FicWad

After everything that’s happened with Sola and Padmé, the added bonus of getting to explain both everything that actually happened to Padmé and certain requests concerning the future political leadership of both Naboo and the Chommell Sector to two of Padmé’s closest friends from among the ranks of her (former) handmaidens, and the headache-inducing task of both having to explain some of their plans to help integrate the Jedi Bendu with the rest of the population of the known galaxy to their Padawan as well as agreeing to eventually sit down with Bail and go through his and Mon Mothma’s Palpatine-inspired lists of allies and potential allies in the hopes of find more planets with populations that might be amiable to the notion of having Jedi Bendu chapterhouses and trained or training Force-sensitive politicians of their own, the public funerary procession and funeral itself as well as the private wake and actual entombment in the Hall of Monarchs are all almost anticlimactic. Between what Ryoo Thule and the Naberrie family has worked so hard on and the plans of the eighteen honor guards cum funerary attendants (Threepio, Moteé, Ellé, Sabé, Jamillia, Jar Jar Binks, Saché, Yané, Rabé, Dormé, Eirtaé, Mon Mothma, Sheltay Retrac, Bail, and the four newer handmaidens, Maighé, Chloé, Missé, and Ché) plus the arrangements of the ten extra funerary assistants appointed by the government (including the current Queen of Naboo and five of the elite of her coterie of handmaids as well as the current, very young but extremely earnest Princess of Theed and three of the elite of her handmaidens), the whole process is so beautifully and precisely choreographed that it’s no real surprise when the entirety of it unfolds with an almost eerie precision, like the steps of some kind of endlessly well-rehearsed, regally formal dance.

Two late changes – the substitution of a classically elegant diadem with an even simpler arrangement of flower-blossoms in her beautifully prepared and loosely spread out hair; and the removal of a certain Nubian starfire adamant (a rich indigo stone so deeply saturated with color that is almost violet, spherical and roughly the size of a small, nearly full grown, woman-child’s fist) from between her palms while a certain leather thong dangling a lovingly carved japor snippet is instead folded reverently around and down across one of her hands and in the other hand is folded a clear stone, roughly egg-shaped and large enough that it easily fills most of the slightly cupped palm of her right hand, that is a dark glowing green in color, with a single flaw deep within its heart that could, if held up to the light, catch that light and make it dance in the flaw like a swiftly flickering flame, a meditation focus and (despite its size) actual (and not artificially made, either) emerald, the story of which Obi-Wan promises to share with Anakin later, if Anakin wishes to hear it – are made at the behest of Threepio and Artoo, as part of their last orders from Milady Padmé. (A clear diamond that is not just a stone, carefully taken out of the rejected diadem, is also very carefully added to Artoo’s circuitry.) And in the end few of those familiar with her are truly startled (though many are at least a little dismayed) to see what a shockingly lifelike and almost disturbingly gorgeous corpse the former Queen and Senator of Naboo makes, the delicate white star-like flowers in her hair in combination with her mostly vividly blue and deliberately water-like attire lending a weird sense of drowning to the body.

Bail and the others who have worked so incredibly hard on the funeral arrangements all seem almost inordinately proud of their handiwork, especially during the candlelight procession through what amounts to the entire latticework of canals and streets for the whole city of Theed. When the time for that comes around, Obi-Wan and Anakin walk just as close to one another as they dare, in places of honor right at the foot of the elaborately carved, open, flower-draped, somewhat canoe-shaped but also rather coffin-like funeral boat (as the Nabooians call it) as it floats along, grandly and slowly, on its bank of repulsors behind the honor escort of six beautiful white (and also flower-draped) matching gualaars. The procession starts at Theed Palace and will end at Theed Palace as well, and there is something vaguely disturbing about the fact that they are going to be passing through the Triumphal Arch twice. The decision both to begin at Theed Palace, rather than at the Naberrie home, and to end at the Palace (with Padmé being left in state for continued viewing at the exact center of the central plaza below the stone stairs leading up to the Palace itself), as well, has altered the funeral procession from what Obi-Wan and Anakin “remember” of it from those all too similar other timelines, in the far-sight visions granted by the Force, and they spend most of their time in candle-lit procession vaguely but undeniably constantly distracted and distressed by the almost but obviously not quite perfect match between the reality of the whole scene and their far too real shared series of memories of it.

Padmé though, is undeniably beautiful, and the crowd is quietly captivated as their former Queen and Senator is memorialized, for all time, as a doll-perfect woman seemingly made out of rose-tinged ivory-pale marble, star-like and moth-pale flowers slumbering in the unraveled dark masses of her curls while, all around her, beautiful women in elaborate mourning cloaks murmur to each other over their flickering, warmly flower-scented, moon-pale candles. The fog on the Solleu River drifts along the dusk-darkened water, thin and tremulous, to make its way up along the river’s green, night-scented banks, away from where the river’s tide pulls ever onwards to the waterfalls’ distant roar. It climbs upward into the broad streets of Theed, deft and mysterious as the movement of wings, and the flickering flames of the candles carried by the mourners makes eerily radiant haloes of mist-smeared light, reflecting indistinctly off of the finery of those who have come to mark and honor Padmé’s passing. It winds its way up around the heavily-carved torch-poles, making the tiny semi-precious beads and larger, more elaborate gems worked into raised designs and ribbons of the heavy banners tinkle like the bracelets of lost children, alone and running carelessly in the lowering darkness. The many banners, all bearing one version or another of the crest of Amidala – a beautifully stylized waterlily in one light and the ancient Nabooian symbols for prosperous, generous peace and the protective, honorable sword in the next – shift constantly and gently, though the air seems hushed, heavy, and still. The last blush of violet breathes against the mountainous horizon, the silence broken only by the steady massed sound of footsteps.

That reverential hush is broken once, right as the funeral boat comes out from under the Triumphal Arch, by the low, rich tones of a bird’s quiet coo, in the moment before spread wings unfurl from the interior shadows of the archway to hang suspended in an up-flung arch in the air above Padmé, whiteness smeared against the darkening sky like a deliberate sign of grace, before the wing-beats gradually fade away, like drying tears, into the silence and the dusk of evening, flying away not to the east, where the three moons will soon be rising, but to the west and the shadowy hulk of mountains. The crowd stirs with memory, then, remembering public audiences and holotransmissions of Senate addresses. The whiteness of the bird’s wings evoke Amidala at her coronation, bright and ideal, one of the youngest rulers in the history of Naboo, and again at the Liberation festival, face painted but hair revealed, her smile as blinding as the Globe of Peace the Gungans brought to the celebratory parade. The crowd cannot help, then, but to recall New Year’s speeches, her farewell address, her brave, unwavering voice, ringing out in the chambers of the Galactic Senate (“Wake up, Senators, you must wake up!”), unfurling like a courageously and challengingly thrown banner, and her many determined protests against militarization, against the war, against the alteration of the Republic’s Constitution by more and more war measures, standing unmoved even as more and more power flowed to the hands of the Supreme Chancellor. All this, now, is laid to rest in a gorgeously carved rosy-tinged casket, her dark eyes closed forever, weeping blooms of pale flowers adorning her riotously curly and rich dark hair.

