Chapter Text
To Jessica’s surprise, when she goes to rouse Paul she finds him wide awake, sitting up in bed as if he’s been waiting for her.
He watches as her former mentor steps fully into the dim circle of light cast by the nearby glowglobes. To her amazement, Jessica reads not even the barest flicker of confusion in his expression, only a strange sense of… resignation?
She shakes her head. How the night warps one’s perceptions!
“Paul,” she says. “This is—”
“The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim,” Paul finishes for her. “Your former teacher and Truthsayer to the Emperor.”
The old woman shoots a piercing look at Jessica, who hardly notices as she gapes open-mouthed at her son.
If the Reverend Mother is otherwise perturbed by his words, she doesn’t show it. She only eyes him, more sharply than Paul remembers her ever doing before. Perhaps she can sense some offness within him.
“I am known to you, boy?”
“Yes,” Paul answers simply.
“Do you know, then, why I have come?”
At these words, Paul sits up straighter. Despite being dressed in only his bedclothes, there is something regal and knowing in his bearing.
“You have come to test me with the Gom Jabbar,” he says with baffling certainty. His voice does not waver, Imperium-perfect and refined in its diction. “You think it a mistake that my mother chose to bear me, a son, and seek to discover if I am indeed human.”
At this, the Reverend Mother finally startles. Her composure breaks into a furious scowl as she rounds on Jessica.
“What have you told your son?” she hisses. “Have you lost all loyalty to our Order? Is it not enough that you instructed him in the Way? You dare greater blasphemy, to reveal our most sacred trial?”
Ashen-faced, Jessica opens her mouth to answer, but Paul cuts her off.
“My mother has told me nothing, Your Reverence,” he says sharply. “I have simply lived this day before. Not as a vision, you understand, but in truth, with my own flesh.”
The Reverend Mother’s face darkens. “Do you seek to protect your mother, boy? By speaking such ridiculous falsehoods?”
“Are you not a Truthsayer?” Paul retorts. “Tell me then, when did I lie?”
The old woman’s nostrils flare. “You may claim something you believe to be true,” she says, her beady eyes assessing. “That does not mean it is consistent with objective fact.”
A knowing expression steals across Paul’s face, far too old for his youthful features.
“Shall I tell you my truth then? Let you measure the weight of my words, Truthsayer to the Emperor himself?”
Despite his challenging manner, the Reverend Mother is intrigued. She considers using the Voice on him, but she experiences an unexpected thrill of doubt, unsure for the first time in an age if it would indeed work on this odd boy-child.
“Speak your truth then,” she says, words bare of any sorcery. “Who are you, strange child of Jessica?”
Paul takes a deep breath, and both Bene Gesserit in the room know that whatever words pass next from his lips will shake their worlds forever.
“I am the Duke Paul of House Atreides, son of Leto and Jessica, rightful ruler of Arrakis. Known once but not yet among the Fremen as Muad’Dib and the Lisan al Gaib.”
The Reverend Mother and Jessica both bristle at his titles, but Paul is not yet finished.
His solemn eyes meet the old woman’s and for a moment they appear an impossible blue, the spice-tinged Eyes of Ibad.
“I am the Kwisatz Haderach.”
“I have passed your tests, Reverend Mother. From the Gom Jabbar to the Water of Life, I am made anew. Time itself is my seeing glass, past and future are as clear to my sight as you, standing before me now.”
The old woman stares at him, a dual sense of elation and terror filling her.
He does not lie.
Here was what ninety generations of crossing bloodlines had brought forth. The purpose of her Order, finally fulfilled.
See what you have wrought, Bene Gesserit, the boy’s bright eyes seem to say as they bear into her own.
“Kull wahad,” she whispers, overcome.
Paul becomes aware of his mother’s own quick, rabbit-like breaths, halting and nervous as she eyes him cautiously from behind the Reverend Mother. He feels a pang of regret for how this knowledge has changed her, both in his lived-past and here, now.
She will always be afraid of me, Paul thinks sadly.
