Title: Goodbye

Author: Leiasky

Rating: Overall NC-17

Pairing: Q/F

Archive: If you choose. Please tell me first.

This is the final installment in this series. The other stories include 'Never Alone' and 'No Regrets' . This is the sequel to 'Forgive Me'.

All of my fic can be found here:

http://www.oocities.org/tenelkai/tpmfanfiction.html

Summary: Information falls into your hands that you cannot ignore and, with no other option available, you finally say goodbye.

Disclaimer: They belong to George. I'll give them back when I'm done playing with them 'K? No money is made. If you'd like proof, look at my bank account.

Dedication: I don’t think I need to name names. You know who you are.

Any resemblance to RL is not coincidental. My thanks to those who taught me a great deal about life, trust and the true meaning of friendship.

 'Take a Bow' lyrics by Madonna.

As my sistah Jenn is so fond of saying…feedback is adored.

Flames? Feel free. You’ll receive no response. But they will be reported to your ISP.

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Take a bow

The night is over

This masquerade is getting older

Light are low

The curtains down

There's no one here

There's no one here.. there's no one in the crowd

Say your lines

But do you feel them

Do you mean what you say

When there's no one around

Watching you watching me

One lonely star

One lonely star you don't know who you are

I've always been in love with you

I guess you've always known it's true

You took my love for granted why oh why

The show is over say good-bye

Say good-bye

Say good-bye

Make them laugh

It comes so easy

When you get to the part

Where you're breaking my heart

Hide behind your smile

All the world loves a clown

Just make 'em smile the whole world loves a clown

Wish you well

I cannot stay

You deserve an award

For the role that you played

No more masquerade

You're one lonely star

One lonely star and you don't know who you are

I've always been in love with you

I guess you've always known it's true

You took my love for granted why oh why

The show is over say good-bye

I've always been in love with you

I guess you've always known it's true

You took my love for granted why oh why

The show is over say good-bye

Say good-bye

Say good-bye

All the world is a stage

And everyone has their part

But how was I to know

Which way the story'd go

How was I to know you'd break

You'd break you'd break you'd break

You'd break my heart

I've always been in love with you

Guess you've always known

You took my love for granted why oh why

The show is over say good-bye

I've always been in love with you

Guess you've always known

You took my love for granted why oh why

The show is over say good-bye

Say good-bye

Months later, you would discover this to be the truth.

You stare at the screen, jaw slack from disbelief. You hands are clammy and shaking as they sit on the keys, thinking about what to type as a response. So much information had come out of nowhere in the last few weeks that you didn't know what to think anymore. You didn't know what to believe. Attacks about a Jedi Master's character were so rare and so unbelievable that your first instinct was to respond with vehement denial.

You were close with Qui-Gon Jinn. A friend and occasional lover, less so in the last months due to a great many problems stemming from mistakes and misunderstandings on both of your parts. But you were friends, regardless, and you were determined to silence these accusations or demand that they be proven true.

Based on the information sitting in front of your eyes, they were very true.

Every word you refused to believe, or were too blind to see.

You'd attempted to contact him immediately, only to have your requests returned unread or answered by his apprentice, saying he was too busy.

You’d seen Qui-Gon back away from confrontations before, from discussing something important to you and letting others, diplomats, the Council, even his own Padawan, handle the situation. But this usually only happened when you were in the middle of a disagreement. And you’d not fought or disagreed over anything in months.

Such cowardice as a part of the life of a Jedi Master just didn’t compute in your mind. You simply didn’t understand his behavior. You tried to understand it time and time again, gave him the benefit of the doubt when you felt he’d acted in such a way. But now, when it seemed that everything, your friendship and more, was on the line, he simply backed away as if he never cared in the first place.

The Temple would handle matters such as these and Qui-Gon had other concerns more important than dealing with this issue. It obviously was not important to him to put your mind at ease. That, or he had no defense against such accusations and thus had a reason to remain silent and back away.

With no explanation forthcoming from the man you thought cared about you and your friendship, you listened patiently as others filled you in on matters that never concerned you, things you'd never previously cared about.

Until proof had been set in front of your eyes to back up the words.

Undeniable proof.

Regardless of how much you refused to believe it, how much it hurt to admit to your own blindness, it was there, sitting in front of your eyes like a large flashing beacon screaming "I told you so!"

He'd been with more women in the last year than you could even begin to count. It didn't matter, you'd had no firm commitment. But tears fell in huge droplets when these women began to contact you, explaining how he'd complained to each of them about the other. Complained about faults you'd never seen, things that you'd discussed that he'd assured you would be kept confidential. "It would be a shattering of trust that could never be replaced if I were to repeat what you tell me," he'd said.

