This vignette takes place at the beginning of the year Qui-Gon searched for Obi-Wan, prior to "A Place of Silence". Though sad and a little existential, I think it explains a few things. All feedback regarding the vignette is welcome at destinaf@hotmail.com.

Always the same. The dream never varied, never wavered from the same excruciating details. A rusty red sun, radiating high above the horizon, the heat of it striking patterns into his skin. The distant sounds of water lapping on stones, cool and inviting. Birdsong, sweet and melodious, carried to him on a breeze too soft to soothe the heat.

He knew this place, had visited it a hundred times in these fevered night journeys. It was a composite of the many different places he and Obi-Wan had visited.

He saw the glittering green seas of Messemer Prime, and he remembered.

In the dreams, he was remarkably free of any guilt, of the self-recrimination that wracked him in every conscious moment. He closed his eyes, listening to the surf, walked near to the edge of a high cliff without fear, reaching out to the open sky.

Time ebbed and slipped by unnoticed, since there were no tools in the shadow-world to mark its passing. Qui-Gon resisted the tug of reality, preferring to remain immersed in the serene and false paradise his mind created to give him respite. And always, he lingered too long.

The seas roughened, spilling over in heavy, crashing whitecaps, the emerald waters growing dark and opaque, the color of raw glass. Rain began to fall, changing from a light summer storm to a ravaging, driving thing with a will of its own. Dusk came quickly under the heavy storm clouds, and with the fading light, his last sense of security vanished. There was unfinished business, and he had no right to seek joy.

It was always just at the moment of realization that Qui-Gon found himself safe from the storm, lost in a prison of blank mirrors. As is the way of dreams, it all seemed perfectly natural, and not at all suspicious. After the first dream, he began to hope too much, and fear too little, in this world of illusion.

"Show yourself," he called impatiently.

In every mirror, the shimmering form of Obi-Wan appeared. "Have you missed me?" the vision asked, the voices of a thousand images mingled into a punishing echo.

The aching hole in Qui-Gon's heart contracted as he took in the sight of his apprentice, tall and strong, alive, waiting. Wanting. He could feel Obi-Wan's desire illuminating the hidden places, drawing a bright line between them, leading Qui-Gon to the one thing he most wanted. Gentle undertones of confusion were not enough to warn him away.

"I have." The words did not carry with them the depth of his longing. Such straightforward sentiment would be crushed beneath the weight of his loneliness.

"Then why do you not come for me?" The voices rose, became demanding. Breaking his heart. Qui-Gon reached out, touched the glass nearest him; it dissolved into tiny, fragmented crystal teardrops. "That is not the way," Obi-Wan said. "You must find the way!"

"I'm trying!" Qui-Gon cried. Frantically, he laid his fingertips to the smooth surfaces, running now, a graceful lion in search of prey. Everything he touched disintegrated, forming prisms of sadness and despair. Within each prism, the creeping awareness of a horrible truth was clearly reflected. It hovered cold and empty on the fringe of the waking world, begging to be discovered.

"In here, with me," Obi-Wan whispered, and the light intensified, until Qui-Gon was blind with it, drunk with the joy it represented. He stepped forward, pressing into the rippling silver, and was caught by strong hands.

Lips pressed to his, fierce, frantic, as though there were only moments to spare in this space they inhabited together. He was opened and explored, and his skin was on fire with the random touch of a hand he remembered too well. Caught between the twin needs of giving and receiving, he could do nothing but stand and be tossed in the direction his passion dictated, into his lover's arms.

Like satin, delicate words caressed his ears. "I will always be here for you. You must only find the way." The voice was maddening, intoxicating; he could not fight against it any longer.

He gave himself over to temptation and found himself laid bare before the hungry, questing ghost of his lover. He looked with pleasure at the body which seemed real enough, lean and muscled and so beautiful, like the living sculpture of a distant wish he'd forgotten. This exquisite creature of dreams reached out to him in all the ways he most desired, fingers brushing across nipples and followed by a mouth that captured, nibbled, evoked soft cries.

Moving lower, the lips traced every severe line of the muscles underneath Qui-Gon's belly, until a nose nestled against his cock, and small puffs of air tickled him before a quivering tongue rounded the head, inflicting fluttering torture. He understood it wasn't real, but it was so good, and he was so tired of searching...

His body trembled, and he extended his fingers, curled the silky padawan braid around his hand, an anchor to something familiar and whole. A look from Obi-Wan, and he was enclosed, with those eyes still locked to his, feral and commanding.

A shove, and he was on top of that body, pinning it, pushing it open. He was inside, and Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around Qui-Gon, urging him deeper, panting breaths of lust against his master's lips as he took the older man's face in his hands.

"Here, I am all you need," the vision whispered, between cries of ecstasy, and Qui-Gon rocked against the illusion, indulgence giving way to hesitation. He looked down into the empty eyes of the phantom beneath him, and saw there the wraith of his honor, his future, his life in ruins.

And then he woke.

So it was every night, for two weeks, as Qui-Gon scoured the outlying worlds of the Messemer system, following a trail well-hidden. Each night, the same vivid promises. Each day, bitterness and regret, and an anger which festered within him, brewing a toxic poison of hate and recklessness. He woke, shamed and troubled by the hardness between his legs, by the ache that would not be put aside until he wrapped his hand around his cock and gave his body permission to be free of the dream.

The decision was a simple one in the end. He began to understand his own heart, too well perhaps. Only one world could exist for him, one reality, and there must be no solace until he found the way.

Obi-Wan had been right, after all.

Another night, another dream. Qui-Gon stood in the midst of the mirrors once again, as Obi-Wan appeared, sensuous smile, eyes alight and dangerous...so dangerous, and he had almost fallen into their bewitching comfort.

"Have you missed me?" Low, and rich, the sultry tones of seduction. So hard to resist.

"I have, and I will." Qui-Gon took his weapon slowly from his belt.

The green glow of coiled energy began at the hilt of his lightsaber, taking on the song of farewell, becoming a living thing which hummed and pulsed. He closed his eyes and released the ball of energy, transformed from a Jedi weapon to his last defense against complacency. There was thunder, and a distant plea for another path, but this was all there was, all there ever could be.

Like ice in the sun, the images distorted, cracked under the pressure, splintering and shattering into bits of quiet pain. They melted silently away, those last bits of consolation and reassurance. They left behind only the void into which he cast his compassion and his pride.

Armored only with purpose and skill, Qui-Gon returned to his all-important task. Nothing remained to turn him aside. He was just a machine in service to his function.

No distractions. He couldn't afford to be turned aside again. Too much time wasted in fantasy...he was not deserving, and it was time to move on.

End

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