I'm sorry for the wait! Life is busy, and I've burned through much of the material that I had pre-written prior to posting this story.
This chapter is titled for a beautiful song by the Australian band Holy Holy and is recommended listening - the whole final section of this chapter came to me from that song.
The next day, Satine beat him to it.
Obi Wan knew before he answered the holo-call that the news would be bad. After many months of stilted near-silence, Obi Wan very much doubted that Satine would call him with news of Korkie's latest painting or swimming milestone or counting his first numbers.
"I just thought you ought to know that he's unwell. He has pneumonia and it's severe, complicated by an empyema. Sewlen's had to put two drips in him and start oxygen with some positive pressure and she's probably going to have to do a minor surgical procedure on top of it. She says it's serious but it's all fixable. I'll let you know if he deteriorates. You needn't come, we're both doing alright. I just thought you ought to know."
Her face was pained and tired, and she said it all far too quickly for Obi Wan to make sense of it. Empyema? Positive pressure? Surgery? He stammered some thanks and something about taking leave. He could take leave, couldn't he? He wasn't due on Fondor for almost two weeks and he hadn't taken any formal leave in months. The Council would surely have no grounds to refuse him. He would only need a few days. He would see Korkie and hold his hand through the surgery.
It was all he could do to refrain from jogging through the Temple hallways. He curtly returned greetings that were offered to him and stopped only to stick his head in as he passed the Halls of Healing.
"Bant, what's an empyema?"
"A collection of pus. Most common in the lung with a bad pneumonia. Or in the brain with an infection."
"It needs surgery?"
"Drainage. You generally pop in a chest tube and let it drain over time."
Bant's response, after all her years of training, was automatic, and it took her a few moments to frown and try to make sense of the question.
"What's up, anyway? I'm assuming you don't have o-"
But Obi Wan had already left.
When he arrived at the top of the stairs in the centre of the Temple it appeared that he was in luck; the Council were gathered but not formally in session.
"Masters."
Obi Wan gave a hurried bow of admittedly inadequate depth.
"May I interrupt?"
Grand Master Yoda shifted in his chair.
"Heard the news, have you, Master Kenobi? About to summon you, we were."
Obi Wan frowned in marked confusion.
"The news?"
They could not, presumably, be talking about the same news.
"Crisis on Fondor," Master Windu explained curtly. "The Crown Prince has been abducted from his bed overnight. He is being held hostage by the insurgents."
Obi Wan felt some spasm of his heart in his chest. The Crown Prince of Fondor was only four years old.
"What demands have the insurgents made?"
"The execution of the Grand Duke for alleged war crimes. The King is being forced to choose between his brother and his son. They have given him forty-eight hours."
Obi Wan was too late to censor the words that erupted from his mouth.
"And he has not yet chosen his son?"
This appalled exclamation was exactly the sort of behaviour that Obi Wan, who had been making some sort of name for himself as a diplomat amongst the Jedi, had been chosen not to display. Mace Windu narrowed his gaze.
"The Grand Duke is the leader of the entire Royal Armed Forces. To convict him as a war criminal undermines the whole regime, and their methods of peacekeeping in years gone by. It would bring about a swift end to the monarchy."
Obi Wan agreed with a nod and pensive sigh.
"The negotiations were always going to be difficult."
"Different in nature, the mission now is," Yoda informed him. "Negotiate with you, the insurgents will not. A rescue, you must perform. And leave immediately, you must."
Obi Wan steeled himself with a steadying breath. I'm so sorry, Korkie. I'm so sorry, Satine. But Korkie had his mother and Satine had her son. The Crown Prince of Fondor was alone.
"I appreciate the urgency of the situation. I'll ready my ship now and depart within the hour," Obi Wan resolved. "I'll retrieve Anakin from class and ensure he readies himself promptly."
But the eyes of the Masters seated before him were forbidding.
"Accompany you on this mission, Padawan Skywalker will not."
Obi Wan gave a double-take.
"It was always planned that he would accompany me, Masters. By your own approval. He is well ready for such a challenge; he is useful and valuable on difficult missions now."
"We won't discuss the issue at length due to the urgency of your departure," Mace intoned calmly, "but you should know that some unauthorised travel has come to the attention of this Council. And that it has raised questions about your suitability to train Skywalker."
Obi Wan felt the blood drain from his face.
"Unauthorised travel, Masters?"
"I cannot see that any of your recent missions would have necessitated a journey to Tatooine," Mace challenged.
Ah. The lesser of two evils.
"The travel to Tatooine does not relate to any of our recent missions," Obi Wan agreed, with as much dignity as he could muster. "My Padawan and I visit his mother occasionally."
Mace raised a sceptical brow.
"Without the approval of our Council?"
"A Jedi Master is given autonomy in how they choose to train their Padawan."
