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Chapter Text

It is three entire months before Anakin realizes that there is a pattern taking place in his midst. It is disconcerting in the way that a sloshing raft in a storm is.

He notices it at first because he leaves to the tones of Padmé’s displeasure and returns to very similar sounds emanating from the communal refresher in the officer’s corridor. He stops outside of them and frowns at the wall just beyond the door.

Everyone has their own way of gagging just as everyone has their own fingerprints, and Obi-Wan’s manner of wretching is permanently ingrained in Anakin’s memory. It starts with a slow-growing moan and turns into a hurking sound, which in turn is followed by unhappy silence as the man pushes the insides of his fingers against his inner eyes and forehead.

The desire to be horizontal wars briefly with a sense of concern. Concern wins. Anakin takes the turn into the refresher.

Inside, Obi-Wan kneels before one of the many altars, held up by arm-strength alone. His hair is clumped together with sweat and his clothes are washed through with grayness from the dingy lighting above.

“I leave for one day and you go out on a bender,” Anakin says as he approaches to hook his elbows under Obi-Wan’s splayed arms.

“No, no, no—” Obi-Wan groans.

He slips out of Anakin’s helpful grip and slithers to the floor again to drape himself over the toilet. Anakin winces as the wretching continues.

“How many did you have?” he asks when this wave of nausea and its accompanying spillage has passed.

Obi-Wan wipes his mouth and hangs his head but doesn’t answer. This time, he allows Anakin to haul him up for the sink.

It passes, the sickness. For exactly 9 hours. Then Anakin opens the door of his quarters, dying for a piss and is greeted again but the dulcet tones of vomiting. He rolls his eyes and goes the distance to the next communal refresher to give Obi-Wan his privacy and returns to the holy ground on the way back.

“You sick?” he asks from the sinks. His voice echoes slightly in the otherwise empty space.

“Terrible,” Obi-Wan says as he emerges from the stall he’d claimed. “Some kind of food poisoning.”

“What’d you eat?” Anakin asks.

“I tell you what, Anakin—not a damn thing that’s stayed down.”

Anakin’s brow arches before he can stop it. He watches Obi-Wan rinse out his mouth with handfuls of water.

“Want a healer?” he asks.

“I’ll consider it if all’s still so miserable this weekend,” Obi-Wan says.

He combs a hand through his hair in the mirror to make it look less like he feels.

“I’ve got my eye on you, old man,” Anakin warns.

Obi-Wan brushes past as though he doesn’t hear him.

Three times is a pattern and occasion to sound the alarm because this time, Anakin finds Obi-Wan passed out in the same stall as the night before. He’s clammy and pale and his fingertips are cold to the touch, but his forehead is sweating.

He’s actually sweating all over, but more worrying than that is how floppy he is when Anakin tries to get him up off the ground. This time, he calls for the healer and a medic arrives in short time to check Obi-Wan over and to call for support.

Away, the old man goes, to the medical bay. Anakin stands in the now-empty refresher with his pulse throbbing in the veins of his throat.

Obi-Wan spends a few hours in the med bay and then several full days in his quarters. Anakin, because he is chronically incapable of not experiencing Obi-Wan-induced worry, sneaks an ear against the door a few times on the off chance he hears some sort of fit of distress. He hears huffing and the occasional thud, but no obvious upset.

The noises may not be especially unusual, but the fact that it’s been days starts to get to people all over the ship.

People have started asking Anakin if something is wrong with the general when Obi-Wan returns to duty looking for the world like nothing has happened outside of a few sleepless nights. The war does not stop for sickness or health and questions like ‘what is wrong with the general’ have no place on the Negotiator. They fade away like the flutter of moth’s wings. Obi-Wan returns to the bridge.

They all return to their stations with him.

Padmé begins to become agitated over the next two months. Irritated. Frustrated. She does circles around her rooms and then escapes the notice of her guards and former handmaidens for terrifying hours at a time, only to return to throw her arms around Anakin’s neck to weep.

The mood swings come and go in intensity, but there is no question at all that they are here to stay, at least for the time being. Anakin is fairly certain that all the once-handmaidens know what’s what in these parts, but there’s no reason to suspect that the baby is his—Padmé entertains all sorts of men, even some suitors. It isn’t any of their business anyways if their senator has started to put on a little pudge around the belly.

She tells Anakin that she is bloated and miserable, and she would like very much for someone to snap her spine without remorse or misery so that she may escape the pain in her lower back.

He manages to talk her out of that one. She is bitter about it and even more upset when he tries to rub the tension out of the strained muscles along her spine.

He is eventually dismissed—sharply—and told that she needs space.

He comes home to Coruscant to find his apartment empty of padawans and friends and assignments. Rex answers his messages and says that he’s in the barracks at the moment, but he’s down to meet for a meal if Anakin wants to meet him outside the Temple in a few hours. It is an offer that Anakin can’t refuse, even if it does leave him at loose ends for a good chunk of time.

The hallways are quiet in this part of the temple. Obi-Wan’s apartment is just one floor up.

He’s sleeping when Anakin opens the door. That is the first sign of imminent disaster. The second sign is in his choice of clothing.

Jedi are allowed to wear whatever their like in their apartments. Shoes, no shoes, socks, no socks—native clothing, modern wear, pyjamas, robes, skirts—whatever the fuck you want. Outside is a robes-only zone, but inside is home and only an idiot would waltz in with the expectation that the person inside will be dressed to the nines.

But Anakin lived for ten years in this apartment with this very man and not once has he ever seen Obi-Wan wear a Stewjoni tunic.

Part of that is because Obi-Wan is as Stewjoni as a Mandalorian Orange is Mandalorian. Technically, he’s a dual citizen, since Stewjon is listed as his nationality on all his official documents, and he does drop the Coruscanti wash for a deep brogue at home, yes, but that is about as far as Obi-Wan’s allegiance to his planet of origin extends.

As far as Anakin is aware, Obi-Wan hasn’t even owned a traditional tunic, up until now apparently. This one is black and loose with a long heavy draped material wrapped around it. The material looks to be wool of some sort pattered with lines of black, white, green, and blue of varying thicknesses crossing over each other in layers. Obi-Wan has tossed a mass of it over his shoulder, and it is crumpled around his back while he sleeps.

Anakin tips his head to the side, frowning, as he observes his former master in this moment of vulnerability.

Something in the Force feels different here. Obi-Wan’s presence seems to be languid. Heavier. Usually he is the ripple of rain on the surface of water. He is an occasional buffeting breeze, a dancing of broken light through trees.

But here, Obi-Wan feels like a flutter. The wings of gold force moths. The glimmer of moonlit waves.

Anakin kneels down to lay a few fingers against his master’s forehead. Obi-Wan shifts away from them in his sleep, and the fabric wrapped around him slumps to his hip as he twists over to lay more properly on his side.

And there, Anakin sees it. The roundness in the lower half of Obi-Wan’s tunic.

He knows his master. Has known him for ten fucking years, and not once has Obi-Wan rounded out like this. His weight seldom fluctuates; he’s always been lean, if soft in the stomach. That there is neither lean nor soft.

It shouldn’t be there.

This can’t be happening.

Anakin stands as quietly as he can and makes his way to the front door. He locks it behind him and then guns it to his rooms.

The holonet is full of wonderful things; manuals about droid maintenance and parts from two hundred years ago, descriptions of every type of fruit you can imagine—but it is also full of terrible things, at this moment, specifically a general search filled with images of pornography surrounding Stewjoni bodies and reproductive organs.

Anakin is ready to chew and then swallow his metal fingers.

Obi-Wan is Stewjoni.

Obi-Wan’s documents have a slash in the marker in the box asking him to describe his sex and or gender identity.

It hasn’t ever been a thing that Anakin cared to note beyond asking Obi-Wan once, when he was a child and Obi-Wan a young man, why he had marks that Anakin’s own newly notarized documents did not. Obi-Wan had come up to him with foreboding, wiggling fingers saying that he was a whole other species, as if he was some kind of boogeyman.

Anakin had forgotten about that until now, when he’s escaped the pornography to find an article written by Stewjoni medical professionals for Stewjoni people.

It is an article about pregnancy—different kinds of pregnancies. It uses ‘all genders’ when it refers to its audience, and it talks about stages and symptoms.

It talks about risks associated with pregnancies among those who have ‘multiple sets of reproductive organs’ and encourages them to meet regularly with a medical professional to ensure that ‘all is okay with baby.’

Anakin decides that now is not the time to panic, but he doesn’t give a shit.

Obi-Wan is pregnant, and he knows he’s pregnant and, according to the wildly helpful charts and images on this site, he is on his merry way to very pregnant. And all that is mortifying enough, but more so is the realization that Obi-Wan is hiding what is soon to be an un-hideable object in the middle of a war that he is standing waist-deep in as a general.

Padmé is already a nightmare (beautiful, fantastic, stunning) and she isn’t even half as round as she is going to get.

Sour tightness begins to climb its way up Anakin’s throat.

He forces himself to slap down the pad and swallow everything back.

This isn’t the time to panic. What’s done is done, just like it has been with Padmé. All that can be done now is to prepare for what is to come, and what is to come is something that flutters like force moths and glimmers like moonlight on waters.

This is a happy moment.

Anakin swallows again and feels the tightness start to loosen.

Yes. A happy moment. Obi-Wan must want the child; they may not have spoken in-person in some weeks now and Anakin is sure that part of that has to do with Obi-Wan trying to keep his baby tucked away from the many dangers that swirl around it, but in that act, he has made his intentions quite clear.

He’s carrying this baby to term, and it is Anakin’s—Anakin’s brother? Sister? Sibling? Niece? He doesn’t know what it is, but it is family, and he’s not losing any more of that.

Protection is what Obi-Wan seeks. Anakin will do what he can to support him. He’d do the same for Anakin, for Padmé, for the baby that he doesn’t know is on its way. Obi-Wan would—yeah. And he will. Once the fury and betrayal dies down. So Anakin will return the favor a step ahead of him.

He returns to the outside world with his head held high and he manages to keep it that way for the rest of his leave time, even if it does mean that he has to start getting more and more clever in order to find Obi-Wan.

He’s already damn good at hiding, and is now honing his ability to sleep in every position imaginable.

Anakin actually wakes him up once and gets a bruised cheekbone for his trouble. He and Obi-Wan stand with barely feet between them as Obi-Wan lectures him about entering his apartment unannounced. He huffs away from Anakin to go into the kitchen and this time, Anakin can see how well the colorful sash-wrap obscures the bow of his belly.

When he reaches up, the illusion falters, however. Anakin offers to get him down a mug and is nigh stabbed to death at the implication that Obi-Wan isn’t tall enough to get it himself.

A very familiar tension begins to develop in the kitchen over the next fifteen minutes of Anakin asking Obi-Wan how he’s doing, if he’s recovered from his illness from some weeks back, if he’s planning to take an extended leave.

The answers are fine, yes, and get out.

Anakin hangs around asking if he’s expecting company and is told that his aura is taking up too space for a third person to enter these rooms.

With grace, Anakin decides to make a tactical retreat. He encourages Obi-Wan to consider taking more leave time. His eyes are only just starting to return to a less gray state.

The door slams behind him from the Force.

For the next two weeks back on duty but still on base on Coruscant, Anakin does an admirable job of not giving up the ghost, he thinks. He could have gone longer if Padmé did not come to him weeping her eyes out with information that sort of changes everything.

They’re having two babies. Not one. Two.

Padmé is nigh incoherent with anxiety. She is going to get even rounder. Her doctors are now grimacing at each other and mumbling about a possible premature labor.

And frankly, there comes a point in every man’s life where he has to admit just how grandly he fucked up. Anakin starts with the Chancellor and things go—well. Not at all how he thought they would.

The Chancellor congratulates him and asks him what the jedi will do with the children, and Anakin’s brain skips as he tries to work out how the old man got from ‘I have to leave the jedi if I want to be their father’ to the impression that the kids would be placed in the creche.

He explains again that, in light of this news, he’s probably going to have to leave the jedi or else accept whatever punishment is due his way for lying and getting married and having babies.

The Chancellor’s face twists around as he tries to understand. Anakin waits. He’s usually faster than this, but he’s also old as dirt. Sometimes old bots need more processing time, no matter how good they are at their jobs when they get going.

The chancellor asks if there is not something that can be done so that he can remain a jedi and be the kids’ dad.

Anakin decides that he’s a little senile today. It happens to the best of them. He repeats what he said one more time and makes his excuses to go. The chancellor asks him to wait, but Anakin doesn’t really have time.

He’s going to be a dad, and Padmé got overwhelmed ordering baby supplies the night before, so he’s kind of got to get some priorities in order.

He promises the Chancellor that they’ll talk soon, and then leaves to go do what need be done.

Master Windu is upset. The whole council is upset, but when Anakin holds out his lightsaber and states that he is prepared to remain as general for the rest of the war as a civilian, it is not immediately snatched from his fingertips.

Instead, it is hooked onto Master Windu’s belt, and he is asked if he trusts in the Force.

He does. He explains that the Force is what is pushing him to stand here now. He can feel it, and he can feel it swirling itself into a maelstrom around Padmé, as if it is worried that she might break under all this tension. Master Windu tips his head to the side and looks down at the saber.

He says that it would be a shame to lose a jedi knight of such honor when there is precedent for certain jedi to have wives outside the Order.

His eyes are dark when they flick up to stare into Anakin’s. He lifts his head and chin with a pride that used to frighten Anakin to his bones.

“You want to be these children’s father?” he asks.

Anakin opens his mouth to speak and finds his voice suddenly warbling and shaking.

“I want to be good at something,” he admits. “I want to be—I want to be—”

He wants to be Mom. He wants her to hold them in free arms. He wants her to look into his eyes with pride and to know that he has not failed her, that he never left her, that he promised he would be something good and he hasn’t forgotten.

