Star Wars AU work in progress: Becoming Love: I, In You: The Rise of the Clone Wars

[polgarawolf]

Eighth Chapter of a SW AU work in progress
Series Title: Becoming Love: I, In You
*Story Title: The Rise of the Clone Wars
*Tentative/working title only - subject to change, as I’m not sure I like it!
Pairing: Mainly Dormékin with some background Sobidala (Sabé/Obi-Wan/Padmé Amidala).
*Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline PG-13/R-ish, overall, maybe (?)
*This may be subject to change, in a few very specific later parts.
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys and girls from Star Wars, more's the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone (or to make up its bloody mind about certain things) . . .

Summary: What if Senator Padmé Amidala had refused to go into hiding on Naboo, during the events of AotC and a scheme were instead hatched that involved sending Dormé Tammesin (the Senator's only surviving handmaiden on Coruscant who’d been trained as a decoy) into hiding as Amidala, with Anakin Skywalker to accompany and protect her, while Obi-Wan Kenobi went searching for the individual(s) responsible for the attempts on the Senator’s life and the first of the Senator's decoys (now one of the primary trainers of her new handmaidens), Sabé Dahn, brought her newest students to Coruscant to help Jedi Knights Siri Tachi and Garen Muln in their new assignment to hide and protect Padmé, while she remained on Coruscant to covertly continue the fight against the passing of the Military Creation Act? What, then, might have followed . . . and how would events have turned out differently than in the film saga? Dormékin AU of AotC!

Author’s Warnings: 1.) Please see the Author’s Warnings for the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Again, this story does not have a beta - I’ve proof-read and checked the grammar, but I won’t swear that there aren’t any typos! I will be happy to fix any errors that are pointed out to me!

Author’s Notes: 1.) Please see the Author’s Notesfor the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Although probably not as exciting as other chapters to read, this is an important chapter, if for no other reason than that it (attempts) to convey a lot of the explanation for the more cynical realist, politically aware attitude Obi-Wan Kenobi has in this story and for certain steps taken by Obi-Wan in an attempt to protect Anakin from the less than beneficent attention of the High Council, which have resulted in a some slightly less than Jedi-like behavior and attitude from Anakin over the years (and should, hopefully, account for some of the otherwise quite inexplicable change in Anakin's character from TPM era to the AotC timeline). It also should fill in a bit more detail on Dormé's backstory and on the background I've long since settled on for Padmé's older sister, Sola (which in turn ties in to my explanation for Padmé's rather out of character behavior in AotC and afterwards).
3.) Again, I have a journal entry with a running list of costumes/images that work (somewhat) as "illustrations" for much of this story, a more complete/updated version of which can now be found at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/136333.html and, when the story is completely done, I will likely go back and either create specific entries with links for each chapter or include the proper information on costumes and such for each chapter in that chapter post.

Star Wars
Becoming Love: I, In You
The Rise of the Clone Wars

Chapter Eight: Reflecting (During a Lull Between Storms)


1,000:05:23-1,000:05:24 After Ruusan Reformations (25,001 After Republic’s Founding), 13-12 days prior to the Battle of Geonosis

It has been said that the ’verse can only be grasped by action, not contemplation, and that the hand is the cutting edge of the mind; I believe, though, that we reap in the harvest of action that which we plant first in the soil of contemplation, and the most bountiful of harvests follow only the most thoroughly delved and plowed of fields.
- Jedi Master Thame Cerulian, from personal journals left, on his death, to his Padawan, the rightful heir of House Dooku of Serenno, Yannis Kitsou Dooku

Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t quite fidget in the confines of the small, single-being fighter as he hurtles on through space towards the star system where he believes Kamino should be, but it is a near thing. He is unused to being alone on such journeys, unused to the silence and the lack of a certain familiar presence in the Force. He usually meditates - or at least tries to meditate, as much as his restlessly energetic Padawan will allow him to - on these longer journeys; yet, now, surprisingly, that he is alone in a quiet ship, he finds himself distracted, unable to concentrate, and disinclined to attempt meditation.

He misses Anakin, misses his presence, misses his chatter and his restlessness. But it’s not just that he’s feeling the absence of his Padawan. Obi-Wan had initially been gripped by a terrible feeling of dread - an almost crippling premonition of danger and wrongness - when the High Council declared that they were splitting the two of them up, with Anakin accompanying Padmé into hiding on Naboo while Obi-Wan remained behind to track down the origins of the poisoned dart used to silence one of her would-be assassins and, hopefully, to find and take care of the source of the attempts on the Senator’s life; that terrible sense of future suffering and doom largely dissipated, though, when Padmé refused to go into hiding and instead insisted on sending one of her handmaidens, Dormé, back to Naboo in her stead. Though a lingering sense of unease continued to haunt him, on the subject of their splitting up, he ceased to feel as if the Force were all but screaming at him in warning, trying to keep him from agreeing to send Anakin off alone with Padmé. Now, though, he is feeling unaccountably, uncharacteristically restless, anxious, and distracted by the fact that he cannot simply reach out - either physically or through the Force - and touch Anakin, to gain his attention and strike up a conversation. So he is puzzled, now, as to the reason behind his discomfort, regarding Anakin’s absence.

