Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Council chamber was washed in light—honey gold slanting through vaulted windows, touching the marble with false warmth.

Dust motes hung in the air, visible only when they drifted into the shafts of sunlight.

It was beautiful. It was sterile.

Anya stood just behind and to the left of Obi-Wan, her posture immaculate, hands folded behind her back, expression composed.

The blue kyber crystal at her throat glinted faintly, catching stray rays of light like starlight bottled beneath her skin.

She didn’t hide it. She never did. Let them look.

The Council spoke only to Obi-Wan.

“Senator Amidala returned to Coruscant this morning,” Mace Windu said. “There was an attempt on her life before landing.”

“A bomb,” Ki-Adi-Mundi added. “Targeted, not symbolic.”

“She’s remaining at her Senate apartment under full security,” Shaak Ti continued. “But the Chancellor has requested Jedi oversight.”

Obi-Wan nodded once, all poise and precision. “We’ll leave at once.”

Windu’s tone sharpened like a blade. “Discretion is essential. No outbursts. No unnecessary displays of Force.”

Only then did he look at Anya.

She met his gaze with polite serenity. Not a muscle in her jaw shifted. Her silence was intentional, practiced. It had been shaped over years of being dismissed before she spoke.

They didn't want her voice. Not here.

“Follow your Master’s lead,” Windu said. “Observe. Advise. That is all.”

Anya inclined her head. “Understood.” Her voice was velvet on steel.

Shaak Ti offered a gentler note. “Your presence matters, Padawan. Let it serve peace.”

Anya smiled. Pleasant. Mild. Perfectly measured. “Of course, Master.”

Yoda's ears twitched. “Trust in you, the Senator does. But tested, that trust may be.”

“I’ll be mindful,” she said. And she would be. Always.

They were dismissed without further comment.

Anya bowed. Obi-Wan did the same.

They left the chamber in silence, boots echoing down the corridor.

The Temple air was cool, scented faintly of old stone and incense. Sunlight filtered through the arched windows, dancing in long stripes across the floor.

But the quiet between them wasn’t peace. It was something else.

A held breath that had never been released.

It still hadn’t been—not since the sparring room.

Not since he’d pinned her to the mat, breathless, radiant, pressed so closely against him that he couldn’t think of anything else but the burn of her skin and the press of her wrists beneath his hands.

The way her chest had risen and fallen against his, the flash of challenge in her eyes, the breath that had caught in both their throats.

He hadn’t mentioned it.

Neither had she.

But the silence hummed with it. Not denial. Not discomfort. Just—awareness.

Like the pause before lightning.

Like the space between notes in a song neither of them had written.

They reached the residential wing, the door to their quarters hissing open with a soft tone and a familiar chime.

The quarters were dim, lit only by filtered natural light through sheer drapes. Shadows stretched long across the floor.

It was the hour before dusk—when the Temple fell quiet, even in its heart.

Anya stepped inside first. She peeled off her robe as she walked, folding it with clean precision and setting it on the arm of the couch.

Her tunic clung to the lines of her shoulders, her skin shone faintly with sweat and heat. The fabric slipped down slightly, baring the curve of her shoulder.

She didn’t fix it.

Obi-Wan moved behind her, quieter than usual. His presence didn’t fill the room so much as settle into it.

He crossed to the wardrobe, pulling his travel cloak free with practiced ease. But he didn’t put it on. He held it like a task begun and left unfinished.

No words passed between them for several moments. The silence thickened, as though the Force itself were holding its breath.

Then—casually, without looking up—Anya spoke.

“One would think that after seventy-three successful diplomatic missions, a treaty signed in orbit, and three commendations, I might be allowed to be trusted to behave.”

Obi-Wan paused with the cloak half-folded. “I know it’s frustrating,” he said at last. “But you’ve proven yourself. Again and again.”

“Not to them.”

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t snap. But the tension sat beneath the words like heat under sand.

He didn’t respond.

She reached the door to her room, then paused—barefoot now, her braid swaying down her back, curls catching the dim light like copper threads.

Her voice was softer now, but not uncertain.

“I don’t care what they think, Master.”

Obi-Wan looked up.

She turned slightly, enough to meet his gaze. And in that look, there was no challenge. No artifice. Just her. And the truth she wasn’t afraid to show him.

“I only care what you think.”

The air shifted. The Force surged softly between them, not loud, not demanding—but unmistakable.

He swallowed. Her words didn’t pierce—they settled. Sank. Anchored themselves in the place beneath his ribs where he no longer had language.

It startled something in him, something he thought he’d buried beneath duty and discipline.

She smiled and then she was gone.

The door closed behind her with a soft hiss, the Force drawing back with her like the tide leaving shore.

Obi-Wan stared at it for a long moment, still holding the cloak in his hands. It felt heavier now. Or maybe it was him.

His heartbeat was out of step. Like a song disrupted mid-measure.

And he said nothing.

The speeder sliced through Coruscant's upper levels in silence, its interior insulated from the wind and noise of the city beyond.

Lights blurred past the tinted windows—lanterns strung between buildings, the pulse of sky-traffic control towers, the gold-dipped glow of the Senate district looming ahead like a crown.

The dusk was thick with motion, the skies above streaked in violet and amber and neon.

Inside, the silence was not peace.

Obi-Wan sat with his arms folded loosely, his cloak draped across his lap.

The soft vibration of the engine beneath his boots should have been grounding.

But his thoughts kept drifting—always back to her.

Anya sat across from him, posture straight, hands in her lap. But her fingers betrayed her.

One hand twisted the end of her braid, looping a curl around her thumb, then releasing it. Again. And again.

Her gaze stayed on the floor, her jaw set in quiet tension.

She stilled her foot. It tapped again.

The calm she wore like armor was cracking.

"You're fidgeting," Obi-Wan said gently.

Anya blinked, looked up at him—caught, not flustered. Her voice came quieter than expected. "Am I?"

He nodded. "Quite dramatically, in fact."

She exhaled, the sound barely audible. Her fingers paused. "It's Padmé, Master."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"I haven’t seen her since Naboo. Not since I was nine. She was still a queen then."

He waited. She wasn’t finished.

"What if she doesn’t recognize me? Not my face—me. Who I am now."

Obi-Wan tilted his head. "Do you have reason to think she wouldn’t?"

Her hand stilled completely. She looked toward the window. "No. But I remember how I looked up to her. She made me feel seen. Like I mattered. She listened, even when no one else did. "

Her voice wasn’t wistful. It was something quieter. He heard it beneath the words—a thread of hope. And something dangerously close to fear.

Obi-Wan studied her. Then leaned forward.

"She will see you. And she will remember."

Anya hesitated. "You don’t know that."

"I don’t have to," he said. "I know you. And I know her."

Their eyes met. The Force hummed softly, a low current between them—constant now, and unrelenting.

The comm crackled to life. "Approaching the Senatorial Complex."

Obi-Wan sat back, smoothing the lines of his tunic as the speeder banked and descended toward a private landing pad.

The Senate district rose around them, stately and sharp-edged in the warm light of early evening.

Standard Republic security guards waited near the entry. A protocol droid blinked beside the doors. The building gleamed—polished stone and quiet prestige.

The ramp hissed open. Anya stood.

Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted. Her heartbeat still thundered in her chest, but her breath steadied.

From a distance, no one would have guessed she’d been nervous at all.

The door slid open with a soft chime.

Padmé turned, already forming a polite greeting—then stilled.

There, in the doorway, stood a young woman Padmé did not recognize.

Tall. Poised. Draped in Jedi robes that moved like water.

Her braid shimmered under the corridor lights, coiled and pinned with copper-threaded precision.

A pendant glinted at her throat—blue kyber cradled in silver—and her presence filled the air like starlight held still.

Her silhouette was elegance sharpened into purpose.

She didn’t know what she had expected. Perhaps a trace of that child she once held by the hand. A softer presence. A smile that reached first, before words.

Certainly not this.

Not this creature of control and grace, this woman who seemed carved from resolve and ritual.

Not the way she stood, unmoved and unafraid.

Not the beauty—striking and calm, like Naboo marble.

Not the silence that made the air feel thinner just for holding her.

And then—the eyes.

Her breath caught. Somewhere beneath the curve of cheekbone and the stillness of her gaze, Padmé saw her.

"Anya?" she whispered.

The girl she had once known—barefoot in the palace kitchens, wild curls tangled in the Naboo breeze, grinning up at her with a mouth full of spicebread—was gone.

In her place stood someone regal. Someone radiant and distant, like a memory burned brighter by time.

Anya bowed, composed. "Senator Amidala."

Padmé took a step forward, the words tangled in her chest. She hesitated—just for a heartbeat—then crossed the remaining space and drew her into a firm embrace.

Anya froze at first. Then her arms came up slowly, instinctively, fingers curling into the back of Padmé’s robes like memory.

