CHapt 18… -v||vv/,

Despite being occupied with her new senator 'friends', Padmé felt as if the time Obi-Wan was absent with Master Yoda stretched on endlessly. She felt a certain agony creep up in her throat as she waited to see how Obi-Wan would come out of it; injured, weakened, miserable, better, or any number of other things. One part of her feared he would come out colder; that he would be convinced of the futility of his affection for her and give it up for good, even though she knew that was probably what she should hope for, she couldn't make herself hope for it. She cared about him too much. She wanted him too much. It was selfish, and she inwardly chided herself for being immature and unable to give him up for the greater good.

But was it for the greater good?

Padmé didn't know. What good was the Jedi code for Obi-Wan if the Jedi didn't even exist anymore? Or even just because it forced him to deny a large part of himself?

She found herself staring out of a narrow window, at the thick cedar-red trunks of the Endor behemoths, at the lilt-and-sway of a falling coniferous needle in the angling sunlight.

She needed to learn more about the Jedi. She needed to learn more about the force. She needed more information in order to make a logical, reasonable, objective decision on whether or not her insane, maddening, deaf-and-blind attraction to Obi-Wan was something that she should, as a reasonable senator, put to an end or, at the very least, put a lid on.

But it was just so very hard to stay away from him.

-0-0-

"Will this console do?" Jamillia asked Padmé, after bringing the latter to a room with a small window and a console sitting in the middle with a bench in front of it.

"Yes, it looks perfect, thanks," said Padmé, looking over the holo controls.

"I'll send in the Jedi once he returns," said the tall senator, and she departed.

Pulling out the chip in her pocket and plugging it into the console slot, Padmé's work that she'd compiled so far with Obi-Wan erupted on the holo surface - blues, greys, and whites, faintly shifting and buzzing with electric energy. The locations they'd charted so far appeared to triangulate in the part of space Padmé was most familiar with, it being in the same quadrant as Naboo, so it was easier work than it might have been otherwise.

Data entry wasn't the most exciting thing she'd ever done, but at least it was something to do to keep her mind off things, and that it did until she heard the door open behind her and turned to see who it was.

In the doorway stood Obi-Wan, and the light from the distant window diffused him with a faint glow that offset the artificial lamps. His eyes locked with hers as soon as she turned, but then he nodded to the person who had let him in.

"Thank you," he said, and then holding out a hand when the assistant moved to close the door he went on: "No, leave it open. That's fine."

Padmé cleared her throat and looked down, feeling an unusual awkwardness at the uncertainty of Obi-Wan's presence. She knew he had instructed the door be left open for propriety's sake, so she turned to do the most benign thing she could think of, which was to input more data. Peripherally, she heard and saw him walk up to stand beside the bench on which she sat, but he stopped and didn't seat himself. Eventually, she broke away from the holo image and looked up at him. He had been watching her, his face unreadable.

A long second or two passed and neither moved to break the silence.

"Are you okay?" Padmé finally asked.

"Yes," he replied.

Another few seconds passed, more excruciating than the first set.

"Would you like to have a seat?" she asked with a strained politeness.

"Thank you," he replied, with equal strain, and he sat beside her on the bench. Turning his attention to the data on the holo projection, he asked, "How is it coming?"

She only took a moment to look him over before replying. His robes had been cleaned and his hair still had a hint of dampness from the fresher about it. He smelled like soap. She didn't understand why this was so painful to be aware of, but it was. Breaking her eyes away, she turned to the safety of data.

"It appears that whoever it is, he is in the same system as Naboo," said Padmé.

"Interesting," said Obi-Wan, scratching his beard.

"Yes, I thought so," she said, "and convenient."

"True, we are both quite familiar with the system," he remarked. "Shall we split the work?"

"As you like," said Padmé, gesturing to the console.

For the next several minutes they both fell into the work, fully occupied. After a while, however, Padmé leant her arms upon the holo desk and glanced over at Obi-Wan.

"You know, it's weird," she mused.

