FicWad

As soon as Padmé touches the bright sparkling boundary of the spirits of her children, it is like being part of an ultimate simpatico. She floods with the sense of being in three places at once, of being three people at once, not linked telepathically so much as aware, as her own consciousness is aware, in three directions at once. And for that first fleetly flickering moment it is absolutely glorious - it is a subtle and irrevokable shifting, a stretching, a profound awakening, a deepening, a sharpening, a reaching, a refinement, a soaring, an illumination, a fulfillment, a transcendence, that is, over all, euphoria -

- and then the hitherto blithely blindly embracing and drifting dreaming spirits of the twins react to the first knowing touch of another being's presence since they were abruptly thrown so violently free of the crushing pain of Padmé's dying body and, rather than dissolving back into the Force or following Padmé's spirit as Qui-Gon Jinn caught her and placed her carefully and deliberately within Anakin's former Padawan braid, found their way into this bright, warm, safely sheltering space, instinctively (and blissfully ignorant of what they were actually doing) planting themselves within the refuge of the shared love- and Light-permeated aura of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the sudden, completely unexpected touch throwing them into an explosion of frenzied panic at the abrupt change and fear for what that change might presage, darting wildly here and there in an attempt to escape the change and return to their previous state of drifting dreams and warm shelter only to find themselves inexorably tethered to the mental manifestation of their mother's hands and unable to get away, anxiously circling at the end of the leashes of her will and radiating neither love nor light now but rather pure terror.

/You must be strong, Padmé. You are the one who would have been their mother. You are the one they once knew as home. They will remember you, /brìonneach/, if you only give them a chance. You must be gentle with them, now, and not merely firm. Calm them. Reassure them by reminding them of the home that you have been and can be again. Carefully, gently, absorb their fear, soothe their panic, use your courage and your strength to regain their trust . . . gently, now . . . gently . . . /Obi-Wan whispers the words directly into her mind, the sense of him being with her suddenly stronger than it has been since that time, so long ago, on that damaged ship plunging towards Tatooine, Obi-Wan's presence no longer diffuse and permeated by startlingly distracting bright splashes of Anakin, like chunks of diamond randomly scattered across the face of a polished vein of gold, but rather just as solid and stolidly present as a pair of warm arms wrapped around her body might be.

Forcing herself not to panic, remembering the agony of dying and the dark cold inevitability of death and the panic of awareness of existence beyond the limits of the existence of her living body, in the aftermath of being caught, being saved, being pinioned (imprisoned, some might say), by Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé purposefully concentrates on radiating tranquility and love and welcoming and slowly but steadily reels in the trapped spirits of the twins, pulling them in to her sides. Despite her serenity, though, raw, panicky terror continues to threaten to overwhelm her, blaring her at endlessly from two of the three directions in which her awareness extends. Helplessly, not knowing what else to do, she fights off that looming sense of crushing fear the only way she knows how, steadying herself by performing the bodiless equivalent of taking a deep, calming breath while deliberately mentally counting to ten in first Nabooian and then Grizmalltian, Chandrilan, Alderaanian, and, finally, Basic. The droning litany of numbers deepens her own sense of calm and purpose, but the spirits of her children still lie trembling against her, quiescent, yes, but numb with agonized fear and horror rather than soothed serenity. Determinedly resisting the urge to panic herself, Padmé forces herself to wait, and to think, and to figure out what it is that will reach the twins. With the suddenness of a falling star suddenly flashing to earth, she realizes her error. Words will not work here any more than mere actions might. The twins are too young, too innocent of such things meaning or intention. They know only that she has disrupted their drifting dreams, that she has broken through the bounds of their world and irrevocably altered what they know of being, plunging them into the chaos and fear of the unknown and purposefully pinning them to a new existence. To win their calm, their trust, she much give them the sense of home that they had so briefly known when they were rising to the surface of the Force within the still-developing bodies she had been carrying inside her own living body. She must, in essence, become home for them, again.

Calmly, deliberately, Padmé reduces herself to basic emotional reactions, radiating acceptance, warmth, love, comfort, and a warm snuggling of sheltering protection.

And slowly, slowly, the terror eventually starts to move, starts to recede, flowing and draining away from the bright lights of the twins like an evil sea, leaving behind, in its place, a quiet sense of waiting, of utter absorbance, of tranquil acceptance.

A moment more. And another. Another. Another. She is patient. She can be patient. She is patience itself. Love. Warmth. Comfort. Sharing. Shelter. Protection. Acceptance. Caring. Joy. Love. Love./ Love./

And then it comes. A tiny twinned outflowing of love/sharing/comfort/joy/love, like a reflection of what she has been pouring out, comes back at her, directed by the still instinctively embracing spirits of the twins, consciously, deliberately, reaching out to her as she has been and is doing to them. Inevitable. Miraculous. Beautiful.

O, my darlings, my babies, my lovely, loving ones - !

Obi-Wan touches her, again, the sense of him like the warm press of a hand in the small of her back, bringing a quadrupling effect to the mutual awareness, reminding her, without words, that words are not enough and that she needs to keep them calm with her emotions. Silently, she agrees and acquiesces, letting her love for her children flow, doubling and redoubling, even as she feels the shadow of Obi-Wan within the circle of her awareness stretching out towards Anakin, reaching out to catch his attention and share their readiness for the next step with him. She knows, now, that it will not be long. Soon, she will be able to cradle her children to her in her own arms, touch them with her own two hands, bless their tiny faces and count their fingers and toes with her kisses. Soon. Soon.

Padmé makes of herself an endlessly flowing current of love, bubbling up as irrepressibly and as sweetly as a desert spring, and waits.