"Training him in attachment, you may be," Yoda warned.
It was all Obi Wan could do not to laugh.
"He lived in his mother's loving home for nine years of his life! The attachment is already there, Masters, and it's not going anywhere."
There seemed to be no understanding in the stony faces that watched him.
"Even if I refused to let him see her, Masters, that attachment would not wane," Obi Wan appealed. "Can't you see that? If anything, it would grow in intensity, and in fear, and-"
"Study his feelings, Master Windu and I will, in the time that you are gone," Yoda resolved, his croaking voice quiet but firm. "Talk further on this matter when you return, we will."
Obi Wan let a bolt of his frustration tear through the Force.
"You would punish me by taking my Padawan away-"
"The mission is now too dangerous for Padawan Skywalker and you know it," Mace declared. "Do not let your attachment to the boy obscure your goal here."
And Obi Wan could have said a thousand horrible things but he kept his mouth shut. The Prince of Fondor was four years old and had been pulled from his bed by terrorists.
"We will discuss it at mission's end, Masters."
And on the mission to Fondor he nearly killed himself – of course he did – because how could he look at the Crown Prince in his urine-stained pyjamas with his enormous dark eyes and trembling lips and not pledge to give his life for him? The Crown Prince of Fondor was Korkie and he was Anakin and he broke Obi Wan's heart.
"My name is Obi Wan and I will take you home to your parents," Obi Wan told him, as he took the child's warm body in his arms.
The boy babbled half in Fondori and half in Basic about the guns and the knives and the six-legged dogs with enormous teeth outside.
"No matter what they do to us I will take you safely home to your parents," Obi Wan resolved. "Now you hold on tight and hide your face here at my neck and don't look at anything that happens."
And the guns were fired and the knives thrown and the dogs lunged at his heels but they escaped. Obi Wan Kenobi returned the Crown Prince of Fondor back to his weeping parents and apologised most profusely for the blood that he had shed on the young boy's pyjamas and smeared on his hands and face.
"It's mine, I assure you, all of it mine. He wasn't hurt. I'm so sorry."
And as the parents collapsed in around their trembling son like the petals of a flower closing in of a nighttime, Obi Wan could only stand there, clutching at the wound in his left shoulder – how close the blade had been, how many milliseconds of movement had saved him from being pierced over the heart – murmuring, "It is mine. All of it. Mine."
All of the pain, all of the grief of a parent without his child. All of it, mine.
And he stood like that until the child's nursemaid had the good sense to divert the gaping crowd of palace staff to, "Catch the Jedi before he keels over, won't you?" And so Obi Wan was caught before his head struck the ground, and the med-team arrived and the haemorrhage from his shoulder was finally arrested, and the royal housekeeper awoke from her shock and hurried to fetch a mop to clean his blood from the marble floor.
When Obi Wan had regained the clarity of mind with which to thank the medics for their service and regained the strength with which to rise from the treatment bed, he limped his way from the palace, leaving a guard with a cursory message of goodwill and farewell to the royal family – a hurried and unprofessional departure that would no doubt land him in trouble with the Council – and returned to his ship.
He called Anakin first.
"I am injured but safe, Padawan. The Prince has been returned to his family. I hope that I've not worried you."
"I never worry about you. You're obviously immortal."
Anakin's attempt at humour was admirable but failed to entirely conceal his concern from his Master.
"Despite everything I said to the Council, Anakin…" Obi Wan managed wearily. "I'm glad that you weren't here. It was horrible. I know that you wanted to come but truly-"
"I should have been with you, Master."
There was no anger to Anakin's much repeated statement. It was a tender expression of care and Obi Wan could have wept with it.
"I appreciate that very much, Anakin. When I can safely take you with me, you know that I will."
Anakin nodded.
"I'll see you in a few days, then?" the boy asked, with stoic brightness. "Once the loose ends have been tied up, and you've been honoured at a banquet and all that?"
Obi Wan gave a wry smile.
"I'm afraid I've concluded the mission rather promptly. I- I think I'll go to Mandalore, Anakin."
I need to go to Mandalore.
"Go, Master."
Stars. Obi Wan wanted to but could not articulate to Anakin in that moment how precious their relationship had become to him. He was too young to carry his Master's many griefs, and yet he did it with such maturity. Obi Wan was sorry for all that he had put Anakin through, but even more so, he was grateful.
"You stay well, Anakin. Don't let Master Windu give you too hard of a time. I'll call you again tomorrow."
Korkie lapsed into a restless sleep shortly after midnight, his body exhausted by a day of endless, hacking coughs. After so many hours of overtired, wakeful misery, Satine was reluctant to move from where she held him in her lap, sitting at the edge of her bed. It seemed right that she would stay awake and watch him, no matter how many times Doctor Jerac had reassured her that the chest tube had helped and the antibiotics were winning and that she would check on him in the morning. Doctor Jerac had also said that Satine should call her if she saw anything else worrying and Satine did not intend to miss the faintest sign. Satine would never forget how tiny and sick her son had once been and she would gladly sit and stroke his hair until dawn.
