Work Text:
I knelt on the floor by the bed. In the palace. 27.52 meters from Qui-Gon's body as it lay in state.
I had counted my careful and precise paces as I walked away, taken note of the angle and direction of the turns, and calculated the distance in my head.
It was better than thinking about the day's events, after all.
I put myself into a trance and healed the bruises left by the Sith's boot and sab--
But no, I never was hit by the saber.
I put myself into a trance and healed the bruises.
And then it was night. From the floor, I could see the stars. Slowly moving, wheeling over the sky. When I was younger, and when we had time, Master Qui-Gon would take me outside the city to watch the stars on each new planet we came to. He would teach me about the local constellations and what they told us about the people who saw them. "People are defined by the stories they tell, young padawan," he said, as we lay on a blanket under the stars.
And I asked him if he knew all the stories about the stars.
"Not yet," he said. "Maybe someday, when I'm too old for padawans and missions." I could hear him smiling, the lift to his voice.
I was young then, perhaps sixteen, and I had a hard time imagining the progress of age. That would be after I am a Knight, I said.
"When you're a Master with two Padawans under your belt. *Then* I'll be old, and I can sit around and tell stories to your apprentices. How does that sound?" It sounds wonderful, I said, even though I really couldn't imagine being that old.
Now the stars were here, and I was here, and Qui-Gon lay in state awaiting the arrival of the Council.
What I felt was more delicate than grief and more subdued than remorse. It was the filigreed sadness of never seeing a loved one in his old age. Not that he died...but that he stopped living.
I watched as the stars turned, and I was not the least bit tired. This, after all, was the last day that Qui-Gon was alive. I wanted to make it last as long as possible.
end.