Author's Note:
To Hieiko: Glad you think my name is cool! You even know what it means! Yay! More angsty Obi/Ani/Padme stuff coming up, as requested. And I don't like that manipulative Sith either.
To Eruvyweth: Wow . . . thanks . . . now I'm under pressure . . . I've read your stuff here on and I was impressed, so I'm really happy you think my story's worth reading.
To Fragile Dreams: I wish movie Obi-Wan felt that way, too, which is probably why I decided to write fic about it, isn't it? Actually, I think he almost did, but he felt his duty to Yoda and the other Jedi too keenly--what made all the difference, in this story at least, is that Anakin asked him for help . . . . I'm glad you think Anakin and Padme's relationship is portrayed well. I'm having trouble with it, since they can't be together while they both convalesce, but there's always the Force, I suppose.
To Wswords: Continuing, as ordered, sir. I'm happy (and surprised) you liked the third chapter so much! Sidious is hard . . . .
To Lady Cora: I'm relieved you thought Obi-Wan was in character. A lot of this story kind of depends on that, and to some degree it's turning out to be an exploration of some aspects of our favorite Jedi Master's character.
Four
"Stay with the ship," I ordered distractedly. Battling with the ache solidifying into a solid, throbbing mass of pain centered in my forehead was making it hard to focus.
"But, Master Obi-Wan, surely—" the golden droid started, but I was teetering on the edge of true physical and emotional collapse and simply couldn't deal with the endless, pointless blathering today.
"Stay. With. The. Ship." I bit the words out one by one and turned away from Threepio without bothering to see how he'd react. I heard the slight whirring and clanking as he made his way back up the ramp and gave a sigh of relief to realize that he'd decided to obey me after all as I started toward the tiny medical facility in an exhausted sort of haze. Anakin and Padmé had already been rushed there, as soon as we'd landed and I'd convinced the overzealous port authority that I really was Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Negotiator, hero of . . . well, whatever battles I was considered a hero of now. Obviously they hadn't gotten the news from Coruscant yet that Jedi were traitors and to be disposed of immediately. I wondered what I would do if—when—they did as that slow, dull pain from my heart spread all through me again at the thought, and then dismissed those thoughts as useless. Keep your attention here and now where it belongs . . . .
It was fortunate the medical center wasn't far from the starport. I doubt I would have made it there otherwise, and the last thing we needed was to have me lying passed out in the street.
Force, I was tired.
The medical center was blur of activity to my unfocused eyes as I made my way through it. The day had been the most utterly exhausting of my life, and I felt as though I could barely put one foot in front of the other. But I was still General Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, and I still had things to do before I let myself rest.
I nearly ran into a small, blue-jumpsuited Healer in the hall because I hadn't seen her behind the medical droid I was following and my reflexes and senses were dulled enough by weariness to slow my reaction times down by quite a bit. "I'm sorry," I managed as I caught myself.
"That's all right." She looked and sounded as deadened and exhausted as I felt. She looked at me with eyes that were blank with tiredness. "General Kenobi," she said in a tone of dull recognition, then heaved a deep sigh. "Well, Senator Amidala's doing all right now. We decided to put her in obstetrics because she's stabilized enough not to warrant intensive care."
I closed my eyes, nearly staggering as a wave of unadulterated relief washed over me, leaving me weak and shaking in its wake. Thank the Force. I would never have forgiven myself if Padmé had died because of my folly. I didn't even want to think about what her death would have done to Anakin.
A small hand on my arm, shaking me slightly, brought me back to myself. The medic's tired eyes were looking at me with quite a bit more life than they had shown earlier, and I noticed vaguely that they were blue. A clear, limpid blue-gray like the light of an early morning over the waterfalls on Naboo.
Force, now I was waxing poetic about someone's eyes. What was wrong with me?
"General Kenobi," she said, her voice much firmer now, "You need medical care."
I shook her off. "It's nothing; I'm just tired. Can I see her?"
The medic's small mouth set into an unhappy, disapproving line. "I suppose. Besides, you are a Jedi. I'm sure you'll go ahead and do whatever you want no matter what I say."
The bizarre comment caught my attention, mainly because the words and the amount of bitterness in the voice behind them surprised the Force out of me. "Uh—what?" I said intelligently. Good job, Kenobi—show her that Jedi are foggy-headed Kowakian monkey-lizards without two thoughts to string together, like you are right now.
