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persephone_koreTitle: Things That Never Happened to Dooku, Unfortunately
Authors: Persephone_Kore, Dreagoddess
Characters: Dooku, Qui-Gon
Genre: AU, drama
Summary: Several ways Dooku's life could have gone differently. Thing four: Qui-Gon visits Dooku after Komari disappears.
Notes: Komari Vosa is an obscure EU character born of the same concept art as Asajj Ventress. She was Dooku's last Jedi Padawan. It did not go well. Evidently she wasn't much on controlling her passions, whether anger or lust over her master. He refused to let her take the Trials, she ran off on a mission to deal with a drug cult that was a total disaster, and while presumed dead took it over and was successful enough to alarm Sidious into having Dooku (who had also turned by then) get rid of her. Sidious likes the killing-off-old-friends thing.
Thing Four: Mourning After the Fallen
It was morning.
Dooku was annoyed to realize this, as it meant he'd been trying and failing to meditate all night. The Force usually flowed easily for him, but just now it felt jumbled, tied in knots. Whenever he'd reached it, it had slipped his grasp and dropped him, or he'd felt a current he didn't want to follow and let go.
Now he had spent the entire night sitting up, sitting still, and unable to still his mind or relax his body. He was stiff and his eyes and throat ached, and he was no nearer to peace than when he'd begun.
He was a Jedi Master, blast it! He had seven decades of experience in the Order. The Force had come more easily for him than breathing since he'd been a child. He should certainly be able to meditate.
He should certainly be able to move one minor report out of the thousands he'd read during his career out of his mind.
Except for one line that seemed acid-etched into his retina.
Komari Vosa, missing, presumed dead.
He had taken the news decorously enough in public. He'd said all the right things -- at least, he thought so. He couldn't quite remember what they had been at the moment, but he was sure he'd said them. The failure of the mission was unfortunate, the loss of the Jedi who had been assigned to it tragic.
Komari had not been assigned to it.
He didn't know what she had told them. That she'd been Knighted? That she'd been told to join them, that their mission was to be the Trial she'd in truth been denied?
He still didn't know where and how he had first failed her. But the last time had surely been by not keeping watch once he'd torn her life and ambitions away.
She'd been angry. Spectacularly so. When she'd shouted at him, he'd told her she was only confirming his decision. She'd tried pleading then, telling him she could change, she'd only lost herself in the horrors of Galidraan. He could have believed that, except the problems had existed before then. He'd just blinded himself to them. Then, finally, she'd tried suggesting -- with a little too much emphasis -- what a good team they would make.
That had made him withdraw, telling her he would give her time to think things over. He'd thought he was doing the right thing at the time. Her anger was with him, her...fixation was on him -- surely the best thing to do was remove himself from the scene.
The best thing for her? he asked himself mockingly. Or the best for you? The more comfortable thing had been to avoid her, avoid his failure.
And now she was gone and there was no choice about it any longer.
Komari was gone. The failure was very much present.
A sharp crack echoed through his quarters; Dooku thought at first that something had broken, but the sound repeated, persistently, and he realized that it had not been nearly so violent as he'd first thought after the silence of the night. Someone was knocking at the door, that was all.
He went to wash his face, deliberately not reaching out to sense who was there, and hoped the person would get impatient and go away. Probably not. It was probably Master Yoda, and if Yoda grew impatient at all, he would be more likely to open the door himself. Or possibly wait to punish the offense with a jab to the kneecaps.
When Dooku finally did open the door, it was not Master Yoda. It was Qui-Gon.
Dooku blinked at him, not quite believing his eyes. What was Qui-Gon doing at his doorstep? "Qui-Gon," he acknowledged with a slight nod of his head. "Did you need -- is everything all right with Obi-Wan?" Usually the only time he and his former apprentice spoke was about Qui-Gon's own padawan, so perhaps that was it.
"He's fine," Qui-Gon assured him. "I brought you breakfast."
Dooku looked down at the tray he hadn't noticed until now. That was really very unobservant of him. And he was still slightly confused. "I apologize if I've forgotten an appointment."
"No." A very faint smile, quickly gone. "Not one I know of, anyhow. This was... spontaneous."
