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In the end, Obi-Wan loses.

Perhaps it’s a surprise, and perhaps it isn’t.

It was always a risky gamble, to send her after Anakin Skywalker, and perhaps in other conditions, perhaps in other universes, it would have worked out.

This universe isn’t one of them.

The fault doesn’t lie in her gender, at least not strictly speaking. Obi-Wan isn’t less powerful or less accomplished a Jedi because she’s a woman, far from it.

But somewhere along the lines, her relationship with Anakin has taken a direction it might not have had she been born a man.

Because in the end, it is all in Anakin’s hands.

Obi-Wan never wanted to harm Anakin, to kill the boy she raised to manhood and who, when he felt lost or mischievous, called her ‘Mother’, much to Obi-Wan’s bewilderment and fond amusement. Anakin did it when he was sick and delirious, when waking up from nightmares that shook him, when undercover on missions when he was much younger, when teasing his old Master when she worries and fusses over him.

Obi-Wan has indulged him from the very start, because what was the harm, really? A Master is everything to a Jedi Apprentice; they are family in everything but names, even if they never use such familiar (familial) terms to refer to each other, and Anakin has come to Obi-Wan just as lost as Obi-Wan herself was when she accepted him as a Padawan.

Having just been separated from his mother, was it not normal he tried to cling even harder to the new central, female figure in his life?

It is a bit of an amusing oddity from Anakin, a reminder he’s not Temple-raised, but Obi-Wan had long since accepted it. She had never truly minded, and it had never escaped her that she is ‘Mother’ where Shmi Skywalker is ‘Mom’. Anakin never fully explained the difference, but Obi-Wan had picked on it anyway. ‘Mom’ is the life-giver, the tenderness, the confident, the hugs and the kisses on the forehead in the dark as the winds howl; ‘Mother’ is the disciplinarian, the teacher, the sometimes aloof but always genuine care, the knowing, caring smiles and the faint but always meant praises.

Two women as different as day and night, two different faces of a same coin, both just as important as the other in Anakin’s life.

It is flattering, to think Anakin sees Obi-Wan in the same way he sees his mother.

Or at least it was.

It has stopped being amusing and flattering and bewildering now.

There is nothing like being greeted by yellow eyes in a familiar face and the hissed words “Welcome, Mother,” to forever trample the sweetness of those memories.

Mother, Anakin still calls her as they neatly sidestep Padmé’s crumpled form (oh Force, is she still alive, Anakin, Anakin, what did you just do?!). Mother, he still calls her when their lightsabers clash together. Mother, he still calls her as she screams at him, asking him why.

Mother, he still calls Obi-Wan Kenobi when at last he takes the upper hand at long last and knocks her out, and something inside the Jedi Master crack even as she crumbles into his waiting arms.

She doesn’t feel Anakin’s hands on her and the way his grip become softer as he carries her back to Padmé’s ship, muttering to himself. She doesn’t feel Padmé’s lithe form pressed against her as her former Padawan gather them together under his devouring eyes, confident that they are both safe, despite his lapse in temper when he realized a Jedi was there with Padmé.
He’d never had done that if he had realized sooner it was Mother, of course.

Padmé had bought Obi-Wan with her. That was… that was alright. That was not a betrayal. It was… making sure their family stuck together.

(Both Padmé and Obi-Wan would disagree with it and have words for him were they awake, but for now they blessedly slept on.)

Obi-Wan isn’t awake when Darth Sidious set a foot on Mustafar, troopers in his wake.

She’s not here when Anakin and Palpatine (Sidious, Sidious, Force Almighty, how could we not see?) argues over her fate. She’s (mercifully?) unconscious, cared for by a detached medical droid, under heavy sedation and even under heavier guard in a medical bay, two dozens of blasters aimed at her by clones who await orders, because Good Soldiers Follow Orders.

(It doesn’t stop a small, small voice in the back of their head to wail in agony over the wrongness of it all.)

Obi-Wan Kenobi is Jedi, and Jedi are Traitors and Traitors must be eliminated. But Lord Vader had stalled their hands, choking the first of them to even power up his blaster with the Force, warning them not to do anything to his Master (Mother) before he allows them to.

Their fingers are on the trigger, though, and Obi-Wan’s life is on the edge of the knife.

The Emperor is considering rescinding the order given by his Apprentice even as Darth Vader paces in front of him in agitation, his lips pulled in an unhappy expression. Obi-Wan Kenobi is dangerous for his plans, dangerous for the influence she could still have over Anakin Skywalker. He ought to dispose of her immediately and deal with the fallout. But at the same time, it would be just as dangerous to kill her as to let her live without Darth Vader’s approving her execution.

Perhaps, if Sidious had been quicker, or if the 212th had been better at their job, he could have pushed Obi-Wan Kenobi’s death under the rug as a Sad But Necessary part of cleansing the galaxy of the Jedi’s filth.

But the woman didn’t have the good grace to keel over and die when needed, and now Sidious faces a conundrum.

