Author's Note: Sorry, Eruvyweth, still no rational Ani/Obi contact, though we're getting closer. And the necessary OCs seem to have taken on lives of their own. Anakin will try to be rational enough to make an attempt at conversation in the next chapter.

Five

Lightsabers flash in the dark. Blue, green, red, blue, green, red—watch yourself, Anakin, Dooku is a skilled opponent—look out, your side's open—block now

A different scene, the Jedi Temple, blue lightsaber glows against blue as we spar—Anakin's right side is still weak, slower than the other—he isn't used yet to using the mechanical hand, and it worries me, especially as we are at war now and will all need to be at the peak of our abilities—

"General Kenobi?"

"General Kenobi?" Anakin's voice is a mixture of mischievous, teasing amusement and impressed respect. "So you're a general, huh?"

I shrug . . . "Senator Organa seemed to think it was necessary."

Anakin grins at the long-suffering note in my voice. "Don't look at me, Master. I just said you were a fair pilot . . . ."

"Fair?" I raise my eyebrows.

"You don't like flying, remember?" he teases in response.

"General Kenobi?" Something—someone—was shaking me.

Explosions detonate in space all around me, shaking my small fighter as I struggle to stay on Anakin's wing. He really is the best starfighter pilot in the galaxy, and I am hard pressed to keep up with him, even as I share his very thoughts.

"General Kenobi, can you wake up a little?" The gentle hand was so warm on my shoulder.

I wanted to sleep.

"Obi-Wan, wake up you must."

That scratchy voice got through to me, and reflexive obedience, long-ingrained, forced my head up even as I blinked the combination of sleep and memories out of my eyes. The small form of Master Yoda and the soothing gray and blue shades of the corridor outside Anakin's room swam into focus in front of me. "Master?" I croaked groggily.

"Sorry to wake you, I am," he said in one of his more gentle tones, one that meant he really was sorry to wake me. The female medic from earlier was glowering at me and Yoda both as she gave me a hand to help me pull myself into a sitting position on the low bench I had collapsed onto to wait, but she didn't say anything.

I shook my head, awareness already filtering back through my sleep-mazed mind as I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "No," I said. "No, Master Yoda, it's fine." I could feel a slight flush of shame color my cheeks beneath my beard. "I did not intend—"

"Falling asleep on the job, eh, Kenobi?"

My gaze rose at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to focus on a man standing over me, dressed in a gray military uniform I recognized as Alderaanian, one of the variety those in the service of Senator Organa customarily wore. He was about a decade younger than I, tall and muscular, with military-straight posture, precisely groomed brown hair, piercing blue eyes, sculpted, clean-shaven features, and a rather self-satisfied grin curving his lips. It was wrong of me and I knew it, but I disliked him on sight.

The female medic—it occurred to me that I still didn't know her name—laid a protective hand on my shoulder. "Ease up, Commander," she said. "General Kenobi's had a busy day."

I shook my head as I got to my feet, letting my breath out in a hiss as my exhausted muscles stiffened and complained. My body ached like that of an old man. "No, it's all right. Sorry—I don't believe we've met?" I felt like saying something more along the lines of, "What the Sith are you doing here? I thought Senator Organa was coming!" but I managed to refrain.

The man's voice was so full of military precision that he might as well have been tossing me a salute. "Commander Aerdin Onasi, formally of the Telos Defense Force, now serving Senator Bail Organa and Alderaan. And you are Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Well, there was no denying that. I bowed slightly. "I am. It is a pleasure to meet you, Commander Onasi." I was lying through my teeth, but even a Jedi Master can't tell the truth all the time. With the pleasantries out of the way, I turned to Yoda. "How did you get here so quickly, Master? I thought it would take you some time to reach us."

"Fast, Commander Onasi's ship is," Yoda said. "And vital speed was. Your message—relayed to me it was. Your . . . old apprentice—with you, he is?"

