Fic: "To Ignite the Stars" (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Padmé, 50/?)

[padme_kenobi]

Title: Flight from Chandrila
Author: padme_kenobi
Previous Chapters: Can be read here.
Characters/Pairings: Obi-Wan/Padmé, Luke, Leia, others
Word Count: 5,670
Rating: PG
Summary: Now they stood in the interminable line, his wife leaning against him and the twins bickering. It was an utter nightmare.
Author's Notes: As big as the cliffhangers of the last few chapters have been, this one is bigger. Heh. I can only say that there will be a resolution to all of this. Might not be a resolution you guys necessarily like, but I'll try not to leave folks hanging for too much longer. Promise. :) There's also some fluff in here, which may or may not have been inspired by a cracky late-night IMing session between myself and my beta. ;) 'Twas an absolute joy to write. :D


“Obi-Wan, I need to sit down,” Padmé whispered urgently.

“In a minute, darling. I can’t see any easily-accessible chairs.”

“Daddy, I’m thirsty!”

“Here, have some of my canteen. But don’t drink the whole thing; we need the rest to stay hydrated.”

“Mommy, Luke spilled the water!”

“I did not! You pushed me!”

“No I didn’t! You tripped!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not, did not, DID NOT!”

“All right, all right!” Obi-Wan exclaimed as his daughter opened her mouth — to yell back at full volume, no doubt. He ran a tired hand over his face. Had they only reached the ship earlier, they could have gotten on board and been settled by now. But by the time he’d found a suitable place to abandon the speeder, Padmé was sick again, and she needed to rest until the feeling passed. When they reached the starship they’d been confronted with a huge lineup to board, and a passing official had shrugged his shoulders and informed Obi-Wan that there was nothing he could do about it. Now they stood in the interminable line, his wife leaning against him and the twins bickering. It was an utter nightmare.

“Tattletale,” Luke muttered.

“I am not a tattletale!” Leia shrieked.

“That’s enough, both of you,” Obi-Wan said sharply. “I don’t care who did what or when they did it. Discussion closed.”

“But he called me a tattletale!” she protested.

“I’m very sorry to hear that, but we won’t be discussing it anymore. If you and your brother can’t speak to each other without fighting, I will have to separate you both.”

“But Daddy —”

“Leia Annie, you stop that this instant!” Padmé commanded, which put an end to all further speech. “You will do as your father tells you and you will do it right now. Is that quite clear?”

The young girl instantly nodded; her mother’s tone of voice had made it clear that Padmé would brook no arguments. “Yes, Mommy.”

“Please apologize to Dad.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” Leia said contritely.

“That’s quite all right.” Obi-Wan had to work only a little to keep a smile off his face.

“And you as well, Luke,” Padmé said.

“But I didn’t —” He interrupted himself immediately at the look his mother gave him. “Sorry, Dad.”

“Luke, Leia, that’s all right,” Obi-Wan said, this time stifling an inner sigh as his wife’s head came back to rest heavily on his shoulder. “It’s just that your mother and I would like a little patience at the moment. She isn’t feeling very well, and we are all afraid and worried. Things will be better when we get on the ship, but for now I need you both to stay quiet and remember the lessons I have taught you. You’ll be a very big help if you do this.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the twins, almost in unison.

The subsequent period of peace did not make the waiting any easier on a physical level, but Obi-Wan was certain the children would behave themselves much better, and they did. He knew that Luke, at least, had an inkling of the difficulties they might have if there were problems in leaving Chandrila, but the boy commendably kept his fear in check. He stuck close to his father’s side, occasionally pressing in for further comfort, sometimes reaching around to grasp Padmé’s hand. Leia occupied herself by gazing around at the other beings lined up behind them, exclaiming over the size of the starship on which they were to travel and expressing excitement that they were to undertake such a journey at all. She was probably afraid like her brother, but Leia dealt with fear differently than Luke; she became more outspoken and brash as if fright, too, was something she could stare down with sheer will and determination.

She is so much like her mother, Obi-Wan thought.