“Do not fear, Mother,” he says softly, knowing it is futile but that the attempt must be made. “I too once feared it, who I am and who I must become.” He can sense his mother’s awed terror like a tangible thing across his skin.
“I have faced my fear,” he continues, quoting the Bene Gesserit litany they were both taught. “I have turned the inner eye to see its path.”
His eyes fall upon the silent Reverend Mother. “Only I remain.”
“Kwisatz Haderach,” the old woman intones raspily. “The Shortening of the Way. The One Who Can Be Many Places at Once.”
Paul nods. “I have bridged time and space to come back. Not a ghola, but fully myself. To lead us into the future, learning from the mistakes of our past.”
The Reverend Mother’s eyes narrow. “The flow of time does not take kindly to meddling.”
“I know, Reverend Mother,” Paul assures her.
His gaze turns sad. “Some things are inevitable. Some events will come to pass regardless of my efforts. They cannot be changed, no matter how much I wish it,” he whispers with painful certainty.
It seems the Reverend Mother, however, is finished with his cryptic half-truths. “How?” she demands. “How did you return?”
Paul hesitates. He knows what the Reverend Mother isn’t saying aloud, but asking all the same: Was it a choice, He-Who-Claims-to-be-the-Kwisatz-Haderach? Are you that powerful — too powerful to let live?
Should he reveal the truth? That he was not sent back of his own accord?
The last thing he remembers is stumbling into his newly liberated chambers in the Arrakeen palace, exhausted and bearing fresh scars from his victory over Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. A moment of resting his weary eyes later, and his twenty-three year old mind woke up in his eighteen year old body.
Yes, Paul quickly decides. Better for the Reverend Mother to think of him as a simple pawn, his weak, fledgling powers an easy tool to mold and manipulate according to her Order’s will. The Bene Gesserit will not risk alienating him, not while they think they still have the potential to shape him for their purposes. Though Paul refuses to dance to anyone else’s tune a second time around.
He can feel the Reverend Mother’s beady eyes upon him, calculating and wary. “I do not know how or why I was sent back,” he tells her honestly. “Only that I was.”
“But that is not the answer you seek. What you truly wish to know is if I am under your power,” he says, with a mirthless smile. “The Kwisatz Haderach, meant to bring the Bene Gesserit into a new age, and the galaxy along with it.”
In the background, he hears his mother gasp at his boldness, but he has eyes only for the old crone before him.
“And are you?” Are you one we can control?
Paul considers her question seriously. “Perhaps not in the way you imagined it,” he admits. “But I am what your Order made me. Bene Gesserit in blood and breeding, trained in your ways from birth. You are a part of me, and I could no sooner destroy you than destroy myself. I am not your enemy, Reverend Mother Mohiam.”
The shrewd woman can sense the truth in his words, yet she cannot help her touch of uncertainty.
“You speak truth,” she says. It is an unnecessary observation, but she feels the sudden need to reassure herself of it aloud. “Why reveal yourself now?”
A tinge of color rises in Paul’s cheeks, and for a fleeting moment both she and Jessica see the shadow of the boy he could have been, had destiny not derailed his path.
“You would have known of my subterfuge, should I have tried to hide it, Your Reverence,” he says humbly. But Jessica knows her son as a mother does, and can detect a hint of resentment in his tone. She wonders if her old teacher can as well.
The older woman hums, unconvinced. “You say you have been tested by the Gom Jabbar. Surely, if you are who you say, will our instrument not once again prove it?”
This is a test, Paul thinks. Not the poison needle itself, perhaps, but my reaction to it. Does she expect me to react in fear?
But he does not falter. Only the barest flicker of pain-memory passes through his eyes before he nods peaceably.
“As you will, Reverend Mother.”
Silence fills the space then, and though the Reverend Mother’s expression does not betray it, Jessica has the distinct feeling her old mentor has been taken aback by her son’s calm acceptance. She feels her own sense of disturbance grow.
Soon, however, the Reverend Mother regains her composure. “So be it, Kwisatz Haderach,” she hisses, voice deadly soft. Her eyes gleam balefully in the dark.