Padmé held her tighter than intended. She was startled by the emotion flooding her chest—a sudden ache for simpler days and an impossible distance closed in a heartbeat.

"You’re taller than I expected," she said at last, trying to smile, though it trembled. "And your hair… it’s beautiful."

"You haven’t changed," Anya murmured. "Not really."

"Oh, but you have," Padmé breathed, pulling back to look at her again. "Force, you have."

She didn’t mean it unkindly. But she couldn’t help the awe in her voice.

She stepped back fully now, just far enough to take her in.

Anya’s face had refined—stronger jaw, steadier eyes. Her posture was flawless. Even the way she breathed was deliberate. Controlled.

The fire Padmé remembered was still there—banked and watchful, not diminished.

Obi-Wan stepped forward with a slight bow. "Senator. We’re honored to assist."

Padmé glanced at him, then back at Anya.

"Thank you, Master Kenobi," she said warmly. "Please—come inside."

The suite was warm and quiet. Gold light spilled in through high windows, brushing against soft cushions and draped Naboo silks.

The scent of herbs—steeped from a kettle near the window—curled through the air like memory.

Padmé moved first, beckoning them inward.

Anya followed, slower. Her boots were soundless against the floor.

Her eyes drifted across the furnishings—familiar in shape, distant in context.

She brushed her fingers along the back of a curved chair. The softness of the silks, the carved woodwork, the Naboo palette—all of it washed through her like something seen from a dream.

"You kept the cushions," she said softly.

"I never saw the need to change them," Padmé replied, her voice still searching. "Besides… I remember you curled up in that one after the blockade briefings. You fell asleep with your boots on."

Anya flushed, just slightly. "I was nine."

"You were perfect," Padmé said, without hesitation.

Obi-Wan lingered just inside the threshold, silent but observant.

Then, with a soft clearing of his throat, he stepped back into the hall.

"If you’ll excuse me," he said, glancing to both women. "I’ll check the perimeter and coordinate with the guards. Take your time."

Padmé offered him a grateful smile. "Thank you, Master Kenobi."

Anya gave him a small nod, eyes soft.

With a final glance back, Obi-Wan disappeared into the corridor, his presence fading like a gentle exhale through the Force.

And just like that, the suite was theirs.

They moved toward the low table set near the window. The light caught the edges of their faces—one framed in Naboo softness, the other in Jedi shadow.

Padmé poured tea into two porcelain cups rimmed with gold. Her fingers shook only once.

She handed one to Anya.

Anya accepted it with both hands, as if it were something sacred.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

Padmé exhaled slowly and settled onto the cushions beside the window, her body folding with practiced ease.

Her posture relaxed, but her mind remained alert—still studying Anya from beneath the quiet warmth.

"After the battle of Naboo," she began, her voice low, "the people re-elected me. A second term. I didn’t think they would." A self-conscious smile touched her lips. "But they did. I served as long as I could. Then I stepped away. Six years."

Anya nodded, listening with a stillness that felt older than her years.

"I traveled. Worked with relief missions. Spent time in the lake country. It was… peaceful." She swirled her tea gently. "And then—of course—they asked me to return. To represent Naboo in the Senate."

"You said yes."

Padmé looked up. "I didn’t expect to."

"It suits you," Anya said simply.

There was something so steady in the way she said it. So sure.

Padmé watched her closely now—really looked. The way her back stayed straight without effort. The line of her mouth. The soft gleam of light against her skin.

"And you? You were just a child the last time I saw you. Now you’re... someone else entirely," Padmé whispered, half to herself.

Anya offered a faint smile. "I spent most of it training. We weren’t at the Temple much. Missions. Negotiations. And my Master…" She glanced toward the hallway. "He was patient. Always."

Padmé’s gaze lingered on her.

"Obi-Wan trained you well."

"He did," Anya said. "More than that—we worked well together. Somehow, we became highly requested for diplomatic assignments. I think it started because I had a knack for sensing tension, reading people. And he had the patience to navigate the structure. We balanced each other."

"So you were always traveling?"

"Always," Anya said. "Some months, I didn’t see Coruscant at all. We were always somewhere different. Treaties. Tensions. Places where no one trusted Jedi anymore—and still, we went."

Padmé traced a finger along the edge of her teacup. Her voice softened. "It must have been lonely."

Anya didn’t hesitate. "No." She looked up, eyes warm. "I had my Master."

Her smile then was unguarded. Bright. Gentle. "He is more than enough."

Padmé blinked. Something in the air shifted. She didn’t quite know what to do with the way that landed.

The emotion in Anya’s voice was unmistakable. Intimate. Not childish. Not romantic. But something that hovered close to both.

She studied Anya a moment longer, then reached for another subject

"Sheev tells me you two have stayed in touch," she said lightly.

Anya’s fingers drifted briefly to the pendant at her throat. Blue kyber encased in silver.

"Yes," she said. "We talk often. He’s always made time for me."

Padmé leaned forward slightly, studying it.

"He gave you that?"

Anya nodded. "For my eighteenth birthday."

"It’s gorgeous."

Anya’s smile gentled. "It means a lot—to know that he cares."

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was full. Like the moment between lightning and thunder. A stillness not of absence, but of everything unsaid.

Padmé reached for the teapot. "More?"

Anya extended her cup. Their fingers brushed—light contact, warm and brief.

"Please."

Outside the window, Coruscant shimmered under the growing hush of nightfall.

And inside, two women—once queen and refugee—sat together not as titles, but as equals. Not merely remembering who they were.

But beginning to see, clearly now, who they had become.

The Senatorial suite lay hushed, bathed in golden dimness. Glowstrips traced the arches above, casting gentle halos against the marble floor.

Outside, Coruscant shimmered—distant traffic weaving light across the transparisteel like breath across glass.

Anya walked beside Obi-Wan. Their steps matched perfectly.                     

It wasn’t intentional. It never was anymore.

The air between them was cool, steady. And yet—something warmer curled beneath it. The kind of quiet that wasn’t emptiness, but echo. Like the aftermath of shared breath.

Obi-Wan kept his hands folded behind his back. Anya’s arms hung relaxed at her sides, her braid swaying in the golden light.

Her expression was unreadable in the half-shadow, but her presence brushed his—soft, close. Like tide foam against stone.

Anya’s voice rose into the hush—light, unhurried. She had been talking since they began their sweep of the perimeter.

“—and she said the last budget proposal nearly collapsed because of a phrasing error in the Gungan translation. Can you believe that? Entire planetary initiatives hinging on grammar.”

Obi-Wan didn’t interrupt. He liked listening to her like this—unguarded, relaxed. She was usually so focused, so disciplined.

Tonight, something had softened. She wasn’t just recounting facts; she was sharing pieces of herself, her voice threaded with amusement.

“She told me about her time away, too. The lake house, the volunteering. And she met the actress who plays the Duchess in Hearts of the Outer Rim—can you believe that?”

She looped her arm through his.

It wasn’t unusual. She’d always been tactile, especially in moments like this—late, quiet, with the Force low and humming and the galaxy at arm’s length.

But lately—he noticed it differently.

He wasn’t startled by her touch. He was startled by his response to it. The way his breath caught. The warmth through his sleeve. The realization of how naturally she fit beside him.

She continued, unaware.

“She went to give a conference on peacekeeping in one Naboo’s Universities,” Anya continued, unaware of the subtle shift in his breathing. “And the actress was one of the speakers. Apparently, she’s much shorter in real life.”

He glanced down at her. The edge of her braid brushed his sleeve.

“And what profound wisdom did you glean from this summit of stateswomen and dramatists?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“That Senatorial halls are more dramatic than holofilms,” she said, smiling. “And that Padmé has seen everything and somehow still looks twenty.”

She sighed then, a soft exhale, and her tone changed.

“We’ve both changed so much. Everything feels different. But also... the same.”

Her words settled in his chest.

Obi-Wan looked ahead, studying the curve of the hall, the dim glint of dormant security panels. But her presence pressed beside him—vivid, warm, steady.

Their bond pulsed below the surface. Not pulling. Not sharp.

Just there. Steady. Familiar.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying our mission,” he said softly. “It’s true. You’ve grown. I’d almost say you’re ready for your trials.”

“I refuse.”

She stopped walking.

He turned, surprised. Her arm slipped from his, and the space between them cooled.

“You will not get rid of me so easily,” she said.

He arched a brow, but something in his chest tugged—something that didn’t want to let go either.

“Is that a threat?”

“I will be Knighted at twenty-four,” she declared, arms crossed beneath her chest. Her chin lifted with that stubborn, unyielding angle he knew too well. “Not a day before.”

Obi-Wan fought a smile. Her tone was playful, but there was weight behind it. Fierce loyalty. An edge of something he didn’t quite name.

“And why twenty-four?”

