Star Wars work in progress You Became to Me

[polgarawolf]

Sixty-second part of a work in progress
Title: You Became to Me (as suggested by avari_maethor)
*Pairing: Mainly Anakin/Obi-Wan with some mention of Padmé
Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline PG-13/R-ish (?)
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys 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 . . .
Summary: This is the one thing Darth Sidious never saw coming: a minor incident of collateral damage with repercussions that can potentially utterly undo all of his schemes
*Author’s Note: 1) Again, please see most of the previous notes, especially the ones about SW vernacular and my nonstandard Gaelic and even more especially my note about the canon definition of the Force and the known properties of light.
2) Obviously, I am neither a molecular biologist nor a genetic engineer. For those who are curious about such things as genetics, gene splicing, DNA, and chromosomes, I suggest a visit to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (the Wikipedia) and a search of such terms. If anyone knows more about such things and finds any glaring errors in my descriptions of them, please give me a detailed accounting of how I've screwed up so that I can fix my mistakes! Otherwise, for those interested in what midi-chlorians are supposed to be and how they're (probably) supposed to work, articles at http://www.theforce.net/midichlorians/ and http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian should be helpful.


The form of meditation that Anakin Skywalker uses when he is alone - which is not meditation, properly, as other Jedi would consider it - is not a rising above of individual consciousness into the greater awareness and electrical body that is the Force but rather a tumbling down within the intricate workings of the self, down to the core where nothing is but the primal interactions between the electrical life given shape and power by the Force and the vessel of flesh that holds it. Individual consciousness is not so much shed as it is refined to a state wherein it is no longer simply the awareness of the mostly involuntary processes of being, of existing, in relation to the outside world, but rather a deliberate, self-aware act of choice as to how to continue to exist. In other words, it is the power to regulate processes which are normally autonomic, one that grants personal choice as to the ways in which all of the various elements and building blocks of the physical body, from the smallest and simplest of components to the largest and most complex of systems, fit together and function to form a living vessel for the mind and soul that, together, are the individual spirit, the individuated core of an entity’s being. Anakin’s power to affect and change and regulate his own body, altering it according to his will, when he is in the depths of this kind of meditation, is neither absolute nor perfect, but it is far beyond the level of bodily control that other Jedi and other Force-sensitive beings generally have or even deem attainable. Thanks to that astonishingly degree of control, his body runs at such a high efficiency and is so shockingly healthy and quick to heal that, for years, now, is has required either particularly debilitating, dangerous diseases or virulent poisons or else spectactularly damaging wounds to slow him down.

What the Force sometimes does for its more powerful and faithful servants - as has happened, for example, with Obi-Wan, who is, all things considered, staggeringly healthy, thanks to the Force’s constant support and occasional tweaking of his body’s natural functions - Anakin has, for years, done for himself, encouraging his body to alter itself and so attain a far greater strength and resiliency and overall health than is normal for any of the many different strains of humans and near-humans known to the galaxy. That ability, in concert with Obi-Wan’s natural talent for all but effortlessly reaching and then maintaining, regardless of his circumstances or physical surroundings, an incredibly deep state of actual meditation - for the shucking off of awareness of the body and its limitations towards the attainment of a communion with the higher power of the Force, an ability that Obi-Wan has long since refined to the point whereby he can at once retain hold of his individual consciousness while surrendering his will and his body to the Force’s control, allowing the Force and his awareness and understanding of its will and its power fill him to the point where his body attains a state that actually (though Obi-Wan has never, himself, realized it, although it is a fact that Anakin, at least, has come to suspect since their first joining with and return from the Force’s vast sea of Light) hovers upon the edge of dissolving entirely in the Force, firing with a natural luminosity as the physical flesh attains a state of balance with the energy flooding it, transmuting just enough of that power into a varying radiance of light like an all-enveloping corona for his body to continue to remain in a state of physical matter rather than dissolving into Light itself - now allows for a simultaneous focusing and deepening of awareness both without and within such as the galaxy has not know for dozens of millennia.

Grown together like the systems of two trees that have been grafted together into but one plant, embraced and embracing and whole, Anakin and Obi-Wan at once surrender to the Force’s embrace and allow their twinned consciousness to rise up beyond the limits of the flesh into the seemingly infinite (though expanding) and endlessly complex maze of currents and tributaries and whirlpools and tranquil wells and flowing streams of Light that is the energy field of the Force while simultaneously plunging down within themselves, into the fragile vessels of flesh that serve as homes for their spirits, reaching for the knowledge of those bodies that will yield a control over them great enough to dictate the terms of existence and the function of those bodies. And because they have reached to Padmé and enfolded her in the warmth of their awareness, carrying her to them and showing her how to join them in the ultimate symbiosis of their open and embraced and utterly melded bond, awareness and control over both the body that has so recently come to house her spirit and the largely unconscious, instinctual knowledge of the workings of her previous body, her own body, come with and to them. Thus, since Padmé is with them and thanks to that simultaneous reaching in two different directions in conjunction with a surrender to the Force, all three at once attain a state that is both like and unlike what happens whenever Anakin and Obi-Wan surrender utterly to both themselves (their bond) and the Force, just as it is both unlike and yet like to the state that Obi-Wan achieves whenever his meditation is deep enough to allow his body to kindle with energy and light.