"Hum?" murmured Obi-Wan, ticking several controls in strategic order.

"Well, the other senators…" she began, "they don't seem to trust the Jedi."

"I suppose you set them aright," he said wryly, his eyes on the holo and mind still half-occupied with it.

"I guess," she said, picking at a button on the console. "It's like one of them thinks of you as religious extremists or something."

"Not that old idea," grunted Obi-Wan. "If I had a credit for every time I heard that one…"

"And did you know Chancellor Palpatine is reporting that it was Jedi extremists who caused the bombings?" she asked.

Obi-Wan turned to stare at her.

"So we blew up our own temple?" he deadpanned.

"That's what I said!" she replied, spreading her hands.

"Oh, dear stars," he muttered, running and hand through his hair and turning back to the data, as if he couldn't even even.

"That's why there's a warrant out for the Jedi, supposedly," she said.

"What chaos," he remarked.

For the next few seconds, Obi-Wan flipped the controls a lot more forcefully than normal.

"I do hope Anakin's found something resourceful to do," he said.

"So do I," said Padmé. "What did Master Yoda say?"

Obi-Wan cleared his throat, considering. He didn't look at her.

"Master Yoda is… good at this," said Obi-Wan at last.

"Good at what?" asked Padmé.

"Chaos," he said. "Disorder. The unexpected. Having one's world turned upside down. The madness of entropy."

"Oh, that seems like a fine skill," she remarked.

"One to be envied," he said wistfully. "I am, alas, his lesser in that regard."

"You're not alone, darling," she replied.

He drew a breath deeply and then leaned his elbows on the console and buried his hands in his hair.

"Please don't call me that," he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear.

Padmé caught her breath.

"I'm sorry," she said, not daring to touch him. "I wasn't thinking, I just-…"

"I know," he said softly.

Without realizing it fully before, Padmé felt that time had pulled the tension between them taught, and each minute that it turned another crank brought more strain, more tightness, more threatening to break, to snap, or clap like a thunderstorm and shower them with a drowning deluge.

Padmé had had enough of this; were they adults or were they not?

"Obi-Wan," she said.

"Yes?" he replied, straightening himself and putting his hair to rights.

"Look at me," she commanded.

He did. Ah, his eyes. His countenance. The very feel of his presence. His aura, one might say, if one was mystical. The darling thing. Good mighty stars, she certainly cared for the man. More than should be allowed. She sighed.

"I don't want you to suffer anymore," she said.

"Why, thank you?" he replied, curious.

"Well, what I'm saying is… please, let's just put this—all this—" and she waved a hand between herself and Obi-Wan, "behind us. Just for now. I'm not saying forever, because… well, I don't think I can. But for now, we must."

"I know we must," he said.

"And I can't stand to see you suffering," she said. "I hate it, might I be so bold to say."

He smiled at her a little.

"I can't say I understand why the Jedi code is the way it is," she went on, "but I intend to do some research and find out."

"I don't doubt you will," he said.

"And because its what you have chosen, I will respect it," she said. "For you. To honor you."

"Oh, if you could only not be so ridiculously endearing," he said, as if put out by her favor.

"But that's what I want to do!" she objected. "It feels right… to me."

"I know," he said, shaking his head at her. "I know. It feels right. You are right. As you almost always are."

"But so are you," she debated.

"Hardly, my dear," he said.

"Ah, that is so very unfair that you should call me that," she said, "and the very moment after asking me not to call you endearments!"

"But it feels right, darling," he chided.

"My love," she said, feeling a certain satisfaction when his breath caught, if subtly. "One cannot always go with what 'feels right'."

"Can't I?" he asked, and his eyes dropped to her lips for a brief moment.

She caught her breath and turned to the console, forcing her eyes on the controls.

"No," she said, her voice weaker than she'd hoped it would sound. A few baited breaths passed.

"You're right, as usual," said Obi-Wan. "Shall we continue with the data and find the monster?"

"Yes, please, darling," she replied, smiling and letting her eyes travel over the holo points.