After hours of stillness, with only Korkie's laboured breaths and the silver light of the moon for company, the door to her bedroom gently opened. Satine's initial lurch of fear – three years of peacetime and yet some part of her still expected to be assassinated in her sleep – was quickly allayed by the familiar voice that greeted her.
"Don't get up."
Obi Wan Kenobi limped – kriffing hell, what had he done to himself this time? – towards the bed and clambered, boots and all, to sit behind her and cradle her in the same way that she held their son: his chest against her back, his legs straddling hers, his arms enveloping Satine and Korkie both.
It had been two years since he had touched her like this.
"What happened to a few days of notice?" Satine managed.
"I needed to be with you both."
After two years and thirteen karking visits. Not that she'd been counting.
"Are you drunk?"
"You know I'm not, dearest."
A term of endearment he had only called her once, a slip of the tongue during a moment of tenderness in Keldabe.
"They've sent you on some horrible mission, haven't they?" Satine asked, realisation sinking into her stomach. "Are you hurt?"
His voice was bruised but calm.
"I'm alright, Satine."
"Please don't lie to me."
Obi Wan sighed and allowed his head to rest in the crook of her neck. It was so heavy.
"The Prince of Fondor was kidnapped from his bed and held hostage by terrorists. I brought him back to his family. I have a few wounds but I'm not really hurt."
The report was brief and matter-of-fact, but Obi Wan had spoken honestly to her, which was all she could ask. Satine lifted a hand to cradle his head against her neck. The moonlit moment seemed surreal.
"That's not why I came," he went on. "I just wanted to be with you. For months, all I could think about… just wanting to be with you."
Satine nodded but could not form words. It was all she had wanted, too.
"Do you remember when we made him?" Obi Wan asked, his hand coming to rest with hers against Korkie's back.
Satine felt a sudden rush of tears against her eyes.
"Yes."
"And afterwards we lay down on that enormous bed and there were riots and plots and murders outside, but we had our peace."
"I remember."
"And we didn't know that it would be the last time."
The bastard was going to make her cry.
"No. We didn't."
"We had such enormous futures ahead of us," he murmured. "We didn't know…"
Satine scrunched her eyes against the tears.
"Obi Wan-"
"You were all that I cared for then. In that moment."
The traitorous tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Please, Obi Wan-"
"I'm going to make it better, Satine."
The words she had dreamed of. The words she surely could not trust – that were too good to be true.
"You don't have to make any promises, Obi Wan," she murmured. "Not now."
Obi Wan squeezed her hand determinedly and spoke with new strength in his voice.
"I'm going to make it better, Satine. I'm not giving up. I'm going to make it better."
And Satine wanted to protest, she wanted to tell him that these sweet words were impossible, but she did not. Could not.
"Alright," she agreed in a whisper.
The tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth.
"Just rest, Obi Wan," she soothed, feeling his body shaking with exhaustion against her. "Let it be like the day that we made him."
"I'm so tired," he confessed.
"Then don't speak anymore."
And the ever-stubborn Jetii listened to her. His body became heavier against hers as he relaxed, his breaths came long and slow. Satine was for many minutes almost too careful to breathe at all; this moment seemed so impossible that it would be easily fractured by any movement on her part. Surely, the spell would soon be broken – her son would wake and cry, Obi Wan would speak of the Code and the Temple and hurt her again.
But nothing happened.
The stars advanced slowly across the sky. Korkie drooled against her chest. Obi Wan's stubbled jaw rasped faintly against her neck. Satine breathed, and nothing happened.
"I lied to you," she confessed, with shaking voice. "You must already know that I lied to you. But I don't regret loving you. I would never want to make it go away."
Obi Wan did not reply, and Satine soon realised through his rolling breaths and the weight of his body against her back that he had fallen asleep, half-upright though he was. Satine smiled to herself even as tears continued to roll down her cheeks; she was stuck, sandwiched between the two sleeping forms. Her family. She could live here forever, in this here and now.
If it were within her autocratic powers, she would take her hands and press the approaching sun back down below the horizon. She would halt the endless turning of the planet upon its axis. She would buy them a few more hours of darkness, and she would let him rest for as long as he needed.
Finally! I hope it was worth the wait.
Our next chapter will bring some more family wholesomeness. But for now we will let our heroes rest.
I'll try to keep updating as quickly as I can write chapters (hopefully twice a week) but this is perhaps ambitious. We'll see how we go. Your beautiful reviews inspire me to write and I'm very grateful for them.
xx - S.