"Back on Earth"

* * * * *

Qui Gon stood motionless and attentive in the center of the square, taking in everything. Not a footstep, a rustle of clothing, the growling of a car’s engine, or a murmured voice was lost to his attention.

He did not know how long he had been there, simply still and mindful. Almost certainly a long time. He had moved in the crowd before, following the faint whispers of intuition down crowded predawn streets and empty alleys, but in some situations action without understanding was futile, and this appeared to be one of them. He was alone on a world he had no knowledge of. One that, judging from the stony lack of response he had gotten to the simplest requests for help, was unfriendly to the Jedi. Now was the time to study his surroundings completely, until he knew more. So now he just stood, open, trusting that, in time, an answer would come to him.

The square was paved with dark gray, wet cobble stones, and there was an autumn sparse park bound by ornate wrought iron fences at Qui Gon’s back. Elegant but grungy buildings loomed up around the square.

Flocks of dark blue and white pigeons wheeled and fluttered from the cobblestones to the cloudy sky and back again. Hurrying crowds of humans, talking little but making a harsh, dim, droning, crowd noise, swirled around him, like a dream just on the faintest edge of becoming a nightmare.

Qui Gon closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the chill damp air, faintly tasting the pollution in it. *Worse than Coruscant* he thought as he half subconsciously pondered the questions *Why? Where? and Where to from here?* When he opened his eyes he saw a boy standing a few meters away, openly staring at him. The boy wore a faded jacket and had his hands stuffed deep into its pockets as if nervous, but he looked right into Qui Gon’s face. He was pale, with slightly shaggy brown hair, and his eyes were brown instead of blue, but there was something in them, glittering shivers of hurt and knowledge, that reminded Qui Gon painfully of another boy.

"Are you lost?" the boy asked cautiously.

"It’s not safe to talk to strangers," Qui Gon advised him.

"I know. But there’s a lot of people here. You couldn’t do anything to me here, because everyone would see it." The boy still hung back, still wouldn’t take his eyes from Qui Gon’s face, although it seemed like it was an effort. And yet he seemed to have made up his mind to be foolishly brave.

"That’s not true. And I am armed." But, he suddenly realized, he wasn’t. His hand went to the clip on his belt to confirm it, but he already knew he would feel nothing but his own clothing; he missed the wait of his lightsaber hanging against his hip. What had happened to it?

The boy seemed to gather up his courage and walked closer. "Are you lost? Its smart to stay in one place when you’re lost." He came to Qui Gon’s side and stood there solemnly for a moment. Then he took hold of one of his hands and began to lead him towards the park. "I grew up here, so we can sit on that bench, and I’ll help you figure out where you’re trying to go." His voice was a great deal more cheerful, but his face looked grim and troubled, and his eyes were downcast.

Qui Gon couldn’t stop himself from smiling, but it was a smile tempered with concern. *The mighty Jedi* he thought *being led around by a skinny child who’s Force favored I’m not a kidnapper or worse.* And yet he followed the boy to one of the benches set against the fence.

"My name’s Cole. What’s yours?"

"Qui Gon Jinn."

Qui Gon sat down and Cole, who’s sneakers just barely reached the ground, sat beside him. "Is anybody trying to find you?"

Qui Gon shook his head absently, staring out into the crowd, a hazy, almost glazed look in his eyes that would have been very unfamiliar to those who knew him well. "I do not think my friends know I am here. I was coming back from a mission . . ." He took a breath. "and lost my way."

"A mission? What do you do? Are you in the CIA or something?"

Cole gave Qui Gon an evaluating look up and down. "Are you under cover?"

"I am a Jedi." Qui Gon’s eyes cleared and he turned his attention back to Cole.

"What’s a Jedi?" Strange, Qui Gon though, that he did not know, but not unheard of. The Jedi were only about ten thousand after all, and it was a big galaxy.

"Jedi help people. We try to keep peace and when we cannot, we are warriors and healers. We draw on the Force, the inherent energy of the universe, to do this."

Cole looked puzzled. "What happened on your last mission? Did you win?"

Qui Gon’s eyes clouded again and once more he became slightly detached. "I don’t know." He was trying with all his will to remember. He felt a faint sense of victory, but deep down he feared a very heavy price might have been paid for it. "There are many ways to win. We found one, I am sure of it. And he will be trained." Qui Gon only realized the truth of the last sentence as he spoke it, and so spoke it with some surprise. The thought gave him some comfort, if no clarity.

