AN: If you can't tell from the chapter title, most of you are going to be REALLY happy. Some of you are going to be PISSED. But that's pretty par for the course on this one. Enjoy this nonsense, my lovelies, things are about to get nuts.
Chapter 104: The Twins
It only took a few days for the Senate to outright reject any talks of peace, as Obi-Wan suspected. Peace went against his Master's plans, and while he hadn't spoken to Sidious since then, he couldn't imagine that his Master was happy. Or maybe he was. Kenobi never knew what was going on in his mind. He probably had a contingency built in for that scenario as well. Sidious planned for every eventuality. He frowned deeply, his hood drawn over his head as he walked through the busy streets, his arm wrapped tightly around the waist of the cowled woman at his side. They looked just like any of the other of the hundreds of couples that strode through Coruscant Park, the green, sprawling expanse lit by lanterns that lined the winding paths and sat in perfect view of the Jedi Temple, it's massive spires towering above them in the distance. It wasn't a long walk from where they were.
The woman squirmed upon seeing it, and gasped when long fingers dug into her hip. "Hush," Kenobi hissed, leaning over and kissing the side of her head. "Patience, Jedi. You will be home soon enough."
"Why are you doing this?" Aayla asked softly, and bit her lip to silence herself when he pulled her closer. "Your push for peace fell through, your condition-"
"Was not met, no, but quite frankly, I have no use for you." He shrugged she looked at him curiously. "What!"
"You had use for all the other Jedi you destroyed, did you?"
"I did." He smirked as the woman shifted uncomfortably against him, her presence in the Force uncertain and afraid, struggling for balance simply for being so close to the heavy veil of his own considerable darkness. "For practice, for an education, to make a point, and so on, but you..." He kissed the top of her cowled head. "I don't harm my friends, if I can avoid it, and while we were never as close as I was to others, I always enjoyed my time with you."
"Are all Sith Lords this confusing?" she growled between clenched teeth, and Obi-Wan nodded and chuckled, a deep, reverberating thing that she could feel in his chest.
"Since I'm very soon going to be the only Sith Lord, yes, I suppose we are."
"The Council is never going to believe that you didn't do something to me, they never-"
"Hush," he hissed, swiftly drawing her against him when two others began to pass far too close, his hand on the back of her head, his body pressed tight against hers, and Secura flushed, the hand on his chest feeling his slow, even heartbeat, so unlike hers, which was beating so fast she thought it may leap from her chest. She closed her eyes and thought of home, how close she now stood to returning to the Jedi when she was certain before that she never would. She thought of the similar embrace she would feel soon enough when she rushed back into the Temple after her ordeal, a trial that had been...much easier than she had expected. It was one of...comfort. In her week of imprisonment, if it could even be called that, she had sat among Sith Lords, ate with them, meditated with them, all in the knowledge that she would never be able to escape, would never be able to fight her way out, even if she tried. And yet...she stayed willingly, knowing that the Jedi would come to free her, knowing that even they would come to sit down with a Sith Lord if it meant peace for the galaxy.
But they hadn't. No, she would come to know freedom because the Sith Lord freed her. Her trial wasn't a physical one like Saesee Tiin had described. Her's was...mental. Emotional. For in all the time she had spent among the Sith, among the Dark Jedi that had once been her friend and her Master, it had felt...familiar. Like nothing had changed. It was easy to hate the Sith, to call for their extermination when they were this distant and evil thing, but as soon as they had become people...it became much more difficult. They had talked about Quinlan, about his love for Ventress, the reformed Sith assassin, the brutal lie she had told, how the friend he had loved so dearly had been there to pick him up when he fell. They had talked about Obi-Wan and his mistreatment at the hands of a Jedi he loved, a Council he respected, and how he had gone to find balance in the Dark Side when the light had failed him. They had briefly, briefly spoken about Satine and the son he had so tragically lost when Secura tried to gently extend her sympathies, but the Sith would have none of it and stormed out of the room. After that, it had been difficult to see Obi-Wan as Darth Lumis, the evil enemy of the Jedi. He was...just a man. Unspeakably cruel, yes, but she saw humanity in him, and while it may not have been possible to save him, extinguishing his life seemed an awful thing to do when she knew love could and did exist in his heart.
