DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
It was Qui-Gon Jinn's way to look at complex events to seek the simplicity within. Almost no moment passed, even in the most desperate battle, without his reaching to the living Force for clarity. If there was something hidden, the Force would press a sense of it on him, guide him.
But this moment seemed already elemental. What had been in the air around either of them -- their fates, his mission, the nature of her boy -- where had it gone? Swept away. Master Yoda taught that nothing happened by chance, but he could see no further into this exact present than sheer happiness.
Shmi shifted a little atop him, moving her hands closer to touch his beard and scratch at it gently, then setting them as a pillow beneath her cheek, curving against the smooth swath of his muscles.
//What would it be like to have something like this for forty years?// she wondered. //Every night, to have this kind of power and pleasure in your life? In bed with you?// She rubbed her fingertips across his chest, imagining -- //when he was very young, now when he is just past the pinnacle, later, when the weakening will have set in -- how will he feel? The skin drier, looser...the hair white as salt.//
Inwardly, she laughed at herself. She was trying to have a lifetime's bonding in a single moment. And yet.... //If only.// She wondered if his imaginings were similar, hoped so, and snuggled her head in closer under the arch of his beard.
They were. His arms wrapped around this lovely woman, feeling her every breath wisping across his skin, Qui-Gon Jinn was contemplating for the many-thousandth time the way the Jedi, and he as one among them, lived in the balance of the Force.
The price of this experience would be its limits. Pain and joy, the balance of life.
In the years when they first left the temple as Padawans, one of the first and most painful lessons Jedi apprentices had to assimilate was that no matter how great a Knight's powers, many wrongs would have to go unremedied. The Jedi learner was put through the agony of growing constantly more sensitive, and therefore constantly more compassionate, while being constantly required to focus only on a small fragment of the suffering the galaxy contained. And a Padawan who dealt with the pain by shutting it off was failed as a Knight, because a hardening against the suffering of others was a path to the Dark Side.
Qui-Gon now wished deeply that he could free her, but knew that was his own wish, with no touch of the Force about it.
It was the boy who had intimations of the Force whirling around him like a windstorm, not the mother, not the pair. //Shmi Skywalker's fate must be left to her own devising -- or that of the beings who owned her. //
The thought gave him a pang. They had belonged to Gardulla the Hutt before Watto -- perhaps fate would at least keep Shmi and her son out of the hands of another Hutt. But he knew that his mission did not hinge on her, and that he did not have the leisure to turn aside and give his focus to her.
Tomorrow after the race, his path lay clear to Coruscant, and he must go.
Did she know that? She knew he had no money that Watto would accept. He had said plainly that his mission was not really on Tatooine, that he had not come to free slaves, but did she believe it? Or did she believe her son, who had answered bluntly, "I think you have," and with such power that the Force had tightened around Qui-Gon as the words were voiced.
Nor could he simply steal them. The boy had made it clear. Somewhere in this small, lovely body was an explosive device.
Qui-Gon sensed for it, heightening his connection with the Force until he was near the edge of a healing trance, sensing her body as an organic whole, looking for the eddy, the emptiness, or even the pain that would tell him where the void, unalive thing was, but he failed to find it.
His failure made him sigh, and Shmi took it as the moment of letting go. She nuzzled her nose against his throat one more time, memorizing the man-smell she hoped to recall forever. And then she slipped off him, stood, and foraged in the sand for her clothes. She heard the Jedi move also, but didn't look back.
When they turned to each other again, they were clothed. The Jedi stretched out one of his arms, and Shmi slid gladly into its shelter. They walked slowly back to the city, the Jedi shortening his stride to hers, kicking up sand with his toes as he went.
They went back the long way, into Mos Espa Avenue. The streets were not empty -- though the markets and shops were closed, the gambling dens and pleasure houses were in their peak hours. It was not a route Shmi would have chosen, but it seemed like the Jedi's size was enough to move them through the streets unmolested -- until a Rodian spacer took a second glance at Shmi, her hair still loose and flowing like a dark corona, and reached for his blaster.
"I think it is time to share the lady," he said, levelling the blaster at Qui-Gon's heart.
Shmi froze in fear, her mind racing -- would he fight? Who would die? Could he reach his lightsaber with his arm around her? Should she run and try to distract the gambler's attention so Qui-Gon could get to his weapon?
But all that happened was that Qui-Gon's hand tightened momentarily in reassurance, then he lifted a few fingers off her shoulder and answered casually, "We're really not very interesting. We should move out of your path and keep going."
The Rodian's face took on a thoughtful expression, ears swivelling back and snout wrinkling pensively. His blaster drifted down to his side, and he stepped forward and shoved Qui-Gon hard.
"Get out of my face, nerf-herder," he snarled. "And take your sow with you."
Qui-Gon lurched sideways with the push, using the motion to steer Shmi forward and directly in front of him, keeping himself completely between Shmi and the Rodian until they turned down a side street.
After they had turned the corner, Shmi whispered, "How did you do that?"
Qui-Gon shook his head slightly. "He's very drunk."
"Oh," Shmi said. //More Jedi training,// she thought. "So am I," she joked, letting the question go. In a way, it was perfectly true.
Qui-Gon chuckled. "And you see what advantage I took of you," he said.
Shmi smiled up at him, paused a moment and said, "When I asked where your home was, I didn't mean--"
"I know," he said softly. His hand lifted from her shoulder and stroked her hair once. "I know."
They had reached the slave quarters, and both of them paused as they came to Shmi's door. The two of them looked at it as if some mysterious void lay on the other side, yet each was thinking that it was the known world that lay waiting, and the unknown world that they were standing in now, fortunate enough to have found a chink in time that allowed them to visit it.
Shmi breathed deeply and slipped out from under his arm, turning to face him, looking up at a sharp angle into his face, the way the thin light lay along the slope of his forehead, the long bent line of his nose. She reached up and stroked the line of his cheek, his beard, and let her hand come to rest flat on his chest.
"Qui-Gon," she said softly.
It wasn't the beginning of a sentence, but all she wanted to say. And the answer in his eyes couldn't be said in words, either, unless it were the single word of her name. But instead, his mouth came down on hers.
Shmi moved into the kiss as far as she could, standing tiptoe atop his feet and wrapping her arms around his neck. She could feel his spirit pouring into her now, everything in him that had been a man who would have loved a life with a woman, passion bleeding into carnality in the kiss, decades of accepted loss, all the sexual fire a huge, fierce man had given away to principle, to service.
And in her, the years of hated lies and subterfuge, all the hiding of the self that was needed for a chattel to survive, rose to answer. Such a person was lucky to be able to choose and protect even one thing of value against the whole universe. Shmi had chosen her son. She would never regret or doubt her choice for an instant, but she knew and hated the price, and everything that was left of her, she poured into this man who would be gone the next day.
To take with him, as he was leaving so much with her.
//And I will trust you with Annie,// her heart said. //Even with him.// For she had believed her son, had believed that this man might be the destiny Anakin had been born for, come to claim him so early in his life.
A few minutes later, they had slipped quietly into the house, not touching.
And the Jedi astonished Shmi one last time. It was too dark to see his eyes, but she could feel him looking at her as she moved to her small room. She stopped at the arch to her room and turned around, and leaned on it, looking back. They stood that way for a long minute, then he settled down on the floor, lay back, and was asleep in seconds, completely at peace although she was still watching.