They are gathered together in one of the temple archive's many study rooms, a cozy parlor bathed in tea-colored light, and paneled up and down with carmine plexiglass. At its center, two large, dark-leather ottomans surround a holoprojector embedded in the hematite floor. Padmé sits adroitly on one, her pale, dry hands folded primly atop her belly, a spare Jedi cloak thrown over her thin yellow shift to fend off the increasing chill. Anakin and Obi Wan share the other.
She looks askance at them, for they are acting very strangely. Subdued, almost narcotized. Neither of them seem to be aware of their surroundings. Obi Wan stares unseeingly down at his own hands, his brow creasing as though in pain, while Anakin leans bonelessly against him, whispering meaningless words into his master's shoulder.
"Obi Wan." With a delicate sort of throat-clearing, she manages to catch his dazed, wandering eyes. "How are you both... feeling? That is-" she frowns. "Are you- alright?"
He regards her strangely, as if she weren't speaking plain Basic. "Yes?"
"Is that... a question?"
He blinks a few times, seeming to finally catch up with her. "Well, we are-" He looks down at the body slumped against his own, and jostles his shoulder. "Anakin, speak to her-" His voice is soft and clouded, as though he is constantly fighting against the same languor which seems to have thoroughly gripped his apprentice. "I know it feels-" He huffs in exasperation. "But at least try to focus."
Anakin, for his part, is too busy shamelessly drowning in bliss to dignify this with much of a response. With a muted whine, he reaches down between them, winding his arms about Obi Wan's waist and pulling him closer, all the while rubbing slow, worshipful circles against the surface of his master's consciousness. He is only dimly aware of the physical reality which exists beyond the constant, infatuated joining of their souls.
Chewing the inside of her cheek, Padmé leans forward intently, as though struggling to understand a difficult math problem. Uncertainly, she "reaches out," as they say, with that pellucid, intuitive part of herself, which she now recognizes as her own minor Force sense. The light radiating from between Anakin and Obi Wan is as blinding as ever, but that tearing sense of wrongness which surrounded them before is gone, healed, replaced by this profound symbiotic warmth, this glorious oneness. It's beautiful, she can't help but think. And yet, quite possibly, more frightening than ever.
"Ani?" she asks, trying not to sound pleading. When he fails to respond, she glances guiltily over at Master Yoda, who is observing this entire bizarre exchange from his perch on a floating tuffet above the recess in the floor. The idling holoprojector throws eerie beryl lights across his ancient features, making him appear half-sinister suspended in the center of the shadowy room.
"Just as I thought," he grumbles. "Very troubling, this is."
"I don't understand. They seemed fine this morning," Padmé exclaims, before turning to beseech him. "You can, I don't know... fix them, can't you?"
"Fix them, you say?" he snorts, derisively. "Droids, they are not. Done this to themselves, they have!" He rakes a clawed hand over his head in vexation, and his keen eyes narrow as he regards the pair of wayward Jedi. "I am wondering..." he sighs. "What did you seek to accomplish by this, young Skywalker?"
Anakin is content to simply ignore him. Obi Wan, however, responds at once, his breath quietly shuddering, the tips of his ears dahlia-bright with mortification. "Master Yoda, please understand, it wasn't-" he falters, struggling to meet the Grand Master's gaze. "It wasn't Anakin's idea. I brought him down into the restricted archive. I invited him to... tamper with our bond. I take full responsibility." He tries briefly to wriggle out of Anakin's grip, but it takes all of his will-power and concentration. He can either resist his body's driving, unrelenting hunger for Anakin's closeness, or he can hold a civilized conversation, but he can't do both at the same time. Unable to extricate himself from the embrace, he looks up helplessly, awaiting judgement.
"Hmm?" Yoda's brow lifts in consternation. "Hmm-hn. Surprised at you I am, Obi Wan."
"I confess, I have... surprised myself," he breathes.
"Know what you were getting yourself into, did you?"
"No-" He looks away, struggling valiantly for self-mastery. "I acted out of... desperation, perhaps. But I cannot say I fully regret it." His silver eyes flash with something like conviction. "If you knew the circumstances-"
Suddenly, the pneumatic door slides open to reveal Mace Windu, his dark cloak trailing swiftly behind him, his large, sinewy hand outstretched. "Is this the item in question?" he demands. With a sharp inclination of his bald head, he indicates the small, metallic object rotating in midair before him. Although the dodecahedron appears to have been drained of its other-worldly power, he still refuses to touch it out of principle.
"Yes," Obi Wan affirms softly.
"Do you have any idea what this is?" Mace gnars. He doesn't really expect an answer, almost doesn't even want one.
As if the Chancellor's coup, and the near-destruction of the Order weren't enough for one day! An outside threat to the Jedi, no matter how great, is one thing. But to find such betrayal within! He cannot countenance it.