Padmé, for her part, seemed to become more and more exhausted, leaning against her husband until he was bearing most of her body weight. The line inched along, so slowly that Obi-Wan felt quite sure the Imperial official must have made it to Mon’s residence by now. He hoped this official wouldn’t do something smart like closing the planet to all outgoing travelers. It was what he would have done were he in the official’s position, but he was still prone to thinking in terms of military strategy. Four years of service as a general in the Clone Wars had taught him that if one was hoping to snare a particular person in one’s net, the logical course of action to take would be to ensure that all methods of escape were blocked, all modes of transport inspected and cleared, all names and identities checked. However, Obi-Wan also suspected that the Empire owed its survival at least in part to the existence of a large bureaucracy, and it was precisely this which gave him hope that his family might be able to flee Chandrila undetected.

At last the Kenobis stepped up to the bottom of the boarding ramp, where the deckhand was arguing loudly with a Sullustan who wished to bring a large piece of luggage aboard. Obi-Wan was afraid the dispute might flare into a fistfight, but at the last second the deckhand grabbed the suitcase and tossed it as far as he could away from the ship. The Sullustan bellowed an oath and launched himself after the object, flinging a volley of curses over his shoulder that, as far as the Jedi could tell, involved various weapons that this being intended to set on fire and embed in the deckhand’s body cavities. The deckhand merely rolled his eyes and turned towards his new passengers with an automatic smile.

“Final destination?”

“Alderaan,” answered Obi-Wan.

“Your names, please?”

“Ben and Shiimsa Anteron, and the children are Luke and Leia.”

“Purpose of your trip?”

For a moment Obi-Wan’s mouth went dry, but he shrugged the feeling immediately away. “We’re going to visit my sister’s cousin.”

The deckhand barely glanced up from his datapad. “Right, up you go.”

“Pardon me,” Obi-Wan said politely, “but do we not need our assignment to sleeping quarters?”

“Sleeping quarters?” The man looked confused for a moment, then brayed a laugh in the Jedi’s face. “Sleeping quarters! If you wanted sleeping quarters, mister, you shoulda booked your own ship!”

“So you’re saying we may pick whatever rooms we choose?”

Again the deckhand cackled with mirth. “Look, am I not speaking Basic here? This ship don’t have no individual rooms! You go in the general room like everybody else and you sure don’t complain about it. ’Less you want us to throw you off, of course.”

Obi-Wan swallowed again, trying and mostly failing to release the nasty sense of shock he felt. Of course Mon had needed to book them at the last minute, and onto a refugee cruiser … but with Padmé in this condition, they weren’t even going to get a room to themselves?

“Hey, Jace!” the deckhand was now shouting, apparently to a friend of his. “These guys think they get individual rooms!”

An answering guffaw issued from somewhere to the right. “That right? Did you set ’em straight?”

“Sure did! What’s our motto?” And both men chorused, “You get what you get … and you don’t get upset!”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and led his family up the boarding ramp, into a smelly maze of hallways. A faded sign proclaimed that the general room could be found to the left, and that passengers were not permitted anywhere but that general room and two small refreshers on either side of the ship.

He sighed and turned left, guiding the twins in front of him and keeping a firm grasp on Padmé. The general room unspooled at the end of the hall like a slow nightmare, packed as it was with beings of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Every conceivable space along the walls was filled, such that beings had resorted to slumping awkwardly against one another in the middle. Some were lying down; others simply stood and hopelessly surveyed the crowd. The room stank of sweat and the funk of reptilian stress hormones.

“Hey, one side!” growled a Gran, shoving roughly past the Kenobis. Luke stumbled to his knees from the impact, and in the small amount of time it took to haul the child to his feet, the Gran settled himself in the precise spot — the only spot — that Obi-Wan had had his eye on.

The Jedi sighed again.

“I can’t,” Padmé whispered suddenly, clutching her husband’s shirt as though it might prevent her from floating away. “I just — I’ve got to … sit down …”

“I know, darling.” He tightened his grip once again. “I’m looking for a spot, but it’s very crowded and they won’t give us individual quarters. I already asked.”

“Then mind trick them or something!” she said fiercely, and Obi-Wan found himself glad his wife spoke in an undertone. “I know we’re supposed to be undercover, but I have a feeling that cover will be blown anyway when I collapse!”