“So I can still beat you,” she said, eyes glinting. “Weren’t you Knighted at twenty-five?”

He laughed, low and fond. “Remind me not to spar with you after Senate tea.”

She grinned, radiant and triumphant.

Then the shift came.

Not sound. Not light. Not movement.

The Force.

Sharp. Sudden. Like cold water against warm stone. Urgency without chaos. A single note struck too hard on a quiet instrument.

He felt her tense beside him a second before she spoke.

“Padmé,” she said.

They moved in the same breath.

The hallway vanished behind them as they broke into a run, robes sweeping the marble. All humor fell away. He felt her breath fall into rhythm with his, their bond now bright and focused.

No hesitation.

Whatever was waiting—they would face it together.

Anya burst into the suite at a full sprint, lightsaber igniting with a crackling snap-hiss that split the night like a faultline.

Blue plasma surged to life and cast wild shadows across the stone walls, catching on the polished veins of the marble floor.

Her boots skidded sharply, but her balance held—barely. Her braid snapped behind her as she surged forward, breath steady despite the thrum of adrenaline.

The threat was already descending.

Two insectile droids—gleaming slivers of silver—dropped silently from a ceiling vent above Padmé’s bed. Their segmented legs unfurled mid-air, pincers twitching with venom-tipped precision.

Repulsors purred with deceptive quiet, gliding them toward their target like predators slicing through still water.

There was no room for thought.

She moved.

One upward slash split the first assassin clean through, its photoreceptors sparking with sudden death.

Her body twisted in the same breath, momentum carrying her into a second strike that bisected the other droid before its limbs had fully deployed.

Blue light painted the walls, followed by the crackle and burst of severed circuits.

The wreckage clattered to the floor in twitching heaps. One pincer still clicked aimlessly, metal scraping against tile.

Three seconds. Maybe less.

Padmé gasped awake.

She surged upright, wide-eyed and trembling, caught between dream and alarm.

Her voice didn’t come, but her body moved on instinct.

She turned toward the figure near her bed, drawn by some unspoken recognition. Her hands gripped the front of Anya’s robe, clinging with unconscious urgency.

Anya didn’t flinch. Her lightsaber lowered to a guard position, humming low and steady near her hip.

With her free hand, she reached forward and placed it on Padmé’s shoulder, fingers firm and grounding.

“You’re safe,” she said. Her voice was soft, steady, but beneath it was the iron certainty of someone who had made it so.

Padmé’s breath shuddered in her chest. Her grip tightened before easing slightly. In the Force, her panic echoed—a spike of fear beginning to quiet.

A breath later, Obi-Wan swept into the room.

His cloak caught the air behind him like a banner, boots silent against the floor. His eyes took in everything—Padmé, Anya, the scorched droid remains, the open vent.

He moved like a blade already halfway to the target, focus narrowing to the window.

Beyond the transparisteel, a black probe droid hovered.

Its lens glowed red. Watching. Recording.

Anya turned just as he did. Their gazes met across the room, the Force between them thrumming bright and braced.

No words passed between them. They didn’t need them.

Then Obi-Wan moved.

He sprang forward with fluid grace, hurling himself toward the fleeing probe droid.

The transparisteel shattered around him in a burst of glass and wind—shards spinning outward like rain in reverse, catching the city lights and fracturing them into stars.

Curtains flared violently in the rush of air, blinding for a heartbeat as night roared into the room.

She didn’t move. Just stared after him.

She exhaled through her nose. “Why does he always have to do that?”

Padmé, still gripping her sleeve, blinked. “He jumped out the window.”

Anya glanced down at her and offered a crooked smile. “I wish I could say this was the first time.”

The doors burst open behind them.

Guards surged into the room—blasters drawn, eyes sharp. Armor caught the low light in staccato gleams. Behind them came two handmaidens in hastily tied nightrobes, hair undone, faces pale with worry.

They stopped short at the sight.

Anya standing in the middle of a ruined room, lightsaber lowered but still humming, smoke curling off severed droids. Padmé on the bed, hair askew, breathing hard but alive.

Captain Panaka entered last. He didn’t ask. He assessed.

His eyes swept the wreckage, the vent, the broken window, the lack of blood. His gaze landed on Anya—and stayed.

Then, with a long-suffering sigh, he reached for his belt and pulled free a compact keyring. Without a word, he tossed it across the room.

Anya caught it easily, one hand, no look.

“Try not to crash it,” Panaka said.

She flipped the keys once in her hand. “I’ll do my best.”

She turned to Padmé one last time. “Stay inside. Guards will be posted at every entrance. Don’t open the doors for anyone who doesn’t say the code.”

Padmé nodded, voice still gone, but the understanding in her eyes was clear. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“I will.”

Anya bowed quickly to the room. Her saber deactivated with a familiar hiss, and she turned on her heel. Her cloak billowed as she moved, catching the breeze from the broken window.

She was gone before anyone could say more, already in pursuit of her Master.

Padmé sat back as the handmaidens moved in, hovering near but not touching.

One of them wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. Another began sweeping away the glass near her feet. Still, Padmé’s gaze stayed on the ruined window, eyes fixed on the void beyond it.

The wreckage still sparked. The vent still smoked.

The room smelled of ozone and scorched wires.

She laughed. Just once. A breathless sound, almost a question.

She shook her head.

“Jedi,” she whispered. “I forgot how dramatic they are.”

Chapter Text

The wind tore at him.

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the sleek, humming surface of the probe droid. It wasn’t built for passengers—certainly not for Jedi Masters clinging to its underbelly like barnacles.

His fingers curled against cold durasteel, arms screaming in protest. The droid surged forward again, weaving between the midnight columns of Coruscant’s air traffic. Speeders blurred past in rivers of red and gold light. The night was alive with motion, color, and chaos—oblivious to the man holding on for his life.

His muscles burned.

His shoulders ached.

It had been minutes. Too many.

Anya should have been here by now. That thought echoed louder than he liked as the wind howled past his ears, carrying speeder horns and the distant throb of repulsorlifts.

He shifted his grip slightly—risking it—just to relieve the pain. Every tendon in his arms protested. There was no place for leverage, no handhold designed for a human body. And still, he held.

The Force stirred. Subtle. Then sharp.

Danger.

He tensed instinctively.

His eyes snapped to the periphery, scanning past the lights and shadows—there. A lime-yellow speeder flying low and fast between the traffic lanes. Its hull was sleek and heavily modified, its pilot canopy dark with reflective transparisteel.

Inside crouched a humanoid figure, blaster raised.

Not at him, at the droid.

The assassin.

A crimson bolt cut through the dark.

And Obi-Wan fell.

For a heartbeat, there was only air. His body flipped once, limbs instinctively bracing. Robes billowed, the Force humming around him. Speeder lights blurred past in vertical streaks. The sky became a tunnel, and he was plummeting through its center.

He had fallen before—off towers, cliffs, even starships. But this? This was fast.

The street levels were too far down.

He stretched out with the Force—calculating, mapping the chaos below him. Lanes of traffic intersected like an angry web, each one a moving hazard. One wrong move, and he’d be a smear across a windshield.

And then he felt her.

A pulse. A flare. Bright, hot, and undeniable.

Anya.

Her presence surged toward him like gravity in reverse—pulling, not pushing. It didn’t soothe. It burned. A signal fire through their bond. She was close. Fast. Furious.

And frightened.

His breath caught, not from the fall, but from the intensity of her emotions as they echoed into his chest—echoes of fear, urgency, and something else: the unshakable refusal to let him go.

A long-bodied Nabooian speeder—sleek, elegant, gold-accented—rocketed upward through the traffic layers. One of the Senatorial Guard’s emergency intercept models, it moved with deceptive grace.

Its forward-swept frame and reinforced repulsors cut a sharp arc between lanes. The undercarriage passed so close to a courier freighter it nearly clipped a stabilizer. Her piloting was reckless. It was beautiful.

She flew like she owned the sky.

The cockpit hatch slid open.

“Jump!” she shouted, voice nearly swallowed by the wind.

He didn’t think. He moved.

The Force braced his descent, angled his momentum. His boots skidded along the speeder’s hull. For a second, he hovered—weightless, in-between—then Anya caught him by the tunic and hauled him into the passenger seat.

He collapsed with a grunt, cloak flaring around him.

For a breath, they didn’t speak.

Their eyes met—just briefly. The Force hummed between them, a silent reassurance. He was here. She had him.

“What took you so long?” he asked, breathless, offering a crooked grin.

Anya didn’t look at him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she snapped. “I was just too busy setting a new personal record for how many traffic laws I could break while chasing my idiotic Master across half the capital city.”

She yanked the controls hard. The speeder rolled and dove, skimming under a cargo hauler with centimeters to spare.

“Also,” she added tightly, “someone didn’t leave me the keys. Captain Panaka gave me his ride.”