How was she supposed to explain that to the Jedi?
"You're going to tell them," Kenobi whispered, holding her elbow as they began walking again, "exactly what happened. Tell them the truth. I didn't manipulate you. Yoda should be able to see that."
"They won't believe it." She paused and glared up at him. "I don't believe it."
"Oh, yes you do, you're just being stubborn, Jedi." She felt the pressure on her arm release, and when she looked up, she was standing before the steps of the Jedi Temple, and she had never been so relieved to look upon it. She smiled brightly and looked over at her captor to see him gone, already walking away from her back the way they came. With a smile and a deep breath, Aayla Secura rushed up the steps of the Temple, her heart near to bursting as she came home.
He walked in silence, his hands folded in his sleeves as he breathed deeply of the cool night air. Secura's part in his plan was already done, and her part was merely extended by allowing her to return untouched. The touch of madness in him bemoaned it as a waste to not tear another Jedi apart bit by bit, but the part of him that was Sith, patient, resourceful, cunning and clever, knew exactly how important this was. What he needed, more than anything else, was time, and Aayla Secura's safe return had bought him that and more. Time the Sith needed to move the pieces of their plan's conclusion, time to gain control over his troubled mental state, time to discover his Master's intentions, see if even he would come to betray him as well. In one moment, he had fractured the Republic, created a rift between the Jedi and the Senate, and gotten Anakin Skywalker off of Coruscant in his mad quest for his execution. It was ideal. Kenobi had no plans to meet Skywalker again for some time, and with the wrathful Jedi causing havoc on behalf of the Republic in the Outer Rim, it gave Bo-Katan the chance to expand her empire, just as her sister had once done.
Entire systems began flocking to the Mandalorians, their harsh warrior culture instilling a sense of safety in those who came into their fold, gave those capable of fighting a purpose, and their culture of adoption allowed millions of war orphans to find families. He didn't visit Bo-Katan much, since simply seeing her filled him with pain that he was trying hard to forge, pain that made his madness flare within him like the savage beast it wast, but he did still send her gifts, and this time, he had sent her a portion of the clones that he had captured from his assault on Felucia with the stipulation that she publically declare a Mandalorian alliance with the Separatists born of the need to protect those who sued for peace, and were met with violence. By the end of the week, the tatters of the Confederacy would be bolstered by millions and millions of Mandalorian Death Watch soldiers. He wondered what his Master would think of that. Why have a rabid dog like Skywalker when Darth Lumis stood ready with an Empire already?
"You did a good thing." Kenobi sighed and hung his head, his already slow gait becoming a tortured shuffle through the park.
"I really didn't," Obi-Wan groaned. "She's just going to end up fracturing the Jedi, she's-"
"Alive," the voice said. "Because of you. That's no small thing, even given your...sinister intent."
He rolled his eyes. "I did it because it pleases Quinlan Vos, and when he doesn't get his way, he mopes. He's the most insufferable sulker I've ever seen."
The voice snorted with repressed laughter. "How sweet. How's that marriage coming along?"
"It would be better if he didn't sulk." Kenobi sighed. "Honestly, Qui-Gon, this is getting tiresome. Can't you find someone else to haunt?"
"I'm afraid not," Qui-Gon said, chuckling softly for a moment before he said, "You're the only one who will listen to me. So far. This process is...far more complicated than I was led to believe. How long has it been since I died?"
"I don't know, I stopped keeping track in the hopes you would find someone else to tell you the time, Qui-Gon."
He scoffed. "Don't lie to me, Obi-Wan, you're a neurotic record keeper. You may be insane, but that's done nothing to cure your obsessive compulsive disorder."
Kenobi growled, his eyes shut tight and his jaw clenched. "Five weeks, two days, and seven hours." A pause. "Approximately."
"...I was joking about the obsessive compulsive thing. You're just insane."