***

Anakin can feel them returning to him and the fullness of the shared meld - Obi-Wan an incandescent blaze of loving Light in the shape of a man, radiating love for Anakin and proudness and joy for Padmé's success and an eager welcome of the twins as if the emotions were a natural part of the spectrum of Light in the same way that colors are a part of the spectrum of light; Padmé held tight in Obi-Wan's blazing arms and being carried before him rather like a prize or an offering, a small knot of concentration opening out onto an infinite flow of warm welcome and joy, comfort and protection and love; the twins brilliant concentrations of energy mostly in the form of light and pulsing basic emotions, all shades of comfort and sharing and love in a wordless declaration of home/, anchored in Padmé's arms, yes, but resting there lightly and remaining of their own accord, in a deeply serene acceptance of her sheltering hold upon them. And he wants to laugh, he wants to cry, he wants to catch Padmé and swing her and the twins and all aloft in a high victorious circle and then crush them to him and hold them as tightly as if he means to never again let them go, he wants to meet Obi-Wan in a blazing charge and propel him back out of the Force so he can eat him alive with kisses and plunge them back into the Force again in an explosion of love and Light and orgasmic euphoria, but most of all, /Force/, most of all, Anakin just /wants this. He wants the visions the Force gave him. He wants his children, Obi-Wan's children. He wants the twins with fire-touched hair and Obi-Wan in their smiles and eyes and willowy heights and blindingly bright blazes of overlapping Force-auras. He/ wants/, he /loves/, and so he lets the Force move through him like a cresting wave of energy, surrendering himself and the infinitely precious information he is carrying with him into its rising Light.

In the end, it is that simple. And that final. Obi-Wan doesn't even have time to realize what it is that Anakin is doing, much less protest what he's done and is about to do, before the Force breaks over them like a tsunami. There is barely enough time for Anakin to sense which twin-light is which and to thrust out his left hand to meet the mote of energy cradled close in Padmé's left arm - Luke - before thrusting out his right hand to meet the mote of energy in Padmé's right arm - Leia - before the Force has them all in its embrace. After that, given that Anakin and Obi-Wan are who they are and that the Force is what it is, things simply become a matter of inevitability. When Obi-Wan and Anakin surrender to the Force, their bodies instantly dissolve into Light, becoming a part of its swirling sea of energy. And because their bodies are still standing in a three-way embrace with the body in which Padmé's spirit is currently residing, Sola's body is plunged into a storm of Light, immersed in energy as if she has been entirely submerged within a body of water. Only it is Light, not water, and because that Light is energy, the flesh of her body is instantly shot through and permeated with that Light, power flooding through the damaged flesh, penetrating it in waves, and, because it is a part of the Force, and because the Force is an agent of life and growth, that energy instantly sets itself to work, healing not only the obvious physical damage that has been wrought to the flesh but also washing away the poisonous residue of exhaustion and traces where the beginning stages of atrophy has begun to set in, in muscles that have gone for days without use, the waves of energy methodically erasing the many different injuries and kinds of harm that has been done to that body as if it truly were water, filling in and washing away jagged marks that have been gouged into the surface of a bank of sand.

The real miracle, though, and the end towards which Anakin and Obi-Wan and even Padmé have been working, doesn't happen until after the body that once belonged to Sola has been made whole off of the backwash of energy from the willing joining of the Jedi Bendu lovers with the Force, because it is then that the moment of oneness shatters, the Force overflowing and tumbling Obi-Wan and Anakin back down into themselves, into the bodies that the Force has fashioned and recreated and remade for them, for when that happens, when their twinned consciousness wash back out of both the meld and the Force and into their bodies, they bring Padmé back from the embrace of that dazzling energy field with them. And, in bringing her within Sola's body, they bring, also, the spirits of the twins that she has captured and coaxed and enchanted into coming along with her. For in bringing them with her, she brings, also, complete genetic blueprints for the bodies that Anakin, with the Force's guidance, has fashioned to act as living vessels for their spirits and thrown like nets or matrices of light around the blazing knots of concentrated Light that are the unborn consciousnesses and souls of the twins. And the Force, recognizing both the surrender of the twins, through Padmé, to the meld and, thus, to the more complete joining with the Force that Obi-Wan and Anakin have once again undergone and what the meaning of those genetic matrices mean, promptly does for the twins what it has been doing for Obi-Wan and Anakin every time they surrender themselves to its Light, with the slight exception that, instead of creating them bodies built out of the basic model of the flesh they wore when they surrendered to its embrace but refashioned after the conscious images they hold of one another in their minds and their hearts, as it has done time and again for Anakin and Obi-Wan, it instead takes a part of itself, a discrete quanta of its own boundless energy, and refashions that into two small bodies of matter based solely on the guidelines of the genomes that have been wrapped like spiraling lines of light and promise across the blazing lights of the twins' spirits.

Padmé gives a little cry - half a soft exclamation of shock and half a breathless sigh of absolute wonder - and shifts slightly away from them even as Anakin and Obi-Wan are still in the process of emerging from the Light, and then, even as Anakin is blinking away the residue of that last blinding flash of energy and light, he hears the sound of two more beings drawing in breath, small but distinct gasping sounds as if whoever it is has been without air for too long - or has never taken a breath before. And then the light-dazzle fades from his eyes, and he can see properly.

And what Anakin sees makes his heart swell fit to burst, because Padmé is standing with two small forms cradled close in her arms, and he can see wisps of ruddy gold baby curls and a surprisingly thick shock of dark auburn hair, and so he knows, at once, that he's succeeded.

The twins have been born into new bodies by the Force, and those bodies mark them as children of Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as of Anakin Skywalker.

***

The first thing Obi-Wan sees, when he returns to himself, is the figure of a woman who, in truth, can no longer be said to look entirely like either Sola or Padmé. The changes to Sola's body brought about by its inhabitation by Padmé's spirit have been accelerated by the same powerful forces that have not only healed the damage inflicted on that flesh by Sola's lightsaber and because of Sola's reaction to Darth Sidious' death (including her subsequent imprisonment) but also reversed some of the punishment that the body has taken, because of Sola's time as an apprentice to the Sith Lord and Master. It is as if the strength and characteristics of the spirit within that body has somehow reshaped the flesh to more accurately reflect the true nature of that soul, although why or how the shape of Padmé's soul should affect such things as the basic attributes of the appearance of that body - hair and eye color, the degree of curl to the hair, and the natural hue of the skin - is entirely beyond Obi-Wan. However strange it may seem to him, though, the fact remains that the woman standing in front of him resembles nothing so much as an amalgamation of the daughters of Ruwee and Jobal Naberrie, with Sola's height and build and at least part of her facial features (the nose and the chin are mostly the same) and Padmé's hair and eyes and that ever so slightly darker than ivory skin, not to mention the high cheekbones and almost shockingly well-defined, stubbornly strong jaw and wide brow that had given her face a delicate heart-shaped cast. Even the shape of her eyebrows seems to have shifted slightly, oddly enough, seeming to have flattened out from a much rounder curve into dark, barely arched wings much more reminiscent of Padmé's eyebrows. Obi-Wan's own eyebrows automatically raise slightly at that, prompted by the near absurdity of such a small change being so noticeable, but then his eyes focus on the shapes cradled close in her arms, and all other thoughts immediately fly away.

