Author's Note: See? Quick updates! The Force is with me!
To adame shmi skywalker vader: Happy you liked it:) Yay! RotS on DVD! Poor Ani, indeed. Poor Obi. Poor Padme. And as for the Healer and Obi . . . that depends on what you guys think, I guess. I haven't decided one way or the other. To quite honest, their . . . chemistry, as it were, quite surprised me.
To Quill of Molliemon: Again, I couldn't agree more. Poor Obi. Poor Ani. And Happy Birthday!
To Go For It: So I'm forgiven? Phew. That's awfully nice of you! ;) It sounds bad, but I'm so glad I was able to make you cry--that means I'm accomplishing something of what I wanted to. I'm . . . so . . . happy . . . that you're enjoying it so much. Please keep reviewing! Knowing you like it and what you like means so much to me!
To Hieiko: I'd like to say I can take credit for the idea . . . but I can't. It belongs to Matthew Stover and the RotS novelization . . . but I can run with it!
To Princess-Aiel: So glad you liked it! Here I am, going on!
To MissNaye: Indeed, indeed. And Obi-Wan is keeping one eye out . . . .
To VA-Parky: Wow! A new reviwer! I'm so happy! Glad you enjoyed it so much. And the emotions are rather like a roller-coaster, aren't they? That's what I feel like writing it, anyway.
To The Struggling Artist: The ultimate goal of a fanfic writer--to keep the characters in character. So glad you think I'm succeeding!
To Eruvyweth: Ah, yes, how the future is moving, the question even Yoda wouldn't answer. But, look--another update!
To forceflow46: Yeah. He does. I can't get around that one. As for the cloning . . . maybe it just doesn't work. I mean, I'm not really up on the technology, but it seems as if it would be a rather uncertain procedure. I can see it working with internal organs, I suppose, but limbs? I just don't know. And it would probably take quite a long time for a procedure that uncertain. Still, I don't know.
To Sati James: Yay! Have updated!
To Obi-Wan Skywalker: Thrilled you're liking it.
To Anakin's Girl 4eva: Yes, yes he does. Please feel free. Maybe that'll put him back in line! And I agree. Poor Obi. Sorry about the huge gaps. Sociology papers do that to fanfic. But at least the gap wasn't so huge this time!
To Alley Parker: I'm glad you thought so. I was going for that mixture of emotions.
Disclaimer: Yada yada yada. Lucas and his minions rox my sox. I own nothing. Yep. Pretty much. Except I do own the RotS DVD.
Thirteen
"You still seem . . . distracted, Obi-Wan."
That deep voice brought my head up with a start. "Master?" The word was still an automatic response to the sound of that voice, even after all these years.
My eyes fell on Qui-Gon Jinn sitting on Anakin's bed right across from the chair I had taken to keep an eye on the injured man. My master's lips twitched upward into a small smile. "Don't look so surprised, my apprentice," he said gently. "Convinced yourself that I was a figment of your imagination, then, did you?"
I grinned ruefully. "I have to admit it. But—ah—aren't you?"
The smile widened. "Not at all. Do I think I'd leave you and Yoda to struggle through things on your own?" He shook his head. "And I thought you knew me, Obi-Wan."
"Then—" I felt like an apprentice all over again, befuddled by some cryptic direction of my master's I couldn't seem to understand no matter how hard I analyzed it. It had taken me so long to realize it that struggling so hard to analyze Qui-Gon's directions was often half my problem. "I—I'm afraid I don't understand, Master."
"I have become one with the Force, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said. He shrugged. "Yet my will was such that I managed to retain my identity." He shook his head. "But now is not the time for metaphysics. I urge you to seek out Yoda if you are inclined to discuss things of that nature further." His face turned grave. "You are troubled, Obi-Wan. Hurting."
His words sent a tremor through me, as if they threatened to destroy the wall I had struggled to place around my emotions, as if they were a lever that when thrown would open the dam and allow the floodwaters to burst through.
