FicWad

*Author’s Note: I am not a physicist. The idea of being able to destroy a spirit (which is essentially a kind of energy) or an entity of the Force (which is another kind of energy, the Force being a kind of energy [and energy being convertible to mass or to specific work functions]) by disrupting to the point of destroying and/or dispersing to the point of cancelling out the waveform pattern inherent to that entity or that spirit's energy is based on what I remember about the principle of destruction interference, which is what happens when two out of phase waves collide. Contrawise, I'm assuming that waves that are in phase or close enough to being in phase with one another would undergo constructive interference, which would result in, well, something like what we get when Anakin and Obi-Wan join forces, or when Jedi form a Force meld or battle meld (which is a sort of refinement of battle meditation that involves a synergistic joining together and sharing of different minds and abilities among the whole of such a joined group).








The Antilles family has commissioned a life-sized model of Lady Breha, as a substitute for the body that was destroyed in the attack that took her life. The result is a virtual masterpiece – an almost eerily perfect facsimile, the various pieces all carefully cast and carved and fitted together, every single joint articulated to perfection, the whole painted, stained, and polished to an almost lifelike glow, and dressed in one of Lady Breha’s favorite blue gowns – but there is something all but disconcertingly macabre about its presence in the coffin. She looks just as real as Padmé had seemed in her funereal barque, as if the Queen had just lain down for a nap and not yet risen again, and, after catching Bail flinching as he ran the pads of his fingertips lightly across the cold, carven features of the doll’s face for the third time in as many hours, Anakin and Obi-Wan deliberately start interposing themselves between their Padawan and the open casket, even though they’re both quite discomfited by not only the oddly perfect copy but also the similarity between the false Breha, in her elaborate blue dress, and Padmé, in her water-like funeral gown.

The five days remaining for the funeral and wake cannot pass quickly enough in either Anakin or Obi-Wan’s opinion – in fact, they drag by with an almost painful slowness, filled with speeches and funerary processions across the whole of Aldera (which is quite a bit larger than Theed and so requires two solid days of touring) and a (thankfully) brief, awkward visit on the third day from the Grand Masters, who unfortunately have no real news of progress in the search through Sidious’ records for word of any hostages or victims of experiments, react rather badly when the subject is brought up, and rather pointedly and quite rapidly change the subject to Bail’s mental health and the progress they’ve had in teaching him how to shield himself, prompting an almost violent exchange of words during which even Obi-Wan finds himself hard-pressed to keep his temper – and they find themselves clinging together at night with a fierceness that surprises them. Anakin, distracted and reckless with a mixture of anxiety and grief that he can’t even begin to explain properly to himself (after all, he barely even knew the woman, for pity’s sake! Or at least so he keeps telling himself), pushes Obi-Wan to experiment some more with the newly discovered ability to travel without moving, via the Force, and, after three tries on the second night, Anakin finally manages to accompany Obi-Wan as he transitions from the Alderaanian Royal Palace to the outskirts of the Maeramund chapterhouse. Anakin is so elated by their shared success that he practically tackles Obi-Wan, and, despite some initial protests from Obi-Wan, they end up making love right there, in a small glen on the outskirts of the forest settlement, out in the open where anyone might have stumbled over them.

Since they aren’t caught (or seen, as far as they know) and they do discover that they tend to both accrue and give off less energy from the Force if they’ve been channeling enough of the Force recently enough beforehand to be at least temporarily a little exhausted, in terms of being able to use the Force, Obi-Wan doesn’t complain too much (though he blushes at odd points and is a little quieter and more self-reserved than he has been lately for much of the next two days). It’s one bright spot in an otherwise fairly miserable week, as is the discovery, two nights later, that this method of travel isn’t confined only to whatever planet they happen to be on, as Obi-Wan accidentally takes Anakin with him when an ill-timed announcement from the door unit that Mon Mothma of Chandrila is seeking either an audience or to leave a message makes him picture Chandrila during a critical moment. They appear, safe and sound but for shock, on the shores of Lake Sa’hot, not far from Hanna City, instead of in the Alderaanian Castle Lands. Anakin insists on being the one to take them back to their suite in the Royal Palace, and this time the tackle is fairly mutual. They don’t make it to the bed that night, but they do figure out how they’re going to keep in close with Bail and the twins during missions that are too dangerous to take infants or new Padawans on, and they account it more than a fair trade. They present Mon Mothma with blue Chandrilan roses early the next morning, to apologize for missing her when she visited and neglecting to respond to her message any earlier, and leave the young woman so stunned over their gift of flowers from a plant renown for being too picky to survive off of Chandrila that she forgets to ask where they actually were, that evening. And as it appears that all she wanted, when she attempted to visit them, was to ask them if they thought it would be appropriate for her to accept the invitation to witness the ceremony in which Bail will become Winter’s honor-father, even Obi-Wan doesn’t feel all that guilty about it, either for failing to reply to her sooner or for distracting her with the flowers so that she won’t ask any potentially sticky questions. Using the Force to apparently teleport safely from one location to another represents both a potential tactical weapon and a means of defense for the Jedi Bendu that they would rather not risk getting out just yet, not even with someone they trust as much as Mon Mothma.

Bail surprises them by doing very well throughout the funeral – possibly because he keeps himself so busy calling on old allies and recruiting new supporters for parts of the plan arrived at by Obi-Wan, Ankin, Mon, Alessya, Alaina, Raymus, and Sheltay for bringing healing, peace, and prosperity to the galaxy that he has no real time to think, debating and winning over the initially standoffish senior Consul Fang Zar (who tellingly arrives on a separate ship from Coruscant the morning after Mon’s arrival) and Senator Garm Bel Iblis (who arrives with Fang Zar), the polite but distant junior Consul Grebleips, and the tentatively supportive (but either somewhat cautious about Jedi, initially still too bitter about the ravages of the war to be very supportive of any plans deliberately designed to knit Separatist worlds and organizations back into the fabric of galactic government and economy, or else simply too wary of the idea of a powerful, centralized galactic government after the abuses the Sith Lord heaped upon the system to want anything to do with an attempt to create a new central power) senior Consul Meena Tills, Senators Tundra Dowmeia, Nee Alavar, Bana Breemu, Eeusu Estornii, Ivor Drake, Malé-Dee, Shea Sadashassa, the grim Giddean Danu, the competitive Terr Taneel and Chi Eekway, and others from or associated with the old Loyalist Committee – all the way up until the day of the wake. It’s the request for him to be one of the main speakers for Breha that finally undoes him. He doesn’t feel worthy of speaking for Breha, yet he feels duty-bound to speak for her, and the internal conflict nearly manages to lay waste to his shields, before his anguish finally grows beyond his ability to keep from them and wakes them from a sound sleep to bring them running to his bedchamber in the wee hours of the morn.