Her former handmaidens, though, palms up, hands filled with flower petals, faces made into shadowy masks by the flickering lights, look neither up nor back, though the crowd stirs a little at the pale bird’s abrupt and dramatic passage. The placid beasts that seem to but are not really pulling her coffin along clomp slowly onwards, though, gentle even if their apparent burden cannot and could not feel it even if she were truly harnessed to their traces, and eventually the funeral boat and Padmé pass out of the shadow of the Arch, and the bird is forgotten. The crowd’s attention turns, then, to her family, walking off to the sides of the funeral barque itself, their upright forms swathed in the silver and blue of the recently bereaved, the indigo and violet of loss and mourning, and the black and white of purity of purpose, gravity and solemnity, sadness and grief. Looking is unavoidable, but gazes are respectfully quick, flickering, with no lingering or open stares. There is a shift of many bodies bowing and curtseying as the current Queen passes, gliding along directly behind the Jedi at the foot of the funeral boat, looking painfully young in her traditional royal mourning. And all the while, the flames of the many torches lit all along the various canals and streets of the capital flicker and dance, each flame rendered, by the creeping mist, into a lone and diffuse star, seemingly solitary even in the midst of all its many companions. Eventually, the cool mist of water vapor penetrates every side street of the city, lying like a veil over the whole of Theed.

Theed, where it quite honestly seems as if the majority of the human population and much of the Gungan populace of the planet as well have all gathered together to mourn.

The mourners gather together in their almost universally dark robes, a dozen different varieties of silk and velvoid and velvets and leathers and feathers and furs and other exotic and costly materials in thousands of shades of grief and regret and respect and dozens upon dozens of other emotions in the Nabooian symbolic language of colors and gemstone and flowers and actual symbols all rustling along together in the lengthy procession, each carrying a good-sized, star-pale, lit pillar candle. They walk together in their elaborately feathered and bejeweled masks of mourning or with simple tear-shapes and teardrop gems painted and affixed near to their right eyes (as is traditional). They carry with them, as well as their lit candles, palm fronds and flower petals and sweet herbs, to cast in the streets and the canals before the procession, as well as intact flowers and sweet herbs for laying in the plaza (so that Padmé’s funeral barque will seem to float on a sea of flowers) and candle-lit paper lanterns affixed to simple flat boats and flying streaming ribbons of prayer wheels carefully painted with intricate symbols, to set out on the canals as well as the Solleu River itself. And they also bring with them their confusion, their sadness, their loss, and, beneath all of their many shades of grief, tremulous but growing hope. The crowd is so very large, pressed in so close together in the side-streets around the central canals and thoroughfares, that it seems quite impossible that the members of it could all be so very silent, so very solemn, so very sad, and yet also so extremely and exquisitely well-behaved, and yet somehow they still manage it. Even distracted as Obi-Wan and Anakin are, it is impossible for them to miss the fact that it is the underlying feeling of hope (and not fear, as it was in all of those other far-sight visions) permeating the crowd that is largely responsible for the peace permeating the crowd.

That sense of peace, in lieu of a rapidly deepening fear, is perhaps the only change in the actual procession and the funeral as a whole that the two Jedi welcome.

If the funeral were for anyone else, it would be much briefer and take place mainly within the Theed Funeral Temple – a beautiful domed building located in a tranquil spot on the outskirts of the city and to one side of the Solleu River, where all funerals for the residents of Theed are traditionally held. The people of Naboo believe that a body must (generally speaking, whenever possible) be cremated within two days of death in order to return the life force of the dead to the planet. The ashes of the deceased are taken to the bridge across Solleu River, linking the Funeral Temple to Livet Tower (the tower of the eternal flame of duty), and cast into the river. Monarchs and heroes of Naboo, though, are another story. They are kept within stasis fields, celebrated in long, lavish affairs, and then displayed in either the Hall of Monarchs or the Hall of Heroes, on the grounds of the Royal Palace, so that their lives will strengthen the people and continue to bring them hope, even after their lives have ended.

Padmé’s funeral (being that of both a monarch and a hero of Naboo and the Republic) is spread out over a whole week, and there are beings from Naboo and from all across the galaxy who come to speak and give testimony to the goodness of the life of Padmé Amidala. No one speaks at the actual family funeral, though. By then, there’s nothing left to say that hasn’t already been said numerous times. The closing of her stasis-sealed and seemingly transparisteel (in actually, sheets of carefully grown and carefully fitted transparent and colorless Nabooian waterfall crystal) coffin may well be the closing of an era, but after seven full days (counting the day of the procession, which had also been marked by public gatherings and many gifted speakers, and the day following the week-long public funeral, which had been declared a day of public mourning and featured even more speakers and more public rites of honor and of mourning) of nothing but shared grief and touching remembrances and uplifting sermons and speeches, the family is glad to be able to be simply respectfully silent, feeling rather as if their Padmé has been eulogized to death. On that day, the pavilion set aside for the family is ringed by mourners (close friends, like former handmaids, counting, traditionally, as family) and essentially silent but for the quiet susurrus of breath and of fabric as the twin rows of lilac- and violet- and amethyst-clad women in rich red and black and green and multi-hued velvet cloaks file in, faces painted ghostly white, with a single slash of nearly-black plum cutting at a diagonal through their mask-like expressions, a painful contrast to the regal paint, symbolizing the abruptness of a far too young and untimely death. Among their ranks are not only former handmaidens, but friends and allies as well, a Queen and a former Queen walking side by side while Mon Mothma’s red hair blazes in the crowd of mostly brunettes following behind them. Captain Typho and his guard stand silent duty over the gathering, part and parcel even though he is apart from the mourners, the aging man stone-faced and silent, his good eye as unreadable as the one covered by the patch.

