Exactly a week later, a shipment arrives at the Temple. Obi-Wan's roused by the chimes of the annunciator and finds a medical droid at their door. It refuses to let Obi-Wan accept the small silver case and reiterates its utmost personal purposes before zooming past him to Anakin's bed.
After much pestering, Anakin finally wakes. It's been harder to raise him in the mornings and he's taken to going to bed several hours before Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan worries about the energy he's expending to maintain such a thick wall between their minds.
It's unnatural.
"[Inject] the contents of [one] [hypo] every [forty] [days]," the droid's explaining, after Anakin's sleepily assured it that yes, it was fine for Obi-Wan to stay in the room. "If you forget a dose, please visit the [Halls of Healing] so we may [assist] you."
"Are there any side effects?" Anakin asks. "Besides possible death, of course."
"Don't speak that way, Anakin."
"Unknown," the droid says after a moment spent searching its databanks.
Anakin unlatches the case. Obi-Wan peers inside.
On a bed of blue velvet rest ten hypos of luminescent lavender liquid. Steristeel caps cover their needles.
"Are they supposed to be that color?" Obi-Wan wonders.
"[Telsix suppressants] are commonly the color [humans] refer to as [purple]."
Anakin moves his fingertip over the injectors. "All they will do is end my cycle?"
"The interference with your [estrus cycle] will cause [significant] [hormonal shifts]. The extent of such effects cannot be known at this time." The medical droid's round head whirrs as it spins. "The [use] and [production] of [Telsix suppressants] has been [prohibited] on [Coruscant] since [four hundred ninety-nine] [years] ago."
"I am to inject it myself?"
"[Yes]. The [Circle of Healers] concluded this [route of administration] would be most [convenient] considering your [missions] may not always grant you access to the [Halls of Healing]."
The droid extends one of its many arms. "Would you like me to [assist] you?"
"That won't be necessary," Anakin says, though he looks apprehensive—needles have never been his strong suit. "Thank you, you can leave now."
"This should be overseen by the Healers, Anakin," Obi-Wan says, "in case something goes wrong."
"I promise to report any complications," Anakin continues to the droid, ignoring him.
The medical droid tinkers out of the room. "Have a [nice] day!"
Once the door's sealed, Anakin slowly picks up one of the injectables from the case, revealing a holotape underneath.
Anakin doesn't bother with it, but when he sets the case on his bedside table, Obi-Wan pulls it out. It plays the simple instructions of injection and contains a calendar.
"Obi-Wan."
He looks at Anakin and sees he's taken the cap off the injector, baring its gleaming needle. Anakin's staring at it, pale. The shot vibrates in his trembling hand. "I—I need you to do it, Master."
"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan sighs. He takes a seat next to his padawan and carefully stills Anakin's hand before extricating the hypo from his grip.
Obi-Wan pulls Anakin's sleeve up his arm and brings his elbow over his knee. He turns on the injector's vein viewer. "Perhaps there'll be a less frightening method of administration in the future."
"I was expecting a lecture on how fear leads to the Dark Side."
"Would you like one?" Obi-Wan asks him as the viewer works and Anakin's veins spider up against his skin, glowing a bright cyan color.
At his lack of reply, Obi-Wan brings his eyes back to Anakin's face.
He's shocked to see a tear sliding down his cheek. "Anakin, it's quite all right—it will only take a moment."
"I know, Master," he whispers.
"It won't hurt much."
Anakin nods.
Obi-Wan doesn't think Anakin hears him. There's nothing left to do but ready the needle at the biggest vein branching down Anakin's arm.
Obi-Wan breathes in deeply through his nose, and then slides the needle into Anakin's skin.
Anakin inhales sharply beside him. His fingers splay and bunch into a fist.
"Steady," Obi-Wan says to the both of them.
He slowly pushes the plunger down and begins the luminous liquid's descent into Anakin's body.
Gooseflesh spreads over Anakin's arm and he shudders next to him. "It's cold, Master," he whimpers. "It's really cold."
At the same time Obi-Wan can feel Anakin's skin warm and tingle beneath his other hand.
He's at a loss at Anakin's distress. He stops and asks, "Is it hurting?"
"No," Anakin says.
"We can stop and go to the medical wing, Anakin."