A new balance, a seemingly precarious balance, a balance in flux that shifts both erratically and purposefully from a state of solid matter to Light and back again and on again into energy, over and over and over again, phasing so rapidly from one state to the other that the result is a kind of flickering half-life somewhere solidly in between the two, in a transitional state that easily encompasses aspects of both matter and energy in much the same way that light itself at once encompasses qualities of both waves and particles. If another person had been present in the domed chamber just then and if that person had somehow proved able to see past the blinding whiteness of the light surrounding the three, then that person might have seen the bodies of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and Padmé-in-Sola in another close, tight, three-way hug, their bodies filled with light and flickering incessantly from opaque matter to transparent Light, the endless phasing of their forms producing the effect of a weirdly wavering translucency, illuminated as if from within by an enormous pair of radiant binary blue-white stars and a smaller, much more ordinary and less powerful but somehow still warming and bright sun of golden yellow, edged with a shimmering corona of blue that somehow lends a greenish-bronze glow to its illumination. Although no one else is actually physically present in the room to see them, the three are, nonetheless, the focus of the attention of Jedi Bendu and their trainees as well as of devotees of other Force traditions and untrained Force-sensitive beings as well as of Force spirits and other entities of the Force all across the galaxy, the bright storm of power their actions have given birth to bursting across the galaxy by exploding all throughout the Force in a rapidly expanding conflagration of light and love and hope and adamantly determined purpose.

And so, on Naboo, Ruwee Naberrie abruptly feels blinded, as if he has unwittingly stood too close to the impact sight of a lightning bolt coming to ground, while Darred Janren and his eldest daughter, Ryoo Naberrie, cry out in mingled shock and some powerful emotion that skirts the narrow edge between terror and awe, sensing themselves wrapped in the expanding, explosive wash of energy and power and Light that has blossomed into existence in the uppermost storey of the Naberrie home.

On Coruscant, the Force spirits of Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku of Serenno cry out in awe and joy and gather their own power to shield their senses enough to let them look nearly straight-on at that explosion of deliberately aimed power, while fully trained and partially trained Jedi (only some of which have already accepted that they are now Jedi Bendu) fall all over the Temple, bowled over by an irresistible current of power in the Force that is similar to and yet somehow wilder but more purposeful than the explosion of Light that had followed so soon upon the heels of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s cleansing of the Force from the taint upon it.

Off in one end of the galaxy, far enough past the borders of both the relatively well-known enormous region of space that is known as the Outer Rim and a much shallower section of the far less well-known territory known as Wild Space to be extremely well within the area that has been labeled by both the peoples of the Galactic Republic and other such affiliated governments and organizations as the Unknown Regions, a Force spirit of one who is old indeed, in comparison to Qui-Gon and Dooku, but young in the eyes of most of his fellows, breaks off his careful watch over a fairly recently created but already multi-system-spanning political body (which has been planned out and put together largely under the leadership of a group of somewhat trained almost-Jedi) to throw his arms wide, fling his head joyously back, and give voice to a triumphant gale of ringing laughter.

In a relatively near and yet safely distant sector of the Unknown Regions, a much larger and far and away older multi-system government, the vast majority of which is populated by a sentient people who are, almost entirely unknown to themselves, all Force-sensitive, the whole of that race of beings find themselves experiencing yet another utterly inexplicable (to their minds, at least) sensation of light and love and hope and purpose as they all turn, as one, in a direction which, if they only knew more of the larger galaxy beyond their own borders, they would know will neatly focus their lines of sight upon a planet in the Mid Rim by the name of Naboo.

Meanwhile, near the opposite end of the galaxy, out past Tatooine and the Outer Rim in the edge of a spiral-arm so far out from the more well-known and widely traveled and densely populated areas of space that its status as a part of Wild Space has remained unaltered for over a thousand years and is yet likely to remain so for many more years to come, a woman with seemingly bloodless white skin and eyes so pale and so blue that they resemble nothing so much as the result of someone gathering up the blue-white light of that binary star and casting its piercing and powerful hue into the pigment coloring a pair of eyes rolls lightly and seemingly impossibly quickly out of the narrow, solitary berth in the ship’s quarters she claimed for herself some half a year ago, automatically turning to face the direction of Naboo with a cry that is both welcoming and yearning as well as somehow hawk-like.

At the same time, all across the galaxy, both trained and untrained as well as solidly physical and nonmaterial entities sensitive to the Force experience similar shocks, as the expanding wave of power reaches them. On the obscure world of Lucazec, a man with beautiful blue-green-grey-violet eyes cries out and throws his arms wide, in a gesture of welcoming embrace, not bothering to hide his rejoicing. On an even more obscure world within the Suarbi system known as Susevfi, the members of a nascent Force-tradition are struck down as if they were dazzled younglings in the Jedi Temple, utterly overwhelmed with joy. On a world near the Kathol Rift whose presence has, for so long, been so successfully concealed from nearly all of the rest of the galaxy and its inhabitants by the Force-sensitive beings who originated there that no one who has not been to that planet knows of its name, the reptilian Aing-Tii give voice to rumbling cries of pleasure, basking in the sense of warmth and light washing over them. Zeison Sha Force-adepts on the world of Yanibar, on a little-visited border between the Outer Rim and Wild Space, dance in the waves of that light and rejoice. The witches of Dathomir offer their weapons to the expanding wave of light for consecration and keen joyfully to welcome its touch. Many of the un’Yalla chiefs of the Rellarin joyously and spontaneously begin to dance. Devotees of the Tyia bow down before that light, basking humbly but happily in its glow. The Sedrian and their Golden Sun rejoice, dancing as they swim and swaying with joy. The Korunnai of Haruun Kal are temporarily dazzled blind and flooded with an inexplicable sense of love and well-being. The rare Baran Do Sages of Kel Dor stand to offer themselves up to the flood of Light.