After an hour and a half of talking, Obi-Wan finally manages to calm Bail down enough to let him help repair the damage that’s been done to his shields, but Anakin is the one who asks to be left alone for a quiet word with Bail, afterwards, and he’s the one who ends up staying with him for nearly three hours, until it’s finally late enough in the day that they all need to get moving if they want to be able to have breakfast. “I had a long talk with him about shared responsibility and the differences between romantic love and infatuation and simple caring,” Anakin explains tiredly, when Obi-Wan finally gets him alone to ask. “We have a lot in common, all things considered, and we talked about a great deal of it. It helped. I think it probably even helped both of us, to tell you the truth. So don’t worry about it, okay? He should be alright now.”
The thought of Padmé makes Obi-Wan want to wince, and he hesitates a bit longer than he might have, otherwise, in an attempt to keep that instinctive flinch from escaping him, before he finally asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No offense, love, but I think I’m about talked-out, for today. Maybe later, alright?”

He isn’t sure he should let the subject fall, but Anakin’s eyes are darkened by exhaustion and pain, and they still have over seven hours to get through, before the wake will be over with, so Obi-Wan nods and opens his arms slightly, hoping Anakin will take the comfort he’s offering.

Anakin smiles and nestles himself against Obi-Wan with a soft sigh, and, in that moment, he’s certain that it’s all the answer he really needs.

But he regrets not pushing the issue when, later that evening, when the wake is finally over and they’ve gotten Bail safely to his bed and retired to their own suite. The moment the door closes behind them, Anakin’s shoulders slump, and he notes, in an oddly detached voice, “Bail has been so busy blaming himself for not keeping Breha safe and well that he hasn’t yet realized the manner in which he is actually culpable in her death. As much as I dislike the idea of keeping something from him, I don’t think he would react well to the knowledge, Obi-Wan. We need to try to keep him from guessing.”

Obi-Wan is caught so off-guard by Anakin’s flat statements that his mind blanks with shock and he nearly stutters in reaction. “Guessing? But whatever do you mean?”

“Obi-Wan, Bail’s an excellent pilot. I’ve seen him fly, and he’s probably as good as if not better than many of the Jedi were, before the war. He flies on his instincts, and his instincts have always allowed the Force to guide his hands. Why do you think he and Mon and Padmé survived that crash, in every other probable timeline with such an invasion of Coruscant? In ever other one of those possible timelines, the Force guided him into a controlled crash landing from which he and his passengers would all be able to walk away. But it did not happen in this timeline, and it isn’t because Bail suddenly became any less gifted in the Force than he normally is when the moment of crisis came. If anything, for some reason, at the most critical juncture of events, Bail became more powerful, more in tune with the Force, more capable of knowing and of carrying out its will. And that is what he did. He gave himself completely over to the Force, and what resulted was what, to all appearances, would seem to be simply a crash, rather than a controlled crash. And so Padmé died. And Bail was injured so badly that Breha got on a ship and tried to come to Coruscant, placing herself squarely in the middle of a line of retreat for the remaining Separatist ships fleeing Coruscanti space. Breha and the others on the Winter’s Heart weren’t just collateral damage – they were the payoff, the price in blood that had to be sacrificed to ensure that Padmé died before Darth Sidious could use her against me, as the lynchpin in his master plan to turn me. And Bail is the one who made it possible. For whatever reason – whether because something happened to him differently, earlier on in the timeline, to make him more open to the Force, or whether because of the intervention of someone or something else able to touch him through the Force and get him to open up more to the Force than he should have known how to or been able to – Bail is the one who changed things. And I don’t think he could take it, just now, to know that he’s the one who set Breha’s death into motion, when he allowed himself to become the means by which the Force could remove the threat that Sidious had crafted Padmé into being. I don’t even think that knowing what he prevented from coming into being would help make it any more palatable – at least not just yet. His trust in the Force isn’t strong enough yet for that kind of knowledge. We need to do what we can to keep him from stumbling over it, somehow.”

Shock makes Obi-Wan’s knees go weak, and he finds himself groping blindly for a chair. “Are you sure of these things?”

Anakin nods bleakly, propping himself up against the closed door. “As sure as I can be, without knowing if Qui-Gon or some other Force spirit had something to do with making Bail the one who would change things.”

Feeling the shape of a chair behind him, Obi-Wan sinks gratefully down into its cushions before attempting to frame a reply. “Qui-Gon . . . Anakin, you don’t think – ?”

A bit sharply, Anakin cuts him off, declaring, “I think it’s awfully convenient that he just happened to be there, to catch Padmé’s soul when she died. I think it’s just a little bit odd that your far-sight visions never seem to show any beings who exist as part of the Force until after they have revealed their existence to us, like Qui-Gon and Dooku did. I think it’s downright suspicious that the being who came to visit Bail in his sleep spoke of Xanatos of Telos as if he somehow managed to become either a Force ghost or a Force spirit when his body perished.”

Clenching unconsciously at the arms of the chair, as if to brace himself against a blow, Obi-Wan begins to ask, “Anakin, are you suggesting – ?”

“I think Sidious either tried to turn Xanatos and he failed or decided it would be too much of a risk to make him a full Sith or else he just wanted Xanatos to turn on Qui-Gon and the Jedi and so he arranged for it to happen. We know Granta Omega was one of Sidious’ more useful tools, at least for a while, and, if Bail’s visitor can be trusted, then we also know that Omega and Jenna Zan Arbor had at least two children – Morana and Valdis, according to Dooku – who’re being brought up to share the same amoral philosophy of their parents – parents who idolized the Sith, in Omega’s case, and who worked for Sidious and the Separatists for years, in Zan Arbor’s case. Sidious was very good at manipulating people, Obi-Wan. What was Granta Omega’s mother’s name? Turla? Tula?”

Numbness beginning to fade into a familiar sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Obi-Wan replies, “She worked under both names, as well as Tura, at various times, but odds are her given name was actually Latura. Records recovered from Nierport VII indicate that a Latura Endmon moved there from Eeropa two years before the recorded birth of Granta Omega, and had married and taken the surname of Omega within a year of her arrival there.”

“And Granta Omega’s sponsor at the All Sciences Research Academy on Yerphonia was none other than Sano Sauro, the Senator for Eeropa who attempted to try you for Bruck Chun’s death after Bruck got himself killed trying to help Xanatos in his schemes to infiltrate, rob, and destroy the Temple, and who was involved in Omega’s scheme to use Jenna Zan Arbor’s Zone of Containment to drug the Senate into passing what amounted to anti-Jedi laws – even if Sauro left Bog Divinian high and dry, when that plan fell to pieces and there wasn’t enough solid evidence to bring him to trial, you and I both know he was involved, Obi-Wan, so don’t shake your head at me. Palpatine made Sauro Deputy Chancellor for awhile, before the war got the Senate to vote to extend Palpatine’s term as Supreme Chancellor and he used his so-called ‘emergency powers’ to do away with the position entirely. There were some nasty rumors about Sauro bringing trumped-up charges against Force-sensitive adults, right before the war started, so he could seize control of their children, as wards of the state. And he’s one of the ones who vanished when it came out that Palpatine was Sidious. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it eventually came out that Sauro was working for Palpatine and Jenna Zan Arbor both on some of their illegal projects, if he wasn’t actually knowingly work for Sidious. What do you want to bet that Latura, or whatever her name really was, was a set-up that Sidious somehow brought Sauro in on later?”