“All right, all right.” Under ordinary circumstances he would have preferred to let his robes and the status that came with being a Jedi Master and a decorated general speak for him, but today Obi-Wan wore civilian clothing, a crucial part of their disguise. His family needed a space in which to rest, and it seemed as though a mind trick might be the only way to reliably get such a space.

So, after several moments’ consideration, Obi-Wan led Padmé and the twins to the corner farthest from the door, where a Gotal had already seated his expansive form. This being gazed up as they approached, and the expression on his face was decidedly unwelcoming.

“Hey, what’s the big idea? I had this place staked out before sunrise!”

Obi-Wan descended swiftly into the Force, and with a small and inconspicuous wave of his fingers he whispered, “You will cede this spot to myself and my family.”

“I will cede this spot to you and your family.”

Another twitch of his fingers, and Obi-Wan could feel their opponent bending to his will. “You will leave the ship. You have an important appointment elsewhere.”

“I will leave the ship; I have an important appointment elsewhere,” the Gotal agreed, and in a moment, he had stood and was hurrying for the exit.

Obi-Wan helped Padmé to the floor and settled Luke in her lap, making sure that Leia was close by as he sat down himself. Thankfully, no one around them seemed to have noticed the deception, though both twins were looking at him with naked awe evident on their faces.

“That was so cool, Daddy!” Luke exclaimed. “The way you waved your hand — an’ he just listened!”

“Neat!” Leia nodded.

Obi-Wan nodded too but pressed a finger to his lips, gazing deliberately at the clutter of other beings, and the children grinned, pleased to be trusted with keeping the family secret. He would remember those smiles vividly, as for a long while afterward they represented the last bits of happiness he could recall.

***

She awoke sometime later, though truthfully, Padmé could not recollect having fallen asleep. She knew she must have, since that crushing fatigue was imprinted on her memory as surely as the faces of her family. But never before had she quite had the experience of going from conscious to unconscious, without having made a decision to do so.

“Mommy?”

Luke’s voice — yes, he must still be in her lap. Oddly enough, she remembered Obi-Wan placing him there.

“Hey, Mommy, guess what?”

She was smiling even before she’d opened her eyes. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“I can feel the baby kicking!” Her son had pressed his cheek to her swollen abdomen, and his small hand was splayed palm-down. “Yep, right there!”

Padmé ruffled his hair affectionately. “Are you excited for her to get here?” she asked.

“I hope she’s not a girl,” Luke muttered. “There’s too many girls around here anyway.”

“Are not!” exclaimed Leia from her position next to Obi-Wan. He appeared to be teaching her some complex clapping game. “I’m a girl and Mommy’s a girl, but you and Daddy are boys! That’s two an’ two!”

“Yeah, but what if the baby is a girl?”

“You don’t know that,” she shot back.

“I,” Luke said grandly, “can sense it.”

“No you can’t! I’ve felt the baby five million times, an’ I never did!”

“So?”

“So, your —”

“Ah, Luke, Leia, remember what I told you both earlier,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “We’re not to talk about that here.”

Leia stuck her tongue out at her brother, but Luke only laughed.

“So you want her to be a boy?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Yeah, you did!” Luke declared triumphantly.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at his wife over the tops of the twins’ heads. “Well, I tried to stop them from fighting for as long as I could …”

Padmé laughed, surprising herself. “It’s all right. They do love each other; they’re just … honing their debate skills for a life in politics.”

“Over my dead body,” he replied cheerfully, and captured his daughter’s hands for a renewed round of their game.

Luke, meanwhile, refocused his attention on his mother’s stomach. “Mommy, why’s it all hard?”

“Those are practice contractions,” Padmé explained. “They help my body get ready to push the baby out when she’s born.”

“I still want him to be a boy,” Luke informed his mother.

“But then the boys would outnumber the girls, and that wouldn’t exactly be fair, would it?” she pointed out.

“Leia counts for two, ’cause she talks so much.”

Padmé stifled a laugh. “Oh, is that so?”

He nodded vehemently, ducking back down with his ear to her abdomen. “Yep, definitely a boy.”

“Thank you for that fine professional opinion, Dr. Luke,” Padmé said.