“You are so young, Anakin,” Master Windu says, holding out a hand to Anakin’s shock. He takes it with uncertainty, but still he takes it because Master Windu is rarely so forward.

“I know,” he says, using the other hand to wipe away the tears and the snot.

“You really, really don’t,” Master Windu says with sincere, towering sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin says. “I fucked up. I couldn’t—I didn’t—”

“Be quiet, young one.”

The sound ceases in his throat, but he can’t stop his lips from trembling.

“For now,” Master Windu says, unclipping the saber from his belt, “You will hold onto this. This weapon is your life, after all. And later, when the children are born, we will talk about arrangements and additional training.”

Anakin misses the saber the first two attempts he takes to take its weight back into his hands. He clutches it with both hands to his chest. Breathing is a task that takes all his attention.

Distantly, he is aware that there is a hand on his shoulder.

“Agreed, the council is?” Yoda’s craggly voice takes up behind Windu. “With compassion, Master Windu leads. Follow, shall we?”

“Indeed, we shall,” Master Ti says as murmurs of agreement join her.

Relief turns Anakin’s knees to water. 

The council is one thing.

Obi-Wan is another.

Anakin finds him in his quarters on the Negotiator, which remains motionless just beyond the atmosphere as supplies are loaded into its holds. Obi-Wan stares out the window into the void pockmarked with stars.

Anakin sits down next to him and clutches at his knees.

“I’m—”

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan finishes for him without turning his gaze away. “I know.”

They fall silent as one unit.

“I thought I was going to come here to say goodbye,” Anakin admits.

He turns to look at his master and finds lines of tears creeping down from the raw rims of his blue eyes.

“Now it’s just sorry,” Anakin says. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan echoes in a broken whisper. “I wasn’t a good enough teacher.”

“No.”

“I left you when you needed me.”

“Obi-Wan.”

“I couldn’t make you feel at home,” Obi-Wan says to space.

Anakin puts a hand on his arm and wraps his fingers around his sleeve-covered wrist. The Stewjoni tunic is gone. Obi-Wan’s robes aren’t tucked as neatly as they are meant to be.

“You did the best you could,” Anakin says. “I just—I was too old, I guess.”

He joins Obi-Wan in staring out the window and doesn’t acknowledge his master wiping away his tears.

“You’ll go? After the war?” he asks.

“Don’t know,” Anakin says. “Depends on what the council says.”

Obi-Wan sniffs messily.

“Right, of course.”

“May have to take some leave in the middle, though,” Anakin says. “We’re having twins.”

“What.”

Laughter bubbles up like a geyser.

“Anakin. What?”

“Twins,” Anakin says, holding up two index fingers and grinning like an idiot. “I’m gonna—I’ll take them to meet my mom. Padmé can’t even buy a crib. She says that the thought makes her want to puke. She gave me her card. Everything’s colored, I don’t know what to pick. Maybe blue? Is it too confusing to have blue for both of them?”

Obi-Wan, he realizes, is just staring at him.

“Twins,” he repeats.

Bless. He, like the Chancellor, is getting up there in years.

“Yeah,” he says. “Unless...are you having twins, too?”

It had all been so touching until the beat-down. And the beat-down, Anakin can honestly say he did not anticipate. There were no warnings into the Force. There were no signs on Obi-Wan’s face.

And yet now Anakin stands with a cold pack and a black eye and Rex asking him what giant bird he pissed off.

“My teacher,” he says thickly.

“Kenobi?”

“Rex.”

“Sir?”

“Look at him and tell me that he looks completely normal,” Anakin says, staring across the bridge at the cause of his present pain and the man that no one seems to be treating any different from before, despite what is an obvious fullness in his gut.

“Ah,” Rex says. “The guys from the 212^th told us not to mention it or else someone would sit on your chest in your sleep.”

Anakin’s lip twists.

“Of course they did,” he says. “Why the fuck not?”

“I’m pleased to hear that things went well with the council,” Rex says.

“Who’s is it?” Anakin asks.

There is a pause. He throws cut eyes in Rex’s direction. Rex glances back like a man stood in front of a mirror he knows his forehead will be breaking. The apple in his throat bobs.

“I—”

“The whole battalion knows but me?” Anakin interrupts.

“Sir, Kix—”

“My bad, two battalions know, but I don’t,” Anakin corrects.

Rex is flushing. His skin appears hot to the touch.

“It’s—uh. A matter of, uh, interest, sir. Among—uh.”

Among?

Rex has never fidgeted so hard in his life. Anakin feels his own posture opening up in honest curiosity.

“What’s going on?” he asks more gently. “How do you all know?”

Rex scratches light at his lower cheek with a finger and averts his eyes to a mouse droid running into a cleaning bot repeatedly just ahead of them.

“It’s probably best if you hear it from someone of rank,” Rex admits.

Commander Wolffe is stalking around on the Negotiator. This is so wildly uncharacteristic that Anakin has to do a double take. He stands by numbly as Rex whispers into his older brother’s ear and then gets the fuck out of the line of fire.

Wolffe’s expression gives nothing away, even as he lifts his chin and meets Anakin’s eyes.

“General Skywalker,” he says.

“Commander,” Anakin returns. “What’s all the fuss about?”

One of Wolffe’s eyebrows begins a graceful arch.

“So the jedi don’t know?” he asks Rex.

Rex shakes his head furiously.

“Huh,” Wolffe says.

Anakin feels the need to find a support beam or something. Maybe he should be sitting down for this.

“Well, in that case, seeing as you are the closest to the involved parties,” Wolffe says, “It is our understanding that General Kenobi is with a brother’s child.”

A brother. As in a clone trooper.

Dude. What? Wait. No wonder the troopers were invested. The baby would be a perfect mix—the meeting of two cultures bonded for what felt like the rest of this generation’s existence.

“Who’s?” Anakin breathes.

“That’s not for us to say,” Wolffe says with a smirk. “General Kenobi is your former master, is he not? I’m sure he would tell you if you asked.”

This is, Anakin begins to understand, a fucking joke.

“He’s—” he starts.

“General Kenobi has been somewhat resistant towards acknowledging the situation he has found himself in,” Wolffe interrupts neatly. “Most of us have decided to respect his apparent desire for discretion—as difficult as that may be given the, how shall we say, broad interest in his condition and wellbeing.”

Anakin’s eye throbs as proof of that resistance.

“He’s just going to get rounder,” he deadpans.

“Oh, sir. We know,” Wolffe says. “Rest assured that he is being looked after.”

Anakin snorts.

“If you say so, Commander,” he says. “What’re you doing on board anyways?”

Master Plo trying desperately to talk some sense into Obi-Wan is why Wolffe is on board this ship. The high of validation rises when Anakin spots him and makes his way over to settle in at his side. The Force surges around Master Plo in whirlpools of irritation. Ahsoka is plastered to his side, trying in vain to alleviate the frustration.

“Master,” Anakin says.

Master Plo acknowledges him with a tip of his head, then resumes to watching Obi-Wan watch him from the top of the engine block. They appear to be in a stand off, and Obi-Wan has the high ground.

“You’re back,” Ahsoka says to Anakin. “Master Kenobi’s turning into a whale.”

Anakin blinks.

“Sort of like Padmé,” Ahsoka tacks on, looking back up to her grandmaster and his air of defiance.

“I’ve just been informed that it’s some trooper’s kid?” Anakin says at Master Plo.

“Rumors abound in this place,” Master Plo muses. “If only there was a painless procedure to confirm.”

Ah.

“He’s not coming down here,” Anakin says.

“He may become both target and liability should he remain in command in such a state,” Master Plo says. “It is poor timing that now, of all moments, is where his late master’s influence rises to the surface.”

“He’s probably fine,” Anakin says.

“If only there was some way to confirm,” Master Plo muses.

“Master—”

“If he’s more than six months along, I am replacing him at Command,” Plo says.

“You can try,” Anakin hums.

“Mark my words, I will.”

Chapter Text

Padmé is nearly eight months though her ordeal, and she and Anakin are already signing paperwork for an anticipated bad time of labor. She hears of Obi-Wan’s situation and cannot believe that he (rounding out but impossible to know how many months in as Master Plo has not yet been successful in his attempts to catch and release his Feralness) is out here carrying fighting a war with a laser sword and some plastoid armor.

She is further stupefied by the pile of epithets Anakin has begun to accumulate when he is within earshot of Obi-Wan on comms with Bail Organa.

Organa refers to the bump as Obi-Wan’s ‘tapeworm,’ his ‘parasite,’ his ‘great inconvenience,’ and his ‘divine retribution.’ Obi-Wan, never to be outdone, refers to the issue as ‘hearsay’ and ‘rumors, just rumors, my dear friend.’

It seems that he has truly dug his heels into this game, and he’s not about to let up anytime soon.

Surely, however, that baby is kicking. Anakin knows because he’s seen Obi-Wan flinch and clutch at his stomach while receiving report before gingerly straightening up again. Commander Cody stands at his side and, with uncharacteristic empathy, places a supporting hand at the small of Obi-Wan’s back. The pressure, Anakin knows from Padmé, is soothing.

Padmé asks nervously if Obi-Wan is going to attend the birth of the twins. Anakin passes along the invitation and gets scoffed at. Of course he’s coming, Obi-Wan says. He wouldn’t miss the opportunity for the world.

They nearly miss it on account of the Separatists, who have grown weirdly desperate over the last few weeks. Their command vessel ends up skidding into the loading dock with Padmé on comms, moaning in distress. Anakin kicks open the door and goes flying out into the hangar following nothing but the Force through the halls until he finds Padmé in the medical bay.

In hindsight, he probably should have made sure that the impromptu landing hadn’t deployed airbags on his Master and padawan.

They’ll be fine, though. They’re sturdy. And Anakin is not a moment too soon. One of the babies is crowning when he slams into the room and throws himself, gulping and panting, onto his knees at Padmé’s side.

She screams that she hates him. Several medics don’t quite manage to choke on their laughs.

Anakin assures Padmé that he’s absorbing the hate. Give him all the hate. He’s taking it in. She can put her energy towards other endeavors, like, oh, he doesn’t know, getting Baby 1 all the way out.

Padmé gets a good hold on his robes and snarls that he can make himself useful at any time now. It’s all very endearing and tense, but the tension begins to slacken somehow when Obi-Wan stiffly waddles his way into the room and takes stock of everyone and everything. Padmé reaches for him with a trembling hand.

He tents his eyebrows and comes on over to shove Anakin out of the way and to take that very hand.

“Hello, my dear,” he says as tears bead in the corner of Padmé’s eyes. “You’re doing beautifully, my girl.”

Obi-Wan has that kind of presence; meanwhile, Anakin has a really good handle on panic at the realization that if something goes wrong here, they could have two people in labor at once. Ahsoka looks up at him with hands over her ears at the scream following the next push. She looks like she’s going to cry.

Anakin loses track of everything really after the second baby is placed into his hands. It’s all a blur, all a mess. And then before he knows it, a week has passed and he’s got twins and a wife—none of whom are happy for more than fifteen minutes at a time—and a message on his datapad from Rex that says ‘hey, so. Not trying to stress you out, but General Kenobi’s been removed from field duty.’

Anakin has not slept more than two consecutive hours in 7 days. He has showered once. Padmé has had to have an emergency exam due to some complications with bleeding. The thought of doing everything all over again, this time with Obi-Wan, makes his brain float and swim at the same time.

He doesn’t even know how Obi-Wan is supposed to give birth. Never asked. Didn’t look at the Stewjoni porn for long enough to find out.

But now all he’s thinking is a gurney drowning in pools of blood. He calls Rex with shaking hands.

“What’s happened?” he asks when Rex picks up.

Rex takes a moment to sigh.

“He got shot,” he says.

FUCK.

The shaking starts to grow in intensity.

“Wh—where?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“No. It matters. Where?”

Don’t be the gut. Don’t be the gut.

“Caught him in the oblique.”

Anakin does a circle in Padmé’s communal room, which has been covered in baby things in the last couple days. There are socks and blankets and pacifiers on every surface and he can’t even do a full revolution with all of them, so he has to do circles in place.

“Is he okay?” he asks. “Which bay did they take him to? Did they bring him back to base?”

“He’s in the bay on the Negotiator. Commander Cody is standing guard.”

“I’ll be there,” Anakin says. “Send me your location.”

Rex doesn’t respond right away. Anakin falters in the face of his hesitation.

“Rex?” he asks.

“It’s not going to happen, Anakin,” Rex say. “It’s just a courtesy call.”

“What are you talking about?”

“General Koon is taking the helm for the 212^th and 501^st until the replacement generals have arrived. He’s ordered Kenobi to be on leave, effective immediately.”

“Why can’t I see him?” Anakin asks breathlessly.

“Because no one can,” Rex says. “Only medical personnel are in and out. Kenobi wants no one else, and Cody’s taking that to the letter.”

That bastard.

“Anakin.”

What right does he even have?

“Anakin.”

“He’s my master, Rex.”

“It’s his baby, sir.”

Time stops.

“Their child,” Rex corrects himself quietly. “And it may not make it, so leave them to be together, sir. I’m asking as a friend. My brother may be on the verge of losing everything he never even had.”

The comm is skin-warm in Anakin’s hand now. Rex breaks the line and leaves behind hissing static.

Padmé tells him with a hand wrapped around his wrist that Obi-Wan would want to see him, even if he is hurting—especially if he is hurting. But there’s something that makes Anakin’s limbs feel heavy and buzzing in all the joints.

Commander Cody. That’s what it is.

Anakin has never truly thought of him—not thoroughly. Not the way he’s thought about Rex and Fives and Kix.

Commander Cody is an impenetrable fortress; he and Obi-Wan have been close for years, yeah, but never have they been anything but strictly professional to each other. Cody is too straight laced to cross the boundary between the never-ending line drawn in the dirt between jedi and troopers. Or at least, Anakin thought he was.