Tucked away in her water-clear crystalline coffin, Padmé Amidala is, as she was when carried within the cradle of her elaborately carved, blush-toned funeral boat, undeniably still extremely beautiful in death; yet, that beauty is static, hard, not at all the same as when life still shone from her heart-shaped and moon-pale mysterious features, when there was breath to cycle through the bow of her flower-petal lips. (When the time had come to lift Padmé out of her funeral barque and into her actual stasis-sealing coffin, Obi-Wan and Anakin had used the Force to transfer her effortlessly from one vessel to the next. Afterwards, Jobal Naberrie had reached her slightly weathered right hand down to caress her youngest daughter’s left cheek, reaching absent-mindedly to tuck a stray strand of hair back behind Padmé’s right ear. The familiar loving gesture had been marred, though, by a shudder when her hand came into contact first with her daughter’s shockingly cold, hard skin and then her hair, silken but dry and as crisp and empty of life beneath her fingertips as if it were nothing but another ribbon. Nonetheless, she bent to touch her lips to the smooth forehead she had once soothed after nightmares before backing away, her face in her hands, overcome, momentarily, by the realization that her daughter had truly vacated that body. Darred Janren had stepped forward then, his wife glaringly absent from his side, his daughters at her side. He lifted them up one at a time, first slender Ryoo and then small Pooja, up in his strong arms, so they could kiss their fingers and press them to their aunt’s forehead. And when they were finished their goodbyes, he bent to brush his own feather-light kisses upon each of Padmé’s temples, the tip of her nose, the slant of her cheekbones, and the sharpness of her chin, his own reverently kissed fingertips brushing lingeringly across her petal-pink mouth before he finally stepped aside, turning to look at Ruwee, standing quiet and still some steps away. Padmé’s father had moved slowly, then, placing his hands against the sides of her coffin as if it were an effort to stand – and perhaps, considering how much energy, how much life-force, his eldest daughter managed to steal away from him it had been. His face was quietly composed as he gazed down at his youngest daughter, and he stood there for a very long time before his wife finally stepped forward to touch his arm. After he finally leaned forward to press a kiss to the center of Padmé’s forehead, she led him away, back to the rest of the family.) The two Jedi avoid touching the body, discomfited by its lifelessness and longing, a little, for the swiftness of purifying fire in place of all of this open, drawn-out display.

The whole experience is, frankly, disorienting and disconcerting, and the two Jedi find themselves looking forward to the end of the whole event. In the meantime, though, Obi-Wan and Anakin end up spending most of the thirteen days that the entire funeral process (including both public and private events, from the first of the state-held remembrance ceremonies all the way up through the actual family entombment and the wake, afterwards) lasts growing steadily more and more anxious (even a bit twitchy, on Anakin’s part) and unsettled, finally sending Bail and the twins back to Coruscant with Mon Mothma, Threepio and Artoo (the second takes some doing, but Anakin eventually persuades him to go so that he can keep Threepio in line as he’s watching over the children), and several of the others among the honor guard who (by then) need to be returning to work on that planet on the eighth day of funerary events, when it becomes obvious that the remaining rites are meant only for family and those who are considered as family to the deceased. They are perhaps an hour or so away from rising on the day following the final wake when they receive an urgent communication informing them that their Padawan has left Coruscant without permission and returned to his home on Alderaan after receiving word, soon after his arrival, that his wife, Breha, has been confirmed as a casualty of war, her life (along with the entire crew of her ship, the Corellian Corvette /Winter’s Heart/) having apparently been claimed in the confusion following the meticulously orchestrated Separatist attack on Coruscant and the not nearly so carefully planned or carried out retreat from the Coruscant system. Though they have been planning on remaining with the Naberrie family at least another day, out of courtesy, on learning this the two immediately send a message to the Theed Palace to ready their ship (the modified Belbullab-22 from Utapau), call for Artoo and Threepio, and start to pack.

Roughly halfway to Alderaan, Anakin is so wired with restless energy that he finally manages to pick at Obi-Wan enough to prompt the “discussion” that Obi-Wan had promised him, back when Anakin had verbally attacked Padmé as a coward for her initial decision to depart Sola’s body without seeing or speaking to her family and Obi-Wan had been forced to intervene and stamp rather firmly on what he had called Anakin’s childish behavior to keep him from ripping her to pieces. The argument that follows is . . . unpleasant, for both men, but especially for Anakin, who ends up feeling half like a thoroughly scolded child (if not exactly the jealous child that Obi-Wan has just accused him, at some length, of behaving as if he were) and half like an absolute monster for the look on Obi-Wan’s face when he slams the bond between them as closed as he can make it go, from his end, and storms out of the tiny bedroom up to the cockpit, snarling behind him that he won’t be held responsible for what happens if Obi-Wan follows him. He sits up there, alone, and stews and cries and then stews some more, for not quite two hours, before Obi-Wan finally gives up and comes after him.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says softly, pleadingly, as he comes up to sit beside him, prompting Anakin promptly to turn his head and as much of his away as he can. Obi-Wan only reaches out with one hand to turn the chair back, gently grasping his left cheek and turning his face back when Anakin would have kept trying to turn aside. “Anakin, love, please. Look at me.”

Anakin, whose temper has been uncertain for most of the past two weeks and who has been raging off and on for the past few hours, scowls darkly – an expression unfortunately painful more for it’s familiarity than its newness – face warping with anger until he is half snarling, and then begins to rant in a low, heated voice that makes part of Obi-Wan want to just curl up in a corner somewhere and cry. “What do you want me to say, Obi-Wan? That I’m sorry/? I could say that, I suppose, even though I tried to nearly two hours ago and you wouldn’t accept the apology. Or I suppose I could say that I’m sorry I accused you of being a hypocrite after you accused me, again, of acting like a jealous brat when you were the one who was so damned afraid of coming off as jealous or somehow envious of what Padmé and I had shared that you pretty much left the talking all up to me – at least until you decided that my tone was getting a bit too vicious towards the two-faced little coward I’d called my wife – but drok it, Obi-Wan, you /know how I am – how I was raised when I was on Tatooine and how much I cherish family because of that – you know how I hate hypocrisy and cowardice, and you know just how blunt I can be, especially when I’m angry! You know /what I can do, when I’m pushed, and you also know what I’ve given up for you, what I would give up for you, that I wouldn’t hesitate an instant to sacrifice myself for you! /You know what I am. And yet still you persist in trying to make me something different than what I am, expecting some kind of behavior from me other than what I can give, even though we both know just how far from the perfect little Jedi I’ve always been. What can I say to you? What do you want me to say to you? That I’m a spoiled rotten useless little selfish brat without any common sense or more than maybe one or two fully functional brain cells? Fine! So I’m a frakkin’ brat! That doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to be jealous because of the way that Padmé felt about you, even if /he /was in that other timeline!”