Luke giggled, snuggling in and wrapping his arms around his mother as far as they would go. She kissed his forehead softly and hugged him back, resting her head on the cool wall behind her. As much as Luke was Obi-Wan’s son — and she could see more of her husband in the boy every day — Padmé had never forgotten that he was also hers, and they had a bond entirely apart from that which the Force had given him. She had carried this child within her for eight months, feeling his wiggles and his kicks and his hiccups, and although he shared a special and unique connection with his father that had been passed down through an accident of genetics, it was most often to Padmé that Luke ran when he needed comfort or had hurt himself. It had been she who’d begun the routine of holding him and rocking him before he fell asleep, and before she conceived again, she was the one to wake him, bathe him and put him to bed every night. Her love for him was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before, no weaker than her love for Obi-Wan, just inexplicably different. Padmé felt sure that if she were to lose Luke, or his sister, she would also lose a part of herself, and this would be unbearable. Of course, one day she would lose them — metaphorically at least, since they were bound to seek out their own individual roles in the galaxy once they came of age. But there was also the threat of physical loss, a threat posed by the specter of the Empire that one or both of her children would eventually confront. Or perhaps they would be the ones to lose her. This would almost have been an easier proposition for her to confront, except for the fact that she knew it would cause them pain. Her marriage to Obi-Wan had taught her much about letting go and allowing for the will of the Force, but she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to achieve the same levels of detachment as he managed to.

With these thoughts Padmé faded into sleep, though once again she couldn’t remember making a conscious decision to do so. She woke several hours later to find Obi-Wan sharing water and nutrient bars with the twins, and they all ate in companionable silence, trying to ignore the chatter of the beings around them.

This lasted until Luke, who had not moved from his position in her lap, suddenly sat bolt upright and crammed the last of his bar in his mouth. “Doyunnowharfweshis?” he asked.

“Swallow, please,” Padmé directed.

He did, then started to get to his feet. “Mommy, do you know where the fresher is?”

“Just down the hall if I remember right,” she replied. “Here, why don’t you tell Dad, and he’ll take you?”

Luke was already shaking his head as his father turned. “No, Mommy. I want you to.”

He said it with such quiet certainty that Padmé was amazed. Her son sounded more like an adult than a four-year-old child, and yet it made her feel uneasy at the same time. She couldn’t pinpoint precisely why, but she knew that Obi-Wan would object, and probably immediately.

She was right. “Luke, your mother isn’t feeling very well at the moment,” he said gently. “I think it would be best if we left her with Leia while you and I go.”

“No!” Luke hugged his mother tighter. “I hafta go with her! She has to take me!” His voice now held all the petulance of his age, but with an underlying desperation that shocked her.

Obi-Wan placed a placating hand on his son’s. “Little one, come on. Mommy will be just fine, I promise you.”

“No!” the boy repeated, louder now. “She has to take me!”

“Sweetheart …” Padmé captured Luke’s face in her hands, turning it to hers. “Daddy’s right. I’ll stay here with your sister, and it will be fine.”

He merely shook his head, eyes starting to fill with tears as he clung to her, resisting Obi-Wan’s attempts to peel him off.

“Don’t be a baby, Luke,” Leia muttered.

Ordinarily this remark would have earned an angry rejoinder, but Luke merely ignored his sister’s words, now crying openly against his mother’s stomach. She winced, feeling another practice contraction shoot through her as Obi-Wan tried to unclench small fingers from her dress, without success. Sighing, Padmé signaled him to stop.

“Luke, can you tell me why you need me to come with you?” she asked. “Why can’t Daddy help?”

The boy glanced once into his father’s eyes, so quickly that Padmé thought for a moment she’d imagined the interplay. “I just hafta. You wouldn’t understand!” Luke insisted.

Now she felt genuinely concerned. You wouldn’t understand was an argument that she simply never allowed, and her son knew it. The twins had been taught by both parents, but especially by Padmé, that this was a strong-arm tactic, and that if there was something she didn’t understand, it was their job to explain it to her. But now, Luke wouldn’t — perhaps because he couldn’t …?