"No! Just keep going. It doesn't hurt, Master, truly. I shouldn't look at the needle. I'm sorry..."
"Quite all right," Obi-Wan mutters. What in the blazes is going on with his padawan? He's no stranger to Anakin's frequent bursts of emotion, his feelings so tender and bare they could be stirred to riptides by the smallest of perceived slights.
But the image of Anakin's foot on the edge of the spire hasn't left him.
Had he truly planned to jump?
"You do not need to feel guilty for anything, padawan," Obi-Wan says softly. "We must accept what we cannot change or lose ourselves in the past. Guilt serves no one and ruins us from within."
Obi-Wan listens for a response, a bratty remark about how he had a lecture to give after all, but hears only the soft sounds of Anakin sniffing.
Finally, the last of the substance leaves the syringe and he can take the needle from Anakin's arm.
Anakin gasps wetly.
"All done," Obi-Wan tells him. "Let's hope it works."
Anakin takes back his arm and clutches it to his heart, his tan skin pale as he tracks the empty hypo in Obi-Wan's hand.
Obi-Wan disposes of the used injectable and latches the case closed. If these Telsix drugs are successful, he supposes he will be the one to store them on his belt. Anakin had expressed his dislike of needles as a child, but Obi-Wan hadn't known it had grown into such a phobia.
"How do you feel?" he asks Anakin, studying him carefully. "Is anything amiss?"
"No, Master," Anakin tells him. "I feel fine."
And then Anakin lies back on the bed, lifts the covers back over himself, and gives Obi-Wan his back.
"Anakin, you really must be getting up," Obi-Wan says. He opens the blinds and throws sunlight over Anakin but the boy pays it no mind, drawing his blankets over his head.
"Anakin." Obi-Wan growls softly, and he does see Anakin tense a moment at the sound.
It occurs to Obi-Wan he could, as an alpha, command his padawan to get up and start his day, but he lets that idea go as soon as it comes—he feels Anakin is already angry at him again for what could be a thousand things.
"I will Force Lift you to the medical wing if you keep up these bizarre sleeping patterns," he tells Anakin, before heading into the refresher to get ready for the day.
Obi-Wan's making his way back from the lecture that Anakin should've attended when he spots the boy in question.
He tracks Anakin's golden head through the crowd of padawans rushing to the refectories and hurries after him.
He follows Anakin through several halls, speeding into a jog. Anakin really is in a hurry. The only thing he should've done upon dragging himself from bed was message him so they could catch up on some lost hours of training.
Obi-Wan's soon out of breath trying to close the distance between himself and Anakin's long legs, but he's figured out they're close to the accommodation sector.
The Supreme Chancellor had come this afternoon. Obi-Wan had been there as a member of the welcome party, but he hadn't welcomed him. For once, Mace Windu had to tell Obi-Wan to smooth the glare from his face as he watched the head of the Republic scan the gathering of Jedi for a padawan who, at the time, had been safely asleep in their quarters.
Only now, in the low of the day, was Anakin going to see Palpatine.
Obi-Wan stays behind the corner as Anakin trots into the visitors' section. He watches Anakin finally slow his gait at the sixth sealed door, the Chancellor's oft-selected chambers and the only to offer any sort of view.
Anakin starts rapidly tapping a very long code into the lockpad, rocking back and forth on his heels.
Obi-Wan doesn't miss the fresh plait in his hair or the cloak he's never seen Anakin wear. Its dark synthsilk train spills on the floor.
The door opens and Anakin disappears inside.
It seals behind him.
Obi-Wan pulls up his hood and ventures into the hall.
Really, it bothers him to spy on Anakin like this, but he doesn't trust such a potent politico, and Anakin's in no state to resist his influence.
Reaching the door, Obi-Wan extends his senses with the aid of the Force.
Yet, as he stretches his hearing into the metal shutter, he finds he can continue no further. His mind recoils at some dark barrier.
He flinches and backs away from the door.
Was that Anakin's doing? No, no. It hadn't felt nearly like his shield. This was much older.
Blacker.
He has to physically shake its taint from himself.
"Are you all right, Master?" a passing padawan asks him, trying to meet his eyes under the shadow of his hood.
Obi-Wan smiles at her. "Quite all right," he lies.