Obi-Wan forces himself to wait patiently until Anakin’s outburst has reached its close (even though every word hurts him and the naked look of anguish in Anakin’s eyes, at that last claim, cuts him like a knife) before he quietly declares, “No, Anakin, you aren’t. Or at least you don’t have to be.”

Clearly expecting to hear something else, Anakin just sits there for a moment, blinking at Obi-Wan and looking startled and confused, eyes widening and then narrowing ever so slightly.

Encouraged by the lack of a verbal response, Obi-Wan carefully continues to explain, voice quiet and even. “What you describe can be a source of your strength, love. Sometimes, at least,” he clarifies, deliberately leaning closer and holding Anakin’s gaze without blinking, until Anakin seems fascinated and can’t glance away from Obi-Wan’s eyes (despite an obvious sense of conflict, betrayed by several small, swiftly flickering facial movements – most involving the tensing of muscles around Anakin’s eyes and along his jawline). “I know how you were raised as a child, Anakin, and I know, also, how you were raised among the Jedi. I know how strong you are, how loyal you are . . . and also how unremittingly stubborn you can be. It drove you through those years on Tatooine, before we found you, and through those first few years on Coruscant, when I could barely even acknowledge you as a friend for fear of angering the High Council enough to give them a reason to take you from me and honestly thought that you would get tired of me and request a new Master, someone better suited for you and better trained for the task of raising a Padawan as gifted as you, at any moment. You were strong, though, and loyal, and stubborn, and so you wouldn’t give up on me. And sometimes your stubbornness meant that you were the only one not to leave me or to lose hope in me during a moment of crisis. I remember them all, beloved. Jabiim’s just one of the more spectacular examples of your utter refusal to give up on me in a long line of such moments.” Smiling with the whole of his heart in his eyes, Obi-Wan caresses Anakin’s cheek with his thumb, sweeping the pad in long, lazy, sensual arcs up across the sharpest plane of those magnificent cheekbones. “I think – I believe – that I am aware of what you have sacrificed for me and would still sacrifice for my sake, as well as who and what you are, Anakin Skywalker. But I also am beginning to believe that the passage of time has all but fossilized some of your conceptions of yourself, love.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Anakin breathes, eyes narrowing further even as his pupils grow steadily larger, looking as though he’s not quite sure whether he should be angry or just give in to the caress, accept it as a peace offering, and let the whole argument go.

But, “I know you don’t,” Obi-Wan replies, his voice even softer than before, as he leans in to kiss Anakin, a slow, almost hesitant press of lips that obviously expects to be rejected at any moment, even though Obi-Wan ends up being the one to draw back first, pulling away in a sudden jolting shock just before Anakin’s tongue can reach out enough to touch those barely parted lips and quest within them for its mate. “Anakin, love, things have changed since the days when you needed to rely on that stubbornness to survive, and they’re only going to keep changing, and much faster, now. You don’t need to fight so hard to preserve your beliefs or your uniqueness, among the Jedi, anymore. I know how strong you are: you don’t need to prove it to me – or to anyone else who truly knows you, either. What you need to focus on now isn’t your strength, love. In fact, it’s the exact opposite that concerns me – the weaknesses you cherish, made up of outgrown attitudes and inappropriate emotions that even you think of as frailties, as chinks in your armor, and yet still refuse to abandon, because you apparently also believe that admitting to them would result in yet another weakness. You know, in your heart, that you can’t rationally defend yourself if you behave as these weaknesses would have you do, and yet you refuse to admit that you’re wrong if you do give in to their urgings, and so the furthest you ever manage to get is this kind of sulky halfhearted defense of them. And if I could ever for one instant actually be persuaded to entertain even so much as the notion that all you ever really could be is the insufferable spoiled brat of a child that far too many of our fellow Jedi have for far too long assumed you to be, then perhaps I would be willing to consider accepting such an argument. But I’ve seen you at your best, at your strongest as well as at your noblest, Anakin. I’ve seen what you’re capable of, when you put forth even a modicum of actual effort. I do know who you really are – the man you sometimes try to hide from.” Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows, locking Anakin in a gaze so unabashedly intense that is actually makes Anakin flush, his cheeks turning a color much more normally seen on his former Master’s face. “You are the man who defied Darth Sidious for me; the man who refused to accept the word of the Jedi Council and never lost hope that I was still alive, after Jabiim; the man who has never even for a single moment accepted that I am simply the utterly insignificant and unexceptional person that I and the Jedi Order have always believed and expected me to be; and the man who has been brave enough to own up to his mistakes and, rather than using those failings as an excuse to hide behind the shadow of power, has chosen to expose himself to the Light and fight as one of its champions instead, ripping that shadow apart and steadfastly striving to rid himself of its taint, firm in the determination to never become the monster that the shadow would have had him become. You are that person, Anakin Skywalker. And if I don’t feel at all inclined to simply let you keep indulging in the kind of childishness antics and thoughtless behavior that you’ve used for over thirteen years, now, to disguise what lies at the core of you and so keep yourself safe from too close an examination from the High Council, then you’ve really only yourself to blame, Anakin, for it is only because of your braveness, your selflessness, your loyalty, and your unswervingly stubborn inability to stomach hypocrisy or to simply stand by silently forever and allow cowards like former Jedi Grand Master Yoda to knowingly perpetrate wrongs against the ones he is meant to be protecting and teaching and guiding towards the Light that we have been able to come to this point at all, when such changes as the loss of your mask are not only possible but inevitable, now,” Obi-Wan adds, hands tightening where they’ve migrated to Anakin’s shoulders. “Because that’s all it is, you know. A mask. I know it and you know it. I was the one who helped you choose and refine several of its main features, in the hopes that it would protect you from the High Council, remember? I was the one who helped you when you decided to hide just how gifted and intelligent you truly are from the rest of the Jedi Order, so that you would be better able to fit in with your agemates. And just as I was the one who always insisted on more distance between us, in public, than you were every happy or comfortable with, so that our fellow Jedi hopefully wouldn’t be tempted to look more closely at either one of us, I was also the one who told you that things would be both easier and safer for us if you allowed certain of the other Jedi’s preconceptions to go unchallenged, so that they would not be tempted to find more reasons to protest either our pairing or your presence in the Temple. This charade is not and never has been who you are, Anakin Skywalker. I agreed to it only because I wanted to keep you safe – and, at the time, I was terrified over almost losing you,” Obi-Wan adds, a distant, haunted look coming into his eyes as he again recalls the shock of nearly losing Anakin – the supposedly accidental near-drowning that Ferus Olin had caused and the way Anakin had broken down and cried, afterwards, that he had only taken the challenge because he wanted so desperately to fit in and make new friends, and his agemates were already whispering about how he was a freak, not because he didn’t belong there with them, but because he knew too much and could do too much and caught on too quickly for one who had never had any formal Jedi training and was already ten years old. “A part of me has always regretted that decision and never stopped mourning for its necessity. It is beyond wrong that you should have had to hide so much of yourself, just to be able to stay with me in the Temple and receive training. But you no longer have to hide yourself, Anakin. You don’t need a mask to protect you. So why – ?”

