On the ride to the Jedi Temple Ahsoka filled Padmé in, saying that Obi-Wan had told her that Anakin had told him about some visions, some reason Anakin had to believe that Padmé was going to die in childbirth, and that they didn't really know more than that but they thought Palpatine was using them to exploit Anakin, somehow, and —
"I know about the visions," Padmé said, suddenly feeling more than a little guilty that she hadn't been doing more, hadn't been doing everything she could to make Anakin feel better, to ease his anxieties. But truly, honestly, she hadn't realized how deep it went. She knew he wasn't sleeping well, she knew he'd been withdrawn, but she'd pegged it down to nerves about finding out he was a father, not to mention all the things the Jedi Council was asking him to do with Palpatine…the thing was, Anakin had been acting strange, yes, but really not all that strange. Anakin had always had nightmares, had always had struggles with the Jedi Council. And yes, of course Padmé remembered the dreams about his mother, and more vividly even than that she remembered the lengths he'd gone through to avenge her death. But it wasn't until that speeder ride with Ahsoka, and wasn't until what happened next, that she actually thought Anakin might possibly do something similar for her.
She wasn't blind. She wasn't a fool. She knew that his feelings for her were all-consuming, she knew he would do anything for her. He had already done a whole mess of stupid things out of a perceived duty to keep her safe. But she hadn't actually thought that this was another one of those times. And maybe that was on her.
But when they arrived in the hangar of a spire of the Jedi Temple, and Padmé figured out what was happening, she realized Anakin was indeed about to do something very, very stupid to keep her safe.
She hadn't realized, at first, who had been the one to shout "She is going to die, Anakin!" across the echoing, mostly empty hangar bay. She'd been distracted for a moment by a surging cramp in her abdomen, a momentary instance of breathlessness. Nothing to worry about, she'd been having them for a few days, adding to the hundred places she already felt discomfort, yet another side effect of lugging around twenty-five extra kilos of bodyweight. But then the contraction passed and she could focus on what was unfolding before her — Obi-Wan, struggling to restrain Anakin, who was attempting to wrestle out of his grip — and just before the blast doors slammed shut, she caught one tiny little glimpse of Palpatine, too, and realized who those words had belonged to.
Ahsoka moved quickly down the hangar toward her mentors, and Padmé waddled after her, and she could easily hear Anakin shouting:
"No, no, let go, I need to talk to him, I need to see him, let me go —"
She could hear Obi-Wan saying something but couldn't make it out.
"No, there's no time, why is no one listening to me when I say there's no time, I need to go see him —"
Obi-Wan noticed them over Anakin's shoulder and nodded his head in Padmé's direction. "Anakin, there, look —"
"— and no one is taking this seriously, you heard him she's going to die, he knows something and I need to find out what, Padmé's going to die, Obi-Wan —"
"I'm here, Ani!"
Padmé didn't know why, realized a second too late how imperceptive it was on her part, but somehow she expected him to wheel around, sweep her into his arms like he had when he'd just come back from the Outer Rim, and realize instantaneously that everything was going to be all right, because nothing could hurt them as long as they were together. What Anakin did instead was swing around on his heel, stare at her with widened eyes, and shout at her, livid, "What are you doing here? I told you to stay home!"
And because Padmé had not even remotely expected to be greeted this way by her husband, the love of her life, whose bloodshot red eyes looked as if he'd been crying for hours, she could do nothing in that moment but stand there and gape at him.
Obi-Wan intervened. "It was my idea," he said, placing a hand on Anakin's chest as if to hold him back, and Padmé was beginning to understand what Ahsoka had meant by 'talk him down.' "I asked Ahsoka to bring her here so that you could see she's safe."
"But you're not safe here!" Anakin yelled through what sounded like a sob. His voice was cracking and congested, like his throat was swollen. "You're not safe anywhere, because no one will listen to me when I say that I need to see him!"
"And what would you do if you did see him?"
"I don't know! That's why I need to go, because he's the only one who can help, he knows what to do, he told me he did!"
"Hang on," Ahsoka said, shaking her head. She, like Obi-Wan (and probably like Padmé, as well, if she could see her own face) was staring at Anakin like he was a bomb they had to diffuse. Padmé got the impression Ahsoka was just as shocked to see Anakin in this terrified, panicking state as she was. "What exactly did he say he knows?"
"How to stop people from dying!" Anakin said emphatically, waving his arm in the air as if stating the obvious. "He said if I help him he'll show me how!"
"Help him?" Obi-Wan said, his brows drawn together. "By becoming his new Sith apprentice?"
Anakin stared at him. "No, I — I don't know. It's confusing."
"And where exactly did he find out how to stop people from dying?" Ahsoka asked.
"From —" Anakin started, but cut himself off, bit his lip. He looked down at the ground. "I don't know."
