although Han was not a Jedi and had no Force abilities they had become one soul. Leia did not know if she would see her husband in the afterlife since he was not a Jedi, but she still had hope that someday they would be together again. Their time together in this life had been too short. Life was always too short.
There was a small amount of anger coming from his wife Mara. In all their years together she had never lost her strength or her fire. She remained fiercely independent, but as a bonded Jedi pair they were part of each other. He knew Mara would feel his death. He would be condemning her to lose part of her soul. He wished more than anything that there was some way to relieve her pain.
Feeling Ben's presence for the first time in years, he lowered his lightsaber and repeated Ben's words, "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can imagine."
Anakin Solo, realizing Luke's intentions screamed, but as the red lightsaber slashed through Luke he saw a vision not of Anakin Solo, but of a young man with short hair and a long Jedi braid marking him as Padawan yelling, "No!" as his Master fell to a Sith.
For a second Luke was neither alive nor Jedi spirit. Then he looked up and saw a group of Jedi spirits waiting for him.
"Yoda?" he asked, turning to the only one he recognized.
"Recognize me, you do. Recognize the others you do not. Jedi they are. Jedi Masters, yes. Council members many are," Yoda said amused.
"You are members of the Jedi Council from the Old Republic?" Luke asked in awe.
"Not all of us," said a young man Luke almost recognized.
"Ben?" Luke asked placing the voice. "Ben? It is you?"
Ben Kenobi's image shifted and again he was the old man Luke had met on Tatooine. "Didn't realize I was once a young man, did you?"
"I- uh, when I saw you before you looked like you had before you died," Luke tried to defend himself. In truth he had problems picturing Ben as a young man.
"We appear the way that we wish to appear. I appeared as an old man so that you would know me," Obi-Wan explained. "How do you think you appear?"
Luke paused. "As a young man before I lost your hand."
"Why?" Obi-Wan asked. "Is your hand so important to you?"
"It is not my hand. It was facing the truth, facing...," Luke tried to explain.
"Facing your father who had become Darth Vader," Anakin Skywalker's voice sounded sad.
"Dad!" Luke threw himself into his father's arms. He had waited over 70 years to hug his father.
"It was my grandsons fighting, wasn't it," It was not a question.
"Yes, Father. I am sorry. My fault. I lost students before, but never like this. My son... my only son. I only hope that others can fix my... failures," Luke's words forced themselves painfully from his mouth.
"Guilty you feel. Guilt leads to the Dark Side. Forgive yourself you must. Forgive and trust the others you will. All Jedi must," Yoda told him.
"But I lost my own son to the Dark Side!" Luke yelled
. "We have all lost students," a dark-skinned Jedi with a rich voice spoke. "Sometimes we lose the students we care about most."
"He was my own son! I promised Mara that I would protect him. Do you understand what it means to promise someone you love that you will protect a student and then have them turn?" Luke shouted. He already missed Mara.
"Yes," Obi-Wan said quietly. "Luke, arrogance has always been your weakness. We know that you had to relearn much of the Jedi knowledge alone, but you are not alone in your failure. You know that Anakin Skywalker was my student."
"But he was not your son. And you never promised someone you loved that you would train him," Luke protested.
"No, he was not my son, but I did promise someone I love that I would train him. I did not train Anakin under ordinary circumstances. I was only a Padawan when I first met Anakin. It was my Master Qui-Gon that found Anakin. Qui-Gon was rebellious and, as was his style, he decided to train Anakin without consulting the Council," Obi-Wan smiled up at the tall man next to him. The affectionate teasing was clear in his voice.
"And as was his style, Obi-Wan argued with me," Qui-Gon said with a long sigh, allowing his hand to rest on Obi-Wan's shoulder. Several of the other Jedi smiled. The two maverick Jedi provided amusement for many Jedi.
Luke did not need to ask the older man's identity. "Now, I know why you never married. You had someone."