Now, he’s not so sure. Now, he’s thinking about Cody’s hand settled in the small of Obi-Wan’s back and how comfortably Obi-Wan had leaned into it. He’s thinking about Obi-Wan wearing that Stewjoni tunic that he’d never had before his pregnancy. Wolffe and Rex barely containing smiles at the jedi not knowing that the child is already widely known and loved.

Anakin didn’t even notice Obi-Wan growing closer to his commander over what has to be months. He’s been that out of touch. Self-involved.

And now Obi-Wan and the baby are both in danger—to the point of him shutting himself off from their people. Only his one person, only his Cody can bring him comfort now, it seems.

What life have they imagined after all this?

Did they make a plan for what to do with the baby? Did they talk about Obi-Wan stepping back from his position? Did they talk about him leaving the Order?

Cody cannot abandon his station. He’s a clone. He’s a trooper. He has no rights to do as he pleases. Obi-Wan will have to be the one to bear the burden until the war’s end and the final decisions for how to assimilate troopers into Republican society.

Obi-Wan is already stretched so thin his veins peak through his skin. Why would he not terminate the pregnancy? Why would he spend months in denial and pain for something that is only going to cause him despair at the end of the road?

“Anakin?”

“They are so irresponsible,” he breathes.

Padmé cringes before him with Luke in the crook of an arm, trying to work his scrawny, red arms out of the blanket he has been swaddled in.

“Are they?” she asks.

“They can’t keep the kid,” Anakin says.

“Maybe that isn’t the point?” Padmé offers.

“The Kaminoans will claim that it’s half of their intellectual property, and Cody can’t claim fatherhood. The whole army could claim fatherhood if he could.”

Padmé shifts her attention to Leia in the other arm, finally sleeping peacefully after a multi-hour struggle.

“Anakin,” she says quietly, “Maybe they just didn’t know what else to do.”

She’s right. Anakin lets his shoulders slump.

“They’re supposed to, though,” he says.

“Obi-Wan’s a person,” Padmé says. “He doesn’t have every solution to every problem. He’s thinking on his feet, just like we are. Maybe he got scared. Maybe he’s always wanted a baby. Maybe he didn’t even know what was happening until it was too late.”

Anakin lets out a shuddering breath.

“If it dies,” he starts.

“Don’t talk like that. That’s our family.”

Fuck.

“If he loses it,” he says.

“Anakin.”

“He’ll pretend like nothing ever happened,” Anakin says. “He’ll say it really was a parasite or a tumor.”

If Anakin had lost one of the twins, he’s not sure if he would be able to look himself in the mirror without wanting to shatter it and scream.

“He won’t lose it,” Padmé says with finality. “Stop killing it before it’s even had a chance to breathe.”

It is a week before Anakin receives permission to see his former master. Obi-Wan has been transported to Coruscant. He isn’t doing well, Ahsoka says. She was with him for a little while in transit and she says that he slept the whole time.

Commander Cody has not been given clearance to remain at his side. Anakin can only imagine the fear he’s experiencing.

It is not much, but he tries, on Cody’s behalf, to have his leave time bumped up. He appeals to Commander Fox in the Coruscant Guard to do some numerical shifting. Fox asks if that’s an order, and Anakin says it’s less of an order and more of a suggestion.

Fox confirms the suggestion and says he’ll submit the request by the end of the day; Anakin thanks him and kisses the babies goodbye for the first time since their arrival.

He leaves Padmé in the capable arms of precisely four billion medical personnel and Mom, who is tanned with deeper laughlines than ever. Mom, who has made everything so much easier in only the short time she’s been on Naboo.

He kisses her goodbye, too, and she tells him to leave already. It’s Nana time.

Obi-Wan is not in his rooms at the Temple; he’s in the Halls of Healing and he’s doing little beyond sleeping.

So much sleeping. Anakin sits at his bedside and wracks his brain, trying to remember a time when Obi-Wan slept even half as much as he does now. There is nothing besides bouts of injury-induced unconsciousness.

This, Anakin comes to realize, is exactly that.

The healers tell him that Obi-Wan’s body is working in overtime as it tries to support the child and his own functions. He’s languid and out of it when he does wake up, and he becomes nauseous, so refuses food that would help him out just as much as the sleep.

He prefers the darkened tides of unconsciousness. The healers say that technically, the sleeping is helping him heal the deep burns in his side. It helps him regulate his body temperature and his blood pressure, which keeps spiking when he’s awake. But whe Anakin takes his hand, he finds it papery and cold.

He tries calling Obi-Wan’s name and gets little response. When Quinlan comes in and finds him, he sits down next to him and tells him that now’s maybe not a good time.

“He’s in much better shape than when he first got here,” he says.

Anakin can feel tears filling his eyes.

“What can be done?” he asks.

Quinlan’s cheeks soften with sympathy.

“One more thing,” he says. “And she’s on her way.”

The healers have called in a Stewjoni birthmaster. She is stumpy and round and wearing clothes so pressed that Anakin feels like a slob in her presence. She takes one look at Obi-Wan and starts tsking without obvious intention to stop.

She wakes him up none too gently and starts in with what sounds to be a volley of barbed instructions that Obi-Wan only semi-processes through the haze of his brain.

Her first order of business is to have him set back up in his rooms, which Anakin attempts to assist with. Obi-Wan sort of recognizes him while he’s trying to coax him to put an arm around his shoulder.

“How’re the twins?” the man has the gall to slur as Anakin tries to take more of his weight.

“Fine. Screechy,” Anakin says.

Quinlan takes up the other side and lifts. Obi-Wan lets out a terrible sound that nearly causes them to drop him entirely. They regroup as he clutches at the bandaged wound in his side.

The birthmaster asks him why he’s dawdling.

“Who’s the hen?” Obi-Wan grits out on the second attempt of upward motion.

“I dunno, man, she’s from your neck of the woods,” Quinlan says.

“I hate her.”

“That’s the baby brain fog talking.”

“She’s here to cut it out of me?”

Quinlan winces.

“Gruesome,” he notes.

“A butcher,” Obi-Wan decides.

“Can you not?” Anakin asks him. “No one’s taking the baby from you.”

“What baby?”

Are you fucking serious.

Quinlan makes a jerky gesture with his head that tells Anakin to leave it. They need Obi-Wan’s half-present cooperation to get him home and in bed and once that is painstakingly accomplished, they are bustled out of the place by the birthmaster who says that she’ll take it from here.

She closes the door.

Quinlan, Anakin, and the healers stand outside it, too stupefied to move.

Anakin calls home to make sure that Padmé and the kids and Mom are okay and is informed that he’s interrupting babies’ first holodrama time, so to call back tonight. He hangs up and calls Rex instead.

Rex is huffing and puffing but absorbing every detail. Anakin tells him to report to Cody, however as usual, Rex is way ahead of him. He’s running to find the Commander in the barracks. He nabs him from some place and puts him on comms, which is awkward because Anakin’s interactions with Cody have only ever been buffered by Obi-Wan-shaped blocks.

This is important, though. He lets his reservations fall away into the Force.

“He’s doing okay,” he says to Commander Cody’s dead silence. “He ate a little this morning and the healers called in a traditional Stewjoni birthmaster, who’s a treat. She took him from us and has barricaded him in his apartment, but there’ve been no screams so we’re all presuming that they’re making enemies of each other with pretty good progress.”

He isn’t sure what he expects, but Commander Cody doesn’t reply. Rex takes the comm from him.

“We are experiencing exasperation too powerful to speak of,” he says.

“Same,” Anakin says. “I had Fox try to re-process your leave docs, Commander. Keep an eye out for an earlier confirmation. I can try to have Master Plo extend it, too, if you want?”

Commander Cody says something to Rex too quietly for the transceiver to pick up.

“He says that it would be more convenient than his current plan if you would be so willing,” Rex says.

Anakin frowns.

“What’s the current plan?” he asks.

“I’m being threatened with dramatic and terrible pain if I tell you,” Rex says. “Is there any way you can sneak Kenobi a transceiver?”

Well. He can try.

There is a war being waged in brogues when Anakin arrives to Obi-Wan’s apartment with a mini-comm in hand. The sound is loud enough that it penetrates the door and testy enough that it threatens to kick the thing open.

Anakin unlocks it with more care than he’s ever given the task. Inside, the apartment is in its usual state of cleanliness, although now it is occupied by the birthmaster who appears to have done laundry and is picking through Obi-Wan’s clothes, tossing them into what is presumably a reject-pile on the floor by the sofa.

Her accent is thick, but so is Obi-Wan’s when he’s wasted, so Anakin can more or less make out that she doesn’t approve of the narrowness of his robes or any one of his belts. She’s talking about him needing to be comfortable—to wear things that drape. That are soft.

She’s upset and alarmed by the lack of preparation for ‘the wee bairn.’ She wants to convert some of his clothes into more ‘useful’ linens. Obi-Wan, obviously, isn’t having that even if it means that he’s got to shout from his bedroom. He states that there will be no ‘bairns,’ wee or mòr, and he wants to know her credentials.

The birthmaster asks him why his husband is not here tending his every whim and refuses to acknowledge that a husband is not exactly a word used lightly among the jedi. In the face of Obi-Wan’s blustery offense that he is a person who would A) need a husband, B) want a husband, and C) requires any sort of tending, she tells him that it’ll all come out in the wash anyways, she doesn’t need his attitude in the meantime.

Anakin tries to make himself small and submissive as he slips in and closes the door behind him. It doesn’t work. The birthmaster asks if he is the father of the bairn-to-be.

“He’s my former apprentice,” Obi-Wan snaps, sounding, despite everything, more awake and aware than he has the rest of the time Anakin’s been here.

“That means nothing to me,” the birthmaster sniffs. “Is the tall one with the long hair the father then?”

Obi-Wan’s rage is nearly velvety as it pours down the hallway from his bedroom.

“The father’s in the process of getting leave,” Anakin says.

The tension in the place snaps.

“Well, that’s good then,” the birthmaster says as Obi-Wan’s force signature twists itself into quizzical shapes. “He is on bedrest. Tell the father this,” she instructs Anakin.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Anakin, don’t listen to her. It’s just an infected wound.”

“Three meals a day at least,” the birthmaster continues. “The state of his iron levels—shocking. Shocking.”

Anakin decides that he’s wildly uncomfortable. He hurries out of the living area and into Obi-Wan’s room so that he can shut the door.

Obi-Wan’s room smells like childhood. Anakin remembers sneaking in here to sleep on the floor some nights when the world felt like it was both enormous and slipping out from between his fingers. He knows the room well and it hasn’t changed much since Anakin lived here fulltime with his master.

He takes it in as he sits with care on the edge of Obi-Wan’s bed. The covers are the same light blue they have always been.

Obi-Wan isn’t laying under them. He’s contorted himself into a half-sitting, half-leaning posture, with his back set against his pillows and the wall. His eyes have dipped closed and he’s wearing a new tunic. This one is a cool gray; the drapey sash from before is still the same, though.

Neither of them speaks for a long time.

“Cody’s worried about you,” Anakin finally says.

Obi-Wan sighs.

“Why—what—why won’t you talk about it?” Anakin asks, trying not to be judgmental. It takes everything not to let the words twist at the end. “Was it on purpose? Did you even know—”

“No.”

Anakin’s words stop.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes to look away at the wall.

“I didn’t know,” he says.

“Until it was too late?” Anakin asks.

Obi-Wan’s shoulders rise with an unhappy breath.

“It wasn’t too late,” he says. “I made an appointment. But right after, I told Cody, and he was so. Something. I’m not sure. He took it so seriously. He asked to come with, and the night before, when he thought I was sleeping, he said goodbye.”

Anakin grimaces so hard his teeth ache.

“I know,” Obi-Wan moans suddenly into his hands. “I know. Anakin, I didn’t mean to step into Padmé’s limelight.”

“Wh—no, no, this isn’t about that.”

“She’s endured so much.”

“Obi-Wan.”

“For so long. Twins. My stars, I cannot imagine.”

“Obi-Wan.”

His master cannot bring himself to look Anakin in the face, even after all these years and all they’ve been through.

“You and Cody are allowed to be happy, too,” Anakin says. “You don’t have to hide things because other people are suffering more. You—doesn’t it hurt?”

These are not words that Obi-Wan has ever responded well to, and he does not respond to them here either.

“Has everything gone well until recently?” Anakin asks. “You seemed like you were holding it together.”

“I will never do this again. Not on my life. As soon as all this is done, I’m having the whole organ removed and burned.”

Yes, this is a normal reaction to a normal level of stress.

“I’m taking that as a ‘it’s been a disaster,’” Anakin translates.

This is what seems to finally break the last lock holding back the floodgates. One moment, Anakin is sitting on the edge of a bed, the next, he’s pursuing his bedrest-prescribed brother-father-teacher step by step, desperately trying to get him to lay back down.

“If there is a side effect I’ve missed, I will be damned to hell and back—”

“Master, stop.”

“—The blood pressure, the anemia, the itching, Anakin. They say the baby will come too soon. They say to sit down, or the baby will come now—”

The urgency to get this man horizontal increases three-fold. Anakin tries limiting the amount of pacing space available by awkwardly occupying the greater half of the room’s remaining space. He’d put his arms out if he thought it would help, but it won’t.

“This is why they put you on bedrest?” he tries.

“All they do is assign me bedrest. Infernal beings. One time, one time, there are contractions, and now if it is not Cody or Kix or Trach tearing my legs out from under me, it is this foul creature the healers have brought into the last sacred place I have access to.”

He’s worked up and getting hotter by the second.

“You already went into labor?” Anakin asks.

There is a thoughtful pause.

“It passed,” Obi-Wan says.

“When?”

“Fourth month.”

“You could have miscarried,” Anakin rasps.