I hesitated, uncertain how to respond, feeling another uneasy swell of guilt rise up inside me. Yoda had sent me to kill Vader and to rid the galaxy of one of the Sith, not to save him—not to pull him back from the edge of the pit and carry him to safety. Vader had been helpless. I could easily have killed him. Instead I had rescued him, unable to end his life as long as there was the shred of hope that the spirit of Anakin Skywalker survived somewhere in the man who had once been my closest friend. "He . . . is," I answered finally. "In the room behind us. I—"

Yoda shook his head. "Not now, Master Kenobi. Now, take me to him, you will."

The medic broke in at that point, resting her hands on her hips. "Hold on just a minute. Skywalker's doing better than he was earlier—a bit better, anyway—but he's still fragile. I can't let you all just walk in there and disturb him without so much as a by-your-leave."

Onasi turned to the girl. "Healer Risto, we are representatives of the Republic, and this is a very delicate situation. I cannot believe—"

"He's very fragile," she repeated stubbornly, her chin taking on a determined thrust and her mouth settling into the obstinate, disapproving line I had encountered earlier. "And I cannot just write off the welfare of one of my patients, representatives of the Republic or not. He's already proven himself to be—sensitive—to disruptions."

I winced at that, and Onasi's eyes swung toward me before I could cover the involuntary reaction entirely. "General Kenobi?" he said sharply.

I shook my head, cursing him for being perceptive and myself for reacting so obviously. My weariness was obviously affecting me. "It's nothing. Healer Risto is right. I wouldn't want to . . . disturb him."

"Not much time do we have," Yoda replied. "Vital, it is, that the condition of Obi-Wan's apprentice is known. Sorry, I am, young Healer, but see him we must."

"You Jedi," she sighed. "All the same. You never bother to explain to the rest of us lowly mortals what's going on, do you?" I flinched at that, as she turned on her heel and stalked over to key open Anakin's door, irritation obvious in every fiber of her being. I couldn't help but feel more guilt—this time for subjecting this innocent young woman to the presence of a Dark Lord of the Sith without even warning her about the danger she might possibly be in. "All right," she said. "Keep it down, okay? He's drugged out of his mind, but that doesn't mean he won't react all the same, and if he does, he'll just be even more confused."

Onasi started after her first, and I hung back to speak with Yoda as he made his slower way forward. "I . . . failed to accomplish what you asked of me, Master," I started, but he shook his head.

"No need for an apology, there is, Obi-Wan," he said. "Felt something I did not and acted on it, you did. When felt, the prompting of the Force is, why not listen?"

"But—" I stopped in mid-sentence. "Master Yoda, I thought—" I realized I had no idea what I was going to say, so I stopped again. "What about the Sith?" I finally asked.

The little Jedi Master sighed, seeming to age before my very eyes. "In control of the Republic—Empire—Sidious still is. But in control of his apprentice, at this moment, he is not. Instead, we are. Reach Anakin, we might."

I swallowed hard, the thought of Padmé, and of Anakin's children, coming to mind. What would happen to her, to them, in a galaxy overtaken by the Sith? "Master, I have to tell you something—"

"More than one thing, I think," Yoda said. "Later, time for discussion there will be. For now, check on Vader we must."

I sighed, accepting his decision, and followed him into the medical room.

The sight of Anakin lying there, unconscious in the medical bed, made my heart contract in pain and worry. I had seen Anakin in medical facilities before, but this was different. This hurt more.

This time, I was the one who had put him there.

He lay on his stomach, his back and shoulders swathed in the gauzy, translucent bandages I recognized as the sort used on severe burns. No synthflesh, not for this kind of injury, for there wasn't enough real, undamaged skin left for it to bond to, and it was too difficult for a body in this state of extreme shock to accept it. Healer Risto had been right about him being drugged—his entire body had the slack, near-lifeless relaxation that only sedatives seemed to produce. It was the most quiescent I had seen him for . . . a long time. The entire room echoed with the hoarse sucking sound as he struggled to take in air and the slow, heavy exhalation as he blew it out again, unnaturally amplified thanks to the respirator that had been refitted over his mouth and nose to help his damaged lungs with the task of breathing until they healed. The suck-hiss sound sent an instinctive frisson of disquiet crawling up my spine, and I shivered involuntarily, even though the room was not particularly cold.