Letting Kenobi lives is a major risk, for she had way too much influence on Anakin Skywalker – or used to, at any rate. With the Dark Side freely flowing through Skywalker now and with Sidious himself not having to veil and hide his power, his hold on young Skywalker’s mind had considerably increased… even if the trust the younger man had put in him had been rattled.

And that trust, Sidious mulls silently and distastefully, was still primordial in order to keep his Apprentice in check.

It is the nature of the Sith to try and overthrow each other and Sidious knows already that one day will come where Skywalker will try and challenge him. Executing Kenobi, executing Amidala, would only push him into moving against Sidious early on and while the old man is certain his powers are surpassing those of Vader (for now), he’s not looking forward such a duel when he still needs Vader, when the Empire he spent so much time piecing together is only rising from the ashes of the damned Republic.

He has so much work to do to still consolidate his position and his life accomplishment, so much work to do with the help of an Apprentice, and there are still many Jedi out there who managed to escape Order 66, Knights and Masters and Padawans, AgriCorps members in hiding and even younglings somewhat miraculously snatched out of the Temple as the Purge began alike. And Jedi who left the Order altogether before his grand plan could come to fruition as well, like former High Council member Eeth Koth or Vader’s former Apprentice, the young Togruta girl he was also pinning after to complete his set of ‘precious people to keep safe’.

This is what Sidious finds the most inconvenient with his Apprentice. The newly christened Lord Vader is, regrettably, too sentimental about such things as assassination – and far too possessive of his ‘possessions’ for Sidious to do as he wishes with them.

He doesn’t like the idea of letting Kenobi live. He much prefers the idea of her dead, preferably at the hands of her former Padawan in order to solidify Darth Vader’s allegiance to the Sith. But that moment has now passed, the intoxicating first foray into the Dark Side and the highs which come with it having recessed enough for Anakin Skywalker to think more clearly, more sanely than before, and now his Apprentice has realized that he doesn’t want his pseudo ‘Mother’ dead if there are other solutions.

He’s even arguing how useful she can be, much to Sidious’ bemusement.

“It would be hard to justify her survival,” he comments offhandedly while Darth Vader keeps busying himself wearing a hole in the carpet with his constant pacing, mind full of fury and agitation and newly yellow eyes shining with power. “She’s part of the Jedi High Council which attempted to assassinate me, after all.”

He voluntarily plays on the nicer and softer aspect of his false persona that Skywalker grew up knowing, trying to slowly steer him into approving Kenobi’s death, but he has little success. That boy was always too stubborn by half, he thinks hatefully.

“But she wasn’t there!” Lord Vader snaps. “Masters Windu, Tiin, Kolar and Fisto were in your office, but Obi-Wan was on Utapau. She had nothing to do with it! She never would have raised her lightsaber against the Chancellor!” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself – no, Sidious realizes, like he’s already convinced of whatever insane theory he’s working himself on and now try to convince the others of its soundness.

“Mayhap…” Sidious murmurs, face hidden in the folds of his cowl, fingers interlaced as he listens to Lord Vader explains bits and pieces of his ‘truth’.

The Jedi Council has always been suspicious of Anakin Skywalker ever since he was child – too old, too angry, too powerful for their taste. They allowed his training, under Obi-Wan’s tutelage – but they hadn’t trusted Obi-Wan either, had they? She was just a young Knight, taking on her first Padawan after abruptly leaving her own apprenticeship behind after the death of her own (beloved) Master. Obi-Wan Kenobi had taken in Anakin, trained him, stood in as a substitution mother during his formative years (and even now, since Anakin’s biological mother was dead and dust in Tatooine’s sands, he clung to her even harder, the only mother figure he had left). Obi-Wan had worked hard to make Anakin accepted by the Jedi and the Council.

And the Council had tricked her, deceived her into working against Anakin in the end.

They had sensed their closeness, made Obi-Wan act like their unwitting pawn when making her go to him and ask him to spy on Chancellor Palpatine. Perhaps they had been thinking of killing him already – but they had never let Obi-Wan in on their ultimate plans, weaving lies around her. She wouldn’t have hidden them from her former Padawan, after all. That’s why they had sent her to Utapau in the end instead of Anakin, to keep her out of the way, because if she had known they were going to move against the Chancellor, she would have stopped them or she’d have tried to warn Anakin. Obi-Wan is loyal to the Republic, after all.

Anakin spins his web of personal truths and half-truths and if Sidious was a lesser being, he’d be staring at him in bemusement. As it is, he’s darkly amused, because Darth Vader is rewriting history itself to make it fit with his version of the truth.

It doesn’t quite fit the facts and the timeline. Utapau itself was a gambit on Sidious’ part, knowing that if he suggested Skywalker as part of the mission, there was a good chance the Council would refuse and send someone else, preferably Kenobi, and he had been right. If not… well, he had had expected for her to be part of the task force sent to ‘arrest’ him, which would have been yet another gambit in order to push Skywalker toward the Dark Side, but that hadn’t been necessary in the end.

A pity. It might have worked splendidly.

Or perhaps not, given how attached Skywalker is to the damn woman.