“BUT I DID NOT,” Obi-Wan snarls over him. “And still, I have not. And all is fine.”

Is it, though?

“Get out.”

“Do you even want this kid?”

“Leave.”

“Obi-Wan, look at me,” Anakin says. “Do—do you want it?”

His master’s eyes threaten to burn like the plasma that causes sabers to hum.

“This is Cody’s child,” Obi-Wan says. “And he will have it to hold if it kills me.”

Chapter Text

It is pretty clear now that Obi-Wan is the worst patient in the history of man (or Stewjon?) kind, and he’s in this whole mess because he is more devoted to Commander Cody than Anakin realized was possible. It makes him feel like his affection for Padmé is a little fragile, like plastoid to durasteel.

Obi-Wan and Cody have something that is just beyond reach, and they don’t even have a stockpile of baby-things to remind them of it.

Anakin leaves before the birthmaster can chase him out with a broom. He treks down to let the healers know that Obi-Wan is agitated but otherwise okay. His iron levels are low. The birthmaster is taking care of it.

One of them asks Anakin if he knows, by chance, how his former master is intending to bring the child into the world. He has no fucking clue and he’s not about to go back to risk his neck to ask.

There, there be dragons.

He promises that he’ll try asking again when Obi-Wan’s calmed down a bit.

Anakin returns home to the family in the meantime and is relieved to find that everything is okay. Nothing has burnt down, no one has committed cruel or unspeakable crimes. Fatherhood recommences. Anakin puts Obi-Wan at the back of his mind.

Rex sends along a date that interrupts all that.

Padmé seems to think that she brings with her the energy that Obi-Wan brought to her bedside mid-labor.

She does not.

Anakin stuffs knuckles in his mouth as he watches her approach, overflowing with sympathy and love. She takes the chair next to the side of the bed that the force inhibitor on Obi-Wan’s wrist has been strapped to and offers her hand.

Obi-Wan stares at her while the air around him boils in the Force.

Padmé offers her hand more pointedly.

“It’ll help,” she assures him.

Kix intervenes just as Obi-Wan reaches out to take it. He puts his full wrist in that crushing grip and drags the physician’s chair over to him by the crook of his foot so that he can intervene more effectively now.

“You snap those teeth and I’m feeding you to the wolves,” the birthmaster warns Obi-Wan as she telegraphs her movements to lift his tunic.

Obi-Wan watches her as the embodiment of cold calculation itself.

His poor belly is so swollen, the skin cannot get any tighter. Anakin is sure of it. Unlike Padmé, Obi-Wan has developed dark lines above and below his navel, as well as some purple stretch marks along the other sides. Anakin suddenly understands in perfect clarity why he’s been a bag of cats for the last several months. It all looks beyond uncomfortable.

“Wolves,” the birthmaster repeats aggressively at Obi-Wan’s lightly fidgeting foot. It ceases its movements. “Thank you.”

There is an ultrasound device pressed firmly against the discolored, tight skin. Obi-Wan rips back his hand until it strains against the Force inhibitor. The birthmaster shushes him; Padmé shushes him. Kix starts counting his pulse.

“There we are,” the birthmaster finally says. “You see?”

And indeed, on the datapad by the table, there is a blurry image vaguely resembling a baby with curled hands and closed eyes.

“Happy darling,” the birthmaster says. “They’re looking well—despite your efforts.”

Anakin looks from the screen to where Obi-Wan appears to be academically intrigued by the image in front of him. It’s a curiosity that comes without specific emotion and one that Anakin knows is dangerous in a man of his former master’s disposition.

He swallows and asks the birthmaster if some flat images might be taken so that the baby’s other parent can see them. She says that some can, but it would be best of the other parent arrived here himself. Anakin opens his mouth to say that that isn’t possible, but suddenly it is because the doors open, and Kix snaps up straight to standing to salute.

Commander Cody blinks steadily at him until Kix drops the salute.

“Sir,” Cody says to Anakin.

“Commander,” Anakin says.

“Ma’am.”

Padmé looks up and gives a smile and a wave.

“General,” Cody finally says like the word itself is a fucking curse.

Obi-Wan bares his teeth at him.

“Ah,” the birthmaster says, “So you are the father.”

“He’s a bastard is what he is,” Obi-Wan snaps.

“I am indeed, ma’am,” Cody says over him in a way that ruins everything Anakin has ever known about anything, “And please have my most sincere apologies for my tardiness and lack of involvement thus far. I was not aware that my transmissions were not moving from the general to yourself.”

All eyes turn to Obi-Wan who takes the opportunity to seethe publicly.

“I will endeavor in future to use a more secure method of delivery,” Commander Cody says tidily.  

“Tell her that this is unnecessary,” Obi-Wan says.

“Did you hear something?” Cody asks Kix.

Kix cycles through 17 half-emotions before landing on complicity.

“I did not, sir,” he says.

“Take a note that senility approaches me, trooper,” Cody says before rounding onto Padmé. “And Ma’am?”

Padmé cocks her head.

“With all due respect, senator, you’re in my seat.”

Anakin has seen Obi-Wan fuck his way through dozens of people in their time together but nothing, nothing compares to watching Obi-Wan try to strangle Cody with the Force while Cody keeps up a steady conversation with the birthmaster about a billion details that he has apparently been tracking for the last seven or so months.

He knows exactly how far along Obi-Wan is, what medications he’s taken, which food cravings have arisen, and the highest and lowest his blood pressure and iron levels have been. He’s narrowed down a list of names to about 70, and he’s taken up knitting and is confident now that he has produced a sufficient number of hats and socks for the first couple weeks of the baby’s life.

He states that he is pleased to be a father soon and that he has zero concerns about Obi-Wan’s apparently documented tendency to hide medical issues because, as he says, ‘even beskar armor has its seams.’

Obi-Wan languishes. Commander Cody holds his hand as one holds a melting round of butter.

“You,” the birthmaster says, “Are a delight. YOU.”

Obi-Wan vibrates.

“You are going to get through this and, by god, you will be a testament to the strength of our people whether you like it or not.”

Commander Cody gets Obi-Wan up once he has produced a datapad and saved the files of the ultrasound into its appropriate folder.

“Don’t walk him too much,” the birthmaster says.

Cody nods and stoops to execute a fireman’s carry that inspires Obi-Wan to grab a handful of his hair as a preventative measure.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Cody pries the fist out of his hair like he’s dealing with a jumpy new trooper rather than his general.

“You are emotionally agitated and volatile in every other way,” he says.

“You are emotionally—”

“I am hearing an echo—”

“I am hearing a death knell, and it’s for—”

“What a sound, it just keeps going,” Cody says.

Obi-Wan stares at him and stiffly adjusts the sash on his shoulder. They square off like this, expressions evenly matched, no further words spoken.

Padmé wrings her hands and takes the closest baby out of Anakin’s arms to shove into Obi-Wan’s. Obi-Wan doesn’t even look at Luke as he sets him securely against his collarbone.

“This isn’t over,” he tells Cody.

No one has gotten far enough into a trooper-jedi relationship to be able to be normal around Commander Cody staying with Obi-Wan in his apartment. It’s too new, too shiny. All the padawans gather around Obi-Wan’s door to hear him raise his voice in thicker and thicker accent at Cody only to receive no reaction. It’s like Cody is unbothered by his attempts to pick a fight, but more than that, it sounds like he can discern between real upset and ‘I am uncomfortable and making that your problem’ upset.

Anakin lived with Obi-Wan for ten years and he still can’t make that distinction.

“It’s amazing,” he tells Rex who will not relinquish Leia for love or money.

Rex removes the bottle from Leia’s lips and lifts her carefully up so that he can pat her back.

“It’s not,” he says, “You all just don’t know Cody very well. He’s a pretty emotional guy.”

Unbelievable. Anakin will not be fooled.

“He is,” Rex insists, “He looks after a lot of us. Has done for a long time. Even people outside his battalion; if he thinks they’re stumblin’, he’ll stick his nose in and pick ‘em up.”

So he and Obi-Wan have more in common than it seems.

“Sir,” Rex says, “I don’t think you really understand. The COs have put up with Cody’s Kenobi-obsession for years. Like, it’s a whole thing. When they finally got together, Cody just stopped taking in information for like three weeks before he remembered that that’s a surefire way to die. Pretty sure he didn’t think it was real, and then, you know, they were a thing but not a thing, but a thing for a while and then out of nowhere shit got real intense, so we all knew something was up.”

“How long ago was that?” Anakin asks.

“Four? Five months?”

Damn.

“Cody told us that if we spilled, he’d take off a knuckle for every word.”

Leia is only too happy to receive her bottle again.

“So you all were monitoring the situation while he wasn’t around?”

“Well, Anakin. She’s going to be everyone’s baby, so yeah.”

She?

“She,” Rex confirms. “Cody says he’s decided he’s only having daughters and if it’s a son, then he doesn’t care, he’s already made all the daughter shit.”

What a weird fucking guy.

“You truly have no idea,” Rex says.

Commander Cody puts in the first application a clone has ever submitted for parental leave. He fills out Obi-Wan’s paperwork, too, and waits over him until he puts in his pin. Only then does Cody give him back the mug of illicit caf he’s stolen from someone downstairs.

The Chancellor denies both requests for leave, which is awkward for everyone. Like, no one wants to go to the old man and explain to him that one of the troopers knocked up a general and now they all have to deal with the consequences.

So naturally, Obi-Wan gets dressed up in his most obnoxious Stewjoni tunics and attempts to go back to war, starting with the senate building. Commander Cody lets him go until his back hurts, which is about four flights of stairs. He then swoops in to remind Obi-Wan that there is such thing as an elevator.

Anakin tags along with Ahsoka and Rex to keep things from getting ugly.

Obi-Wan needs to have a sit outside the elevator exit for a few minutes. His sash covers his belly, but it only conceals it from straight on. Otherwise, he’s nearly 8 months pregnant and visibly contemplating murder at every waking moment. Cody coaxes him to turning to his side so that he can massage the muscles in his shoulders.

“Can one break water on cue?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Unclear, but pissing is always an option,” Cody replies.

Rex snorts and struggles to recover.

The Chancellor greets them all with open arms.

“General Kenobi,” he says, “It has been so long since we last spoke.”

Cody tucks a hand in its home in the small of his back, almost like a warning.

“I’m afraid it has been,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve been unwell for some time now, sir. I am most apologetic.”

“It’s no trouble, no trouble at all,” the Chancellor says, noticing the rest of them. “Oh, and you brought friends. How are the children, Anakin?”

“Huge already,” Anakin says.

“How wonderful. Just perfect.”

The Chancellor pauses and observes Obi-Wan attempting to adjust the compressed mess of his spine.

“Are you injured, General?” he asks. “I was not informed. Please do have a seat.”

He waves at the chairs set up across from his desk. Obi-Wan nods in gratitude and begins his painful waddle in that direction, which finally breaks the illusion they’ve started this talk with as it means he must turn to the side.

The Chancellor’s expression goes from neutral to alarm then back to neutral as Cody takes Obi-Wan’s arm to help him not collapse into the chair. Once he’s settled, Cody returns to being the perfect soldier. The perfect guard, always one half-step behind his esteemed general.

“My, my,” the Chancellor says. “How far along are you, my dear?”

“Too far,” Obi-Wan says simply. “But not much longer now. Senator Organa has connected me with some very good doctors. They’ve told me that the operation will take around five or so hours.”

The Chancellor blinks.

“Yes, I imagine,” he says. The pauses. “Is that not quite a long time?”

“There will be treatment for some weeks afterwards,” Obi-Wan says. “These things, you know how they are. It isn’t enough to remove the mass only.”

Anakin is counting on Ahsoka and Rex to keep their faces as flat as his own. It is difficult yes, but so is close combat and everyone here has managed that just fine.

“Oh, my apologies, General. I foolishly assumed that you were with child,” the Chancellor says.

“It is a child, sir,” Cody says.

Obi-Wan stomps on the toe of Cody’s boot so soundly that Anakin feels it through the floor. The Chancellor feels it, too. His face pales as Obi-Wan smiles.

“An honest assumption,” he says. “No matter, though. I will have it removed shortly.”

“Removed?” the Chancellor says. “This late?”

“Yes sir,” Obi-Wan says, “It’s unbearable trying to swing a saber in this state, I’ll tell you. You’ll forgive me however. I did come to request a slightly extended medical leave. I’m told that it takes time to recover from an operation like this. Perhaps a week or so?”

“A week?” the Chancellor says.

“I suppose I may cut it down to three days if all goes smoothly,” Obi-Wan says.

Cody makes a show of nervously rubbing his fingers as if he thinks that this is a terrible idea. The Chancellor catches onto it and clears his throat.

“Commander,” he says. “What do you think of this leave period? If you were in such a position, how long would you find appropriate?”

“Perhaps a month, sir. At the least,” Cody says with a good coating of ‘HELP’ to his tone.

“A month, a month. Yes, a month at the least; believe you me, Master Kenobi, it always takes longer than one thinks to recover from surgery,” the Chancellor says.

Obi-Wan scoffs and makes to get up to everyone’s immediate concern.

“I will take two weeks then, sir,” he grits out. “Thank you for your understanding and discretion. I’m sure you have much work to do, so we’ll just be leaving.” He clutches at his bump as he shuffles past everyone’s wincing forms for the door. Then, for one sinking moment, he halts and a real expression of deep discomfort shoots across his face like lightning. He breathes through it and collects himself enough to soldier on, on his way out into the hall.

“I’ll resubmit the forms,” he calls over his shoulder. “Anakin, I will wait in the ship.”

They all give him thirty or so seconds to get out of sight and hearing range before Cody sharply salutes the Chancellor.

“Sir,” he says.

“I see now why you submitted the requests,” the Chancellor says before he can start anything. “I must admit, Commander, I was very much surprised. Did you steal his pin?”

