Chapter Text
Obi-Wan was dreaming.
He was thirteen again, curled in his master’s bed, clutching a pillow and fighting nausea and a sharpening pain in his head. He remembered this: a stubborn fever after a particularly gruelling mission. He’d been almost incoherent and Qui-Gon, while assured by the healers that he didn’t need to sleep in the infirmary, was too wary and too worried to leave his fragile padawan alone.
“Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon’s baritone rumbled behind him from where Qui-Gon lay on the bed, propped up on an elbow to get a better look at his face. A cool hand reached over to touch Obi-Wan’s forehead. “How do you feel?”
“It hurts.” He groaned and curled in on himself. A tear escaped and he felt Qui-Gon gently brush it away as the older man shifted so he could draw Obi-Wan’s back to his chest and wrap his arm around him. “I know. I'm sorry. It will get better, you’ll see. In time. Right now is not forever.”
“I know. But it hurts.” A wave of pain moved through him and Obi-Wan shuddered.
“Hmm….Shh…” Qui-Gon vibrated wordless sounds of comfort. The pain was bad, but the physical closeness was nice, comforting… precious. It had been so long since he’d been in Qui-Gon’s arms. He gripped Qui-Gon’s hand in his and pulled it against his heart. A very young part of him was almost glad to be sick and enveloped in such a deep sense of safety that he never wanted to leave.
“Try to sleep, dear one.” Qui-Gon pressed his hand against Obi-Wan’s heart and Obi-Wan felt him send a small tendril of force energy for healing and sleep.
Except, Obi-Wan, was asleep already. Wasn’t he? He pressed his hand against Qui-Gon’s, feeling the roughness of his master’s skin. Something was off. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. Everything still felt like a dream. Fuzzy and unreal.
Fighting through pain and dream-logic, he struggled to orient himself. His heart rate sped up and he squirmed under Qui-Gon’s arm.
Qui-Gon could feel his distress building and tried to send calm through the force.
“Master?”
He felt Qui-Gon chuckle softly. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
Years?
It was then that he noticed, as he was holding Qui-Gon’s hand, that their hands, while not the same size, were not as far off as they should have been.
He touched his face. He had a beard?
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I—I don’t know. We were on a mission. I got sick?” Obi-Wan fumbled together pieces of knowledge.
“Hmm… Do you know where?”
“Um…. Kashyyk?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Toydaria?”
“No.”
“Do you remember how you hit your head?”
“Hit my head? No I have –“ OH SHIT. Clarity burst into his brain.
He’d been in a lightsaber fight. With General Grievous. And Ventress. And Qui-Gon. And Anakin.
He’d been thrown from the catwalk…..
He wasn’t thirteen. He was thirty-six. He was General Kenobi.
He was curled in Qui-Gon’s arms like a child, still gripping his hand.
To say he felt embarrassed was the understatement of the decade.
He bolted upright, head swimming and tried to get up. Qui-Gon tried to push him back down.
“No, Obi-Wan, you shouldn’t….”
Like hell he shouldn’t!
“Is being watched over by your old master such a hardship?”
Obi-Wan realized he’d spoken his invective aloud. Qui-Gon sounded…. Hurt?
He stood up, and promptly fell over. Qui-Gon’s strong arms caught him under his shoulders and lifted him back onto the bed.
He sprawled on his back, staring up at the weaving ceiling.
And Qui-Gon’s concerned face.
He felt ashamed of how eager he’d been for his master’s comfort and closeness. He was a general. He shouldn’t need....nursing… like a child.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the spinning world. Qui-Gon sighed wearily beside him.
“I’m sorry, Obi-Wan. I have no wish to upset you. I’ll take my leave.”
Obi-Wan said nothing. Just breathed and tried to calm his spinning thoughts. Was he so attached to his own invulnerability that he would let Qui-Gon think he was rejecting him?
He caught the other man’s hand just before he stepped away from the bed.
“No,” he said softly. “That's not it.” And he opened up his shields a fraction to let his embarrassment and frustration at himself seep out.
Qui-Gon’s eyes widened in understanding and his gaze softened. His smile was almost wistful. He sat back down on the mattress.
“Oh my dear Obi-Wan. Even sturdy oaks need water and sunlight. It has been a long war. And you are owed some comfort, are you not?”
Obi-Wan’s heart clenched. He hadn’t been held or comforted in a very long time.
He was tired, and in pain, and he was lonely.
“I’ve missed you, master,” he whispered, as he reached his arms around Qui-Gon’s waist and laid his head in his lap.
“And I you, padawan.” Qui-Gon bent forward placing a kiss on Ob-Wan’s head and ran his thumb along the patch of his hair where his braid used to be.
Something eased in Obi-Wan’s chest and he sobbed into his old master’s tunics. Qui-Gon stroked his hair and rocked him ever so slightly.
“My brave and brilliant Obi-Wan. Rest assured, you will be always be my padawan.” He chuckled softly, nostalgic. “Come now. Could this really be worse than--”
Obi-Wan’s groan cut him off, remembering the aftermath of Bant’s sixteen birthday party; Qui-Gon holding him up over the toilet…
Qui-Gon must have picked up his thought, because he laughed brightly. “I’d forgotten about that. I was confess I was thinking of the blue mullet you had in your fifteenth year. But yes, I suppose that was fairly gutting as well.”
Obi-Wan snorted. He’d forgotten Qui-Gon’s propensity for silly wordplay when they were alone. “Nothing is worse than that pun, my dear Master. “
“No, indeed. See, you are in good company. Dignity can be terribly overrated.”
“Except in front of the council.”
“Well.” Qui-Gon smirked. “Obviously.”
Obi-Wan shifted to look up at Qui-Gon grinning and smiled back. He breathed out and relaxed further into Qui-Gon’s arms. His last thought, as he drifted into a dreamless sleep, was that it was good to be home.