Obi-Wan growled and quickened his pace. In the time since he had become one with the Force, Qui-Gon had made incredible strides. When Kenobi sunk himself into the Force, he could see him. Not clearly, but he was absolutely taking shape within the Force. He couldn't yet manifest in the physical world, but Obi-Wan knew he would be able to, given enough time, and Qui-Gon's time was infinite. He could almost always feel the Jedi Master through the depths of their connection, often calm, restful, in deep meditation and contemplation of what he had become, reaching for things far beyond even Kenobi's reach, and that was fine. But then there were times he became restless, times he awoke to practice the things the Force revealed to him about his new state of being, and Qui-Gon would actively seek Kenobi out. And in those times, it seemed as though Qui-Gon made it his mission to make the young Sith Lord feel as insane as he actually was by never shutting up.
"Where are we going?" Qui-Gon's voice echoed in his mind. Kenobi didn't answer. "...Obi-Wan." Again, he remained silent. "Obi-Wan!"
"What..." Kenobi whined, pressing his hands to his ears as if to drown out the noise, but it was to no avail. The voice was inside his head. No sense could block that. Even now, embers smouldered at the edge of his vision. He'd done a fine job of staving off his insanity for quite some time, but now, he could feel it creeping closer.
"Where are we going?" Qui-Gon asked again, and Kenobi groaned.
"I'm going to see Padmé," he muttered. "I expect you to be out of my head by then."
"Obi-Wan," the Master chided. "You said-"
"I know what I said, Qui-Gon!" he snapped. "But there is no keeping Anakin Skywalker from the Dark Side, he has already fallen and you know that." For once, the voice was silent, and Kenobi could feel the Jedi's sorrow, oppressive and morose. "And when I saw her at the meeting, something felt..." He groaned and gently rubbed his temples. "...wrong. I don't know what, but I need to know. If she's in danger..." Obi-Wan sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. "I swore to protect her. I won't fail her, not when the Force is pushing me toward this." There was no response. He closed his eyes and reached through the Force, tugged at the faint string of light within the dark waters, and felt that the Jedi was resting, his consciousness faded to nearly nothing as he traversed the reaches unknown to the Sith. With a sigh of satisfaction, he walked the rest of the way in silence.
The door slid open to reveal the shiny gold droid that Padme kept, and Kenobi couldn't help but roll his eyes. He found this droid's programming to be particularly irritating. He found the droid to be a tiresome, anxiety-prone construct, and what Kenobi didn't understand was that if a droid could be programmed to have literally any personality traits, why would someone go out of their way to make one like this? He hated droids. Hated them.
"Master Kenobi!" C-3PO seemed to gasp, drawing back slightly when the man entered the apartment and drew back his hood. "It is...so good to see you again."
"I know you're programmed to be polite, but did your circuits fry just a little bit just now? I smell electric burns." Kenobi smirked and rolled his eyes as the droid went into its usual diatribe about the type of droid it is, its programming specifications, its much vaulted six million forms of communication, and Obi-Wan took off his cloak and draped it over the droid's arm. "How's your Ancient Sith coming along?" C-3PO stopped talking, and Kenobi smirked when he could hear the droid's processor's furiously working.
"I have been installed with a collection of-"
"Words and phrases, xaz, kad'zhol kashnenx gana kia'moketi tave khutrai, kash zhol?" His grin widened when the droid begun to fret. Confronted with perhaps the one language he couldn't understand was sending the worrisome mechanical into something resembling a breakdown.
"Master Skywalker," he began, defensive, "installed a data drive containing-"
"It isn't enough," Kenobi drawled, shaking his head. "I'm here to see Padmé, where is she?" The droid almost seemed to sigh in relief with the change of topic.
"She has retired for the evening, Master Kenobi. I shall alert her to your presence, and contact the authorities in regards to your present whereabouts."
"That would be perfect," he drawled, smirking as the droid moved to do as he said, and he reached out a hand as the mechanical passed and shut him down. C-3PO bent at the waist, his lit eyes growing dark as the whir of his processors stopped, and Obi-Wan headed toward Padmé's bedroom. When he entered, the woman was reading, her face drawn in concentration, so focused that she didn't notice when he stepped inside. When she did look up, her brown eyes widened in shock, and he could feel her pulse suddenly jump, her presence in the Force shifting violently from restful to turbulent in the matter of moments. Obi-Wan didn't know what sort of response he could expect from the woman, but he didn't expect her to leap from her bed and rush to him to throw her arms around his neck. He reflexively pulled her close. Already, he could feel the threat of madness fading.