The bond that he shares with Anakin is extremely strong, so much so that they’ve been forced to go to some lengths to hide the extensive nature of that bond from the highly suspicious members of the High Council. If he wanted to, if it were truly necessary, Obi-Wan knows that he could probably reach out through the Force and call Anakin’s attention to himself, perhaps even to the point of being able to pass on a message to him, even from so great a distance as Kamino from Naboo. Most Master-Padawan pairings share an empathic bond that will allow some rough sharing of emotions and an awareness of the general state (and, sometimes, the rough location) of each being in the bond, but the strength of that bond won’t stretch to the point of true telepathy; he and Anakin, though, have always been able to speak mind to mind (after a manner), through a combination of sensory-impressions and thought-forms that essentially resolve themselves mentally into messages, even to the point of evoking certain highly specific words and phrases. Obi-Wan isn’t entirely sure what the limit of their range is, though. The only times they’ve been far enough apart for Obi-Wan to be able to try to truly test that range, Anakin has been in no fit state to sense anyone or anything through the Force. He’s not entirely sure that he could do much more than to simply reach Anakin, given the amount of distance between them. And he’s fairly certain that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try it, when he’s not entirely sure himself of what it is that he wants to say and he might not be able to reach Anakin with a comprehensible message anyway (which, in all probability, would likely only end up panicking Anakin and prodding him into doing something foolish). He just . . . well, he’s uneasy. And he misses his Padawan.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Anakin with Dormé. Anakin may not like or approve of many of the Jedi Order’s rules, but he is perfectly aware of their precarious standing in the Order and Obi-Wan is fairly certain that, after all of the time and effort they’ve both put in, to maintain that position and placate the High Council, that Anakin won’t do anything casually or impulsively that could threaten their standing. No, if Anakin does anything at all to anger the High Council, it will either be a matter of necessity or else it will be an action undertaken with deliberation, after great consideration, not because he’s gone off half-cocked and done something foolishly rash. As a matter of fact, since Dormé is with him, he’s that much more likely to comm Obi-Wan and speak to him first, about any decisions needing to be made that could result in actions unpalatable to the High Council. Dormé is an extremely responsible young lady and she’s also quite capable of persuading Anakin to be more careful than he would be, otherwise, which means that any important decisions that crop up over the course of this mission are liable to be run past both Obi-Wan and either Sabé or Padmé or both before any action in taken. It baffles him, that he could know all of this and yet still be concerned about the fact that he and Anakin are no longer literally working together on this mission.

Alright, yes, so perhaps Dormé isn’t precisely the most well-adjusted, mentally healthy of Padmé’s handmaidens. If it had been up to him, she and her whole blasted family would have been placed with a good Minder or a Soul Healer the moment her mother became aware of the fact that she was pregnant, so the whole messy awful business surrounding Illyn Tammesin’s attack and Dormé’s questionable parentage (regarding her father) could have been seen to before it had a chance to fester and turn into something ugly enough to make Dormé desperate to escape from her family by entering the handmaiden program and to cause her to react to being chosen as Padmé’s second primary decoy as if it were one of the first instances of personal validation she’d ever received in her life. That doesn’t mean that Dormé isn’t a good person: she is a good person, and a very strong (and strong-willed) person, and a very capable and conscientious handmaiden, as well as an extremely close friend of Anakin’s.

Dormé has been deeply scarred by her childhood - unwanted and largely either avoided and ignored or actively tormented by her immediate family, aside from her youngest brother, and plunged directly into the midst of a guerrilla-type war against a vastly better armed and armored occupying force with very little training or preparation for such activity within mere weeks of escaping from her parents’ household - but she is perhaps the most loyal, skillful, and ingenious of all of Padmé’s handmaidens, aside from Sabé. Obi-Wan is quite certain that Dormé will be able to deal with any situation (no matter how unexpected or how potentially explosive) that might arise, while she and Anakin are on Naboo, and he is also fairly certain that she would cheerfully cut her own throat before she would allow herself to deliberately do anything that might endanger either her sworn Lady and the other handmaidens or her good friend - in fact, if anything, he should be worried that Dormé might convince Anakin to do something foolish because she’s gotten it into her head that it will help to protect Padmé’s best interests, instead of worrying that Anakin might somehow convince Dormé to do something against the rules. And even that would be highly unlikely. Dormé is a good influence on Anakin - always has been - and, of all the individuals Anakin might have been sent off alone with, she is likely the safest choice. She calms Anakin and gives him focus in a way Obi-Wan has never known another individual to be able to do, and she also challenges him to rise above his instincts and to think things through before acting, which is always a good thing, with Anakin..

Obi-Wan is painfully aware of the fact that, if his Padawan has a fault (aside from caring too much, feeling things too deeply), it is his hotheaded impatience, and, unfortunately, the persona they’ve crafted for him, to keep the High Council from looking at him too closely and perhaps changing its collective mind about whether or not Anakin is a threat to them - to the Jedi Order and to the Republic - encourages that impulsiveness entirely too much for Obi-Wan’s liking. Sometimes he fears that this persona is doing Anakin more harm than good, for all that it keeps him at least nominally safe from the High Council’s fearful suspicions and displeasure (nothing, unfortunately, seems capable of making the High Council treat Anakin with perfect equanimity and lack of bias, but this at least channels the determination of its members to find fault in and dissatisfaction with the boy into safer, more ordinary territory, leading to complaints about recklessness, fecklessness, high temper, and adolescent moodiness rather than the sheer amount of Force he is able to wield and the ways in which his attachments to others might dictate the use of that power), as it teaches him to embrace bad habits and faults that could easily be of danger to a Jedi.

Unfortunately, given the kind of power the High Council wields within the Jedi Order and the very real danger that the remaining Sith would take immediate action to seize Anakin and, thus, the advantage in the conflict between Dark and Light, should the High Council cause the Order to cast the boy out, masking Anakin was and remains the safest option, when it comes to protecting him. Obi-Wan hates to compromise with Anakin’s well-being like this - and it says something quite telling (and ugly) about how far the Order and the High Council especially have fallen way from the path of Light found through true embracement of the Force’s will, that they would be required to gamble with Anakin’s well-being - but unless and until it is safer for the boy to be himself and the High Council’s fearful opinion be damned, there’s little else that can be done. He wonders, though, sometimes, if it might not be better to simply take Anakin out of the Order entirely, to either take up Bail Organa’s offer of sanctuary on Alderaan or Padmé’s offer of safe haven on Naboo, take Anakin, and go. Normally, Obi-Wan never would have considered such a thing - he is not nearly so foolish as to assume he could safely and completely teach one as powerful as Anakin without help - but the longer he has been aware of the corruption in the High Council, the harder it’s become to avoid the conclusion that this isn’t the place either he or his apprentice belongs . . . or is needed most.