"...Ah." He was too tired to think about all of this properly. Dooku suppressed a sigh and stepped out of the doorway. "You may as well come in." Didn't Qui-Gon realize he wanted to be left alone?
"Thank you." Qui-Gon dipped his head and entered, setting the tray down. Dooku frowned at it. That was definitely a two-person breakfast. For that matter, it was clearly a breakfast for two people who actually wanted to eat, which he didn't. "I thought you might forget to eat."
That brought a faint, if fleeting, smile to Dooku's face. "I haven't done that in quite some time. Komari makes sure I eat." The words came out before he quite thought about them. His expression and his tone carefully neutral, Dooku amended, "Made sure."
Qui-Gon's voice was very low. "I know."
"...Yes, I suppose you would have heard." Dooku stood staring down at the tray of food. "I'm really not very hungry."
"I know that too." Qui-Gon regarded his old Master levelly. "I also recall someone telling me once that 'the Living Force will sustain you, if you let it, beyond what the body would normally bear.'" A significant pause, precisely the length it had been between the sentences Qui-Gon was quoting. "'The Living Force is also, however, intimately tied to the natural rhythms of life, so if you have due respect for it you won't abuse the privilege.'"
Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "I hardly think not eating when I'm not hungry consitutes abuse of the Living Force, padawan."
Qui-Gon had not been easy to intimidate or fluster when he was sixteen, or probably when he was six. He was now approaching sixty, and it was not impossible, but it was getting close. "The problem," he said, "is that on most occasions, including this one, it would be more accurate to say you don't notice you're hungry."
"Qui-Gon..." A slow, measured breath. "I do not particularly want food or company at this time. I would prefer to return to my meditation, if you don't mind."
"You haven't been meditating."
"And how do you know what I've been doing in my own quarters?"
Qui-Gon shook his head. "I haven't been spying on you somehow, if that's what you mean to imply. But you show no sign of the rest or peace of meditation." A long, slow breath, as if Qui-Gon himself were considering dropping into meditation where he stood. "I believe it would do you good to eat," he said formally, "but intrusion was not my intent. I will go if you prefer it. But I thought I should--" He stopped and amended, "I wanted to see you."
"Everyone wants to see me," Dooku said, his voice brittle. "They all want to say how very sorry they are, how very surprising it was, how no one could have expected such a thing." He lifted a hand to rub at his eyes and his voice turned sharp. "Except her Master, who should have seen and should have expected and should have prevented!"
Qui-Gon said only, "I know the feeling."
Dooku said nothing for the space of several heartbeats. Finally he sat down at the table, not quite looking at his old apprentice. "I never came to see you about Xanatos," he said bluntly. "Why would you want to come now? We hardly even speak."
"Well," Qui-Gon said, sitting across from him, "you never tried to tell me no one could have seen it coming, either." He did not mention that, while Dooku hadn't sought him out for the purpose, the one thing he had said on the matter was that Qui-Gon should have seen it coming. And prevented it. At least he was consistent.
"...No, I didn't. But you didn't answer my question either."
"We don't speak enough," Qui-Gon said after regarding the breakfast tray thoughtfully for some moments. Apparently this hadn't just been to avoid looking at Dooku, either; he followed it up by picking up a slice of zachura melon and pitching it softly across the table so that Dooku had to either catch it or let it land in his lap.
He elected to catch it, regarding it dubiously for a moment before giving in and taking a bite. "I thought you were happy with that outcome."
"No." Very quietly. "I never was."
Dooku looked over at him in surprise. "You never said anything." A pause, then a short, huffed laugh. "All right, I suppose not saying anything was the basic problem for both of us. But I thought...well, you haven't seemed to want to talk to me about anything but Obi-Wan for years."
"He's easy to talk about," Qui-Gon admitted. "I think that perhaps I've been letting that stand in for making the effort to renew," the tiniest hesitation, "an old friendship."
Dooku had trained himself long ago not to reveal his thoughts in his expression. Still, there was a brief flare of surprise in his eyes. "I was your master. Not your friend."
"You were my master. I hoped we were friends afterward."