Obi-Wan pulled his cloak out from under his thigh and calmly brushed a shard of glass from his sleeve.

“Your improvisation is improving.”

“Your decision-making isn’t.”

Despite the bite in her tone, he could feel it: the slow ease in her tension, the weight of her worry fading now that he was beside her. Their bond, frayed by distance, snapped taut again. Steady. Centered. She didn’t glance at him, but she didn’t need to. The warmth of her presence pressed against his like a hand to the chest.

He smirked, settling deeper into the seat as if they weren’t weaving through death at terminal velocity.

“Remind me to thank you properly once we’ve caught our assassin.”

“You’d better,” she muttered—but her voice had softened. Just a little.

The speeder shrieked as she pushed it into a steep vertical dive, then leveled out just as the lime-yellow ship—the assassin’s speeder—flickered into view again. It darted through the glowing web of traffic like a wasp, unpredictable and fast.

Anya’s eyes narrowed.

“Hold on,” she said.

He didn’t ask if she meant him or the target.

The Nabooian speeder surged forward, twin repulsors flaring against the shadowed skyline, and the chase began in earnest beneath the pulse of Coruscant’s night.

Anya adjusted her grip on the throttle as their speeder whipped around a transport freighter.

The lime-yellow speeder ahead wove unpredictably, careening between traffic lanes, its pilot clearly more confident than cautious.

Her knuckles were white against the controls, the Force steadying her reactions, feeding her instinct, guiding each decision like a silent voice in her ear.

"You know what would be useful right now?" she said, breath sharp as the speeder banked. "A blaster. Like the one I've been begging you to approve for months."

Obi-Wan’s voice came from beside her, drier than the upper spires of the Jedi Archives. "And my answer remains the same. We are Jedi. It’s undignified—"

"Well," she interrupted, punching the accelerator, "I’m about to do something very undignified. Grab the controls, Master."

Before he could argue, she popped the hatch and leapt.

Anya soared through the air, wind howling around her, cloak snapping like a banner in a storm. She twisted mid-air, eyes locked on the speeder ahead, and landed with feline precision atop the assassin’s vehicle.

The shock rippled up her legs, but she absorbed it, the Force anchoring her.

Without hesitation, she lit her saber.

Blue plasma hissed to life, casting eerie light across the reflective surface. She crouched low, blade cutting into the roof with practiced precision. Sparks flew.

Below, she heard the assassin curse—then came the sharp retort of blaster fire.

A bolt screamed past her cheek. Another ricocheted off her saber, spraying molten fragments.

She didn’t flinch.

Knees braced wide, she carved through the roof inch by inch, curls whipping loose around her face.

Then—an opening.

She deactivated the blade and clipped it to her belt, plunging her arm through the narrow tear. Her hand closed around cold metal—blaster grip—just as the assassin yanked back with a snarl.

“Let go,” she growled, digging her boots into the hull.

The assassin jerked, firing blindly. One bolt struck the main panel.

The cockpit lit in a burst of red. Warnings shrieked. Control systems sparked. Smoke poured from the nose of the ship.

The speeder began to drop.

Anya held on, muscles straining. The ship pitched and dove. She waited—one second, two—timed the rhythm.

And then she jumped.

Her body cut through the air, spinning once before she tucked and landed hard on a lower platform. She rolled, came up crouched, breath tight but steady, saber back in hand.

Behind her, the assassin’s speeder slammed into a durasteel pillar. Fire bloomed, illuminating the plaza in pulses of orange and blue.

Civilians screamed, scattering. Droids wailed. Alarms blared.

A shadow peeled away from the chaos.

The assassin.

Limping. Quick. Feminine.

She slipped through a security gate into a building crowned in pulsing neon—music thudding through its walls like a heartbeat.

A nightclub.

Anya straightened, brushing ash from her sleeve. A half-smile tugged at her mouth.

Footsteps pounded toward her—she turned as Obi-Wan skidded to a halt.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded, flushed but steady. "Better than ever, Master. She went into that club. Wounded. Limping."

He blinked. "She?"

"And my guess? Shapeshifter. Clawdite maybe. That speeder wasn’t registered, and the blaster grip was custom. Military-grade."

Obi-Wan’s gaze sharpened. "We keep our senses open."

"Wait," she said, raising a hand. She rummaged through her belt pouch, pulling out a compact mirror and tinted balm.

Obi-Wan stared. "What in the Maker’s name are you doing?"

She didn’t answer at first. She applied the balm to her lips—soft, quick strokes—then touched her cheeks and eyelids.

Then she reached up and loosed her braid.

Her curls tumbled free—dark copper and burnished gold, catching the neon. She loosened her tunic collar just enough to expose her collarbone and let her kyber pendant glint in the artificial light.

The change was subtle but distinct. She noticed him watching.

His expression slipped, just for a moment. Guarded concern gave way to something else. Something unspoken. Remembered.

She thought of the training chamber.

Of how her saber had fallen. Of how she had tackled him.

The roll. The pin. The heat of his body pressed flush to hers. The chain of her kyber crystal biting between them.

The way his breath had hitched when their mouths hovered too close.

The way he hadn’t let go.

The way she hadn’t wanted him to.

Now, his gaze swept over her—unreadable, but undeniably caught. It wasn’t just duty. It wasn’t disapproval.

It was tension. The kind coiled just beneath the surface, waiting to snap.

She tilted her head, soft and deliberate. "You’re staring."

He looked away. Too fast. Then back again. "You’re—blending in."

She stepped closer, voice low, breath almost brushing his jaw. "Exactly. So try not to look like a monk."

She looped her arm through his, deliberately. The fabric of her sleeve brushed his hand. She didn’t pull away.

And neither did he.

Their eyes met again. Longer this time. The moment stretched, fragile and electric.

Ahead, the club’s doors pulsed open. Sound and light spilled out—music, laughter, synth beats timed to Coruscant’s pulse.

Anya glanced up. "Ready to dance, Master?"

His sigh was soft. Tired. And maybe something more.

"Let’s catch our quarry before you decide to order drinks."

She grinned. Slow. Knowing. "No promises."

Arm in arm, Jedi shadows wrapped in disguise, they disappeared into the neon tide.

The club swallowed them whole.

Obi-Wan stepped into the pulse of bass and neon beside Anya, and at once, the air thickened—sound, scent, color, movement.

Bodies pressed together on the floor, the lighting shifted in sultry waves, and above it all shimmered a tension he could only half name.

The Force buzzed around him, alive with desire and noise and secrets—sweat and spice and synth pulses, a world away from the quiet of the Temple.

And then the eyes turned.

Not toward him. Toward her.

Anya moved with easy elegance beside him, head held high, curls tumbling like sunfire around her shoulders. The faint gleam of tinted balm on her lips caught the light every time she smiled.

But it wasn’t just the color, or the way her eyes sparkled with anticipation—it was the way she wore the room.

Commanding. Effortless. Impossible not to look at.

The blue kyber crystal at her throat caught the strobe of purple light, flashing bright as lightning.

Obi-Wan felt it like a jolt—Force-charged, drawing every eye to her collarbone, to the line of her throat, to the curve of skin exposed just enough to tempt.

He could sense how the room shifted around her. Gravity tilted.

He exhaled, carefully.

Focus.

They were here for a reason.

“I’m getting a drink,” he said, voice pitched low beside her ear.

She turned to him with a knowing smile. “Perfect. I’ll check the dance floor.”

She winked—winked—and vanished into the current of bodies like water through fingers.

He watched her go.

Her gait was confident, almost lazy, a predator in no rush. Her hips moved with the beat—graceful, liquid.

When she reached the floor, she moved with it, not beside it. Arms loose, curls bouncing, tunic swaying at her hips.

Every eye she passed lingered.

His hand flexed against the edge of the bar.

The drink in his hand helped. Not much.

Obi-Wan leaned against the counter, scanning the club’s glowing sprawl.

Screens pulsed from the ceiling, casting silhouettes of dancers in gold and crimson. Servers drifted past with trays of luminous cocktails, the floor vibrating faintly beneath his boots.

He kept her in his periphery.

She looked carefree—spinning, swaying, laughing at something a stranger said. But he saw it. The small things.

The angle of her body that allowed her line of sight to sweep the room. The way she turned with the beat just enough to get a new vantage point. Her left hand always near her belt.

She was sharp. Everything he had taught her—and everything she’d made her own.

He was proud.

And that made it worse.

The Force curled between them, alive and aware. Not speaking, not demanding. Simply there. A current that hummed with knowing.

She turned briefly. Eyes met his through the haze—no smile this time. Just recognition.

Heat bloomed in his chest.

He shouldn’t be watching her like this.

The connection between them had deepened slowly, steadily, over the years. He should have drawn a line. He had drawn lines. Dozens of them.

And crossed every one.