Loosely fitting the reality or not, Skywalker’s delusions and still spinning tale has some merit, Sidious has to admit. It would certainly be a great propaganda instrument to use in the future, should he keep Master Kenobi alive.

And he has to, hasn’t he? Sidious ought to have the woman assassinated, and perhaps he will. But for now… For now he must suffers Kenobi to live, if only so he can placate Vader until the man’s temper gets the better of him and he kills her himself…

Or until she follows her former Padawan and Fall.

Hmph. It’d be both interesting to witness a Fallen Kenobi, but also dangerous; the chance that the two of them would ally against him would be too great to be tolerated.

He needs a way to circumvent the potential event, and fast, Sidious decides as he hums along at everything Skywalker says about Kenobi’s innocence and of course he won’t kill her, won’t harm her (physically) and of course you can dispose of her as you wish, Lord Vader, but be mindful of the fact she’s a Jedi, she will try to escape and kill us both.

“She will not,” Vader swears solemnly.

Sidious allows a frown to escape him. “I don’t know, Lord Vader. So long she has the Force…” he trails off, shaking his head. “I know she means a lot to you and that you regard her as you would a mother, but I’m afraid the risks in keeping her alive outweigh the pros, my Apprentice.”

“… And if she can’t access it?” Vader says after a moment of silence, eyes narrowed. Has he thought already about Obi-Wan’s potential Falls and the useful ally she’s be against Sidious? The boy isn’t that much of a thinker, but who knows? “Would it pacify you, my Master?”

Sidious doesn’t quite grin, because that’d reveal that he purposely pushed his Apprentice in that direction, but his face breaks into an ugly smile.

Let’s Kenobi live, if that’s what Vader wishes for now. But it will not be a nice life, he thinks with a cruel smile. Far from it, really.

Obi-Wan wakes and doesn’t wake altogether. At least, if she doesn’t feel like she’s awake most of the time, despite everything. Perhaps because reality has been a long, drawn out bad dreams for years now and has taken an even stronger nightmarish tone in the last days? Weeks? Months? It’s hard to say, and she’s not sure she cares. It takes time for her to fight the tiredness and she can quite shake herself out of her numbness, not for a while anyway. Her eyelids are heavy and she sometimes feels like a rancor is crushing her chest as she lies on her back and stares at the ceiling with an unblinking stare.

The Force is silent around her, so utterly silent she thinks she’s dreaming at first. Or dead perhaps. Sometimes she thinks dead might be better than the reality.

Better dead than waking up the first time with Anakin’s face looming above hers, eyes bright gold instead of the soft blue Obi-Wan had known all her life, speaking to her about how glad he is she’s finally awake, concern tinting his voice and it makes Obi-Wan wants to cry because her former Padawan is now a Sith, what business does he have caring about her when he obviously hadn’t before?

When he has purposefully cut her from the Force?

Because that’s the first thing he tells her after making sure she’s awake and coherent enough to understand him. She’s not sure why; it is misplaced mercy, to help her understand why she feels so odd? Offhand cruelty, to crush her spirit a little more? Or simply worry over the fact she could try and hurt herself if she tried to call on the Force for something and failed to make it answer? It may be one or all of them at once. Either way, she doesn’t react when he takes her hands in his and squeeze them, thumbs brushing against the metal bracelets circling her wrists.

Anakin calls them ‘bracelets’, anyway; Obi-Wan hears and thinks ‘shackles’ as she manages to focus on them. As far as binders go, they’re a really nice, esthetic sort, her foggy mind supplies as she takes in the simple but elegant design of the cuff bands, all dark and smooth despite the glittering shards of crystals fused in them precise patterns despite the seemingly random disposition. They must resonate together on a certain length, dampening the effect of the Force around the bearer, chocking it until it cannot be felt – and used – anymore.

(Not that she notices right away, mind too fuzzy to study them, but later, when she has time and a clear mind and a stable enough mood, she does.)

(Perhaps, with enough time, enough will, enough practice, she could circumvent part of the dampening and reach for the Force… but she wouldn’t be able to do it at full strength. And she doubts Anakin is going to let her the occasion to if he can help it.)

“They’re Force binders,” she says tonelessly and Anakin’s mouth makes a displeased curl but he keeps holding her hands.

“They’re for your safety,” he insists, his voice a mix of exasperation and an almost desperate need for her to understand.

And Obi-Wan understands the half-truth for what it is, she does. She’s no politician, but she’s not called the Negociator for nothing. She has been privy to a lot of cut-throat backroom dealings from the moment she started following Qui-Gon Jinn around. Granted, nothing that had ever involved a Sith before, but she can guess at the broad lines of whatever ‘deal’ Anakin must have done with Palpatine to keep her alive when she knows the newly dubbed Emperor would want nothing more than to see her dead.

Keep her contained, keep her neutralized, assure yourself she’s not a threat (to the Siths; the Empire; me?) by any way necessary, her mind supplies as she silently stares at Anakin with a blank expression that seems to unnerves him, unless it’s her silence that is getting to him. Obi-Wan usually doesn’t do silent with Anakin (is it still Anakin in front of her, really?).