His . . . friendship with Sabé and with Padmé have made Obi-Wan quite painfully aware (whether he’s wanted to be so or not) of certain failures and limitations in the Jedi way of life and the Jedi Order’s way of doing things, and that, coupled with years of questions never adequately answered and of being disdainfully told by his Master time and again not to simply accept anything told to him as being true or right (though this apparently was never meant to apply to aught that Qui-Gon himself said, as he has come to realize after hour and hours and hours of dancing round the subject with his beloveds), has made him question things he normally wouldn’t and consider options he usually would never entertain. It helps that, under Dormé’s tutelage, Anakin has grown far more conscious of certain realities that he normally would remain blithely unaware of, things that Obi-Wan himself would generally feel compelled to keep from his apprentice, to preserve the boy’s mask and, thus, his safety. Obi-wan is rather inclined to be too protective of the boy. It’s a fault that Dormé, thankfully, has helped to keep under control. (He hates to think of how ignorant Anakin would be of some things, if he’d been allowed to follow his overly protective instincts. For one thing, he has a bad feeling that Anakin’s mask would be much closer to truth, in such a case. For another, he is increasingly sure that he is going to require Anakin’s input to help him make his final choice, regarding the Order, and that Anakin will need to know as much as he possibly can, to help him make the right choice.)

And that is another plus in Dormé’s favor, as far as Obi-Wan is concerned, for he needs have no fear of her ever coddling the boy or telling him what he wants to hear, merely to avoid hurting his feelings or damaging his sensibilities. Dormé is almost painfully honest, at times, and she has helped to keep both Obi-Wan and his apprentice honest as well, with her determination to speak truth and to hold nothing back. Though he did not originally appreciate her candor - for example, her determination to explain, in exquisitely painful detail, just what a horrible bunch of hypocrites the High Council in specific and most of the members of the Jedi Order in general are, to a ten-year-old boy unable to comprehend why so many individuals at the Temple looked so distrustfully upon him, had nearly made Obi-Wan expire with a mixture of shock and surprising anger, at first, though the anger soon faded into helpless, dismayed acknowledgment that she surely did have a valid point (several, in fact), which in turn hardened into cold determination to find a way to protect Anakin from such unfair treatment - nowadays he practically counts on it.

For reasons he cannot yet fathom, Palpatine of Naboo, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic himself, seems determined to fill Anakin’s head with self-important nonsense and delusions of grandeur, and Dormé has proven key in combating such foolishness. Obi-Wan cannot speak too openly against the man without risking either prompting an impatient lecture on how unfair he’s being to politicians in general or else angering the boy for seemingly personally attacking one of the (alleged) only friends Anakin still has, outside the confines of the Temple; Dormé, however, can speak her opinion in the strongest and most unflattering of terms and Anakin will listen to her (though he might argue somewhat) simply because he’s had time to become aware of the fact that his friend usually has very good instincts for the characters of those she meets and generally has good reason for the opinions she forms of such beings. That right there by itself should by all rights be reason enough to trust Anakin to Dormé, for he has been increasingly plagued by an indistinct but definitely bad feeling about the man, and he suspects that Palpatine means nothing good for Anakin. It’s good to have an ally in Dormé, in this suspicion, for it makes Anakin actually listen.

This trip to Naboo may end up being an extremely good thing (if they can manage to pull off another miraculous rescue and keep the galaxy from exploding into civil war), for being with Dormé for such an extended period of time will doubtless be good for Anakin’s confidence, his calm, his awareness of the increasing political tensions posed to tear the galaxy apart, and even certain realities, regarding the ties binding Obi-Wan to the Order. He’s hesitated to speak to Anakin about his somewhat unique and unusual relationship with Sabé and Padmé before now, in part because of his desire to protect his apprentice and in part out of sheer embarrassment and inability to decide how to broach (much less explain) the subject; unless he’s greatly mistaken about Dormé’s level of dedication to her sworn Lady and her mentor, though, he’s fairly certain that, by the time Dormé is done with him, Obi-Wan’s own reticence to speak on the subject will no longer have any kind of effect on Anakin’s knowledge of the situation. Unless he’s greatly mistaken, Dormé had already begun to explain, by the aftermath of the incident with the kouhuns and the window, given Anakin’s subdued and somewhat sheepish behavior, afterwards.

He does wish there had been more time for them to talk, before they’d split up, though. He’d asked Padmé to treat Anakin more gently and she had, but he’d feel better about the whole thing if he’d had the leisure to sit down somewhere away from prying eyes and listening ears with his Padawan and talk about it. He’s always been a little bit surprised that Anakin hasn’t suspected there being something more than mere friendship between him and Sabé, before now. They’ve certainly spent a great deal of time together, not always discretely, and Sabé isn’t precisely one to hide her feelings. Anakin is normally fairly good at picking up on things like that. He knew that Siri Tachi was still at least halfway in love with Obi-Wan within five minutes of first meeting her, after all, and he’s one of the few individuals who’s ever said anything to Obi-Wan about either Quinlan Vos’ or Garen Muln’s attachments to him. In fact, it had been Anakin weighing in on the subject that finally convinced Obi-Wan that Bant wasn’t mistaken about Quin and Garen. Force knows, it’s not something that would’ve ever occurred to him, otherwise. He has a terribly large blind spot, when it comes to those who are attracted to or otherwise have feelings for him. It was years before he really accepted that Padmé and Sabé were genuinely in love with him, and he still doesn’t even pretend to understand why.