You believed him.

Until now.

Until people you'd never spoken to approached you to repeat things you'd only told one other person in your life.

Him.

A man you'd come to trust implicitly through trials that would normally have shattered a normal friendship.

Now he'd betrayed that trust and you sat in horrified bewilderment unsure of what to do. Anger welled and your fingers closed into tight fists. You fought the urge to fling the console into the wall. The shattering of the equipment into tiny, miniature fragments would provide only momentary satisfaction.

You sat for hours, reading, absorbing, asking more questions than you’d ever thought to ask to get to the bottom of this mess into which you’d been unwillingly been thrust. The more you learned, the angrier you became. Angry at yourself for giving away something as precious to you as your own breath and sitting blindly as it was taken and ripped to shreds behind your back.

Then came the disappointment. The disappointment that someone you’d trusted so deeply could so carelessly hurt you. And not just you, but at least a dozen others as well. For a Jedi Knight who preached peace and unity, you’d discovered that was something for which he was truly incapable. Jedi did not tell you one thing to your face and do the exact opposite behind your back.

And if they did, you’d grossly underestimated the Jedi and their purpose for teaching peace and serenity and supposedly living the same.

Tired, blood-shot eyes flutter closed and you begin to calm yourself, steadying your breathing in the only way you knew how.

Meditation.

You’d learned very painfully that it didn't just work for the Jedi Knights.

It wasn't easy to slip into such a trance and you open your eyes minutes later to frown at the screen, still downloading text you are certain you'll not want to read.

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Into the night you read, certain words, sentences, phrases capturing your attention enough that you’d need to read them again and again just to convince yourself they had come out of his mouth.

You’d never seen Qui-Gon as the type to brag. But brag to this one woman he did about others. How he’d won them over, how he’d woo’d them with his charm and his understanding nature. His sweet words, were your downfall, as you can assume were the downfall of others just like you.

Jedi were not infallible, and Qui-Gon, beneath the stoic mask, was in fact human. With needs, wants and desires just like any other man. He was not this inhuman paragon standing atop a pedestal impossible for anyone to reach. He was just as insecure, manipulative and lonely as any other man. Perhaps more so because of the solitary life he led.

But for him to treat you and others, that he felt no remorse for his actions, was less than human and inexcusable. You realize that now. And wonder how long he'd been laughing at you.

You had to feel sorry for his Padawan, someone you knew only peripherally, wondering how many more times he'd be used as a shield and protector before the young man decided to ask his own questions.

Qui-Gon was a possessive man, something you’d loved about him. But only while you were blinded by your vision of him; the vision where he could do no wrong in every decision he made, everything he did. If you questioned him, he’d snarl behind your back before confronting you about it.

You’d thought him a real ‘man’ the few times he’d admitted that he’d made a mistake. Thought he’d cared enough to admit when he was wrong and you respected him for such honesty. Instead you discover it was done simply to hold onto you, your attentions, everything that made you an independent woman capable of making decisions based on instinct rather than someone else’s words.

You attempted to contact him one more time, again, receiving nothing in response.

Instead, on different days, you received messages from former friends who no longer spoke to you. You assumed because they had discovered about your breakup with the revered Jedi Master. Stopped all of a sudden for unknown reasons only to resume again for the same unknown reasons.

Those who, you thought, had been your friends, or, pretended to be for whatever reasons their little minds could justify. Fair-weather friends were a dime a dozen and something you no longer needed in your life. They were no longer welcome.

You weren’t sure why they’d come crawling back, but you had no desire to speak with them. It was over. All of it. And you were going to make sure it stayed that way.

The message is clear and final.

You read it for what must be the hundredth time, memorizing it, forgetting not one line, taking from the page what you wanted to use, and walk away.

It had taken you months to compose, but now that it was done there was a peace, a calm that had settled over you. As if a weight, back-breaking in its intensity, had been removed from your shoulders.

You stand in front of the holo-recorder with a blank, unemotional stare.

Slowly, you begin, your voice calm, stronger than it had been in months.

You step out of range of the holo-cam, walking behind it to stop the recording. You breathe deeply, feeling relieved that it was over. It was done. You'd finally put him in the past. You finally felt at a distance with it all. No longer would you allow yourself to be walked over or taken advantage of. It. Was. Over.

Your future awaited. A future filled with true friends and more talented lovers, not those who changed face to fit the situation and their own best interests.

You stare at the holocam disk before packaging it and sending it to the Temple. He would get it when he returned. Atop the package, you scripted, "Sweet words are empty only if they are not true, and only you could say if they were true or not."

END

"If you love something, set it free, if it comes back it was meant to be."