Thus, all across the galaxy, Force-sensitive races and organizations and beings all sense the coming explosion of power and react, many of them rejoicing. Of course, not all react joyously. Theran Listeners cower away from it, fearing that it will somehow spark a devastating Force-storm all over their planet. The Ysanna of Ossus cry out in terror and cower away from the light they once again sense breaking over them, fearing that this time it will swallow them whole. Remnants of the Bando Gora cry out in agony, cowering away as if from a source of pain. The Nightsisters of Dathomir shriek their defiance and throw their weapons at the advancing wave of power as if they might strike it down or turn it aside from its course. The last Sorcerer of Tund screams in mingled pain and defiance, mad with pain and rage over the approach of that wave of love and hope and Light. Dark Acolytes, Prophets of the Dark Side as well as other members of the so-called Dark Force religion, and also all of the other Dark Side Adepts who have been gathered up, over the years, by Darth Sidious with the intent of eventually making the survivors of these Force-sensitives his Dark Elite and the core of his army of Dark Mages (most of whom were relocated to Byss and have, since, taken part in making that world over as the Sith Master’s personal retreat and secret throne world) cry out in agony, covering their eyes and cowering away from the dawning sensation of flooding, permeating Light and even tearing at their own flesh in an effort to rip out the feelings of love and hope that come with it. Still, many beings either rejoice openly or welcome the sensation of that wave of power and strongly loving emotions, if they are not simply confused or dazzled by its sudden crashing arrival impacting all of their senses.

The three beings actually caught up in and precipitating the disturbance that has resulted in the rapidly expanding wavefront of deliberately gathered up and released power and light and love and hope and immovable purpose utterly fail to notice how many other entities are being affected by what they are doing, though. Too much of their attention is focused, in one way or another, upon their actions to spare the kind of energy that would be required to truly perceive (much less fully catalogue the wide range of) the different reactions to the echoes being stirred up and set racing across and throughout the Force by those actions. Padmé, dazzled and dizzied by the skirling flashes of oneness with the Force, utterly enrapture by the sensations and knowledge flowing to her along the meld from Obi-Wan and Anakin, and thoroughly occupied by the drawing out and illumination of the memories and sensations of the body she once had and the ways in which it had fit together and functioned, could not have spared the energy or the awareness to notice such even if she would’ve wanted to. The part of that organically entwined and twinned consciousness that had been and would again be Obi-Wan Kenobi, thoroughly occupied with calling up and channeling enough power to maintain the balance that allows that binary awareness to simultaneously turn both without and within and to carry Padmé-in-Sola along for the duration of the ride, would have considered any attempt as noticing or cataloguing such varied reactions as an unnecessary and perhaps dangerous distraction and so resolutely focuses each and every instant of communion with the greater reality of the Force away from such knowledge. And as for the part of that twin-star consciousness that had been and would once more become Anakin Skywalker, well . . . there are other things, other considerations, other potential distractions, that require attention.

The body in which Padmé resides is alive, though badly wounded. It is female. It is similar to that of Padmé’s original body because it is, of course, related to her. And it has carried and borne living children. Such facts cluster much closer to the surface, knowledge of this body’s making and workings and memories of the children this flesh once carried (two to term, and two not) trying to overwhelm with its immediacy the presence of Padmé’s memories of her own body and of the two lives she had not been able to safely carry completely to term. Concentration is required to tease the required information out, to urge it to the surface, past the clamoring immediacy of the body that once belonged to Sola. As if that were not distraction enough, there is also the memory of the twins, themselves, from the far-sight visions of Obi-Wan, the context of those visions and the circumstances surrounding the actions traced out along that particular once extremely probable possible future pathway dependent upon the fall of one Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side and to becoming Darth Vader under Darth Sidious’ watchful eyes. The agony of that knowledge, in conjunction with the trials and the horrors and the pain suffered by the twins along that particular pathway (now utterly closed, thank the Force and all that is holy and good within all the realms of the multiverse!), is imminently distracting and both difficult and draining to work around. Perhaps most alarming, most painful, and most distracting of all, though, is the all too fresh memory of a flinch, of a moment of doubt and pain, of indecisiveness and wondering as to whether or not this time might not have been meant for Anakin Skywalker and she who had been Padmé Amidala alone, with no Obi-Wan standing by awkwardly and perhaps unwanted to serve as reluctant witness to their final moments together. And that knowledge, that pain, burns with an immediacy and an agony that simply cannot be turned away from or dealt with or otherwise ignored.

Thankfully, an answer to that particular dilemma comes almost as soon as a sufficient level of concentration has been reached to screen out the interference from the Sola body.

The genetic makeup of the twins is over ninety percent identical to the genetic makeup and markers of the Skywalker bloodline. However it is that the bodies they were meant to be born into were originally conceived, obviously the Force had much more of a say in the matter than any natural biological processes did, for it is manifestly apparent that there is far too little of the Naberrie bloodline present within them for them to have been conceived through the natural conjoinment of their parents.

The knowledge of that simple fact settles around that half of the twin-star consciousness drawn from the awareness of Anakin Skywalker like a warm and comforting blanket, instantly prompting an idea. Not only is the information interesting and valuable for its own sake (though it is, most assuredly, that as well, hinting as it does at a far freer role adopted by the Force towards the protection of life in the galaxy and its will towards the propagation of that life): this is something that can, perhaps, be used to counter that terrible sense of intrusion, of not belonging, of confusion and doubt, manifested by Obi-Wan towards the very issue of the twins’ existence. And all it will require to make the plan a success is a bit of clever manipulation of the genetic codes and the Force’s cooperation in keeping the half of that blazing binary conscious contributed by Obi-Wan Kenobi occupied with other things long enough for that purposeful tampering to take effect.

Weirdly translucent where he is hanging at the heart of the brilliant conflagration of Light and love and hope within the Force, the body of Anakin Skywalker tilts his head towards the heavens and grins a smile that is half an expression of relieved and self-congratulatory triumph and half a shark-like hunter’s challenge of the baring of teeth. Challenges quite often bring out the best in Anakin Skywalker and well he knows it.