"...I used to enjoy our chats, even after you were Knighted." Qui-Gon had taken to stopping by regularly whenever he was at the Temple. Usually for breakfast, now that Dooku thought about it. He would simply appear at Dooku's table in the refectory or at his door, they would sit and eat and talk about their missions and...life. They might include apprentices, if either master's current padawans cared to join them. Dooku's memories of Xanatos generally involved the boy's extraordinary fondness of Alderaanian pears and honey, actually.
...Then the meal would be over and Qui-Gon would leave again, and Dooku had never thought much of it until the visits simply...stopped. A quiet sigh. "I thought when you stopped coming that you had outgrown visiting with your old Master."
"No," Qui-Gon said softly. "I just... didn't know what to say anymore."
Since the visits had stopped at about the time Xanatos had left the Order, Dooku didn't have to guess what had caused the sudden lack of conversation. "...I should have come to see you. It shouldn't have all been on you."
"I was avoiding you. You let me. Which... may have been a mistake on both sides." Qui-Gon looked up at him. "I don't think there's any need to make it again."
This time, Dooku met his gaze. "No. There certainly isn't." Dooku looked down again and took up another piece of melon, biting into it with a faint smile. "Thank you, Padawan."
Authors: Persephone_Kore, Dreagoddess
Characters: Dooku, Qui-Gon
Genre: AU, drama
Summary: Several ways Dooku's life could have gone differently. Thing four: Qui-Gon visits Dooku after Komari disappears.
Notes: Komari Vosa is an obscure EU character born of the same concept art as Asajj Ventress. She was Dooku's last Jedi Padawan. It did not go well. Evidently she wasn't much on controlling her passions, whether anger or lust over her master. He refused to let her take the Trials, she ran off on a mission to deal with a drug cult that was a total disaster, and while presumed dead took it over and was successful enough to alarm Sidious into having Dooku (who had also turned by then) get rid of her. Sidious likes the killing-off-old-friends thing.
Thing Four: Mourning After the Fallen
It was morning.
Dooku was annoyed to realize this, as it meant he'd been trying and failing to meditate all night. The Force usually flowed easily for him, but just now it felt jumbled, tied in knots. Whenever he'd reached it, it had slipped his grasp and dropped him, or he'd felt a current he didn't want to follow and let go.
Now he had spent the entire night sitting up, sitting still, and unable to still his mind or relax his body. He was stiff and his eyes and throat ached, and he was no nearer to peace than when he'd begun.
He was a Jedi Master, blast it! He had seven decades of experience in the Order. The Force had come more easily for him than breathing since he'd been a child. He should certainly be able to meditate.
He should certainly be able to move one minor report out of the thousands he'd read during his career out of his mind.
Except for one line that seemed acid-etched into his retina.
Komari Vosa, missing, presumed dead.
He had taken the news decorously enough in public. He'd said all the right things -- at least, he thought so. He couldn't quite remember what they had been at the moment, but he was sure he'd said them. The failure of the mission was unfortunate, the loss of the Jedi who had been assigned to it tragic.
Komari had not been assigned to it.
He didn't know what she had told them. That she'd been Knighted? That she'd been told to join them, that their mission was to be the Trial she'd in truth been denied?
He still didn't know where and how he had first failed her. But the last time had surely been by not keeping watch once he'd torn her life and ambitions away.
She'd been angry. Spectacularly so. When she'd shouted at him, he'd told her she was only confirming his decision. She'd tried pleading then, telling him she could change, she'd only lost herself in the horrors of Galidraan. He could have believed that, except the problems had existed before then. He'd just blinded himself to them. Then, finally, she'd tried suggesting -- with a little too much emphasis -- what a good team they would make.
That had made him withdraw, telling her he would give her time to think things over. He'd thought he was doing the right thing at the time. Her anger was with him, her...fixation was on him -- surely the best thing to do was remove himself from the scene.
The best thing for her? he asked himself mockingly. Or the best for you? The more comfortable thing had been to avoid her, avoid his failure.
And now she was gone and there was no choice about it any longer.
Komari was gone. The failure was very much present.
A sharp crack echoed through his quarters; Dooku thought at first that something had broken, but the sound repeated, persistently, and he realized that it had not been nearly so violent as he'd first thought after the silence of the night. Someone was knocking at the door, that was all.
He went to wash his face, deliberately not reaching out to sense who was there, and hoped the person would get impatient and go away. Probably not. It was probably Master Yoda, and if Yoda grew impatient at all, he would be more likely to open the door himself. Or possibly wait to punish the offense with a jab to the kneecaps.