"I was so worried about you, Obi-Wan..." she gasped, her voice shaking and her arms tightening as she tensed, the Senator's entire body screaming to hold back all the emotions she felt, to keep her composure, but she was failing terribly. "Anakin is obsessed with murdering you, he thinks of almost nothing else! And...and you said you would protect me!" she snapped, her relief switching from concern to anger faster than Kenobi thought even possible. He frowned. Satine had been an emotional terrorist as well when she was with child. "You left me no way to contact you, and I have needed you, Obi-Wan!" There was a desperation there that wasn't there before. Something tense and frightened, something that didn't come from just her. Obi-Wan held her out at arm's length, his eyes narrowed in focus as he took in her fine features, the anger on her face that masked the deep fear she felt.
"What has Anakin done, Padmé?" he asked softly, and the question undid her.
She tore away from him, sat down on the edge of her bed, put her face in her hands and began to silently sob, those thin, bare shoulders shaking and trembling, and Obi-Wan had never seen the petite woman ever looking so small as she did in that moment. He knelt before her and slipped his hands into her hair, and the woman flinched at the contact, her brown eyes wide as she quickly looked up, and Kenobi saw nothing but fear within her.
"S-stop," she said, her voice quivering as she shook her head. "Stop, what are you doing..."
"I'm looking inside you," he muttered, and the woman whimpered pitifully and wrenched away. "...Padmé. You've been a target of the Sith for a very long time. I need to look and see if you've been influenced again. Please, I can't help you if I don't fully understand what is happening." She looked at him for a long while in silence as tears streamed down her face, but Obi-Wan didn't move. The Force was still, apprehensive, cautious like the woman was, and he realized that it may have been her children that were causing this, scared and uncertain of the intent of the obviously dangerous agent of the Dark Side that they were now forced to contend with. He closed his eyes, and projected calm through the Force in an attempt to soothe the tiny beings, and a moment later, Padmé took is hands in hers and laid them upon her temple.
"Y-you won't do anything, will you?" the Senator asked softly, trembling slightly when she looked into the harsh, dangerous gold of the eyes before her. Kenobi shook his head and slipped his fingers into her thick brown hair.
"Just looking..." he muttered, the calming touch of the Force upon his touch as he slowly raked his fingers across her scalp. "I need you to relax, though. It will be easier for both of us."
She tensed immediately, her small hands gripping the back of his tightly, and he could feel her pulse racing through her fingertips. "...help me?" she asked, almost pleaded, and Obi-Wan smiled slightly, closed his eyes, and brushed over her with the Force with the light, coaxing touches that he was so practiced at using to get what he wanted, but now, he used it to soothe the woman, silently commanding her body to relax. Slowly, it did. He could feel her racing, humming heart slow to fast, even beats, and then to slow, strong pulses. Her ragged breathing became silent and deep, the tension in her muscles fled and as she relaxed, her body slumped forward, and she rested her head upon his strong shoulder. Her mind opened up to him, the Force itself almost seeming to give him permission, and Obi-Wan slipped inside of her, the girl in his arms gasping softly as he did.
He knew what to look for this time, and there was nothing. Nothing at all that caught his attention, nothing that alerted him to his Master's presence, nothing to indicate that she had been used or manipulated in the underhand...insidious way that his Master had been named for. It could only mean a few things. Perhaps Sidious still believed he held her in his grasp, or, more distressing, he no longer had a need for Padmé Amidala. Not when he now had a direct line to Anakin Skywalker. If that was so, if that was what was actually happening, than his Master had lied to him, which wasn't unusual, but had lied to him about the nuisance that Senator Amidala had become to him. Something...didn't fit. Perhaps it wasn't one or the other, but both. Perhaps with so close a connection to Skywalker, Sidious simply had assumed that his apprentice would continue his work and had seen no need to preform maintenance of the grip he had upon Padmé. Perhaps...