And he would gladly face any challenge, to ensure the continuing love and happiness and safety of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

*********

The bloodlines of humanity form an intricate and beautiful tapestry for those who are able to see it. The warp and weft of DNA threads from family to family, generation to generation, variants of great complexity and beauty splitting off from the main branching of the overall human family into similar and yet recognizably unique strains known the galaxy over as specific genetic examples of various cousins to humanity, near-humans like the Arkanians and the Mirialans, the Korunnai and the Chalactans, the Kiffar and the Theelins and the Hapans. Nucleotide sequences combine and recombine, shuffling genes and altering RNA, creating a near-infinite number of human and near-human patterns. Not even the most powerful of minds (either biological or droid) or of computers could fully grasp or comprehend the staggering potential that lies within beings who spring from that seemingly simple yet oddly complex elegant double-helix molecule. But that has not stopped beings without number, including humans, near-humans, and nonhumans alike, from either studying or seeking to manipulate that double-helix or the components that form that braided ladder. And even though he would prove to have very little natural aptitude (in terms of anything but raw power) for the medicinal arts, Anakin Skywalker had become one of those fascinated enough with that mysterious structure to join the ranks of amateur students of its varied and complex compositions quite soon after his admittance to the Jedi Order and the Temple on Coruscant. True, a part of that fascination and even the original prompt to study such marvels had been the direct result of the fact that one of Obi-Wan’s closest friends and most staunchly loyal allies in the Order is a Healer of great and growing repute, but the greater part of that interest quite simply came about due to Anakin’s native curiosity and his desire to understand how the microscopic symbiotic organisms known as midi-chlorians can actually aide in creation or the support of Force-sensitivity in living organisms with a sufficiently high number of midi-chlorians in their cells.

Qui-Gon Jinn had been interested in Anakin Skywalker because he’d felt a disturbance in the Force on Tatooine that was centered around the slave child. When analysis of a sample of Anakin’s blood had yielded midi-chlorian levels that were literally off the charts, that fact, in combination with Shmi Skywalker’s quiet claim that Anakin simply had not had a father of any kind, had convinced the unconventional Jedi Master than Anakin was in fact the Chosen One of prophecy. Although Qui-Gon’s conclusion would eventually prove to be incorrect, the Jedi Council had, after the events that culminated in the freeing of Naboo from the Trade Federation’s invading droid armies, been convinced enough of the possibility that Qui-Gon’s assumption might have been right (and otherwise sufficiently rattled by the threat that a Force-sensitive so strong might otherwise pose to them and the galaxy, if he were allowed to fall into the hands of the surviving Sith) to bend the rules and traditions of the Order enough to allow Anakin admittance, even though he was far older than the norm and lacking in background and training that all Jedi hopefuls were granted through their raising and training as younglings in the Temple crèche.

At the time, it had essentially been tacitly agreed that Anakin’s unusually high midi-chlorian level and his lack of a biological father made him the strongest candidate for the Chosen One that the Jedi had ever yet known. And even though his own Master (and champion and protector) within the Order had been singularly unimpressed with both the possibility that Anakin might be the one destined to bring balance to the Force and the evidence most often advanced in support of that theory (Obi-Wan being far too concerned with his promise to his dying Master, his duty as a Jedi Knight, and his burgeoning relationship and partnership with Anakin to worry overmuch about obscure prophecies and ridiculously high midi-chlorian levels, except as they pertained to his ability to train and to protect Anakin, even from those who should have been as the child’s new family), Anakin had been fascinated both with the idea and with the actual purpose and workings of midi-chlorians - a fascination that had led directly to an interest in how cells are put together in the first place, which had, in turn, led to genetics, especially human genetics. The progression of interests had been entirely natural and only reinforced by such things as the gentle presence of Healer Bant in his life and the peculiarities of bodily awareness and control granted by the variation of meditation that Obi-Wan had dug out for him after Anakin proved unable to achieve the more regular meditation states on his own. The fact that Ferus Olin had taken it into his head to challenge and denigrate both the possibility that Anakin might be the Chosen One because of his staggeringly high midi-chlorian level and his apparently Force-arranged and otherwise wholly unnatural birth and Shmi Skywalker’s claim that Anakin had not had a biological father had only reinforced the interest and the desire to learn more about not only how the human genome worked but how human (and near-human) genetics naturally lent themselves to the propagation of midi-chlorians.

Ferus Olin had been an ambitious and charismatic leader, at or near the top of every class he took and widely acknowledged as the strongest, most mature, most skilled, and, potentially at least, the best and brightest Jedi candidate the Order had known in at least a decade, easily outshining all of his yearmates as well as all of the other younglings in the crèche. Anakin Skywalker’s arrival at the Temple and the circumstances surrounding his acceptance into the Order, though, had completely shattered Ferus’ comfortable standing as the Order’s youngest and most brilliant rising star. Already judged the lesser in comparison to the bright light of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was remembered with a combination of love and admiration and not a little awe by both the caretakers and teachers of the crèche and the residents of the Temple as a whole, the prospect of also being judged the lesser in comparison to a virtually untrained child over two (nearly three, in truth) years younger than he had apparently strained something in Ferus to the breaking point. Or at least that’s how Anakin has almost always explained what happened to Ferus after he came to the Temple to himself, the issue of Ferus Olin’s fall from grace and expulsion from both Temple and Order being one of the few items of serious contention between him and Obi-Wan, who frankly believes that Ferus received far less than he deserved for his infractions and should have been mind-wiped and wholly reprogrammed by the Council Masters (much as the captured Sith Lord and former Jedi Knight Revan once was, for the safety of both the Jedi and the galaxy) rather than simply cast out. But then, Anakin never really had much of a chance to know Nemaria Tennyai - the Chalactan Knight whose life had tragically, senselessly, and mysteriously (some believed suspiciously) been cut short less than a week shy of her thirty-fifth birthday and who had been Ferus’ first Master and an agemate of Quinlan Vos (another of Obi-Wan’s good friends) - and, given his own close relationship with his Master, he has a hard time believing that anyone, even Ferus, could deliberately plan and then flawlessly carry out the cold-blooded murder of his own Master.