It’s easier to keep Obi-Wan contained and neutralized if she can’t use the Force. Anakin may feels slightly guilty about it (though Obi-Wan can’t be certain he really does feel guilty, how can she be sure of anything when her former student has Fallen and she didn’t see it coming and Anakin, Why?), but it won’t stop him from doing just that.

“Of course,” she murmurs and while she wants to withdraw her hands, wants Anakin to stop touching her, she can’t bring herself to do it. She fears that breaking that contact would further severs whatever bond she still has with Anakin and she can’t… can’t afford that, for many reasons.

Her heart wails at the loss of the Force, the constant companion she had with her all of her life, in which she wishes she could release her emotions now before they choke her, crush her under their weight as she despairs. Her mind snappishly comments it may be just as well because without a contact with the Force, she’s less susceptible to let those emotions get the better of her and Fall herself. If she had the Force with her, she’d keep feeling the void left by thousands of Jedi’s lives being cut down by surprise and treachery and the dark feelings clinging to said deaths. She may have been easy prey. May still be, until she somehow manages to get her balance back.

(How can she? How can she ever do it?)

Anakin has, weirdly enough, given her a very mixed blessing, a strange bit of compassion he may not have intended to give but still did. It makes her smile bitterly.

How very like Anakin it is, to be kind in his cruelty.

“I want you safe, Mother,” Anakin insists, eyes glowing, and Obi-Wan briefly closes her eyes because, oh, those eyes! She wants to snaps she’s not Anakin’s mother, can’t be, never has been despite what he may have imagined but… (that’d be a lie) she’s too tired, too numb and empty to make just a single snarky remark about it. “Do you understand?” He caresses her cheek with more tenderness than he should, takes her chin in both his hands, forcing her to watch him in the eyes.

She should never have let him call her Mother. Should have put a stop to it after the first couple of times he slipped instead of letting it go like she did. Perhaps if she had, things wouldn’t have turned into this… this nightmare.

“… I’m tired, Anakin,” she avoids the subject, letting her head roll slightly to the side despite the fingers framing her face, eyelids half closed. She’s not lying, which seems to mollify Anakin despite the irritation that briefly crosses his face at her lack of clear approbation at his unorthodox way to keep her ‘safe’.

And it’s no wonder she’s tired, honestly.

She’s in shock over everything that happened to her over the course of the last… days? Weeks? Months? She ‘s not sure anymore.

(And insidious voice in her head whispers it has been years and it’s probably right.)

She has lived through a harrowing war, something no Jedi should ever have to do. She had lost friends, old and new alike (Bant, Siri, Gallen,… their names burn in her mind, dead, dead, dead), men under her command she should have kept safe (it’s never possible, but oh how she had wished), and even her first true love, the one for which she almost left the Jedi way of life behind (but even if she had, would Satine have been safe?).

(I’m so, so sorry…)

Her trusted troops tried to kill her (Cody, Cody, how could you do that?). She felt thousands of Jedi die through the Force, killed by allies who turned on them when they least expected it to. She walked in the halls of the Temple, alone but for Master Yoda’s presence, watching with an heavy heart and nausea climbing through her throat as its sanctity was profaned, seeing corpses littering the floor, Jedi and clones alike, utterly still and empty in death. She saw, through the security system, her former Padawan, the little boy she raised to manhood and who she let teasingly calls her Mother, cut down children not even old enough to have picked kyber crystals at Illum yet. She discovered that Anakin, who she thought she knew so well, hide from her a marriage and a future child (why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have approved, but I would have tried to understand, tried to help!). She was confronted again and again with evidence of her former Padawan becoming a Sith. She saw him try to kill the woman he professed to love and whom Obi-Wan could call a friend (Padmé, where is Padmé, is she safe? I must ask…).

She dueled him in the heat and flames of Mustafar, because she was Jedi and he was now Sith and she had a duty… and she couldn’t kill him, couldn’t bear the thought of killing Anakin.

(No more than, apparently, could he bear the thought of killing her, but it’s a cold comfort that brings no joy, just bitterness and helplessness. What a fine mess they are, the two of them.)

If you add in the remnant of whatever drugs cocktails they must have used to keep her sedated, then it’s no wonder she wants to sleep for a thousand years, like the fair maidens in some of the tales the Crèche Masters read to them when Obi-Wan was just a little girl.

Anakin’s fingers squeeze hers head briefly but not to the point it’d hurt. “Of course,” he says slowly. “You need plenty of rest. I’m sorry I’m bothering you now, but it was important I speak with you. I didn’t want you to panic. You understand, right?” Obi-Wan just blinks and hums weakly. It can be an affirmation or a denegation, but Anakin definitely interprets it as the former and he seems vaguely pleased by the easy ‘acceptation’. “I don’t want to lose you, Obi-Wan, just like I don’t want to lose Padmé. I can’t lose you like I lost Mom,” he says, and there is rage and pain in his eyes when he says so and even without the Force to guide her and makes her feel the rawness of his emotion, Obi-Wan can swear she’s feeling Anakin’s pain. “I’ll be keeping you safe and away from danger, you’ll see. I’m powerful enough to do it, now,” he adds, blissfully unaware of how much pain it causes in Obi-Wan’s heart.