“That – that doesn’t make it any easier,” Anakin finally protests, voice shaking slightly as he cuts Obi-Wan off before he can finish the question. “It doesn’t make the feelings any less real or any less a part of me. That mask you’re talking about is who and what I’ve been for most of my life. That mask is doubtlessly what most of the Jedi who aren’t close friends of yours like Bant or who haven’t personally worked with us on a mission think of me as being – if they ever think of me as separate from the prophecy of the Chosen One at all! And it’s not just them! Even though Bail Organa is a good friend of yours and really should know better, I still get the feeling that this mask is probably the first thing our own Padawan sees, whenever he looks at me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t decide if he really believes there’s an Anakin Skywalker under all of that or if he just trusts you enough to have faith that there’s more to me that meets the eye.” The noise Anakin makes so far from a laugh that it’s almost a sob. Bitterly, he then adds, “And I know that it’s all that the Sith Lord ever really saw in me. That kriffing mask is the part of me that Palpatine used as a way to get under my skin and set his hooks in me and twist me until I was so turned around that I never would’ve even realized how he was using me until it was far too late, without you there to catch me when I started to fall and save me from myself as well as from him. And that /mask /– ” Anakin continues, on a roll now, voice starting to gather volume.

“ – is a hollow lie that the Jedi Council and the other blind hypocrites in the Order forced on you, which you know as well as I do. And if you can’t let go of that lie now, Anakin, then what chance do you really think you have of convincing me to ‘unlearn’ everything that the Jedi have taught me to assume about myself that you keep telling me is all just another such pack of lies?” Obi-Wan asks, cutting in so smoothly and so quietly that it’s almost possible to overlook the actual signs of very real concern lurking in the back of Obi-Wan’s haunted eyes and in writ in the tenser than normal quality to the skin around both those eyes and his mouth.

Almost.

With a sudden sigh, Anakin seems to deflate into the chair, shoulders slumping under Obi-Wan’s hands, eyes shutting almost painfully tight. “I’d say that’s unfair,” he grumbles, seemingly half to himself, “but I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good. The universe doesn’t care about fair, after all, does it?”

“No, Anakin. It doesn’t. I’m sorry – ”

“Why?” Anakin only demands, cutting him off in turn. “It’s not your fault. You’re right. I need to stop acting like I’m still ten years old and terrified of the High Council taking you from me. Besides, from what I can tell, that damned mask and all the bad habits it’s inspired would’ve been most of the basis for Vader’s personality, if Sidious had actually succeeded in getting his filthy claws into me. That should be reason enough right there for me to pull the whole ugly mass of lies and half-truths and darkness up out of myself by the roots, if necessary. It’s just . . . hard, Obi-Wan. I mean, it’s easy enough with you, but with other people . . . the mask is easier. The thoughtlessness is easier. The bluntness is easier. Even the anger is easier. And knowing that it hurts other people doesn’t keep it from seeming appealing because it is just so much easier. Just like it’s easier to tell yourself that people deserve to get hurt if they can be as stupid and selfish as Padmé was being when I got so angry with her. Even knowing that it’s exactly this kind of ugly, twisted thinking that leads to the insanities that both the Jedi and the Sith call the Dark Side doesn’t seem to help. It’s still easier. Obi-Wan, what – what if I – if I’m just not cut out for this? What if I really /am /destined to be Vader?” he finally forces himself to ask, by then visibly trembling.

The look on Obi-Wan’s face is so close to real anger that Anakin actually flinches back, even before Obi-Wan can open his mouth to reply. “Anakin Skywalker, don’t you dare believe that claptrap, even for a moment! You’re no more destined to become evil than I was ever destined to be raised as a Jedi in the way that I was!”

“But if I was made to – ”

“Do you honestly think that a Force with that kind of absolute control over individual lives would have allowed you to come into being if you were truly destined for such a life?”

“Well, no, but – ”

“Do you actually believe that the Force would have welcomed you to it and then released you again, in the process creating you a new body – not once but over and over and over again – if you were still fated to end up leading such a life?”

“But what if – ”

“/No/, Anakin. This isn’t a ‘what if’ game. This is an important issue that we are having a serious discussion about. You’ve asked me a question, and in return you must now answer my question.”

“Alright then! No! But – ”

“Then do you perhaps think so little of me that you believe I would be capable of giving my heart to someone who is foredoomed to lead a life of evil?”

The look in Anakin’s eyes, as he stares at Obi-Wan, is half that of a man who has been sucker-punched and half that of a drowning man desperately reaching out for a saving hand. “/No!/ I would never – Obi-Wan – Force! No! A thousand times, no! I’d never think so little of you! Obi-Wan – ”

“Then why are you so terrified, still, of the very thought of Vader?”

Anakin’s shoulders twitch violently under Obi-Wan’s palms, as if he’s considering curling in on himself in an effort to hide, but instead, after taking a visibly deep breath, he opens his eyes and holds Obi-Wan’s gaze. Then, voice utterly flat (despite the almost palpable anguish in his eyes), he replies, “I watched as I killed you in those far-sight visions, Obi-Wan. Over and over and over again, in all of those timelines that were all so alike that they were essentially just an extended exercise in whatever was most likely to happen. And apparently what was most probable out of all of the possible future pathways was that I would inevitably end up killing you and not even feel anything but a sort of . . . dim disappointment in that whole awful farce of a fight, followed by a kind of . . . vaguely hollow unease, that you would vanish bodily before my blade, disappearing out of your clothes and leaving behind nothing tangible of yourself but a pair of old, faded robes, and a lightsaber that I could tell hadn’t seen nearly as many days as I had in that damned monstrosity of a black mechanical suit. I was dead enough inside that I went to that battle expecting to kill you. I’d tortured my own daughter without ever recognizing her or even sensing her strength in the Force and nearly killed my own son more than once before I decided that making him a Sith would be a fit sort of vengeance against you. I think I have a right to be terrified of the part of me that could do those things and yet feel so little about it, Obi-Wan.”