The boy - Luke - is held tight in her left arm, while the girl - Leia - is in her right. They blaze in the Force like twin suns, their tiny bodies holding immense strength. But what Obi-Wan notices is not the all but visible aura of light around them, but rather just the look of them there, cradled close to her like two tiny but inestimably valuable treasures. To his left (her right), Leia lays snugged in Padmé's arm, her dark baby blue eyes fixed on Anakin as if she were deliberately studying him. She has long dark lashes around those enormous midnight blue eyes and finely arched lines for eyebrows above them, a perfectly formed small straight nose, a soft and perfect tiny rosebud of a mouth, a thick shock of dark auburn hair crowning her, and a faint glow of color in her cheeks. She is not red and misshapen, as nearly all newborn babies are, for she has not passed through a mother's birth canal. Instead, her skin is an almost shockingly pale white and, in truth, though her small body is dimpled and chubby in the way that almost all babies are, somehow she more closely resembles a tiny woman or some perfectly formed little doll than a baby, and her almost disturbingly intent and focused eyes seem full of far too much awareness and understanding for any normal newborn child. Luke, tucked up against Padmé's shoulder, is much the same, though his lighter, bright blue eyes are fastened on Obi-Wan as if they were magnets drawn to a loadstone, his skin gleams as if he has been gilded with gold, and a cap of soft strawberry blond curls covers his head like a crown. They are heartbreakingly beautiful children, and the very instant Obi-Wan lays eyes on them he feels so much love and protectiveness kindle within his heart that his entire body automatically twitches forward, in an instinctive move to reach out and snatch the children up out of Padmé's arms and into the safety of his and Anakin's arms instead, a small but increasingly insistent voice in the back of his brain yammering anxiously about how Padmé is unused to children and she might be holding the twins too tightly or too loosely and what could happen if one of her arms were to grow tired or one of the babies were to make an unexpected move and so wriggle free of her grasp.

Anakin, what happened? These are not the children that I saw in my far-sight visions - they cannot be the same beings, given their appearances - and yet somehow I still feel that they are. What did you do?

The surge of both joy and proudly smug self-satisfaction that answers him along the bond are so strong that they almost manage to make Obi-Wan look away from Luke and over at Anakin, to see whatever it is he might be up to. Almost. Luke's gaze is so steady, so calm, so openly loving, though, that, in the end, he waits for Anakin to tell him, It wasn't just me who did this, Obi-Wan. You helped, too, as did Padmé. And I still couldn't have done it if the Force hadn't also wanted this. They are the twins, love. They're just biologically your children as much as they are mine, now. They were nearly all Skywalker to begin with, so it wasn't hard to remove what little there was of Padmé in them. And before you remind me again that she was my wife and that she deserves better than to be cut out of the twins like this, Obi-Wan, you should know that the Force helped me make them as much your children as they are mine. It guided me every step of the way in the crafting of the genomes responsible for these bodies.

But Anakin - !

No, Obi-Wan. No buts. Remember? Sometimes the will of the Force supercedes what an individual may want. This is one of those times, love. They are your children. The Force knows it as well as I do. It's simply helped make sure that no one will ever be able to doubt it.

But Padmé -

- will not even be staying with us long enough for either her presence or her desires to truly figure into the equation, Obi-Wan. We are the ones who are going to be raising these two, not her. They are our children, love. What Padmé may or may not want or wish shouldn't even matter. And it's not like she even needs to know, love. She can't possibly know any better. If you're worried that this might hurt her, then all you need to do is keep silent. Or else tell her that the Force specifically chose these bodies for them, which is true enough, if you look at it from a certain point of view.

A certain - ?!

Obi-Wan, love, you can't change this. Even if you wanted to change it - and your heart tells me that you don't want to do that, even if your mind keeps protesting that we both should - the Force wouldn't let you. It didn't just sanction this, you know: the Force actively caused this to happen. This is the will of the Force and it is, moreover, what you want, love. And it's not selfish to want others to know that my children are also yours. It's not selfish to want this. This is a gift. They are a gift to us, from the Force. Please, don't try to refuse. Please/, Obi-Wan. These are your children and they love you. Accept that. Accept your own love for them and your joy at being given the gift of fatherhood. Please. For me, if not for yourself. And for the sake of the twins, who already love you./

Shame over the fact that he has quite literally essentially replaced poor Padmé as an actual parent for the twins and confusion over why the Force should think him more worthy for the role than the woman who would have been their mother have effortlessly combined within him into an agony of caustic self-doubt and self-reproach; however, if there is one thing that Obi-Wan Kenobi knows how to do and is so very good at that he can accomplish it under even the most trying of circumstances, then it is to accept the will of the Force - a fact that Anakin is both well aware of and unafraid of invoking, at need. If this is indeed the will of the Force - and, logically, he must admit to himself that it must be, given the way the twins have been given these specific bodies to act as the living vessels for their spirits - then Obi-Wan cannot do aught by accept it. And Anakin is right, too, in saying that he wants this and that he loves the children as if they were his own already. Obi-Wan remembers the twins from his far-sight visions: he remembers living on Tatooine and watching over Luke from a carefully maintained distance, loving him and teaching him what he could; and he remembers keeping tabs on Leia through carefully arranged contacts with Bail Organa, who, in that other terrible timeline, had taken her and raised her as his own, as a Princess of Alderaan and an eventual leader among the rebellious Alliance to Restore the Republic. Obi-Wan remembers how easy it had been to love those two Skywalker children, how much pride he had felt when they had finally found one another and begun the process first of freeing and redeeming their father from Emperor Palpatines's clutches and then of freeing and governing so much of the known galaxy, afterwards.

