Archive of Our Own

Their group all left Polis Massa together as soon as Anakin was out of surgery for his new prosthetic. The medics wanted them to wait a few more hours, but they’d already delayed too much. It wasn’t safe to stay. Master Yoda had already left for his destination days ago on a tiny shuttle Bail had procured from somewhere.

It didn’t take long for them to prepare to leave. The two Jedi only had the clothes on their backs, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, and Anakin’s new prosthetic, which he could not use until he’d had at least a week to finish healing from his implant surgery. The younger man’s weapon had been destroyed in their fight on Mustafar.

(One shared night, Obi-Wan had pressed his forehead into Anakin’s hair and whispered. “I’m so sorry, my Padawan.”

“No, it—it’s for the best,” Anakin had mumbled back into his neck, eyes closed. Grief stained his voice. They would have had to find a new lightsaber for him, regardless. The one that had been with him at the Temple was too badly wounded to keep around the newborns. “I could feel it—the way it screamed. The kyber. It didn't want to hurt them any more than I did.”

Obi-Wan’s arm was a grounding weight over his hip, the warmth of their bodies pooling together under the hospital’s thin bedsheets.

“It’s for the best,” he repeated.)

Padmé had a bit more to show, toiletries and clothing and personal effects, including a few things of Anakin’s that had been left at her apartment on Coruscant. And the two droids, of course. Anakin was ecstatic to see them, incredibly relieved that they had not been left behind.

The staff of Polis Massa generously gifted them the hospital clothing they had been wearing and some supplies for the infants, a few days’ worth of diapers and some blankets and so on. Jur’laand personally gave them a double , to carry the twins around in. Padmé and Obi-Wan both had teared up at the gruff Mandalorian’s kindness.

Padmé said her goodbyes to Sabé and Yané before they left, the two of them not coming along to Alderaan. Instead they were going to lay a false trail, taking Padmé’s ship on a tour of the Outer Rim before finding a place to sell it and making their own way back to Naboo. The three women shared a long hug before parting. None of them looked back.

Once everyone was loaded up and settled in, Bail piloted them through a very specific route back to his homeworld on the ship he’d arrived in, some top-of-the-line model built for speed and stealth. Even with Anakin still drugged up to the gills from his surgery, Obi-Wan expected him to put up a fuss about not being allowed to fly. At the very least, he should have been geeking out over the ship.

But his padawan was withdrawn through the whole flight, barely speaking even once the painkillers began to wear off. (He only needed the one round, bacta infusions ensuring the tissues around his new implants were already healed enough to not need any more narcotics.) Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t in pain, but he continued to act noticeably off, spacey and on-edge.

Anakin wouldn’t respond with more than a grunt when Obi-Wan asked him if he was alright, but when he sat down beside the boy, Anakin climbed into his lap and curled up like a youngling. Obi-Wan held his thin frame against his chest and worried. Padmé sat in the seat next to them with the infants, occasionally exchanging concerned looks with Obi-Wan.

The trip was largely silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Arriving at the Alderaan Royal Palace was a bit anticlimactic. They set down in the Organas’ private hanger, Queen Breha meeting them there without even a cursory security detail. Anakin seemed to have come out of his funk by then, helping Obi-Wan with unloading their supplies. After speaking briefly with her husband, the queen (“Please, call me Breha, I insist.”) greeted Padmé with deep warmth and escorted the other woman, babies in tow, to their rooms (rooms, plural, stars above). After completing his post-flight checks, Bail assisted the two Jedi in carrying their belongings to join the others.

The Organas had essentially sectioned off a small wing of the palace for them to stay in while Bail got their safehouse set up. Only the two royals and a hand-picked selection of trusted palace staff are allowed to enter, to ensure knowledge of their presence is not leaked.

The building is gorgeous in a way Obi-Wan isn’t used to. Where the Jedi Temple was all heavy stone and ancient mosaics, surrounded by Coruscant’s bustling cityscape, layers upon layers of history stretching down into the planet’s depths, the palace is light and airy, near every room having enormous windows showing the planet’s natural greenery and renowned mountain views.

In some ways, he’s grateful for the difference. In others, it just makes him miss his home all the more.

*

The incident happens on their fourth day in the palace, a day before they’re set to leave to the safehouse.

It’s early in the morning, just after sunrise. Padmé and Obi-Wan are sitting in a small kitchen, drinking tea in companionable silence, watching the way the sun glitters off the mountains’ morning mist. The both of them are barefoot, as per the Alderaan social custom of not wearing outdoor-shoes inside one’s living space. It’s peaceful in a way Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s experienced before. Domestic, maybe, is the word for it.