In fact, that’s another reason Obi-Wan would’ve liked to have been able to talk to Anakin about all of this. His apprentice is remarkably straightforward in his opinions and he likely could’ve explained at least part of it in terms Obi-Wan could’ve both understood and accepted. Sabé and Padmé both just tend to get angry and upset and vehemently defensive of him, whenever he tries to ask why in all the stars they care so very much about him. Anakin also tends to get vehemently defensive in his Master’s name, but he would list actual reasons to like and admire and deeply care for him, if Obi-Wan were to ask. He’s too honest to dissemble and too fond of debate and of trying to change Obi-Wan’s low opinion of himself - which Anakin has more than once stated to be ridiculously poor - to ever do anything else. If only they’d had another day together on Coruscant! Things are happening so rapidly he fears events will outpace them, if they hesitate for even an instant at the wrong moment. It’s a disquieting sensation - like the feeling of running out of time. He knows something is coming. He can feel ripples of the change that is coming, rushing back from the event, churning the Force as though it were a river a boulder had been suddenly and violently heaved into. The time’s coming for a decision and, if he doesn’t make it when the time arrives, he has a bad feeling that the decision will be taken out of his hands, rendered a moot point.

If only there’d been more time, he could’ve discussed at least part of this with Anakin, made sure he understood the true magnitude of the possible repercussions of the choice he’s almost positive that he will have no choice but to make, and gotten some idea of whether or not Anakin could want or approve of that kind of change. He suspects Anakin would approve, but to suspect is not to know, not truly, and he believes this may be at least in part responsible for his current state of disquiet. In any case, though, the fact remains that, however discomfited by their precipitous separation he may feel now, Anakin is likely with the safest, most conscientious person he could possibly be with. Dormé will do her utmost to take care of him and to see to it that he is fully appraised of the many intricacies of the full situation as a matter of course, and that is as liable as anything to keep his apprentice safe. So why, then, is he still worried about Anakin being alone with Dormé while he is off searching for a world that has somehow been erased from the Temple Archives?

Perhaps it’s not the fact of the separation itself or the nature of their division (with Anakin going to Naboo with Dormé while Obi-Wan tries to hunt down the source of that poisoned saberdart and Sabé remains behind on Coruscant to help safeguard Padmé) so much as it is the swiftly approaching time of decision that’s making him so very anxious. It’s not that Obi-Wan truly doubts the decision he’s all but sure to make so much as he still wishes he would not have to make it at all. In a more perfect universe, it would not come down to a choice between his duty to the Force and his loyalty to the Jedi Order, any more than it would come down to either a choice between the urgings of his heart and soul and his vow to uphold the rules of the Order or a choice between his responsibility to his Padawan and his obedience to the will of the High Council. The more he thinks about it, the more it burns his soul, to consider how far the Order has fallen. This is not what Jedi are supposed to be, any more than the current bureaucratic morass of corruption is what the Republic is meant to be. The time for willing change has long since come and is all but gone. If neither edifice will change willingly, he has a bad feeling the choice will also be taken away from them. And if the changes they are forced to embrace then are unpalatable to some, they will have no one but themselves to blame for it, and that is the simple truth of it. He understands that well enough. He just doesn’t like it, is all.

It feels . . . pretentious, somehow, for one person (and especially for his lowly person) to have so much power over those coming possible changes. He would feel much better about it if there were others who could understand the necessity of change enough to champion it. He hates feeling as though he himself is instrumental in the essential nature of the kind of change that ends up coming, both for the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. He’s no Grand Master or Chosen One or hell even a Senator or Chancellor, to be the cause of such change. He’s just a lowly Jedi Knight who nearly wasn’t even chosen as a youngling to become a Padawan and so receive the training required to become a Knight and who almost left the Order over what amounted to philosophical differences of opinion, regarding the Order’s mandate to protect and serve and provide aid for the good citizens of Republic.

His one true claim to fame (aside from the fact that he is Master to the one believed to be the Chosen One) - the title of Sith Killer - is entirely misleading, in his opinion. It was luck (and desperation), not skill, that let him defeat that Sith, in the melting pit on Naboo. And it was luck again (and sheer dumb luck, at that, as far as he’s concerned. He’d much rather Qui-Gon had survived to take Anakin on as his next Padawan. Though he would surely miss having the boy in his life and regret losing him to his former Master, Obi-Wan can’t help thinking that his former Master would’ve made a far better Master for Anakin than he has been) that gave him a Padawan in the form of the apparent Chosen One. He lives in terror screwing that up and desperately hopes that he’s doing the right thing, for Anakin’s sake. He’s solicited advice from just about every possible source - from Padmé and Sabé to Bail Organa and even Dormé, from Garen and Siri to Darsha and Lorn, and even from Anakin’s mother and her family on Tatooine - and is grateful beyond words for the help he’s been given, including that from Dormé Tammesin. Obi-Wan hates to think what an awful mess he doubtlessly would’ve made of things, without the help of his selflessly unstinting friends.

In all honesty, Obi-Wan probably shouldn’t have been allowed to take Anakin as his Padawan when he did. He really wasn’t ready for an apprentice and the loss of his Master to violence definitely didn’t do anything to help make him fit to be someone else’s Master himself. Qui-Gon surely meant well, by making him promise to train Anakin, but in retrospect he has to agree with Padmé and Sabé in that it was both a selfish, reckless thing to do and yet more proof of his Master’s flawed problem-solving ability. It could have been a disaster. Easily. As it is, he knows he’s only done as well as he has because of all the advice and support he’s garnered over the years from his friends. And that is another large black mark against the Order, as it is patently ridiculous for it to have been allowed to fall so far as to require extensive help from the outside for the success of a new Master-Padawan pair. The Order supposedly changed over from a more open praxeum-style of teaching to the far more rigid practice of having one single Master per each single Padawan in order to allow for more one on one time and care in the teaching process. For it to have failed to achieve this and yet persist in embracing this method of training to the exclusion of all others so is yet another sign of the Order’s degeneration. Which realization brings him squarely back to the need for change and his personal discomfort with the sensation of being so responsible for whatever kind of change will eventually come. And that, in turn, highlights his current highly uneasy state of mind with events as they currently are.