(Or perhaps not, because if Obi-Wan can’t feel the Force anymore, her disquiet mustn’t be hard to pick for Anakin himself.)

“I’ll protect you,” he keeps insisting. From Sidious, from assassins, from Jedi, from death itself once he learns how.

He wants to say so much more to her, such as how he’ll cut down Sidious himself one day, when he’ll have learned everything he needs to learn from the old man, and he’ll take control of the newly formed Empire. He will crown Padmé as Empress to rule over everything by his side, the heart and compassion to sooth away the Galaxy’s pain while Anakin will be the fist and the sword that crush and cut down any who would dare to rebel and take the harsh decisions that his wife won’t be able to face, and he wants to tell her how Obi-Wan will be by their side, the wise Dowager Empress tempering Anakin’s rashness and guiding Padmé’s choices toward the best when she will not be busy keeping an eye on the Imperial couples’ children, the future heirs to the Empire Anakin can see in his mind.

(And perhaps Ahsoka will be among them too, easy smile on her lips as she stands at attention, the Imperial Princess that will shadow Anakin’s every step as he trains her again, this time in the way of the Dark Side, making her his Apprentice anew so she can safeguard his family when he’s not around. Not that Obi-Wan or even Padmé are defenseless, of course, but… they’re Wife and Mother respectively, and in the twisted mind that belongs to Anakin, that means they must stay ‘pure’, their hands unblemished by violence and weapons. The Sister can defend herself and defend others in their stead, he just knows it.)

Sith don’t share power, but Anakin is willing to do it with his loved ones – even if they don’t want said power. Which might be why he wants to do so anyway; if they don’t really wish for the power he wants to grant them in the first place, then they’d have no reason to try and overthrown him to gain more.

He doesn’t understand, but that’s alright. He just has to keep trying. He’s certain he can make them change their mind, given enough time.

He wants to say all that and so much more, but it’s clear to him that Obi-Wan is in no state to properly listen to him, her tired face and blinking eyes silently begging him to let her sleep (to let her escape him) and besides, he’s not yet willing to share all his plans.

He lets go of her, arrange her head on the pillow, reorders the sheets and leans forward to kiss her on the forehead. He used to do it for his Mom when he was small and she was feeling sick or tired after too much time working, back when they had been Gardulla’s propriety. He had always wanted to do this with Obi-Wan too, to show her how much she counted to him and now he can, because there is no more Jedi and High Council to be concerned about and he can show Obi-Wan how much he cares, how much he loves.

“I’ll protect you,” he whispers again as he rises up and takes his leave, Obi-Wan’s half-open eyes following his departure.

Despite the tiredness and the emotional numbness, a hysterical laughter is trying to build up in Obi-Wan’s throat because it’s so… so absurd! Doesn’t Anakin realize what he has done and how it contradicts what he just said? What does his ‘protection’ means, when he has taken away everything in Obi-Wan’s life?

“Oh, Anakin… and who will protect us from you?” she whispers in the silence of the room before closing her eyes and letting oblivion claims her.

The second time Obi-Wan wakes up, it is brief and confusing. Anakin’s face isn’t looming above hers anymore, replaced by a vaguely familiar-looking dark haired, dark eyed woman who gently presses a glass of water to her lips. Obi-Wan slowly gulps it down with gratitude, parched lips moistened by the precious liquid as the unknown (But is she?) woman helps support her head so she doesn’t choke while swallowing.

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks warily after the glass is emptied. The dark haired woman’s lips purse briefly.

“Away,” she replies. She doesn’t add ‘you’re safe’ because they both know it’d be a lie, but her eyes convey the feeling and Obi-Wan feels herself relax despite herself. “Do you wish me to get you something, Master Kenobi? Master Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even hear her anymore, head sinking back into the pillow as she closes her eyes and let sleep claims her once more, this time in relief.

It takes awakening for the third time since Mustafar, mind finally clear (well, clearer), before Obi-Wan starts asking herself where she is exactly and manages to remember why the woman who was by her side when she last woke up seemed familiar. She’s one of Senator Padmé Amidala’s many handmaidens and if she was at Obi-Wan’s side, it’s because Obi-Wan was in her room, deep into the Naboo Senator’s apartment, which she graciously lent for Obi-Wan’s use when Anakin brought her back to Coruscant.

She also, much to Obi-Wan’s surprise and embarrassment, lent the Jedi Master a nightdress and dressed her so she wouldn’t sleep in the nude.

“Unsalvageable, uh?” Obi-Wan asks quietly, propped up against cushions as she pulls dubiously at the soft, shimmering aquamarine fabric clinging to her body, the sheets pooling around her waist. She can’t remember ever wearing something so fine before; Jedi robes have a rougher feel and if they have leeway when it comes to nightclothes, Jedi have always been encouraged to not be too ostentatious in their choices.