"Yes you do," Obi-Wan said, his voice the height of calm. He spoke as a teacher trying to guide his student to an answer they already knew.
"From his Sith master!" The very thought seemed to fill Anakin with misery, and shame. Another half-sob shook through his body, and Padmé couldn't help but to step forward and place one of her hands on his chest, and the other on his back, hoping he would melt into her arms the way he always did. Wishing she could take away his fears, his sorrow, whisk it away into a box and smash that box with a laser blast. But for once, quite unlike usual, he barely seemed to notice she was there. And he was shaking, trembling like he'd been out in the cold for hours.
"Exactly," Obi-Wan said from Anakin's other side, his own hands still lingering on Anakin's arm. "Turning to the dark side will not bring you the answers you are looking for."
It wasn't until now, with her hands steadying him, that Padmé realized Anakin was swaying slightly on his feet, and she noticed with concern how shadowy and pale his face looked under the puffiness and despair. How chaotic his hair was, how pronounced the dark circles under his eyes were.
"I didn't say I wanted to," Anakin snapped. "He'll still tell me, I know he will, he trusts me, he trusted me with everything about — about —"
It was then that he looked at Obi-Wan, and then at Padmé, and his eyes widened and he pulled away from their touch. He stepped back, looking at the two of them and Ahsoka, as if having an intense revelation.
"You're trying to turn me against him," he said breathlessly. "Just like he said you would. You're working together, like he said you were."
There was a pause. "Anakin," Obi-Wan said desperately, slowly, "You must understand, it's the other way around. Palpatine is the Sith Master. The Sith are evil. Can't you see he's been manipulating you?"
"He's not evil," Anakin said, shaking his head. "He's been nothing but kind and honest with me this whole time."
"He lied to you," Ahsoka said, not containing her incredulity as well as Obi-Wan had. "If he's been so honest, why didn't he tell you the truth?"
"Because," Anakin said, as if that were a complete thought. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, and he seemed so confused it made Padmé's heart swell with pain. He was frowning. "It made sense when he explained it."
There was a pronounced pause, and Padmé got the sense that all four of them felt equally clueless about what to do.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan said very softly. "What exactly have you been talking about in your meetings with him?"
"He —" Anakin stammered, his eyes flicking in between them all. Abruptly, Padmé thought of a child cowering behind a doorframe, peeking to check if it was safe to come out. "He told me not to talk about it."
Oh. Oh, this was very, very bad.
Very, extremely, really bad.
There was a long, poignant moment of silence there in that hangar. There was no one in the background working on ships, no droids whizzing about. Just the four of them and all the space around them.
Then, slowly, deliberately, Ahsoka said, "Anakin…do you know what psychological grooming is?"
Anakin stared at her blank-faced, then at Obi-Wan, then at Padmé, and it was abundantly clear that he did, in fact, know. "It's not like that."
"It's abuse, Ani," Padmé said, trying to make him see how obvious it was, now, not that she had ever noticed it before. And she should have. Oh, she should have. "He's been abusing you."
The tension in the hangar could be cut with a knife, and that was without even having the Force.
"It's not like that," Anakin whispered again. "He's never hurt me."
"Damage is not always physical," Obi-Wan pointed out.
Anakin raised a hand to his face, rubbed at his eyes. "You don't understand. None of you do."
"Then help us to," said Ahsoka.
Anakin stared at them all, like he couldn't see why they didn't get it. "You don't understand because no one can. You all don't have visions like these, you don't have the Force like this, but he — he does understand, that's the thing, he knows the visions are real. He says he can help me, with — there's something about the midi-chlorians, and I just need him to show me and then I'll be able to protect you, Padmé, the way I wasn't able to protect my mother. All I want is for you not to die, and he can help me make sure of that. I don't understand why you don't want that. I know I can do it, if you just give me a chance, I have to go and see him, I have to — I have to —"
In the middle of all his maniacal ramblings Anakin had been taking slow, tiny steps back, in a way he didn't seem to be fully conscious of, back toward the blast doors through which Palpatine's prisoner escort had exited, and after his words had trailed off he turned around, started to walk shakily toward the hangar bay doors as if in a trance —
He made it a few steps, and then he collapsed.
Obi-Wan was at his side in a heartbeat, and Ahsoka in the next, and they caught him before he hit the ground. Padmé remained standing, because kneeling was hard when one was so top-heavy, but she came around to stand between him and the blast doors. Slumped in between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, who both had cautious but comforting hands on him, Padmé watched as a fresh batch of tears slipped down Anakin's face and she had to fight off a few of her own. He looked so defeated. It wasn't like him. It was awful.
"Anakin, when was the last time you ate something?" Obi-Wan said, reaching up to push hair out of Anakin's face.