When Dooku finally did open the door, it was not Master Yoda. It was Qui-Gon.
Dooku blinked at him, not quite believing his eyes. What was Qui-Gon doing at his doorstep? "Qui-Gon," he acknowledged with a slight nod of his head. "Did you need -- is everything all right with Obi-Wan?" Usually the only time he and his former apprentice spoke was about Qui-Gon's own padawan, so perhaps that was it.
"He's fine," Qui-Gon assured him. "I brought you breakfast."
Dooku looked down at the tray he hadn't noticed until now. That was really very unobservant of him. And he was still slightly confused. "I apologize if I've forgotten an appointment."
"No." A very faint smile, quickly gone. "Not one I know of, anyhow. This was... spontaneous."
"...Ah." He was too tired to think about all of this properly. Dooku suppressed a sigh and stepped out of the doorway. "You may as well come in." Didn't Qui-Gon realize he wanted to be left alone?
"Thank you." Qui-Gon dipped his head and entered, setting the tray down. Dooku frowned at it. That was definitely a two-person breakfast. For that matter, it was clearly a breakfast for two people who actually wanted to eat, which he didn't. "I thought you might forget to eat."
That brought a faint, if fleeting, smile to Dooku's face. "I haven't done that in quite some time. Komari makes sure I eat." The words came out before he quite thought about them. His expression and his tone carefully neutral, Dooku amended, "Made sure."
Qui-Gon's voice was very low. "I know."
"...Yes, I suppose you would have heard." Dooku stood staring down at the tray of food. "I'm really not very hungry."
"I know that too." Qui-Gon regarded his old Master levelly. "I also recall someone telling me once that 'the Living Force will sustain you, if you let it, beyond what the body would normally bear.'" A significant pause, precisely the length it had been between the sentences Qui-Gon was quoting. "'The Living Force is also, however, intimately tied to the natural rhythms of life, so if you have due respect for it you won't abuse the privilege.'"
Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "I hardly think not eating when I'm not hungry consitutes abuse of the Living Force, padawan."
Qui-Gon had not been easy to intimidate or fluster when he was sixteen, or probably when he was six. He was now approaching sixty, and it was not impossible, but it was getting close. "The problem," he said, "is that on most occasions, including this one, it would be more accurate to say you don't notice you're hungry."
"Qui-Gon..." A slow, measured breath. "I do not particularly want food or company at this time. I would prefer to return to my meditation, if you don't mind."
"You haven't been meditating."
"And how do you know what I've been doing in my own quarters?"
Qui-Gon shook his head. "I haven't been spying on you somehow, if that's what you mean to imply. But you show no sign of the rest or peace of meditation." A long, slow breath, as if Qui-Gon himself were considering dropping into meditation where he stood. "I believe it would do you good to eat," he said formally, "but intrusion was not my intent. I will go if you prefer it. But I thought I should--" He stopped and amended, "I wanted to see you."
"Everyone wants to see me," Dooku said, his voice brittle. "They all want to say how very sorry they are, how very surprising it was, how no one could have expected such a thing." He lifted a hand to rub at his eyes and his voice turned sharp. "Except her Master, who should have seen and should have expected and should have prevented!"
Qui-Gon said only, "I know the feeling."
Dooku said nothing for the space of several heartbeats. Finally he sat down at the table, not quite looking at his old apprentice. "I never came to see you about Xanatos," he said bluntly. "Why would you want to come now? We hardly even speak."
"Well," Qui-Gon said, sitting across from him, "you never tried to tell me no one could have seen it coming, either." He did not mention that, while Dooku hadn't sought him out for the purpose, the one thing he had said on the matter was that Qui-Gon should have seen it coming. And prevented it. At least he was consistent.
"...No, I didn't. But you didn't answer my question either."
"We don't speak enough," Qui-Gon said after regarding the breakfast tray thoughtfully for some moments. Apparently this hadn't just been to avoid looking at Dooku, either; he followed it up by picking up a slice of zachura melon and pitching it softly across the table so that Dooku had to either catch it or let it land in his lap.
He elected to catch it, regarding it dubiously for a moment before giving in and taking a bite. "I thought you were happy with that outcome."