A receiver for the baby monitor in the nursery sits between them. Padmé had spent a few hours with Queen Breha setting up a nursery in one of the wing’s bedrooms. She’d declined the offer at first, not wanting to ask so much of their hosts when they were only going to be staying a few days, but the other woman had seemed so excited at the prospect that she’d given in eventually.

It had been a good way to keep her mind off of things, and was certainly better than sitting around doing nothing. And Anakin had seemed to really enjoy it, too, once he’d found them and joined in. It was good to see him smile.

The problem came that night. Even with baby monitors and staff and the Jedi having a literal telepathic connection to the children, the adults still all felt a little uncomfortable leaving them to sleep alone in a different room. Obi-Wan eventually volunteered to sleep on the couch in the nursery, so the married couple could stay together.

It ended up being a moot point. Obi-Wan and Anakin both would jolt awake as soon as either Luke or Leia needed anything, before they even started crying. Ironically, Padmé ended up being the one of the three of them to get the most sleep. The two men didn’t really mind. It was still better rest than they had gotten at many points during the war.

The twins have just gotten back to sleep now, after being changed and fed, the monitor quiet and Obi-Wan’s bonds humming with sleepy satisfaction. Anakin had gone to take a shower, while he and Padmé went in search of breakfast. The woman sliced up some fruit for them all while Obi-Wan put the kettle on.

Feeling Anakin approaching from the hall, Obi-Wan turns to look at the entrance to the kitchen. Padmé notices and follows his gaze, so they both see the change that comes over Anakin when he steps into the space. He enters with a relaxed smile, wet hair brushing the top of his simple, dark green tunic. He sees the two of them and opens his mouth, as if to greet them—and then he freezes.

There’s a single beat where Anakin goes utterly blank, sending a bolt of terror zinging through Obi-Wan as he remembers the horrors from last week, before the younger man just—folds in on himself, arms wrapping around his middle as he collapses to his knees. By the time Obi-Wan and Padmé reach his side, he’s already hyperventilating, shaking, eyes wide and glazed over.

“Anakin,” he gasps at the exact same time Padmé says, “Ani, dear, what’s wrong?” Both of them have their arms extended towards the younger man, who doesn’t react yet to their approach, doesn’t even seem to realize they’re there.

Until he does.

Just as his wife’s hand brushes his shoulder, Anakin screams, “Don’t touch me!” the sounds torn from his throat. He scrabbles away from them on the ground, not even trying to stand up, eyes rolling wildly around the room. Padmé looks to Obi-Wan for a beat, her face as distraught as he’s sure his own is.

“Anakin,” he tries, crouching down to try and seem less threatening, ignoring the pang in his knee. “Padawan, it’s okay.” Anakin has backed himself into a corner of the room, pressed against the walls like he’s still trying to get away. Neither of them try to approach him again, not wanting him to feel trapped.

In the gentlest voice he can muster, he says, “You’re safe, little one. I promise, you’re safe.” But Anakin doesn’t seem to even hear him, caught in some horrible memory.

Movement from the entryway catches Obi-Wan’s eye, and he sees a housekeeper poke his head into the room for just a second before vanishing again. Standing beside him, Padmé begins to hum softly, a light, unfamiliar melody. Obi-Wan looks at his son shaking apart on the floor in front of him and feels helpless.

Even in the throws of what is clearly some kind of flashback, Anakin is able to angle most of his terror and desperation away from the infants, probably instinctively. Obi-Wan shields them from what stray emotions do leak through the other’s defenses. At least he can do this.

The minutes tick by, agonizingly long while all the two if them can do is sit by helplessly as Anakin suffers. But then, eventually, slowly, he starts coming back. His roving gaze lands on his wife and stays there. She notices, pausing her humming.

“Ani?” she says. “Are you there, love?” Anakin’s breathing is still too fast, his body coiled defensively against the wall. He doesn’t respond for several seconds, only continuing to shiver.

“P—Pad—m-mé…?” he finally quavers, seeming almost dazed.

“Yes, puppy, it’s me.” She smiles at him, watery and encouraging. “And Obi-Wan is here, too.”

Anakin blinks. His gaze wanders until it lands on Obi-Wan. Something in his face fractures, draws tight, and his voice pitches up. “M—Master?”

“I’m here, dear one,” he says, brushing their presences together. Anakin gasps softly and then clings, signature pressing tight against Obi-Wan’s mind. “Can we come closer?” As soon as he nods, Obi-Wan scoots towards him across the polished wood flooring, Padmé walking beside him.

By the time they reach his side, Anakin has started to cry softly. Obi-Wan turns to sit with his back to the wall and draws his brother into his arms, hugging him close to his chest. His boy tucks his forehead under Obi-Wan’s chin, his cheek against his clavicle. Padmé kneels gingerly in front of them, still a little sore from the birth. She takes Anakin’s hand and squeezes it, petting at his hair and face.

