Chapter Text
He can see it in the Force.
Padmé is dying.
After all the deaths he’s witnessed up to now, this one confuses him. He doesn’t understand why. Medical droids, currently taking care of the babies, aren’t very sure too.
She is weak and pale. Her voice is strangled when she whispers his name. Obi-Wan leans in, his cheek almost brushing hers, wet with tears. “Is he… is he alive?”
He thinks back to Anakin, sluggishly bleeding onto the floor of her skiff. Is he, though? Still alive? Obi-Wan didn’t check on him. He also barricaded his end of the bond. And yet, he told no one about him. Not even Yoda.
Obi-Wan whispers, very quietly, “I tried. I don’t know if he lives.”
Padmé swallows a sob. “Please, help him. There's still good in him. Please… Obi-Wan.”
Blaster burns, dead younglings, cut off limbs of his fellow brothers and sisters, despair and horror exploding in the Force. He shakes the images off, refocusing on her deathly white features twisted in pain. His heart squeezes for her.
“I’ll try,” he says instead of ‘I promise’. Is it enough to redo the decades of promises that went wrong? That word would be like a blasphemy on his tongue now.
Her teary eyes, red-rimmed and shattered, find his eyes one last time, and he watches the light in them go out.
xxx
Yoda is asking him something. Obi-Wan looks up at him, at Bail, sitting in the lounge chair opposite him, and realizes that he didn’t hear a word. There is a fog in his mind. And he can barely fight it.
“Excuse me,” he says, inclining his head. “Could you repeat that, please?”
Grandmaster is watching him knowingly. “Finish soon, we should. Tired everyone is.”
“We were talking about splitting the children,” Bail interjects helpfully. “I’ll take the girl.”
Sighing, Obi-Wan rubs his chin.
Should they split the children? Is it a right thing to do?
As he is mulling it over, he thinks about Anakin, their father, the one who is denied any medical care by Obi-Wan, and might as well be taking his last breath right now. His dear Padawan. His brother in all but name. The man he loved. Should Anakin succumb to his injuries, Obi-Wan thinks with cold rationality, it would be a welcome outcome right now.
This idea should horrify the Jedi in him.
It doesn’t.
“I will take the boy,” he speaks slowly. He is considering arguing about taking the other twin too, but stops himself before the words leave his mouth. He already has enough responsibilities on his hands. What if he can’t protect both children? No, the risk is too high.
“Where will you go?” Yoda asks, and there’s something uncomfortably piercing in his old eyes this time.
Obi-Wan can’t think of anywhere safe. But he can think of somewhere remote.
“Outer Rim. Somewhere far away from the Empire.”
A straggling memory of a world covered in sands drifts by. Young, curious Padmé, a bundle of fearful hope that was little Anakin, and himself, a Padawan slightly bored with being stuck guarding the delegation on the ship. The memory blinks out, covered by the soot from the lives burned and wasted.
“You can come to Alderaan,” Bail surprises him with an offer. “To recover and regroup.”
And Obi-Wan is tempted. Very tempted. But, alas, he can’t.
“Thank you, my friend,” he nods to Yoda. “However, I believe, Grandmaster is right. We did everything we could. We should go into hiding now and not put you under any risk. You have your battles to fight with the Empire rising.”
Bail lowers his eyes. “I understand. Let’s keep in touch, then.”
Obi-Wan agrees. He can’t refuse anyway. And there are so many things to take care of. Padmé’s funeral, supplies for Luke, the droids he ordered to stay put on the skiff. Anakin. He forces his thoughts back to the droids, suddenly realizing something.
“Can this facility spare a medical droid?” he probes. “I’d like to take one with me.”
Bail immediately confirms. “I will arrange it.”
Together with Bail, they bid goodbye to Yoda’s small vessel. It disappears in the darkness of the fractured galaxy like a star blinking out of existence forever.
xxx
R2 whirls softly, laying the course. He is unusually subdued, as if he too bears a burden. The droid is certainly a great help, because Obi-Wan would not entrust himself to pilot anything. He feels all the exhaustion of the war lost and a sleepless day stretched into infinity pressing on his shoulders. He is sore all over. But overwhelming grief beats all that.