Obi-Wan remembers it all just as vividly as if he had actually lived through that terrible life and its challenging aftermath, watching over the twins after the death of Sidious' true body with Anakin at his side, striving to aid them and arm them against the darkness and to find ways around the strictures placed upon them by other, much more knowledgeable (and therefore better armed to move against them and stronger in the ways of the Force, if not precisely more powerful in the Force itself) entities formed of mind and will and soul and the energy of the Force itself, so that they might help Luke and Leia continue the work of repairing the great evil and the terrible hurts done to the peoples of the galaxy by the rule of one such as Palpatine had truly been. He already loves Luke and Leia as if they were his own: in that light, accepting that they now literally are his children just as much as they are Anakin's, in the very composition of their bodies, and that it is the will of the Force that has made this so, becomes much less a matter of forcing himself to do something because it is necessary or because the Force will it than it simply is a matter of allowing himself to acknowledge certain unavoidable truths, beginning with the fact that his heart has already accepted the twins within it as his own children. After that, things become very clear and very simple in very quick order indeed.

/Alright, Anakin. Peace. I won't try to argue with you or to fight this. You are right. And I love them, too, Anakin. I love them as my own. But I do not wish to cause Padmé any more pain. She has already suffered far too much of that, on our accounts. I dislike keeping something this important from her, but since she is determined to go on from here by joining the Force, rather than staying in Sola's body, I agree that it will be better simply not to speak of this to her. Let her have this time with them, before she goes. She would have been their mother, once. It is little enough that we can do for her, /Obi-Wan admits, nodding his head slightly in acquiescence.

The bond floods with so much joy and love then that an all but tangible corona of warmth and Light springs into existence around them. I love you, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I agree. We should give her this time with them, before she goes. She deserves at least that much. Then we can tell the Naberries and the others the truth, after she's gone and can't be hurt by it. That way everyone will be able to tell the same story, if any reporters come calling, and the Naberries will know that they won't have to worry about anyone being able to tie the twins to Padmé, if the news that she was pregnant when she died ever does become more widely known.

You are my heart, Anakin. Never forget that. For a moment, then, Obi-Wan and Anakin simply hug each other tight, where their arms are still looped around one another's waists. Then, with a soft sigh, Obi-Wan adds, Come along, love. She'll want us to help her admire their perfection, counting their fingers and toes. And then she'll eventually need us to open the door and take her down from here and explain to the others what has happened, so that she can say her farewells properly, as she promised she would do.

Fervently, Anakin instantly swears, /Of course. I am with you, Obi-Wan. Now and forever. /Always, love.

With a tenderly soft and infinitely loving smile, Obi-Wan simply nods once and agrees, And I with you, beloved. Now and always.

***

Padmé is at once more fiercely happy and more deeply tranquil than she can ever remember being before in her life. For the first time in her life, she believes she understand the serenity and the joy her mother and her sister have always spoken of to her, in their attempts to explain to her how and why they could give up so much of their time and freedom to become mothers and then claim never to have regretted the decision, afterwards. Luke and Leia are miracles she never truly believed she would be allowed to see, much less participate in bringing to fruition, and she feels deeply humbled and overjoyed at the knowledge that the Force truly must have wanted her to be here, in this body, in this particular place and this specific time, so that she could help Anakin and Obi-Wan find a way to bring the spirits of the twins into the deeper communion with the Force that would allow the Force fashion them new bodies to dwell in. And they are such beautiful and exquisitely perfect little bodies, too! Although Obi-Wan and Anakin haven't actually said anything about it - probably out of some gallant wish to avoid hurting her feelings unnecessarily - Padmé knows that Anakin isn't the only biological father who is standing in this room. She can recognize specific attributes that the twins have to have inherited from Obi-Wan - obvious signs like the color of both Luke's and Leia's hair, the shape of Luke's smile, and the shape of Leia's cheekbones - and she understands that the Force (perhaps at Anakin's prompting) has worked even more of a miracle here than she ever would have expected, and she is so incredibly happy for those two wonderful men that she feels just as warm and light as if she were floating on a cushion of love and light and air.

Looking at the twins now and seeing Obi-Wan bending over Luke, delicately tracing the boy's cheek and lovingly, wonderingly, running the pads of his fingers up across the loose soft curls of the boy's baby-fine red-gold hair, while Anakin hugs Obi-Wan as if he plans on never letting him go and caresses the side of Leia's face, reaching down to gently cluck her under her chin and make her smile up at him, is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things Padmé has ever laid physical eyes upon - second only to an even more wondrous sight, which she had been presented with only a few moments earlier, when she had presented the twins to their fathers and the men had reached down and reverently plucked up the tiny forms as if the children weighed nothing at all instead of the two and a half kilograms that she would estimate each one of them actually does mass, Obi-Wan and Anakin cradling their small forms as carefully and as reverently as if they were holding the whole of the universe within their hands. Padmé easily could have wept for happiness at that sight, just as she might easily do, now, if not for the implacable serenity wrapping her in its deeply calm and warming folds.

"Leia. Inanna. Beautiful little girl, child of love, daughter of life," she whispers, hugging the baby fractionally tighter. "Luke. Mihras. Beautiful little boy, son of love, child of life," she adds, hugging him as well, moved by some instinct of protection to give the twins the traditional Nabooian shadow names meant to protect them from malicious spirits who might cause them harm through the owning of their true names. "Twin children of Light. Oh, how you shine, my loves!"

"They are very beautiful, Padmé. Are you sure - ?" Obi-Wan begins to ask, gazing at her with solemn concern.