“But why would he want to make Xanatos fall?”

Anakin shrugs. “To make Bail weaker, maybe? Or maybe to try to make Qui-Gon fall and so drive Dooku to leave the Order. Sidious needed someone charismatic to lead the Separatists but not powerful enough to be a real threat to him. Whatever else he might’ve been, Darth Maul wasn’t charismatic. Loyal to Sidious, yes, but able to lead the Separatists? Not in a million years. Sidious probably always planned to replace him, at some point. Xanatos could’ve been a suitable replacement, if he’d been willing to work with a Sith Lord. Qui-Gon could’ve been, too, if not for you keeping him from falling to the Dark Side. Granta Omega could’ve worked, but he was born practically deaf and blind to the Force. He would’ve had to steal Bail away as a baby, if he’d wanted to be able to use him, and that probably would’ve defeated the purpose, since he wanted someone who could give the Separatist leadership a recognizable and sympathetic face. What if Dooku was just the best alternative left?”

Slowly, to keep his voice from shaking with suppressed horror, Obi-Wan quietly notes, “I fail to see how the Force spirits and other such entities of the Force fit into this, Anakin.”

Anakin shrugs again, but Obi-Wan notices that the off-handedness of the motion doesn’t ease the tiredness of his posture or the grief lurking at the back of his eyes. “Easy. Sidious either struck a bargain with the ones in charge, so they wouldn’t interfere, or else he took advantage of some ridiculous set of rules that keep them from interfering in the lives of corporeal beings and then made sure that Xanatos ended up one, after he’d proven himself unwilling to join Sidious, so that he couldn’t interfere with Sidious’ plans, either. And then either Qui-Gon found a way around those same noninterference rules, or else whoever taught him to become a Force spirit instead of a Force ghost encouraged him to break those rules just the same as he always broke the Order’s rules whenever he felt the need to and he’s somehow kept Dooku from knowing about them at all so that he’ll be willing to help Qui-Gon keep on breaking them.”

Obi-Wan almost hates to ask, but he can’t quite keeping himself from doing so. What Anakin is saying makes entirely too much sense, and he has a bad feeling that whatever it is that Anakin’s driving at is something that they’re going to need to know. “And Bail?”

“Xanatos was supposed to be your Master. It follows that Bail should have been mine, in any timeline where he actually received training as a Jedi. I dreamed about you and Qui-Gon, sure, but then, I wasn’t born until about two years after Xanatos died, was I?” Anakin’s smile is so bitter that Obi-Wan recoils a little before he can stop himself, but Anakin doesn’t seem to notice his abortive flinch. He’s too busy talking. “Sidious was smart, he knew how to plan, and he was damn good at arranging things so that events would somehow end up favoring him pretty much no matter what actually happened. All of his schemes had at least two or three alternatives. If I hadn’t fallen for Padmé or if she’d held firm and turned away from me, then there was always Sabé or Dormé. Why do you think he suggested that Padmé make Sabé the interim Senator, after he was first elected Supreme Chancellor, if not to get her on Coruscant where she’d be able to come visit you often and so be in a position to be seen by me? Why do you think all the attacks on Padmé’s life when the vote on the Military Creation Bill was drawing near and it was getting near the time for Dooku to start Sidious’ war somehow managed to conveniently leave Dormé alive? They were alternatives one and two. I saw them, in the branchings of that other timeline, and I know you did too, so you know I’m right about how Sidious tried to have a plan for every possible eventuality. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I think the only reason we won is because it never occurred to him that Padmé might actually die before you and I could make it back to Coruscant. It wasn’t a possibility in any of the probable futures he could see because Bail was the only one who had the power to make it truly possible. And I bet you anything that Sidious did whatever it was that he did to Xanatos to keep just that possibility from ever moving out of the realm of the potential into the realm of the probable.”

A little shakily, Obi-Wan asks, “You do realize that, if what you’re suggesting is true, then Qui-Gon and Dooku either broke whatever arrangement Sidious made with the oldest and most powerful of the Force spirits, or else they’re in danger of being taken to task for breaking noninterference rules that probably limit all forms of interaction between entities of the Force and beings who have corporeal forms, don’t you?”

Anakin grimaces unhappily. “I’m hoping it’s the first. They’re less likely to suffer for it, with Sidious gone.”

Unable to let himself be put off, despite the churning acid that feels as if its stripping away the entire lining of his stomach, Obi-Wan points out, “If it’s the second, though, then we have a serious problem on our hands.”

Anakin closes his eyes and nods, once, head hanging down and shoulders slumping in quiet misery. “I know. But can’t you see if – ”

Tiredly allowing his eyes to slide shut, Obi-Wan leans back in the chair, grateful for its support. “It doesn’t work that way, Anakin. I can’t just concentrate on danger and see the shape of whatever danger might be coming. I have to know something concrete about what the danger might entail, and, even then, there are patches of darkness in the far-sight visions that I’m fairly certain correspond exactly to the gaps in my knowledge. I know danger is coming, but I can only see bits and pieces of it clearly. And I don’t think I can see Force ghosts or spirits at all, unless they’ve made themselves known and visible to me or are individuals I knew very well in life. I only just caught a glimpse of Qui-Gon and Dooku, before they revealed themselves to us, and I don’t think I would have seen them at all, if Qui-Gon hadn’t been my Master and Dooku hadn’t been such a critical presence in my life. Far-sight relies on the knowledge and connections of the seer. I don’t know or have a personal connection with these other entities of the Force, except perhaps for Xanatos, and so I can’t see them, when the visions come.”

Anakin lets his head thump back against the closed door. “Well, /frack/. We’re going to have to find Xanatos, aren’t we?”

Obi-Wan manages not to sigh as he opens his eyes again, but he doesn’t bother to keep his right eyebrow from rising up towards his hairline. “Was that ever really in doubt?”

“I don’t like this. At all. He tried to kill you.”

The sigh escapes him this time, but only because he can still feel the same potent mix of horror, grief, shame, and blistering disappointment that he felt on that day, when he failed to be able to stop Xanatos from choosing the acid pit over capture by Qui-Gon Jinn. “Only when I gave him no other option. He wanted Qui-Gon’s death, not mine. He tried, more than once, to win me over to his side. Circumstances kept interfering whenever he tried to separate us, though. I’m not sure what would have happened, if he’d ever been able to get me entirely alone.”