He strokes his beard once she's gone. Many more troubles burden his mind, and the encounter with that Dark force has worn him beyond the point of trying again.
He decides to wait for his padawan.
Close to the wall, he can hear faint fragments of conversation. Rises in tone on questions. Anakin's name on undeserving lips. The faint cadence of his own.
He can hear Anakin laugh and laugh and laugh.
Obi-Wan wishes to hear it clearer even as he wishes to never hear it again.
Attachment leads to jealousy. He knows that, he knows that.
But that does not stop his nails edging into his palms or his teeth crushing together. It certainly doesn't stop a fiery hand from taking his heart into its fist.
He listens and waits as long as he is able. The shadows peak over him and the sector darkens into the evening hour.
At last he wonders what matters an old man could possibly spend so much time discussing with his young padawan and this brings him to the door.
Obi-Wan takes down his hood and presses the annunciator.
After an entirely too long moment Anakin and the Supreme Chancellor himself appear before him. Anakin's almost behind the older man. When he sees it's Obi-Wan his jaw sets and his nostrils flare.
"Master Obi-Wan!" Palpatine greets. "I saw you at my arrival but couldn't find a moment to speak with you, I'm afraid. Would you come in and discuss your recent assignment to Ryloth? An out and about Jedi would know more about the state of the Outer Rim than my advisors ever could."
"You will have to ask the Council of such when you speak with them," Obi-Wan says plainly. "And I actually haven't come on a courtesy call—the hour is getting late and my young padawan's missed his training session."
Palpatine smiles and rests his hands on Anakin's shoulders. "Ah! You'll have to forgive Anakin—I'm the one guilty of prattling on and keeping him from his duties. When you are my age time has a habit of slipping by, especially in the good company of such a bright young man."
Palpatine squeezes Anakin's shoulders before nudging him towards Obi-Wan, "Alas, I can't keep him forever."
Obi-Wan's entire being seems to ease at having Anakin by his side, out of that room, no matter how intensely Anakin is glaring at him—Obi-Wan senses Darkness around the Chancellor, though he knows neither its origin nor purpose.
"The Order and the Republic must stand strong against this Separatist threat," Palpatine says. "But I truly hope it doesn't come to war, Master Jedi. I want to thank you both personally for your exemplary efforts towards a peaceful galaxy. That is all any of us hopes for."
Obi-Wan bows his head slightly.
"Thank you, sir," Anakin gushes. "It's because of you the Jedi are looked upon so favorably."
Palpatine touches his heart. "Anakin," he says sweetly.
"Good night, Chancellor," Obi-Wan cuts in.
"Good night, Master Jedi."
Obi-Wan does not say anything to Anakin as they walk to the training grounds.
He nearly trips on Anakin's lengthy adornments several times as the boy insists on striding ahead of him. If the cloak hadn't cost so much Obi-Wan dares admit he'd take his lightsaber and cut off all that excessive material.
The courtyard is a long way from the accommodation sector, and Obi-Wan mulls and steeps in his anger. He cannot help but feel it.
The Darkness he touched has awakened a restless being within himself. He fears what it means.
"Here, Anakin," he says when Anakin continues past the entrance to the grounds.
Anakin stops and looks at him over his shoulder. "It's late. I'm too tired to do this."
"You have been in bed all day and done nothing but blither and blather with the Chancellor. You haven't held your lightsaber in weeks. You are behind on your training and studies and commitment to the Order."
Anakin turns to Obi-Wan. His hands are fisted in his showy cloak, drawing the fabric tight over his shoulders. "How can I be behind when I'm better than you?"
Obi-Wan shakes his head. "Those are Palpatine's nonsense words, I hear them for what they are. Don't you realize he tells you only what you want to hear? Aren't you above his influence?"
"You're just jealous!" Anakin stamps into the courtyard.
"Jealous of Palpatine?" Obi-Wan asks incredulously.
Anakin throws his cloak off. "Jealous of me." He snatches a training saber from the rack. He pauses there, staring at the weapon, considering. "Yes, the Chancellor too." Anakin looks at Obi-Wan. "Because he has the power to change things while you just do the Council's bidding."
Obi-Wan doesn't know if Anakin realizes those words lost their sting long ago. This is a well-trodden argument. A familiar rhythm of words.
Just what they need.