"As you wish, my dear," he said returning to their work.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They worked until the sunlight, slanting through the Endor pillars, turned golden, then bronze, and then a dusty periwinkle fell over the land. At last, after hours of tedium, they came to a conclusion, and it wasn't at all what they had expected.

Padmé sat on the bench and stared at the triangulated location as the reality sunk in.

"Naboo," said Obi-Wan, gazing at the holo chart as well.

She felt pale, perhaps even cold. Rough chills ran up her arms to bow her shoulders forward, and her eyes grew blurry.

"And since we know it definitely isn't you," said Obi-Wan, the tones of his voice, though always pleasant, always enticing, for once couldn't absolve the unpleasantness of what he said. "That leaves only one option."

Padmé dropped her head into her hands.

"It makes so much sense," she muttered. "So much sense, but… oh stars. We're ruined. We've been ruined! The Republic is ruined!"

She felt a keen sense of mourning for a thing that never really lived, but now was dead. Murdered, in cold blood!, by the one who'd eased them all into a sense of complacency and acceptance while hiding a knife behind his back.

"How can this be?" she whispered hoarsely, lifting her head and staring at her hands, as if they held the answers. "Everything I've ever upheld and worked for is gone!"

She looked at Obi-Wan, who observed her gently.

"And he did it! Chancellor Palpatine!" she said, feeling panic twist through her limbs like poison. "I just lunched with him the day before I left with you! Just a few days ago!"

She turned to stare at the window, dazed.

"How could I not have known, or even suspected anything?" she asked, her strength lessened by futility. "How could none of us?"

"What did he say to you at your luncheon, do you recall?" Obi-Wan asked her.

Her breathing felt short as she tried to remember. So much had happened since then, and she found herself blinking back tears, though she wasn't exactly sure what the emotion was she was feeling, because it didn't feel like anything. She felt like she'd been side-blinded with a plank of wood.

Padmé turned to Obi-Wan, feeling desperate for the calmness, the solace, the warmth of his eyes. He took her face in his hand to help, as if he knew exactly what she needed and allowed her to sink into the depth of his blueness. The gratitude she felt was palpable over the relief he gave her.

Now she could think.

"We discussed Naboo, first," she said. "It seemed just like small-talk. He wanted to know how his home planet was doing. We discussed the hearing, and he asked if I was going to attend… and at that time I hadn't met with you yet. That was right before I came to the temple."

"How fortuitous it worked out that way," Obi-Wan remarked softly.

"So I told him I would be there," she said. "And he approved, saying it was a very important hearing and that he hoped all of the Senate would be there."

Padmé fell into thought, her eyes dropping to the crossing of Obi-Wan's robes at his neck.

"It didn't seem unordinary, and now it seems so… so chilling that he could lunch with me so pleasantly while discussing the means of my coming demise," she said.

Obi-Wan's thumb brushed across her cheekbone lightly, a small comfort.

"You saved me, Obi-Wan," she said, her eyes shifting back up to his. "If I hadn't come with you, I'd be dead along with all the others."

"And here I was afraid I was going to get you killed with all this adventuring," he said, a wry smile playing at his lips. "Turns out I was right all along."

She chortled lightly.

"One would not have expected that the path I chose was the less dangerous route," she replied.

Obi-Wan released her face as something occurred to him.

"The ring, then," he said, taking her hand, on which she wore Anakin's apparatus, and lifting it to indicate the kyber crystal ring within it. "This… that means this is Chancellor Palpatine's."

His brow grew furrowed.

"That means he's force sensitive," he said.

He was silent for a weighted moment.

"And not in a good way," he said with his typical gift for understatement. He shifted his gaze to the kyber crystal within the ring.

Padmé gasped.

"It was injured! The stone!" she said, staring at it. Then she looked at Obi-Wan quickly and asked, "What does that mean?"

Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed.

"It means he's not a Jedi," he said.

"Then… what?" asked Padmé.