Why is he so anxious of a sudden about this particular mission? Is it that they have split up and bad things inexorably tend to follow whenever he and his Padawan part ways (during a mission or otherwise)? Is it the threat against Padmé and Sabé’s fear that there is more to the plot than is apparent to the eye? Or is it the fact of the Military Creation Act and the very real threat that the Separatists could choose to use any such proposed bill as an excuse to secede . . . and, thus, to spark civil war? The Separatists are made up largely of worlds in the Mid and Outer Rim Territory and crooked corporations. The kind of war that would likely be started by a secessionist movement would seem, to the Core Worlds and nearby territories of the Inner Rim and Colonies and perhaps even the Expansion Region, largely a matter of brush fires on the outermost edges of civilization. Few would understand either the potential magnitude of such a war or the kind of opportunities it would engender. Those who do (that he knows of) stand ready to declare a third side in any such conflict, at nothing more than a word from him, and to begin the process of forcing the kind of change back to the older, more successful ways, both for the Republic and (hopefully) the Jedi Order.

Padmé and Sabé, like Bail, believe that he should start a new Order entirely, based more on the pre-Ruusan Reformations Order, and are all prepared to allow him to gather followers and build Temples on their worlds. With an alliance stretching from the Mid Rim to the Core (with stops along the way, at such places as Grizmallt, Melida/Daan, and all the other planets, moons, and satellites where he has gained allies) that straddles the lines of the other two possible sides in any civil war, change will become an inevitability, and his beloveds will be at the very center of it all, as will his friends and companions. And, too, he greatly suspects that Anakin will gladly choose to stand with him, leaving the old Order behind for a new one. He has never wanted to have to ask - by asking, Obi-Wan fears making it impossible for Anakin to say no, out of some attempt to please him - and he suspects that, after having spent a few days alone with Dormé, it will become entirely unnecessary for him to do so. She will explain things in such a way that Anakin will clearly understand both the potential risks and the ultimate goal of such a radical break, and he is fairly certain that the end result will be a Padawan who greets him with a demand that they stop waiting around and hoping that the bureaucracy and the High Council will see the error of their ways and choose to change accordingly and get out there and start making the changes happen themselves. In fact, in a way, it is entirely fortuitous that the mission should have had them separate in this way, for it is almost sure to make things easier, in the long run, given how determined Dormé is of making sure that Anakin is thoroughly informed and can make no foolish, hasty decisions.

So if anything, he should be glad that Anakin has been sent off with Dormé, not worrying about him. And that means that the question Obi-Wan should have been asking himself all along isn’t why he’s nervous about the way they’ve split up but why the mostly formless, purposeless anxiety solidifies in the pit of his stomach in a leaden weight of I have a bad feeling about this certainty when he thinks specifically about Padmé, left behind on Coruscant with Sabé and all of her remaining handmaidens and guards - even the only half-trained handmaids - as well as two of the finest Jedi Knights he knows and, potentially, the whole of the Jedi Temple to provide her shelter and protection, if something bad should happen and it should come down to that.

Technically, Padmé might have been safer tucked away at Varykino, with her handmaidens, instead of left behind on Coruscant, to continue to fight against the proposed Military Creation Act, but the warning he received from the Force about sending her back to Naboo with Anakin had been so strong that he had actually been contemplating contacting Sabé about making alternative arrangements when Padmé took the matter out of his hands by flatly refusing to leave Coruscant, under any circumstances, while the proposal was still in play in the Senate. Even before there had been time for him to think things through properly enough to realize that it was likely a good that it was Dormé who’d been sent to Naboo, with Anakin, since their friendship practically assured Anakin’s good behavior (or at least greater caution on his part before acting, so long as something else didn’t happen that threatened Padmé or otherwise encouraged Dormé to deviate from their overall plan), he’d been immensely relieved that Padmé wasn’t the one being sent back to Naboo. And that once again begs the question: what is it about the fact that they’ve separated that truly has him so worried?

Obi-Wan sighs and settles back a bit further into the pilot’s seat. He’s been trying to work through this problem off and on the entire flight, and the more he thinks about it without being able to come to any kind of resolution or answer, the more he feels like a canid chasing his own tail. He’s uneasy about Anakin being so far away from him, though he can’t pinpoint any kind of logical reason why he should be particularly worried, given who he’s with and the amount of good influence she tends to have over his Padawan. He’s anxious about having left Padmé behind on Coruscant, even though he knows that Sabé and Garen and Siri are likely to hustle her into a speeder, haul her off to the Temple, and lock her up in one of the suites kept in the guest quarters if anything or anyone should threaten her unduly. And, if he’s perfectly honest, he also has a bad feeling about this whole Kamino thing, which frankly feels like a trap waiting to catch and devour the unwary. In short, he’s just flat out worried about this whole mission. He just can’t quite put his finger on any one reason why he should be so concerned, is all.

Another sigh, and this time Obi-Wan pinches at the bridge of his nose, automatically trying to alleviate the pressure he can feel building there, threatening to build up to a full-fledged headache. A Jedi shouldn’t be worrying like this, for no particular reason. A Jedi should remain calm, and focused, and trust in the power of the Force and its guidance. In allowing himself to dwell on these phantom fears, he is behaving in a manner that is highly unbecoming of a Jedi. Qui-Gon would be disappointed in him (as he so often was, when he was still alive) and lecture him sternly (again) on the need to trust in the Force and allow it to guide him, rather than wasting his energy dwelling on niggling little doubts and worries, trying to chase down logical reasons for emotional reactions that are likely anything but rational. But then, his Master never was much for planning things or thinking things through, and, though the Force knows that Obi-Wan loved that man just as much as he thinks he could have ever loved any biological parent he might have once had, he also knows that it was little more than sheer dumb luck and the kind of serendipitous good fortune that the Force could encourage to follow in their footsteps that often allowed them to complete their missions without major loss of life or limb along the way.