He was her Master. She was his Padawan. That was all. That was how it should have remained.

That was a lie.

And he knew it.

In quiet moments, he told himself it was only trust. Familiarity. The byproduct of years in close quarters, of survival shared.

He blamed proximity, intensity. Her warmth. Her faith in him.

But it wasn’t just that.

It was the way her voice settled something in him.

The way her laugh changed the shape of a room.

The way she never hesitated to touch him—his wrist, his arm, his shoulder—as though he were hers to anchor.

He had let it happen. Not by accident. By choice.

He had watched her grow, flourish, become.

He had stayed close. Encouraged it. Encouraged her. Because he couldn’t help himself.

And now it was too late.

Now, as he watched her through the haze and heat, something ached in his chest. Longing, maybe. Or guilt. Or both.

His fingers tightened around the glass.

He had to be firm. Hold the line. If he didn’t—if he so much as reached back—this would slip into something else. Something they could not come back from.

There is no passion, there is serenity. The old creed rang hollow in his ears.

So he watched her with the eyes of a Jedi Master.

Not the man he almost was.

Not the one who, for a breathless moment in a training chamber just a day before, had hovered over her body, heart pounding, her wrists in his hand, her mouth a whisper away.

Not the man who had wanted—

He swallowed. Took another drink. His grip tightened on the glass.

Focus.

He prayed—quietly, fervently—that the assassin would show soon.

Anya moved through the club’s dance floor like starlight through shadow.

She had never been in a place like this. Diplomatic galas, refined receptions, stuffy Temple ceremonies—yes. But this? This was raw. Electric.

The lights pulsed with the beat, casting gold and crimson across the bodies pressed close, lost in rhythm. The music was so loud it seemed to bypass her ears entirely, sinking straight into her chest. Her blood moved with it, thudding to the same tempo.

And the Force—it moved here.

She could feel it humming between the dancers, alive in the laughter and sway and heat. It wasn’t chaos. It was freedom. For the first time in a long while, the current of the Force didn’t ask her to restrain, to obey. It danced with her.

She didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Her body moved where the current led—hips swaying, arms rising, each motion flowing into the next.

Not perfect, but instinctive. Joyful.

The kind of joy that buzzed under her skin like carbonated light. Her curls caught the light, swinging and bouncing with every turn. Her boots felt featherlight, her body one with the rhythm.

It was liberating.

And it was dangerous.

But she let herself enjoy it. Just this once.

Still, she never lost focus.

Even as her breath quickened, even as she laughed with strangers, her eyes never stopped scanning. Watching the bar. Watching him.

Obi-Wan.

He stood apart from the crowd like still water in a storm. One hand on a drink, the other resting near his belt, his gaze sharp.

Except—

He was watching her.

Their eyes met, just for a moment, across the room. The club faded. The music faded. Their bond lit up like a struck chord, taut and trembling.

His eyes burned with something she couldn’t name—but she felt it. Every part of her felt it. A jolt of heat, of knowing.

He wanted her.

And Force help her, she wanted him too.

She barely contained her smile. His gaze lingered—longer than a Master’s should. And she knew what she had sensed in the training chamber wasn’t a fluke.

He was slipping. Slowly. Surely. And part of her, the boldest part, wanted to see how far he would go.

But beneath the satisfaction was something quieter—raw. She had longed for his gaze to linger, for proof that she wasn’t alone in feeling this more. But now that it had happened, her chest felt tight, as though she'd pulled something too close, too fast.

The crowd pressed closer. The lights pulsed harder. A dancer brushed past her and apologized. She offered a small nod, barely hearing the words. Her attention stayed tethered to Obi-Wan. To the space between them, humming with shared breath.

And then the current faltered. A wrong note, sour and thin, like a string snapped inside her chest.

She saw it.

A figure moving too purposefully through the crowd. Their eyes were locked on Obi-Wan. One hand low, sliding toward a hidden blaster.

Her instincts flared. She turned, already moving—

But Obi-Wan was faster.

His lightsaber ignited in a flash of brilliant blue. The weapon arced through the assassin’s arm in a clean, fluid motion. It dropped to the ground with a wet thud, still clutching the blaster.

The glow lit his face in sharp relief. It shouldn’t still catch her breath—but it did.

Screams erupted across the club. Lights turned strobe-like in their panic. Dancers scattered.

Anya stepped forward, raising her hands in a calming gesture. Her presence was composed, commanding.

“Jedi business,” she said, voice clear and even. “Please continue your evening.”

Some obeyed. Most didn’t. But a few brave ones resumed dancing. The music dipped briefly, then started again as if nothing had happened.

She bent and picked up the severed arm, nose wrinkling in mild disgust, and moved through the chaos after Obi-Wan.

The club doors closed behind her.

And the night hit like a slap.

The air was cold compared to the heat inside. It brushed against her damp skin, sharp and biting. Coruscant’s skyline stretched above, endless towers and blinking traffic lanes.

The city never slept, but for a moment, the rooftop felt strangely still.

She spotted Obi-Wan kneeling beside the assassin—now very much disarmed in every sense of the word. Anya dropped the severed limb beside them with a soft clatter.

“Charming,” she muttered.

The woman—human in this form, or maybe just pretending—was conscious but gasping. Obi-Wan had already begun his interrogation.

“Why were you targeting Senator Amidala?” he asked, voice cool.

The assassin spat to the side. “A lot of people want her dead. She’s a fool to vote against the Military Creation Act.”

“Who hired you?” Anya asked, stepping in close.

The woman’s lip curled. “Careful, Jedi. You’re playing with something more dangerous than you think.”

Anya’s smile was slow. Dangerous. She reached down and clamped her hand just above the cauterized wound. The scream was immediate and piercing.

Obi-Wan shot her a warning look.

She ignored it.

“A bounty hunter,” the woman rasped through clenched teeth. “His name is—”

A sharp hiss broke the night.

The woman went rigid. A tiny dart stuck out from her neck. Her skin rippled. Her face began to melt away. The original form beneath emerged: pale, gaunt, genderless. And then lifeless.

Dead.

Anya’s head snapped up.

Across the skyline, silhouetted against the artificial moonlight, a figure in Mandalorian-style armor vanished into the vertical traffic. Jetpack sparking. No trace left behind.

Her hand hovered near her saber.

Anya exhaled through her nose. “Well. She wasn’t lying. There’s something deeper going on.”

Obi-Wan turned the corpse gently. He pulled the dart free and examined it.

“I don’t recognize this. The craftsmanship… very specific.”

Anya straightened beside him, her curls lifting slightly in the breeze. Her expression was unreadable, but her fingers twitched at her side.

“You know who might?” she said.

“Anya—”

“I’m dying for some tubbers and a shake.”

Obi-Wan sighed, already anticipating the long night ahead.

“Dex’s it is.”

She was already turning toward the nearest sky lane.

Somewhere in the haze of Coruscant’s underlevels, a greasy diner and a familiar face waited.

Chapter Text

The bell above the diner door jingled, and for the first time since the club, Obi-Wan let his breath go—slow, quiet, like something he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Dex’s hadn’t changed.

Same cracked chrome stools. Same glowing wall menu with the “E” in “breakfast” flickering every third second.

Same smells—fried something, caf, old sugar, warm oil.

A place that didn’t care what kind of war you brought in with you.

He followed Anya past the counter and into their usual booth—back corner, half-shadowed, just beneath the humming ceiling fan that made the whole row buzz.

She slid into the booth first with a half-sigh, her shoulders relaxing into the vinyl like they remembered it. He took his place across from her, spine too straight, like the booth might judge him if he slouched. The habit was harder to shake than it should’ve been.

“Kenobi and Skywalker!” Dex’s voice bellowed from the back. “I knew I smelled carbon scoring and questionable judgment.”

Anya grinned faintly. “We landed without breaking anything this time.”

Obi-Wan shot her a look.

She amended, “Mostly.”

Dex’s laugh rolled through the diner like a warm wave. He didn’t ask for an order.

Just disappeared through the kitchen doors with the confidence of a man who already knew what they wanted—because he always did.

For a moment, silence filled the booth. Not empty—more like a space where tension could slowly unspool.

The club’s heat lingered somewhere between them: The lights, the music. The way she’d moved. The way he hadn’t looked away.

But here, in the warm hum of Dex’s corner, it cooled.

The bond between them—drawn tight since the apartment—settled into something steadier. Grounded.

Dex returned balancing two plates, a third arm carrying Anya’s usual shake—already half-melted, already slotted with her favorite blue straw.

“I didn’t need to ask,” Dex said, dropping their food with practiced flair. “You two have exactly one functional coping mechanism, and I fry it in oil.”

Anya let out a short laugh as she pulled the shake toward her. “You’re better than the Temple healers.”

“I’m faster, too.” Dex slid in beside her, shifting the whole bench. She yelped, wedged between him and the wall.