"I had someone, but he left me to death. Qui-Gon told the Council that I was ready for the trials and that he would take Anakin as his new Padawan. Before he could, he was killed by a Sith Lord, Darth Maul. Before he died he asked to me train Anakin and I did. But I trained him while mourning my Master who had become more than a Master to me. I trained him still angry at Qui-Gon for abandoning me. I trained him as a Jedi Knight with little faith in my ability to stand on my own. I trained him while jealous of the attention Qui-Gon had given him. I am as responsible as Anakin for him turning," Obi-Wan's words were heavy.
"It was not your fault," Anakin argued. "I told you, it was my own fear. You were a good Master."
"And it is my fault for not making it clear that I was not replacing you with Anakin. It is my fault for not being more careful. You can not take this responsibility alone," Qui-Gon argued. "I won't let you."
Luke saw the look that passed between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan as if the former was shouldering some of the younger man's pain. "I know you were not responsible. You could not have trained me with that guilt. If you were at fault then I would have also turned."
"Obi-Wan is wrong about his guilt, but it is possible for a Master to train a Jedi while still guilty about the turning of a student. I trained Obi-Wan while feeling guilty about the turning of a previous Padawan," Qui-Gon said.
"Many of us were considered the greatest of the Jedi when we were alive, but we all have our failures. I am Windu. I argued with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan against training Anakin because I had seen my own student turn to the Dark Side," Windu said. "All of us except Yoda have lost students."
"Yoda was my Master and some would say that I count as a failure," Qui-Gon said drawing laughter from several others and an affectionate look from Obi-Wan. Luke marveled that his M aster looked so much happier than he had looked in life.
"We can not let go of your guilt. Only you can do that. But we have all of time to tell you about the history of the Jedi, the mistakes that do not appear in any records. If you listen to us we can help you," Obi-Wan looked at Luke.
"I am ready for anything," he told his past Master and took comfort in the presence of the Jedi as he once again became a student.
For a moment there was silence. Then Windu spoke, "Tell us about your son, Luke."
"Don't you know?" Luke asked confused.
"We are Jedi, not omnipotent. The truth depends on your own point of view. We need to know your point of view," Obi-Wan explained.
"Where do I start?" Luke asked.
"At the beginning," Qui-Gon answered.
"When is the beginning?" Luke asked.
"Decide you will," Yoda answered.
"I married Mara because I loved her, but I knew that she did not want kids. I loved her for her fire and her independence and I knew that she thought that having children would rob her of those things. A part of me wanted children, but I was afraid. I was afraid that because they were my children they would be tempted by the dark side," Luke started.
"Because of me," Anakin Skywalker said.
"Yes," Luke answered painfully. "I was still teaching when we married and I decided that it was enough. For five years it was. One of my students was killed defending the Academy, leaving a four year old daughter, Caral. Caral's father was already dead and there was no family to care for her. Mara and I agreed to care for her until we could find someone, but nobody wanted her. We agreed to raise her. Leia and Han helped."
Luke closed his eyes for a second remembering the pain that was to come. "When Caral was eight, I was sent to investigate a threat to the New Republic. I was ambushed."
"You died," Obi-Wan said. "It was the last time I saw you."
"Mara felt my death through our bond. She is a strong woman, but it was hard for her. According to Leia she nearly went mad during the hours I was dead," Luke felt terrible about the pain Mara had suffered.
'I am glad that we did not fully bond. It would not have watched you suffer any more than you did,' Qui-Gon's sent through the Force to Obi-Wan.
'It would have been worth the pain, Qui-Gon. It is my greatest regret that we did not fully bond,' Obi-Wan sent back. 'It is better to have loved and lost then to not have loved at all.'
'We did have love, Obi-Wan. Just because we never bonded did not mean that I did not value your life above my own,' Qui-Gon sent back.
'And I valued yours above mine,' Obi-Wan said meaning every word.
"A few months later Mara started thinking about having a child so that she would have something of me left when I died. We were both nervous about being parents, but I knew Han and Leia were happy and I agreed," Luke said. "Two years later Wedge was born. Mara and I loved him, but Mara was not demonstrative. Because we were older when he was born, the other children told him that we had not wanted him. We tried to convince him that he had been wanted. I thought we succeeded, but when he turned I knew that I had failed him."
"Do not accept all the responsibility, Luke. Children can be cruel when they are jealous. They would have found something to make him feel inferior," Windu said.