Footsteps sound at the doorway, and Obi-Wan looks up in time to see Queen Breha stride in, stately even in a nightgown and robe. She takes in the scene, the three of them piled on the ground with Anakin in tears, and stops a few feet into the room, giving them their space. Obi-Wan is grateful.

“Oh my,” she hums to herself, crossing her arms and frowning in honest concern.

Padmé twists to look at her while keeping both hands on Anakin. “Good morning, Breha,” she blows out in one breath, sounding stressed and sad.

“Good morning,” their host replies automatically. “Is there anything I can do?”

Padmé sighs, glances at him and Anakin, then back at Breha. Obi-Wan feels her worry and melancholy like a great weight—and then the starburst flash of an idea. “Actually—could you check on the twins, please?”

“Of course,” Breha agrees immediately, though she lingers for a moment. “If he’s feeling up to it,” she slants her head towards Anakin, “You three could visit the eastern courtyard. It’s quite beautiful at this time of day.”

Padmé smiles just a little, Obi-Wan knows, though he cannot see it, and says, “Thank you.” He echoes her a second later.

“Of course,” the queen repeats with a nod and a small smile of her own, and then she takes her leave.

After a few more minutes of quiet reassurances, Anakin manages to calm down for the most part, still shivering lightly but breathing steadily. He sits up some, but doesn’t pull away from them.

“S-sorry,” he mutters, sniffing and trying to wipe his eyes on the shoulder of his tunic. Obi-Wan puts a stop to that (Anakin should know better, Obi-Wan has told him so many times how unsanitary that is—but now isn’t the time for lecturing), and calls over a few clean napkins from the counter for him to use instead. He makes the executive decision that it’s not frivolous use of the Force if it’s to help Anakin.

Padmé is rubbing circles on his back, leaning in close. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Ani. It’s okay to feel upset.”

Obi-Wan asks, “Can you tell us what happened?” Anakin had seemed just fine when he first walked in. There must have been something to trigger his fit, but Obi-Wan has no idea what it might have been.

“I…” Anakin trails off, his next breath shuddering on its way out. His eyes flicker back and forth where he’s staring at the floor, like he’s struggling to find the words he needs.

When it seems like he isn’t going to continue, Padmé suggests, “Would you like to find that courtyard Breha mentioned?”

“…That sounds nice,” Anakin murmurs, sniffing again.

Obi-Wan is pretty sure he knows the area she was referring to, a lovely garden paved with stepping stones, enclosed by the walls of the palace, so there’s no chance of their presence being discovered by outsiders.

Course decided, Obi-Wan stands, pulling Anakin up with him, and then helps Padmé to her feet, as well. She wraps her arms around the crook of Anakin’s left elbow while Obi-Wan takes his hand, and the three of them pad into the hallway together in search of fresh air.

—

Anakin can feel himself shaking lightly as he, Padmé, and Obi-Wan make their way through Alderaan’s Royal Palace. His face is tacky from drying tears. He feels faint and floaty, and his chest hurts a little, like he’s been fighting for hours in the freezing cold. But it’s warm where he’s ensconced between his family.

Obi-Wan directs them confidently through the halls, to a small sunroom and then out through a sliding glass door into the early morning. The garden really is beautiful, filled with all sorts of greenery, flowers and bushes and vines crawling up trellises, small, wide trees providing plenty of shade. The paths are marked with smooth stepping stones, pleasantly cool against the bottoms of his feet. The air is crisp, but the sun prevents Anakin from feeling too chilled.

It’s nice.

The three of them walk for a few minutes in silence, listening to birdsong and the quiet buzzing of some kind of insect. It reminds him of the time spent at Varykino with Padmé. Before the war, when he still had a mom, and both his arms. When his biggest worries were about not making a fool of himself in front of the other padawans, and not disappointing Obi-Wan. Even if it had felt stressful at the time, looking back, it was one of the happiest points of his life.

Soon they come upon a small bench under an old but well-maintained wooden pergoda, flowering vines creeping up it’s support pillars. Obi-Wan beelines to the bench and Anakin follows, sitting to his Master’s left. Padmé settles on his other side with a small sigh. There’s just enough room for the three of them to press together, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder, Anakin slightly squashed between the two older Humans. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

In front of them is a large bush-like plant with many long, thick stalks emerging from its center. The end of each one is topped with a single, enormous, heart-shaped leaf. He sort of wants to go over and touch the leaves—though, he wouldn’t be able to feel the texture with his hand. Anakin thinks about asking the others if they know what plant it is.

He opens his mouth, and what comes out is, “He drugged me.”