If Cole didn’t know what a Jedi was, then he certainly would never have heard the prophecy of the Chosen One. "There is a prophecy of a Jedi that will bring the force back into harmony. This cannot be ignored, because once the force falls out of balance, everything will suffer. We found him, my apprentice and I, in the desert, on Tattooine. We weren’t even looking for him."

Cole looked even more deeply bewildered. His mind was working, trying to understand what was going on, and, Qui Gon sensed, he was trying not to become just a little frightened. "Where’s Tattooine?"

"Small desert planet on the outer rim, home to criminals and outcasts mostly. The kind of place I hope you never end up."

Cole’s eyes widened and for a second he looked truly shocked. Qui Gon couldn’t imagine why he would be, but he was slightly impressed by the way Cole seemed to accept the shock and then put it away.

"Oh," He said and then gave a smile that was genuine, but, Qui Gon suspected, mostly for his benefit. "Is the Force . . . sort of like magic?"

"It can seem that way, sometimes. But the Force is really just the way things work. Jedi are specially trained and specially attuned to it, that’s all."

"And there’s something wrong with it?"

Qui Gon sighed. "I think there is, but the others wouldn’t see it. And they wouldn’t see Anakin’s importance either. He is a boy just like you. Very much, I think, like you, but he could become the greatest Jedi that ever lived. I know it."

"Just a kid? Are you worried about him?"

"As much as a Jedi is permitted to worry, yes. I would risk everything, I think I already have, to see him fulfill his destiny."

Cole was very quiet for a long time, looking at Qui Gon and thinking deeply. Qui Gon didn’t find it awkward. He was comfortable with silence, and besides, he was thinking about Cole himself. Finally, he spoke.

"Qui Gon?"

"Yes?"

"What happens to Jedi when they die?"

"We return to the Force, become part of it." Qui Gon shouldn’t have been surprised by a question like this, not after the faint haunted look in Cole’s eyes, in fact in his whole baring, but he *was* surprised.

It was not in a Jedi’s nature, or in Qui Gon’s nature either, to be so purely stunned. And yet despite this and despite the fact that Cole was obviously old beyond his birth, Qui Gon couldn’t help thinking, dismayed *What concern does this boy have with death?*

"Is that bad or good?"

"It is not a thing to be feared. It is a peace and a oneness with everything. I will accept my death whenever it comes, without regret. Only. . ."

Cole was sitting bolt upright, his little legs crossed on the damp wooden slats of the bench. He stared at Qui Gon with new intensity.

"Only what?"

"Only, I worry for the people I would leave behind."

"But you said when you die, you’ll be part of everything. Won’t you be with everyone you care about?"

"Yes, but when we become one with the Force, we change. We can no longer exist in the form our minds took in life. We will always be with those we care about, but we cannot help them, cannot see them, cannot act, and they cannot feel us, only the Force."

"That’s really sad." The words were simple and could have been perfunctory, but Qui Gon could see Cole meant them deeply. Was Cole or someone close to him dying? Qui Gon suddenly wondered. Was that why he was so curious and grave? But he was not sick, and though Qui Gon had little skill in foreseeing the future, he could not sense any tragedy waiting for Cole. He looked out to the river of pedestrians again, and to the sun rising over the buildings, a brassy smudge in the pewter sky.

"Not really. We cannot suffer, once we join the Force. But those we leave behind can. I couldn’t go now. Ani needs me. Obi Wan needs me." He paused and took a deep breath, noticing the haziness that came over him for the first time. Like a shroud of clouds in his mind, with vague shapes moving behind it. He tried every enlightenment exercise he knew to remove it, but could not. The feeling passed quickly, though. He looked at Cole, who hadn’t stopped scrutinizing him for a second. "Cole, why are you asking me these things?"

"Because sometimes it’s good to talk. If you’re to scared to think about something, then you can just make yourself not think about it. But if you talk about it, you have to think about it, and if you can think about it, maybe you’re not so afraid."

So something horrible was happening in Cole’s life, and by talking to Qui Gon he was trying to understand it as best he could. Then Qui Gon realized Cole hadn’t been talking about himself at all.

Qui Gon crossed his arms loosely. "Where did you become so wise, young one? And what do you think I’m afraid of?"

"Maybe not afraid, . . . maybe just worried."