“Let us see what manner of creature you are.”
~*~
In the sitting room where Jessica has left them, the Reverend Mother taps a metal cube with a thin, wrinkled finger.
“You know what this is.”
She does not voice it as a question. The young heir’s unblinking stare at the box is answer enough, the way he eyes it warily, fingers of his right hand clenched in sense-memory.
“It is pain.” He looks up, something haunted in his expression. “Pain by nerve induction. Not meant to cause permanent bodily harm but… excruciating, nevertheless.”
“Very good,” the Reverend Mother says. “And the Gom Jabbar?”
Paul’s eyes flit to the folds of her cloak, as if aware of where it is concealed. Perhaps he is, she thinks.
“The poison needle. The mere touch of it brings a swift death.” He raises his gaze to meet hers unflinchingly. “You called it ‘the high-handed enemy’ once. You said that unlike other poisons, it kills only animals.” He does not try to hide the disgust in his tone, the Reverend Mother notes.
“Hmm,” is all she says. “Never before has a child tested by the Gom Jabbar had such knowledge of the coming ordeal before its administration. As in other things,” she finishes with some disdain, “you are unique in this.”
Kwisatz Haderach he may claim to be, but the Reverend Mother would evaluate his words for herself. She rages with bitterness against Jessica for daring to bear a son against all sacred prohibition. Such unapologetic betrayal of their shared Sisterhood cut deep.
Paul eyes her knowingly, aware of the reason for her anger, but says nothing. He understands he has yet to prove himself to her, despite the apparent verisimilitude of his prophetic words. And his mother’s actions have and will continue to carry consequences of their own.
“Are you prepared to be tested again by the Gom Jabbar?”
Paul swallows but keeps his chin high. “I will do what I must,” he says clearly.
The Reverend Mother cannot help but be impressed by this boy-child’s determination, despite his full knowledge of the agony to come. She can think of few others who would willingly resubmit themselves to such an ordeal, herself included.
“I have withstood it once before,” Paul says, “and even, through great effort, transformed the Water of Life. Yet, it is weathering visions of both past and future that has proven the greatest test of my resolve.” He allows the observant crone to hear the undertone of pain in his voice. “Some are beautiful, others horrific, but all my visions are terrible in their agonizing uselessness.”
That surprises the old woman. “You think your visions are useless,” she repeats incredulously. “You claim to have the unique honor of being the Kwisatz Haderach, the first in a millennia to be bestowed such a gift of prescience, and yet you dare to say—”
“You mistake my meaning, Your Reverence,” Paul interrupts, his voice hard. “Access to the flow of time means little in itself, unprecedented ‘gift’ though it may seem. For what good is such awareness when it offers little guidance on how to use it wisely? And what good is prophetic knowledge without the will to use it? A will that may yet be wielded to cause great harm, regardless of one’s good intentions?”
This is what he fears, the Reverend Mother realizes. He cannot fear the Gom Jabbar more than he fears himself.
In her heart-hardened breast, she feels an unexpected pang of sympathy for this youth, this son of Jessica’s. He is physically naught but a boy, but he is already old beyond imagining, aged by the horrors of war and omniscience.
Nevertheless, Gaius Helen Mohiam will do what she came to do.
“Will you resubmit to the test of the Gom Jabbar?” she asks again.
Paul lifts his gaze to hers.
“I will.”
And with those words it is as if the prescience of this strange boy-child — the Kwisatz Haderach — sweeps through her.
Like a vision, though clearer than any she has ever experienced, she sees. And suddenly it is more than that: she feels. As if happening to her own body, she is wracked by the flaming agony that once consumed Jessica’s child when he withstood the test. The slow burn quickly grows unbearable, far beyond anything she remembers. She opens her mouth to cry out, but her body has not the strength to spare the breath. Mercifully, the torment ends moments later, and she trembles with relief.
Paul Atreides, she is certain, endured pain the likes of which no child, male or female, brought before the Gom Jabbar ever successfully endured before. She feels the dim echo of her own erstwhile awe and fear at his unparalleled control, the revelation she once had that this young creature before her was not only human, but could indeed be the One.