In response, though, Obi-Wan only grips his shoulders harder than ever, giving Anakin a bit of a shake. “Anakin,” he sighs, letting both as much disgust and as much affection as he possibly can into his voice, his tone plainly inserting both ‘you utter idiot/’ and ‘beloved’ around the name. “How many times must I tell you that /you are not Vader before you finally start to believe me?” He shuts Anakin’s mouth with a kiss, cutting off whatever protest he might have been planning, the kiss both fierce and strong and full of so much love that Anakin trembles against him, his whole body shaking.

By the time Obi-Wan pulls away, the tremors wracking Anakin have turned to a case of full-body shakes. Anakin isn’t quite crying, but his eyes are dark and wet as he whispers, voice shaking as badly as his body, “But how do you know I won’t be, some day?”

“Because I know your soul and there is no true darkness in it. Because I know your mind and there is neither evil nor insanity of any kind within its confines. Because I know your heart and it is warm and open and giving and trusting and loving even though it seems your whole life has been one attempt after another to drive the ability to feel all of these things out of you. But most of all, Anakin, because the man whose spirit is mingled with mine even when he draws away from the bond we share would rather die than become such a monster, and I would join him in death in an instant if I could even imagine such a thing might still be possible.”

“Obi-Wan – you shouldn’t – you don’t know – you can’t know – ”

“Actually, love, I can. I’ve been with you long enough and I’ve shared all that I am with all that you are more than enough times to know such things quite well, Anakin Skywalker. If you can’t yet trust yourself, can you not at least trust in me?”

“Oh, not fair!” The words are breathed out in a rush, the strangled noise accompanying them a sort of half horrified and half hysterical little laugh, but then the shields Anakin has been desperately clinging to, to keep his end of their bond at least mostly shut off, all come rushing down, and Anakin throws himself at Obi-Wan with enough force to spin him out of the chair and send them both tumbling to the deck of the ship, Anakin clinging to him and kissing him as if he never intends to let go again.

And while the issue might not be entirely resolved yet, they are at least further enough along on the way to coming terms with it that Obi-Wan can feel free to simply laugh in reply, joyously and almost victoriously, as he’s borne down under Anakin’s weight, returning the kiss and rising along the bond to meet Anakin, holding him close and reassuring him of his love and his certainty in every way that he knows how.

***

Most of the next day passes in a tangled haze of sharing and comfort and love, as Obi-Wan and Anakin try to come to terms with everything that happened on Naboo and the various emotions (mostly uncertainty and self-doubt and self-recrimination) prompted by Padmé’s brief reappearance in their lives. They end up sharing many of their emotions with each other directly across their bond, since sharing emotions in this manner is often both easier and quicker than trying to find words that can explain how they truly feel. (Plus, the fact that attempting to put his feelings into words makes Obi-Wan feel woefully inadequate and clumsy to boot rather tends to defeat the purpose of trying to calm and reassure each other.) This kind of sharing (not just mind to mind but soul to soul) isn’t always easy on them, though, as there are certain things that both men still believe about themselves that neither one of them is quite able to let go of completely, even when one of them is firmly, determinedly, and consistently pointing out to the other just how untrue and damaging those beliefs really are and just how much they need to be rejected so that they can be safely moved past. On more than a few occasions the combination of frustration and disappointment caused by these failures to completely heal the results of each other’s mental scars and psychic traumas with the frankly overwhelming experience of sharing so many of their emotions ends up resulting in one or the other or both simply breaking down, and it is during one of these sessions that Obi-Wan finally allows himself to just be held by Anakin while he cries, entirely without shame or fear, for perhaps the first time ever in conscious memory – a frankly purging experience that leaves both men feeling much lighter (if not necessarily better or more certain about themselves) than before, as if they’ve finally succeeded in removing a shared chain with a massive weight from around their necks.

Thankfully, this experience also succeeds in bringing about some lasting results, as the experience seems to break something deep within Obi-Wan, a barrier that he has not even been consciously aware of crumbling away to bare a great deal more of the subconscious workings of Obi-Wan’s mind and the usually buried so deep that they are essentially entirely unknown (not just unacknowledged but literally entirely unrealized) longings of his heart, opening Obi-Wan up to Anakin in such a way that Anakin can no longer doubt just how strongly or how absolutely his feelings for Anakin run. Strangely enough, the experience also reveals the presence of another, even more deeply buried barrier, one with walls so high and so impenetrable that not even Obi-Wan can get through them, leaving them both to wonder just how in the name of the Force such a barrier might have come about in the first place and what in all the worlds might actually be hidden away behind it. No matter what they try, though, neither one seems to be able to affect the strength of that barrier, and so in the end they’re forced to simply work around it as best they can, continuing to both confront and conquer their doubts and fears together as best they can – an agonizingly slow, painstaking, and both physically and mentally exhaustive process, where the successes they achieve are all too often measured in millimeters rather than in steps (much less full strides forward). They spend most of their time in the enormous bed that Tion Medon helped Anakin smuggle aboard the ship, curled close around each other and (far too often for either of their liking) able to do little more hold tight, too drained to do anything else but cleave together and murmur tired but heartfelt promises to one another along the open bond. The little energy that they have goes towards gentle caresses and long, deep kisses, their bodies touching and igniting in a slow smouldering burn that eventually peaks in a conflagration so explosive and powerful that the bleed-over from the energy they generate ends up scouring the metallic walls (and floor and ceiling) of the bedroom an almost painfully bright and seemingly untouched luster, as if the metal were not only brand new but naturally polished to a mirrorlike shine.

They are still tangled together, Obi-Wan draped across Anakin like a blanket, when the half-hour warning for reversion to realspace finally chimes. “Hmm.” Obi-Wan looks around for a few moments, considering the startling effect of the almost incandescently bright walls through slightly narrowed eyes, before he finally sits back so that Anakin can sit up on the bed too and get a good look, himself. “It may eventually become problematic, if we keep on generating more and more power like this. I wonder if there’s a better way to channel the excess energy . . . ”

“I’m sure the Force will let us know before it can become dangerous,” Anakin opinions, placing a hand on Obi-Wan’s right shoulder and squeezing it comfortingly. “Until then, we have other things to worry about. Come on. Let’s get cleaned up and dressed. We’ll be coming up on Alderaan pretty soon, now.”