In any case, it had been the taunt of a Ferus Olin who had not yet been formally taken on as the Padawan learner of Nemaria Tennyai that had led Anakin to the research that would end up proving that Shmi Skywalker had been telling the truth about Anakin having no biological father. It had been easy enough to prove, once Ferus and his hateful claim that Shmi had been lying in an attempt to hide her own shame had given Anakin the impetus needed to spark the need to prove her honesty. He had, in his collection of meager personal possessions, a dark braid of his mother’s hair and one of the two rings she had always told him had been made from the hair of her own parents. All he had to do was carefully remove a part of each item, run the necessary tests to gain genetic profiles for all three people, and then compare them to his own unique genetic blueprints. The results had been both obvious and irrefutable. Shmi Skywalker was the result of a union between the two individuals represented in that plaited ring, her genetic profile manifesting an even mix of DNA from each source. On the other hand, though, Anakin’s genetics were just as obviously drawn only from one source: Shmi herself. It was as if someone had gathered a viable sample from Shmi, processed it at the genetic level, rearranged a few of the chromosomes and tweaked certain of the nucleotide sequences, spliced together the results, fed that information into a fertile egg that had already had its nucleus (and, thus, all of its natural genetic material) removed, and then placed that reprogrammed egg within Shmi’s womb so that she would give birth to Anakin without having ever known the touch of a lover. The truth of Shmi’s claim and the obviousness of the Force’s intervention, given both the Shmi’s status as a slave on a desolate, resource-poor backwater Outer Rim planet like Tatooine and the incredible and otherwise inexplicable enormous leap in midi-chlorian levels from Shmi’s parents (who were both somewhat Force-sensitive, though only one had been strong enough that the individual might’ve been considered for Jedi training) and Shmi herself (who easily might have been a Jedi equal to Knight Offee or Master Unduli’s strength, if only she had been given to the Order for training) to Anakin (with a midi-chlorian count off the charts, at a level comparable, as it would turn out, only to that of Obi-Wan Kenobi), had been manifest and undeniable.

It is the memory of this proof of the Force’s deliberate intercession in certain natural processes to guarantee Anakin Skywalker’s birth, in combination with the discovery that there had been next to no genetic material donated from Padmé Amidala towards the creation of the bodies originally meant to house the twins’ souls (and what little there is discernable as having originated from her very likely was gathered up and incorporated by the Force into the twins’ genetic profiles in order to allow her to safely and healthily carry them to term) that leads directly to a possible solution to the problem of Obi-Wan’s doubt about both the suitability of him taking part in the creation of new bodies for the twins to embody and his place in their lives, thereafter. For if the Force can take the genetic information of a woman like Shmi Skywalker and recombine and splice it so that she might then give birth to someone like Anakin Skywalker, who is to say that the part of the blended, twinned consciousness of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi with knowledge of just what those alternations were and how they have worked together can’t do something similar with the genetic profiles originally created (and in much the same way) for his own children by the Force and the genetic fingerprint of one Obi-Wan Kenobi?

The smile this plan prompts is so fiercely rejoicing and shows so many teeth that other beings not as familiar with Anakin or his mannerisms as the other two people actually present in the room with him might have felt an urgent need to absent themselves from his presence and run for cover. And the decision to pursue that goal, once is has been made, is embraced so fully and chased down with such wild enthusiasm and adamant determination that the two present within the circle of his arms might have called after those hypothetical other beings making their mad dashes for cover to reassure them that Anakin had merely taken up a challenge and so was about to once again perform the impossible - or at least they could have, if they had actually known of or suspected the train of thought and memory and emotion that has prompted the decision to pursue that plan to its goal. But of course they don’t know, and so neither reassurances, warnings, or conscious aid are offered up by either person towards the attainment of that goal. That’s alright though, at least as far as the awareness contributed by Anakin Skywalker to the blazing symbiosis of the greater whole that is Anakin and Obi-Wan, Kenobi and Skywalker, is concerned.

After all, knowing would ruin the surprise.

*********

There is only a slight sense of strain, as of stretching a muscle that has not been used overmuch towards the upper limits of its ability to perform. There is no real pain, only the steady sense of pushing out and up towards the fulfillment of a potential. That part of the twin-star consciousness originating in Obi-Wan Kenobi indulges in a rare sense of contentment, despite earlier doubts, and continues to stretch, steadily expending just enough energy to maintain the precarious balance of the tri-purposive, tri-directional, three-way meld. The kernel of consciousness from Obi-Wan feels it when his mate, his balance, his Anakin, finds the information that he has diligently been chasing after in Padmé’s memories - data that should serve as the blueprints they will need to follow when they finally call upon the Force to fashion new bodies to act as vessels for the souls, the spirits, of the twins and so allow them to be born into the flesh. There is a greater sense of achievement - an almost feverishly hot and bright flare of triumph and self-satisfied exultation - than might have been expected, but then, these are the children of Anakin Skywalker that they are trying to work a miracle for . . .

With a small mental shrug, all sense of curiosity is released in favor of a new task, and a new dimension is added to that careful sense of juggling several tasks at once and of stretching to new heights of ability in the Force, as that part of the binary star consciousness carrying the awareness of Obi-Wan Kenobi reaches out to Padmé to let her know that now is the time for her to show him how to locate the spirits of the twins.