Anakin snorts in patent disbelief. “Circumstances, yeah, right! Like Sidious would’ve ever left that much to chance. I bet he interfered every time it looked as if Xanatos might get you to himself for awhile, because he was terrified you’d be able to save him and Xanatos would tell you what he knew about Sidious.”

“It’ll be in Sidious’ records, if he did. The Jedi Bendu and trustworthy members of the new government are working together to find all of those records and make them public.”

“Yeah, but that takes time we might not have. And besides, if that’s in his records, then odds are that the fact he went after Xanatos to keep Bail from ever becoming a real threat will be, too. And we can’t exactly let Bail know that, unless we’re willing to let him know why Breha died, now can we?”

“Do you think – ?”

Anakin cuts him off, bluntly insisting, “He’ll break. He’s too brittle right now. If he had Xanatos to focus on, then maybe he might possibly be okay, but otherwise? He’ll break, love. And I don’t want our Padawan to have to go through that.”

Straightening abruptly in the chair, not at all liking the direction that the conversation seems to be taking, Obi-Wan pointedly notes, “Bail is strong, Anakin. He might surprise you.”

Anakin all but snorts his disbelief, retorting, “And he might surprise you by hunting up that damned knife again, too, if he thinks he’s brought dishonor and death down on enough of the people he cares about. And we might not be able to catch him in time, if he does, seeing as how we’ve given him those nice nifty shields to hide behind.”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow fractionally, inquiringly, and then calmly notes, “Then it becomes even more important to find Xanatos, if he still exists, and free him fro whatever prison Sidious has trapped him in – be it his lightsaber, some other personal effect, or an object brought into play by Sidious for the express purpose of pinioning his spirit – doesn’t it?”

Anakin scowls darkly in reply. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Obi-Wan makes himself shrug so that he won’t be tempted to return that scowl. “I didn’t say you must.”

The dismissive shrug, though, only makes Anakin angrier. Pushing away from the door a little so that he’ll have enough room to take a more combative stance, hands fists on hips and feet planted firmly at shoulder width, Anakin snarls, “And if Xanatos decides to blame you for whatever Sidious did to him?”

Obi-Wan blinks, hoping to defuse Anakin’s fearful anger with his apparent calmness, and mildly offers, “Then we’ll just have to convince him otherwise, won’t we?”

Anakin, though, just crosses his arms and scowls again, petulantly noting, “You’re being entirely too blasé about this. If Xanatos is a Force spirit, he could hurt you and there wouldn’t be much of anything we could do to stop him.”

Obi-Wan steeples his fingers thoughtfully, smiling at Anakin a little bit through them. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. When we defeated Sidious, the power we raised didn’t just kill him. It obliterated his spirit, mind and soul, completely. He couldn’t become whatever the Sith version of a Force ghost is or try to move on to another body with a mind and soul weak enough for him to take over because that power blasted him apart until there was nothing of him left. Something similar happened to Sola, when she and Padmé came together and Padmé ended up being housed in that body. If it came to pass that we were to have no other choice – if there was no other way and it became absolutely imperative that we be able to do so – then I believe we could do the same thing to Xanatos, whatever he may have become after the death of his body. I would prefer not to have to do so, of course,” he adds, letting some sharpness seep back into his voice, “but if it comes down to that, we won’t be defenseless.”

Anakin, whose mouth is already open for an angry retort, ends up pausing as Obi-Wan’s words sink in, frowning thoughtfully. “Do you think we could do the same thing against older, more powerful Force spirits, if there really is a bunch of noninterference rules and they try to come against us because Qui-Gon and Dooku are helping us?”

Obi-Wan frowns, but in the end he has to admit, “I don’t know. I’m not sure that what Padmé did can actually be done to a spirit that isn’t both within and unwilling or unable to vacate a specific body. What happened to Sola, I think, is the equivalent of using Force-generated harmonic resonance as a weapon of destruction rather than construction.”

“Harmonic – ? Oh. Oh. You mean she – they – ?” Anakin’s voice trails off as he makes a sort of circling motion with his left hand before abruptly letting his fingers fall away from each other, in an explosive gesture, as though seeking to mime what he cannot find words to explain.

Obi-Wan nods. “They were too unalike. Instead of being able to cohabit, Padmé’s energy signature, in the Force, cancelled out Sola’s. The destruction of Sola’s spirit, mind and soul, was just a side-effect of that cancellation. Her spirit – specifically, the energy pattern inherent to her spirit – overwrote and so ultimately ripped apart and dissipated Sola’s spirit. I believe the basic principle is similar to what governs the outcome when two out of phase waves collide. The one interfered with the other to the point cancelling that other wave out. If Sola had fled her body instead of trying to fight, she likely would have survived the experience, in some form or another. Instead, nothing remained of her but the body that once housed her spirit. Padmé likely experienced pain during the process because she was either resisting absorbing the parts of Sola’s spirit which weren’t out of phase with her own or else having to instinctively draw on the Force to repair whichever parts of her own spirit in that were in danger of being cancelled out because of the collision.”

“Like a battle meld in reverse, you mean. Instead of using the Force to combine minds and abilities and power, this – ”

“ – uses the Force to negates the abilities and power of another by destroying the mind-host’s spirit, essentially, yes,” Obi-Wan nods again, smiling a little as he completes the sentence.

Anakin looks pleased, for a moment, to have figured it out, but then a thoughtful look settles over his features, pensive furrows appearing his forehead as he frowns. “Hmm. You know, it’s probably possible to duplicate that effect, mechanically. An electromagnetic pulse fixed to a specific wave frequency or some kind of electronic or harmonic oscillator, set to produce a wave with a very specific energy signature . . . ”

“But one would have to know the shape that signature is in, first, and if the Force entities are unfriendly towards us, then it doesn’t seem very likely that they’ll inform us of the shape of their spirits before they attack,” Obi-Wan gently points out. “And what you are talking about is the complete and utter destruction of a being – not just the death of an individual’s body, but the eradication of mind and soul, the whole of the spirit wiped out of existence.”

“If they conspired with Sidious instead of trying to work against him, then maybe they deserve to share the same fate he suffered. The Force gave us the ability to do that to him, after all,” Anakin retorts, lifting his chin and clenching his jaw in an altogether mulish expression.

“Yes, it did, Anakin. But that power rests solely with the Force, its deployment contingent entirely upon its will to guide one in its use. Would you truly seek to usurp that ability and that right of decision, to bypass the Force’s will, through the creation of an artificial means to replicate that power?” Obi-Wan merely calmly asks in return, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Anakin scowls petulantly in return, though, and pushes the issue further instead of conceding the point. “If the Force permitted me to make the machine – ”

“Anakin.”