There is a pause that Cody draws out so as to appear as guilty as possible.

“I felt that the circumstances were dire,” he says.

“Understandable—very much so, Commander. You can’t be faulted for taking such measures. Surely, he doesn’t truly believe that it is just a mass? Master Kenobi is Stewjoni, is he not?”

Anakin clears his throat.

“He is,” he says for the others, “But Obi-Wan came to the Order very young. He is the only Stewjoni jedi we’ve had for quite some time, I believe, and because of that, it seems that he’s missed out on some rather pertinent information and so. Er.” He gestures vaguely.

The Chancellor has the grace to wince.

“What is to be done with the child?” he asks.

“I’ll be honest,” Anakin says. “Padmé and I might take it in, if he, you know, ends up not recognizing it even after everything.” 

“This is so out of character,” the Chancellor says, shaking his head. “General Kenobi is usually so level-headed.”

“The birthmaster the Order has hired from Stewjon says that he’s not in a shining state of mind,” Anakin says. “It seems like he hasn’t been in some time. They’re worried that too much movement will cause premature labor; in fact, it sounds like he may have already experienced some of this earlier on, but they managed to get things under control. He’s actually supposed to be on mandatory bedrest.”

“And yet he continues to be in denial?”

Anakin bares his teeth and holds up his hands helplessly. The Chancellor looks at him and then sighs.

“This is a very unusual state of events, Anakin,” he says. “It will not do for the Republic to allow him to stand at the frontline. How far along is he?”

“8 months,” Rex says quietly.

“8? So many,” the Chancellor mumbles, smearing a hand over his face. “Anakin, is it too much to ask for the Jedi to remove him from service for the time being?”

“Master Koon has already attempted to do so with little success,” Anakin says.

“I see. Well, in that case, I’ve no choice but to issue formal orders. Commander?”

“Sir?” Cody says.

“Please resubmit the documents formerly filed to my office. Commander Fox will approve them. If our good general is already amending them, you are welcome to submit the previous drafts to me personally.”

“Sir.”

“And Commander, please also do remain with the General. It will not do for him to be without a guard while he is so vulnerable.”

“Understood, sir.”

The Chancellor turns to Anakin with great sympathy.

“I am sure that you are quite busy with your new family, Anakin,” he says, “But perhaps, for the sake of your former master, you might consider speaking to the council about getting him in touch with a mindhealer.”

“It’s at the top of my list,” Anakin says.

“Good boy. And I’m very sorry, all, but I do have a meeting at the top of the hour.”

“No, no. We’ll go. Thank you, Chancellor,” Anakin says, waving everyone out of the office ahead of him. “We’ll make sure he’s looked after.”

Parental leave is approved. Obi-Wan sleeps from the moment they get back to the temple to the to the next morning.

The twins are a full six weeks old when their cousin is due to arrive. Then they are seven weeks.

Then they are two months?

Padmé goes from soft and tender to sharp with anxiety as Mom chews her lip and points that that things are getting a little late over there. Should they maybe check in?

They should. They do.

Obi-Wan is in a level of distress that has rendered him red-eyed and damn near silent. It’s like he doesn’t trust himself to speak. Even the birthmaster is at a loss. She tells Anakin before she allows them into the room that Obi-Wan is a ‘wee bit frustrated.’ They’ve apparently tried everything everyone can think of to induce labor. They are approaching a tipping point now.

If baby does not come in the next four hours, baby is in danger of not coming at all.

There will be an operation.

Padmé comes in and offers Obi-Wan her hand the way that she did during his ultrasound, but this time he doesn’t move to take it. He is so, so tired. He turns his head away and blinks in long intervals at the white walls.

Mom’s anxiety skyrockets. She gives Anakin Luke and goes over to gently touch Obi-Wan’s cheek. It has been so long since they’ve seen each other that Anakin forgot that Mom doesn’t know him as having a beard.

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” Mom says. “You’re doing so well.”

He really isn’t.

Only twenty minutes later, his blood pressure takes a nosedive.

Baby is delivered by operation; she is cut out of Obi-Wan just as he wanted from the start, but he’s not aware enough to be pleased, and he doesn’t get to hold her right away like Anakin got to with Luke and Leia. There are too many bodies in the way and too much hurry to stop the bleeding.

Cody holds their baby. She makes similar breathy cries as those Luke and Leia made against the side of his neck as he watches in quiet, stiff horror at the efforts underway to keep Obi-Wan from fading away into the Force.

Anakin’s hollowness grows as he sits down next to him.

The baby cries harder. Cody jerks when a healer comes to take her from him; he clutches her to his neck and protects her fragile head with the cup of his hand. The healer kneels.

“Just gonna rinse her off,” she promises. “Just gonna give her some eyedrops. We want her to be pretty when daddy wakes up, don’t we?”

Anakin swallows back tears at the thought of this baby being the last thing that Obi-Wan ever sees.

Yes, she needs to be perfect. Just in case.

It is six hours before confirmation comes that someone, somewhere, is slurring violently in a familiar brogue. Cody is off like a shot the moment the healer re-opens the door. He doesn’t even wait until it’s all the way open, either; he’s kind of a slight guy, Cody—when you get off all the armor—so he fits right under the healer’s arm.

Rex apologizes to the healer as he hurries through to catch up. As does Commander Wolffe, Commander Ponds, Commander Bly, Monnk, Fox, Thorn, and a few more COs who Anakin honestly doesn’t know the names of. Apparently, these guys come as a unit. Apparently, you have to be a clone trooper to know this.

The healer asks him, Mom, and Padmé if they’re coming, too.

In his assigned cot, Obi-Wan is uncomfortable and bleary and fucking furious that no one has given him his ‘squirming maggot.’ He demands to see her. Cody forgets that other people exist and kisses him full on the mouth in front of them all. This turns out to be an effective distraction while the healers gather up Baby from her cloth-stuffed box nearby.

They give her to one of the healers that Anakin does know. Her name is Bant. This baby is as good as her niece, and she cradles that ruddy little blanket-wrapped body with her hip cocked in Obi-Wan’s direction like she’s prepared to start throwing accusations.

“Well, well, well,” she drawls when Obi-Wan’s attention finally lands on her. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Give her here, you dreadful being,” Obi-Wan slurs.

“What if I didn’t?” Master Bant asks. “What if I kept her forever and left you in the abyss you crawled out of?”

Obi-Wan points at her in warning. She points back. The troopers are all extremely confused.

“Give,” Obi-Wan says after several beats of this stand-off.

“Know that it is done out of pity,” Master Bant says.

“To hell with your pity, give.”

Bant obliges with a sneaking smile. She helps situate Obi-Wan’s arms into a cradle so that he can finally see his daughter.

She looks nothing like him. Her hair is dark and her nose is soft on its bridge and rounded all over. Her lips and eyebrows—even her tiny little jawline that judders when she cries—it’s all Cody, it’s all Rex, and Wolffe and Ponds and Monnk and Fox—she could be a tubie if her shaggy collection of hair wasn’t so straight.

Cody leans over Obi-Wan’s shoulder to smooth some of her blankets down around her fists.

“You were right,” Cody says. “Someone’s going to arrest you for kidnapping one day.”

Obi-Wan’s expression appears to be caught somewhere between fondness and irritation.

“Okay, I’m done,” he abruptly decides, lifting Baby in Cody’s direction.

Chapter Text

Her name is Ryvka.

Anakin knows this, not because Obi-Wan has told him, but because Master Windu does. He asks Anakin how she is and, upon taking in Anakin’s vacant stare, specifies that he means that thing that Obi-Wan has stuffed into the front of his robes.

Windu leaves this conversation with the same understanding that Anakin does, which is that either some secret Stewjoni protective instinct has awakened in Obi-Wan or he’s transferred his denial over the bump to the now-separate body. The only thing to do is to consult the proud father, Commander Cody.

Cody, however, seems to sense an intent projected in his direction and subsequently goes about making himself absolutely impossible to locate. He too, is said to keep the baby tucked in his armor, except he allegedly does acknowledge her little squeaks and coos where Obi-Wan twists around, searching for vermin. Anakin has to approach him like he’s a mark to get the drop on him, and the result of that is a gut-shot with a vambrace.

Commander Cody apologizes flatly.

“I was not aware that you’d returned to the lines, sir,” he says.

Anakin blinks at him through tears. They are effectively brothers-in-law now, and still Cody refers to him and Ahsoka and even Obi-Wan by rank.

“Last week,” Anakin says. “Shouldn’t you two still be on leave?”

Cody’s voice more than his face gives away his emotions, which isn’t saying much. He gives a stiff shrug.

“Duty called,” he says.

“Where’s the baby?” Anakin asks.

“In protective custody,” Cody says.

They stare at each other for some time.

“With Obi-Wan?” Anakin tries.

“Why do you ask, sir?”

“Because I want to meet my niece,” Anakin says.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in that case, I’m sure she might be removed temporarily from restraints,” Cody says.

He and Anakin stare at each other again.

“I’m so glad that Obi-Wan found someone just as fucking weird as he is,” Anakin says, “But can you guys be normal about all this for like, an hour?”

Cody considers it while tapping lightly on the side of his neck.

“No,” he determines.

Ryvka is with Commander Wolffe. He’s situated her in the front of his loosened armor and seems to have built a nest in there around her; they’re chatting, or rather, Ryvka is cooing and Wolffe keeps up a constant one-sided conversation with her as if he and she are having a debate about the intricacies of rivet sizes.

Cody approaches him and for a moment, Wolfe looks like he might begin a hasty retreat, but ultimately he loosens up and comes to meet them halfway.

“We said the morning,” Wolffe says.

“I’ve halted the clock. Your time will remain intact,” Cody says.

“I want overtime for the disturbance,” Wolffe says.

Cody ignores all social politeness to start unstrapping Wolffe’s armor without his permission. Wolffe maintains threatening eye-contact with Anakin the whole while. It doesn’t take more than a few snaps for Ryvka’s fluffy head to emerge from the white plastoid. She looks different since Anakin last saw her; her skin is smoother and her cheeks are fatter and those big ol’ eyes are open and gleaming. She’s got a few little marks on her face that Anakin doesn’t remember from her birthday. She chews a fist against Wolffe’s blacks.

When Cody goes to remove her, she makes a cut-off shriek that vanishes the moment he’s got her up against his shoulder. The chewing turns to noisy, happy sucking.

“Apologies, Lieutenant, field introductions must be made,” Cody tells her. “This is your uncle.”

Ryvka tries to grab his nose, misses, and settles for his chin. Cody shifts her so that she is facing Anakin. When she turns away, now making a slow grabby hand for Wolffe, Cody adjusts her so that he can hold the back of her head and direct her gaze straight forward to Anakin.

Anakin gives an awkward little wave. His niece frowns severely and begins a slow cry; it makes his insides cringe.

Cody cuts off the cry by clicking his tongue and holding his baby girl up above his face. He speaks to her in Mando’a and after a moment, she lets her little muscles go slack again and coos down at him.

“S’alright, general,” Wolffe says, “She’s just gotten used to a certain kind of lifestyle.”

“I’m seein’ that,” Anakin says. “Are you all just passing her around?”

“We’re trying to break our record before Kenobi intervenes,” Wolffe says.

Fantastic. Anakin no longer cares. He only wants to hold the baby. Give him the baby, please and thank you.

It takes some time—a few months—but eventually there comes a push in a war that makes it feel like it’s starting to peter out; it’s a civvie push and a morale push and it requires Anakin to, once again, put on his propaganda panties.

The public needs assurance. The public is growing weary. And for that, the jedi sigh and tell the Senate that they may parade their war heroes around the teeniest, tiniest bit.

It involves picture taking. It involves Padmé dressing up the kiddos and making Anakin take about four billion holoimages with them so that she can pick through them to find the one that she wants to submit to the senate as a symbol of Republican values.

She herself cannot be in the picture for the twins’ protection. As far as the Naboo government is concerned, the twins aren’t to be seen associated with their senator until her term is over, and it helps that Luke and Leia look more like Mom than Anakin or Padmé—not that people won’t have their suspicions and theories.

That’s fine. There’s nothing like a little mystery to keep people engaged.

He flops onto his back and lets Leia mash his neck like a kitten while Padmé sends the senatorial committee her 20 favorite images. Luke helps by trying to catch the miniature holograms floating around her datapad.

“I dunno if people are going to buy in,” Anakin says.

“Oh, they will,” Padmé hums after crushing a series of kisses into Luke’s cheek to get him to let go of her earring. “Who can resist my bitty, baby, darlings? Who can resist you?”

Anakin is pretty sure that Leia is also staring with mild disgust at her mother. Luke is the only one in this room receptive to babytalk.

“I’m taking you to work,” Anakin tells Leia. “It’s about time you’ve earned your keep.”

“Ah,” Leia says.

“That’s my girl. Let’s go.”

He hangs Leia from an arm when he gets to Coruscant. It is very charming to most of the jedi lingering in the halls.

Leia’s got undeniable crècheling energy. She wants to be manhandled, she wants to be hung upside-down, she wants to go fast, no faster anywhere they go.

Anakin has tried cultivating this energy in Luke to no avail; he only tilts his head from side to side at Anakin when he tries to rile him up. Mom says that it’ll fall away soon if Luke is anything like Anakin was, but in the meantime, this means that Padmé has her monkey-child and Anakin has his.

There is, however, one monkey child who has thus far been excluded from these proceedings, and Anakin is determined to put a stop to that. Leia deserves to meet her cousin. They’re sure to be best friends.

He hikes up to Obi-Wan’s apartment and unlocks the door without knocking, only to find a bloodbath—sort of. His hand stays on the doorknob in shock at the towel-covered counter and kitchen floor. There is a broken mug among the swaths of cloth and what appears to be a pile of water-logged shredded paper and...feathers? in the sink?

“Anakin.”