A medical droid hovered around him, taking readings and adjusting the tubes of medication running into his good arm, but it didn't even look up as I entered behind Yoda. They had removed the ruined mechanical hand, and the stump of the severed arm made him look even more helpless, somehow, vulnerable. I could see the outline of his left leg severed at the knee beneath the light blanket that had been drawn up to his waist and hated myself for having done that to him, even though I knew I'd had no choice. The arm had never slowed him down in the least, but a leg was different and prosthesis still a very uncertain, difficult procedure.

The droid whirred to itself as it adjusted a few knobs on the console the IVs were hooked up to. Anakin—I couldn't think of him as Vader, somehow, seeing him like this—turned his head slightly into the pillow as if, even in unconsciousness, he didn't want to face the cold impersonality of the medical center, his own helpless vulnerability. Anakin had always hated that, always wanted to be doing something, hated to relinquish control of his own body. He would hate to see himself like this, completely at the mercy of anyone and anything.

The door swooshed shut behind me as Healer Risto—I wondered what her first name was—entered. "You all right, General?" she said softly, and I started a little.

"What?" I asked. "Oh, yes. I—I'm fine." I swallowed hard.

She laid one hand on my shoulder in a wordless gesture of reassurance, unsettling me completely with the depth of her understanding, then turned to Yoda and Onasi, who both looked at Anakin's comatose form with varying degrees of grimness and solemnity. "See what I meant?" she said, crossing to Anakin's side and bending over some of the medical readouts. She looked back at Yoda. "Are you satisfied now?"

"What happened to him?" Onasi asked in an abrupt tone. "This is General Skywalker, is it not?"

I nodded unhappily.

"Well, what happened?" he demanded in a tone that left me no doubt that he was used to getting answers to his questions. "Did he also fall prey to one of these clone ambushes?"

"An . . . unexpected battle, he indeed had, Commander," Yoda said. He turned back to me, shrewd eyes narrowed. "Choose to bring him here, Master Kenobi did."

Anakin moaned, almost as if he were aware the discussion was about him. His head rolled to the side as his fingers clenched into a fist, and he drew in a rough rattle of breath. Slowly, his fevered eyes fluttered open, lashes shielding them from the light of the room. The pace of his labored breathing quickened. "Can't . . . breathe," he gasped. The respirator magnified and distorted his words, muffling them so they were difficult to understand. "Why . . . Master, why . . . won't you help me?"

I started toward him out of reflex, but his eyes flickered toward me. "You . . . still here," he whispered hoarsely, angrily.

"Anakin, don't struggle," I said in worry, taking another step toward him. "You'll only hurt yourself."

"Stay . . . away from me!" he snarled. The respirator wheezed as he struggled for breath. "You . . . did this to me! I hate you!"

The words felt like a lightsaber stabbing me through the heart, and I stopped, frozen where I stood by the venom in the way he'd hurled them at me. "You were my brother, Anakin," I murmured, feeling broken and utterly lost. "I loved you."

The medical droid adjusted something on the console, and Anakin groaned, his face twisting in pain behind the breath mask as his eyes slipped closed and his body went limp. Healer Risto murmured something to the medical droid that I didn't catch. Belatedly, I realized that Onasi was staring at Anakin and me with a very strange look on his face.

Force, I could only wonder what he must be thinking after that little display. "Stars' end," I muttered to myself.

Yoda hobbled forward. "Commander Onasi," he ordered. "Leave us, you must."

He turned to Yoda as if he would protest. "Master Yoda," he started.

"Much to discuss, Master Kenobi and I have," Yoda said in the tone of voice that I had never heard anyone argue with.