But I couldn't allow that. I had to be strong. Now was not the time for my personal heartbreak, no matter how profound.
I couldn't look him in the eyes, even when they were insubstantial and glowed slightly. "I . . . failed, Master," I said softly.
He made a sound of disgust. "Apprentice, enough. You made mistakes. You weren't the only one. Yoda, too, Master Windu—all the Jedi. Anakin. Padmé. All of you made mistakes. Self-reflection is helpful, yes, but torturing yourself over this is pointless."
"But I made so many mistakes," I burst out. "How could I have been so blind? You were right all along—I failed to listen to the Living Force, and now we are all paying for it."
"Oh, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon's voice was affectionate and gentle, though slightly chiding. "Would you take so much blame upon yourself? Yes, part of the fault was yours. But more, surely rests on Palpatine himself, who manipulated us all for so long, the Senators who went along with him, Master Windu, and even Master Yoda. And the great amount of the fault rests upon Anakin. He chose to fall, apprentice. You did not make him. Not even Palpatine forced his hand. It was his fingers upon the lightsaber." He sighed. "I realize that this doesn't help much. Apportioning blame is never a useful exercise. Just know that I do not thing you have the most to bear in this instance."
The sound of stirring on the bed woke me, and I lifted my head and blinked sleep out of my eyes, only realizing as I awakened that I had fallen asleep sitting up. I blinked, expecting to see Qui-Gon's glowing form seated on the bed in front of me, but the room was empty except for Anakin, a diligent medical droid keeping track of his vital signs on the monitor, and myself. I ran one hand over my face, trying to pull myself back to coherence with pure strength of will.
"O-Obi-Wan?" That hoarse, raw voice was Anakin's, and I focused on his still form with a jolt. He had turned his head to seek my gaze, but his eyes were heavy-lidded and sleepy and I already knew that turning his head was pretty much the most movement he could manage at the moment.
"Yes?" I said quickly. "I'm here, Anakin."
He blinked, and it seemed to take an incredibly long time for his lashes to settle against his cheeks and lift up again. His breath rasped, wheezing under the amplification of the breath mask. "W-why?" he mumbled. "Why . . . you . . ." another deep breath ". . . bother?" he finished, his words little more than a breathy wisp of sound.
I understood his meaning immediately, but—Force, how could I answer that? How could I have left him to burn on Mustafar? How could I not?
"Because . . . I . . . care, Anakin," I finally whispered helplessly.
He laughed at that, a painful, bitter sort of sound that twisted into a cough. "Right . . . Master." His voice was hard with aching sarcasm. He blinked again, and his shoulders shook as the breather inhaled and exhaled for him. "You . . . should . . . than' . . . me, then, O-Obi-Wan." His voice cracked and broke on my name like that of the adolescent he'd been only a few years ago. It might as well have been a lifetime. "'The . . . sh-shadow of . . . greed, attachmen' . . . is,'" he rasped mockingly. "Now . . . you don' have to worry . . . 'bout bein' a bad Jedi. No' attached t' me anymore . . . ."
His words were unadulterated agony, and it hurt me somewhere deep inside to hear Anakin repeating what was unmistakably Yoda's advice like that. His voice was dark, bitter, but it sounded so very fragile at the same time.
He was still looking straight at me, his topaz-yellow eyes red-rimmed and tired. "You . . . should've . . . left me . . . M-master," he whispered.
"No!" The word was torn out of my throat with a wrench of pure pain. "No, Anakin, don't say that."
He closed his eyes as if immeasurably weary. "I . . . thin' it's too late . . . for me . . . Ob'wan. Won' . . . le' me go . . . now." He was slurring his words together more and more the longer he talked, and I knew it was difficult for him.
"No, Anakin," I replied, leaving my chair to sit closer, on the edge of the bed. I reached out and took his shoulders firmly in my hands, careful of his still-healing burns. "No. I have abandoned you far too many times already. I should have stood up for you with the Council when I knew what they were asking you to do was wrong. I should have refused to leave you and go to Utapau. But—but I didn't. I failed you then, Anakin. I failed you when I failed to realize what was happening to your mother. I failed you when I didn't help you resolve the situation with Padmé. I'm not going to fail you again."