"This will be enough. I want to be able to tell all of my clannachd farewell before I must go, am'chara - including you and Anakin and the twins - and I wish to record a few messages for those who have been as family to me, for my handmaids, my friends. I will only write to most of them and I will be very, very careful not to let the others see this body clearly, but they have been as a family to me, and they deserve to have a few answers as well. Please, lead the way, my /cariodals/. There is a library on the ground floor, near the sitting room where the heads of the three remaining branches of the clannachd and probably also Bail will have gathered to wait until you come back down. I will sit there with the twins while you go and explain to them what has happened to Sola and how I came to be like this. If you will ask them all to come and see me, one at a time, but for my parents, with Bail last of all so that I might leave the twins with him before I go on to say farewell to my nieces, I would appreciate it a great deal. Darred will tell you where the girls sleep. If you will come back to that library, after Bail has come back to the sitting room with Inanna and Mihras and you have put them down for the night in the room that I am sure my mother and grandmother will have prepared for them by that time, then I should have enough time to give you both a proper goodbye," Padmé interrupts him calmly, her voice steady and certain enough that he simply nods solemnly at her in return rather than finishing his question.

A few moments later - after each man has taken the time to lean over first one twin and then the other, to drop a gently loving kiss in the center of their foreheads - Obi-Wan retrieves the remote trigger for the locks on the dome's door given to him earlier by Darred Janren, fishing the small device out of the larger pouch near the front of his utility belt and pressing his thumb to its sensor, so that it can scan his fingerprint and open the dome's trapdoor for them. Anakin then maneuvers them around so that they end up facing in the right direction without it ever having required them to remove their arms from around each other's waists, and the two men quietly and deliberately walk back to the opening and the stairs that lead back into the rest of the house, trusting Padmé to follow them with the twins cradled securely in her arms. And she does follow them (if after pausing to take one deep breath first), her feet automatically tracing a pathway familiar to her from the days of her childhood, when she used to follow much the same path whenever she needed to fetch or return anything to storage in the attic-like space of this dome. The way is familiar enough that she can devote nearly all of her attention to the two infants held securely in her arms, with an occasional admiring glance spared for the sight of the two men gracefully descending the stairs before her. When they reach the ground floor and the two Jedi Bendu turn their steps towards the sitting room that has always functioned as a sort of informal family gathering and council of war room, Padmé automatically directs her own path to the small common library off to the side of her father's offices instead, where (suddenly and somewhat sheepishly grateful for the voice-activated controls unobtrusively built in to most of the household's doors, including this library's, which will allow her both to open and then close the library's double doors without having to worry about the way the twins fill her hands) she carries the twins over to her favorite double-seated sofa and settles down with them to wait, carefully smoothing the tattered remains of the nightgown that Sola had been wearing around herself as modestly as possible, so as to not alarm anyone in her family.

In the end, she is given nearly two standard hours alone with the twins before the double doors of the library swing inward and her grandmother steps into the room, causing her to give the recorder on the data pad she has been speaking into a vocal command to pause in its work. "Sharian," Ryoo Thule declares, deliberately invoking the name that had been chosen for her youngest grandchild in homage to Ryoo's own mother, Asharra Korden, in that way letting Padmé know that Ryoo truly does understand and believe that she is speaking with Padmé and not Sola. "I will miss you more than words could ever convey,/ ìníghnean/. And I am prouder of you than any mere words could ever explain. I have been talking with that exquisitely polite young man from Alderaan our daltram have claimed as their shared Padawan, and he and I have, between the two of us, pieced together the fact that you corrected the earlier wrong you committed against the bond between those two young Jedi Bendu by seeing to it that they would have no choice but to acknowledge the existence and validity of that bond - an action which we have surmised is directly tied to the discovery that Palpatine was the Sith Lord and, thus, to the removal of him and the influence of his evil from the galaxy. You have done well in this, /òghean/. I could not be prouder," she smiles, wearing her love and her pride like a mantle. "Come here, child, and let me hug you! And then you can introduce me to these lovely little ones," she adds, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she holds out her arms for an embrace.

To Padmé's considerable relief - a large part of her calm having deserted her, along with all of the words she had been planning to say, the moment she looked up into the weary and aged face of her mother's mother - the rest of the farewell follows much the same pattern, with Ryoo gently leading the conversation along, letting her know what she doesn't need to speak of and reminding her that, while the family does indeed love her, the life of the clannachd will not end over the loss of her. And the subsequent meeting with her parents follows much the same pattern as well, with her father commenting with gruff pride over what she has helped achieve in her life and her mother cooing over the by then happily gurgling twins and making much of them, their love for her and their sorrow over losing her no less real for their obvious pride in the fact that she has lived a moderately full and momentous life and their determination to do her honor by upholding the tradition of celebrating her life rather than mourning endlessly over the passing of that life. When her father speaks to her of how little Ryoo wishes to apply to the Jedi Bendu praxeum that will be established in Dala City and how her dedication to the Order will balance the scales for the wrongs that Sola helped commit against both the Jedi and the sentient beings of the galaxy and then her mother adds that little Pooja is determined that she will not be eclipsed by her sister's light and so will follow either her auntie Padmé into politics or her dama'mâthair Jobal into social services if she doesn't find a way to successfully and happily do both at once, Padmé is certain that her clannachd truly will be well and will survive the loss of both her and Sola without taking any lasting harm, and her heart is so comforted that almost all of her previous serenity returns to her.

It is, therefore, that much more surprising and that much more disconcerting to find her deep sense of peace and certainty over her decision to depart from Sola's body and allow herself to pass on into the Force as she would have at the death of her own body, if not for the swift intercession of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, eventually being summarily shattered by (of all people!) Darred Janren.

***

Anakin Skywalker is practically humming with happiness as he follows his Padawan to the small suite of rooms the Naberries have set aside for him and Obi-Wan while they are on Naboo, his right hand laced securely with Obi-Wan's left as he strides down the hallway. Sure, it took an hour for them to explain to the Naberrie clannachd and Bail just what had happened to Sola, why Padmé's spirit had lingered past the death of her body, and just how that spirit had happened to find its way into Sola's body - in the processing overlaying and destroying Sola's consciousness and soul and, in effect, killing her - not to mention the headache of figuring out a way to explain the twins to everyone so that they would understand that Luke and Leia are not actually, by blood, a part of the Naberrie clannachd - and, indeed, can only be considered a part of the Naberrie clannachd because their biological parents, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, are regarded as daltram to the Naberries - but they had all finally understood and believed what he and Obi-Wan were trying to tell them, in the end, and so now Anakin is quite pleased with himself and wholly content to be led up to his rooms and given some time alone with Obi-Wan, "to discuss the reality of their new fatherhood," as Ryoo Thule so charmingly and refreshingly forthrightly put it.