He growled, his hands tightening for a moment before the Force swiftly and suddenly pushed back against his anger, and he immediately relaxed, soothing her presence once again. Everything involving Sidious was made up of maybe and perhaps. Nothing was certain, and trying to discern his goals was the path to madness, of that, he was certain. He'd have to make himself invaluable to Sidious once again, turn the Master's sights away from Skywalker long enough to make him second guess his preference. It should be easy enough. He had something that Sidious badly wanted.
Padmé was clear, at least for now, but she was far from safe, if the Force was to be believed. The woman was surrounded by Sith and the Dark Side, and she didn't even know it. While Kenobi knew the Dark Side to be a difficult mistress, as much power and passion as one could hope for paid for with blood and death and madness and consuming pain, it took someone special to truly control it. Kenobi had been able to do so once, but the insanity of the swell of power brought on by oppressive grief had greatly diminished him just as it had elevated him. That would have scared Sidious, enough for the Master to want to keep his star pupil gripped in the throes of insanity just to have a way to control him. That would be done soon enough. He could feel it now, in Padmé's presence, the gentle calm of the Force, mental peace washing his madness away, cool, clear waters putting out the smoldering embers of insanity that always threatened to take him. It wasn't over, not yet, but it would be soon, and when it was, Darth Lumis would rise as Master of the Sith, and he would never let that go. Never.
The Force gently tugged at him, drawing his focus away from Padmé just long enough to discern the origin of the pull before it faded away. The children. He opened his eyes for a moment, Padmé's body slack and relaxed against him, and he withdrew his fingers from the tangle of her hair, slowly slid his hand down over her body to rest upon her stomach. It took a long while for him to feel them, his focus not on the concealed presence of the twins, but on the vision of them, the young children standing together with the Sith Lord, holocrons in hand and teaching them the ways of the Force. Slowly, he could feel them, the vision in his mind seeming to shift as the foreign presence touched it, the children becoming younger, aging backwards to toddlers, than infants, and then finally, he saw them, as they were now. Two small, tiny beings that only bore the slightest, faintest hint that they may one day grow to be humans, the twins settled deeply within their mother and huddled closely together, as if they were trying to hide. He reached out to them, but the Force pushed him away, a vein of cold running through it almost in warning, and Kenobi withdrew slightly.
He felt...he didn't know what he felt, but it was so very different from what he had felt with his own son. The child was to be the future of the Sith, and the tiny, unborn boy seemed to know it, acted like he was meant to rule even before he came to be. His presence was one to be in awe of, one that shouted his presence, one that freely influenced and interacted with all around him. The Force was his to command, and he had grasped it in hands not yet formed, in a body not yet made, and harnessed its power, reaching out as if to say, "I'm here, and I will not be ignored."
The twins were so very different, but now that he could see them, could feel them within their mother, he saw that they were no less strong in the Force. But they had instead used the Force to hide, to wrap themselves in the energy of life itself to make them close to indistinguishable from Padmé's presence, to entwine so closely with each other that they seemed to be one. Theirs was a quiet presence, modest, fearful, quivering in anticipation of something worse to come, of something they were powerless to stop, and in that struggle, Obi-Wan felt similar pain. He too, for all his power, had been powerless to stop Satine from falling. His son had assumed his claim to life was secure, and it had been taken from him anyway, no amount of future potential able to stop it. The twins, it seemed, knew the risk, felt the fear around them, seemed to perceived that something dangerous was close at hand, and that fear had made them small.
Obi-Wan felt it, slow and hesitant and so very afraid, and he kept still, kept calm and serene when he felt the brush of the Force against him, a small, shy flicker of light that gently touched his consciousness, felt his presence with tiny hands, and slowly wrapped its grasp around him, tugging soft and insistent upon his mind. He felt the second presence a moment later, faster and less fearful than the first, eagerly brushing against the power of the Sith Lord and clinging to him, eager and hungry and desperate, and the first presence followed the example of the second soon after. This was what the Force wanted. Obi-Wan swallowed hard and looked down at his hand upon Padmé's stomach, slightly shaking and warm with the touch of the twins. They were...soothing. Warm and peaceful and so very strong, and it felt as if they somehow knew something Obi-Wan didn't know, could sense something that was just out of the Sith's reach. He wondered if, perhaps, the children in their formative state existed in a realm of the Force unknown to Obi-Wan, a realm similar to the one in which Qui-Gon now stood. He'd have to ask.