He turns his head to the hallway and finds Obi-Wan standing with arms crossed over his chest. Anakin gestures with his Leia-laden arm at the kitchen. Obi-Wan’s eyes flick towards it and back.

“What have you brought me?” he asks.

“Who died?” Anakin asks.

Obi-Wan comes forward to pry Leia off his arm and to hold her up for inspection. She is immediately enraptured by his beard and seizes the opportunity to cram her hands into it.

“Why, madam,” Obi-Wan says, pulling back. “You must at least ask.”

“Ah,” Leia says.

“Thank you. Carry on.”

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin insists, gesturing again.

“Hm?”

“Where’s Ryvka?”

“Who?”

For fuck’s sake, old man.

“Ryvka,” Anakin says. “You know, your daughter? The fruit of your loins? Your tapeworm?”

“Of course, the tapeworm,” Obi-Wan drawls. “I’ve sent her back. She is unnecessary for my happiness.”

He bounces Leia innocently. Anakin purses his lips, trying to make the words finish cramming themselves through the tight space between his ears.

“A nap,” he finally translates. “Hey, are you submitting pictures of Ryvka to the senate?”

Obi-Wan freezes with Leia trying to get up into the hair around his part. The temperature in the apartment seems to drop by two degrees. The front door opens just as Obi-Wan turns around with blue flames in his eyes.

“Unlocked.”

All eyes go to Commander Cody, who Anakin has not seen much of over the last few months. He’s taken off-guard.

Cody’s looking relaxed and slim; slimmer than Rex by a good ten or fifteen pounds and, now that Anakin thinks about it, shorter than Rex, too. He does not have the baby, but he does have a bag that suggests he has been places outside the Temple.

He takes in Anakin and then the disaster on the counter and slowly closes the front door until it clicks shut.

“Welcome back,” Obi-Wan says. “No trouble with my card?”

“No,” Cody says at length.

“This is Leia,” Obi-Wan says.

Cody looks him directly in the eye and then sweeps an open palm in the direction of the carnage.

“We have a climber,” Obi-Wan says smoothly.

Cody’s head tips slightly with understanding. Anakin, however, still has questions he’d like answered. It’s not his house, though, and Cody has already set the bag down on the ground by the counter.

Obi-Wan turns his attention back to Leia.

“So you’re living together now?” Anakin asks.

“That’s none of your business,” Obi-Wan says.

“Yes,” Cody says over him.

Anakin zeroes in on the person in this residence who provides actual answers to questions.

“Commander,” he says.

“Rex warned me about you, General.”

Nevermind. Back to Obi-Wan.

“Obi-Wan.”

“He tells me that you are strong-hearted and empty-headed, which he feels is a deadly combination for a man of your stature and power.”

Ouch. Thanks, Rex. Way to gas a guy up.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says again. “Padmé wants a picture of them together.”

Obi-Wan quirks a brow and defers to the Commander, who has begun to carefully sweep water and towels and shattered ceramic into the sink with one of the larger pieces of cloth in the mess.

“Cody, dear, Anakin would like you to hold his daughter,” he says.

“No, thank you,” Cody says.

“Ryvka,” Anakin says. “Padmé wants a picture of Leia and Ryvka.”

Greater consideration is given to this over the tinkle of ceramic. Obi-Wan hmphs and goes to set Leia down on his meditation mat (where she will absolutely not stay, but he doesn’t know that yet).

“We would prefer not,” Cody says. “Her existence already draws enough attention.”

Anakin shakes his head and pushes him aside to dig around under the sink for a tub he knows is there. He thunks it down on the counter and starts wringing out the towels in the sink to deposit into it.

“There’s a call for people to submit images that embody domesticity. Civilians are growing tired and we’re in the home stretch. Everyone’s supposed to do their part to submit some kind of family portrait. I think most people are lining up lineages, but—”

“We can call Ahsoka then,” Obi-Wan says. “A lineage portrait—such a good idea. Do you have nicer robes than those?”

“—but, Padmé is submitting one of me and the monsters. So. I’m just saying; it might be cute to submit one of just Ryvka with Obi-Wan if you’re that worried.”

Cody surveys him for weakness and fault. Anakin fights the instinct to hide from that laser-vision.

“She does not resemble the general,” he says. “It will be obvious that there has been relations between and officer and subordinate.”

“I mean, will it be?” Anakin says. “Who besides a handful of folks know that Obi-Wan’s Stewjoni? No one knows that he doesn’t have a wife.”

“Except all the people of Stewjon,” Obi-Wan says. “And the majority of the senate, and everyone here in the Temple and the troops.”

...right, but like. Besides them.

“Rex is astute in his observations,” Cody tells Obi-Wan.

“Be nice.”

“He says you are a ‘very good friend,’” Cody says firmly.

Anakin’s eyebrow twitches.

“I’m going to tell Yoda, and he’s going to say that it’s a great idea, and then you’re going to have to do it anyways,” he says.

“I will await my marching orders, then,” Obi-Wan says.

Chapter Text

Anakin may be a fool, but he is no coward and he is no quitter. He leaves Leia with the old guys and hikes himself off to Yoda’s usual meditation spot where he is greeted by a cracked eye.

“Young Skywalker,” Yoda says.

“Master.”

“Brought you here, something has?”

“Everyone’s submitting lineage pictures for the media request, sir.”

“Yes.”

“But our lineage has like, three whole babies in it right now. Would it not be novel, sir—effective, even—if we included them in our submission?”

Yoda opens his other eye but not all the way.

“Protect the young ones, we must, Anakin,” he says.

“I know but think of the field day people are going to have trying to pick a clone to be the father of Obi-Wan’s baby and think of how invested the gossipers are to find who’s the mother of mine,” he says. “If we want attention, sir, this is how we get attention. People will be talking about the GAR for weeks to come.”

There is a long, long pause.

“A compelling argument you make, young one,” Yoda says. “Could go wrong, many things might, however.”

“Right, but like. Isn’t that part of the story?” Anakin says. “We can build it up the way that we want. Release little details that aren’t true, but aren’t lies. We can say that twins run in my family. We can say that there was a secret marriage—the stuff of romance novels.”

He has the toad’s attention for sure.

“To Commander Thorn, take your proposal,” Yoda says. “Vet it, he, Commander Gree, and Commander Fox will.”

“On it,” Fox says immediately.

Thorn grabs him by the nape of the neck and drags him back to their group while Gree pinches fingers in front of his face to help him parse exactly what Anakin has said.

“You want us,” he says slowly, “To make this a scandal?”

“Not a scandal,” Anakin says, “Make it a love story. Give it a happy ending.”

“Right, correction: You want us to write a love story.”

“Think of it like an exercise in free thinking,” Anakin says. “The war’ll be done soon. You guys could get jobs in journalism.”

“I’m already on it,” Fox says.

“Fox,” Thorn warns.

“Frankly, Kote deserves this.”

“Vod. This is how people wake up one rib short in the night.”

“Listen,” Fox says, “Y’all cowards can do what y’all cowards do, but this is my singular chance to make Kote as miserable as he’s made me for the last fourteen fucking years.” 

“This is how you lose baby-privileges,” Gree says. “Do you want to lose baby-privileges?”

Fox’s face goes through several visible thoughts, but in the end, he picks determination. Gree tsks in disgust and turns back to Anakin.

“If you want to be a sensation, sir, we’re happy to make you one, but Kote is Kote and he will never agree to this,” he says. “Besides, there are entire forums dedicated to Kenobi-worship. If they find out that he’s gone off and had a child, that base will be ruined.”

Interesting.

But consider: what if it was funny instead?

“Funny, sir?” Thorn asks.

“Yeah,” Anakin says, “What if you guys had everyone else submit their perfect pictures and then made a whole show about Obi-Wan being the uncooperative bastard he is?”

Gree holds up a finger to Anakin and initiates a group huddle with his brothers. Anakin steps back and lets them grumble and snap at each other for a good eight minutes before they come back to him with a proposal.

“What if,” Gree says slowly, “Every sequence of photos was a shit-show, sir? Is that the type of thing that civilians respond to?”

Oh, man. Anakin sure hopes it is.

The group huddle recommences for a few moments.

“Okay,” Gree finally says, “We’ll run it past General Yoda and General Windu.”

Two days and 67 messages later, Anakin gets the feeling that the high generals are tired of retaining dignity in the face of excruciating powerplays. The senate’s media committee is apparently delighted at the idea of producing something fresh and a little unorthodox—something that says ‘look, we’re all people, too, and we’re all muddling through this together, so just hang on with us.’

Obi-Wan’s 59^th message implies that they should all be summarily run through with a saber for such heresy, but everyone else, including Ahsoka, however, seems to be delighted for a change.

They’ve done the dramatic hero posturing for years now, it’s really time for the tides to turn.

Padmé flutters her hands around her apartment and says that she’s got a whole other set of pictures of Anakin being sat on and interrogated by their children in various states of dress that would be perfect for this occasion. She drops her entire weight on him and produces her datapad way too close to his face so as to flick through 300 or so mortifying images that make Anakin question the size of his nipples.

She tells him to pick his favorites.

The ones he picks are too staged for Padmé’s liking. She rejects them and produces a new folder of images that she’s been hoarding for the entirety of the war—all of which resolutely destroy the honor of both the lineage and the 501^st.

Anakin sits back and tells her to make ‘maximum impact.’

This is her hobby they’re dealing with now. The artist must be trusted.

Padmé has pictures of Obi-Wan being angrily pregnant, all decked out in Stewjoni tunics—as does a good chunk of the 212^th—and these, they and Padmé are only too happy to submit to the media committee’s page, despite Obi-Wan’s squawking.

He pouts and cuts everyone out of his life for about 48 hours before he gives into his better humor and admits that yeah, many of them are actually some pretty funny shots. He softens even more after that under Commander Fox’s persuasion. Fox talks about how so many new families and soon-to-be families are experiencing terror and anxiety in these times and how one especially grumpy pregnant Stewjoni guy might make them go ‘oh, that’s me.’

Obi-Wan is a beloved figure on the holonet, this cannot be denied. He’s one of the jedi that a cult of personality has sprung up around and, funnily enough, Cody is one of the troopers that the very same thing has happened to.

Their images need not feature Ryvka outside of the womb, nor do they need to suggest anything more than a Commander serving the role of a guy trying to deal with his exasperating boss, Fox explains.

It will be like cartoons. Memes. People will love it.

Obi-Wan cracks, finally, and gives his consent.

And so the object of the mission changes and new images are submitted from every lineage. This time of little intimate parts of their lives—of padawans playing pranks on their masters and getting caught in the act by their troopers, of troopers bothering the living fuck out of each other, singing off key and trying to teach each other how to flirt with natborns with zero experience one anyone’s parts, and of the little families made out of friendships and love that blooms out during the war.

The public falls over themselves when the first image goes live. The senator committee is good at their jobs; they make sure to hype the series up before publishing. They tease for two solid weeks that a peek behind the war machine’s curtain is coming soon.

People are curious already about Jedi and trooper cultures. They latch onto the suggestion of fun and intimacy.

Anakin reads several forum posts by people spitting on the hype the night before the campaign is launched. He reads them outloud to Leia and Luke. Leia takes it as a bedtime story, and Luke responds appropriately by shitting himself.

Anakin sends the links to Rex with these reviews of their content as a warning. Rex thanks him and tells him respectfully to go the fuck to sleep.

Anakin tries, he does, but it’s all too exciting.

In the morning, the first image is published. It is of the esteemed Master Windu with Depa, both trying to coax Depa’s padawan, Caleb, to take a step towards him. Caleb, bless him, is new to the lineage and, as most in the order are, petrified of setting so much as a toe out of place in front of Master Windu. He appears moments from bursting into tears in the holoimage, despite the obvious efforts of Depa and Windu to make this a ‘fun’ and ‘happy’ sort of meeting.

The wave of support rushes in like a tsunami. The public is charmed by Master Windu’s awareness that he comes across as an intimidating body. They leave many comments that amount to ‘OH NO’ and ‘Honestly, that’s how I’d feel, too.’ The overwhelming response, however, is ‘Go, little buddy! You can do it!’ which is exactly the vein Anakin had hoped to tap into.

The padawans are so relatable. It was smart to start with them.

With the next morning comes one of Padmé’s pictures—a short video actually—of Ahsoka from the very start of the war doing her first successful roar. There is a pause in the shaky footage for just a second before all nearby members of the 501^st explode into a roaring cheer of their own. Ahsoka is hauled up from the ground and carried like a podrace winner to be deposited on the top of a stack of crates where she’s encouraged to do it again. Louder! Stronger!

She stomps forward and gives it her best shot, and the troopers roar back at her in raucous support.

Anakin remembers this happening. He remembers Obi-Wan crossing his arms over his chest and smirking, telling him not to worry about the troopers not trusting their new commander.

He shows it to Mom and the kids. Mom is endeared. The kids are really into the part where everyone shouts altogether. They give it their own go.

Anakin is back out at the front when his picture with the twins finally drops. He misses most of the live reaction, what with the blaster fire and the exhaustion and the barrel that met his head three times out there. Rex comes to find him in the medical tent after everything with grease and sweat fucking up his forehead and hair; he plonks down next to him on the cot and holds out his pad to show Anakin the image.

It is one of him requiring at least three arms to keep Luke from turning on the lightsaber he’s trying to eat, Ahsoka from stealing Leia, and Leia (upside-down, as is her trademark) with both hands reaching for Grizzer.

The caption says ‘We would like to welcome the newest Skywalkers to the galaxy. They’ve made an impression on no one more than they have on their new old man.’

There are thousands of comments. Anakin’s vision is too blurry to read them. He’s happy though, he thinks. It sounds like they really struck a chord.

Obi-Wan and Cody get their moment in the sun as the second to last image in the series. It is the first time the public and most of the Jedi Order has seen Obi-Wan in clothes that aren’t robes. It is also the first time those same people have seen a jedi with child. Uncomfortably with child.