"As he grew older he made greater demands on independence. He said that he was sick of being known as 'Luke Skywalker's son' and that he wanted to be known as Wedge Skywalker. When he was old enough I began training him. I decided to show his faith in Wedge by sending him on a mission, a real mission, to help stop an insurrection. We later learned that the insurrection was led by a Sith Lord. The Sith promised Wedge his own identity and Wedge stayed with the Sith. I did not see him again until now," Luke sounded tired. "I have trained a hundred Jedi, but I failed with my own son."
"A Master's guilt and arrogance are dangerous," Qui-Gon said. "My first Padawan became a Jedi Knight. I was confident when I took my second Padawan, Xanatos. Xanatos was the son of a rich man who decided to follow the ways of the Jedi. I thought he believed in the Jedi, but now I know that he was attracted to the power. As a test for both of us, Yoda sent us to stop Xanatos' father who had given into greed and was causing millions to suffer. It was my lightsaber that killed Xanatos' father. Xanatos believed that I had robbed him of the power that was his right and he spent the rest of his life trying to get his revenge on me."
Luke saw the look that passed between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. "How did you convince yourself to take another Padawan?"
Obi-Wan smiled. "He almost did not. I begged him to take me. I was within a few weeks of being too old to train to become a Jedi Knight. I almost became a farmer."
"A farmer?" Luke asked feeling cold. If Obi-Wan had not become a Jedi it was unlikely that anyone would have trained his father after Qui-Gon died and there would have been nobody to begin his own training. The thought of such a universe frightened him.
"Frightening, isn't it," Qui-Gon said. "I had nightmares about what would have happened had I not trained him."
"I never knew about those nightmares," Obi-Wan sounded hurt. "I did not want to hurt you. I might have been hesitant to train another Padawan, but once you became my Padawan I wanted you to know that I wanted you," Qui-Gon explained. "You were loyal beyond the Code, but independent enough to be honest with me and tell me when you thought I was wrong. I could not have asked for a better Padawan. That is why I had the nightmares. My arrogance and fear nearly cost me something valuable and would have cost the universe. If you had not been a Jedi and survived the purges..."
"You never took trained another student after Wedge turned," Obi-Wan said to Luke. "When a student turns, the Master can be redeemed by training another student. Starting to train you after I lost your father was hard, but it had to be done for myself and for the universe."
"The Force is a gift and a responsibility," Qui-Gon said. "You should have taken another student."
Luke opened his mouth and then closed it. "I know. I know. Obi-Wan, can you tell me about my father's training."
"No, I can not," Obi-Wan said. "You are too close."
"Your father he is. Best if you not know," Yoda said.
Luke looked surprised. "Father,..."
"Maybe someday, Luke you will learn some of it, but not right now," Anakin said looking proudly at his son. "There is something else more important that you learn."
"What?" Luke asked.
The Jedi spirits were silent
. "What must I learn?" Luke asked.
"Mara will be here soon. You must be ready for her," Anakin told his son. "You are a bonded Jedi pair."
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan exchanged meaningful glances. Yoda, Windu, and Anakin looked at each other and then at the post-humorously bonded Jedi.
"Leave you now we will," Yoda said and the three left.
"What do you mean Mara will be here soon. How long have I been here?" Luke asked.
"An hour, a year, a century. It does not matter," Qui-Gon said. He and Obi-Wan looked uncomfortable.
"Luke, how much do you know Jedi life-bonds?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Not enough," Luke admitted. "Mara and I initiated a bond unconsciously while fighting and I was able to do enough research to make it permanent, but I don't fully understand it."
"All that the Jedi are is based on the Force. We do not completely understand the Force, but we do know that it is based on twos. It is based on opposites and on attractions. There is a light side and a dark side of the Force. Both the Jedi and the Sith are paired. There is only one Master and one Apprentice. When I volunteered to become Anakin's Master, Obi-Wan had to first become a Jedi Knight," Qui-Gon explained.
"I did not believe that I could afford to train only one student at a time," Luke said. "I was the only living Jedi and Leia was the only other one with any training."
"It was a necessity, but it also was against the will of the Force," Obi-Wan said.
