#*pats obi wan* this baby can fit so much trauma

[the-last-kenobi]

If you’re still taking prompts: 22. “When you’re feeling better, I swear, we’ll talk this out.” Qui-Gon& Obi-Wan. You’re writing is so lovely btw!!

Yay, more prompts! And I do love this one. Thank you for choosing it!

CW: this one got rather dark. there are heavy implications of and references to attempted assault of a minor, child death, and other horrors of war.

From this various prompts list.

Requests are currently closed.

_

They were three days out from Coruscant when the fever made a turn for the worse.

The Jinn/Kenobi team had been deployed to Calzec III to investigate the disappearance of an ambassador, an assignment that had led them down very dark paths into the minds and heart of a planetary society.

A mere two days into their investigation, Obi-Wan had vanished — kidnapped, it was quickly discovered, by the party responsible for the disappearance and murder of the ambassador.

Qui-Gon had assumed that the six days between Obi-Wan’s abduction and his recovery would be the worst of it.

That the growing dread inside him that had gnawed away at his concentration and serenity, the likelihood that he would not reach his apprentice in time, his fears that Obi-Wan was being hurt, would be the most difficult things to handle.

Or even the mingled relief and panic when he had finally found his sixteen-year-old Padawan bound and unconscious in a cellar with a floor half-flooded in dirty water — that after that, they had survived the worst.

He was mistaken.

Obi-Wan was ill when he was pulled out of that cellar. There was no one to trust and nowhere to flee except off-planet, and the the distance between Calzec III and the nearest medically advanced planet was no shorter than simply returning to Coruscant.

So he set a course for Coruscant and settled Obi-Wan in his bunk, stripping off the soiled clothing he had been wearing since his kidnapping and replacing them with a clean set of tunics.

The boy was exhausted, unfocused; his skin was clammy to the touch and he had brief periods where he seemed fully awake and mostly functional.

After the first day of hyperspace travel, they had settled into a routine. Qui-Gon kept to the cockpit, while Obi-Wan kept to his bunk and the fresher, trying to rest and to contain his illness. Qui-Gon knocked periodically on his door, reassuring himself that his apprentice was all right.

And that he was there, because working alone on a hostile planet without knowing anything of his Padawan’s wellbeing aside from being sure that he was in danger had been more of a trial than he was willing to admit, even to himself.

And then, on the third day, he knocked lightly on the door and received no reply.

“Obi-Wan?” he called.

He thought he heard an indistinct mumble. Qui-Gon chuckled, imagining the boy emerging from his blankets like an irritated loth-cat, rumpled and annoyed.

Then Obi-Wan screamed.

Qui-Gon’s mind conjured — for a split second — a new version of the image he had pictured in his mind for over a week — his Padawan, attacked in his sleep — drugged — dragged from his bed —

Then he blinked and the image vanished. Qui-Gon inhaled sharply and pressed on the entry pad, opening the door. He stepped inside the cramped cabin and was relieved to see the boy securely in his bed, the room completely absent of any impossible intruders. But Obi-Wan’s face was flushed with fever, and he was struggling beneath his blankets, thrashing as if he were actually being attacked.

“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said firmly, shaking his shoulder. “Obi-Wan, wake up.”

The Padawan didn’t seem to register Qui-Gon’s presence at all. He struggled with his bedsheets, small whimpers escaping his lips as he fought.

“Obi-Wan!” Qui-Gon said more sharply. “Wake up now!”

Obi-Wan rolled onto his side and dry heaved, his eyes flying open. His Master dropped to his knees beside the bed, running a hand soothingly up and down the boy’s arm. “It’s all right,” he said. “You were dreaming.”

“C-C—” Obi-Wan choked.

“Shh,” Qui-Gon said again.

“Cerasi—”

Qui-Gon’s heart plummeted. Obi-Wan was not coherent, that was obvious.

The boy had not mentioned that name in over two years.

“Padawan, you must focus,” he said softly. “This is not Melida/Daan. We are on a ship, heading home.”

“Cerasi is…”

…dead…

“…gonna… kill you.” Obi-Wan’s words, and the sheer venom in them, shocked the Jedi Master. Obi-Wan was still struggling, but more slowly now, almost as if he didn’t realize he was doing so. His eyes flickered feverishly to the middle distance, seeing things that weren’t there.

“Padawan…” Qui-Gon said slowly.

“Let them go!” Obi-Wan shrieked suddenly. One arm came loose from the blankets and missed striking his Master by inches. “Let them go, they’re too young! Let them go let them go let them go!”

“Obi-Wan!” Qui-Gon seized his Padawan by the shoulders.