When he goes to check on Luke, it’s just a distraction and he knows it. The baby is sleeping peacefully in a hover crib, observed by two droids. C-3PO jerks around anxiously, nearly bumping into a small medical droid.
Obi-Wan wordlessly gestures C-3PO to be quiet. Somehow, he is managing a team of droids, a newborn baby, and a newly turned Sith at the same time. His sanity may be questionable, but he is aware enough to realize that small babies shouldn’t be woken by startled droids.
“IM-6, come with me,” Obi-Wan says quietly.
Once he pulled unresponsive Anakin into the ship, prompted by an urge from the Force, he didn’t do much but cuff him up. Padmé was in agony from her contractions, so he stayed with her all the time. Whether it helped her or not, he had no clue, but it was the least he could do for her.
He glances down on Anakin spread on the bunk. Throat tightening up, he feels like he can’t breathe until Anakin, still before now, starts seizing.
His body is shaking uncontrollably, arching up, limbs thrashing and his bloodied head is jerking dangerously. Obi-Wan acts without thinking. Cursing to himself, he presses Anakin bodily down, calling on the droid to help.
Obi-Wan’s nose is bleeding and probably broken by the time Anakin’s seizures die down. It is oddly fitting: once Anakin can breathe normally again, Obi-Wan can only gulp in mouthfuls of stale air. Their shared pain always has a poetic symmetry to it.
“A traumatic brain injury could be the cause of seizure,” states the droid. “Did the patient experience seizures before?”
“No,” Obi-Wan mutters faintly, swallowing some blood of his own and squeezing his eyes shut. He chooses to stay on the floor. Standing up seems like a bad idea.
IM-6 lists the injuries it is able to detect: a broken leg, back burns, lacerations that already coagulated. A horrific scalp wound, bleeding all over Anakin’s face turned it into a dark mask of crusted blood. And a fresh wound on the back of his head when he smashed it into the wall. His fever is spiking abnormally.
Anakin could be worse off, considering. Unless he is bleeding internally, he must pull through.
Obi-Wan knows him too well. Knows what he is capable of. His former Padawan’s prowess, which used to fill him with pride and joy, invokes bleak dread now.
He is still Obi-Wan’s responsibility. His failure. His Fallen One. His future killer. Maybe.
“Can you help him?” Obi-Wan inquires the droid.
“I can treat most surface injuries. As for the abnormal electrical brain discharges, I have to monitor the patient’s condition to make any conclusions on the possible neurological disability.”
“Please, do that.” Obi-Wan helps himself to his feet and immediately leans on the wall.
His vision swims.
xxx
A few days pass by.
Obi-Wan is with Luke in the cockpit when Anakin comes to his senses. He knows that because of an unmistakable spike in the Force, and because Luke breaks into a heart-wrenching wail at the same time. The ship is still in hyperspace. And the reality of facing Anakin, incapacitated or not, in a closed off space is not appealing in the slightest.
Exhaling a breath, he tells C-3PO to watch over Luke.
For a man who had overpowered Anakin only recently, he is not confident enough. What he accomplished was the work of the light side of the Force. It was with him during their fight on the lava hell of Mustafar.
Now, his heavy heart and a never-ending headache is with him.
Trusting himself is getting harder and harder.
Anakin’s face is white under the bandage around his head, and his clothes are clean. Obi-Wan has given him a dry wash himself, out of decency. It was an odd ordeal. He pushes the thought about it away.
IM-6 is hovering by his bunk, delivering the speech, “I need better scans to decide whether this cure decreases chances of death or disability.”
“Thank you, IM-6,” Obi-Wan says dryly. “All things considered, we can rule out death.”
Groaning, Anakin tries to lift his head. Obi-Wan’s heart stutters when he sees that his eyes, ruptured blood vessels aside, are blue.
“Master?” he rasps.