He terrified her once, the Reverend Mother realizes, as the terrible sense-memory leaves her as suddenly as it came. He still does. This boy, who only watches her, unblinkingly, knowingly, as she catches her breath.
“There need be no retest,” she croaks out. “You are who you say you are,” she acknowledges, thoroughly shaken. And though her word is hardly law amongst her vast sisterhood, she knows her recognition of his role here, now, heralds a coming change that cannot be undone.
The boy appears surprised, but he nevertheless dips his head in respect for her decision.
And though his expression is calm, a testament to his Bene Gesserit breeding and upbringing, there is something wild about his eyes, something as dangerous and unpredictable as the sandstorms of Arrakis that await him.
How can we hope to control this long-awaited One, the Reverend Mother thinks with no little despair. How can we hope to tame the desert itself?
~*~
With her business here concluded, however unsatisfactorily, the Reverend Mother strides briskly down the dark corridors of Castle Caladan toward her waiting ship. Paul Atreides is a silent shadow beside her. She tells herself that she is not running away from him, that she is merely eager to return to the Emperor’s court where she belongs.
“You will wish to keep an eye on me, of course,” Paul says out of nowhere. His voice is even, unconcerned.
The Reverend Mother inclines her covered head. “While your mother is one of us, the remarkable product of a long line of Bene Gesserit breeding, she is still your mother.”
Paul hears her unspoken implication. “You cannot trust her to watch me, because you cannot be certain of her motives,” he says. “After all, she defied your order to bear a daughter, and trained a son in open opposition of your ways.” He says this calmly, with none of the outrage or protectiveness the Reverend Mother would have expected for one his age.
He hums then, and looks her directly in the eyes. “So what will you do now, Gaius Helen Mohiam?”
It is the first time he has addressed her so, without the assumed formality of her title, yet strangely she finds herself feeling no less respected by the lack of it.
As she meets his unfathomable gaze, she understands. He does not address her as a Reverend Mother. The Kwisatz Haderach asks her not as a spokesperson of her order, but her the individual, Gaius Helen Mohiam, what course she will take.
What will I do, indeed, she wonders, now that the Kwisatz Haderach has revealed himself? I exist to serve. Choice has never been the Bene Gesserit way. She says as much.
Paul nods, his bearing weary. “Nor mine. There is but one way forward for me, and I cannot escape its path.”
Without warning, he stops walking, causing her to halt as well. “I would not have us be enemies,” he says. “That is a choice I yet have some power over. I would ask the same of you.”
The Reverend Mother scowls. “Do not presume to order me. I am not your mother, boy. I hold no loyalty to you but what my Order asks of me.”
“And what does your Order ask of you?” Paul volleys back. “Control over the Kwisatz Haderach? Perhaps. But the survival of the Bene Gesserit comes before all else, does it not?”
The old woman feels a chill go through her at his words.
“I will be what I will be,” he continues ominously. “But I would not have it come at the cost of the Sisterhood’s, my mother’s people from which my own bloodline comes. Yet that is what will happen, Reverend Mother, if you choose to work against me with your private schemes. The destruction of your Order, your ways, thousands of years and nearly a hundred generations of history and purpose. Your Sisterhood torn to shreds from within, all without me raising a hand against you.”
“No—”
“That is the future I have seen for you, Gaius Helen Mohiam, if you choose to rally against me,” he says, his eyes clear and inescapable.
“You would gain allies, but not enough to sway those who will accept my place in your prophecy. You will rend your Order apart, simply because your fear would not allow you to abide the reality of my existence. Sister pitted against sister, until none remain. You will live only long enough to see the end of the Bene Gesserit, an end you yourself set into motion. You will be the last Reverend Mother of the Great Sisterhood.”
“You lie,” she breathes in mounting horror, even as her truthsense tells her he does not. In her mind’s eye, she can imagine that path laid out before her, the way she would use her position as the Emperor’s Truthsayer to her own advantage. To plant doubts, to whisper plots into being, all to undermine him. And in the end, if this boy is to be believed, all for nothing.