He has a bad feeling that he’s missed something important somewhere, something that he should have taken into consideration before agreeing to allow them to split up into three separate parties, and that it’s going to come back around and bite them, before all’s said and done, if he doesn’t think of a way to neutralize the potential danger before it can blow up in their faces. And he’s beginning to suspect that whatever it is that he’s somehow overlooked may not rest so much in the actual fact of Anakin’s absence from his side as it may lie in the underlying reasons for his Padawan’s absence, which means that he’s somehow managed to overlook something potentially vitally important with Padmé and her household, in which case he has good reason to be worried.

Obi-Wan’s head thumps back against the headrest of his seat, pressing with oddly gentle yet insistent violence back into the padding. If someone within Padmé Amidala’s household has been bribed, suborned, or otherwise threatened into joining forces with the enemy, the odds are very good that Sabé will ferret out the source of danger and she and the other handmaidens, with Garen and Siri’s help, will take care of the problem without any casualties. Sabé is very good at her job - protecting Amidala and looking after her best interests - and Garen and Siri are not only both extremely good at what they do, they are also, of all the members of his order, among those he would name the most trustworthy, meaning that they will do everything in their power to protect the former Queen of Naboo, irregardless of how the situation surrounding their mandate may change. They’ve promised him to keep her and Sabé both safe and he believes them. So why is this nagging sensation of ill-formed, low-level anxiety seemingly solidifying by the moment into an impenetrably solid fear in the pit of his stomach? Where is this steadily increasing worry coming from? It’s not just because he and his Padawan have been ordered to separate and sent off in wildly different directions from the very individual they are supposed to be protecting. And it’s not just the threat of another assassination attempt on Padmé, though he must admit that, of all the individuals who have attempted to take Padmé’s life since she was first elected Queen of Naboo, this one appears to be both the most callous, in terms of the amount of damage and the number of deaths this individual is willing to inflict, so long as the target is removed, and the most efficient, in terms of the various plans brought against Padmé.

No. It’s something else. Something he failed to properly recognize, while he was still on Coruscant. Something to do with the tenor of the Senator’s household, with Padmé herself. The handmaidens were all in agony, grieving and furious about the attack - with twenty-eight of their number all lost in that single blow, it was a miracle that they weren’t paralyzed with shock and sorrow and rage. They’ve technically suffered worse before, in such attacks, given the fact that this isn’t the first time a bomb has brought against them and no lives outside of the Senator’s household were lost in this particular blast and that the overall size of the handmaiden corps has doubled and essentially doubled again, first with Sabé’s appointment as interim Senator and then with her retirement from her elected post as Senator. They’ve never lost so many handmaidens before in a single blow, though they’ve lost a higher percentage of their overall numbers more than once before this attack - and yet . . . and yet, now that he thinks back on it, there had been something slightly off about the way that Padmé and her household responded to the devastating loss. There had been a sense of resignation to the sorrow, as if the handmaidens and the other guards were all expecting something like the attack to happen, and yet there had also been a sense almost of relief to their anger, as if they were overjoyed to finally have a target to pin their suffering and their rage on, as if - as if -

Wait. What was it that Dormé said, when she first commed to tell him about the attack on the ship? Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan concentrates on the memory, casting his mind back until he can see, in his mind’s eye, the flickering blue glow of the holocomm and the unmistakable pain and fear lingering at the back of the handmaiden’s pleading eyes.

“Bendu Master Kenobi. Forgive me for comming while you are still on mission, but the backlash that we’ve been anticipating against Milady for her stance against the proposed Military Creation Act is proving much worse than we’ve feared. There’s been an attack, and the casualties are very high. Milady is . . . incredibly distraught. Since Milady ordered Lady Sabé to remain behind, at Varykino, to continue training the next class of potential handmaidens, she’s too far away to be able to deal with this effectively. I know that you and your Padawan are returning to Coruscant, and that is why I am asking - no, begging - for your help. Two of the girls killed in the attempt on Milady’s life were sent to Coruscant with a message for you from Lady Sabé. They were meant to tell you that the dreams are back again, with such a vengeance that their message cannot be doubted. There is a storm coming - an imriþamun, a storm of storms, I fear - and we cannot protect Milady properly while she remains too distracted by other fears and concerns to cooperate with our attempts to shelter her. She is . . . not taking this threat seriously enough, I fear. Her focus on the proposed bill and her preoccupation with her family is blinding her to the true magnitude of the danger. Bendu, if you could take the time to comm Milady, to reassure her and to remind her of the paramount importance of her continued safety, the handmaidens would all be in your debt. I should be forever in your debt. With respects, Master Kenobi, I remain your humble servant, Dormé Tammesin, sworn attendant to the céauntaónîs dævítru eisharti and devoted student to the céaun’aónes dævítru eisharti of Naboo.”

“ . . . the backlash that we’ve been anticipating . . . is proving much worse than we’ve feared . . . Milady ordered Lady Sabé to remain behind . . . I am asking - no, begging - for your help . . . the dreams are back again . . . there is a storm coming . . . a storm of storms, I fear . . . we cannot protect Milady properly . . . Her focus on the proposed bill and her preoccupation with her family is blinding her to the true magnitude of the danger.” Oh, Force take it all, her preoccupation with her family - ! Obi-Wan sits bolt upright in the pilot’s seat, so shocked that he forgets, for a moment, where he is, and almost attempts to stand up. The Force around him churns with a heavy, sickly sort of sureness, the vague anxiety and ill-formed worry that has been plaguing him abruptly resolving, crystalizing into razor-edged certainty. Something about Padmé - something about her response to the tragic events on that landing platform, her response to the Jedi Order’s efforts to ensure her safety, even her response to his and his Padawan’s presence in her apartment complex - had been off, had been dreadfully, horribly wrong, and Obi-Wan had been too busy worrying about what the assassin might do next to truly notice it. He’d been so busy worrying about his Padawan and the parameters of the mission and the probable response of the High Council to any deviations from those parameters that he simply had not seen it. Force! How could he have possibly been so blind?