The Force had always guided him, always shown him the way. He had followed it into darkness, into pain deeper than he could have ever imagined, into hatred and rage and anger, into the fires of insanity and madness. He was rewarded with power beyond his comprehension for his service, and he had let the Force down, had failed the Dark Side, not once, but twice. Once in the death of Satine, and he was punished for it with the loss of his future, the loss of a mighty Sith Empire under his rule, and with insanity that roared through his mind like a fever. And he had failed again in the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, a failure he did not yet know in what way he would pay for it. He would not fail the Force again. His constant companion, his ever present ally had never led him astray before. He would not fail now when it came to the fearful, precious lives that gripped his hand now.
It was suddenly gone, the sudden movement jarring next to the slow, deliberate motions of before when Padmé suddenly flinched, a sharp breath and a feeling of sudden panic filling her, and the feeling was gone, the children once again hidden away within the comforting flow of the Force. She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, and Obi-Wan scarcely dared to move. The Senator looked at him and relaxed, exhaling in relief, and flushed deeply when she found one of the Sith's hands upon her cheek, and the other over the place where she knew Anakin's child was growing. She tensed again and wiggled away from him, her hands clutched over her stomach and she flushed as she looked away.
"You can help me, Obi-Wan," Padmé said softly. "You...study the Dark Side of the Force, do you not?" Kenobi nodded. "Anakin, he's..." She choked on her words, seeming to struggle with how to say them, but Kenobi knew very well what she was worried about.
"You believe he's fallen to the Dark Side." The growing tension, her palpable fear was answer enough. "You're right, he has." Her visage didn't change. She already knew.
"He's...changed," she said softly. "He was always passionate and quick to anger, but since Qui-Gon's death, he's been...cruel. A-and murderous, he frightens me, Obi-Wan, and I don't know if I can help him!" She took a deep breath, shaking as she fought to hold out tears, and she reached out to take Kenobi's hand, and he gently took it, his thumb making slow, easy circles over her knuckles.
"Is this about the children?" he asked softly, and she nodded, the hand in his grip beginning to shake uncontrollably.
"I don't know if he really believes its his. He read the tests, he had his own done, but he...h-he..." She took in a deep breath and violently shook her head as if it would clear the memory from her mind. "I...don't know if I should offer my sympathies to you," she said softly, a small, sad smile on her face, her entire being relaxing for having changed the subject. "F-for Qui-Gon's death, he..." She sniffled. "I know he was your Master, and I know you grew apart, but-"
"Hush," Kenobi interrupted, bringing her hand to his lips. "You don't need to, but I appreciate it anyway. He was...a good man. Flawed, terribly, terribly flawed, but he had the best of intentions."
"...is that why you fell to the Dark Side?" Obi-Wan looked at her curiously, felt her intentions, and found no malice, no manipulation, just simple concern and a quest for answers to questions that she had long been asking herself.
"...in a sense." Obi-Wan thought the answer to suffice, but the girl continued to stare at him, her gaze imploring him to continue. "He brought Anakin to the Temple," he said, and Padmé's eyes widened in sudden understanding, the context of their conversations so, so long ago suddenly making sense. "He was my Master, I wasn't ready to be a Jedi Knight, and...he tossed me aside for a younger, more talented model. And Anakin had always been more talented than me, that was made very clear to me from the beginning." He circled his finger in the air. "That started it. It all went downhill from there." He held his breath when Padmé's small hand reached up and stroked his cheek.
"I had no idea..." she said softly. "No wonder you hate him."
"It is...difficult to be replaced, yes.
She took a deep breath and steeled herself, then softly asked, "Is this my fault? Did I do this to Anakin?"
"No," was his swift reply, leaving no room for questions, but disbelief was plastered on her face. "...I didn't fall because of Anakin or because of Qui-Gon. I fell, really fell, because I wanted it. I chose it. I wanted power. I wanted to be stronger and faster than any of the Jedi that betrayed me, I wanted to show my Master that when he threw me away, he made a mistake. Make no mistake, Skywalker has fallen, and he will say it's because of me, not you."