*********

It is almost surprisingly easy to carry out at least the first half of the plan, once it has been decided upon. Anakin Skywalker is intimately familiar with which particular chromosomes and allele groups are responsible for certain of his specific physical traits, such as his blue eyes and dark golden hair with its tendency to curl and greater than average height and natural athleticism, having long since mapped quite a bit of his own DNA and the gene sequences he inherited from his mother and the Force in his efforts to support his mother’s claim about his complete lack of a father. Removing Padmé from the picture is a simple matter of editing, of carefully examining and cataloging the various parts of the overall genetic profile of his children and removing everything that he does not recognize as being a part of the genetic heritage of the Skywalkers. There is so little genetic material present from Padmé - what might possibly amount to not quite a pair and a half and perhaps just two full pairs of linear nuclear chromosomes for the boy and the girl, if the various bits of nucleotide sequences were all gathered together and combined instead of spread out all throughout the overall double-helix forms of their closely related but clearly individuated DNA - that it is swiftly accomplished. There is perhaps a fraction of instant of hesitant doubt, near the end, right before all of Padmé is irrevocably removed from the genomes of the twins - for, after all, as Obi-Wan has pointed out, Padmé Amidala was Anakin Skywalker’s wife, once, and she does deserve some extra consideration from him for that, even if her decision to marry him nearly did shatter both his life and the galaxy - but then common sense reasserts itself, and the deed is done.

After all, there would have been pitifully little of Padmé present in the twins even if she’d actually managed to live long enough to carry them to full term - quite possibly so little that any tests performed to confirm the identity of the children’s parents would have returned positive just for Anakin and not at all for Padmé (or any other specific person, come to think of it) - and it’s not like Padmé is going to be sticking around long enough that she could try to claim the children as her own or as a part of her clannachd, even if she might want to make them a part of her family. Plus, there’s the fact that doing things this way should, by all rights, help preserve the illusion that Padmé and Anakin were not wed, which will, hopefully, help protect the Naberries, keep Padmé’s reputation intact, and remove a possible source of acrimony, contention, and malicious gossip from the galaxy, since no one will actually be able to claim that the twins exist only because of the way Darth Sidious manipulated Anakin and Padmé into marriage. Considering how high the hatred and fear of Sidious will likely be, when the true extent of his crimes becomes common knowledge in the galaxy, that should also help them keep the twins safe from misguided zealots who might otherwise try to claim that the twins are somehow tainted by association with the Sith Lord - a notion that Anakin’s fiercely protective heart emphatically approves of. More importantly, though, since it really is the shape of the twins’ souls, their spirits, that will make them who they are going to be, not the shape or composition of their bodies, what does it really matter, whose DNA actually goes into the modeling of those bodies, so long as it is enough to be complete and fully functional?

Another wide and dazzlingly white flashing smile, and then the real task begins, for if there is going to be any real difficulty here it is indubitably going to be either in the recalling of Obi-Wan’s genetic profile from the depths of his mind where he has deliberately tucked away the few memories that he would prefer Obi-Wan not to know about (and it’s a good thing that Anakin thought to run a full analysis of Obi-Wan’s DNA when he was trying to take those midi-chlorian readings, after Obi-Wan’s escape from Rattatak, or else he would have to try to find a way to ferry the information out of Obi-Wan’s mind now without being caught, which would be difficult indeed given the close bond they now share) without being noticed or else in the editing of appropriately selected parts of that overall genetic blueprint into the currently incomplete genetic profiles of the twins, replacing or shifting aside sections of the Skywalker nucleotide sequences or base pairs as necessary, without being caught and somehow stopped from implementing those changes into two finished, complete, and fully functional examples of DNA, which can then be used as genetic blueprints in the creation of new bodies for the twins . . .

*********

It takes longer than expected to gain Padmé’s attention, long enough that some irritation starts to leak through over her inattention, tilting the balance ever so slightly and bringing Obi-Wan’s separate awareness a little bit closer to the surface. Where Obi-Wan alone might have made a slightly sarcastic (but essentially only meant to remind her of what she should be doing) little chiding comment, though, now it seems more important simply to regain her notice as quickly as possible and get on with what it is that they’re supposed to be doing. So that’s what happens, a mental equivalent of a firm hand closing about a shoulder with a bit of a gentle shake recalling her easily enough to the present task. Then, once her attention has been fully recaptured (and apparently, her notice has only flagged because the Force, through the meld, offered her much the same sense of all-encompassing communion with it that Obi-Wan had once offered her, on a badly damaged ship fleeing towards Tatooine almost fourteen years previously) and she’s been shown how they are ready, now, to contact the lingering spirits of the twins, she simply agrees, silently but absolutely, and calmly reaches out to the Force, in a direction consistent with the domed ceiling above where their bodies are still caught in a three-way embrace. And there, apparently content to simply wait in silence and bask in the powerfully warming aura of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s nearness, are two very specific, luminous, and extremely powerful souls, brilliant loci of blazing energy and wholly instinctual love, so close together that their coronas are overlapping and so near to the uppermost boundary of the flows of the Force - literally floating on the surface of a flow of the Force - that they are all but visibly present within the physical realm.

Buoyed by that current of energy like ships bobbing on the surface of an ocean and washed in the constant glow of the love that is obviously acting as their anchor to the physical realm, the unbound, disembodied spirits of the twins literally appear to be hovering in the air above Obi-Wan and Anakin (and, by extension, Padmé-in-Sola), and there is every sign of both absolute contentedness simply to be near those two men and utter incomprehension regarding what is actually going on in the physical realm around them. In short, they are essentially in the same place and doing the exact same thing that they were doing the last time Padmé had checked on them. This time, however, instead of withdrawing as quickly as possible to avoid attracting their attention - something that could have disturbed and therefore weakened the natural ties to Anakin (and, thence, to Obi-Wan) that so far have been allowing them to remain close enough to the physical realm to keep them from being utterly reabsorbed back into the Force - Padmé immediately and purposefully pushes out even further into the Force, in essence trying to stretch out to them and catch their notice. Deliberately, she reaches out until finally she brushes a part of herself - an extension of herself, a psychokinesthetic pair of hands - up along the blazing edges of those brilliant concentrations of light and love and Light.