“True enough. And Bail will need us,” Obi-Wan agrees, nodding. “Alright, then. Come and explain to me again why you believe that reminding him that he and his wife were not true heart-mates, for all that they cared for each other, will help to ease both his pain at losing her and his guilt over the manner of Breha’s death . . . ”

***

Aside from a few more signs of increased security measures on the outskirts of the actual planetary system (though there are likely other such measures hidden away on the surface of the world itself), Alderaan is much as the two Jedi Bendu remember it from their last visit, a little over a year previously. Most life-sustaining and obviously fertile settled worlds (the kinds with Type I and Type II atmospheres) appear peaceful, prosperous, and even pulchitrudinous from space, but relatively few retain that sense of pleasantness on closer approach. Even deeper into Alderaan’s intoxicating atmosphere, though – closer to its montage of alabaster clouds, indigo and aquamarine seas, and green and blue plains – the picture of near-perfection and tranquility holds. Coruscant’s neighbor in the Core truly is a gem of a world, a breathtakingly beautiful world more than deserving of its unofficial title as the “Shining Star” of the Republic (now the New Alliance of the Republic). It has also long been one of both Obi-Wan and Anakin’s favorite planets to visit (though their visits have, unfortunately, been few and far between, given the High Council’s determination to keep Anakin on Coruscant and under the watchful, collective eye of the Council), and their approach vector is a familiar one, taking them in over an enormous plain of flowing windblown grass boasting a kilometers-wide complex abstract design (elements of which, they are pleased and both slightly amused and somewhat embarrassed to note, resemble colorful variations on both the traditional sigil of the eight-spoked wheel of the Jedi Bendu and the much simpler heraldic symbol of the Open Circle Armada) picked out in both blossoming wild flowers and cultivated blooms in all imaginable shades and hues of the rainbow as well as multicolored and variegated grasses and herbs. These designs change with each season, so they take the time to admire the new grass paintings and as they fly over, Anakin making sure to keep enough distance between their ship and the ground to avoid any possibility of damaging the field’s contents.

Out beyond the plains where the grass painters create their beautiful art is the enormous lake (really a small freshwater inland sea) that holds the island where Aldera, the capital city of Alderaan, lies. Most of this lake actually rests within the enormous impact crater of a long-ago asteroid collision that broke through several underground aquifers and eventually filled with the water welling up from those subterranean springs, and the remains of this huge and (in geological terms, at least) relatively recent crater surround not quite two-thirds of the lake in a complex series of low, jagged foothills and green-sided mountains whose sides are now liberally splashed with a mixture of green fields and forests. The rest of the lake spills out over the remainder of the encircling wall of the crater into what had originally been a deep, natural fissure of a crescent-shaped valley, leaving the highest portion of that submerged crater wall above the waterline as the island and city of Aldera and extending the northern boundary of the lake so that the overall shape of the lake is not a perfect circle but instead rather more like the idealized crescent shape of a moon overlaying an ever so slightly smaller sun. As they approach the island-city, the untainted freshwater filling millennia-old crater sparkles a brilliant ice-blue in the bright mid-morning rays of Alderaan’s sun. The actual spaceport is on the far western side of the island, and normally they would come in for a landing there and catch one of the free shuttles back into the city-proper, but the moment they announce their imminent arrival the voice of an obviously worried, exhausted, and grieving Raymus Antilles comes over the comm, asking them to check course and redirect to the smaller (but easily large enough to accommodate their small craft), private landing pads on the grounds adjourning the actual Palace. Anakin reorients with a shrug, and then they are coming up on the island itself, the metropolis gleaming white in the golden sunshine, as glittering and luxurious and clean as a city in a dream.

Aldera is one of the few obviously high-tech cities of Alderaan, and yet even it has been crafted to its environment, fashioned to fit within nature rather than to sit apart from it, its ultra-modern towers and domes and layered buildings (their largely white – though occasionally that almost blindingly perfect whiteness shades towards alabaster, eggshell, cream, vanilla, oyster, ivory, argent, pearl, and even platinum – shapes generously interspersed with grassy terraces filled with riotously blooming gardens and high-splashing fountains and small meadows with winding brooks shaded by towering trees) modeled after natural shapes of water, as if nature herself has created the city by taking up such things as a drift of ice and snow, an unfurling swirl of mist rising to meet a lowering bank of fog, a wind-sculpted mound of cloud, and an artlessly gorgeous fall of water and then fashioning them all into a perfectly fitted collection of glowing, gleaming, flowing, and often streamlined or aerodynamic buildings. Since the city’s architects have followed the rather hilly natural lines of the island instead of simply leveling them off, the overall impression is that of a city where the buildings are both pleasingly matched together and yet also wondrously diverse in both setting and shape, the actual shapes of the buildings varying according to which nature-inspired form would best fit in with its natural surroundings. And because the Alderaanian culture values education, fine and performing arts, and peace as well as a harmonious existence with one’s natural surroundings, they pass over many fountain-filled plazas and blooming or tree-lined courtyards, clean streets and affluent homes, and even more schools, museums, and gigantic enclosed galleries than they do actual office and government buildings (despite Aldera being the seat and center of the Alderaanian government) as they journey towards the heart of the city, where the tall, sharp, icicle-like spires and shallow, water-round domes of the Alderaanian Royal Palace shine white and gold in the sun.

Their new course has them touching down in an open spot slotted between several rows of various different kinds of small crafts, many of them intended solely for atmosphere use, and an immaculately dressed (still in the traditional iconic blue-gray and gray uniform of the Royal Alderaanian Civil Fleet, although granted he is conspicuously missing his target blaster, despite the face that he and his wife are the rulers of Alderaan now in everything but name) but still haggard looking Raymus Antilles is waiting for them when they lower the landing ramp of the modified Belbullab-22. “Thank the Force!” are the first words out of the future Crown Prince of Alderaan’s mouth. “Bendu Masters Kenobi and Skywalker, on behalf of Alderaan, let me thank you both for coming so quickly. Bail has locked himself in his and Breha’s rooms and he refuses to come out or to allow anyone else in to go in to see him. Masters, we’re all very worried about him. He’s refusing to answer the comm and as far as anyone knows hasn’t had anything to eat since he got here, a little over three days ago. Not even Sheltay can get through to him, and she’s the one who was finally able to reach him after Breha’s last miscarriage. If you could just get him to unlock his doors – ”

“Don’t worry, Captain Antilles. We’ll see to this. Anakin and I are your cousin’s Masters and we will take good care of him,” Obi-Wan promises, gently cutting Raymus off before he can finish making the obvious plea and taking care to infuse his voice with absolute calm and certainty so that he can help soothe the man’s obviously worn and ragged nerves.

“If all else fails, I’m sure I can hot-wire the doors,” Anakin adds, smiling reassuringly at the earnest, if patently exhausted, young man (who isn’t all that much older than Anakin and tall enough that his dress boots bring him on a level with Anakin’s eyes, despite Anakin’s recent and measurable – if far less noticeable than Obi-Wan’s – growth) and startling a small but genuine smile out of him.