"We are both sworn to the Republic. But if you attended your history lectures you'd know the true nature of politicians."
"How can you speak this way of him? Chancellor Palpatine champions for the Jedi!"
"Only because it will serve him, somehow."
"In the same way it serves the Order to have the endorsement of the Supreme Chancellor, Obi-Wan?"
"It does... but Jedi don't seek power."
Obi-Wan taps his blade with his own.
Anakin counters him with more force than he anticipated and his training saber scalds a burning stripe across Obi-Wan's fingers.
Obi-Wan shakes the pain from his hand and steps back to put distance between them, but Anakin rushes him yet again, a snarl on his lips.
He matches Anakin's furious blows with a grin. "I thought you were tired!"
The electronic hum of low-powered plasma blades sings over the grounds as his padawan drives him down the steps towards the Great Tree. Illumination banks light Anakin's sweaty brow. His form is well-practiced, yet lacks Obi-Wan's own control in his reckless anger.
When Obi-Wan's heel meets the Force-sensitive wood and Anakin thinks he has him and rears up his saber, Obi-Wan ducks under his elbow and hits him across his shoulder blades.
Anakin spins and brings his weapon in an arc. Obi-Wan has to duck again and hears his padawan's blade cut the air above his head. Then he must go on the defensive once more.
The impact of their weapons twinges in Obi-Wan's wrists and up his arms. Anakin swings now with such force a well-placed strike could fracture a small bone, let alone burn him.
"Why can't you just let me have a friend?" Anakin strains.
"A friend? Look to your fellow padawans for friendship. You are only eighteen years of age, Anakin. His interest in you is strange." The glow of their sabers cross in the air. "You must sense that!"
"You don't know him as I do," Anakin says quietly, nearly lost in their spar. "He will help me when no one will."
This gives Obi-Wan pause. This isn't Anakin's usual script.
"Help you?" Obi-Wan questions, peering at Anakin closely as they circle each other. "What help do you need?"
"Nothing you could give," Anakin says lowly, and sweeps in like a kreehawk.
Obi-Wan counters him with a harsh grunt. Sweat dribbles down his back. Anakin's saber glances off the handle of his own and he drops it.
He calls it back to hand with the Force and spins it over his knuckles. He points it out towards Anakin, looking down the attenuated green blade. "Get rid of that damnable obstruction you've put between us and I can help you, Anakin!"
"No!" Anakin roars. "I won't do that, Master! You cannot ever know!"
"Know what?" Obi-Wan pleads. "I know many secrets eat at your heart. They will turn it black!"
"I don't care!"
Anakin lunges at him, his blade poised over his head.
Obi-Wan's vision slows to a trickle.
Spittle flies from Anakin's grimaced lips. Madness hungers in his eyes. In his hands is Obi-Wan's own lightsaber.
Stop this!
Pain shoots through his head and pours a shower of stars into his eyes.
The world flickers, it flickers, it flickers and—
"Stop!"
He thrusts his hand out.
Anakin flies backwards and crashes into the Great Tree's thick trunk. The uneti bark lights up in a furious, glowing blink.
Obi-Wan's breathing hard. He concentrates on the inflation of his lungs for several moments as the world comes back to pace.
He blinks stinging sweat from his eyelashes. Through them he sees his padawan groaning at the root of the tree.
A burst of worry sharpens his sight.
"Anakin!"
He rushes to him.
"Oh no, I'm very sorry," Obi-Wan says to Anakin's pained face. He tries to help him to his feet. "I'm so sorry, Anakin. I don't know what... I lost control of myself. Are you all right?"
His padawan pushes him away. "Leave me alone."
Anakin stands with much effort and nearly tips back over. Shed leaves tumble from his shoulders. He hunches forward, his braid swinging in front of his face. His arm is locked around his stomach. Sweat drips off the small slope of his nose.
An icy pit opens in Obi-Wan's belly.
With a shaky breath he reaches for Anakin. "Come, young one, lean on me and I'll help you to the medical wing."
His touch seems to crumple Anakin. Anakin's eyes turn up in his skull. His legs fold.
Obi-Wan catches him under the arms and they sink to the ground together beneath the boughs of the Great Tree.
"Anakin?"