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, considering, and then with a resigned sigh Padmé extended her hand to her husband. “Darling, if you could help me up …”

Obi-Wan goggled at her. “You can’t be serious! A few hours ago you were so ill you couldn’t stand! How are you going to make it to the refresher?”

“I feel better now,” Padmé replied with a shrug, surprised to discover that she was actually telling the truth. The nausea seemed to have fled, her exhaustion was being easily held at bay and aside from the practice contractions — which she had been experiencing for nearly a month — she felt like her usual self. And since Luke seemed so insistent … well, how could she reasonably refuse him?

The Jedi Master scrubbed a tired hand over his face. “Shiimsa, I just — I don’t feel right about this. Something is going to happen, perhaps even apart and aside from matters on Chandrila. I want you within my sight at all times.”

“Well, I need to use the fresher too,” Padmé decided, smiling at her son. “So Luke and I will go together. Okay, sweetheart?”

Luke nodded enthusiastically.

With a sigh Obi-Wan clasped Padmé’s hand, pulling her to her feet. “Please be careful,” he whispered, not wanting the children to overhear. “Don’t talk to anyone, keep your head down, go right there and right back without making any stops in between —”

“Yes, Father,” said Padmé, rolling her eyes.

“— and don’t let Luke out of your sight,” he finished weakly to the accompaniment of the twins’ giggles. “I’m sorry, I just … I’ve got a bad feeling, and …”

“I know.” Suddenly serious, she trailed soft fingers along his cheek and drew him closer for a kiss. “And we will be careful. I promise.”

He smiled against her lips, grateful that Padmé could be at once laughing, teasing, trying to lighten the mood, and then in the very next moment make a pledge that managed to assuage all his fears. Oh, he loved her. Sometimes he was still taken aback by the depth of that feeling.

“All right, little one, let’s get going.” Padmé took Luke’s hand and began to lead him off across the room, leaving Obi-Wan to sink down beside his daughter and attempt to expunge all thoughts of crimes committed on refugee starships from his mind.

“Daddy?” Leia tugged on his hand.

“What is it, little one?”

“Luke’ll take care of Mommy.” She offered a sunny smile. “Now can I tell you the game Lily showed him an’ me?”

Obi-Wan allowed himself to smile back, releasing the doubts, questions and worries for the Force to handle. “Right. How does it go?”

“Put your hands up like this, please,” Leia directed, raising her arms to shoulder height, palms facing him. “And you gotta clap when you say the words. An’ know what the words are?”

“What are they?”

“Lily said it’s a rhyme, and it goes like, ‘Not last night but the night before, twenty-one banthas came knocking at my door —’”

“Wait a moment,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “Why would a bunch of banthas come to someone’s door?”

“Dunno,” shrugged Leia. “Anyways. ‘Not last night but the night before, twenty-one banthas came knockin’ at my door. I ran out an’ they ran in, hit ’em over the head with a baking pin!’”

Obi-Wan blinked, feeling even more confused. “Darling, you know that a baking pin is used to flatten breads, don’t you?”

“Yeah, so?” She quirked an eyebrow.

“So, I don’t think it would be physically possible to defend yourself against a bantha with one,” he explained.

“Daddyyyyy.” Leia rolled her eyes and shot her father a distinctly Padmé-like glare. “It’s a rhyme. It’s not asposed to make sense.”

“Oh, I see,” chuckled Obi-Wan. “Well, I suppose it works, then.”

“Lily says it’s to play jump cord with,” his daughter informed him. “You hold the cord an’ then you jump to the rhyme, but we don’t gots a jump cord, so …” She shrugged. “She says it can be a clapping game too.”

“You’re giving me quite the education, sweetheart,” Obi-Wan remarked.

Leia tilted her head in consideration. “Am I your Master?”

He ruffled her hair, tugging gently on her braid. “In clapping games, yes.”

She beamed, and her smile soothed his heart. “Luke’ll be so jealous,” Leia declared happily, raising her father’s wrists to match her own. “’Kay, now you try it!”

Feeling rather silly with his arms in the air, Obi-Wan smiled gamely and tried to remember the rhyme’s words — what were they? Something about baking pins and banthas …?

“Not last night but the night before,” prompted Leia patiently.

