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There was the sound of three matching screams in the emergency infirmary.
The shrill pitch of the twins was almost drowned by the groans of misery escaping the prone figure collapsed into a chair next to the bed, hovering a mechanical hand over a face dull and lifeless.
The moment her children took their first breath of life, she in turn breathed her last; this was Padme Amidala’s legacy.
The droid spoke in an unshaped, mild tone of voice the time of birth and death. It then took the babies away for further health inspection.
Behind the glass, Obi-Wan Kenobi kept his eyes fixed on his grieving friend.
He couldn’t imagine the depths of Anakin’s despair. Not because he didn’t wish to feel it- the shields Anakin had developed between them as soon as Obi-Wan had arrived back from Utapau had hardly budged. They were iron solid.
The better question would be what Obi-Wan wouldn’t do for him in this moment. But even so, he had only learned of Anakin and Padmé’s involvement, and indeed her condition, as she was brought in for emergency surgery.
He felt unearthed, unmoored from reality. What was once the sharp adrenaline of triumph with his defeat of Grevious, and what he surely thought was the last step needed to end the war, now tasted like the sharp tang of defeat.
The war that was, apparently, perfectly fabricated to destroy the republic and Anakin Skywalker alike.
The report a winded but unharmed Mace had given him rattled and replayed for Obi-Wan over and over.
Palpatine- Sidious.
This was all going wrong.
Obi-Wan crossed his arms, folding his hands into his robes. He bowed his head, letting his eyes close at the loss of a woman he held in such high regard.
He steeled himself, knowing that whatever happened now, he would be by Anakin’s side, able to help guide him once again. They would get through this. If nothing else, for the sake of the children.
This was Obi-Wan Kenobi: a former general, Jedi Master, the blade made and perfected to be Anakin Skywalker’s protector and friend.
When they were together, they could get through anything.
*****
Anakin refused to attend the funeral.
“Her family will be there- they’ll want to know what really happened, see the children-“
“NO!” Anakin shouted firmly, wincing and glancing toward the closed door of the twin’s room and letting out a silent sigh of relief when no noise accompanied his shouting.
He didn’t turn to face his former Master, going back to tinkering with his lightsaber at his newly acquired apartment’s dining room table.
Anakin could tell that his Master was dragging a weary hand down his face, and his jaw set tightly in response.
He wouldn’t let Padme’s family see his children. They would claim them, take them away, take them away from Anakin-
“Dear One, breathe, you’re okay. I’m here for you. I understand why you wouldn’t…wouldn’t want to go.” Obi-Wan’s concern leaked from him like an untapped facet. Anakin hated it.
His hands were shaking. He saw them from a hazy lens, fear clouding his thoughts and making him on edge.
He didn’t like being around people…not anymore.
He couldn’t trust anyone.
Oh my boy, you could always trust me, couldn’t you?
Anakin shook his head, standing from his chair and nearly knocking it over.
“I need you to go in my place, Master. I…I know she would have liked it if you were there. You were friends. But I can’t.” Anakin looked up to his Master, the first time he had since Obi-Wan had come in to check on him. “Please, Obi-Wan?”
Obi-Wan looked tired, and very torn. He had been helping in the post-war effort, using the resources of their clone troopers to help rebuild the galaxy from the ruins the war had brought on. The 501st joined his ranks, as Anakin was grounded to the temple while he spoke with the mind healers and watched over the children.
Obi-Wan met his eyes searchingly, and Anakin could feel the familiar press of Obi-Wan’s signature tapping on his shields; a polite knock of entry.
Anakin didn’t acknowledge it.
Obi-Wan finally let out a loose sigh, rubbing his temples and nodding. “Okay. Okay, Anakin. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do, while I’m home again? I ship out by the end of the week. Another resource mission to the inner rim.”
Anakin dipped his head, clenching his hands behind his back.
He just wants more reasons to come back, to see the way you unravel when he’s not here. We both know you’re lesser without him. You could have been so much more with ME as your Master-
“No! I’m- we’ll be fine. It’s fine. The crèche have offered to take the children when I’m at my sessions. Besides, Master,” Anakin mused with a small scrap of humor, “You look older by the day. You need your beauty rest.”
That earned him a slightly stilted chuckle. “I suppose so. Even with the war being over, I can never get a moment to catch up on all the sleep I lost in the field.”
They smiled at each other, reaching a moment of comradery like the distant, shadowed memory of it once was.
Then a piercing wail echoed around the room.
Anakin flinched at the sound, turning in panic and almost slamming the door in his haste to check on the twins, barely taking in Obi-Wan’s hesitant goodbye as he left the apartment.
Leia had woken up, her Force presence strong and angry as she pounded her tiny fists into the blanket around her.
Anakin detached the shields that lay around him and his children’s Force bond, letting love and soothing calm he didn’t feel filter in and around the three of them. Leia settled, further quieting when Anakin picked her up and rocked her slowly. Luke, eyeing the pair of them, quickly went back to sleep once he could see nothing was wrong.
So deep in the Force, so powerful…perhaps I would have kept you around long enough to pick a new, better apprentice to train, and had her kill you to prove her loyalty to me.
Anakin ignored the words, as he had been.
He would protect his children with everything he had. They were the only thing he had left, the precious gifts he had been given.
This was Anakin Skywalker: a broken man, untrusting of those around him seeking only to help, and feeling the dark and light inside of him in an eternal inner battle. He was alone, but he would not let anything stop him from keeping his children with him.
Unknowingly, this kept them from true safety, as the dark slowly crept closer and closer to a man who had lost everything.
*****
“So, Anakin- how have the dreams been lately?”
His mind healer’s tail swished in a thoughtful manner when Anakin shrugged his shoulders. “Normal. Nothing new.”
“Nothing new? So I’m going to assume that they’ve been the same. Flashbacks, specifically of your last moments with Palpatine- those have remained the same?”
He hated the way they could pinpoint with deadly accuracy his most hidden thoughts. Of course he dreamed of it. The moment would haunt him forever.
The horrible realization that he had to choose between his morals- his Jedi family- or the life he could have built with his wife and procuring her eternal safety… it was an impossible choice to make.
Obi-Wan’s side of the bond had tugged, even so far away as he was battling Grevious, grounding Anakin and assuring him that he couldn’t make that choice.
Watching Windu cut into Palpatine, a man he had trusted and loved, who was a Sith Lord- looking back and analyzing the moment over and over again showed the way Palpatine had curled his fist just before his death, and the hurried comm call about Padme going into unexpected and painful labor shouting out from Anakin’s wrist in tandem.
And now that voice stayed in his mind, reminding him over and over he could have changed her fate, seen the power he had yet to grasp, could have kept those he loved safe -
“Anakin? Anakin-“ A waving claw in his vision snapped Anakin out of it, seeing how the healer’s eyebrow arched. “Your spacing out is even worse this week than last time. Have you been taking your prescribed medications and going through the meditation practices I showed you? They’ll let the memories flow through you and into the living Force.”
No. “Yes,” Anakin muttered through gritted teeth. “I’ve just been staying up late with the twins. They’ve started to get extra fussy and they wake up at random times, so I’m sorry if I’m not perky and energetic today. I’m doing just. Fine.”
His healer frowned at him, making him stop fiddling with his robes and sigh.
“You’re going to go through the meditation with me again, aren’t you?”
The healer’s self satisfied smile spoke volumes.
This was going to make his headache even worse.