He frantically turns Anakin's face towards him. Under the slide of his palm he finds Anakin's eyelids twitching and jumping, and he's helpless as this unnatural shaking spreads to every muscle in Anakin's body.
"What's happened?" Obi-Wan asks Anakin, he asks himself, he shouts it to the Force.
Anakin convulses in his arms. From his lips comes a horrific pour of white froth.
Obi-Wan gasps at the terrible sight and in his shock nearly throws Anakin away from him.
In the next moment he secures his arms around his padawan and swiftly scoops his seizing body from the ground. Anakin has grown taller than him, and its only the leanness of youth and Obi-Wan's stark, encompassing panic that renders him light.
Anakin shudders and spits, jolting with some cruel current.
Obi-Wan runs from the courtyard.
The medical wing! He must make it there. He feels Anakin's life fading, and his entire world with it.
"Oh, please hold on, young one," he begs Anakin.
Obi-Wan runs through the maze of halls. He gasps for more breath than his lungs can give him.
As he finally crosses onto the snowy white flooring of the Halls of Healing, several 2-1Bs and a Fixit race out to meet him, followed by a Togruta girl in the long dress and headband of a Circle Healer.
"Help me! He is dying!" Obi-Wan pleads. "He is dying!"
The young Togruta Healer chatters rapidly to the droids in binary and points. They zip back inside, and then she hurries up to Obi-Wan.
"What's happened?" Her voice is professional and calm and it forces Obi-Wan to be the same.
"I don't know," he says, "I threw him with the Force and he hit the Great Tree hard. I must've hurt him internally."
A blue flash lights Anakin's shaking body as the Healer scans him. "Seizure," she examines, and then says something in droidspeak to the 2-1B assistant beside her. A metallic cord snakes from its chest and an aperture at the end releases a thick red vapor over Anakin's trembling face.
Anakin arches, his spine bending into a circle, and Obi-Wan nearly drops him.
More of that awful foam burbles from between his lips.
And then, all at once, he falls still.
The other droids zoom out with a repulsor gurney. The Togruta Healer takes Anakin's legs and together her and Obi-Wan lay Anakin down onto the lift, and they take him into the medical center.
Obi-Wan runs after the Togruta.
"What did you do?" he asks her.
"Neuro-spray," she chirps. "Please, if you would wait outside the wing, Master Obi-Wan..."
Another collection of Healers come and teem around his padawan. Anakin's covered in a rainbow of different medisensors.
"Will he die?" Obi-Wan persists.
"Now, he lives," she says. "Uncertain he will continue to live."
"It's my fault. He must've smacked his head into the tree. Oh, Force."
A couple low-pitched beeps come from the droid beside her. The Healer looks sharply at it and nods. She raises a hand filled with the glow of healing Force energy and cocoons Anakin within it.
"No internal injuries, Master Obi-Wan. He has been poisoned."
Obi-Wan stops in his tracks.
"Poisoned?"
The Healer continues on ahead of him.
They take Anakin into a heavily oxygenated emergency unit, and there Obi-Wan's told to stay behind the transparisteel.
He watches the readouts, having pushed his senses through the window to listen to Anakin's oddly-paced heart.
He studies the mechanical faces of the medical droids for clues and listens to their beeps.
He wishes he could understand binary.
Anakin had offered to teach him.
Obi-Wan curls his fingers on the window.
Poisoned.
It couldn't be anything but the suppressants. Stars, why did he let Anakin agree to them? How could he have given Anakin that damn injection? He'd known they were dangerous!
They'd known, a bitter part of him says. Obi-Wan listens to its whisper, and clenches his teeth. Yes, the three options they'd offered his padawan—sterilization, exile, or poison!
Such anger rises in him his head feels light.
He steps away from the window and falls into a chair. He tries to slow his quickened breath by focusing on Anakin's still beating heart.
This vehemence isn't healthy for him or his mind—and it certainly is getting the better of him more often than he would like.
"Master Obi-Wan?"
Obi-Wan looks up and sees the Togruta girl before him. And she really is just a girl, now that he truly looks at her, likely little older than Anakin himself.
"Where is Master Che?" he asks her without thinking, and inclines his head. "I'm sorry, I don't want to seem ungrateful. Thank you."
"I am Sorona Wel," Sorona says smoothly, and if she is offended, her white-striped face shows nothing of it, "Master Che's padawan."