Rather, they had been encouraged, Obi-Wan can’t help but correct herself, and it makes her feel like she’s choking.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Padmé nods briefly. She looks as tired and lost as Obi-Wan feels and must look like herself, her eyes sunk and her skin pale and clammy-looking. She probably hasn’t had a single good night of sleep since Obi-Wan came to her with the truth of what Anakin had done at the Temple, the Jedi Master thinks with pity. Not a single good night of sleep since Mustafar and Anakin almost choking her through the Force (Oh, Anakin, how could you?)

The ample lavender dress she’s wearing does little to hide her protuberant belly and its sight reassures Obi-Wan slightly despite everything else; if Padmé is still pregnant, then she can’t have been unconscious as long as she had first feared. She’s also relieved to discover the shocks, emotional and physical, didn’t induce an early labor on the poor woman. Watching her now, Obi-Wan wonders if she would have survived the experience.

“Moteé disposed of the remains,” the Naboo Senator says quietly, hands in her lap. “I don’t know why he ripped your clothes off like that. One moment he seemed calm and the next…” she trails off, shaking her head in confusion.

Obi-Wan hums noncommittally. She can’t know for sure, but she vaguely suspects it’s because they were Jedi robes and Anakin is… Well, he’s out to destroy the Jedi, now; Obi-Wan might still breath by some miracle, but the constant reminder she is a Jedi was probably grating on Darth Vader’s nerves. Suppress the robes, suppress one glaring visible reminder.

At least his Fall hasn’t changed everything about Anakin, even if it turned him into a maniac, she thinks bitterly.

“It doesn’t matter. Do you… know where he is now?” She asks instead, eyeing Padmé warily, wondering if she will answer, wondering if she’s not out-stepping her place, if she shouldn’t keep quiet instead. Obi-Wan stowed away on her ship, put her in danger, fought her… her husband, the father of her future child, even if she couldn’t bring himself to kill him in the end.

Padmé would have the right to hate her. But the younger woman just breaths and her face takes a peculiar expression, something Obi-Wan is tempted to call a mix of fear, despair and impotent fury.

“No, Obi-Wan, I’m sorry. I don’t know. He didn’t saw fit to give me specifics, just that he was going on a mission to ‘safeguard the peace of the Empire’.” She sounds angry and bitter and the word Empire sounds like an insult in her mouth and Obi-Wan stops tugging at her borrowed nightdress to awkwardly put a hand on the brunette’s shoulder in a silent offer for comfort.

“Padmé…”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Padmé snaps before she hides her head in her hand, shaking Obi-Wan’s hand off. Her shoulders shake as she does so while she emits almost noiseless sobs, breathing in and out to try and get her composure back. It’s painful to watch her break apart in front of her and Obi-Wan’s own broken heart goes to her.

Padmé Amidala is a strong woman, has always been since Obi-Wan met her for the very first time. She could remember the staunch determination of the fourteen years-old elected monarch as they escaped Theed and went through the blockade over Naboo, as she stood in front of the whole Senate to present her pleas for her people and her world, as she negotiated an alliance with the Gungans and led her people into battle to regain their freedom. That determination had only seemed to grow as she aged and became a Senator and showed herself to be a being as compassionate – no, even more compassionate than many Jedi Obi-Wan had worked side by side with.

Padmé is a woman of strength and conviction. Obi-Wan remembers hearing someone, perhaps a journalist, speculating that the former Queen had a core of pure durasteel – and Obi-Wan, knowing her as she did, would have tended to agree.

But now the durasteel in her seems to have grown weak and brittle, ready to be crushed at the barest shock and it takes another chip of Obi-Wan’s already weary and broken heart.

Anakin, Anakin, what did you do to her?

“God, Obi-Wan, I don’t know what to do anymore,” Padmé admits after a moment when she seems to regain control of herself. Her breathing is uneven, her eyes are suspiciously moist, but she still stands straight and she’s looking at the Jedi Master as if she held all the answers in the universe. “Anakin is…” she trails off, and she looks like she’s going to cry again.

“Tell me,” Obi-Wan prompts her, and it’s like a dam has broken.

The words flood out of Padmé’s mouth like a torrent, words about other Senators well-being or suspiciously unavailable for comment, martial laws strengthened, rounded up citizens, protests crushed in blood on other planets while on Coruscant nobody seems to bat an eyelash over the fact the army massacred children in mass in the Jedi Temple, and Obi-Wan realizes several things at once.

The first thing is that even confined in her own apartments, Padmé has quite the networks of faithful friends and acquaintances to keep her updated on what’s happening as the Republic finish to crumble and morph into something much darker and dangerous. It can be useful just as it can be dangerous and it may not last forever; the Jedi were the first to be Purged, the Senate will be next. Obi-Wan can feel it in her bones and she doesn’t need the Force for it. No matter if they’re swayed by Palpatine now, there will be political opponents sooner or later. The new Emperor may keeps some around to further the illusion the galaxy still has some measure of freedom, but it won’t be the most dangerous to him.

She thinks Padmé knows it already, even if she won’t say it.

