Who: Julian Ross and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also known as Julian talking to himself. When: Not long after this exchange. What: Julian behaves like a petulant child and is told off for it by his reincarnate. Where: Manhattan. Rating: E for uncharacteristic emo? Don't worry, he doesn't wallow for long.
Julian Ross was not good with feelings. Oh, he had them. All the time, in fact, but he never really questioned them or sought to understand why he felt them or what he could do to change his emotional state. When things got bad? He got angry. Sometimes he punched the nearest face he could find, sometimes he went out on a drinking binge. His coping mechanisms were not healthy. Usually? He was okay with ‘ignore it and drink until it goes away’ as a problem-solving technique. Julian was not a particularly complicated man.
Things were different when the problem was Abigail. All he wanted was to make things better, to help heal the damage done. He wanted to eviscerate the people who’d done it to her, he wanted to rewind the clock and murder them before they were even gleams in a father’s eye. This, he thought, was exactly how Vader felt. Twenty, thirty years of despotism and murderous tyranny, all because someone had threatened his girlfriend.
Nevermind that the ‘someone’ in question had been Anakin himself. That hurt too; Julian didn’t think Abigail had been targeted because of him, but that didn’t ease his guilt. If he’d been there. If he hadn’t been so sure she could handle herself, if he hadn’t trusted in their Jedi senses, if...
It was fruitless, pointless self-flagellation. Julian’s rational self knew this. Unfortunately, he didn’t often listen to his rational self. Tonight was no different; he may have been eschewing the binge-drinking in case Abigail changed her mind and needed something, but with his errand out of the way he was free to do something remarkably foolish. Namely, going out for a jog at night in New York City. He wanted trouble. He was asking for trouble, but if he couldn’t have it he’d settle for the exercise-induced adrenaline.
You’re being a fool.
Julian didn’t often solicit his reincarnate’s advice, or accept it when it was offered unbidden. Normally he’d have ignored the crisp, English accent at the back of his head - Alec Guinness, not the younger Ewan McGregor’s Scottish voice - but he was in a Mood and, if he couldn’t tussle with someone corporeal, he was willing to go a round with the old Jedi.
Oh yeah?
You’re fully aware of what you’re doing. You’re being reckless and foolish because you haven’t the patience and self-control to take a productive step. You want an immediate payoff where none is possible.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, old man. You’re a Jedi, y’all have your hearts surgically removed at birth.
You’re not the first difficult boy in my charge, you know. As for having my heart removed, you know that isn't true, either - to be a Jedi is not to give up emotion, but rather to refuse to allow emotion to control you. You pay too much attention to your heart, Julian, and you give it too much power. In so doing, you fail the people who look to you for support.
Well. Somebody thinks he’s awfully smart.
Silence. Obi-Wan did not rise to the bait. Something twisted in the pit of Julian’s stomach - he really didn’t know what to do, and he really did want some kind of pay-off. Something, anything to give him a little hope.
So what would you do?
Calm down, for a start. You’re no good to her angry and irrational. Calm down, center yourself, and rationally weigh your options.
It wasn’t bad advice. Julian hated Obi-Wan for being right, but it was exactly the advice he’d have given if their positions were swapped.
She’s hurt in ways I can’t fix. Don’t think I really have any options. The urge to punch something flared up again. She’s right, she’s gonna have to do this on her own, but I’m worried about her and--
Calm down. Center yourself. Weigh the things you can affect. Accept the things that you can’t. The truth is, Julian, you don’t know how to get to the people who hurt Abigail. You’re not in a position to exact revenge and it wouldn’t help if you could. Revenge is never the right choice; it perpetuates. Anything done in anger invites more anger. If you take one of theirs, they’ll reciprocate. They’ll hurt someone else’s girlfriend - perhaps your friend Fletcher’s. You need to take productive action that will help Abigail, if not directly, than by making the world in which she moves safer.
Julian didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue either. He was tired of arguing, tired of feeling helpless.
Or you could lash out at someone, since that’s been effective for you so far.
Huh. Jedi sarcasm, Julian thought, grumpily. Isn’t that just great.