“Oh, alright! No fripping superweapons! You happy?” Anakin snaps, throwing up his hands in an attitude of disgust. “Just tell me what the gfersh we’re supposed to do if Xanatos turns out to be a Sith-loving maniac who’s like nothing better than to kill us and everyone else in the galaxy and the Force doesn’t deign to give us the ability to blast him out of existence like it did with Sidious!”

“Oh, I would’ve thought that would be self-evident. We force a battle meld on him and threaten to impress ourselves upon him until we overwrite enough of his spirit that he becomes like us if he won’t behave.”

Anakin’s mouth actually falls open, a little, in shock, at the ruthlessness of that response. “We – we – that is – are you serious?”

“We /threaten/, Anakin. That does not mean we will actually harm him. If threat of force is all that he will understand, then we will speak his language until we can teach him another one,” Obi-Wan clarifies, smiling a little at how flustered Anakin still seems.

“Oh. Well. Of course, we will,” Anakin replies, a little weakly, nodding in understanding and agreement. His voice steadier, now that he knows where he stands, he asks, “And we keep all of this from Bail, at least for now, agreed?”

“For now, I suppose, though I’m not sure how we’re supposed to keep him from learning at least part of the truth straightaway, if we find Xanatos and if they talk to one another at all,” Obi-Wan allows after a few moments’ hesitation, a trace of a frown showing his displeasure with the concession.

“Better whenever that is than now. It gives him some time to get used to the idea of Breha being gone and of it not being his fault, and it gets him some more time to learn to trust himself and the Force. A little bit more time now could be the difference between him eventually coming to terms with the truth and him either going mad or trying to kill himself over it,” Anakin insists.

“I believe you, Anakin. You know his frame of mind better than I do, at the moment.”

“Master – ” Anakin’s voice cracks, and Obi-Wan pushes himself back to his feet so he can physically bridge the distance between them, swiftly taking the half a dozen steps it takes to reach the door and pull Anakin away from its solid surface and into his arms.

“No, Anakin. You are as much a Master in this as I am – more, even, in that it is you to whom Bail has chosen to confide. It doesn’t truly matter why or to whom he chooses to unburden himself, so long as he does it. I’m glad you were able to be there for him and to help him with his burdens. I’m proud of you, for doing so well with him. You make a very good Master, Anakin Skywalker,” Obi-Wan quietly but firmly insists, hugging Anakin to him tightly.

Anakin stands rigid in the embrace for several moments before finally, with a full-body shudder, relaxing into Obi-Wan’s arms. Voice low and rough with pain and regret, he tries to explain, telling Obi-Wan, “I just – I – Bail reminds me of just how much I miss her, Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan rubs soothing circles across Anakin’s broad back and nods. Voice soft with his own pain, he reassuringly tells Anakin, “I know. Believe me, I know. I miss her too, love.”

Tearfully, Anakin admits, “I barely knew her at all – I know that, really I do – but it’s just so hard to think of her, and know she’s really gone. It’s like – it’s like it was with my mom. I’m just so used to being able to think of her being out there, somewhere, and trusting that the Force would eventually bring us back together again, that it stops the breath in the chest, every time I remember that she’s really not, anymore. She’s not a Force spirit: she can’t just come back, not when she’s gone on into the Force like that. She’s dead and she’s gone, really gone, and I hardly knew her, but holding onto the thought of her was . . . it was like – ”

“You held onto your memories of her like you held onto the memories of your mother,” Obi-Wan quietly offers, combing the fingers of his right hand through Anakin’s loose curls. “I understand why you did it – it’s for this reason, precisely, that the Temple took only infants and children too young to truly remember their family. Shmi was the only real family you had, the only person who loved you and who you loved, unconditionally, and, in a very real way, she was your life, because it was her life and her love that shaped you, gave meaning to your existence and placed boundaries around your life. It was never really your age that was the issue; it was that your mother impressed upon you a much more personal idea of love and loyalty, one that taught you to value individuals over collectives or ideals. And to make matters worse, because you were both slaves, that love was shaped by fear and the very real chance that she could lose you at any time, should the fortunes of her and therefore your owner change. That’s why the Council sensed so much fear in you. Your life as a slave taught you to fear losing the one you loved and the one source of love in your life. When Qui-Gon and Padmé took you from Tatooine and your mother, they took you from the only life and the love that you knew, but they seemed to offer themselves in return for what you were losing – Padmé promised that, no matter what might happen, she would always care for you, and Qui-Gon presented himself as a sort of surrogate father from the moment he met you, telling you that he would be the one who would become your Master in the Order – and they told you to hope and to trust in the Force that you would see your mother again, some day. They didn’t mean to hurt you, but they did. They did you a grave disservice, taking you away from your mother like that. They both made promises thoughtlessly, without weighing the possible consequences or truly understanding that they were encouraging you to transfer your love and your fear to them. Then Qui-Gon was refused by the High Council and died on Naboo, before the Council Masters could change their minds about allowing you to join the Order, and Padmé, in revealing herself to be Queen Amidala, also revealed herself as someone who would pass out of your life, like your mother had. And, as with Shmi, all you could do was hope that the Force would bring you together again. All you had left were your memories, and so you built her up, in your mind, to be more than she had been and to mean more than she had to you, so that she could share a place in your mind and heart with your mother. Padmé became your angel, and not just because she was the only one left alive of the two most responsible for taking you from your mother. She tried so hard, back then, to be more than she was – more mature, more capable of doing everything and of being whatever was needed to save her people – but she was still very young, and she was naive, still, in ways that you never got a chance to be. The two of you were closer in age and experience than anyone else you were thrown in with who paid you any real mind during that entire mission – including me. She was kind to you, she never made any secret of her affection for you, and she changed very little, over the years. In a way, I’m not surprised you convinced yourself you’d fallen in love with the angel you’d made of her, in your mind, when the two of you were thrown together again, before the war.”

“You – you’ve given this some thought, haven’t you?” Anakin asks, sounding more than a little shell-shocked at just how much thought Obi-Wan has apparently given the subject.

“A little,” Obi-Wan admits, tightening his grip on Anakin so he can’t try to pull away. “You always craved so much more reassurance and open affection than any other Padawan or youngling in the Temple. I wanted to try to understand what made you so desperate for attention, especially as it became so increasingly clear that, while you obviously seemed to need more comfort and tactile contact, you didn’t necessarily need approval, so long as you still had enough attention from me to assure that I remained loyal to you and that I wanted to be with you. It didn’t make very much sense to me, that you could be so fearful of losing my presence in your life when you seemed to care more about pushing at the boundaries the Order put up around you than you did seeking after and earning my approval. If the Order believed in training Minders as well as Soul Healers, I don’t think it would have been nearly so hard to figure out. Shmi’s love for you was unconditional, but shaped and constrained by the very real possibility of loss, which presented as a constant low-level fear of loss. Your affections are also unconditional, but you were taught that the one or ones you loved were always at risk of being taken from you, and so what you feared wasn’t loss of love or loyalty but rather the loss of the actual source or sources of that love and loyalty. You feared losing me, not my loyalty to you. I think that’s part of the reason why you were so angry and felt so betrayed, in that other timeline. Sidious convinced you that Padmé and I were no longer loyal to you, that our love for you wasn’t unconditional, even though we were still present in your life, and that had been the one thing you’d been absolutely certain you would never need fear. It broke your heart when he convinced you of our disloyalty.”