Both Obi-Wan and Padmé turn their heads to him, but he doesn’t look away from the plant. “Ani?” His wife’s voice is so soft and concerned. She leans further against him, a grounding weight.

Obi-Wan, emitting heartbreak like a radioactive fuel core, says, “Anakin.” Anakin opens his mouth. Closes it again. Swallows.

But he wants to continue. He has to. “I was meeting him for—for tea, and he—he drugged me.”

Obi-Wan murmurs, “Anakin, sweetheart, you don’t have to do this now.”

He shakes his head. His Master is wrong, he does have to tell them now, can’t bear to keep it inside of himself any longer. “He d-drugged me, a-and I couldn’t—couldn’t move.”

Anakin has to pause to breathe a few times, feeling phantom sensations of hands on him, on his legs, his chest, his face. He tries to focus on the two Force signatures around him, their steady, caring concern.

“And then. Then he brought out th-that thing. The—the lyssamal.” Anakin shudders, and then can’t stop, the tremors wracking his body growing more and more powerful. “It—it was—h-horrible.”

Padmé wraps her arm around his again, resting her cheek against his shoulder and reaching around to take his mechanical hand. He brings her hand up to press the back of it against his face, wanting to feel the texture of her skin. Obi-Wan plants a hand on his back, a solid warmth between his shoulder blades, his other hand on Anakin’s knee. It feels nothing like the Chancellor’s clinical, possessive touches.

“He p-put it on my face, and—and it w-went—inside me—” He shudders hard at the memory of how it felt. The disgust and terror, the violating agony. “And then—and then he was—controlling me. My body was m-moving all on it’s own, and I couldn’t—I-I couldn’t—” The words choke to a stop. The horror of it floods back, the betrayal, being taken and used by someone he’d trusted for so, so long.

Tears beading in his eyes, Anakin whispers into his lap, “He made me his slave.”

He feels Obi-Wan tense at his side, realization lancing through his presence, immediately followed by viscous sorrow. Anakin tilts his head away, prickles of shame running down his neck. Logically, he knows his Master isn’t judging him for this, doesn’t think lesser of him, but he can’t help feeling ashamed anyway.

Hands reach up to cup his face, callused from writing utensils and wielding blasters rather than ‘saberwork, and still soft besides. Padmé pulls his head down until she can kiss the corner of his mouth, protective and proud. Proud to be with him, proud to have him at her side, no matter his past.

“You’re free, Ani, darling,” she whispers to him, all iron conviction. “And you’re going to stay that way.” He takes a shuddering breath, lifts his hand to hold it over one of hers.

Obi-Wan, from his other side, promises, “We won’t ever let him take you, Padawan.” His Master reaches up to tuck a lock of long hair behind Anakin’s ear, thumb rubbing softly over his cheekbone. It’s so tender and fond, Anakin gains the courage to blurt out the last of it.

“I…” Another breath. “I couldn’t m-move, and he, he made me, made me l-lay on the couch and, and, and I thought—at first, I thought—” Anakin’s voice catches and then breaks. He covers his mouth with his hand, other arm curled around his chest. The words still fall out of him, muffled, “He fuckin’—f-fuckin’ roofied me and—a-and—” His eyes squeeze shut and he breaks into sobbing again.

His family presses closer while he cries, sheltering him as the memories of choking fear and helplessness and violation come spilling out. A hand begins running through his hair, gentle humming starting up, solid warmth protecting him from both sides.

Despite the horrors, it feels so nice to be in their arms. His wife and his Master, the man who taught and raised him and the woman who chose him for who he is instead of what he can do. His partners, in marriage and in battle and in the Force.

Anakin tries to speak again, once he’s a little calmer, trying to explain. “It was. It was th-the tea. Before, i-in the kitchen. Th-the smell.” He’d walked into the room and could smell the same tea Palpatine would make for their talks, strong and a little bitter, and he was suddenly back there, with him. “The same—the same tea…”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan gasps. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. It’s not Obi-Wan’s fault, he couldn’t have known. “It’s—it’s okay.” And, somehow, he realizes, it is. He still feels shaky and anxious, but he knows it will pass. Exhaustion weighs on him, but it feels clean, like a good workout. He’ll be okay.

“Even still,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “We’ll stay away from that brew, from now on.” Rubbing gentle circles on his back, the man presses his lips briefly to his temple. Anakin sighs, a bit more stress sloughing off.

On his left, Padmé leans her head against his shoulder. “Everything’s alright, . We’re safe right now.”

Yes, he thinks. We’re safe right now.

A soft breeze flows past them, rustling nearby leaves, caressing his face and tussling his hair, carrying the scent of life and distant rain.

Anakin takes a slow, deep breath. He’s safe.