Someone either so close as to all but be a part of the extended Naberrie family or else an actual member (either by blood or by marriage) of that family has either been turned or is being unduly influenced by someone who is an enemy to Padmé Amidala, and that someone has, in turn, been distracting Padmé and clouding up her mind with doubts and fears and worries not about her duty - not about the danger posed by her determined opposition to the proposed bill - but rather about her future, personally, as a woman well past the age when most young ladies on Naboo were wed or at least handfast. She had been inordinately pleased to see him - almost desperately so, given how often they communicated and how recently he had seen her, only a few short weeks before she left on that attempt to drum up support against the proposed bill and he and his Padawan were sent to Ansion to quell a potential secession from the Republic - and yet she had also been . . . well, not precisely openly inviting of but certainly receptive to and even somewhat encouraging of Anakin’s attention.

Padmé must have known how dangerous it was, to even appear to encourage Anakin’s preoccupation with her, given how precarious his Padawan’s acceptance in the Order remains - she has to have known how much damage it could do, if the High Council were to suspect that Anakin’s need to be accepted by and to feel close to Padmé betrayed a deeper, more potentially dangerous attachment on his part - and yet her response to his frustration over and rebuke of her carelessness of his Padawan’s feelings had been far closer to outrage than to shame, as though Obi-Wan had no right to chastise her, no prior claim on her affections or responsibility towards his Padawan, as if it weren’t his duty, as a Master, to protect Anakin from anything and anyone capable of threatening him! By all rights, he shouldn’t have had to practically accuse her of not caring about either Anakin’s feelings or the High Council’s displeasure just to get her to stop indulging Anakin and encouraging his eagerness to please as if he were still a little boy. Padmé’s the one who first recognized that need to please and to prove himself for what it truly was - a former slave’s need for validation, as an individual and a sentient being, and a virtual orphan’s desire for a comforting, parental or at least familial figure in his life - and made the decision not only to eschew any further personal contact with Anakin but also to attempt to avoid drawing the High Council’s displeasure and wrath down on him by arranging for him to keep tabs on her and her people legally, through an open invitation to contact Dormé, a handmaiden who’d remained on Naboo and so never had the chance to personally interact with Anakin before. So if anything, Padmé should have been the one fretting about and making plans to minimize the High Council’s ability to hold anything that Anakin might do over the course of the mission against him.

No. Something had been wrong, and he’d just been too preoccupied to see it. Blast it all!

Obi-Wan’s head hits the padded headrest with enough force to have jarred another man’s teeth and made bright spots explode behind his eyes. Obi-Wan, though, simply hisses slightly, air sighing noisily through tightly clenched teeth and pursed lips. He’s far too busy beating himself up mentally to notice the slight twinge of physical pain from the less than gentle contact of the back of his head with the back of his chair.

How could he have missed this? Padmé is one of the most thoughtful, unselfish, careful, caring individuals he knows. And for stars’ sakes, Sabé and Dormé have both mentioned (more than once, even!) being less than certain of Sola’s intentions towards her younger sister, what with the way she seems determined to push Padmé into retiring from politics in order to start a family of her own and never mind what Padmé may want or whether or not she is still waiting until she can have both Obi-Wan and Sabé. Quite a bit of leeway has been given to Sola, over the years, because of the terrible nature of the losses she has suffered, due to her association with and closeness to Padmé; yet, even so, her behavior lately - her insistence that Padmé will never be able to have a life of her own or know love or happiness so long as she remains true to the duties of her political career and that she is throwing her only true chance at happiness and fulfillment away, but refusing to even try to seek out or encourage the attentions of someone who might love her and want to start a family with her - has been suspicious. Why has no one yet sought to carry that suspicion to its logical conclusion? It makes a terrible amount of sense for Sola to be the one who’s been turned against Padmé.

Padmé doesn’t enjoy talking about her sister and so Sabé and the other handmaidens often try to avoid mentioning her much; yet, Obi-Wan has still heard several tales about how, as a youngling, Sola often acted out and staged elaborate plots, manipulating others to certain specific ends, so as to avoid feeling as though she were less loved than or being at all outshone by her younger sister, and he is well aware of the fact that she never appreciated her sister’s choice of career, even before the Trade Federation invaded and occupied Naboo and she found herself forced into hiding, along with the rest of her family and all of the other families and close friends of Naboo’s new young Queen and her loyal handmaidens and handmaid trainees. Sola had been pampered and young and fairly recently wed just then and her first pregnancy had ended in a violent miscarriage at roughly the same time that Theed Palace and, thus, the planet had been recaptured from the Trade Federation. A little over three years later, her second pregnancy also ended tragically, with a miscarriage, after Sola was accidentally hit in a botched assassination attempt on Padmé Amidala.

Sola suffered badly in the wake of both miscarriages, her health and her mental balance both so adversely affected that, after losing her second child, there had been a time when her family had seriously considered the necessity of admitting her to a long-term care facility - a consideration that had only been overturned at the insistence of her husband, who hadn’t been able to turn aside from Sola’s desperate pleas to not be taken to such a place. In the end, she had convalesced mainly in the same place - a large manor owned by their mother’s mother (Ryoo Thule) up in the Gallo Mountains, above the village of Ashistagalum (where Sola and Padmé were both born) - and it was to this isolated location that she would, thereafter, often vanish for weeks at a time, supposedly to be alone with her grief and to meditate on both her losses and the importance of the family she still had. If the mysterious second Sith - this Darth Sidious they have heard so many shadowy rumors of - somehow managed to get to her and use her grief and her anguish over her lost children to turn her against Padmé, it would’ve been ridiculously easy to use those private retreats as a cover, to keep anyone from suspecting that Sola was, in fact, working with and perhaps even receiving instruction from the Sith. Sola is much stronger in the Force than Padmé - Obi-Wan’s impression of her is that she is likely as strong in the Force as several of the stronger Force-sensitive handmaidens taught by Sabé and Dormé to protect and serve Padmé Amidala - and, with the proper training, it is not inconceivable that she could be a strong ally and perhaps even an apprentice of this Darth Sidious.