“Dex!” she protested, wriggling under his arm.

“You love me,” he said, patting her shoulder like a doting relative.

“I do,” she admitted into her straw.        

Obi-Wan watched her with quiet attention. She didn’t guard herself here, didn’t calculate her laughter.

It was an ease he hadn’t seen from her in too long—something that had grown rarer within the Temple walls.

He reached into his robe, drawing out the dart and placing it on the table.

Dex took it carefully between two thick fingers. Turned it. Squinted. His hand stilled.

“Kaminoan,” he said at last. “No doubt.”

“You’re sure?” Obi-Wan asked.

Dex nodded. “Long necks. Big eyes. Quiet types. They don’t blink much, which tells you everything.”

Obi-Wan folded his arms as Dex turned the dart again.

“They’re cloners. The best,” Dex said. “Secretive, but if your account’s attractive enough, they’ll open the door. They’ve done off-the-books work for years. Very high-end.”

Across the booth, Anya had her datapad out, already searching. She sipped her shake, tapped the screen, frowned.

“No planetary registry,” she said, passing it to Obi-Wan.

He read the blank result. Not an error. A silence.

His stomach tightened. That kind of silence was always deliberate. “Nothing in the archives.”

Dex let out a bark of laughter. “Of course not! That’s the Kaminoan charm. I’ve dealt with ’em, Kenobi—they exist. You just have to know where to look.”

He rose with a grunt, handed the dart back, and stretched his arms. “Let me see if I can dig up the coordinates from my back files.”

As he disappeared into the kitchen, Obi-Wan turned to find Anya watching him. She had one arm resting across the table now, her cheek tilted into her hand, her braid trailing over her shoulder, brushing her blue kyber pendant. Her lips were faintly stained pink from the shake.

Her fingers circled the rim of her glass.

“Hypothetically,” she said, dragging her finger through the condensation, “if someone wanted to disappear a planet…”

He narrowed his eyes.

“You’d just need a Master-level clearance code,” she continued. “Delete it clean. No trace. No trail.”

She blinked at him. Innocent. Almost. “Hypothetically, of course.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve thought about this too much.”

“Not enough,” she said, softer now. “If it was removed… it wasn’t a mistake.”

She set the glass down. The straw bobbed once.

“That means someone in the Order wanted it gone.”

The quiet between them sharpened.

“I don’t know what worries me more,” he said after a moment. “That you’re right… or that someone with clearance high enough to do it would be capable of this.”

Their gazes held across the table. No rank between them now—just two Jedi, bound too tightly, facing the shadow of something far larger than a missing world.

From the kitchen, Dex’s voice rang out. “Got it! Coordinates in five, if I can make this ancient datapad boot up!”

Obi-Wan stood. “We need to speak to the Council.”

Anya rose with him, calm and fluid.

Outside, the city air bit cold. Obi-Wan looked at her once more—hair tousled from Dex’s hug, boots scuffed from the chase, a faint smile still playing at her mouth. She looked like herself again: the girl who had fallen asleep against his side, who baked him sweets after missions, who trained until she could barely stand and then asked for another round.

Whatever their bond was becoming—it had to stop here. Before he forgot why it couldn’t become more. Before it consumed everything.

She was Anya—his Padawan, his constant, the one he’d sworn to guide.

And that was the danger.

She wasn’t meant to be the woman who slowed his breath, or the presence in the Force that moved under his skin like heat. She was never meant to be want.

He forced himself to turn away.

One more glance, and he knew—he’d forget every reason to let go.

Silence pressed against the glass.

The Temple slept. But the Council tower did not.

The chamber was shadowed and solemn, lit only by pale starlight spilling through its towering windows.

Beyond them, Coruscant glimmered like a mirage, but the light didn’t quite reach the marble floor. It touched only the council seats, the still air, and the tension that seemed to cling to every breath.

Anya stood half a step behind Obi-Wan, hands folded into her sleeves, boots planted lightly on the cold marble.

Her breathing was measured by habit, masked by discipline. She could hear his too—steady, anchored, unshaken. He was always steady here.

She wasn’t sure she was.

They had given their report. Obi-Wan spoke with his usual precision, offering only what was needed. She had filled in when asked, careful not to let her voice carry too much force or feeling.

It was the only way the Council ever listened to her.

Too loud. Too passionate. Too attached. Too aggressive. Too beautiful. Too strong.

So she learned to be polite. Precise. Unthreatening. To hide the fire behind a bow. The truth behind control.

Even now, in the room she had studied from the shadows of her childhood, she felt their eyes linger too long. Not just judging what she’d done—but what she was becoming.

The Kaminoan dart floated in Master Windu’s palm, slowly rotating. Its polished surface caught and fractured the starlight, scattering it across the circle of Masters.

“A world erased from the archives,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said. “Cloners hidden from every record we possess.”

“Off-world, isolated, and heavily controlled,” Shaak Ti added. “If this is true, it is no accident.”

Plo Koon’s mask turned toward Obi-Wan. “Who erased the record? And to what end?”

“Unknown,” Obi-Wan replied. “But if such an army exists… it was not meant to be found.”

His tone was calm, but Anya felt the bond shift—a faint ripple beneath the stillness, like a current hidden under smooth water.

Yoda’s ears angled forward. “Dangerous, this is. If created, a clone army has been. Clouded, its purpose is.”

Windu lowered the dart. “Master Kenobi, you will travel to Kamino. Verify the existence of this army. Determine who created it. And if the bounty hunter is still there—find him.”

Obi-Wan bowed. “Yes, Masters.”

“Padawan Skywalker,” Shaak Ti said, her voice unexpectedly warm, “you performed exceptionally.”

Anya blinked. Praise in this room always felt like a rare coin—and one not easily spent on her.

“You caught your Master mid-fall,” Mace Windu continued. “Led a pursuit through a civilian sector without loss of life. Contained panic in a volatile crowd.”

“You showed clarity,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said. “Restraint.”

Plo Koon leaned forward. “You are ready for your first solo mission.”

The words landed with the force of a blow. Her first solo mission. Recognition—and separation.

“She’s earned it,” Obi-Wan said beside her, low and sure. His voice didn’t falter, but she felt the pulse of tension beneath it. His silence afterward was armor—polished, impenetrable, deliberate.

She glanced at him. Briefly.

The bond answered for him—a pulse, grounding and proud, but tinged with something else. A hand letting go, even as it lingered.

Anya straightened. Automatically. “I am honored, Masters.”

“You will escort Senator Amidala to Naboo,” Windu said. “Travel as civilians. The Royal Guard will assume her protection upon arrival. After the Senator is secured, you will join your Master on Kamino.”

“It may be difficult to convince the Senator to leave Coruscant,” she said evenly.

“Then speak to the Chancellor,” Ki-Adi-Mundi replied. “Let him persuade her.”

Anya inclined her head. “Very well, Masters.”

Yoda’s gaze lingered. “Placing our trust in you, we are.”

Trust.
She didn’t know if it belonged to her… or to the version of her they preferred—the one who bowed more, spoke less, and wore obedience like a mask.

But she bowed anyway. “I will not let you down.”

The Council dismissed them.

They turned together, robes brushing as they descended the long steps into the hall. Neither spoke.

Obi-Wan’s composure was flawless, but his silence felt deliberate—armor fitted carefully into place. Then the bond stirred, and the ache of it was sharp, as if the knowledge of what lay ahead pressed against them both. Neither reached for it, yet it pulled at them all the same—heavy with the dread of parting.

The echo of the Council’s words followed them down the corridor. It should have felt like a milestone. Instead, it felt like the first thread coming loose from a tightly wound cord.

Her time as a Padawan was ending.

She couldn’t tell if he saw it.

Or if he felt it too.

An hour had passed since the Council’s verdict.

Still, sleep did not come.

The halls of the Temple had gone still. Beyond the windows, Coruscant’s traffic glowed like veins of amber threading through the dark. Inside, no voices, no footsteps—only the hush of a galaxy holding its breath.

Obi-Wan lay with his eyes closed, listening. The mission ahead pressed on him like a gathering storm. So did the quiet knowledge that Anya’s life had reached a turning point.

And then there was her.

He could feel her through the bond. Not distressed—just unsettled.

Turning. Trying to sleep. Failing.

He’d known for years there was always a moment when she couldn’t pretend to be fine anymore. And that moment always led her here.

He meant to be awake when she came. But between one breath and the next—sleep claimed him.

Until—

The mattress dipped. A familiar weight curled close. The scent of her hair—soap, sun, and something purely her—brushed his collarbone. She pressed into his side without a word.

He blinked awake to warmth. And smiled. She had come.

She always had, when she was younger—after nightmares, harsh lessons, or days when the Temple looked at her like a weapon instead of a child.

