2. Suffering Every Night I Watch You
"Medically, she's completely healthy," the medical droid reported in his tinny voice. "For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
Obi-Wan carefully breathed through the ice-cold fear washing over his heart. "She's dying?"
"We don't know why. She has lost the will to live."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "No. This is wrong. Let me speak with her."
Before the medical droid could respond, Obi-Wan was bypassing him and entering the room. He reached Padmé in a few strides and stood at her bedside, taking her small, frigid hand in his.
"Padmé," he murmured. "Padmé, can you hear me?"
It took far, far too long.
But finally, she regained the strength to open her eyes and mumble, "Obi-Wan?"
"I'm here," he assured her, squeezing her hand.
"Anakin," she suddenly gasped. "Is he okay?"
"Anakin is alive," he said, recalling the image of Anakin's limbless torso floating inside a bacta tank. He'd looked so unbelievably small. Obi-Wan had only himself to blame.
Padmé smiled. "He is?"
"Yes, I promise you," Obi-Wan said. "But you must not give up. If you are to see him again, you have to remain strong. For yourself and for your child."
For an instance, the light returned to her eyes.
But then, "He betrayed us."
And Obi-Wan was on Mustafar all over again, brimstone on his tongue, magma in his veins, hot, obsidian shards cleaving open his heart.
The grief swelled hotly in his throat and he nearly choked on it as he said, "I know."
"Obi-Wan," she cried, her fingers curling around his, clutching them in a desperate hold. "There's good in him. I know it."
It took a moment for his mind to wrap around her words.
And Obi-Wan wasn't sure if he believed her; wasn't sure of anything anymore. He stared at the ghastly bruises blooming across the length of her pale neck.
All he knew was that he could not let go of Anakin.
When he failed to respond, Padmé asked, "Where is he?"
"Submerged in a bacta pod," Obi-Wan said. "I hurt him terribly."
But to his shock, Padmé chose to comfort him. "I'm sure you did what you thought was right."
He had no words to say to that.
"May I see him?"
Obi-Wan ignored the part of him that balked at her request, the dread of having her witness all he had done to Anakin a tightening noose around his neck.
Instead, he focused on what her desire alluded to.
Padmé was regaining the will to live.
"Once you feel strong enough to move without assistance, you may," he said.
Her relief was so great, it radiated across her Force presence. "Thank you, Obi-Wan."
"Don't thank me yet," he said grimly. "Now, get some rest."
"Wait. Don't leave."
Obi-Wan squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I'll only just be outside."
Padmé's familiar strength solidified across her weary face. "Okay."
Obi-Wan stepped aside and allowed the medical droid to take his place.
Obi-Wan and Padmé stood before Anakin's bacta tank, when Sabé arrived.
At the handmaiden's entrance, Padmé turned and hurried to embrace her friend.
"Milady, it is done."
For the safety of the children, Obi-Wan and Bail had convinced her that it would be best if the Sith believed her to be dead. But the death of a former queen was no quiet affair and as a result, one of her handmaidens had been used as a decoy for Padmé's funeral procession.
But Obi-Wan knew it would only delay her for so long. Already, she was becoming embroiled in the Empire's new political realm via Bail and Sabé. Bail, like most every galactic senator, had returned to Coruscant to continue pledging his loyalty to the Empire.
Meanwhile, Master Yoda had vanished to the Dagobah System, deeming Anakin's continued existence Obi-Wan's failure and responsibility. Obi-Wan could only be glad that Master Yoda's response had not been worst than that.
"There's something else…"
At the grave sound of her handmaiden's voice, Obi-Wan tuned back into their conversation.
"What is it, Sabé?"
"A bounty has been issued for the capture of Skywalker," she said. "On the order of the Emperor himself."
"No."
It took a moment for Obi-Wan to realize it was he who'd spoken out. Padmé and Sabé stared at him grimly.
"No," he repeated, the tenuous control he had over his emotions beginning to slip like sand through his fingers. "Palpatine will not have him. Not again."
And the memory hit him like a Force blast. Anakin, a child, Palpatine, the Chancellor of the Senate whom the Jedi answered to, and a request they could not refuse.
Even at the time, Obi-Wan had not wanted to allow Palpatine such plain access to his padawan.
Now, he felt sick.
"Don't worry. I'll have him back at the Temple before you know it. Safe and sound."
The memory of Palpatine's words pounded from inside Obi-Wan's skull as he stared blindly at Anakin, floating inside the bacta tank. The words continued to repeat, a loop that pulsed in tandem with the loud thumping of his heart, until it bruised his chest black and blue.
Padmé was speaking, lips moving, but Obi-Wan couldn't hear her, Palpatine's voice still crooning in his ears.
"He still has much to learn."
"Obi-Wan!"
He gasped, greedily sucking in air, unsure of when he'd stopped breathing.
"Obi-Wan, listen to me," Padmé said, her hand clutching his tightly, anchoring him to reality. "You have to protect him."
No. He was not capable.
"Look at him," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Does it look like I can protect him?"
But Padmé did not even glance towards Anakin. Her eyes remained steadfast on him. "You must. There is no one left who can."
Obi-Wan had once thought that taking on Anakin as his own after the death of Qui-Gon would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do.
He'd been wrong.
"And who will protect you?"
Padmé's grip on him relaxed. "Everyone believes me to be dead. Besides, Bail has already offered me sanctuary on Aldaraan. I will remain there until I've reached full term."
When Obi-Wan didn't reply, Padmé began formulating their new plans, but he ceased to listen. His gaze drifted back to Anakin's dismembered body and Obi-Wan struggled to breathe around the searing pain of his many failures.
Within the same rotation, they'd split up and departed from Polis Massa.
Padmé, Sabé, and Threepio to Aldaraan. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Artoo to the Unknown Regions.
They were still traveling through hyperspace, when a surgical droid approached Obi-Wan in the cockpit of the small medical frigate they'd been bestowed with.
"Master Kenobi, the surgery was a success," he reported. "I recommend that the patient rest, before I proceed with implementing the cybernetic replacements."
"Thank you," Obi-Wan said. "I will let you know when to continue."
"Understood."
When the droid retreated, Artoo turned to Obi-Wan and warbled a series of beeps.
Though he was hardly fluent in binary, Obi-Wan had a sense of what the typically rude astromech had said.
This was confirmed when Artoo rolled forward, running over Obi-Wan's feet and exiting the cockpit.
"Blasted droid," Obi-Wan hissed as he followed Artoo, who made a beeline for the medical bay.
Inside, Artoo trundled to the corner of the room and plugged into a charging port. Obi-Wan reluctantly took a seat beside Anakin's bed, observing the interface plates now fused across the stumps of his severed limbs, where the biomechanical appendages would be integrated.
The part of him that had been slowly dying since Mustafar, quaked at the sight.
"Twisted by the dark side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is."
Was Master Yoda right? Was there nothing left of his Anakin?
"From darkness, he cannot return. This, you will face."
Those had been Master Yoda's last words to him, before he'd departed for Dagobah.
"There's good in him. I know it."
Was there?
Obi-Wan didn't know. All he knew was that this was the result of his own failures. Whether it was possible for Anakin to return to the light or not didn't matter. Obi-Wan had chosen to not let Anakin go, so Anakin would remain his burden to bear.
Obi-Wan would suffer nothing less.
Anakin stirred.
Obi-Wan held himself stiffly, but remained seated at his bedside, until Anakin's clouded, yellow-eyed gaze landed on him.
A/N: I accidentally wrote more…
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