The second thing is that Obi-Wan’s assumption had been wrong; perhaps there is something a little fragile in Padmé right now, born from her horror and misery and from the betrayal of everything she holds dear, everything she has always championed and fought for: democracy and liberty. But it’s a fragility that even now is mending itself as Padmé forges herself anew as she listens to her spies, every injustice and newest horror she hears of fanning the flame of her determination anew.

Perhaps Padmé isn’t yet broken, after all. At least, no more than Obi-Wan herself. And maybe she’s worried and still reeling, but she won’t let herself be crushed, not without a fight. And that, Obi-Wan respects – more than that, she admits. She has known Jedi who didn’t have half the same mental fortitude as the Naboo Senator. She wishes, she hopes she can do the same as her and climbs back to her feet.

Suddenly, watching Padmé is like looking into a mirror. Who would have thought they had so much in common, Senator and Jedi, as different as day and night?

The third thing Obi-Wan realizes is that, for all he did for her and her safety, despite knowing he has blood on his hands, that he will spills more at the bequest of the newly christened Emperor Palpatine, Padmé still loves Anakin. Just like Obi-Wan still loves him too, for all he hurt them and will continue to do so. Oh, he may not notice or he may rationalizes it (she doesn’t know which will be the worst) but Obi-Wan already knows he will. He won’t even need to raise a hand to them; Obi-Wan will just have to see him, see the gold in his eyes and despair, just like Padmé does.

She doesn’t recognize her husband, the man she secretly married and loved for years now and the hurt in her eyes makes Obi-Wan reach for her again and hold her hand. Padmé stiffens, but doesn’t try to remove it this time. Maybe the floodgates opening loosened something in her. After a moment, she even lays into the touch, as if it was a lifeline, and rest her head on Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

It may as well be.

“When will he be back?” Obi-Wan asks softly once the other woman has calmed down. Maybe she shouldn’t ask now, given how shaken Padmé is but…

“We’re safe for another couple of days at least – or at least, I hope so,” Padmé answers in a clipped voice, a hand reaching for her heavy belly and curling around it protectively. “He didn’t say when he’d be back exactly, but he’s reluctant to leave me so close to the term of my pregnancy. I doubt he'll let himself be taken too far from the Core if he can help it. Not after…” she trails off, and Obi-Wan’s mind flashes to Mustafar, to Padmé’s crumpled form on the ground after Anakin tried to choke her with the Force in a fit of rage.

“Of course,” the Senator continues in a strangled voice, “he’s also avoiding me. We haven’t really talked since… since I woke up. He looks at me as if he’s angry and he… leaves.”

Probably afraid he’d relapse if they argued, Obi-Wan realizes. Probably afraid this time, he wouldn’t stop what he started on Mustafar. It’s… good, she supposes, in a very sad and bittersweet way. Because it means Anakin has enough self-control, enough of himself left to not wish harm on his wife and unborn child. Enough sense of himself to know he would, if pushed to it.

How long will it last, though? How long until Palpatine… until Sidious sink his claws just a little deeper and erode even that?

She prefers not to think about it.

“How long…?” Obi-Wan asks softly, looking down at Padmé and thinking huge, mustn’t be too far now.

“Three weeks, maybe a little more,” the Senator replies tensely. “It’s… the baby is big, apparently.” She breathes in deeply, passing her free hands through undisciplined brown curls. It’s so odd to see her looking less than perfection, to see her disheveled, especially with her handmaidens around and ready to take care of it for her, but Obi-Wan half-guesses Padmé had been too wrung recently to think much about her appearance. “I almost started labor on the way back from Mustafar,” she adds tonelessly and Obi-Wan blanches.

Too soon, too soon; it would have harmed the baby, it would have harmed her.

“But you’re alright now,” she states more than she asks and Padmé makes a weird sound, somewhere between a snort and a tearful cry.

“I’m definitely NOT alright, Obi-Wan. Then again, I don’t think any of us is,” she replies, eyes unfocused and Obi-Wan makes a non-committal noise, for she can’t disagree. “I’m on strict orders to rest. As good an excuse as any to lock me up in a gilded cage without bars and refuses me to try and save something out of the ashes of liberty’s pyre,” she chuckles mirthlessly, sounding hollow.

“We’re not beaten yet,” Obi-Wan finds herself saying, surprising herself, because she hadn’t planned to at all. Padmé lifts her head from her shoulder and give her a look.

“Are we not, Master Kenobi? The Republic crumpled and tyranny has just risen in his steps, even if people don’t realize it yet. I’m a virtual prisoner in my own apartment. What is left of the Jedi Order is being hunted down and killed even as we speak,” her voice itches and Obi-Wan’s heart breaks a little more. “I’m going to bring a child to life in this chaos, wherever I want it or not. And Anakin… Oh, Anakin,” she weeps, finally tearing up. “What happened to him? What did Palpatine make him do?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer, because there is no easy answer to give. Not that Padmé Amidala would settle for easy anyway but Obi-Wan doesn’t even know where to start herself. Her thoughts, her emotions, are jumbled. Her grief is too raw. She doesn’t know what to think or do about Anakin anymore than Padmé herself do. She couldn’t kill him when she was physically fit; she doesn’t think she can now, not weak from aftershock and drugs and without the Force at her side.

