Obi-Wan is aging surprisingly well (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} obi1) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} valarlogs,@ 2012-10-04 12:46:00 |
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Who: Obi-Wan and Meetra
What: Meetra gives some helpful scolding and Obi begins to let go
When: Tuesday Evening
Where: Meetra's Apartment
status: Complete
Rating: PG-13, Just Because
Meetra had invited Obi over to her apartment. It was, usually, pretty well kept up, and had gotten less spartan over the last few months as she’d found herself opening up more as a person.
She had tea brewing, and had cleared the table out of the living room, setting down her training mat and a small tray table for the tea. They wouldn’t need a couch for this.
Obi-Was was not, as a rule, a drinker of tea. He could recall Qui-Gon seeking cups so frequently that Obi-Wan had started to brew pots well ahead of time and considered it one of his duties as a padawan. Obi-Wan always has the tea ready, he would say, meaning, Thank you.
But Obi-Wan preferred coffee. He had been promised coffee, but he wouldn’t complain. He was too anxious to care very much. Tea was probably better, at the present moment.
She'd decided this was a tea moment, and not a coffee moment. And truthfully she'd managed to forget about coffee entirely. Jedi were naturally secretive creatures, but Obi's secrets could prove more damaging than the truth would have been. Tea would be calming.
She opened the door for him, "Afternoon."
He felt the urge to bow, as he did with every encounter with Meetra, but this time he only gave in to a subtle lowering of his head, easily mistakable for a nod. “Hello,” he greeted, and stepped inside.
Closing the door behind them, she gestured towards the mat. She sounded a little curt as she said, "Get comfortable."
That translated to 'get into meditating position' or roughly 'you have some splaining to do mister.'
Less than a minute inside and already Obi-Wan felt like he was being scolded. More and more, it was like the Force was whispering in his ear, educating him as to what this was all about. Curt directions from just about any other person would have gotten them no more than an icy glare. But he knew he was guilty, and so he took a seat on the mat. "Very well..."
"You've been keeping secrets," She said, setting the tea down on the tray and sitting next to him. She crossed her legs, and picked up the cup, taking a sip.
"The kind of secrets that might upset some people."
Obi-Wan held her gaze as he picked up his own cup from the tray. He pressed his lips together and waited for Meetra to continue, but with her timed pause it seemed more like she was prompting him to admit his own part. Qui-Gon had done this sort of thing all the time. It always felt a little too much like a game.
But he knew that what she was speaking of concerned Dani, and that helped him further beat down his bruised pride. "What is it that's come out?" he asked with a low sigh.
It wasn't a game, but it was a method as old as the Jedi Order itself. Meetra took another sip, and remained silent. She was waiting for him to admit what he already knew.
He began to sip his tea and stare back at Meetra, and it became clear that his gaze was the one being held. He sighed again. "She found out about the mind reading, didn’t she? I had intended to tell her..." He cut himself off. He had intended to tell Dani, but he hadn't. Just another thing he had meant to do, but failed.
"You had intended to, but you didn't get around to it? Or you just didn't think about it." Another sip of the tea, "I told her I sensed her distress. I hadn't realized you were keeping things from her."
His next question would have been How? How did Dani find out, who had told her? But Obi-Wan had already answered his question even before Meetra went on. His jaw tightened. "When it started, I didn't realize what it was. I thought I was just... clever, being able to figure things out on my own. And then it got away from me. The more time passed, the more difficult it became to bring up, because I had already used it on her so many times without knowing it."
"Difficult, yes. But you could have explained that to her. She would have understood."
Meetra paused, and then added, "She would have gotten rather angry. Then she would have understood." She set her tea down, "She has a temper problem. I'm working on that."
That deserved a laugh, at least a grim one, but Obi-Wan was beyond it. "Is that what she told you?" he asked, not accusatory, but frustrated. And scared. If Dani was upset and hadn't contacted him yet, then things were very bad.
"No, I could sense it. She had a great deal of anger within herself, not all of it due to you. Most of it wasn't due to you. It was old hurt, old anger." She let that sink in a moment, before adding, "I taught her a trick I use to let the anger go."
Obi-Wan wondered if Meeta was speaking of more than just Dani. The lines in his face softened a little. "What was that?" he asked, sincere.
"Think about the anger and why it needs to be let go. Ball it up. Let it blow away. Don't force it. Just let it blow away."
"Well, I'm not angry at anyone," he replied too quickly, like it was a prepared rebuttal.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, "You answered that too quickly. Try again?"