“I’m sure it won’t come to that, though,” Obi-Wan notes, voice and manner still perfectly calm and soothing, though his unvoiced laughter makes the bond hum with so much good humor that Anakin is sorely tempted to grin and has to remind himself of the serious circumstances to keep that grin from surfacing. “Anakin and I know the way and can show ourselves up to his rooms, if you would like to go back to your family, now. We were told that our children were left in the care of Jedi Bendu Master Healer Bant Eerin on Coruscant and that the three of them would be coming here with junior Consul Mon Mothma, senior Consul Fang Zar, Senators Garm Bel Iblis, Nee Alavar, and Bana Breemu, and some others from the Senate who wish to pay their respects to Milady Breha. They should be here within the day,” he adds, warning Raymus of the imminent arrival of several politically powerful individuals without actually coming right out and telling him that he has other things to worry about besides his cousin.

“I wasn’t aware of that, Master Kenobi. Thank you for the warning. If you’re certain that you can find your way – ?”

“Quite sure, Captain Antilles,” Obi-Wan replies, smiling and nodding reassuringly.

“One of us will comm, if we need anything,” Anakin adds helpfully when the future ruler of Alderaan continues to hesitate.

The man just continues to stand there, though, brows furrowed and dark eyes going hazy and distant with thought, so preoccupied that he begins to gnaw worriedly on his lower lip, before finally, hesitantly, he ventures, “Masters . . . ?”

“Yes?” Obi-Wan patiently asks back, gently prompting him to continue, after waiting a few moments to see if he will add anything else.

“Masters, I wouldn’t normally bring this up, but you are both his Masters and his friends, and he truly need your help,” Raymus finally admits with a sigh, shoulders slumping in defeat. “If I may speak freely, Masters . . . ?”

“Raymus, you may always speak your mind with us,” Obi-Wan assures the young man, carefully putting aside his own growing worry to project only warmth and concern and trust, to as to hopefully put the troubled young man at ease. “Anakin and I never have cared overly much for ceremony and are your cousin’s Masters. We really would prefer that you speak freely.”

“Thank you, Master Kenobi. The truth is that none of us really know what to do. Bail is taking this much harder than anyone in this family would have expected – he’s refusing to see anyone and we just don’t know how to help him. My sister . . . Breha was a good person, but she was . . . not herself, the past half decade. She wanted a child of her own very badly, and did not react well to learning that she could not have one. She insisted on trying, over and over again, even though the doctors and the healers all told her that it would not be possible, and, with every attempt that failed and resulted in a miscarriage, she drew more and more in upon herself and away from her family. We all tried to help her – especially Bail – but with the advent of actual civil war . . . ” Raymus’ voice trails off and his shoulder slump even further as he sighs and sadly shakes his head. “She kept insisting that she was perfectly all right and that she just needed some time and space for herself, to try to come to terms with it all. Somehow, though, in spite of the fact that she was becoming more and more distant from all of us, including Bail, she persuaded Bail to try one more time – after which she had yet another miscarriage, right around the time that the battle for Jabiim was about to heat up, and was told, in no uncertain terms, that if she tried to have another child again, it would end up costing her not only the child’s life but also her own. For months, afterwards, she was utterly inconsolable, to the point where she would actually refuse to willingly leave their rooms . . . and then she suddenly seemed to get better and come back to her senses, returning to herself and essentially acting more like herself than she had at any time during most of the previous four years. Bail was as angry as I have ever seen him, when he discovered, almost a year later, that she’d actually found a way around the safety precautions they’d taken and conceived yet again. She was extremely lucky, that time. She began to bleed and lost the child less than two months into her term. Afterwards, Bail had the surgeons remove her uterus, convincing them to do so against Breha’s wishes by citing her repeated attempts to conceive as suicide attempts, given her condition. They . . . essentially stopped speaking, after that. I believe the only reason the marriage remained intact is because Bail feared that a divorce might kill what little was left of her spirit or destroy what was left of her sanity. She was . . . very fragile, afterwards. Bail did his best to try to help her, and it seemed to be helping, but she still wouldn’t leave their rooms. I know they’d begun making motions towards reconciliation – after Winter was born, Bail offered the option of adoption and fosterage to try to interest Breha in some kind of life outside of her work and her own mind, again – but she’d become a virtual shell of herself by then. I don’t know now or why she managed to organize passage for herself to Coruscant, after receiving word about Bail’s injuries, but I do know that the reason it took so long for anyone to miss her and to figure out what had happened is that she never came out of her rooms anymore, leaving orders with the droids to bring and then remove trays and essentially having no real contact with anyone or anything outside of that one wing of the Palace. Anyone aside from Bail was only ever allowed inside the suite by invitation and it had become routine for there to not be any such invitations issued sometimes for a week or two weeks at a time, especially while Bail was away. It was assumed that she had simply withdrawn again, after hearing about Bail, and it was only when it was discovered that an entire ship and crew were missing that anyone began to search for her. So we’re all feeling just a little bit . . . lost . . . when it comes to understanding Bail’s reaction to losing her, much less trying to help him.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows have nearly managed to climb up to his hairline by the time Raymus finishes speaking, but when he speaks it is with the same calm and reassuring warmth as before, his voice soothing enough that Raymus stops trying to burn a hole through the floor and actually looks back up. “I did not know things had gotten so bad for them, but I understand why you would all want to keep such problems within the family. Thank you for taking the time to explain this to us. This should help us a great deal.”

“Bail likely would have told you all of this himself, Master Kenobi, if not for the war. I know he didn’t want to add any more burdens to the weight you were already carrying. I don’t believe he would object to either one of you knowing, now,” Raymus replies, shrugging slightly. “Masters, if there’s anything you find that you need, please, don’t hesitate to call on any of us. We all care about Bail a great deal and want him to be happy in his new life. What happened to my sister was not in any way his fault.”

“One of us will comm, if it becomes necessary. Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll be able to work this out. Bail is a very smart person and he won’t be able to blame himself for this for very long with both of us here determined to explain to him exactly how it isn’t,” Anakin predicts, his smile so bright and infectious that it actually tugs at the corner’s of Raymus’ mouth, even though the desolate and uncertain light never quite leaves the man’s eyes.

“Force will it be so, Master Skywalker,” is Raymus’ earnestly fervent response, his hollow-out, bloodshot eyes shutting tight. Visibly gathering himself and his remaining strength back up, he then adds, “If you’re certain you can find your way, then I’ll leave you to it, Masters, while I see to it that everything is prepared for our others visitors. Thank you . . . and good luck.”

***