*********

As it turns out, figuring out a way to remain within the meld while also allowing his distinctly separate awareness, as Anakin Skywalker, to rise to the surface and guide his actions as they need to be ends up being a bit trickier than performing the actual task he’s set for himself. All of that extra practice in abiding by that maddening Jedi maxim, "The past creates the future in the moment," has apparently paid off, though, because he finally manages to figure out a way to expand his awareness to the point where he, Anakin Skywalker, can exist and act from a place fully within the awareness of self while simultaneously continuing to exist both within the awareness of a greater unity with the Force and within the awareness of the symbiosis of a fully conscious melding with his love, his balance, his Obi-Wan. After that, everything else is easy.

Anakin can see his children, as they were in that terrible far-sight vision of Obi-Wan’s (with its Dark Empire and Rebellion, New Republic and Galactic Alliance, and catastrophic chaos and Empire and calamitous chaos again). Luke Skywalker: a small, slender, lithe man-child with eyes like two bright blue bits of summer sky, pale golden skin, almost straight hair that was a little bit darker than Anakin’s, a mouth shaped like Anakin’s (if perhaps a trifle less generously full), and a face also shaped rather like Anakin’s, only perhaps a trifle less long and with features that were all just a little bit softer, but for the deeply cleft chin. Leia Organa Skywalker Solo: a shockingly small, slender woman with smooth white skin, hair and eyes almost as dark as Shmi’s, a mouth and nose like Anakin’s, and a fragile oval face that probably involved a touch of the Naberrie bloodline (though, oddly enough, the part of it that had resulted not in Padmé’s almost heart-shaped face but rather the fragile oval face of her sister Sola) in the softening out of the rounder shape of either Shmi’s or Anakin’s face. Both of them far and away too small, given their bloodlines - Leia almost a hand shorter even than Padmé and Luke barely half a hand taller than Padmé, noticeably shorter even than Obi-Wan had been before he and Anakin had first been fully embraced by the Force - as if they’d been missing out on some essential combination of elements that should have helped them grow to greater heights. Both of them, untrained, shimmering like stars seen through a haze of fog and fever-induced mist, only to blaze like bonfires and then supernovas in the Force after learning of and accepting their heritage. And both of them called upon over and over and over again to shoulder and carry so much pain that their hearts quickly become like diamonds - brilliant and unbreakable, yes, but also hard and having been given edges sharp enough to cut anyone and anything careless enough to reach out and try to capture them from the endless years of pressure and heat and agony.

His children, his twins, are beautiful. And they are heartbreaking. And they deserve far more and much better than that.

So Anakin determines to give it to them, by making them Obi-Wan’s children as well.

He can see how it will change them, to be Obi-Wan’s children as well as his. Luke will gain half a head in height, his eyes will grow fractionally larger beneath a slightly wider brow, his facial features will shift ever so slightly, ever so subtly, so as to emphasize an almost infinitesimally longer line of jaw beneath a sharper, more prominent curve of cheekbones, and his hair will take on a warm ruddy-gold cast that will never darken to the light golden brown hue that Anakin has observed on his son in his later years, after decades away from Tatooine’s fierce twin suns. And as for Leia, well . . . Anakin shivers, envisioning the changes. Leia will gain in height as well, and far more than Luke, until she finally just surpasses the height that Anakin could see Luke gain in his memory of the far-sight visions. Her dark hair will also take on a red cast, changing from a color only slightly lighter than that of Anakin’s mother into a shade more like cinnamon mixed with cinnabar, a hue that will, to some, still seem to be dark brown in low lighting, but that will spark and fire to a color more like that of a fall of dying embers in the bright, direct light of a noonday sun. The eyes will remain dark - will, in fact, grow even darker - but rather than being dark brown in color they will be a blue so deep that they will appear black unless viewed from extremely close range (a step away or less) and strong enough lighting. The pale, smooth oval face will remain largely the same, but the nose will straighten, losing its slight upward tilt, and the cheekbones and chin will become the barest bit sharper and more defined, chiseling away a bit of the oval’s softness. They will both lose the hint of softness that would otherwise cling to their faces and they will both lose all sense of smallness, though they will both remain slender and lithe. Obi-Wan will refine them like fire. Anakin’s children would have been beautiful, yes, true enough. As children of Obi-Wan as well as Anakin, though, the twins won’t just be beautiful but breathtaking as well, dazzling and shocking as the blindingly bright reflection of light on water or the sharp blade of a knife.

Ours. Our children. Our twins. Ours. Force, Obi-Wan, what we can make together! The words vibrate on the tip of Anakin’s tongue, forming so clearly in his mind that it takes an effort of pure will to keep them from immediately flying across the bond to Obi-Wan and alerting him to what Anakin is doing. Rather than risk ruining his plan with such a declaration, though, he cautiously allows himself one trembling sigh - an exhalation of pure emotion, love and gratitude and a fierce rejoicing all mixed together - and then determinedly sets to work, mentally keeping the knowledge of his own genetic fingerprint near to the forefront of his mind while deliberately holding the incomplete genetic profiles of the twins before him in one hand and his memory of Obi-Wan’s full genetic fingerprint in the other, carefully envisioning the DNA strands and the exact makeup of the chromosomes, with their specific nucleotide sequences. And then, without another quiet exhalation, he shifts his focus ever so slightly away from his simultaneous awareness of self and consciousness of oneness with Obi-Wan within the meld and towards the knowledge of his greater unity with the Force, purposefully but ever so carefully surrendering himself to that knowledge and that unity, letting the Force flow within him and guide him.