Padmé's darling husband shook his head miserably. "I don't remember," he said, his words slurred by exhaustion. "Maybe yesterday."
Ani….
"Have you not slept at all?" Ahsoka asked him.
Anakin shook his head again in a slow, deliberate movement. "Can't."
"Well let's go fix that, shall we? Then we can figure out everything else," Obi-Wan said with a gentility that Padmé had never heard from him.
All Anakin could do was keep shaking his head. "Please," he said in a tiny voice. "Please just let me talk to him."
"No," Obi-Wan said firmly. "I will not let him near you again."
"If it were one of us," Ahsoka said softly, "If our places were swapped, would you let us go?"
"It's not —"
But Ahsoka cut him off. "It is the same. It is. If you found out one of our friends was a Sith Lord who was trying to turn us to the dark side, would you let us go to them? Or would you want to keep us safe?"
It wasn't clear if Anakin was speechless, or simply too exhausted to respond in kind. All he did instead was look up and say, "But Padmé…."
She understood. Padmé offered him the best, most loving smile she could possibly muster when seeing him like this, more distraught and confused even than when his mother had died. "How about we go get me and the baby checked out? Make sure we're okay. Do you want to do that?"
His lower lip quivered, and he nodded. It seemed that all the fight had been finally drained out of him by low blood sugar and severe anxiety. Suddenly he seemed so young, so vulnerable, a stark contrast to the confident exterior he tried, and so often failed, to maintain.
Obi-Wan and Ahsoka helped him up and he let them, looking as weak as Padmé's knees were starting to feel. Ahsoka tried to hand him a supply bar but he just shook his head once more. Then Obi-Wan took the bar from Ahsoka and put it in Anakin's hand, saying, "Eat it."
They walked as a group somewhere Padmé had never been before, not that she'd been in the temple very often at all. The Halls of Healing, they called it, though they said that of late it was starting to become more of a standard hospital than anything. Where once it had been a place of Force healing and tranquil rest, Obi-Wan told her, now the doctors had so many patients on their roster that using the Force was often forgone, with standard medicine taking the forefront as they treated the influx of wounded.
Obi-Wan vanished for a moment, off to talk with someone and explain their situation, so the three of them sat in the main entryway on soft blue benches. Padmé felt incredibly out of place — not only was she not a Jedi, but she was almost certainly the only pregnant lady here — and she gratefully accepted a stool from a Padawan on which to prop up her swollen ankles. Anakin sat next to her, leaning over himself and practically exuding stress, and Padmé was grateful towards Ahsoka for being the one to put her arm around him in comfort. She loved the man as deeply as she loved this baby inside her, but sometimes even she needed a break.
That sounded harsh. Rather, sometimes she was very pregnant and needed to be her own emotional crutch, rather than someone else's.
Obi-Wan came back with a green-skinned Tekho woman he introduced as Dr. Bhel Jhassar, and that was when Padmé realized that the Jedi did, in fact, train their own to be doctors, rather than outsourcing it, and for some reason she was relieved.
Anakin stayed with her in the appointment, their secret all but abandoned now, all but forgotten. In the grand scheme of things, Padmé supposed, it truly did not matter anymore. In a galaxy where the Clone War had been fabricated by a man that had mentored her for years, where her husband was an abuse victim by that very man, things like maintaining secrecy in a relationship that would make them both lose their jobs simply did not feel like the top priority.
The appointment went well, and was very informative. It wasn't that Padmé hadn't had any prenatal care at all. She'd been taking her vitamins, checking in with her medical droid very frequently, getting her bloodwork done and her vitals taken. She'd been eating a lot, eating for two, and she'd definitely put on some Mommy Weight as Motée called it, and sure, maybe some of those kilos had been from cakes and sweets and candies because really, she hadn't seen her baby's father in at least five months so yeah she'd been comfort eating a little….but now she was finding out that extra Mommy Weight she'd put on hadn't actually been just from the candies and cakes, because as it turned out, she'd really been eating for three all along.
Twins. Twins! Twins twins twins twins twins! Padmé hadn't realized she wanted twins until the very second when the ultrasound popped up on the holoprojection and she saw two big baby heads looking back at her, cute and cradled and suddenly she couldn't believe she hadn't bothered to get an ultrasound until now. Twins, twins, twins!
Padmé didn't think she'd ever been as happy as she was in that moment, staring at an actual picture of her actual babies, curled in on themselves inside of her, closer to her than they would ever be after they were born, until she heard a strangled sound come from beside her and watched Anakin drop his head into his hands miserably.
The doctor seemed to sense something and gave them the room, and Padmé put her hand on his back, unsure exactly of what to do. Because she was still so happy, independent of the intense fear spreading itself through him like a toxin, but she was also very, very worried. And not about herself, either. About the babies, like any good mom would, and about him.