In the image, Cody is reporting in with no-doubt vital intel, and Obi-Wan, sitting heavily on an ammunition box in front of him, appears ready to stab a passerby just out of frame. He leans a cheek on the heel of his palm and has his other arm stuffed into his sash to cradle his belly in an unsuccessful attempt take the weight off his spine.

The next picture has been captured only moments later, where he snaps at Cody and Cody instinctively cringes away from him using the datapad as a shield.

The caption says, ‘we’d also like to welcome baby Kenobi, but honestly we’re too scared to get close enough to meet them properly, too.’

The comment section of this posting has been closed. It turns out that there is a limit for how many comments a thread on this platform can have. But not to worry, people have snatched these images and made posts of their own to continue the discussion under.

Stewjonis all over seem to be the ones who have gotten the greatest kick out of the pictures. They’ve already made this version of Obi-Wan into a meme. They’ve begun posting threads that are presumably in Basic, but somehow not at all in Basic.

The one question on everyone’s mind, regardless of nationality, however, is all the same from thread to thread: who the FUCK is the father of General Kenobi’s baby?

The consensus, hilariously, is Bail Organa, which Organa denies vehemently until his wife, Breha, sneaks onto social media to start saying that it is, in fact Bail’s baby, and she will now be answering all questions now about the future Alderaanian princess.

Alderaanians read this statement for exactly what it is, which is wishful thinking, and start shouting down people who pose the theory as being shitheads who know nothing about their Queen’s sense of humor. They tell people not to give her attention, and Breha sneaks into those comment sections to say ‘no, no, I’m telling the truth.’

Obi-Wan especially finds these insistent pleas delightful. He comms Bail who apologizes and doesn’t stop apologizing and calls over his shoulder to Breha to apologize, which, of course she does not. She asks instead when she’s going to get to hold her baby. Where is her baby, Obi-Wan?

Anakin isn’t sure how Cody takes the whole thing. He asks Rex who shrugs and says that Cody’s not really invested in the holonet, nor is he particularly offended at the idea that Bail is the public’s first choice for Ryvka’s papa.

He’s told Rex that it’s safer for both her and him this way, so in his own way, he appreciates how the propaganda campaign has solidified for the wider public the distance between him and Obi-Wan.

And it is really that which makes Anakin sadder than he has been in a long time.

Sadness comes in another rolling wave when the Chancellor asks Anakin directly if Obi-Wan’s child has been fathered by a trooper.

His lips are thin and his eyes drip with seriousness when Anakin says it isn’t his place to ask or say.

“The clones are supposed to be sterile, Anakin,” the Chancellor says. “Who knows what harm their procreation may do on civilian populations. Soon, you might have people who may as well be siblings fornicating with each other, creating more children who will suffer even greater consequences.”

Anakin doesn’t understand why the Chancellor is telling him this. He says so and the Chancellor shakes his head.

“I will ask Master Kenobi to help him understand the gravity of this situation,” he says. “If this is the case, then I’m sorry to say that measures will have to be taken.”

He can’t mean—no.

“Sir,” he says, “Listen, I get the concern. But you can’t sterilize the whole group of them. Just, I dunno, give them contraceptive, teach them how to use it. But if they want kids and the people they’re with want kids too, like, what’s the harm?”

The force begins to circle itself, like a tornado, like a whirlpool.

“That is for the Republic to decide,” the Chancellor says. “It is not known if people like these are capable of being parents, Anakin. We must think of the children.”

It’s night when Anakin sits down on the bed he shares with Padmé when he’s on Naboo. She sleeps on; the side of her face is barely illuminated by the light from outside the window. He gets up and leaves her.

The twins don’t really sleep through the night yet. They get close and then take a few steps back every week it seems, but tonight is an exception. They’re both sleeping; small chests rising and falling, fists curling and eyelids twitching. Mom comes into their nursery while he’s watching them and lays her arms over his shoulders.

“You should sleep,” she says.

He leans his head into her shoulder.

“It sucks to be young,” he says.

“Yeah, it does.”

“I’m never not stupid. There’s always a catch to every little thing—even the things that there shouldn’t be catches to.”

Mom leans away and turns her head to really look at him.

“Talk,” she says.

“The Chancellor talks of the troopers like people talked about us,” Anakin says.

Mom scoffs.

“Yes, I can see that,” she says.

“He’s talking some shit about sterilizing all of them just because Obi-Wan got knocked up by one.”

“He’s a real piece of work.”

Anakin looks up.

“What do you mean?” he says.

Mom’s flyaway hairs catch the outside light much better than the side of Padmé’s face. Her cheeks look thin like this.

“He’s been trying to turn you against Obi-Wan for years, Ani,” she says. “And now that that hasn’t worked, he’s trying to make Obi-Wan and the troopers pay the price.”

“What?”

“Don’t you think it’s strange how he always takes your side when he is so old and conservative a man?” Mom asks. “Don’t you think it’s strange how he keeps sending you all out, keeps sending you all out, keeps sending you out further and further and further from the core—when one great push in the inner rim seems like it could end this all? It’s like he’s dragging his feet. It’s like he doesn’t want the war to end. I don’t like it, son.”

She rubs her arms to chase away goose pimples. Anakin’s own skin grows cold in sympathy and something else. Something that clogs his throat and nose like tar.

“He can’t touch Ryvka,” he says. “He can’t know who her father is. He’ll have Cody decommissioned if he finds out.”

“He’ll have them all decommissioned if he finds out,” Mom says. “These people don’t think in broken stitches, Anakin. They think in barrels of fruit.”

“What do I do?”

Mom crosses one leg over the other.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Obi-Wan,” she says.

Obi-Wan is at the front; he’s on the bridge of the Negotiator. It takes time to get there. Anakin sends out a memo to the 501^st that they are not to interact with the Chancellor without a general present. They don’t answer questions, they don’t carry out orders. Notthing without a jedi ticking that box.

The response comes in affirmatives, if confused ones.

Obi-Wan’s response to Anakin’s arrival, too, is confused. Baffled when he locks eyes with Mom. He gives orders to carry on with the procedures just discussed and comes down the steps up to the bridge.

“Obi-Wan,” Mom says.

“Shmi,” Obi-Wan greets with the tip of his head. “You are looking well.”

Mom gives a wry smile.

“You aren’t,” she says.

Obi-Wan’s brow drops and his eyes flick to Anakin’s. Anakin surrounds him with a plea in the Force. They need to talk. Now.

Ryvka is in Obi-Wan’s quarters. She’s in there with Cody, who is half-armored and kneeling by the foot of the bed staring at her and tapping his nose in thought. In the second between the door opening and him registering danger, he grabs her and presses her flat to his chest.

He doesn’t relax when Obi-Wan steps in and introduces him properly to Mom. Ryvka, uncomfortable to be squeezed tight, mewls.

“What’s happened?” Cody asks Obi-Wan.

“I don’t know yet,” Obi-Wan says. “Why don’t we find out?”

There are words in the galaxy like ‘heart-broken’ and ‘soul-crushing’ that Anakin has heard used but has never thought to apply to any situation that he himself has been in, but one look at Commander Cody’s face is enough to show him how it feels.

Heartbroken.

Crushed.

He can’t even hold his own child. He gives her to Obi-Wan and curls in on himself. Obi-Wan in turn, gives Ryvka to Anakin and presses in close to Cody’s side.

He says ‘no.’

He says ‘this isn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong.’

Cody pushes him away sharply and grabs his helmet from the floor. He ignores the calls behind him to return and closes the door. Anakin thinks that he hears footsteps outside break into a run. Obi-Wan just stares at the door as Ryvka begins to cry in Anakin’s arms. She’s smaller than Luke and Leia; still months behind. Her cry is still that of a newborn, a noise that sounds like it’s being dragged out of her.

Obi-Wan takes her automatically and begins to fit her into his robe. Mom joins him, sitting on his bunk.

“This is not your fault,” she says. “You did nothing wrong.”

Obi-Wan jerks away from her touch. His eyes are so blue, so vacant.

“Why me?” he asks.

Mom’s lips close.

“Why is it always me?” Obi-Wan asks. “It’s like—it’s like I did something and I’m paying for it. Every step of the way, I’m paying for it, and I don’t even know what it is.”

Mom doesn’t try to touch him again.

“Why does the Chancellor want to be close to Anakin?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve never known.”

“What does Cody think?”

“Cody?” Obi-Wan asks.

Mom gives a weak smile.

“Yes,” she says, “Cody.”

Cody is smart. Cody is so fucking smart, and he lives in a different world from everyone else. He can see things that no one else can, and now he straddles two worlds—three worlds. The jedi, the troopers, the senate. He has a stake in all of them by virtue of who he is and who he has chosen to love.

But Cody is heartbroken and crushed. His reality is never to have, only to observe, and Mom is right. He probably does know something, but there is no way to ask him about that now.

Except Obi-Wan does. Because Obi-Wan is the ‘What if’ for Cody, and he doesn’t make promises that he can’t keep, and Cody has to know that, doesn’t he? He has to.

He does. He is in his barracks, in his bunk with raw eyes and a chest full of phlegm. But he trusts Obi-Wan in that way that reminds Anakin again of durasteel.

Obi-Wan pleads with him to come back. He presses their foreheads together and tucks Ryvka between their chests. Ryvka peeks up and sees her daddy and reaches out to get a hand on the edge of his armor. She squirms and fusses against Obi-Wan until Cody has no choice but to gather her and wrap both hands around her, desperate to have her. To keep her.

She is Cody’s baby; Obi-Wan made that clear so long ago, and Anakin can see now the man who laid next to Obi-Wan and touched the cluster of cells who would become Ryvka and said goodbye.

Cody must say goodbye a lot.

“Please,” Obi-Wan says. “We will put it to rights.”

Cody lets his head fall against Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

He comes quietly. The perfect trooper even when the bells are ringing all around him, celebrating the first of his final steps.

Cody believes that the Chancellor wants something from Anakin. His brother, Fox, has told him that he does. Fox hates the Chancellor, no, Fox despises the Chancellor. And Fox, like Mom, thinks that fucked up little old man is up to no good. Cody contacts Fox because he himself isn’t sure beyond distrust and discomfort what the Chancellor wants specifically from the war and the jedi and he knows Fox does.

Fox hears the question and responds by asking Cody who’s standing in the room with him.

He switches channels to one that Cody answers through another transceiver. The miniature Fox that appears in hologram is joined by Commanders Gree, Thorn, and Thire.

“Thank fuck, y’all started to figure this out,” Mini-Fox says with thick arms crossed over his chest.

“There isn’t time,” Gree says.

“We’ve got 15 minutes,” Thorn tacks on. “That guy’s going to kill us.”

“All of us,” Thire says. “He doesn’t want us to win the war.”

“He never wanted us to win the war,” Fox says.

“He wants Skywalker.”

“Only Skywalker.”

“The rest of the jedi are useless to him. He thinks that by making Skywalker feel like the other jedi are betraying him, he can get him alone and use him for something. But it hasn’t been working, so now he’s getting frustrated.”

“He treats the others with indifference,” Thire says quietly. “He does something to us. To the guard. There are trigger words he says, and we can’t control ourselves.”

“It feels like the longnecks,” Fox says.

“We’re some kind of experiment,” Thorn agrees. “But he wants Skywalker and he’ll go through Kenobi to get him. When Kenobi defies him, he gets...”

“Mad,” Fox says. “So mad. So angry.”

“He shouts at us,” Thorn murmurs. “The whole guard.”

“Then makes us forget,” Fox says. “But we found the messages in the servers.”

“He keeps asking us who the baby’s father is,” Thorn says. “And then he makes us forget.”

“Do you tell him?” Cody asks.

“Do we fuckin’ tell him?” Fox drawls. “Are you fucking dead yet, Kote?”

“Working on it, answer the question please,” Cody says.

“No, we don’t. We can lie if we don’t lie. We say Prime.”

“Sorry,” Thire says quietly. “It’s sort of the only way.”

Cody gives a curt nod. Obi-Wan crams the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, “Okay, okay, okay. What if—what if we.” He lets out a long breath of air. “What if we won the war?” he asks.

The Commanders all look at each other, skeptical. Cody snaps at them and points at Obi-Wan.

“I mean, if we won, then there would be no reason for Skywalker to be vulnerable and he would have no reason to remain as Chancellor,” Fox says. “But we have to win in the next, oh, say—”

“I’m gonna say 72 hours,” Gree says.

“Make it 48 for a buffer,” Thire tacks on there.

“I’m saying 24 to be extra safe,” Fox decides.

There is a long, long pause ended by Obi-Wan looking up directly at Anakin.

“Can we win a war in 24 hours?” he asks.

Anakin holds up a finger that doesn’t shake like the rest of him is, purely because that hand is made out of metal.

“I’m gonna ask the Force,” he says.

The Force says ‘I dunno, can you?’ which is very unhelpful, but it isn’t a definite ‘no,’ so there’s nothing to do now but run.

As Yoda says, there is no trying, only doing or not-ing. Or something to that general effect.

They all start by taking Ryvka and giving her one thousand hugs and one thousand kisses and putting her in Obi-Wan’s hands. The Chancellor is calling them and if Obi-Wan refuses to answer, then that may be all that it takes to flip whatever switch the other commanders seem to think is separating him from doing something drastic and dangerous to the clone troopers. To the jedi. To the war as a whole.

They can’t take that risk. The Force is screaming.

“I’ll take her and let him try to take a blood sample,” Obi-Wan says. “It’ll distract him for long enough for you guys to lead a mass charge. But I can’t hold him and the Separatists at bay at once, so Cody, my dear, I’m sorry but you’ll have to take command.”

