Never dark.
Padawan Jinn put a bandaged foot out of bed, the floor a shock of smooth cold under newly regrown skin. It didn't hurt to ease himself out from the sheets - what ache was left was inside, a stain on his heart that could not be reached by bacta.
He lay down on the ground, face pressed to the plating, metal slick against thigh, hip and shoulder, and he tried to absorb peace through his skin. If only he were not a boy. If only he were a fallen seed, lying on deep soil, quiet in the night, awaiting the sun. But there was no soil on Coruscant - only dirtier and more desperate levels of emptiness. And it was never dark. The tiny sliver of his window was full of dizzying brilliance, as comforting as burning magnesium.
Leather scuffed against carpet, and a shadow paused outside his door.
Please go away.
"Padawan?"
He deserved punishment - deserved more punishment in fact than the silk and cream of that voice seemed to promise. He saw no point in protest, or anything else.
The door opened, and brightness haloed the sword-like form of Master Dooku. Qui-Gon was no coward, so he turned his head slightly and met the black depths of his master's gaze. It was cool, but concerned. "I feel your despair, Padawan. You and I must talk."
The elegant gesture of a long arm invited Qui-Gon into the common room. He obeyed, dimly grateful to Dooku for not coming further in and invading the only space in the universe which was his own.
When he had sat on one of the delicate, carven chairs, Yan Dooku returned and put into his hands a porcelain cup of hot, sweet tea. Looking down at the tawny surface of the liquid, surrounded by his Master's fine things, he felt rough, coarse, utterly out of place.
"Young man," Dooku said, leaning over him, slender fingers on the back of his chair, "I am deeply angry with you."
"I didn't want to kill him." Qui-Gon had to make a long journey in his mind before he felt himself capable of answering and even so it felt blasphemous, as if he was no longer worthy to speak. "I tried not to."
"That, my dear child, is precisely the point." The look was accusing and protective, falcon-fierce, "I am angry because you hesitated." White fingers grazed the air above Qui-Gon's partly healed cheek, "Your reluctance almost cost your life."
Flash of memory, like the hail of blaster fire - the disorientation and near innocence in the slaver's eyes as he was run through. Qui-Gon hunched against the nausea of that recollection. "But I don't see why his life was worth less than mine." The Living Force had streamed about them both - victor and victim - and Qui-Gon had felt the passing of something unique, irreplaceable. Infinitely valuable, and - because of him - broken beyond repair. There must have been another way and I failed to find it. The Force could not have wanted this....
Brushing back the sleek sable of his hair, Dooku straightened, his look of sympathy fading into sternness. "Qui-Gon, you will not find many Masters honest enough to say this, but if you cannot kill without remorse you will be useless to the Jedi Order."
Qui-Gon breathed in. The ultimatum was as refreshing as snow on his swollen face. He admired the straight talking honesty of his Master - an integrity that others sometimes took for cruelty. "You must decide, Qui-Gon. A Jedi knight must kill. Do you still wish to be a Knight?"
And it wasn't, after all, as if he had any choice - he was created to be a Jedi, he could no more chose not to than an oak tree could chose to be a rowan. "I do, Master."
Dooku sighed, took Qui-Gon's hand and helped him to his feet. "Then go back to bed, Padawan, and in the morning I will arrange for you to take a lesson in death."
Master Dooku's slender hand tightened reassuringly on Qui-Gon's shoulder. The room was grey, cavernous and steel shrouded. A grey light, neither night nor day, diffused from under powered and dusty glow pads. There were no windows.
In the centre of the dreary space an area of the floor had been scrubbed clean, gleaming with sterile menace.
Far away, across the long emptiness, a door slid open and the slim, efficient figures of four Coruscant guards stepped through. They were as calm as Jedi, as calm as droids - calm as if some part of their spirit had simply perished. Qui-Gon's heart clenched. The palms of his hands were clammy and his face taut with heat. Master Dooku leaned close. "Courage, Padawan. It will all be over soon."
For me it will only just have begun, Qui-Gon thought, touching the edge of darkness, Life as a trained killer. My Master's weapon. The Council's weapon....
Unstruggling, the prisoner was brought through the door by two guards. It was uncertain whether they restrained or supported him - he was eggshell pale under the shorn smudge of his hair. A slight man with a pleasant face and eyes bewildered by doom.