She’s not even sure she wants to, and that’s perhaps the worst betrayal to her vows as a Jedi she could commit.

“He turned him into a Sith,” she says softly, brokenly and is she crying? She thinks she may be.

They must be a pretty sight, the two of them. Two adult women crying their heart out in a dark room, one heavily pregnant and the other weak and hollow, barely able to sit up without help. Two adult women mourning for a man they loved, albeit in different ways, and who changed into a monster under their noses.

At least, that’s what Obi-Wan thinks.

Padmé… Padmé is on a slightly different trail.

“Obi-Wan… there is still good in him,” Padmé murmurs between two sobs. “There is still good in him. I know there is. He’s… he’s still here. Ani is still here. There has to be a way…”

She sounds like she has such unwavering conviction, it almost surprise Obi-Wan. Almost. But she remembers the Queen who rallied the Gungans to her help when she was barely Ahsoka’s age when the war started. She remembers the passionate Senator arguing on the floor of the Senate. Of course she’d clings to the idea that her husband can be saved.

“He’s a Sith, Padmé,” she murmurs quietly, closing her eyes. “He’s not… he’s not the Anakin we knew.” She tries to break it gently, but Padmé won’t have that.

“Don’t you think I know?” she laughs weakly. “But he’s still Anakin, Obi-Wan. He can still be reasoned with. He can still be talked to. He can still be…” she swallows. She doesn’t say ‘redeemed’, for which Obi-Wan is grateful for how can one be redeemed from the carnage she saw in the Temple? “He let you live,” she whispers. “He let you live, when Palpatine argued for your death. He told me as much himself when he was… talkative.”

“Should I be grateful?” Obi-Wan asks, face blank. Anakin didn’t seem to have any qualm murdering everyone else. She hadn’t dared to go down in the crèche, but if she had…

“Don’t you see, Obi-Wan?” Padmé presses again, holding Obi-Wan’s hand in hers and squeezing it. “He went against what Palpatine wanted. For you. When he obeyed him for everything else.” Like the massacre in the Temple. Like whatever he was doing now. “Whatever Palpatine did to him, Obi-Wan… whatever hold he has on Anakin, it’s not perfect, nor it is absolute. I don’t… I know I’m not Force sensitive,” she breathes in. “I can’t pretend to know how it works or why. And I know… I know Anakin may never be the same again,” her voice breaks a little. “But if there is just one chance that I can stop him from growing worse… if there is a chance we can do something… then I’ll be damned if I let Palpatine win.”

Obi-Wan looks at her through half-closed eyelids, biting on her lip. She wants to tell Padmé, so badly, how the Dark Side will forever guide Anakin’s footsteps, how foolish her hopes are.

And yet…

And yet, there is some sense in what she’s saying, isn’t it? Padmé isn’t talking about redemption, about bringing Anakin back in the Light, things Obi-Wan thinks are impossible. She’s talking about slowing down, no, more than that, she’s talking about stopping him from Falling further. Keeping whatever good is still there and nurturing it so it won’t disappear.

Salvage what they can from the old Anakin so Darth Vader doesn’t take over completely.

It… is crazy. A fool’s hope.

But… hope is the only thing they have left by this point, isn’t it?

Anakin loves Padmé, and he loves his future child already, and he loves Obi-Wan. They’re probably two of the only people of the galaxy who have a hold over him, through his feelings for them. Ahsoka, wherever she is (oh Force, is she even still alive?) is a third. Palpatine is a fourth. And Padmé’s child is likely going to be the fifth, Obi-Wan realizes.

Padmé doesn’t really get what being a Sith means, but Obi-Wan doesn’t have that luxury. Their love was not enough to save Anakin from himself. Anakin tried to kill Padmé in rage. He tried to kill Obi-Wan in their lightsabers’ duel, until a certain point. He put her in Force binders. He’s holding them both captive, kriffing hell! While he may profess wanting to protect them, he’ll harm them one way or the other if they don’t comply with what he wishes.

But Padmé is also right in saying Palpatine’s hold on Darth Vader isn’t (yet) that strong, isn’t she? Already, Anakin was thinking of betraying his new ‘Master’, if what he ranted about on Mustafar was true. Such is the way of the Siths, after all.

It doesn’t mean anything.

And yet…

If there is chance, just a small, tiny chance they can make Anakin not sink further into Darkness, that by supporting him and loving him they can… what? Save the galaxy? She has no illusion about that. Denying Palpatine a total victory then? Yes, that sounds about right. If there is a chance, shouldn’t it be Obi-Wan’s role as a Jedi (as a former Master, as an unwilling mother-figure) to at least try?

Was there really a chance Padmé and Obi-Wan (and the baby, once it was there?) together could outweigh the influence of Palpatine?

Obi-Wan isn’t certain. But…

She supposes she’ll know soon enough.