Bitterly, voice tinged with self-loathing, Anakin replies, “I should have known better. I can’t believe I ever believed it, even for a moment.”

Pulling away far enough to catch hold of Anakin’s chin and lift it up until he has to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes, Obi-Wan gently but firmly counters, “But you didn’t believe it, Anakin. We stopped him before he could do it.”

Angrily jerking his head away, Anakin only insists, “That doesn’t make it right! Knowing it didn’t happen isn’t the same as not knowing it could have happened and did happen that way, in almost every other possible branching along that other timeline!”

Taking hold of Anakin’s chin again and applying firm pressure until he has to look back over at him, Obi-Wan insists, “But it does help us, Anakin. It shows us our mistakes and teaches us what to guard against, in the future. Sidious used what he knew of you – he cultivated your loyalty for himself, encouraged you to embrace a love with a very real possibility of loss, and then twisted your thoughts and sent you evil dreams, disguised as visions, until it seemed as if that loss would be inevitable and he were the only one who could stop it from happening, only to twist things about on you, again, so that the actual physical loss would seem negligible, in the heat of the moment, in face of the apparent betrayal dealt to you by the ones you’d given so much of yourself to protect and save, until all that you seemed to have left was him. What you had with Padmé wasn’t real – you both cared for each other, but neither one of you knew the other well enough to truly love one another, and he was able to use that against you as he never would have been able to, if love had truly bound you together. And as for you and I, since I was too foolish and too frightened and cowed by the Order’s rules and mandates to ever admit to myself just how much I cared about you, much less honestly and openly tell you that I loved you, the armor of unquestioning trust that should have kept us safe was rotten with holes. Sidious found the biggest gap, and he threw a javelin through it straight to your heart. If Padmé and I had only been more honest with you about our friendship, Sidious never would have been able to do that.”

“That’s not your fault! Don’t you dare act as though it is! You were acting on orders; the Council didn’t want me to have any contact with her, after Naboo!” Anakin all but snarls, body wracked with a fine tremor from insuppressible outrage.

Obi-Wan shakes his head stubbornly. “But I could have handled it better. We could have handled it better. If I’d trusted you to know of my friendship with Padmé, as you knew of my friendship with Bail, then you wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to Sidious’ machinations.”

“And if the Order were a little less stingy with its funds, then someone could have gone back for Mom and I would’ve known she was safe and been able to talk to her or at least write and I would’ve stopped thinking so much about Padmé and making her over as my own personal angel in the first place!” Anakin angrily retorts. “If, if, and if, again! Frell! We could go around in circles on this forever, driving ourselves crazy finding all the places we screwed up, endlessly going over the ways we could’ve done better or should’ve known better than to do or think what we did, and doing nothing but making ourselves sick over the could haves and the should haves and the might have beens, when what we should be worrying about is the right now and all of the things that still might be! We can’t actually do anything to change what happened, so why are we even arguing about this?” he plaintively asks, hands tightening on Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “Please, let’s not fight. Surely there’s enough blame to go around that we don’t need to fight over it,” he adds, the faintest hint of a tremulous smile lurking around the edges of his mouth.

Obi-Wan’s head drops down, eyes shut painfully tight, as the realization sinks in. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Hesitantly, Anakin offers, “I think . . . I think the funerals and catastrophes are starting to get to us. It’s like we’re going in circles, from one to the next, with nothing to do – nothing we can do – but react as they come. We keep talking over the same things again and again because we’re stuck on this circuit and we can’t do anything else but talk until the circuits done and we can go home again.”

Obi-Wan smiles, a little wistfully, and notes, “There’s that wisdom again. I’m beginning to wonder what we’d do, without it.”

“Probably spin our wheels even more than we already are,” Anakin replies with a small, soft smile. “Or we might have given up on trying to talk the same subjects to death already in favor of doing other, much more fun activities,” he adds after a few heartbeats, as if he can’t quite resist stirring things up again.

That startles a little laugh from Obi-Wan, who shakes his head and notes, “I should’ve known you’d be able to turn things back around to that again. I swear sometimes I think you have a one-track mind.”

“I just know what I like, is all,” Anakin retorts, his hesitant smile deepening into a grin.

“Indeed? Well. I suppose we should be glad that we agree upon enjoying so many of the same things, then, shouldn’t we?” Obi-Wan half laughs in return. Then, smiling, he opens his arms wide and lets a grinning, grateful-looking Anakin fold himself into his embrace, the two of them clinging together tightly, silently, for several long minutes.

Eventually, voice pitched low as if fearful that Obi-Wan might take offense if he pushes too boldly, Anakin hesitantly breaks the silence by asking, “Could you maybe tell me some more about her, now? About when you were friends? It would be nice to know more about her.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t question why Anakin feels the need to turn the subject back around to Padmé. He only holds Anakin a little bit tighter and asks, “Are you sure you’re ready to hear?”

Anakin nods, his own arms tightening around Obi-Wan a fraction. His voice is a little bit shy, as if he’s afraid of presuming, but he sounds very certain when he says, “Yes, please. I want to hear about it. I want – I want to know her, like you did. I never really had a chance to know her all that well. I know that now, even if I didn’t want to acknowledge it, before.”

Obi-Wan acquiesces with typically graceful serenity. “Alright. Well. Did you know that, for all her love of water and of swimming, Padmé had a perfectly dreadful horror of water bugs?”

Anakin can’t quite choke back the startled back of laughter that the very idea of her being afraid of such a silly thing provokes. “/Padmé/, afraid of something like a little insect?”

Voice rich with amusement, Obi-Wan points out, “Oh, they aren’t all that small. But yes, actually, she was absolutely terrified of them. And not just the actual insects. She hated crustaceans, as well. Called them insects on steroids and would shiver and shudder like a frightened child when faced with one.”

“Really?” Anakin demands, sounding, for a moment, like the wide-eyed and eager young child Qui-Gon Jinn once connived, in such an unJedi-like fashion, to steal away from Tatooine.