"But I-"
"We had sex, yes," he drawled. "And maybe our little affair is what started him down this path, but I don't think so." He shrugged. "It didn't help any, I bet. Regardless, he blames me. I can handle the ire of some Dark Side pretender."
"...h-he said," she started, afraid again and unsure. "He said if our child..." She stopped and shook her head again. "I am so sorry about how he behaved the other day. I can't believe he would abandon peace just so he can keep hunting you."
"It wasn't just him, the entire Republic was in favor of continuing." Padmé glared viciously.
"Not the entire Republic. Do you really mean to push for peace?" Kenobi nodded. "Then I'll keep fighting. Give me some time, Obi-Wan, I'll make my case heard again. We are divided, and if we work together we can end this war, I know it."
"I doubt your husband would approve of us working together to stop the fighting," he scoffed, and Padme's temper flared.
"Anakin does not control me! This war needs to end, and if he disapproves of bringing an end to this war, than he is not the man I fell in love with!" She took a deep breath, felt her pulse racing, and she was suddenly dizzy. "He isn't the man I knew," she muttered, her shoulders shaking, and Obi-Wan reached out and pulled her close, running a hand through her hair as she cried. "Did the Dark Side do this to him? Is this what it does to people?"
"...yes."
"...c-can he be saved?" she asked softly, desperate, and Kenobi gripped her tighter.
"I don't know. If he somehow manages to kill me, he..." He stopped, but down on his lip and thought for a moment. "...no, that wouldn't be enough. There is more to his darkness than just me." Padmé's hands drifted to her stomach, her mind racing with fear of what Anakin may do to her child. Even with proof, he had still doubted her. Who was to say that when he saw the child, he wouldn't decide that it simply didn't look like him enough? What if he saw Kenobi's face in the infant, just as he seemed to see his face in everything else? It was an obsession, one that went beyond killing the object of his wrath, but now effected Padmé's child. Anakin, her Anakin, had threatened to kill an infant, and his recent cruelty, his recent anger made her believe that he would do it too.
"He frightens me, Obi-Wan," the Senator whispered, scooting in even closer to the man. "But I can't leave him, I'm scared of what he'll do to me, a-and without Qui-Gon here...w-with my baby, I-"
"Come with me." Obi-Wan stared at her, shock staining her beautiful face, and it took him a moment to realize what he had said. He knew it was impossible, so foolish and poorly planned, and yet, he felt the pull of the Force, gentle and insistent upon him. He needed to be here for the Senator and her children. Something was happening, something far beyond his reach, and while he didn't feel different, the Force certainly did, and he couldn't help but think that it was slowly moving him into position, a key part in its will as it lashed out against Darth Sidious for whatever it was that he was doing. "I can protect you, Padmé. Come with me."
"...I can't!" she gasped, gawking at the man. "I can't, Obi-Wan, Anakin-"
"I can protect you from him. I can protect you from anything."
"...but the Republic!" she cried. "My duty is here. I'm an instrumental part in the push for peace! I can make it happen, Obi-Wan, I can help change things! We can find a way that's better for all of us, we can reach a compromise together." She paused and looked up at the Sith Lord, her eyes narrowed as she watched the man calmly look away, contemplate what she said, and nod. "I can't do that if I run away with the Separatist leader."
"No, you're right..." He smiled and took her hand. "After the war is over. We'll go take refuge in the Mandalorian Empire, I can keep you safe from Skywalker, if that's what you want."
The words caught in her throat. The situation was difficult, and with her current condition, her options weren't good. Her husband had been taken by the Dark Side, that much was clear, and while she didn't fully comprehend the meaning, she knew that it had changed him. He had threatened to kill her infant child, and if one Dark Sider would, who's to say the other wouldn't do the same just as quickly? "My child," she whispered, shrinking away from him, tentative and afraid. "My child is Anakin's."
"I don't care."
"...what?"
"I don't care," Obi-Wan said again, his golden eyes warm and inviting and filled with something that looked like tenderness to the dumbfounded Senator. "I can raise children, Padmé, and I can train a Force sensitive one. I...think I may be good at it."
"...but you aren't the father."