"Here you are, Masters," Bail eventually announces, coming to a halt in front of a door of thick, heavily carved black wood. "Rest, talk, whatever you like. I'm sure it will be a couple of hours, at least, before she is ready to see you, again. I think I should be able to call for you, across the bond, when Darred Janren has said his goodbyes and she's ready to see me. I'm not sure how long she'll wish to speak with me, but if you come back down then, I'm sure you'll be able to sense whenever she's ready for you to come fetch the twins, so she can say farewell to her nieces. Or else I could always come and get you, if you'd prefer. Either way, I believe Milady Thule is right and that you should spend this time together. I will see to it that you're given as much time as possible," he promises, his happiness for the gift they have been given, in the twins, and his protectiveness of their time together, as new fathers, singularly touching in Anakin's estimation, given what he knows about both the miscarriages Bail's wife has suffered and the fact that, in that other horrible timeline, Leia would have been raised by Bail as his own child.

It is an opinion that Obi-Wan apparently shares, for he slips his hand out of Anakin's grasp and turns to smile at their Padawan, placing his hands on the Alderaanian's shoulders and squeezing them warmly, as he says, "Thank you, Padawan. The gesture is most appreciated, though I will endeavor to make sure that we find our way back down the library in time to reclaim Luke and Leia without anyone having to come and fetch us." Then, still smiling warmly, Obi-Wan reaches out to open the elaborately carved door and slips into the room.

Nodding his head at Bail, Anakin grins and adds, "We really do appreciate this, Bail. I never expected this to happen and I know that having the twins changes everything. I don't know about Obi-Wan, but I think I need some time alone to talk about what this means for us and for our plans to help the Grand Masters with the rebuilding efforts, both in the larger galaxy and within the Order. We'll see you again shortly, alright?"

"Of course, Master. I'll call for you, when the time comes," Bail promises again, nodding back at him and giving him an easy smile before turning around and heading back down the hall towards the main staircase.

Still smiling, Anakin pushes the door open and follows Obi-Wan into their suite of rooms -

- only to be caught entirely by surprise when Obi-Wan launches himself at him, colliding with Anakin hard enough to push him back against the door as it is shutting hard enough to make him stumble (and nearly hard enough to throw his head back against the wood).

"Obi-Wan? What are - mmmph!"

"For the gift you have given me," Obi-Wan whispers several long moments later, pulling back long enough to let them both catch their breaths.

"But I - I thought you were angry at me?" Anakin gasps, hands automatically clutching at Obi-Wan's tunics, in spite of his shock.

"Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice is so soft and so suffused with tenderness that Anakin abruptly finds it very difficult to draw a deep breath. "I was disappointed in you, love. I no longer feel that way, though I believe that the reason for my disappointment remains valid and I do intend to discuss it with you, later on - when we have more time. Right now, I am simply a man who has been given a great gift by his love and wishes to share his happiness."

"You don't - you don't have to - "

"Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice is a bit firmer, a bit louder, but no less full of love. "I am happy. I love you. This isn't about trying to prove something. This is about sharing and about rejoicing in a shared joy. Accept that." Somehow, impossibly, even though they are already pressed so tightly together that the pressure of Obi-Wan's body against him is pushing him back against the door so solidly that it almost skates the edge of too much pressure, of actual pain, Obi-Wan presses even closer, so close that it is impossible even to pretend to notice either just how happy Obi-Wan is and how much he loves Anakin or how strongly Anakin's body is already responding, making Anakin gasp as his hips involuntarily try and fail to thrust forward, against that scalding heat and pressure of the bulk pressing against him and holding him effortlessly pinned to the door. He groans then, unable to help himself, an almost sobbing moan as he tries to breathe in again, beginning to become lightheaded, unable to do anything but gasp and snatch laboriously at air in quick, shallow pants as Obi-Wan tilts his head forward until his mouth is only a breath away from the shell of Anakin's of left ear, whispering, "Let go, love. I have you. Yes. That's right. I love you, Anakin Skywalker," before reaching out and taking the upper edge between his lips, gently nipping and nibbling as Anakin moans again, his joints all seeming to turn to water as his head lolls bonelessly against the door, pinned beneath Obi-Wan's slighter form and no longer even trying to move as Obi-Wan's tongue traces the whorl of his ear and his mouth moves to suck on his earlobe as if it were a piece of candy.

Surrendering, Anakin allows his head to tilt even further to the side, wordlessly inviting Obi-Wan to continue his exploration, and Obi-Wan just as wordlessly accepts by covering the clean curved line from Anakin's jaw down to his collarbone with a burning trail of kisses marked by an occasional slight graze from hard, sharp teeth, interspersed with small, not so slight nips that are inevitably followed by a generous, if somewhat less than soothing, laving of tongue against the highly sensitive flesh of his neck, Obi-Wan's exploration of him continuing until Anakin feels as if he is about to simultaneously melt into a puddle at Obi-Wan's feet and burst into flames under his ministrations. A fleeting thought, that perhaps he has taught Obi-Wan to read his body and to give and receive pleasure a little bit too well, skims across the surface of his mind and then is gone, lost to the haze of heat and languor as Obi-Wan shifts against him, not moving away but somehow moving enough to allow him to somehow undo both of their belts, sending them sliding down to the floor while he presses the lower halves of their bodies together and shifts just enough to allow his hands first to slide sensuously up the sides of Anakin's body to his shoulders and then to sink with almost torturous slowness down across his chest, Anakin's mind blanking out at the pleasure so that he misses whatever motion it is that Obi-Wan makes that begins the process of peeling away the layers of their tunics, returning to himself only at the low, surprisingly husky sound of Obi-Wan's pleased chuckle. Anakin blinks then, trying to force himself to take deeper breaths and to focus, but Obi-Wan's eyes are so huge and so achingly blue that he feels as if he's drowning in them. And an instant later Obi-Wan begins a graceful rolling motion that sways all of him forward in a dipping, undulating movement against Anakin that somehow manages to encourage their tunics to slide apart enough to allow a widening strip of bare skin down the center of their chests to touch, and the heat of that, of that sudden, unexpected press of skin against skin, rolls the eyes back in his head and makes the breath catch in his throat in a shocked, choked whimper that isn't quite a cry of pain as his body instinctively tries to move against Obi-Wan, hips wanting to churn, to pump, but failing to do much more than writhe fractionally against him in a slight squirming motion that does nothing to truly alleviate the growing need for motion (and, in fact, makes the need worse as more of his sensitized skin comes into contact with Obi-Wan's skin as those tiny wriggling motions continue to encourage their tunics to slide apart), unable to do anything more than push back against the firm press of Obi-Wan's weight.