"It's nothing," she said quickly. "Forget it. Get some rest, all right? Exhausting yourself into collapse isn't going to do anyone any good, least of all Senator Amidala and General Skywalker."
General Skywalker. Not Darth Vader—so they hadn't heard. Word of his fall to the dark side hadn't yet reached here. It was safe to be a Jedi, for the moment at least. "I know," I muttered, feeling as if a heavy, crushing weight of responsibility had settled onto my shoulders and refused to lift. "I know."
She rolled her eyes and turned away. I watched her go, still bemused by her attitude, then keyed open the door and slipped into Padmé's room as unobtrusively as I could. I didn't know when she became Padmé to me instead of Senator Amidala, but now that she had I couldn't seem to go back to think of her in the more distant manner I had been accustomed to.
She appeared to be sleeping, one hand on the curve of her stomach, watched over by a new model FX droid, but as I entered her eyes fluttered open and focused on me. Sometimes I've wondered if she has some kind of latent Force sensitivity. I moved to sit by her bed and reached out to take her fragile hand in both of my own as she turned toward me. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but I shook my head to prevent her from doing so. "How are you feeling?" I asked as steadily as I could.
"All right," she said. "Don't . . . worry, Obi-Wan." She took a deep breath. "H-how's . . . A-Ani?"
"I haven't seen him yet," I told her. "He was . . . hurt . . . fairly badly—" I took a deep breath, ashamed of how my voice wavered dangerously, thick with emotion. Force, I was pathetic. I sounded like I was about to cry.
She shook her head. "No. Don't . . . blame yourself. You . . . did . . . what you had to do." She smiled tiredly at me. "Not your fault . . . ."
I managed a weak smile in return, though I knew she was saying it only to make me feel better.
Padmé sighed and turned her head away. In the sound was sorrow, pain, weariness, and a measure of resignation that made my heart ache. I closed my eyes and sat there with her, her hand small and fragile in mine, just for a moment, reaching out to the Force in an effort to find some small measure of peace. But the Force eluded me, peace eluded me. All that was left was uncertainty, pain, and guilt.
I could feel it when she slipped into unconsciousness again and got up as quietly as I could. I closed my eyes for one more moment, then straightened up, turning away.
The world blurred in front of me as I forced my eyelids upward again, and I quickly steadied myself with a hand on the wall beside me as the floor seemed to shift beneath my feet. I took a deep breath and focused on merely clearing my vision for one long moment.
Force, I was tired. A dull, throbbing ache seemed to have settled in my forehead directly behind my eyes. I rubbed at my temples, wincing at the pain shooting through my skull. All I really wanted was to find some dark, quiet place where I could lie down and rest for a while, let my aching, exhausted body recover, and forget the events of the past few days, pretend that none of this had happened at all. But I couldn't do that. Not yet.
I had to check on . . . on Vader first.
"General Kenobi?" The semi-familiar voice in front of me brought my head up with a snap that sent a lightsaber of pain stabbing into my mind. Light blue and reddish-brown reeled in front of me until my vision came back into focus and I realized the female medic from earlier was standing there, her hands resting firmly on her slender hips. The colors I had seen were her practical Healer's jumpsuit and short hair. "You are not all right," she stated with conviction as I focused my eyes wearily on her. "You should definitely be in bed. Do you want me to have to sedate you? I will, you know."
"I'm fine," I reiterated wearily. "Just tired." And I didn't have time to waste with a pushy, stubborn medic. I took a step past her.
She grabbed my arm just above the elbow and spun me back around to face her. She was tiny, I noticed, barely coming up to my chin, but the fire in her gray eyes and the steel straightening her spine, the conviction in the thrust of her narrow chin, only seemed all the greater for it. "And what, are you going to Jedi yourself past it?" she demanded.
There it was again, the bitter, acerbic scorn when she said the word Jedi. For some reason, it bothered me, intrigued me at the same time I found it confusing, annoying. I found myself wanting to prove to her that the organization I'd devoted my life to wasn't as bad as she seemed to think. I squashed the impulse immediately—I couldn't afford to let myself get distracted, certainly not now.
"Your toughness isn't going to impress me, General," she continued. "You need rest, and you need it before you pass out at my Sithin' feet!"