He looked up at me through the shield of his lashes. His eyes were heavy, only slightly open, but I thought I could see flashes of the clear, transcendent blue Anakin's eyes should have been in them, and it quickened my battered heart, gave me a breath of hope. "Help me, Obi-Wan," he whispered brokenly. "Pr-promise me—" he couldn't finish the sentence and broke off with a low, frustrated moan.
"What?" I asked. "What, Anakin?"
"Promise . . . you won' let Padmé . . . die," he managed hoarsely, face twisted with impatience at his own stumbling tongue. I could feel his desperation, low and urgent, beneath the blanket of drugs dulling his sense in the Force. "If I—no matter wha'—please. Pr'mise me."
I was baffled by the request. Why would it be this fear that ran so deep in him? Did his horror at his actions run so deep? I didn't understand. But I could no more refuse his plea than turn off the Force around me. "I promise," I said. "I promise. I will take care of her."
Anakin's eyes closed, and I could feel his muscles relax under my fingers. "Don' . . ." he started, voice barely audible. "I . . . ." But then he was unconscious again, his sense in the Force quiet and his body so still and limp it was nearly lifeless but for the warmth of his skin beneath my hands and the suck-hiss of the breath mask.
"Your Majesty." The clone trooper stood at attention just inside the office.
"Yes?" Sidious snapped, resenting his attention being brought away from the latest report of the pacification of rebellious Senators. "What is it?"
"We've narrowed the terms of the search you gave us," the soldier said, his computer-modulated voice stiff with a nervousness his formality and training did little to conceal. "We've come up with a number of planets that match your criteria."
Sudden dark excitement coursed through the ruler of the the Empire. Results, at last! One step closer to reclaiming his wayward apprentice. He knew very well he couldn't allow much more time to elapse before taking Vader back if he didn't want to lose him, and the bizarre ending to their last communion had . . . not unsettled, him, no. Provided much to meditate upon. "Give it to me," he demanded, gesturing at the datapad the clone trooper held.
"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty." The trooper stepped forward and obediently handed him the datapad. Sidious scanned the list of names, looking for any that stirred a feeling in the Force, any recognition whatsoever.
His eyes fell on a nondescript, three-syllable name halfway down the list, and he felt a stirring in the Force, a calling, a beacon even Jinn's spirit could not hide. "Elanna," he said. "They're on Elanna." He looked up at the clone, a cold smile even now curving his lips. "Ready my ship, Commander."
"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty."
"And send the Lord Speaker to me," Sidious added. The clone nodded and exited.
There was much to be arranged if he was to go after Vader.
Sidious rose from his desk and turned to stare out the window of his office. The lights of Coruscant, still with dark spots as the planet from the cataclysmic battle of a week or so ago, met his eyes. And yet he did not see people, or traffic, or homes. Instead he saw opportunities, eddies and ripples in the constant currents of power, all feeding to him now, flowing into this office. Into him. The single Sith who had finally claimed dominion over the galaxy.
But Sidious was not foolish. He knew that he needed the Sith'ari on his side, if the prophesied one had indeed appeared. And he had little doubt that Skywalker was that one. The Jedi saw it, too, though with their skewed version of the prophecy they had failed to recognize his true potential. Fools, then and always.
Well . . . not needed him, perhaps. But if Skywalker—Vader—escaped his control now—even with the thought alone Sidious could see his perfectly controlled plans unraveling, the thousands of threads escaping his grasp.
It would not be allowed to happen. Vader would not be allowed to falter. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith now, Sidious's hand, the perfect extension of his will, the heir to a galaxy swathed in the dark brilliance of the Sith's power.
The appearance of Jinn's spirit was a surprise, but it was not one beyond his ability to twist it to his advantage. Just as it had been with Kenobi's unexpected appearance.
Sidious surveyed the lights before him, and his smile widened.