Head swimming, Anakin is dimly aware of Obi-Wan's mouth sliding across his lips, of a long, wet slide of tongue stroking out from the right corner of his mouth down along the edge of his jaw, the caress inexorably tilting Anakin's head back in the other direction, of a sharp nip of teeth at the corner of his jaw, and then of scaldingly hot breath against him ear, exhaled in another deep rumbling chuckle before Obi-Wan whispers, "You are not the only one who learns quickly, beloved."

The claim is enough to make things come back into sharp focus, the obviously self-satisfied laugh making Anakin remember surfacing from a sated slumber to the shocking, scalding feel of wetness and heat, Obi-Wan moaning (half in pleasure but half in uncertainty, almost in fear) around a hesitantly taken mouthful of him, his hands trembling around Anakin's hips, just barely enough to be noticeable, the fingertips jittering where they've caught in the V-shaped creases at his sides where his torso meets the top of his pelvis. And a sudden flash of fear (selfish, stupid, how could he be so self-centered as to forget this, even for a little while?) gives Anakin the strength first to push back up until he is standing firmly on his feet against instead of just hanging all but bonelessly between Obi-Wan and the door and then to reach up to Obi-Wan, grasping his shoulders with gentle but inexorable firmness and pressing back, pushing Obi-Wan away from him. It takes Anakin two tries, though, to get out all of what he intends to say, breath and body both failing him after only the first two words, "You don't - " his voice cracking in two, momentarily strangling him, as he catches sight of Obi-Wan's eyes, his lungs seizing as his broken breath catches painfully in his chest at a look that is almost sorrow, almost pain, almost anger, so dark and vanishingly deep that, for one vertiginous moment, he feels as if he is falling down into crushingly deep blue-black wells. "You don't have to prove that to me, Obi-Wan."

The look on Obi-Wan's face is so oddly familiar that Anakin immediately begins trying to figure out where and when he's seen it before (ah. Oh, yes. The expression is very like the one Obi-Wan had worn on the /Invisible Hand/, when they'd been told to hand over their weapons and he'd realized that Anakin didn't have a weapon to give up because he no longer had a lightsaber clipped to his belt. Only there had not been nearly so much tenderness in his eyes just then), in his preoccupation nearly missing what it is that Obi-Wan says to him in reply. "Anakin. You cannot keep doubting everything I say to you, love. At some point you must trust that I know what I am doing and am doing only what I want."

"I don't - " Anakin's lungs seize again because the look on Obi-Wan's face has transmuted to one of such quietly amused tolerance and loving patience that Anakin immediately feels weak in the knees and lightheaded with joy, and Obi-Wan simply keeps looking at him and smiling, eyes so blue now that they seem to glow, and oh, Force, when Obi-Wan smiles like that, he looks like he's swallowed down moon and stars and sun alike, he glows so radiantly. For several long moments he simply stares, pulse thundering in his ears so loudly that he wonders, dimly, if his heart really might be trying to burst its way out his chest. Then the words finally come out, all in a rush, small and quick and low, like the frightened and shamed recitation of a child who has finally, finally, got up the nerve to admit to a fear of the monster lurking under the bed. "I don't want to hurt you. I'd die if I hurt you."

"I know you don't want that, Anakin. But I don't believe you would hurt me. I know you well enough by now to know that you would never willingly, knowingly cause me pain. I trust you, love. You can let go of that fear. You won't hurt me. Just let me love you. Please. We can catch each other, if we ever start to fall." Another smile then, soft and reassuring and almost blindingly luminous with love and trust, and Anakin thinks, muzzily, that Obi-Wan could light the whole of Coruscant for all of eternity with the power he generates from one small smile alone. And then Obi-Wan simply reaches up and takes the hand Anakin has planted on his left shoulder in his and gently guides it to his cheek, turning his head into the curve of Anakin's fingers. And the bond opens between them effortlessly, like a flower responding to the warmth and heat of that smile, Ankain's touch tingling at Obi-Wan's lips, and then he opens his mouth around Anakin's fingertips, sliding them down and then back up again before turning his hand again to kiss Anakin's palm, the base of his thumb, his wrist, sucking at the pulse point, tracing the prominent blue veins there with his tongue, fumbling blindly for his other hand. Then, kissing his way up Anakin's arm, shoving at the drape of cloth and pushing all of it back until it bunches, the lowest layer almost painfully tight just below the joint of arm and shoulder, Obi-Wan purposefully twines his fingers in Anakin's, pulling his arms around him and guiding him forward, away from the door and into the solid furnace of his body, nibbling at Anakin's collarbone as he releases Anakin's hands to trail his own hands up the path his lips so recently left behind. Obi-Wan's mouth finds Anakin's throat, sucking at his Adam's apple as his arms raise up to twine around his neck, crossing behind him, tugging him more firmly forward, away from that closed door and into the open warmth, the solid and surrounding heat, of his body. And just the feel of Obi-Wan against him draws Anakin inexorably forward, leaning in to kiss his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, biting gently but with increasing pressure and desperation at his lips, testing them with his tongue, pushing first softly inside and then hard as his teeth part to permit Anakin entry so that, as his hands fall away, stripping away Anakin's tunics into a tangled pile of rich earthy dark brown and pale golden sand and palely blushing pearl and fawn-colored tan so pale that it is almost off-white, Anakin can bring his long-fingered hands back down, too, rolling them down over the backs of Obi-Wan's shoulders and pushing away the layers of cloth (all shades of warm cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla and cream) so that, with his fingers, he can write himself into that bared expanse of moon-pure pale skin.

You're wearing too many clothes.