"Do you have any conception of what you have done?" he asks, his voice quivering. He looks from the furiously blushing Master Kenobi to his brazenly dozing apprentice, and his Force sense all but recoils from them. Their cuddling bodies thrum with chaos and passion, and myriad other things he cannot name, things anathema to the Jedi. They have unleashed something monstrous, even more so, he thinks, for being so seductive. "The Jedi Order-!" he starts, gathering himself, his veined temples throbbing. "The Jedi Order was founded, not only to train those gifted with the Force..." He takes a steadying breath. "But also to limit them. To provide structure and discipline. Certain techniques and rituals from the time before the Order- a time of barbarism, and anarchy, and bloodshed, as you well know- are no longer practiced for a reason. As guardians of the Republic, we do not indulge in such reckless, selfish, unnatural uses of our powers. I shouldn't- have- to explain- any of this," he seethes. His round, onyx eyes are bulging with furor, his flaring nostrils at full dilation. "Skywalker! Look at me when I'm talking to you!" he thunders.
And sure enough, Anakin's blue gaze lifts, to the surprise of all.
"I think I'll talk, actually," he yawns, rolling is shoulders, and rising to his feet with a kind of languid, cat-like grace. He presses a melting kiss to Obi Wan's forehead, under which the latter practically swoons, and then turns towards Master Windu, his confident smirk barely serving to conceal a sudden, darting, knife-bright rage. "Whatever you have to say is of little consequence to me." He advances, his voice steadily rising, his shoulders set for a fight. "You call yourselves guardians of the Republic?" he laughs darkly, a horrible, mirthless sound. "What Republic? You have failed. Failed so thoroughly, in fact, that it staggers the imagination." His body seems to ignite from within, his voice resonating with supernatural beauty, and unspeakable power. "What good are you, Jedi? When it finally, really mattered, you couldn't even protect your own kind."
"That's quite enough, Skywalker!" says Mace. He will not be cowed by this insolent boy, no matter how powerful he has become. "What you and Master Kenobi have done-"
"What we've done!?" Anakin cries. "You act like we've committed some sort of atrocity- when all we've actually done is save your ridiculous little cult from extinction!" He looks down sharply, and then back up again, eyes narrowed in bare contempt. "Oh, you're welcome for that, by the way," he spits.
Obi Wan tries to say something, to mollify the boy, but finds he can't summon the breath. His chest constricts painfully.
The Darkness! It floods across their golden bond, seizing his soul with its slippery, cool fingers, whispering to him in a thousand horrible, dissonant voices- With a strangled gasp, he doubles over, refusing to succumb to its power. This is one place he will not allow Anakin to drag him. He looks back up at the confrontation in progress, desperately fighting to form words.
"By the Stars," Mace hisses in disgust. "After all this time... Have you truly learned nothing?"
"Silence!" Anakin screams. The air crackles as though with plasma, and the plexiglass walls seem to vibrate with his terrible, unrestrained fury. "You do not rule me anymore! I have transcended you."
Obi Wan holds himself, shaking with agony, as his vision begins to blur. He covers his ears in a vain attempt to drown out the voices. He refuses to answer the call of maleficence. He refuses to allow its swirling, caliginous energies to make their home in his soul. And so they build and build inside of his muscles, like lactic acid in the absence of oxygen, poisoning his body from the inside out. He cannot separate himself from Anakin. There is no escape. No way out except surrender.
But he knows this about the Darkness: One always has a choice.
"Anakin!" Padmé shrieks, her clear, treble tone piercing Obi Wan's consciousness. In an instant, she is at his side, cradling his wilting form in her slender arms. The sleeves of the Jedi cloak, much too big for her, are pushed up to the elbows, and somehow, he finds strength in this charming little detail. "Anakin, stop this!" she commands. "You are hurting him! Stop this now!" Her deep brown eyes glow like burning coals.
"Listen to her!" hails Mace. "Look at Master Kenobi-!"
But Anakin's paroxysm has reached the point of nigh impenetrability, and his is far beyond reasoning with. "Do not speak to me of him!" he roars. "You will not take him away from me!"
And then, at that precise moment, Mace Windu makes the critical error of taking a step towards the wild-eyed, effervescent youth. "Skywalker-"
"Stay back!" Anakin throws up his hands, and searing tongues of golden energy leap from his fingertips, driving the master Jedi to the ground. One moment, Windu is his severe, unyielding, fearless self, and then the very next, he is a tangle of motionless limbs, awkwardly sprawled across the polished hematite floor.
Anakin stumbles backward, with an abortive, choking gasp, stunned into silence by his own mostly unintentional display of power. He turns at once to see his beloved master recoiling from him in pain, his precious wife gaping at him in mute horror-
And bolts.