"Padawan?" Obi-Wan remarks. "I wasn't aware Vokara had taken an apprentice."
"She felt it was her duty as head of the Circle to train a successor." Sorona's face finally creases into a small furrow in her forehead. "She is getting older."
Before Obi-Wan can reply, Sorona looks at her datapad. "Skywalker is stable," she says. "The toxin was identified as the Telsix estrus suppressants. If we had screened him only a few days later, we would never have cleared him for their use—if it is possible to ever truly sanction the administration of such a volatile drug."
Obi-Wan looks at her. "I don't understand. What difference would a few days have made?"
"Then his raised midi-chlorian levels would have shown on our sensors."
"I'm sorry, I still don't understand. How could they be raised?"
"I apologize for any confusion," Sorona says. "To be clear, Skywalker's body rejected the suppressants because he is pregnant."
"That's not possible."
Something like sympathy suffuses Sorona's face. Obi-Wan's vision throbs. "His cycles have started, he is able—"
"No."
Obi-Wan stands. He puts his hand over his heart to contain its cataclysmic beat.
"This cannot be true. It cannot be, it simply cannot be possible."
Obi-Wan sags against the transparisteel. A chorus of voices roar around him.
I need you to do it, Master.
I am sure you'll tell me the truth eventually.
I will Force Lift you to the medical wing if you keep up these bizarre sleeping patterns.
He will help me when no one will.
Meet anyone interesting wandering around?
It won't hurt much.
You cannot ever know!
Master, I'm burning.
Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut. He covers his face. His fingers are sticky, he can feel it, they're sticky and covered in—
"Stress response. Master Obi-Wan, lower your respiration. Your heart rate is very high."
Obi-Wan opens his eyes to Sorona in front of him. He blinks rapidly in the bright light of her scanner.
"Breathe deeply," she says. "In through your nose and out through your mouth."
Obi-Wan grips her tunics. "Who do you report to?"
Sorona firmly restrains his wrist and pulls his hand from her. "I think that answer is obvious, Master Obi-Wan."
"The Council, do you release medical records to them?"
"Yes," Sorona says, veiled suspicion in her blue eyes, "when the Council makes a request for them."
"Only on request?"
"On request, or if we deem there is anything significant they should be made aware of."
Obi-Wan's mind works. "You know I am in good standing with the Council. I would never deceive them. But this is major news... if I could just tell them at a better time..."
A laugh escapes Sorona, a low mutter of a sound. "Good try," she says. "But you do not fool me. You only reveal yourself." She considers him. "It is certainly not a secret you can keep for long."
"I have no plans to keep it a secret," he says. "I know that would be foolish. But we both know the fragile state Anakin is in. You can see how much stress this would heap upon him. I speak only out of care for my padawan. Doesn't a Healer's interest lie in the wellbeing of her patients?"
Sorona leans back from him, a sharp sigh escaping her nose. "More fragile than you know," she says. "By all rights, Skywalker should have miscarried. We cannot account for why the youngling hasn't perished."
Obi-Wan stays quiet, watching her carefully.
"You place us in a difficult position, Master Obi-Wan." She purses her lips. "I would trust you to tell the Council yourself. My master has always spoken highly of you. That's not idle praise, from her."
"Thank you," Obi-Wan says.
"But if the Council requests such information," Sorona continues, staring at him hard, "we will have no choice but to acquiesce to that demand."
"I understand," Obi-Wan says.
He looks at Anakin through the window and studies his slack features and then, despite himself, the still flat plane of his stomach.
"When will my padawan be able to leave?"
"Skywalker's blood is undergoing hemoperfusion to remove the drug. The average time for this procedure is twenty-four hours—if there are no further complications after that, then Skywalker will be released when he regains consciousness."
"The..." Obi-Wan trails off. There's a sense if he articulates what he wants to say, it will become real. But he must know. "The... baby... you said it lives? It's unharmed?"
"The embryo is fully intact," Sorona says. That small furrow appears between her brow stripes once more. "In such an early stage of development, such a thing is unimaginably fragile. It seems a miracle..."
Sorona continues, but Obi-Wan can't listen. He's gone far away inside his mind at one single word.
Embryo.
Baby.
Child.
And it is his.