“Com—”

“Command, Cody. You’re the general. We can’t wait any longer. Anakin, fall in with him. Tell the others that command is transferred to High General Cody. May the force be with you—all of you.”

“May the force be with you,” Anakin says automatically, anticipating and receiving Obi-Wan’s curt nod.

Cody sort of grasps after him in a ‘wait’ gesture but cuts himself short as Obi-Wan snaps into action and goes tearing through the halls while fitting Ryvka into the wrap he keeps against his chest so that she doesn’t get knocked around in the craft that he’s about to steal from the hangar.

Mom smiles at Cody’s silence gaping.

“Congrats, General,” she says. “Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do?”

“This is Commander Cody. The General has stepped out of service for time indeterminate. Command has transferred over to me. Prepare for rendezvous with the 501^st. Set course to planet Jabiim.”

The comm clicks off. Cody stands before them now, awkward without his brothers and Obi-Wan.

“I feel like even after all this, we haven’t met properly,” Anakin says. “Hi, I’m apparently the reason that this is happening to you. I’m sorry.”

Cody stares at him and slowly reaches out to take the hand offered to him.

“Hi, Sorry,” he says. “I’m Cody.”

Chapter Text

ANAKIN HATES THIS GUY.

“General Cody,” ARC Trooper Waxer sleezes as he saunters across the bridge, “What would daddy like done tonight?”

Cody tucks his hands behind his back as other members of the 212^th die laughing.

“Many things, my son,” Cody says sadly. “Many things, and there is so little time.”

Anakin hates him so fucking much. He’s never hated someone more than he hates Cody.

“I think now, we will start with decimating the Separatist army,” Cody says like he’s disappointed. The whole bridge seems to be snorting and coughing and dabbing at their eyes now.

“Copy that, sir,” Waxer says. “EVERYONE LISTEN UP—”

Cody is too good of a general. And even worse, he is clearly the more superior father on this godforsaken ship. Left to his own devices, he could probably run the entire GAR. He tells Anakin that as his newly senior officer, Cody respects and appreciates his service, but he has now been demoted and replaced. While Anakin is processing that, Cody orders for comms and informs Rex that he’s general now. Congrats, it’s a big jump.

Rex doesn’t believe him until Cody ends that call to inform Wolffe to tell General Koon that he the 212^th and 501^st are going to knock out the Separatists on Jabiim. He would like to extend the invitation for the 104^th to join them if they would be interested.

Wolffe tells him to wait just one moment and screams over his shoulder to someone who screams to the next person who apparently grabs ahold of Master Plo.

“Confused affirmative,” Wolffe reports. “Where’s the kid?”

“En route to cause problems,” Cody says.

“She takes after me.”

Cody ends that call to get Commander Bly. He goes through every battalion like this, and, at Mom’s prodding, explains to the rest of them that the best course of action if the Chancellor needs clones is to concentrate the army as far from him as possible. Further, their intel suggestions that Separatist forces are also concentrated on Jabiim, which seems to him to be a sign.

Mom asks if it’s a sign from the Force.

“No, ma’am,” Cody says, “Just a sign of someone moved the wrong piece at the wrong time. Master Skywalker, I will need your support in this endeavor, for it seems that I’ve lost my jedi.”

Anakin frowns.

“You want me to lead you?” he asks.

“To the person in control,” Cody says. “We’re not bothering with droids anymore. Only generals. Someone will talk.”

...scary.

“Ms. Skywalker, you must be tired,” Cody says. “Crys will take you somewhere where you can rest.”

It is only a few hours to Jabiim but it feels like forever, and that isn’t helped by all jedi comming Anakin to ask him what the fuck is going on. He shrugs until his shoulders physically ache. All he can tell them is that he’s been informed that the most helpful thing he can do right now is not be a hero.

The 212^th are helping him in the process by explaining the roles of the extras in holodramas. They watch a lot of them, these guys. They’re truly experts.

Just before they land, Obi-Wan manages to get through to the bridge. He’s panting and there are no visuals.

“Master Kenobi,” Cody acknowledges.

“Dearest,” Kenobi says.

“Good news or bad news?”

“Oh, we’re doing great, actually. Just wonderful. We have a taste for adventure that needs to be driven out with a stake at a later date, but just peachy. Anyways. The Chancellor has ordered your brothers to kill me. Perhaps coming alone was not the ticket.”

Anakin nearly chokes.

“Fox is left-handed; Thorn broke his left ankle once; Thire has terrible peripheral vision,” Cody rattles off.

“My darling.”

“On bridge comms, sir.”

Obi-Wan laughs and it is almost giddy. The sound of a shut hatch cuts him off; it’s followed by a little yelp.

“Oh, yes. You’re helping,” Obi-Wan says apparently to Ryvka. “Help more in silence. Good night. Sh. Where are you, Cody?”

“Approaching Jabiim.”

“Shall I meet you?”

“Preferably not. Meet Wolffe first.”

“Copy that, General.” Another shriek joins in. Obi-Wan sighs. “I told you to keep her awake.”

“You’re cutting out,” Cody says. “I’m sending you Ponds’s frequency. General Windu is waiting for your transmission.”

“Understood. Bye now—no, you stay there, we just had this convers—”

The call ends.

The Negotiator lands.

There is mayhem on Jabiim—probably because there are 7 full GAR battalions in one place. There are so many bodies and so much armor, it’s hard to know who is who. Anakin collides right into Rex while trying to tear after Cody towards the front of the line.

Rex grabs him by the shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he shouts over the noise.

“Yeah, are you?”

“I don’t know. Are you with me?”

“No, I’m with Cody.”

“Who’s with me then?”

“Ahsoka?”

“FUCK.”

Rex fights his way back through his brothers. Anakin watches him go and then turns around to feel in the Force for Cody. He’s way, way ahead. It’s going to take ages to catch up.

Cody is very happy right in the front with his full attention taken up by fighting things and standing on tall things to see other tall things that he gives the order to bring down. Anakin catches him in the light of an explosion.

Cody doesn’t greet him so much as steers him forward and points while shouting something that Anakin can’t hear more than snatches of.

It’s apparently time for him to put his money where his mouth is and to be the Chosen One.

They’re three hours in when Master Windu sends an order to fall back. Anakin only hears it because Cody grabs the back of his robes and starts shouting into his comm. The order spreads back like a tsunami. Anakin realizes that he’s dripping with sweat. Every limb is shaking. His heart is shaking.

“I’ve got you,” Cody says. “I’ve got you. Bring it home.”

He’s still on comms. Him and the other Commanders. They’re taking everyone back personally one last time.

A burning hot hand lands on the nape of Anakin’s neck and propels him forward.

“Good work, soldier,” Cody says.

“Good work, yourself,” Anakin rasps.

“Pack it in, boys,” Wolffe’s voice cuts in. “We got a Sith.”  

The planet is still when it should be humming. Anakin holds Leia up to one of the great towering windows that looks out upon the dark, flicker, glowing city, just close enough that her little fingers can make marks on the glass. Somewhere behind him, Mom sings to Luke as she walks steady lines back and forth.

Padmé is in the senate. She can’t be with them for this. No one can be with them for this.

“General.”

Well. Not no one.

“Rex,” Anakin says.

“Kenobi’s injuries are nonlethal.”

Anakin hefts Leia up, and she realizes that there’s a little girl looking back to her on the light side of the glass. Her dewy eyes widen, and she wobbles her head to the side to watch the baby in the reflection do the same thing.

“I presume he’s gotten past the guards?” Anakin asks.

“He’s a little banged up, mild concussion. Baby’s idea of helping was giving him a good bonk every few minutes.”

A Mandalorian kiss. She’s so cute.

Rex steps up to add his reflection into the glass next to Anakin. He takes off his helmet and lowers it to his side, and slowly, with excruciating care, lays his forehead onto Anakin’s shoulder. Leia points at the baby in the reflection. Anakin leans into Rex’s warm head.

He closes his eyes.

“It’s over,” he says.

“It’s over,” Rex echoes.

The planet, or rather, the republic stand still as the senate does what it is meant to do. One hour turns to two which turns to four which turns to six. Anakin is dimly aware that somewhere in the lower parts of the Temple and in catinas and cornerstores all over Coruscant, screens are glowing with the turmoil rocking the inside of that enormous building. But from here, it’s all so peaceful and distant.

Rex sleeps next to Anakin on the bed in his and Ahsoka’s apartment. Ahsoka and Mom are watching a film quietly while the babies sleep between them.

Anakin can feel Rex’s every breath. Without the armor, he’s much more languid, warm, relaxed. Anakin sits up just enough to touch their temples for a long beat before tensing the rest of his muscles to bring himself up off the bed.

With socked feet, he slips out of the room, waves lightly at the last man standing in the living room (Ahsoka waves back), and closes the front door behind him.

Upstairs, his hand hesitates above the handle of Obi-Wan’s door. He thinks of Rex sleeping, of Mom curled up on her side with Luke’s face buried in her hair the way Anakin used to sleep when he, too, was a blond baby.

He thinks of Obi-Wan as a hero. For once all on his own and all in his own right. A few months ago, Anakin’s own hands and heart would have flexed and throbbed to be that person. But then again, a few months ago, he’d been trying to prove to everyone that he was something special. Now, the special things are the ones sleeping downstairs with Mom and Ahsoka.

He doesn’t feel jaded or empty even though there is a hollowness that has made its home in his gut and chest.

It’s some other feeling that he doesn’t know the name of.

The door opens before he can push down on the handle. Commander Cody is wearing one of Obi-Wan’s winter over-coats. It’s the soft one that’s been knit into twisting cables. Its sleeves are wide, but not wide enough to accommodate the robes without wrapping those longer ones around the wrist and securing them with a piece of string.

“General,” Cody says. “How long do you intend to stand there?”

Anakin’s lips climb slightly into his cheek.

“Long enough to be creepy,” he says. “Is it working?”

Cody steps aside and gestures for him to enter.

The apartment is lived in. Familiar, finally, in how all the cushions in the place have been taken from their homes and collected in front of the wide windows. Blankets, duvets, all of them are layered on each other, spilling over from the sofa onto the floor where the meditation mat has become the center of a make-shift mattress of pillows. Obi-Wan twists around from where he has plopped Ryvka down on the edge of the couch and where she has anchored herself by holding onto his shirt.

“He rises like a phoenix,” Obi-Wan says. There are bandages on his nose and forehead.

Anakin snorts.

“Isn’t it your bedtime, grandpa?” he asks.

Ryvka beams at him. Her smile is wide, and her eyes are gleaming. She tries to liberate one hand from Obi-Wan’s tunic to grab for Anakin and ends up crossed over herself. Obi-Wan pulls back so that she tumbles onto her side.

A cry of triumph follows shortly.

“Is your army asleep?” Obi-Wan asks as Anakin shucks his shoes and comes to sit down a few feet from him.

“They are,” he says, holding hands out to Ryvka.

She gives him a long, suspicious squint and rolls over towards the seam of the sofa instead. Cody peeks over it and she shrieks, pointing at him. He ducks down and hides. Obi-Wan doesn’t move to assist or prevent Ryvka from pushing herself up and crouching her little tubby, shaky limbs low as she tries to stand on the sofa cushions. She manages to get ahold of the back of the couch and pushes up as far as she can to peer over it, only for Cody to rocket up in front of her and startle her into tumbling down onto her rump.

She bounces in joy, pointing at him and giggling messily.

Cody snatches her from the cushion and leaves Obi-Wan and Anakin to each other. Anakin looks away from them first and catches the quirk to Obi-Wan’s mustache.

He reaches over and flicks his master in the knee.

“You sap,” he says.

Obi-Wan recovers and clears his throat.

“How is the wife and mother?” he asks.

“You love her so much.”

Obi-Wan scowls and does a bad job of it.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.

Anakin looks pointedly from him to the remains of the blanket fort they’re sitting on. Obi-Wan clears his throat again.

“Love is not the same as attachment,” he says.

“No, it’s not,” Anakin agrees. “Easier to see that when you’ve got a roly-poly crawling all over you, huh?”

Obi-Wan leans an elbow onto the edge of the sofa so that he can rest his chin on his palm.

“I suppose,” he finally admits.

“What happens now?” Anakin asks. “We both leave the Order?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Obi-Wan says. “Perhaps it is not us who must step away. Perhaps it is time for the Order to put down new roots, so to speak. So much has changed over these past few years. We cannot afford to put our heads in the sand now. The Order must evolve.”

“You really think that’ll happen?” Anakin asks, playing with the hem of his pant leg.

“I do.”

“And the babies?”

“Ah. Well,” Obi-Wan says sheepishly, “I don’t know about yours, but ours is—er.”

A winding wail seeps out from Obi-Wan’s bedroom, one that Anakin knows by heart now as a cry of betrayal in the face of a diaper change.

“Blessedly force null,” Obi-Wan chuckles. “It seems that we must prepare to learn how the general public does things like...school.”

He says it with a sneer like it’s disgusting. Anakin can’t help but snicker.

“Woe is you,” he says. “Leia and Luke are blinding.”

“They sure are.”

“Padmé won’t have them in the crèche.”

“As is her right.”

They fall quiet.

“Obi-Wan—”

“Anakin—”

They both pause. And then start again at once. It’s comical, but no one laughs.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin says at the same time Obi-Wan says “Thank you.”

Ryvka’s little hiccups die away slowly in the other room.

“Let’s be happy then?” Anakin asks. “Now that we’ve finally caught a break?”

Obi-Wan chews on the idea for a while.

“I don’t know about ‘happy,’” he says. “Sounds too difficult. I’m settling for ‘aggrieved.’”

“It would literally kill you to be honest just one fucking time—”

“It would. I am dying. I’m fading away as we speak. Look what’s happened to me. Cody, darling, I’m perishing—”

Anakin buries his face in his hands to hide the smile that comes from Obi-Wan laughing and pulling at his fingers, promising him that he is only joking.