"No." Very quietly. "I never was."
Dooku looked over at him in surprise. "You never said anything." A pause, then a short, huffed laugh. "All right, I suppose not saying anything was the basic problem for both of us. But I thought...well, you haven't seemed to want to talk to me about anything but Obi-Wan for years."
"He's easy to talk about," Qui-Gon admitted. "I think that perhaps I've been letting that stand in for making the effort to renew," the tiniest hesitation, "an old friendship."
Dooku had trained himself long ago not to reveal his thoughts in his expression. Still, there was a brief flare of surprise in his eyes. "I was your master. Not your friend."
"You were my master. I hoped we were friends afterward."
"...I used to enjoy our chats, even after you were Knighted." Qui-Gon had taken to stopping by regularly whenever he was at the Temple. Usually for breakfast, now that Dooku thought about it. He would simply appear at Dooku's table in the refectory or at his door, they would sit and eat and talk about their missions and...life. They might include apprentices, if either master's current padawans cared to join them. Dooku's memories of Xanatos generally involved the boy's extraordinary fondness of Alderaanian pears and honey, actually.
...Then the meal would be over and Qui-Gon would leave again, and Dooku had never thought much of it until the visits simply...stopped. A quiet sigh. "I thought when you stopped coming that you had outgrown visiting with your old Master."
"No," Qui-Gon said softly. "I just... didn't know what to say anymore."
Since the visits had stopped at about the time Xanatos had left the Order, Dooku didn't have to guess what had caused the sudden lack of conversation. "...I should have come to see you. It shouldn't have all been on you."
"I was avoiding you. You let me. Which... may have been a mistake on both sides." Qui-Gon looked up at him. "I don't think there's any need to make it again."
This time, Dooku met his gaze. "No. There certainly isn't." Dooku looked down again and took up another piece of melon, biting into it with a faint smile. "Thank you, Padawan."
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 10:41 am (UTC)(To be honest, with this series, you make me like G-rated stories about Dooku ;>) )
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Date: 2006-08-30 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-02 09:18 pm (UTC)(I'm glad you're enjoying them! I do write romance sometimes, but I suspect it says something that I have one story summarized as "Kanga and Tigger make a baby" -- and it's G.)
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Date: 2006-08-30 12:42 pm (UTC)Heee! I love it when Qui-Gon imitates an immoveable object. Dooku is just thrown off his game enough that Qui-Gon is flustering *him*.
The idea of them reconciling over their fallen padawans is nifty -- though I do wonder what kind of rot was in the Order in the last few decades before it fell, since it seems like there were a number of students that went Dark.
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Date: 2006-09-02 09:49 pm (UTC)Glad you like the line, and yeah, Dooku is really just generally unsettled at the moment and Qui-Gon is... being Qui-Gon.
The idea of them reconciling over their fallen padawans is nifty -- though I do wonder what kind of rot was in the Order in the last few decades before it fell, since it seems like there were a number of students that went Dark.
Well, I'm sure a large part of it is that the easiest place to turn for EU-writers (or amateur fanficcers) looking for a conflict to write is having somebody go Dark, or almost. ;) In-story... more complicated. I tend to wince at stories that attack some of the Order's setup ("no attachments," being tied to the Senate) without seriously considering why those choices might have been made -- well, I don't ask for a historical essay or anything, but it makes me twitch when somebody writes, say, Yoda going, "A stupid rule this is, but I'll keep enforcing it anyway" -- but I don't think their decisions were perfect, either, individually or at a policy level.
And I'd imagine that in some ways, once Palpatine rose to power, he would have found a way to take advantage of either way it went. Jedi have close ties to the Senate, answer to the Republic government, get Republic-wide authority, recognition, and jurisdiction, and aren't supposed to marry? Pull them into fighting a war and play on his favorite target's hormones and fear for his secret wife, get the public thinking of them as his personal army.... Jedi operate independently, with accompanying relaxation of rules about family, possession, etc.? Target extended families and associates indirectly, foment conflict involving their homeworlds, undermine public opinion of their impartiality, etc.
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Date: 2006-08-30 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-02 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-02 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-09-10 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 08:39 pm (UTC)Still. I love your Dooku!!!