"Fear is a danger and a deceiver to Jedi," Qui Gon murmured thoughtfully. He wondered again where he was, how he could get back. The need to find his apprentice and the boy he desperately wanted to be his apprentice was growing more urgent, more powerful. It was like a scream inside him. It was no longer just his own determination now, but his own determination with the force driving it. And he felt that it might already be to late. How long had he been stranded here? "It was Anakin’s fear that made the other Jedi reject him. Since when is it wisdom to try and remedy fear with rejection? He needs the Jedi. He needs *someone*."

"You really are worried."

And Qui Gon was. It was almost funny. He, of the Living Force, of the moment, arguing more fiercely than anyone that the Cosmic Force of destiny be given its due. He who was impressed when he had a true vision several hours into the future, going against the council more blatantly than he ever had before for the sake of a prophecy tens of thousands of years old. And yet Anakin, fatherless, potentially miraculously Force strong Anakin, was not an abstract, cold point of fate. He was here and now a frightened boy, flesh and blood, who had suffered a brutal childhood, and yet might, if nurtured, shine so bright as to eclipse all of them. And the Jedi had a chance to help him. If that was not the will of the Force then Qui Gon honestly did not know what was. He thought it very possible, and was slightly amazed at how little the thought shocked him, that he might break with the Jedi over this.

After all these years of being a bit of a maverick, become a true outcast. But cutting himself off from the Jedi, and therefore Anakin’s training, completely would be a meaningless sacrifice. If only he could be sure of somehow remaining in the world of the Jedi, no matter if he was . . . no matter what might happen.

Cole interrupted these reflections. "I don’t think your right. About not being able to do anything once you’re part of the Force. I bet, if someone had something really important to them left unfinished, they wouldn’t change all the way. And maybe someone could hear them. I know it."

*Why*, Qui Gon thought, *am I so sure he isn’t just speaking with a child’s confidence in his own beliefs?*

"No Jedi has ever returned from the force." But, a voice in his mind counseled, the history of the Jedi was not completely intact. The code was old and had so many levels of meaning. Those four lines could absorb a lifetime’s worth of study. What did the last line of the code really mean?

He felt his connection to the force, more constant and vibrant than his heartbeat, and now it was resonant with the possibility of the thing. "But . . ."

The cloud was ripped apart, spilling out its images of death in a wild rush. A scream of anguish and denial from the most undemonstrative man he knew. *Always two there are.* Staring into the poison topaz eyes of a Dark Lord of the Sith. *No more. No less.* Tears and darkness. *We’ll handle this.* Obi Wan’s desperate promise. A jumble of sensations, realizations, and oblivion. He did not have his lightsaber because he no longer needed it. Because Obi Wan had needed it desperately and carried it now. Because Qui Gon was beyond the reach of anything that could be fought with a lightsaber.

Cole must have seen the revelation spreading across his face, because he turned even paler, looking sad and sorry, as if he had hurt Qui Gon. And there was pain, agony as if a tiny star had gone nova in the center of his body, but Qui Gon knew that Cole had only revealed the pain, not caused it.

"How . . . did you know?" He rasped before his breath could fail him entirely, thinking again of how Cole’s eyes were the same as Anakin’s, and wondering if the force was with Cole.

"I can feel it," Cole said softly. "And you looked lost."

Qui Gon weakly clutched at the mortal wound below his chest as if the protective gesture might ease the pain. But the pain was already starting to seem strangely hollow, as if it were only an echo. His whole body felt the same way, distant, dull, and empty. Only echoes. "Thank you," He whispered just before the darkness claimed him.

Cole swallowed hard and nodded, his mouth a straight line caught between a smile and a frown.

In the dark the memories kept coming as he sunk slowly and painlessly. The glow and metallic hum of lightsabers, green, red, and blue. *I will be watching your career with great interest.* Suddenly Qui Gon’s soul shuddered. Obi Wan kneeling, face to face with Yoda, in the Naboo palace. Anakin crying. His apprentice hanging over a pit so deep the bottom could not be seen. *Train him.* And then all faded away into the shadows, leaving only the crackling of a fire and writhing red and yellow flames in the Naboo night. Then silence, lonely, empty and sharp as a saber’s blade.

And after all that passed, his last thought before he was dissolved into the luminous flow of the force was *If someone had something really important to them left unfinished, they wouldn’t change all the way.*

The force, brilliant and prismatic, was multifaceted beyond sentient beings’ ability to comprehend. And yet, something completely different had suddenly entered its current: a conscious thought. *And maybe someone could hear them.* And around that thought, a will, a heart, and a soul began to coalesce.