He scoffed. "The way I see it, if I am the one that raises the child, that makes me the father far more than its other genetic contributor." He shrugged easily. "My views are a bit...Mandalorian, I suppose." A moment later found Padmé Amidala in Obi-Wan's lap, the girl on her knees and straddling his hips as she cupped his face and kissed him, short, frantic, desperate touches that showed how much the woman had been craving safety and protection after having lived in fear for the past month. Everything came pouring forth, all her emotions, all her fears, all the panic and self-loathing in a violent wave that washed over him as she embraced him, and through it all, she finally felt safe.
"Obi-Wan," she gasped softly between kisses, "Anakin said he'd kill our child. Kill it! I-if it was yours, he said he was going to murder my baby!" Kenobi sucked in a sharp breath. That was the reason the twins were so afraid. They had been hidden safely within the Force, so they had nothing to fear, but the tiny presences within Padmé were terrified, and this must have been why. The murderous intent of their father, intent projected through the Force itself, and directed at them. He needed to protect these children from Anakin Skywalker, that much was certain. The Force was already doing what it could, and Obi-Wan would stand guard. He wouldn't fail the Force again.
"I won't let that happen..." he said softly, breathless, and moaned gently when the Senator slipped her hands underneath his robes and ran her fingers over the silk shirt covering his chest.
"I know we said we shouldn't do this again, but you were right about needing to protect me from my husband." The breathless man she straddled didn't move, didn't say a word, and with a keening whimper, she brought his hands to her hips, his long fingers lightly brushing against her, hesitantly at first, and then with a gentleness she hadn't known from Kenobi's touch. "And I do want this, I do..."
"So do I..." Obi-Wan whispered, drawing her closer to him, and they said nothing else as they slowly began undressing the other with care and gentle, exploring touches that had been absent from the other times they had tangled. Before, it had always been rough and animalistic, driven by lust rather than love, but now, suddenly, their values aligned, and Padmé not only found someone to keep her safe from the increasingly violent Anakin, but had found a man to be father to her child when her husband's suspicion and jealousy could very well see it killed. Now, it was Kenobi that was touching her gently, his fingers light and careful as they brushed over big, black bruises that covered her arms, her shoulders, her hips, her ribs, her legs and breasts and everywhere else, harsh markings that Anakin had left the day before. It was not lost on the Senator that the roles of her husband and her lover had been switched, and as she traced the long, deep scars that covered his chest, she quietly wondered how it had happened. Perhaps this too had been some manipulation of some secret evil. Or perhaps she had simply been too blinded by love to see what Anakin was becoming.
"Do you think of her when you're with me?" Padmé asked, her voice soft and uncertain, both curious and sympathetic, and Kenobi's heart hitched in his chest. A small, sad smile came to his lips as he looked down at the naked woman in his lap, her hands absently stroking his bare chest, and he looked past her to collect his thoughts, staring at their clothing that sat in a heap at the foot of the bed.
"I did," he said slowly. "But it's too painful. Imagining it was her helped me be with a woman again, but now..." He shook his head. "No woman is Satine. Imagining they are only makes it hurt more." The woman nodded, a small smile on her lips, and her wandering hands indicated that his answer didn't displease her. "Do you think of Skywalker when you're with me?"
She smiled, soft and sly, and Kenobi's breath hitched as he moaned, her hands inciting his passions and waking the deep, raw emotions of the Dark Side as the beast, tightly bound, roared and keened for satisfaction. "I did," she said, echoing her lover's answer. "But not now. Not this time." She laughed suddenly, her arms wrapping around Kenobi's neck as he lifted her and gently laid her on her back, her legs wrapping around his hips and gently urging him to become one with her. "We need to keep this secret," she whispered, groaning softly as Kenobi ran a long, gentle finger down her chest and across the dark spots on her fair skin, and Padmé knew that it wouldn't be difficult to conceal, unlike before. His touch was soft, careful, almost hesitant, the Sith Lord's handling of her almost as if he were afraid to break something precious and valuable, and it felt...safe.
"I know...until you're ready to leave, we'll be careful."
Padmé nodded, moaning softly when her lover's hand brushed her stomach, and she felt warmth radiating from his fingertips, and the feeling seemed to resonate deep within her. Kenobi kissed her as he entered her, and Padmé felt all her fears fade away, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she felt safe.