“Oh. Right, yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Not last night but the night before, twenty-one banthas came to my door —”

“Came knocking at my door,” she interrupted. “You forgot the knocking part.”

“Sorry.” Obi-Wan started over. “Not last night but the night before, forty-six banthas came knocking at my door —”

“Twenty-one banthas, Daddy!” Leia exclaimed.

“Oh?” He paused and pretended to look puzzled. “Isn’t that what I said?”

“No! You said forty-six!”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I did,” Obi-Wan nodded. “Well, you’ll have to forgive your father, darling. Daddy’s getting old. He can’t quite remember as well as he used to.”

“You are not!” she cried with a giggle. “You’re just playing tricks on me!”

“Am I?” He peered into her face. “And you are who again, exactly?”

“Bad paddy-wan!” Leia told him, waggling her index finger. “You go right to your room, young man, and no supper for six hundred years!”

Again she reminded him uncannily of his wife. “Oh, Master, please, not that!” Obi-Wan begged, pulling her into his lap. “Anything but that!”

“Mmm … okay.” She grinned. “But you gotta write me fifty-seven pages an’ say how sorry you are!”

“I will, I will, I promise!” He curled the fingers of his left hand into talons behind her back. “But not until I’m done … tickling you!”

And Obi-Wan attacked, holding his daughter in one hand while tickling her stomach with the other. Leia shrieked and tried to pull away, giggling, but he held fast, laughing too and wishing he could bottle this moment, preserve it somehow, take it out and examine it the next time his family’s world fell apart. He didn’t think he had ever heard a sound sweeter than his children’s giggles or felt a sensation more wonderful than the bond filling with shared joy. Leia’s happiness was so innocent, her feelings a warm rush of trust and devotion to himself, Padmé and Luke. Yes, Obi-Wan knew she loved her brother, despite the fact that they bickered. The twins shared a bond as well, but a bond like no other, one that allowed them to sense each other’s emotions almost as acutely as though those emotions were their own. As babies, it had not been unusual for both twins to begin crying even if only one was hurt or upset. Sometimes, when a baby could not be soothed through conventional means, Obi-Wan and Padmé had found that the best remedy was to put them with their brother or sister, whereupon they would almost instantly calm. It had taken a longer while than typical for Luke and Leia to begin talking, since they seemed to have developed their own language and relied so much on non-verbal communication in any case. Their parents knew, though, that the best way to encourage fluency in Basic was not to reprimand the twins for using the made-up language, but rather to employ the preferred method of speech around the children and to show approval when Luke or Leia chose to use it. The twins quickly learned that while they weren’t forbidden from using the “twin talk,” it was much easier for them to make themselves understood to their parents in Basic.

Obi-Wan knew they still used their private language when they were alone together, however. And they often finished each other’s sentences, not seeming to see anything unusual or out of the ordinary about this. He had no doubt that the bond would grow stronger as Luke and Leia became older, and lately he had begun to hope that the new baby wouldn’t feel left out of that connection.

All things begin in their proper time, Obi-Wan … and end.

He jerked his head up, pausing the tickle war momentarily. Those words … it was an old saying of Yoda’s, one the aged Jedi Master had particularly popularized with his classes of younglings, but the voice which had spoken was not Yoda’s. It belonged to …

“Qui-Gon?” he muttered.

At that same moment Leia’s eyes opened wide and she sat bolt upright, tears beginning to fill her eyes. Obi-Wan had barely drawn breath to ask what was wrong when he gasped, blindsided by a sudden wave of pain and terror in the Force. He slumped against the wall, Leia boneless and sobbing in his lap, trying frantically to sort through the emotions and determine their source. What he found made him press a hand to his mouth in shock.

“Luke!” Leia wailed, tugging on her father’s tunic.

The feelings were Luke’s, but they also emanated from somewhere else, somewhere from which Obi-Wan had hoped never to sense such things. He’d known that if he did, it could mean one thing and one thing only.

Padmé was in trouble.

He didn’t stop to think, nor did he pause to comfort his daughter or to glance at the curious stares that they were beginning to attract. Obi-Wan simply scooped up Leia, hoisted her to his hip and dashed to the hall as quickly as he could without being terribly conspicuous. He had no idea what might be the exact nature of the problem, only that wherever she was, whatever she was doing, his wife was in pain, and his son was bearing witness.