She feels helpless in a way she never has before. And for a mad moment, she feels an animal yearning to rip apart this fell creature standing before her, to claw him to shreds until nothing of his terrifying strangeness remains.
The urge abandons her, and with it, her hard-won certainty over her many years of service to the Bene Gesserit.
“What then must I do,” she asks with a hint of real desperation, “if the future is as you say.”
Paul’s gaze softens slightly. “I understand you fear what may come. So too do I dread the day of Arrakis’ Awakening. I dread the day my name gains enough power to incite a crusade of unimaginable devastation. All throughout the galaxy, the blood of billions on my hands.”
“Is all your talk of peace between us mere platitudes, then?” she spits. “Are we destined to be enemies, and my Sisterhood destined to fall?”
“No,” Paul says. “I must believe I have returned to this moment, of our meeting, for a reason. To gain your understanding, to share with you my vision, so that you may choose differently if you are so moved.”
His tone grows hard. “Make no mistake. My ascension will be. Fate will have its way. Your Missionaria Protectiva has seen to that,” he says with no little amount of resentment. “But you can choose if this time, when the moment arrives, you will lead your Order to stand behind me, or defy me and fall.”
“I am but one person, one Reverend Mother among many, one sister among thousands,” she warns, but Paul shakes his head.
“You are Truthsayer to the Padishah Emperor himself. I am aware of the possibilities your position presents, as are you. You have an important part to play in the empire we will build together, Gaius Helen Mohiam.”
Her Bene Gesserit-trained awareness catches on his word choice. “We,” she repeats dubiously.
“When the time of my ascension comes, I would have your counsel.”
“What need has the Kwisatz Haderach for a truthsayer,” she retorts. “If it is a Bene Gesserit advisor you seek, would you spurn your own mother so?” Truly, she retains no great love for Jessica, but it would be cruel of the boy to repudiate his own blood.
“My mother has her own great destiny to fulfill, but ultimately, it will not be by my side.” His firm tone implies that is all he will reveal of the matter; the old woman scowls, but does not question him further.
They walk the remaining distance to Castle Caladan’s doors in silence. Beyond it, the Reverend Mother’s ship awaits.
“Very well,” the Bene Gesserit says as they come to a stop at the front doors. “I will think on what you have said.” She pauses. “Kwisatz Haderach.”
Unlike before, there is no mocking undertone in her recitation of his title, only solemn acknowledgement. Paul understands it for the show of respect that it is.
He bows deeply in response. “Reverend Mother Mohiam. The Great Mother keep you and guide you in the days to come.”
She nods stiffly and turns to leave, before glancing back.
“Be careful you do not overreach in your corrections,” she cautions. “Fate may have gifted you an opportunity, but changing the future will have consequences even you cannot foresee.”
And with that final warning, she casts him one last lingering look before departing the castle in a flurry of robes, as suddenly as she came.
~*~
By the sitting room where she waits, Jessica paces. Ever since the Reverend Mother bade her leave to speak with Paul alone, she has grown restless with anxiety even her training cannot overcome.
At last, her son emerges from the shadows of the hallway, and she releases a breath she did not realize she had been holding. He reaches her side just as the harsh whine of a ship signals its take-off. Together they listen as it departs, the Reverend Mother, along with her entourage, leaving for the emperor’s court on Kaitain.
As they proceed back through the castle, Paul falls into step beside his mother effortlessly, as if they have been walking side by side as equals for years.
Who knows, Jessica thinks uneasily, perhaps they have. “You appear to have pleased the Reverend Mother,” she begins.
Her son says nothing in response, simply glances over at her questioningly. His smooth lope betrays none of the pain he surely must have felt when tested with the Gom Jabbar.
“The… test,” Jessica goes on. “Do you require medical attention?”
Aware though she is that the cursed box brings only temporary pain, she cannot stifle her motherly instinct to ascertain Paul does not still suffer. A futile and belated effort at comfort, perhaps.