Why hasn’t he seen this possibility before? Blast it all, if Sola has been twisted by the Sith and if she has been purposefully set against Padmé, to try to weaken her little sister’s will and confuse her mind and cloud her emotions and perceptions with poisonous words and doubts insidiously infused with the Dark Side, then it is no wonder Padmé has seemed . . . a little off, lately, especially during their time together on Coruscant! As strong an individual as Padmé may be, she is not at all overly sensitive to the flows of the Force, and it is entirely possible that her personal shields may be in shredded tatters, her will and spirit all turned about and muddled up and oppressively weighed down with her sister’s bile. If his suspicions now are correct - and he cannot help but think that they are correct, given the sickening sense of correctness he feels, in the Force, when he thinks on Sola being approached by the Sith while at her most vulnerable and twisted to the Sith’s own evil purposes - then it is absolutely imperative that someone strong in the Force help to cleanse Padmé’s mind and spirit of any such Dark taint and rebuild her shields. And someone needs to get word to Naboo, posthaste, so that Anakin and Dormé will know just what it is that they might be dealing with, when it comes to Sola, so that they won’t walk blindly into any traps that Sola and her Dark Master may have prepared to ensnare them.

Unfortunately, neither of these things can be done while his ship is still in the midst of a hyperspace jump. Transmissions can neither be sent nor received while ships are in hyperspace, and, while he might be able to reach out to Anakin through the Force, Obi-Wan simply cannot be sure that any warning he might attempt to send in such a way would translate to anything at all comprehensible. He could perform an emergency abort on the jump, but there’s no telling how much such an action would end up delaying or otherwise disrupting his journey to the mysterious Kamino system, and he has a very bad feeling that the sooner he gets to Kamino and discovers the source of the attempts on Padmé’s life, the better things will be, in the long run, for the whole galaxy. And that means that there is nothing he can do until his ships exits hyperspace and he is able to send a message back to Coruscant and out to Naboo and his Padawan . . . nothing except worry, that is. For he is - despite having worked out quite rationally just what (and who) it is he should be anxious about and just why he needn’t worry about certain other things at all - still worried, anxious, concerned, troubled, and most definitely uneasy about this separation, though he cannot think why.

Garen and Siri are two of his closest friends and they are both clever, powerful, skillful Jedi. If they, with all the resources of the Temple at their fingertip, knowing as they do how much the two young ladies in question mean to Obi-Wan and caring so deeply for Obi-Wan and his happiness, cannot keep Padmé and Sabé safe, then no one and nothing can. And as for Anakin, he is with Dormé, and Dormé is a good girl with a smart, level head on her shoulders. She’ll do her best to keep Anakin out of trouble and do it in such a way that he’ll hardly notice his actions are being guided. Even if some kind of disaster happens, he’s quite sure that she’ll make sure Anakin keeps his head and doesn’t panic but instead reacts in a measured, considered manner. She’s quite good at grounding and centering his apprentice. In fact, in a more perfect world, Dormé would be for Anakin much as Padmé and Sabé seem to be for Obi-Wan himself, and they would complete each other and help each other to both be more than they ever would be capable of being if they were alone. They would make a very fine couple, in his opinion, and -

- huh. Obi-Wan blinks, startled from his train of thought by the sudden, unexpected sense of movement within the Force. Hesitantly, experimentally, he reaches out a feeler of power and prods carefully, delicately, in the direction of that abrupt surge of power. Nothing happens, and so he keeps in touch with that specific area of the Force while also revisiting the thought that he’d been having when he first felt purposeful movement in the Force. Dormé and Anakin and -

- huh. So that’s evidently to be the way of things, if the Force has its way (and it usually does), is it? He imagines the lady rather might have something to say about it. In fact, he rather imagines she’ll be harder to sway than his apprentice will be, especially if Anakin is determined to come with him when he leaves the Order. It won’t be against the rules, then, and he rather imagines his Padawan would heartily approve of the idea. Anakin cares a great deal for Dormé, after all, and she does fit the description of that dream he used to have (though Obi-Wan knows that his Padawan assumed, as a child, that it was Padmé in his dream) about marrying a veiled brunette on Naboo. The trick will most likely be convincing Dormé. Handmaidens are forbidden relationships formed outside the coterie, after all, and Dormé is very loyal to her sworn Lady. Convincing her that such a match would do more good than harm will probably take quite a bit of doing . . . and getting her to ask permission to wed (and, thus, to leave the ranks of both handmaidens and handmaids) will likely prove even more difficult, considering how much of her sense of self is tied up in the handmaiden program. He’ll have to get Anakin to tell him this story, some day, when they have the time and leisure to sit down together and speak of matters of the heart. He imagines that the wooing of Dormé will end up being a tale worth the knowing . . .

Smiling, Obi-Wan settles comfortably back in the pilot’s chair, hands folded loosely before him. Now that he’s figured out what it was that he was missing, before, concerning Sola, perhaps it is not anxiety that has been plaguing him, after all, so much as it is . . . anticipation. Yes, anticipation. That . . . feels about right, come to think of it. And now that he’s worked out what it is that he may very well be anticipating, thanks to the Force, he finds himself obscurely satisfied - not glad, for he could never be glad of being called on to protect anyone (much less Padmé) under such awful circumstances, but satisfied - with the mission, as a whole.

At the very least, there should be one good thing that comes of all of this, he thinks, smile widening a trifle, as he settles himself a little more comfortably in the seat. And Anakin deserves someone to be happy with, if anyone does. I hope they will be very happy. In such dark times as these, the galaxy could surely use more happiness. He is reminded of what Sabé often says, of love being as a light in the darkness.

Suddenly, the road ahead doesn’t seem nearly so dark or dangerous.

*********