I winced at the expletive, and she looked at me strangely. "I'll get some rest soon enough," I told her. "I just have to do something first. Does that satisfy you?"
She looked at me with those disconcertingly keen gray-blue eyes, and then sighed. "General Skywalker," she said, and it wasn't a question.
"Yes," I said, losing patience as I tried again to maneuver past her and she again blocked me, this time stopping me by planting one hand on my chest.
"Promise me you'll get some rest soon and I'll take you to him," she said.
"I promise, all right?" I said my tone short and clipped with annoyance. "Now may I see him?"
She released me and shrugged. "I suppose that's the best I'm going to get." She hesitated, cocking her head to one side, then grinned. It lit up her face and she suddenly seemed much younger, around Anakin's age. The thought was another twinge of pain. "You're really something, you know that?" she said.
I believe I said something incredibly intelligent and profound along the lines of, "Huh?"
She just shook her head at me, laughing slightly to herself. "So Jedi," she said. "Perfect Core accent—it's Coruscanti, isn't it?—overly serious demeanor, plain tunic, incredibly selfless attitude . . . you know, I didn't think you could possibly really be like this, but you are."
I blinked, not certain whether I should be insulted or not, and she seemed to find that even more amusing. "I'll show you to his quarters," she said. "Just be careful, he's—"
Anakin!
The Force-sense hit me like a blaster bolt to the chest, not that I've taken many of those. I was sprinting in the direction I instinctively knew would lead me to him before I even knew what I was doing, drawn by the anguish and terror swirling like a beacon in the Force and shot through with Anakin's presence. The medic reacted almost as quickly as I had, turning to race after me.
A hoarse, desperate wail split the air around us. Anakin's voice.
I was through the door to the trauma center almost before it slid open for me and reached Anakin seconds later, before the medic had even sprinted through the door after me. The sight that met my eyes stopped my heart cold in my chest.
Anakin no longer lay still, facedown on the hover-stretcher they had loaded him onto in passive, compliant unconsciousness from the ship. Instead, his body jerked and convulsed as if run through with some kind of electric shock. A breath mask dangled beside the stretcher by a few cords where he had wrenched it off his face. Wind whistled around him, picking up speed until it was a roaring maelstrom around us. I had to duck as a tray covered in medical instruments came hurtling through the air at my head. It bounced off the wall behind me and clattered to the floor.
"Anakin!" I shouted through the roaring of the Force wind around me as I ducked another flying metal instrument. "Anakin, no! Stop this!"
He threw his head back and screamed. The sound was full of an anguished, tormented helplessness that I had never heard in anyone's voice before. It seemed to go on and on as his hoarse, broken voice faded in and out. The strength of the wind around us increased.
I couldn't let this continue any longer. I dodged yet another random flying object and took a running dive for the hover-stretcher.
A hand of pure energy caught me in the chest, lifted me off my feet, and slammed me against the wall. Not again. I had just enough time for the thought before I bounced just as the tray had, pain shooting through my body at the impact, and collapsed to the floor as he let go of me. Anakin stopped screaming. Instead, he gasped raggedly for breath, moaning softly as if he simply couldn't get enough air to continue, and huddled over on the bed, clutching his hand to his head as he rocked slightly back and forth. The wind whistling around us didn't abate.
"Anakin!" I tried again, and broke off in a gasp as pain shot through me from my ribs. I passed a hand over them and felt nothing broken, so I ignored the pain and concentrated on Anakin. "Anakin!" I shouted. "Stop this, Anakin, please!" I reached out with the Force to try and touch his presence—
His eyes snapped up and focused on me, and his features contorted in a furious snarl. "Get away . . . from me," he spat. His eyes were burning flames of topaz rage against his death-pale skin. I could see the faint lines the breath mask had left on his cheeks and chin. "Stay out . . . of my head! Stay—out!" For a moment I could see the darkness enshrouding him, and a vision of old, hideously wrinkled features seemed to flicker across his agonized face. I could hear the Dark Lord of the Sith's cackling laugh echo through the room around us. Anakin screamed again, rearing his head back, as if fighting some invisible force that had him in its grasp. I could almost see the Emperor standing behind him, shrouded in a black, cowled robe. A black mask seemed to settle over Anakin's features, and for a moment I thought I saw a dark helmeted figure standing there in his place.