But Paul is frowning. “The Reverend Mother did indeed test me with the Gom Jabbar,” he tells her, “but not this night.” His diction is still formal, as court-appropriate as when he spoke to the Reverend Mother.
“You convinced her not to test you?” Jessica asks in amazement.
“Not quite. She convinced herself,” Paul answers cryptically. He does not volunteer any more details of his conversation with her old mentor, and Jessica does not inquire further. She simply observes him, looking for clues in his bearing, but to her frustration his body language is unfamiliar and nigh unreadable.
As they continue down the castle’s corridors, Paul’s gaze wanders sideways to catch hers.
If Paul had not told her of his journey through time, she might not understand what she is now seeing. But there is something different about the way he looks at her.
He has always respected and resented her training in equal measure, she knows. But there is something more distant in his current look, his eyes no longer filled with the trust of a hopeful, young boy. They are wary and watchful, even as he smiles hesitantly, as if he is no longer certain of his welcome with her… as if doubtful of his mother’s affection for him.
Sorrow runs through her at the sight, and she realizes she cannot deny her own fears for him. Her fear of him.
Is my son truly lost to me?
As if he has heard her thought, Paul’s smile gains a bitter edge. He stops then, having arrived at the doors of his chambers. Rather than speaking her customary “good night”, Jessica hesitates. Too many questions run rampant through her mind, questions to which she dreads to hear Paul’s answer. No, not Paul’s. The Kwisatz Haderach’s, the One Who Sees All.
This is my son! she chastises herself. I need not hesitate so.
Paul remains silent, waiting for her to gather herself together. Other mothers might be pleased by this mark of maturity, but to Jessica it is only another sign of the stranger he now is to her, not as quick to the Atreides temper as he has been in all the years she has known him.
Finally, a query makes itself known in her thoughts, and she knows what she wants to ask.
The Duke Paul of House Atreides, she remembers him saying.
“Your father… he is dead then? When you came from?” Her voice trembles but she braces herself for the answer.
Paul’s expression twists. “He is.”
There is something so sad, so final in his tone. Jessica knows then, without asking, that even now with Paul’s forewarned knowledge… there is no saving Leto.
She turns away, choking on a cry.
Paul says nothing, even as he yearns to comfort her. There are no right words to offer.
Jessica looks back at him, and for a brief moment, taking in his solemn gaze, she hates him. How can he be so calm, so unmoved by the death — no, she knows, the murder — of his father soon to come?
Then her sense returns to her and she sobs again, ashamed of the direction of her thoughts.
Hesitantly, Paul’s thin arms come up to wrap around her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers wetly over her shoulder. He sounds for the first time that night like the youth he is, yet far more broken then she has ever heard him.
“I’ve tried and tried to see another way, but the roots of treachery run deep.” He exhales shakily. “If only I could’ve been sent back sooner, changed things earlier maybe… but it’s too late now. Arrakis will be his end.”
Will Leto suffer? Jessica dares not ask. “Do you truly not know?” she says instead. “How you returned?”
Sighing, Paul pulls away from her embrace. “I don’t. For all my Sight, there are things even I cannot know. Especially about my own fate. Still,” he continues with a bittersweet smile, “I have a feeling my sister may have been behind it, somehow.”
His eyes flicker down to her abdomen before meeting her startled gaze. “I look forward to meeting her soon.”
“You — how —”
While shocked by the revelation of her closely guarded secret, Jessica still beams at the knowledge that her child, her precious daughter not-yet-born will survive whatever trials await them in the desert. A part of my beloved Leto will live on yet. In our son… and in our daughter.
“Goodnight, Mother,” Paul says quietly. He enters his bedroom, leaving her to her uncertain joy.
When Jessica finally arrives at her own chambers, she slips carefully beneath the bedsheets, and clasps her slumbering duke fiercely to her breast. Tears course down her cheeks as she melds herself to his familiar form, so warm and so alive against her. Still, Leto Atreides sleeps on, not entirely ignorant, but unaware of the dangers to come.