I'm not the only one who is, Anakin. There is a sense of laughter, fleetingly lovely, fragile and transient, but also unforgettable and indescribable and warming as light passing through a prism, and then Obi-Wan adds, with a smile that is almost a perfect echo of one of Anakin's more blatantly amused and self-satisfied smirks, Come here, love. Let's see what we can do about that.

Yes. Anakin's half a heartbeat away from sinking to his knees to take off Obi-Wan's boots then and there, instead, when he notices that Obi-Wan's feet are already bare beneath the hem of his pants. He stares down at those slim white feet for several silent moments, dumbly wondering how he managed to miss Obi-Wan taking off his boots and wanting to drop down and touch his feet, anyway, trace over those high arches with his fingertips and press worshipful kisses right /there/, at that sensitive place where the joint of foot and ankle meet, before it occurs to him that Obi-Wan had come into the suite before him and shut the door behind him as he passed within, while Anakin had paused outside, in the hall, to speak for just another minute or so with their Padawan. Obi-Wan must have taken his boots off then. Which means -

With a low, throaty laugh that warms him even as it makes him shiver, Obi-Wan reaches out to tip Anakin's head up, gently but inexorably tilting his gaze away from the floor and adjusting the angle of his neck so that he's meeting his eyes (which, if anything, are even bluer now, impossible as it seems). I told you that you should trust that I know what I want, love. The hand slips slowly, caressingly, down the gilded column of Anakin's throat, trailing down his chest and coming to rest, firmly planted, over the place where the drumbeat of Anakin's pounding heart is so loud that he imagines Obi-Wan must be able to feel the vibrations fluttering beneath his fingertips. "You, Anakin. Always and forever only you." Then, gracefully, he drops to his knees before Anakin, his head still tilted up so that the action doesn't break their gaze.

Anakin's body remembers this drill, though not the spine-tingling heat and power of Obi-Wan's eyes or Obi-Wan's smile, gazing up at him in mute promise. The sheer power of that promise hits him so hard that it feels rather like being sucker-punched, and, even as he performs the familiar steps of this dance, lifting his feet and holding himself steady so that Obi-Wan can ease him out of his boots, Anakin finds himself curling in around his stomach as the breath leaves him yet again, his body bending down towards Obi-Wan as his hands instinctively reach out (as he almost never does) to help steady himself on Obi-Wan's shoulders. And Obi-Wan, smiling as he eases Anakin's second bare foot onto the incredibly deep, soft pile of the carpet, does something that rolls his shoulders beneath Anakin's hands until Anakin somehow ends up embracing Obi-Wan's muscled back, holding him close as Obi-Wan nuzzles into him, their bodies touching all along the front of Anakin's trembling legs, Obi-Wan still smiling up at him the instant before he turns to lay his head against Anakin's stomach, fingertips sliding along beneath the edges of his waistband to urge the material down a little so that he can trace his tongue in a wet, spiraling circle down around and inwards towards Anakin's belly button, the final urgent thrust of that tongue into the dip there making Anakin cry out, knees already trying to unhinge, grateful he has Obi-Wan to lean against because otherwise he'd already be in the floor. Though when Obi-Wan sinks back on his knees a little, the motion dragging his head down Anakin's bare stomach until his cheek rubs up against him and his moist, hot breath is pouring into the now too tight material across his groin, Anakin nearly falls anyway. His voices a strangled cry, pleasure making him choke as he fights to keep his feet. "Obi - "

Another chuckle, and this time Obi-Wan has to catch him, because Anakin's knees unhinge at the vibrations of that purring rumble of laughter, but that's alright, because Obi-Wan is rising just as gracefully back to his feet, his body flowing up Anakin like water, bracing him and lifting him back onto his feet, and then their mouths meet in an explosion of heat and hunger, mouths diving together, bodies pressed so tightly that every crease of material writes itself against their skin like the constriction of an actual bond, too much and not enough, Anakin wanting to be skin to skin with Obi-Wan everywhere so badly that he moans into Obi-Wan's open mouth, hands scrabbling with desperate uncoordination at the material dipping so low across the small of Obi-Wan's back that his thumbs find those two dips that lie just so, in between the lowest dip of back and the hard swell of tight buttocks, pressing into those dimpled depressions and urging Obi-Wan even closer. Anakin's teeth catch on Obi-Wan's lower lip when he tries to pull away, trying to hold him, but with another slide of tongue he disengages, leaving Anakin moaning for the lack of his mouth but only for a few moments, Obi-Wan nudging his face to the side with his chin so he can lean in and whisper, "Too many clothes, still. And we're going to need the bedroom soon," his mouth once again so close to Anakin's ear that every exhalation of sound is like a kiss, like a brand, like a promise. And Anakin, all but sobbing with need, rips blindly at Obi-Wan's waistband, hearing the fabric tear with a sharp purling sound, Obi-Wan laughing again as he walks Anakin backwards, Anakin going blindly, feeling the material around Obi-Wan slipping and sliding with every step, his body rising out of his pants as he goes, revealing more and more skin to rub up against him strip by tantalizing strip.

They hit another door, Anakin falling back against it, splayed up against it like a sacrifice, and Obi-Wan plunders him, mouth covering him, tongue diving searchingly deep, hands plunging between them to peel away that last, maddening layer of cloth, and then the door is opening and they are falling into the next room in a rush of motion and a rustle of falling fabric, Anakin hitting the next door with enough force that it would have driven the breath out of him if he'd still had any to spare, but Obi-Wan does something - he can feel a tendril of the Force moving, passing across him and into the door in a warm current of power - and then they are through that final barrier as well, plunging into the bedroom with nothing between them now but heat and promise, Obi-Wan's joy an all but tangible presence in between and all around them, wrapping around Anakin like another set of arms and legs, flooding him with the sense of Obi-Wan pressing up against him and engulfing him from all sides like a sea, love and happiness combining to a heady exaltation that renders Anakin drunk and reeling, the journey to the bed little more than the long arc of an extended fall, crashing down into the bed with the inevitability of a plunge of water from a cliff top edge to the catch basin below, not really so much an act of plummeting blind as it is an eagerly rejoicing return to home.

***