"Anakin!" I cried out desperately. "No—"
Incredible force shoved me backward as a tight, crushing grip settled over my windpipe, cutting off my air supply. I gasped for breath and found none, raising a hand to claw desperately at my throat even though I knew it wouldn't do any good. Through the dark spots beginning to dance in front of my eyes I could see Anakin's outstretched hand closing into a fist. "Stay—away—from me," he ground out. "Stay away—Master—"
My vision began to black out, blurring into darkness, but through it I could see one silvery droplet slip slowly down Anakin's cheek. That single tear gave me the hope I needed to keep struggling against the darkness. In that one moment, I could feel Anakin, feel him through the Force, past the whirlwind of rage and pain and hatred. "Anakin—" I gasped out. "Anakin—please—" Don't do this, not now; don't do this to yourself—
Abruptly, I was released. The choking pressure lifted from my throat, and I could breathe again. I fell to my knees with the relief of it, doing nothing more than gasping for air for one long moment. It hurt to breathe, but oxygen had never tasted so sweet.
Anakin collapsed helplessly on the bed, his whole body shuddering with slow, painful sobs. I felt as if I could actually see the darkness closing in around him. He moaned weakly, his hand closing into a fist against the edge of the stretcher.
I reached out to the Force in desperation and let light flow through me, closing around Anakin, trapping him alone in his darkness. I had no idea what I was doing, simply that I had to protect him, somehow, from what was happening. Even from himself.
That dark presence turned toward me and closed dark, grasping fingers around my mind. Pain tore through my entire being as I tried to pull away and was yanked back into that crushing grip. Give up, Master Kenobi, whispered the Chancellor's—the Emperor's, Sidious's—voice. He is mine. Give up—I will find him—I will find you—he is my apprentice. He cannot hide from me for long.
I struggled against that dark hold, but it was too much. I could feel myself fading, falling, my light smothered by his darkness even as I fought to hold it around Anakin. I felt myself fall to my knees and knew it wouldn't be much longer. I simply wasn't strong enough.
I was . . . so tired.
A strangely new but somehow familiar presence suddenly joined mine, like the wash of cool rain on a hot and muggy Coruscant day, and I felt new strength flow into me, new energy. The light brightened until it filled the room. Even through it I could see Anakin sag against the surface of the stretcher, quiet again now.
The light dimmed, and I slumped where I knelt on the floor. The girl medic was kneeling in front of me, I realized in a daze. She reached out and steadied me with a hand on each shoulder as I wavered and almost fell. "Easy there, General Kenobi," she said.
I stared blankly at her, simply unable to process her words for a moment.
"General Kenobi," she said again, and laid her hand against my face, shaking me a little. "You all right?"
Finally, it filtered into my mind that she was asking how I was. "I'm fine," I said dazedly, my voice rasping painfully in my throat, then, eventually, "Thank you."
She grinned a little at that, then climbed to her feet and offered me her hand. I pulled myself up with her aid and looked past her to Anakin. His breath rattled hoarsely in his throat as he lay there, but at least he was still now, quiet. The girl medic followed my gaze and made her way to his side, lifting the breath mask and fastening it back over his mouth and nose. He fought weakly as she touched him, but she caught him in her arms, holding him, stroking his hair, his face, the back of his neck, until he quieted and let her settle the mask back over his face without struggling.
My throat hurt. I braced myself on the wall and raised a hand to massage the bruised skin.
The movement must have caught her attention, for she raised her head and glanced over at me. "Are you sure you're all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine," I croaked. "It's just a little . . . sore."
She rolled her eyes again. "Sure. You're not having any trouble breathing, though? Nothing feels permanently damaged?"
"No, nothing." I took a deep breath. "I'm perfectly fine."
She shrugged and turned back to Anakin's prone figure. "Whatever you say, Jedi. Maybe getting thrown around like that is all in a day's work for you." She laid her hand against Anakin's forehead and sighed. "His condition is serious. I'd better get him attended to." Her eyes flicked over to me in one last flash of blue, and the expression in them was the same one Master Qui-Gon used to favor me with when I'd done something that displeased him and the lecture had to be delayed for some reason. "I'll be back for you later, General Kenobi." With that, she turned away, motioning to a medical droid as she followed the hover-stretcher into the next chamber, and left me standing there with a half-formed retort on my lips and no real idea what had just happened or what I should do next.