Obi-Wan skidded to a halt in front of the aft fresher, not even surprised that he’d picked the right one. He had simply known, instinctively. Hurriedly he set Leia on her feet and leaned close to the door, listening. It was difficult to discern much of significance, though he thought he heard sniffling.

“Luke?”

“Daddy!” called a small voice from inside. “Daddy, help!”

“It’s all right, little one, Leia and I are here.” Sinking briefly into the Force, Obi-Wan sent soothing calm along the bond he shared with his son. “Is the door locked? Can you open the door?”

“I can’t reach!” Another sniffle.

“All right,” Obi-Wan repeated, running quickly through his options. He could use the Force to unlock the door from the outside, but beings were passing through the hall every few moments, and it would appear far too suspicious if he was able to open a door that locked only from the inside. He couldn’t afford to blow their cover, particularly not now. If the feelings he’d sensed earlier were any indication, Padmé would be in no condition to unlock the door either. So …

He bent closer to the door, lowering his voice. “Luke, I need you to do something very special for me. I need you to use the lessons I’ve given you. Can you open the door for me?”

“I can’t reach!” the boy repeated desperately.

“Don’t reach with your hands. Reach with your mind. Take a deep breath, a very deep breath, gather your fear … and breathe it out. Very slowly. Just like I’ve taught you.”

It was a simple exercise, one Obi-Wan had known how to do since he was two years old, but it was the core of what it meant to be a Jedi. Refusing to allow oneself to be controlled by one’s emotions, instead relinquishing them so that the body became an empty vessel for the light to fill. He’d done such work with the twins before, and now was the time to hope that they had internalized it.

A long breath issued from inside the fresher, and Luke felt calmer. He was not devoid of fright the way a Knight or Master would have been, but his father hoped it would be enough. “Very good,” Obi-Wan murmured. “Now, look at the door. Can you see the door?”

Troublingly, a moan issued from inside the fresher, but Luke’s voice was steady as he called, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Close your eyes … and imagine a circle … and a square. The circle is inside the square. It needs to come out of the square. You must take it — very slowly, very carefully — and slide it out. Slide it … slide it … slowly. Very slowly, young one.”

Obi-Wan could almost see his son concentrating the way he did during training sessions, his tongue poking slightly out of his mouth and his eyes tightly shut, face scrunched up as though the boy was trying to recall some elusive name or piece of information. All children looked like that when they were first learning to manipulate the Force, and Obi-Wan had come to the conclusion that it must be a concentration method of sorts. Younglings hadn’t yet mastered the fine art of quieting their minds, such that they had to apply themselves physically as well as mentally to the task. So often they became distracted anyway, and although he hoped this wouldn’t happen with Luke now, he was prepared for the possibility that he might have to help out.

But … a moment passed … and the door clicked, suddenly and abruptly. Obi-Wan tried the knob and it swung open … but he could not permit himself relief or surprise or amazement, not given the emotions he had originally sensed.

Luke was leaning against one wall, his small body shaking, face shining with sweat. Leia got there before Obi-Wan could, and without a word she wrapped her brother in a tight hug.

“Daddy,” Luke whispered against his twin’s shoulder, “it’s Mommy … she …”

But Obi-Wan could see quite plainly what the trouble was. Padmé lay next to the toilet, pale as the wall behind her, wetness gathering around her legs … what was that? Her eyes were closed tightly as he knelt beside her and took her hand.

It was a moment before she responded. “Luke …?”

“No, it’s me,” Obi-Wan said softly. “Darling, what’s the matter? Are you sick again? Did you have an accident?”

She blinked, once, twice, apparently trying to focus on his face. “I’m not a child, Obi-Wan. But …”

“But?” He arched an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

Padmé bit her lip, genuine fright showing in her features. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Darling, I’m so sorry …”

“For what?” Obi-Wan asked. “Padmé, listen. Whatever it is, we will handle it together — calmly and sensibly. I promise you.”

“All right.” She drew a breath, then another. “Dr. Ti-Lek was right. She was right, Obi-Wan. The baby is coming.”