Onasi didn't look happy about it, but he left the room. As the door slid shut behind him Yoda raised his eyes to the girl, but she shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere," she said stubbornly. "I don't care what you say, Master, or you, General. I have to keep an eye on my patient."

"I doubt anything we say will come as much of a surprise to her, anyway, by this point, Master," I pointed out wearily as Yoda started to respond. "Anakin threw me into a wall with the Force earlier, and she hasn't tossed us out of this medical facility yet."

She grinned and sent me a wry look, dismissing the medical droid with a word and a wave of her hand. "Yet, General Kenobi?"

Yoda sighed. "It seems, then, into our confidence we must take you, Healer Risto." He shook his head. "Dark times, these have become. In grave danger, we are, especially . . . young Skywalker. From others, yes—and from himself."

"From himself?" she repeated quietly. "Master Yoda—General Kenobi—something terrible's happened, hasn't it?"

"Anything of the Jedi Order, know you?" Yoda asked her in return, and she nodded, hesitating slightly.

"A little," she said shortly, looking away. I caught a flash of the same old bitterness that had been in her voice earlier when she spoke about Jedi in her eyes as she did so and wondered what had happened to her to give her that kind of reaction.

"Fallen . . . to the dark side, Jedi Skywalker has," Yoda said heavily.

Her eyes flicked to me, and I looked away, unable to look into their disconcertingly blue depths and not knowing if she would be looking at me with accusation, with betrayal, since I had concealed this from her. I half expected her to scream, to leap away from his bedside and refuse to endanger herself by caring for a Dark Lord of the Sith. I wouldn't have blamed her if she had.

But she did none of those things. "That explains a bit," she said. "Not everything, mind you, but I know better than to expect a Jedi to tell someone like me everything." She gave a slight shake of her head and turned back to Anakin, flicking a switch on the control board on his bedside. "Talk away."

Yoda looked up at me wearily. "A dangerous situation this is, Master Obi-Wan," he said. "Vader through the Force Sidious will track—content to leave him unaccounted for, he will not be. In danger, your choice has put us."

"I'm sorry, Master Yoda," I said softly. So he doesn't think I made the right decision, after all. "But how could I have just . . . left him there? He asked—" I could feel my throat closing up and struggled for control, taking a deep breath to steady myself. "He is still like my brother, Master. I couldn't do it." Not when he touched me through the Force and begged me to help him in his fear and pain. Not when I saw Anakin there instead of Vader. Not while I still had a shred of hope that my friend might not be lost forever.

Yoda shrugged. "Perhaps, the right decision you have made. Uncertain, it is. Always in motion is the future. This, many times, have I told you. Now—in danger, we are, that Sidious might find us here. Give up easily, he will not, when faced with the disappearance of his new apprentice."

"I know, Master Yoda," I said. "But he's too fragile to be moved now." He didn't respond, merely stared at Anakin's unconscious body. "What are we going to do?" I prompted.

"For now?" he asked. "For now, Obi-Wan, nothing we do but—hope. Trust the Force. As you said, too fragile, he is."

"Master—" I hesitated, but I had to tell him. "Did you receive my communication that Senator Amidala is here as well?"

"Received it, I did, Obi-Wan," he replied. "Explain, will you?"

I took a deep breath. "It has come to my attention recently . . . that Anakin and Senator Amidala were secretly married some time ago. She . . . is carrying his children, Master."

"Married, you say?" Yoda said, surprise in his voice, and I nodded.

"Yes, Master."

He looked down at the floor, tapping his cane thoughtfully against it. "Children," he mused. "Interesting this is, Obi-Wan. Protect these children, we must." He looked up at me again. "Even if from their father, it must be."

I nodded, swallowing hard, but it was something I had already considered. "Yes, Master."

Yoda turned toward the door. "With your old apprentice stay, for a time, Master Kenobi," he said. "With Commander Onasi, I must speak." I nodded again and watched as he left the room.

I'd never felt so tired in my life.