She’d crawl in beside him and whisper, I didn’t want to be alone.

He had never sent her away.

But this was different.

She was taller now. Stronger. The curve of her body against his was no longer the careless sprawl of a child. Her presence in the Force had deepened—resonant, alive. The warmth of her against his chest was steady, grounding… and far more than it used to be.

It cost him to hold the moment exactly as it was—to keep his breathing even, his touch measured, his thoughts disciplined.

It should have felt innocent. But it didn’t. Not anymore.

“You’re getting too old for this, Anya,” he murmured, voice rough from sleep.

She didn’t answer. Only curled closer. Her curls tangled at his chin, her breath slow against his collarbone. The crystal at her throat pressed cool against his tunic, caught between them. Obi-Wan was suddenly, painfully aware of it.

He let his arm come around her—because she had always needed it. And because he… still wanted to give it.

The Force between them trembled—softly, insistently—as if it, too, sensed how close they were.

“I don’t feel ready,” she whispered.

His hand found her hair, fingers moving with practiced care. “You are. You have been for a long time. They’ve only just started to see it.”

She lifted her head, eyes wide in the low light. There was a question in them he couldn’t name—but felt all the same.

“I don’t want to be away from you,” she said. “I’ve never been. It feels wrong.”

He swallowed. “It’s part of growing up. Letting go.” His hand stayed in her hair. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you, dear Padawan of mine.”

She didn’t reply. Just leaned in and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace without hesitation. It felt like every mission, every fire, every quiet between them, bound into one.

A thousand times before, he had held her like this. But this was the first time it hurt.

He pressed a kiss to her temple—light, instinctive. Her hair was warm against his lips, and for a heartbeat he let himself feel it.

It had once been nothing. Now… it was something he shouldn’t have done.

“I’m very proud of you,” he whispered.

She stayed silent. Stayed close.

And he held her as the city murmured below, the ceiling fan turned above, and the night passed with them folded into each other—neither quite asleep, neither willing to let go.

The Chancellor’s office was quiet when she arrived—bathed in morning gold, warm with the scent of kaff and citrus pastries.

The windows stretched open toward the skyline, where Coruscant shimmered beneath the rising sun. Far below, speeder traffic murmured like a distant tide, too faint to disturb the illusion of peace.

Sheev Palpatine rose to greet her with the smile he never wore for the Senate.

He stepped forward and took her hand, drawing her into the customary Core Worlds greeting—two light kisses, one for each cheek. On anyone else, it would have been polite formality. With him, it lingered a fraction longer, his hands warm at her arms, steadying her as though she were someone precious, not simply a visiting Jedi.

“An early breakfast before your departure,” he said, guiding her toward a table set for two: pressed linen, fine porcelain, a silver carafe of steaming kaff. “We must toast your first mission. Properly.”

Anya’s shoulders eased as she sat across from him. Here, she could let the Temple’s silence fall away. Here, she could just be his Anya.

“You always know how to make an assignment feel like a holiday,” she said, reaching for the rubyfruit.

“Only for you, my dear.”

The clink of cups, the quiet pour of kaff, the soft rustle of cloth—it was a ritual now. She had taken meals here after victories, after disappointments, after Naboo when her hands were small and tight around a cup, and he had poured without asking questions.

“I understand you’d like my help convincing Senator Amidala to return to Naboo,” he said.

“She can be a little—”

“Unyielding?” he offered, amused.

“That’s one word,” she smirked.

“It reminds me of someone else I know. Stubborn. Daring. Always questioning her orders.”

She feigned innocence. “You’re not still talking about me?”

“I never stopped.”

He sipped, watching her over the rim. “I’m proud of you, Anya. Your first solo assignment. At your age, it’s remarkable.”

She kept her expression composed, but warmth crept into her cheeks. “I didn’t expect it. The Council has always been… cautious.”

“They hesitate with anyone who threatens the shape of their power,” he said softly. “And you’ve never been one to fit into their mold.”

She looked down, tracing her cup’s rim. “They didn’t say it like that.”

“They never do. But I have watched you grow, listened to you, learned you. I have always seen you clearly.”

The words landed in a place still raw from the Council’s measured praise. Obi-Wan had given her pride wrapped in restraint. The Masters had spoken of discipline and clarity. Here—there was no caveat. No condition. Only certainty. Only pride.

“It feels like a test,” she admitted. “To see what I do without Obi-Wan.”

“It is a test,” he agreed. “One you will pass. Your potential was plain to me long before it was to them. Kenobi and Skywalker, you have been making the Senate reports for years now—always at the heart of decisive victories. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before your name is the one remembered most.”

She studied him for a beat. “And what do you think I’ll be remembered for?”

His smile deepened, slow and certain, as though the answer had been waiting for years. “For being the spark others could not ignore. For burning so brightly that the galaxy will look back and mark the age by your presence in it.”

Her breath caught, just faintly.

Palpatine let the words settle before continuing, almost idly, “They’ve already started calling you two the Negociator and the Flame. It’s catching on.”

She blinked. “Who has?”

“The people who know how history is written,” he said. “And they have noticed you.”

The Flame. The word struck beneath her ribs, hot and heady. It sounded distant, like a title meant for someone else—yet part of her, quietly, wanted to claim it.

He reached into the folds of his robe. “I have something for you.”

Her hand brushed the pendant at her throat, the one she wore every day since he gifted it to her on her eighteenth birthday.  “Another present? This one is more than enough for a lifetime.”

“That was a promise,” he said. “This is preparation.”

From a slender velvet case, he withdrew what at first looked like a writing stylus—polished obsidian black with a fine gold band circling its midpoint, the crest of the Republic etched so delicately it caught the light only when it moved.

She took it carefully. It was cool against her fingers, perfectly balanced, deceptively light.

“It’s lovely,” she murmured.

“It is also practical,” he said, a faint gleam in his eye. “Press here.”

She did, and the lower half slid open with quiet precision, revealing a compact array of tools nested inside: a microblade, wire cutter, lockpick, and slim prying hook—all collapsible, all perfectly fitted.

The mechanisms moved so smoothly they were almost silent.

“A Jedi should always be ready,” he said softly. “For diplomacy… or for less civil occasions.”

Her lips curved despite herself. She folded the tools back into place, tucked the stylus into its velvet sheath, and slipped it into one of her belt pouches.

The weight was negligible, but the knowledge of it there was not.

“The Negotiator and the Flame,” he said, smiling faintly. “Together, you make the Republic believe it still has heroes.”

The multitool rested warm in her pouch. The pendant glinted in the sunlight. And when she looked again at the skyline—so bright, so sprawling—she felt the weight of his words settle against her skin.

It was beautiful.

And it was dangerous.

The storm wasn’t beyond the horizon anymore.

It was already at her back, whispering her name.

Chapter Text

The terminal arched high above them, a shell of steel and filtered sunlight cradling the soft churn of public motion. Voices echoed low. Droids moved cargo across the platform in neat, tired rows. A civilian long-haul transport waited at the far dock—weatherworn hull, visible weld seams, battered but functional.

Anya stood near the boarding ramp, shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders, tunic hanging just loose enough to pass for a weary traveler’s. Her satchel was already packed and slung across her back, boots scuffed to look older than they were.

He almost expected to see the glint at her throat—the crystal she wore so openly, blue light catching like a shard of starfire. But the shawl and tunic hid it tonight. The absence was sharp enough that he noticed it before he meant to, and he wasn’t sure if the relief or the ache came stronger.

She looked ready.

Except she wasn’t.

Across from her, Obi-Wan stood with his hands folded into his sleeves, the long fall of his robe shifting in the wind. Copper-gold strands of hair lifted at his temple, catching the filtered light like burnished threads. He looked composed. Jedi-like. Untouchable.

But she saw it—the quiet tension in his jaw. The way his thumb tapped once, then again, against the edge of his sleeve. A rhythm she’d seen before battles. Or after nights when sleep wouldn’t come.

“You forgot to eat breakfast,” she said.

His eyes flicked toward her, faintly amused. “I had tea.”

“Tea isn’t food.”

His mouth almost curved. But didn’t.

They stood in silence a moment longer—wrapped in wind and shadow. Then, he stepped closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough for the Force between them to quiet. To listen.

Obi-Wan reached into his robe. “You’ll need this.”

He held out a small commlink—matte silver, slim enough to vanish in her palm. She took it without hesitation, her fingers brushing his.

“It’s encrypted,” he said. “Direct to me.”

She looked down at the device, then back up.

“I’ll try to call—” she murmured. “Every day.”

He nodded once, as if anchoring the promise.

His gaze lingered—too long. Then he pressed something else into her palm. Credit chips. Familiar weight. Warm from his hand.

She arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“For snacks,” he said softly. A beat. “Or anything else.”

Her smile caught him by surprise—wide, helpless, almost a laugh. Bright enough that it made something in his expression slip. Just for a second.