Grinning, Obi-Wan nods, gently disengaging from their embrace enough to guide Anakin back towards the bedroom with him. “Really. I remember, there was this one time, when she came to Coruscant to plead that stronger sanctions be taken against the Trade Federation, for what happened on Naboo, and Senator Tikkes – who was still the Senator for Mon Calamari then – attempted to insist on buying her lunch . . . ”

***

The insistent trilling beep of a comm unit startles Obi-Wan out of a deep and dreamless sleep that night, causing him to jerk awake with a violent start in the warm circle of Anakin’s arms. “Wha – ?” Anakin mumbles, not even half awake yet, grumbling under his breath and twitching his shoulders irritably, pushing himself down in the soft nest of mattress and covers and trying for a few sleep-addled moments to take Obi-Wan with him, clinging tighter when Obi-Wan attempts to pull away enough to sit up in bed without yanking Anakin upright with him too.

“Comm unit, love. Need to get up and find it, to answer,” he explains quietly, brushing a hand soothingly up along Anakin’s right cheekbone and pressing a kiss to his temple before gently disengaging himself enough to sit up among the scatter of pillows.

Anakin wakes up enough to blink up at him blearily and yawn enormously. “Hmm . . . not sure where I left it. Just use the Force. Easier than hunting,” he opines, stretching and then slinging an arm loosely back around Obi-Wan’s waist before burrowing into his side, using his hip and stomach as his own personal pillow.

Obi-Wan looks down at him with a mixture of affection and exasperation as Anakin pulls him closer, urging him to lean back against the pillows, body loosened to an almost sprawling lounge, so that he’ll make a better pillow. Shaking his head, he has to smile as a happy if sleepy-sounding rumbling hum works its way up to him from where Anakin has pressed against his skin. He could insist that Anakin let go so that he can get up, but he can’t quite see the point in it. All it would do is make Anakin unhappy and leave him to pad aimlessly around the room, searching for the still trilling comm (which he honestly isn’t sure he knows the exact location of, either) while the person trying to comm likely grows more anxious about the lack of a response to the unit’s signal. So, with a small sigh, he decides to take Anakin’s advice, reaching out to the Force and using it to call the ringing comm unit over to him. A few moments later, the holocomm unit for the room (not the smaller unit they brought with them that’s keyed to the Temple, surprisingly enough) comes sailing into the bedroom, its chirruping chime growing quite a bit louder and making Anakin groan irritably and press even closer to Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan snags the larger communications device, absentmindedly using the Force to wave the lights in the room on at their lowest setting even as he presses the buttons necessary to put the call through, so that it will resolve into either an audio or visual and audio message, and send a return signal from their end. A soft blue glow instantly shoots up out of the receiver, resolving into the slightly bowed shape of a woman with unbound, messily bedraggled dark hair dressed in what might be the remains of a nightgown and robe. She looks rather as if she’s been dragged through a battle – large patches of her over-robe are slashed, singed, ripped apart, and splattered with something dark and viscous looking, and sections of both the robe and the gown beneath it seem to have been torn entirely away – and appears to be huddling in on herself either in an attempt to give herself comfort or to conserve warmth.

A sick feeling instantly blossoms in the pit of Obi-Wan stomach, and he is quite certain that whatever news he’s about to receive is going to be anything but good.

Then the woman’s face turns up towards him, and for a few moments that seem to last forever the heart stutters to a stop in his chest, as he comes face to face with what appears to be a ghost from his past

He and Anakin had talked almost nonstop for four hours straight before finally going to sleep, Anakin’s request to know more about Padmé acting as a bridge not just to a more thorough discussion of Bail’s grief over losing Breha but also to a more open sharing of their own grief over the loss of Padmé. Both men had cared for her a great deal, if in different ways, and, even though she had seemed happy to pass on into the Force, it’s extremely difficult for them not to blame themselves for what had happened to her. The sense of responsibility and even culpability inspired in them by Padmé’s tragic death is essentially the same feeling of mixed guilt and shame that Bail has experienced over Breha’s death, and, even though it’s painful for them to talk about Padmé (for Anakin especially), it’s also healing, in that it helps to clear the air between them and to give them a better idea of what their Padawan is going through and how they might be able to help him. In speaking of Padmé to Anakin, though, Obi-Wan has brought to the forefront of his mind certain memories – many of them happy and some of them even quite humorous, but some of them also painful, poignant, and even dark. In addition to seeking him out for his advice and keen wit (which she had often laughingly claimed could cut through all forms of prevarication and attempts at lying or hiding the truth with effortless ease), in the years after their first fateful meeting during Trade Federation’s invasion of Naboo, Padmé had also often turned to Obi-Wan for comfort and reassurance, especially in the wake of other tragic disasters. Those lost eighty-one handmaidens Anakin had spoken of so lightly to Dormé (and really, it was only eighty, since Sabé lived, though Padmé likely would have accounted it one hundred and twenty-six, for the handmaidens she’d leant to Sabé while Sabé was the acting Senator for the Chommell Sector and so for Naboo as well and also the handmaidens she’d leant to Queen Jamillia, near the end of Jamillia’s reign, to help fill in after the ranks of the Queen’s handmaids had been decimated by the assassins and saboteurs hired by the Trade Federation and its allies) had also all been young women Padmé felt responsible for and grieved for a great deal. Obi-Wan had been woken in the middle of the night more times that he would ever care to recall, by a tearful and often badly mussed Padmé, seeking to lean on him in the wake of yet another handmaiden’s death.

The woman turning her pale and obviously tear-streaked face up to him now, whispering a tremulous and grief-stricken,/ “Obi . . . ?”/ looks and sounds so much like Padmé had, during those holocomm conversations, that it takes him several long moments to realize who it is and to find his voice.

“Sabé? What’s happened? Are you alright?”

Voice shaking with suppressed tears, Sabé tells him, “Obi-Wan, there’s been an attack on Naboo. They hit Theed and Dala City and the training grounds out in the Lake Country. We’ve lost – Force! I don’t know how many we’ve lost, yet. Too many. Casualties are high – lots of civilian wounded – and Keiana’s been hurt. She’s in surgery or she’d be the one calling. They don’t know if they can save her arm or not. Obi – ”

“Sabé, how bad is it? Do you need us there?” Obi-Wan demands, trying not to imagine the worse and mostly failing.

“We’ll come. We’ll get Bail and come, right away,” Anakin fiercely interjects, sitting up abruptly and leaning in close so that he’ll show up on the holo, wrapping an arm tight around Obi-Wan’s shoulders half in a gesture of comfort and half in a quiet request for reassurance that Obi-Wan answers by snaking his left arm around Anakin’s waist and holding him close.

Sabé ducks her head down, bites hard at her lower lip, shuts her eyes tight against tears, and then firmly shakes her head. “No, no – the funeral – ”

Obi-Wan frowns. “The funeral ended this evening. It’s just the formal abdication that’s left. Bail could call an emergency session and we could still be on our way to you by morning – ”

Sabé shakes her head again, taking a deep breath and drawing herself up in a visible effort to present a calmer, more rational and controlled countenance. “Barriss Offee is already on her way. Sia-Lan commed the Temple – Master Lo-Jad was injured in the attack on Dala City, and Sia was afraid that those responsible might return with a larger force. The Healer is bringing a battalion of clone troopers and supplies of some sort from the Temple. They wouldn’t tell me what she was bringing, but the Grand Masters seemed to think it would be more than enough for Keiana’s injuries.”