"Ani," she said, being as calm as she possibly could when what she would now call her Mommy Feelings were at an all time high. Rubbing a circle in her husband's back, she said, "You know this is a good thing, right?"
"I know," he said, his voice strained, and he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and tried to smile for her. "I'm sorry. I'm happy. See? Happy."
"I get it," she said, and she really did, but how could she make him see that? "Just another person to worry about, right? But you heard the doctor. I'm fine, both the babies are fine. Babies, Ani! We're all okay. And to be completely honest, as the mother of your children, plural, I really need you to be here for me right now."
"I know," he said again, shaking hair out of his eyes. His very red, puffy eyes. He sniffled, and tried again to smile, but it dropped away after a second. He placed his prosthetic hand gently on her belly, and she got the impression he was trying to feel for their babies through her skin. He spoke as if he were talking to all three of them when he whispered, "I'm here."
Soon after, the doctor came back in with the results of all her tests, checked a few more things, and told her that, about those contractions she's been having for a few days? About having to pee every thirty minutes? About the discharge? Yeah, those were early signs of labor. The babies were coming.
"Maybe not right away," Dr. Bhel said, smiling. "It's hard to tell exactly when, but definitely soon."
Anakin looked up at her in wild desperation. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong?"
"The babies are in the correct position, their nutrient levels are good, Padmé's bloodwork is healthy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her that I can find."
"But what if it's something you haven't found?"
"Anakin," the doctor said gently, "You have been the recipient of our care many times. Have you ever been dissatisfied with us here?" He sighed, and shook his head no. "We are more than happy to take care of Padmé for as long as she wishes to be here. I know everything might seem scary, but — this isn't Tatooine."
Anakin stared at her, but he didn't at all appear angry like Padmé expected him to. Rather, he simply appeared awestruck. Indeed, Padmé hadn't expected the doctor to say anything like that, but she supposed, as the one who Obi-Wan had said had been looking after all of them since Anakin had come to the temple all those years ago, it made sense that she would know his history and his fears.
"I know it isn't," Anakin said coldly. "I know."
"But I'm not sure you can accept it," Dr. Bhel said sympathetically, reminding Padmé that she was, in fact, a Jedi. A doctor first, perhaps, duty-bound by medical oaths, but a Jedi nonetheless. "Deaths in childbirth are extraordinarily rare in these parts. Perhaps if we were down in the underlevels, but we're not. Nor are we in the Outer Rim. Padmé will be safe. I can't promise anything, but I am confident of it. And I will do my best to help you, as well, as I have always tried to do, but I'm not sure anything else I can say will assure you."
Nodding mutely, Anakin shrunk back in his chair, staring at the wall. Padmé knew him well enough to tell he was looking out into the Force for answers. Answers she desperately hoped he would find, for all their sakes.
The meeting with the doctor wrapped up. The Jedi were absolutely lovely about this whole thing, which wasn't a surprise but they weren't exactly known for being a birthing ward. But still, she felt from the start that she was in completely safe and compassionate hands. The Jedi doctors exuded calmness, which she really needed right now because of the whole thing with her husband having a mental breakdown…they talked her through everything, and even though they had no idea when the baby — babies! — would actually come, they told her what to expect and only scolded her a tiny bit for not having gone to a gynecologist this entire time. Well, what could she say. Oops?
It had already been late when this whole ordeal began, but now it was really late, and she settled down in a comfortable room with Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, somehow expecting that she wouldn't be able to sleep as soon as her body was telling her to. Instinctively, she got the feeling that this was going to be a very long night indeed.
A teeny, tiny part of her, a part that she would never admit to being there, was a little upset about this. Because really, why couldn't she just have a normal life and a normal family for one day? Why of all days did this have to happen now? Why couldn't she spend the hours counting down to her babies' arrival with a happy, excited husband, being pampered and treated like a queen? Well, bad example there, because as queen a lot of people had tried to kill her, but. You know.
But there they were. A mismatched group of people who cared deeply about each other, forced by necessity to stage an intervention for her darling husband, who had apparently been groomed by an evil Sith Lord and had almost turned to the dark side tonight.
Really, now. What was a new mom to do?
NOTE: Thanks so much for reading! Only one chapter left after this. There is a sequel but I'm not sure whether I should post it on this site or not as I honestly don't know whether there's interest. I'm not trying to do that thing where people hold a fic hostage (I couldn't if I wanted to, it's already posted on AO3 lol) but I wanted to gauge whether there was interest or not before taking the time to convert all the files. If I do, it'll probably be in chunks as I don't really want to stretch it out over 19 weeks hahaha please do let me know if you're interested. I appreciate it and I hope you enjoy the end! I put a lot of heart and soul into this fic and it really means a lot to me, was basically the fic I always wanted to write but could never find the words, so I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