After that, things become very easy indeed. With the Force to guide him, building two unique kinds of DNA out of the incomplete genetic templates of the twins (which have been created out of his own genetic information) and Obi-Wan’s genetic profile - so that they can act as proper code carriers and, therefore, form the individual genomes that will be the basis for the living cells that will act as the basic building blocks of life for the bodies they will then fashion for the twins, according to those genetic blueprints, out of the energy of the Force - is little more than a matter of sure and steady rapid mental movements that break apart base pairs along their hydrogen bonds, unzip nucleotides to disorder their sequences, cut and shuffle the nucleobases into new nucleotide sequences that fit themselves together like the gripping teeth of a zipper and form phosphodiester bonds along new base pairs that latch onto sugar nucleoslides and unfurl into climbing antiparallel spiraling strands that naturally arrange themselves so as to piece together into the familiar shape of a double helix. That DNA polymer then encodes the genes that will carry both Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s genetic heritage to the twins, macromolecules of DNA forming the chromosomes (forty-six large linear nuclear chromosomes in all, as is proper, with what amounts, in the final balance, to twenty-three from Anakin and twenty-three from Obi-Wan, with many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome between them and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of symbiotic midi-chlorian organelles) that will determine such specific biological traits as the various individual characteristics of physical appearance.

The Force-assisted process of what amounts to genetic recombination and out and out gene splicing proceeds with the same rapid ease and virtuosic grace one might observe from a skilled and practiced gambler cutting and shuffling and then dealing out a deck of cards. Anakin himself doesn’t have to do anything, except hold the information in his mind and uphold his sense of unity with the Force. The Force does the rest, guiding him effortlessly through the entire dance. Anakin has enough presence of mind to note the presence of far more midi-chlorians among Obi-Wan’s chromosomes than he can count - more, he thinks, than is present in his own genetic template, though it’s difficult to say for sure without taking the time to stop and physically count them, which he simply cannot do now for fear of risking disrupting the flow of the Force away from its graceful genetic dance - and to revise his estimation of the twins’ potential power in the Force upwards, closer to his own strength. He also notices a few minor but telling differences between the shape and composition of Obi-Wan’s DNA and what he has been thought to think of as the proper geometry and degree of twist to the coil and basic structure for human-norm DNA that he somehow never managed to notice before (possibly because the dissimilarities are so slight that it actually requires a side-by-side laying out of Obi-Wan’s DNA with an example of a human-norm sample of DNA - as Anakin has essentially just done with Obi-Wan’s genetic fingerprint and his own - to highlight those differences) and to tuck the information away for later consideration, should it become important to delve into the issue of whether or not one or both of Obi-Wan’s unknown parents might have been (or perhaps possessed a measure of) some variety of near-human rather than simply both being wholly human outright. Otherwise, he notices very little, aside from the beauty and the grace and the swiftness of the unfolding genetic patterns blossoming out of the merging of his genome and Obi-Wan’s genome, as simple and as miraculous a process as the unfolding of life itself.

Finally, between one heartbeat and the next, it is done. Whole and oddly familiar and somewhat similar and yet entirely unique patterns unfurl before him like endlessly opening blooms of light, cellular potentials in complete packages like lovely gifts tied together with right-handed helices of spiraling ribbons. Beautiful. Beautiful. They’re so beautiful Anakin feels as if his heart might break. And then, even though he isn’t the one with a talent for far-sight (fragmented nightmare images that are partially prophetic and partially simply violent echoes of what’s happening somewhere else during whatever stretch of time he might be dreaming just are not the same as Force-aided far-sight visions. They may be talents that are somewhat related, but only in the way that being able to regulate one’s own body temperature is related to the ability to use the Force to call fire. Or so Anakin, at least, is firmly convinced), in the next instant, as he continues to gaze on what he knows will allow them to give the twins bodies to live in, a vision opens up before him.

Obi-Wan, stretched out across an enormous bed with a dark blue coverlet, a sleeping infant cradled close in each arm, a strawberry blond head against his left shoulder and an extremely dark auburn head tucked against his right shoulder. Two tiny toddlers - a boy with red-gold hair and huge bright blue eyes and a girl with eyes that seem, at first glance, black (though in truth they are actually a deeply saturated midnight blue), beneath a braided crown of dark auburn hair - standing triumphantly with arms outstretched, imperiously waving hands guiding the swooping shapes of miniature starships in an aerial, Force-driven battle above their heads. Solemn-faced children of about six or seven, dressed in much simpler versions of the traditional Jedi uniform, standing and saluting each other with the not yet activated hilts of their practice lightsabers. Preteens sitting on a comfortably well-worn looking couch, unabashedly snuggling up to either side of Obi-Wan, their heads once again resting on his shoulders. Teenagers of perhaps sixteen, willowy and lithe and well on the way to gaining their full height, performing what looks to Anakin like a modified version of one of the katas he and Obi-Wan have created (the aerial hybrid known as Dragon’s Flight), Luke’s lightsaber a bright blaze of rich turquoise light and Leia’s a brilliantly cold dark hue precariously balanced between a deep indigo and an even darker plum. Leia, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, radiant in a white gown, her hair streaming out behind her like the brilliant tail of a comet, as Luke, in a fighter pilot’s uniform, swings her high in a victorious circle. And then Obi-Wan again, his arms outstretched, gathering Luke and Leia - once again clad in what looks like a simpler version of the traditional Jedi robes, though Leia’s are in shades of blue and white and Luke’s are in shades of green and blue - close to him, hugging them close as if they were still children and not a man and woman in their mid-twenties. And they are exactly as he has imagined them. They are obviously his and Obi-Wan’s both, Skywalkers in the shape of their faces but crowed and mantled in Obi-Wan’s light, his small smile curling Leia’s lips and dancing in Luke’s bright eyes. And they’re not just beautiful, not just dazzling, not just bright. They are Light incarnate. And they are perfect. Perfect. His and Obi-Wan’s. Perfect.

Utterly content, Anakin hugs the knowledge of that vision tight to his heart, holds the patterns of the genomes that will give the twins a chance at that future up before him, and quietly waits for Padmé and Obi-Wan to catch the attention of those bright spirits and bring them into the meld with them, so that he and Obi-Wan can use those genetic templates to fashion them their new bodies, serenely sure that it will not be much longer, now.

*********