Obi-Wan shook his head a little and she felt the force around him shudder, as if the serenity around him was disturbed by new revelations and old trauma. She touched his arm and his waters stilled somewhat as he brought his eyes back to hers. She took his face in her hands, the roughness of his beard brushing her palms.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, but his voice was strained and he didn't sound at all 'okay'.

"I don't like this at all," she said, her eyes travelling over his face. "Not at all."

He touched her hand, pulling it away gently, and let his eyes fall to the side.

"I'll be fine, Padmé," he said. "It's just an old memory. It's nothing."

"Obi-Wan!" she chided.

"It is nothing!" he insisted, in turn chiding the holo console for some reason.

She took his wrist firmly and pulled him to face her, though he had to allow it, for she'd never be strong enough to actually do it. Fortunately, he did allow her, and with hesitance, he met her eyes.

"Obi-Wan," she said, her voice gentle. "You cannot allow this sort of thing to fester. It'll interrupt your ability to address the thing that is happening now, which is different, and will require a different approach. But you must be able to see it with fresh eyes, Obi-Wan, and you can't do that if you're holding onto something old."

As she spoke she watched his gaze move from hesitant to warm and suffused with a certain gratitude. Still, it took him a long, cogent space before he began to speak.

"During the siege of Naboo," he said, "Master Jinn and I fought… a Sith. It was not an experience I like to remember."

"I'm sorry," Padmé said, fully aware of what had happened to Qai Gon Jinn during that battle.

"I was not strong enough to stop him from killing Master Jinn," he said. "I have replayed the scenario over and over, despite knowing how futile it was, thinking of ways that I could have saved him, things I could have done differently..."

"Ah, Obi-Wan!" Padmé sighed. "You can't do that!"

"I know. Do you think I don't know that?" he asked her. "I can't help it. I can't—"

She pulled him close and hugged him around the shoulders.

"I'm so sorry, Obi-Wan," she said, almost a whisper, into his shoulder.

His forehead fell to rest on her shoulder.

"I watched Master Jinn die, and then I killed the Sith," he said, "I… was so angry. I was… there was no peace in it. None. There still isn't."

She brushed her fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck, waiting for more.

"I was left masterless, and pushed into Knighthood early," he said. "I was given a padawan… and not a normal one. Anakin. I had just barely been a padawan and then I was put in charge of… him. I fear I wasn't ready, that I wasn't enough, that I didn't—"

"You have been the perfect master for Anakin," she said, trying to soothe him.

"Don't patronize me," he said as tension began to roll from him in waves.

"I'm not!" she protested.

"I cannot fathom what Master Yoda was thinking," he said, ignoring her protest and lifting his forehead from her shoulder to stare beyond them both. "I cannot ever fathom what he is thinking. Even now, even now. He is calm, as if this is all according to plan!"

He looked down at her, stricken, and asked, "How could this be according to plan?"

She knew not what to reply.

"His faith in me must have always been misguided," he stated.

"I beg to differ," objected Padmé.

"Then I suppose so is yours," he told her.

"I beg your pardon!" she scoffed. "Do not make assumptions, Master Kenobi."

"Then you have no faith in me?" he inquired.

"On the contrary," she replied, "I have the utmost faith in you."

"Poor thing," he stated, looking upon her with pity. "You're delusional."

She smirked at him.

"I should think you're the delusional one," she said.

"Perhaps I am," he said, ceding.

"We should speak with Master Yoda about what we've discovered," she said, glancing at the open door.

A certain sorrow passed through Obi-Wan's features.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you think he already knows?" she asked.

"Why would he have done nothing about it if he did?" he asked her, as if he wondered it himself.

Padmé bit her lip. Drawing a breath, she smoothed Obi-Wan's hair and straightened the collar of his robes.

"Remember, my darling," she said to him, "It's through adversity that we become stronger."

His eyes came to hers with adoration and she touched his cheek.

"You've been through a lot," she said softly.

"So have you," he said to her.

She smiled at him and watched as a faint light filtered through his features to bloom as a soft, beautiful smile.

-o-o-o-o-