Obi-Wan clenched his teeth. He knew there was no point in hiding his feelings, but the impulse was still there. Honestly, he was a little angry at Meetra, for what he felt was an invasion of privacy regarding his relationship. But that wasn't the same kind of angry. "Does it even matter?" he asked. "The names of the people? Or person?"
"Of course it matters! These things always matter. Especially when it's a specific person. How can you face them - or their memory - if all they do is anger you?" Meetra reached over and poked her hand at his shoulder, "You have to let it go, every bit of it!"
“There are too many to count,” he blurted out, but already there was a tiny crack in his defenses.
"Start with the big one, work your way down."
Obi-Wan set down his cup and rubbed his eyes with his hand. “Anakin,” he said, unsure if it was the big one or not, whatever that meant. It was always the first name to jump into his head. “My... padawan.”
It was a big one. The most important one. From the sound of his voice Meetra knew it, "What did he do?"
“You should appreciate that he destroyed the Jedi,” he said. “He hunted them down. Killed them systematically. He... destroyed everything.”
"You didn't fail him, Obi," Meetra said, after a moment's thought. "But it's natural to feel anger. It's a righteous one, but one you can't hold on to. It could consume you, especially in this world, where we spent so long as just regular people, without training." Maybe it wasn't anger, she thought, "You hurt."
He was fighting against the flood of emotions with everything he had, and still failing. “No ...It was my fault. I turned a blind eye. Because I was attached to him. He was like my brother.”
"You loved him. We like to think better of the ones we love." Meetra peered up at the ceiling, wondering. She had given up a killing blow on the Emperor to save Revan's life. Was that because of attachment? Because she'd loved him? Or was it because she thought they couldn't do it without him. "Do you think things would have been different if you hadn't been attached to him?"
Obi-Wan shook his head and pressed his teeth into the flesh of his lower lip. “No, I...” he paused, considering the many layers of meaning in Meetra’s question, and realizing she was proposing more than one alternate scenario. His mind was trained to separate black from white, but here there was more than one intermediate step.
He could accept that Anakin probably would have reached the same end regardless of his actions, but Obi-Wan had never been able to ignore his pride well enough to remove himself from the equation entirely. He’d always thought about it in terms of If I had done this... or If I had done that.... He had never considered not being present at all.
He fell silent as his eyes regained their composure.
Meetra watched him as he sorted through it, the conflict writ in his eyes. Most of the time it was pointless to think of alternate scenarios. The what ifs and the should have dones. But in this case, she had proposed removing himself from the equation entirely, and thinking on if things would have happened regardless.
"For all you know, Obi, you gave him more time before he fell."
Whether that was good or bad, was entirely subjective.
Obi-Wan's ultimate response was still in the realm of silence. He brushed back his hair with his hand and held it for a moment or so, releasing a sigh through his nose and acknowledging Meetra with a short nod.
"I've really hurt Dani with this one, haven't I?" he asked, but it needn't have been a question. He knew the answer. The memory of her crying on the bed was fresh in his mind as a wound only just cut. "Not being able to let go of these things..."
"I think it's more that you've been reading her without telling her that's hurt her the most, but there is some of that yes." Meetra replied, nodding.
“I always feel like I need a secret... to protect myself...” he admitted. “I need to talk with her immediately.” In fact, he was about ready to rise to his feet.
Meetra pulled her hand away, "Are you calm enough? Will you be calm enough in the face of her anger? Will you be able to tell her everything? We have no state secrets here."
Calm? No, he wasn’t. He rarely was. Obi-Wan forced himself to stay seated. “I am willing to tell her anything she wants to know,” he said. “I can’t imagine losing her.”
"Good. Now take your distress, fold it like a piece of paper, and rip it to shreds."
His eyelids fluttered. With another sigh, what remained of his stubbornness began to wash from his face. Slowly, but still fading. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and uttered a breathy, “Okay...” He nodded and finally the lines in his forehead softened.
"Feels good, doesn't it," Meetra said gently. "Now let the shreds blow away, like on a breeze."
“I feel...” He knew anxious was not the word he wanted to use, even if it was the truth. But either way, Meetra would be able to sense it. “Odd. But good. I think.” He told himself to stop trying to be funny and accept however it felt.
"That's good then. I think you're almost ready to throw yourself at your girlfriend's mercy and grovel at her feet."
He guffawed, even though his eyes remained closed. His mind had taken solace in the image of a river and he pictured himself being washed clean.
Smirking, Meetra turned her mind inward. She had her own demons to exorcise.