Obi-Wan and Anakin trade a glance, and then Obi-Wan announces, quite firmly, “Bota. She’s bringing some of the Temple’s stores of bota with her, if the Grand Masters were reluctant to speak of the supplies. Don’t let the surgeons take off Keiana’s arm, if you can help it. Unless it’s been completely shredded, Barriss is easily talented enough to save it, especially with the bota to help. But Sabé, we could be there, easily, if you need us – ”

“No, Bendu. Please. Just – just let me finish, first. /Please/.”

Anakin looks like he wants to argue and Obi-Wan has more he wants to say, too, but Sabé sounds as if she’s on the verge of tears, and he doesn’t want to upset her any more than she already is, so he nods and tells her, “Alright. Go ahead, then.”

“Bendu, I think that storm of storms you spoke about is already starting to break. We’ve had reports from Dala City. Some of the eye-witnesses insist they say a female brunette Dark Jedi leading the attack. Other swear they saw Padmé Amidala herself, helping citizens evacuate the very old and the very young and rallying others to the defense of the city. There aren’t any recordings to vouch for either possibility and none of the reporting eyewitnesses are among those I would trust enough to simply believe without question, but Sola Naberrie’s body is no longer in its holding cell, and it looks as if someone took a lightsaber to the door.”

If he had been standing, then he would have had to sit down abruptly. As it is, Obi-Wan still sways, noticeably, on the bed, while Anakin first turns an odd, sickly, pale greenish hue and then darkens with violent color, trembling a little with shock and with helpless rage as the flushes climbs up his neck and into his cheeks. With a snarl, Anakin lets loose a low but steadily gaining in volume and increasingly foul stream of Huttese that eventually culminates in an absolutely vicious expletive in Nabooian that Obi-Wan had no idea Anakin even knew, until the moment the word actually comes out from between Anakin’s lips. It isn’t very Jedi-like, but for once Obi-Wan finds himself hard pressed to disagree with the sentiment. His instincts tell him to get up, get Bail, and get the three of them to Naboo, whether Sabé thinks they’re needed there or not. He’s known Sabé to be far too brave for her own good more times than he’d care to remember, and there’s no reason to risk adding this time to the list. They could be there in matter of /minutes/, easily, just by going to get Bail now and then using the Force to travel to Naboo instead of relying on a more conventional transport.

“Sabé, let us come to you. Please. We have another way of getting to you – ”

“Obi . . . ” Sabé’s voice trails off and her hands move to grip, with convulsive tightness, at her shoulders as a shudder wracks her slight form. “Bendu, don’t ask me to watch you leave me behind again. I’m not strong enough to do it again. Not right now. Please, just stay where you are. /Please. /Bail needs you there. /Anakin needs you there. And Keiana needs me here/. If the enemy seeks to return, someone must be here to take charge of Naboo’s defense.”

Frowning darkly, Anakin shakes his head once, definitively, and then flatly declares, “You can’t ask us not to come to you.”

“Anakin – Obi-Wan – tell him – ”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Sabé, I can’t. Anakin’s right. ”

“Obi – ”

Knowing her well enough to realize that she’ll just continue to argue the point, Obi-Wan tells her, in a voice as flatly determined as Anakin’s, “We’re coming. It won’t take long. Just let us get Bail and – ”

“Please, don’t. /Please/. Ben – ”

“I’m getting Bail,” Anakin cuts in, jaw clenched tight with determination. A gesture of his hand brings a pair of sleep-pants to him, and then he vanishes from the bed, using the Force to travel directly to Bail’s room (where he will doubtlessly take the time to slip the drawstring pants on where no one will observe him).

Shocked almost beyond words at Anakin’s apparently impossible disappearance, Sabé stammers, “What – where – how – ?”

“I told you. We have another way of getting to you. Where are you at, Sabé? Dala City or Theed?”

/“Neither. The Lake House Retreat. Keiana was – she was – ” /Words fail her and Sabé shivers again, even harder than before, as tears start rolling down her blue-tinged cheeks, glowing weirdly in the flickering light of the hologram.

“In the main house?”

Sabé nods silently, unable to speak.

“Stay where you are. We’re coming. Just stay where you are,” Obi-Wan insists until finally she nods before reaching somewhere out of the field of the hologram to cut off the holoprojector on her end. Anakin!

We’re coming. Bail wanted to leave word for Lyxé and the others, in case they haven’t heard yet, and I had to talk him out of it.

Tell him we’ll bring them far better news back ourselves than we could leave them with now! Obi-Wan demands, holding out his hand to call nightclothes to himself so that they’ll be able to leave as soon as Anakin gets Bail down to him.

Just a minute, okay? He already knows that. He’s just getting some clothes on.

Anakin –

I know she means a lot to you. You’re friends. And we’re friends of Keiana’s, too. We’re coming. Just hold on a minute, okay?

I – sorry. I’m just worried.

I know. I am too. But we’re coming. Get our lightsabers.

I will.

Obi-Wan holds out his hand again, calling not just the weapons but the utility belts they spend most of their time clipped to over to him as he slides off of the bed and into his own sleep-pants. He’s just buckling on his belt when Anakin appears in the center of the room, a rumpled-looking Bail (wearing only loose silky black sleep-pants, an over-robe of the same thin material cinched haphazardly with a leather belt supporting a blaster, and what looks like a pair of dress boots under the hem of his sleep-pants) caught tight in the circle of his left arm. Bail staggers a little in reaction, not from any apparent roughness of transition but instead out of shock at finding himself so abruptly in another room. Normally he would go over to him and lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but under the circumstances Obi-Wan is in too much of a hurry to get out of there to do more than ask him, “Are you alright?” as he tosses Anakin his belt and lightsaber.

“I’ll be fine. Can I do anything to help?” Bail asks, shaking his head slightly to throw off his momentary disorientation over the transition into their bedchamber.

“Just put an arm around both of our waists, alright?” Obi-Wan replies, striding across the room to join them while Anakin fastens his belt and clips his lightsaber onto it. “Once we get there and have a better idea what’s happened, I’d like for you to start comming your allies in the government about the attack. People need to know what’s happened and the danger that they and their worlds are still in, and we need to make sure that it’s made clear that the one’s responsible are considered renegades by both the Separatist leadership and our government.”

Bail nods in understanding and agreement, moving to slip his right arm around Obi-Wan’s waist and his left arm around Anakin’s.

A heartbeat later, the room is empty.

***