"Among Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters there are also lifebonded pairs. Such a pairing is the highest level of sensitivity to the Force and highest level of intimacy between living beings. The decision to form a lifebond is never made lightly. If the two Jedi do not fully accept the bond it destroys them both. The Council was required to unanimously approve all lifebonds," Qui-Gon explained.
"Think about Mara, Luke," Obi-Wan told him. "Feel her presence."
Luke closed his eyes and using all his Force abilities reached out for his wife trying to send his all his love through the Force. It was a struggle, but he could finally feel her pain easing and her own love for him flowed back through the Force. He opened his eyes.
"As you can see, even death does not break a true lifebond. You and Mara have a true lifebond and you have learned to handle it, but it will get more intense after she dies. In life, bonded Jedi are one soul in two bodies. Here, we do not have bodies and it is easy for the souls to become so intertwined that the Jedi lose their individuality. The symbiosis creates a new being," Obi-Wan explained.
"It has happened to Jedi before, including members of the Council," Qui-Gon explained. "Obi-Wan and I bonded here. There was no time before my death. He was my Padawan and the Council would not have approved."
"The Council did not approve of many of your actions, Qui-Gon. It never stopped you before," Obi-Wan said still feeling the old hurt.
"As I have told you many times before, I also did not want you to feel that you were under any coercion. I wanted us to be equals before we initiated the bond. I thought we would have time. I thought I had more time. I am sorry. Leaving you was the hardest part of dying. It is what kept me alive until you defeated Darth Maul. I had to say good-bye," Qui-Gon explained.
Luke found himself fascinated by the interplay between the two old Jedi. For the first time he got a glimpse of what it must have been like to live during the Old Republic when the Jedi were strong.
"We initiated our bond here, after I died," Obi-Wan told Luke. "It was difficult. Both Masters Yoda and Windu had to help to keep the bond from becoming too deep. We had both wanted it for so long, that it was tempting to go too far and lose ourselves. I can feel that you miss your wife terribly."
"Love is of both the Light and Dark Sides of the Force. It can give us strength, but it can also destroy us," Qui-Gon said. "The desire to keep someone too close leads to the Dark Side. Even here it is possible, although rare, to turn to the Dark Side." "Your father's love for his mother and for your mother led him to the Dark Side," Obi-Wan told Luke. "When Mara arrives, you must be cautious."
"It can be overwhelming when your love arrives. It nearly was for me even without the lifebond," Qui-Gon said. "You must give her comfort through the bond, but make sure to keep some distance. Take things slowly. You have time. As you become accustomed, you will learn your limits."
"Forgive me for asking, Masters, but I need to know something. I thought for a lifebond to be true it had to be, uh, consummated. If you bonded after death...," Luke was embarrassed, but he needed to know to understand how to react when Mara arrived.
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon both swallowed.
"Physical pleasure is still possible, but it should not be attempted until you are more comfortable with yourself here. The Force is able to compensate for any thinness of crude matter," Obi-Wan explained.
"We can talk again later," Qui-Gon said wanting to end the conversation despite its necessity.
Luke suddenly froze. "Mara!"
The three men saw Mara slowly materialize.
"Luke!" Mara cried. "You are here."
"Our lifebond is forever," Luke promised her.
"We will leave you," Qui-Gon told Mara and Luke. Luke nodded absently, focused on his wife. Mara barely acknowledged them.
"Speaking of physical pleasures," Obi-Wan said mischievously.
"What about them?" Qui-Gon asked. Through the Force he caressed Obi-Wan. He felt the wave of pleasure that passed through Obi-Wan reflected back by the Force. Intimacy among bonded Jedi could be intense.
"At least we do not need to worry about a bed," Obi-Wan said.
"And I once hoped that death would cure you of your impishness," Qui-Gon sighed and then moaned as Obi-Wan began his exploration of Qui-Gon.
"You love me for my impishness," Obi-Wan said.
"Among other things," Qui-Gon said and found himself struggling for control under Obi-Wan's ministrations. "And that, moan, is one of them."
"I live to serve you, Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan replied before conversation became too difficult.
Yes, physical pleasure was definitely possible in the afterlife.