"We're ready for you, Master Jedi." The sergeant in charge was brisk, unaffected. The obscenity of all this calm swept over Qui-Gon suddenly, raising goosebumps along his arms.
One of the guards kicked the prisoner in the back of the legs, dropping him efficiently to his knees.
Oh Gods! "Master?" Qui-Gon tugged his braid nervously, looked up into Dooku's face - saw a small smile over iron certainty. The hand fell from his shoulder to push him gently in the small of the back, urging him forward. "Master...please?" Under blaster fire, with pain screaming its warnings down every nerve, it had still barely been possible to strike the blow that saved him. He could not do it here. How could he, and remain human afterwards?
"This man is a recidivist criminal. He has raped and murdered a number of elderly women in their own homes," Dooku said, the unearthly beauty of his voice adding horror to the ugly words. "He has been condemned to death according to the laws of his own planet. What you do here is Justice, Padawan."
"Too bloody good for him," the sergeant muttered suddenly, a thick whisper that filled the dimness, "I saw some of them."
Qui-Gon took his lightsabre from his belt. It felt wrong somehow - cold, heavy, deadly, as if he realized for the first time what it was. He stepped forward. Silence closed over him as the universe held its breath, waiting. I can't do it. If I do, how am I different from him?
Stepping closer, Qui-Gon looked down at the prisoner's bowed head, the clean capable hands of the guards holding him down. His sheer passivity was awful. I can't. He's not a threat any more. This is pointless. Wrong. I can't.
Slowly the prisoner raised his head, meeting Qui-Gon's gaze in terrible intimacy. The Force spoke, and he breathed in understanding - the addiction of evil. A daily struggle - a struggle minute by minute to turn his thoughts away from the God-like thrill of murder. The way his mind circled back to it the moment he eased his vigilance, like a tongue poking at the salt and blood of a lost tooth. And - oh Kriff! - he was so tired of it, and he hated the inside of his head so much. Sleep was a torment, and he was so weary, and he wanted respite, but - kriff! - he was scared.
Pity left Qui-Gon with bones like water - it was hard to stand up after looking into the murderer's mind. Not merely Justice, but an act of mercy. Because there were, after all, worse things than a clean death.
With enormous concentration he moved his right hand until the emitter disk of his sabre was pressed against the man's temple. The widest part of the blade would go straight through his brain. Death would be so instant he would feel nothing.
"Kid?" The murderer's voice was hoarse as if from screaming. Still and frightened, Qui-Gon looked back into the haunted eyes. "Thank you."
"Ah!" With a sob Qui-Gon thumbed the activator. There was a burst of green light, appallingly lovely, and in that instant a living man became a corpse.
Qui-Gon swallowed, mouth dry, and stepped away. Deactivating the sabre he stood blankly in a hollow where meaning had once been.
Master Dooku folded his smooth hands and smiled once more, pleased. "Evil must be be destroyed, my child, whatever the cost to ourselves."
They were picking the body up now, unsentimentally as though it was merely oddly shaped trash. The sergeant turned, his stony facade wavering a little as he looked at Qui-Gon's motionless shock. "The bastard had it coming, Master Dooku, but I gotta say, making a 13 year old kid dish it out? That's kinda harsh."
"The life of a Jedi Knight is hard, Sergeant." Dooku looked serenely down on the soldier from his patrician height. "We must be prepared to do many things which are abhorrent to us. It is our comfort to know that we do them for the good of the galaxy."
For a heartbeat the soldier's expression was human with awe and distaste, then he saluted smartly and led the execution squad away. Peace settled by degrees over the void of the huge hangar. Master Dooku's voice was mild and encouraging. "Do you need any further lessons, Padawan?"
"No, Master," Qui-Gon said almost dreamily, "I will not hesitate again." Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it's an act of mercy. Sometimes the Force does wish it. He felt absurdly calm, like a droid with its empathy circuits off line.
"Then let's go home, my son. You have done well today."
Numbness lasted all evening, but shattered the moment Qui-Gon switched off the reading light in his room. Like the cut of a knife so sharp he had not felt the wound, pain came blossoming out of his soul to overwhelm him. Shuddering, he crawled into a corner and sat there, weeping.
The boots paused outside his door again. He closed his eyes. They hesitated and then moved away. There would be no reprimand nor any attempt at comfort tonight. And, Qui-Gon thought, wrapping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sobs, in its way that too was an act of kindness.