Bloodshot blue eyes suddenly snapped directly onto Qui-Gon’s face, but instead of calming, Obi-Wan’s panic only increased. “Get off me!” He screamed, twisting, kicking, squirming away. “Don’t… don’t you touch me! Stop, stop, stop!” he was wailing now, utter despair twisting his face beyond recognition. “Please don’t!”

Qui-Gon released his Padawan as if burned. He pulled away sharply, horror rising in him, tasting bile.

I wasn’t — I wouldn’t —

It’s a fever dream —

A memory?

Qui-Gon tasted bile. “No,” he heard himself say aloud. “No.”

Obi-Wan had squirmed away, pressing himself flat against the wall the bed rested against, his body curling inwards — the last defense of the helpless, the frightened. The abused.

“I won’t,” he was saying frantically. “I won’t. Get out. Get out. They’re flying in the morning, they’re flying — Nield said — we tried to take the tank but — we lost too many — no. I tried! I did!”

Obi-Wan fell abruptly silent again, staring vaguely, his breaths coming in uneven little puffs. Sweat glistened on his brow, in his hair.

Qui-Gon wanted desperately to reach out and touch his shoulder, wipe his brow, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, terrified of causing another panicked outburst, of hearing —

I don’t know what happened on Melida/Daan.

“Trevor, Meola, Hanta, Chassi, come with me,” Obi-Wan said, still gazing vacantly. His voice, however, was firm. “We need to clear the streets. Gather up the bodies. Any pieces large enough to carry. Leave anything too small.”

I never asked him. I just assumed. He told me about the end of the war and Cerasi’s murder and I never thought to ask for more.

“Hanta?” Obi-Wan said. He coughed. Kept trying to talk even though he could barely breathe. “Hanta? Dammit… she’s gone. Infection. Infection. We’re out of medicine. We’re out. They can’t. I won’t go. They can’t they can’t. Get out.”

Obi-Wan dissolved into jumbled sentences, his eyes fluttering open and shut and open again, his cheeks blazing with fever.

“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon whispered.

“Cerasi?”

“Obi-Wan.”

“I can ask,” Obi-Wan said, and he sounded very small, so uncertain, nothing like the slowly-more-confident but quiet Padawan who had accompanied him last week. “I could. But he’s not. He’s not. He left, he doesn’t — he doesn’t want me.”

Another chill swept through Qui-Gon. He held his breath, waiting for more, not wanting to hear it but needing to know.

“He left me, I’m not meant — he said I wasn’t meant to be — I’m not good enough for it, Cerasi,” Obi-Wan murmured. His eyes fell closed again. He almost seemed to be sleeping. “He was right about… right about me. I’m not. Not. I can ask. He might not… come back. For you. For you he might. He’s good. Not me. Not me.”

Qui-Gon dropped his head onto the bedsheets, his breath sharp and painful in his chest.

I never asked.

“Nield. I will ask. I’ll ask the Jedi I will, I will. I’m not one of them. For you. I’ll ask for you.”

We never talked about it.

“The little ones, Cerasi. I can watch them. I’ll watch them today. My fingers. The man, he broke my fingers in the alleyway. I’ll watch the little ones, little ones. It’s story time, Jilo. Shhh.”

I let everything that happened afterwards consume it. Consume me.

“Qui-Gon doesn’t want me,” Obi-Wan said, so, so softly, his tone perfectly reasonable. Calm. “My fault. I’m not. It’s okay. I’ll talk to them. It’s okay. I want to… I want to go home. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t,” Obi-Wan’s voice cracked. “I want to go home.”

My Padawan.

With utmost care, Qui-Gon rose to his feet, feeling the floor sway beneath him as if he were at sea and not flying through hyperspace.

He went to the fresher and poured a glass of water and dampened a rag, carrying them both back to the beside. He set the glass on a table, and seated himself cautiously on the side of the bed, radiating as much calm as he could, trying to make his presence known through their training bond.

It must have worked, because Obi-Wan did not panic or flinch away from the person sitting beside him. Or perhaps he was simply too tired, delirious to the point of vacancy.

Qui-Gon reached out with one hand and gently pressed the boy back against his pillows, resting the cool cloth against his forehead once he had settled. He kept his hand there for awhile, and gently stroked the sweat-soaked hair with his thumb, watching the boy’s eyelids flicker as he began to doze, to dream.

With his other hand, Qui-Gon gently took one of Obi-Wan’s, holding it gently as if it were fragile, a treasure beyond price.

“Oh, my boy,” he whispered, and was not shocked to taste salt on his lips as he spoke. “Sleep now. When you wake, we will talk, I swear it. We’ll talk about everything. Anything you want.”

Obi-Wan continued to dream.

As he fell deeper into sleep, his fingers curled gently around Qui-Gon’s, and he did not let go.

fin.