She tucked the credits into her belt. “You spoil me.”

He didn’t say anything. But the way he looked at her said everything.

A call echoed across the terminal—final boarding announcement.

Padmé reappeared from the docking corridor, adjusting the folds of her travel shawl. “They’re boarding.”

Anya turned back to Obi-Wan. Then—without hesitation—stepped forward and pressed her forehead gently to his.

The Force trembled between them. Not chaotic—just pulled tight, as if even it resisted the space that would soon stretch between them. A tether drawn too far, straining but unbroken.

Her breath brushed his skin. She didn’t say it. But it moved between them anyway—unspoken, unformed. A whisper in the Force that sounded too much like:

Stay.

His hand rose, brushing her braid once. A touch so light it barely disturbed the air. But it steadied something inside her.

“May the Force be with you, Master,” she whispered.

“And you, Anya.”

They parted, but the place where her skin had touched his still held its warmth. The bond hummed low, reluctant to let go.

She stepped back, gave him one last look, then turned toward the ramp where Padmé waited. Her boots echoed softly against the metal. Just before entering, she glanced back and raised two fingers in farewell.

He returned the gesture, his hand lowering slowly only after she vanished from sight.

The transport doors sealed behind her with a soft hiss. Obi-Wan didn’t move.

The world resumed without her.

A beat later, Captain Panaka appeared at his side, arms folded beneath his cloak.

“Should we be concerned?” the Captain asked.

Obi-Wan kept his gaze on the now-empty dock. “Anya is ready,” he said. “She’ll protect Senator Amidala with her life.”

Panaka grunted. “That I don’t doubt.”

A pause.

“But I am concerned about whatever nonsense they get up to together.”

That drew the faintest curve to Obi-Wan’s mouth. “That,” he said quietly, “makes two of us.”

The warmth faded as quickly as it came, leaving only the quiet ache of her absence.

The quarters were too quiet.

Obi-Wan moved with practiced ease—boots soft against the stone floor, robes half-folded over his arm. The filtered light through the narrow window slanted low across the floor. It was midday, but the clouds over Coruscant gave the Temple a muted cast, the kind that made every silence feel deeper.

He opened the armoire and paused.

One of his tunics was missing. Not just any—the one. Cream linen, warm-lined, frayed faintly at the cuffs. The one she always “borrowed” when he wasn’t looking.

He exhaled through his nose, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Of course.”

The faintest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—quick, private. Gone almost as soon as it arrived.

He pulled a darker tunic instead—thicker, better for rain. He folded it with precise, economical movements, but his mind was already elsewhere.

Kamino.

The system was gone from the Jedi Archives. Not corrupted—erased. Deliberately. That alone was cause for concern. The Archives didn’t make mistakes. Not of that kind. And certainly not about a system that had just resurfaced in connection to a Kaminoan saberdart and an elusive bounty hunter.

He stepped to the side table and retrieved a small holomap, loaded it into his datapad, then paused—his hand hovering above the display.

For nearly two years, the Republic had teetered on the edge of collapse. Systems breaking away. Blockades. Militarized factions forming behind closed doors. The Jedi had been dispatched, again and again, to hold the cracks together.

And this—this mission—felt like the pivot.

If there truly was a clone army, ready and waiting, that meant someone had planned for war.

Not to avoid it. But to win it.

Obi-Wan’s jaw tightened. He tucked the datapad into his satchel and fastened the flap.

He didn’t like politics. But he understood the game well enough to know when a piece had been moved too early… or too deliberately. And the Council had noticed it too.

That’s why they’d sent him.

He turned toward the armoire again to check the final compartments—standard field rations, water purification tabs, spare boots.

That’s when he saw it.

A small square of parchment, pinned to the cork wall above Anya’s desk.

Back soon. Don’t forget to eat. – A.

For a moment, he simply looked at it. Then he stepped closer and touched the edge, fingertips brushing the paper lightly—thoughtlessly.

The Force between them was quiet now. Stretched thin, like a thread drawn over distance. But not gone. Still warm. Still present.

He could feel her—distant, focused. Settled into motion. She was always more stable when she had a task. Even now, her presence hummed faintly at the edge of his awareness, a shape in the Force as familiar to him as his own breath.

He hadn’t expected the silence to feel like this.

He turned away, drawing his cloak over his shoulders.

The door hissed shut behind him with its usual finality, but the silence that followed felt heavier than usual.

Like the last quiet breath before a storm.

It was the fourth night aboard the public transport.

Stars streamed silently past the viewport, bright lines against a dark canvas. The hum of hyperspace filled the small cabin, steady and low, like a heartbeat in the hull. The lights were dimmed, casting the bunks and walls in a warm amber glow that made everything feel closer. Softer.

Anya sat cross-legged on the lower bunk, bare feet tucked beneath her, a pillow folded tight against her chest.

She wore loose grey sleep pants and Obi-Wan’s tunic—the oversized one she’d taken from their quarters a few days ago. She’d told herself she’d save it for later in the trip, when the distance felt heavier.

But once she’d unfolded the soft linen and caught that quiet trace of him—Temple incense, wind-dried cloth, something clean and steady in the seams—there was no putting it back.

She and Padmé had fallen into a rhythm without planning to. Late-night snacks, shared datapads, whispered jokes in the corridor. Arguments over the upcoming vote and the latest Senate bills. Laughter came easier now. So did quiet.

The refresher door hissed open, and Padmé stepped out in a nightgown of soft blue silk, her damp hair curling slightly from steam. She paused in the doorway, arms crossed, one brow arched—not just looking, but taking her in.

“That tunic could fit both of us. Is that what Jedi wear to bed now?”

Anya smirked. “Only when their official issue feels like sandpaper.”

Padmé’s eyes lingered on the drape of fabric over her shoulders before she looked away, amused. “You really brought nothing else?”

“I did, but this one’s my favorite.” Anya tugged at the oversized sleeve.

“From your Master.”

“He pretends not to notice when I steal his clothes.”

A knowing curve touched Padmé’s mouth before she crossed to the light controls, dimming them further. “When we reach the villa, I’ll lend you something that actually fits. I’ve offered every night. One of these days you’ll give in.”

“Never.”

Padmé’s smile lingered as she crossed the small space and settled beside her on the bunk, close enough that their knees brushed when either shifted. Her posture was looser than usual, the precision of her public self slipping away in the dim light.

The day had been spent wandering the common spaces—bad caf in hand, conversation drifting, letting the stares slide off them. The first day had been stiff. The second, tentative. By the fourth, silence between them no longer felt like distance.

Anya nudged her knee gently. “All right. Tell me more.”

“More?”

“About the actress. From your conference. Did you meet the bounty hunter too?”

Padmé groaned. “You actually watch Hearts of the Outer Rim?”

“Since it launched,” Anya said, grinning. “The bounty hunter is a tragic romantic. He bleeds emotions.”

“He bleeds something,” Padmé muttered. “They were both there. Barely speaking.”

Anya gasped, scandalized.

“He called her an ‘over-processed space princess with a bad accent.’”

Anya collapsed back on the bunk. “No.”

“She said he acts with his eyebrows and nothing else.”

“No!” Anya sat up, clutching her pillow. “They’re supposed to be in love. My entire worldview is shattered.”

“I thought you wanted the truth.”

“I want lies. Romantic lies. Preferably lit by a halo filter and underscored by violins.”

Padmé rolled her eyes, but her laugh was soft—and when Anya smiled back, she let herself hold the look a moment longer than necessary.

In the low light, the silver chain around Anya’s neck caught a faint glow, the blue crystal resting openly against her skin. It glimmered with each breath, sharp and beautiful, like a secret she’d chosen not to keep tonight.

The quiet settled again, unhurried. Anya leaned her cheek against the pillow, letting the hum of the ship fill the space. The tight coil of danger hadn’t vanished, but it had loosened—day by day—in shared space, in laughter, in the quiet return of something that felt like before.

It wasn’t the show. It wasn’t the gossip.

It was Padmé’s voice. Her presence. The way she still looked at Anya like she was someone worth knowing.

“I missed this,” Anya whispered.

Padmé reached over and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. Her fingers lingered a breath too long before withdrawing. “I missed you.”

A long silence stretched between them, warm and worn like a favorite blanket. No titles. No assignments. Just two women with bare feet, loose hair, and a thousand shared memories quietly stitching themselves back together.

Outside, the stars slid past like whispers.

Inside, Anya Skywalker and Padmé Amidala stayed up too late talking about bad holodramas and the little betrayals that somehow made them feel closer.

Five days had passed since his departure from Coruscant. Now it was Obi-Wan’s third night on Kamino.
Not that it made much difference.

The sky had been locked in storm since his arrival—endless gray-black clouds rolling in from the sea, rain falling in long, unbroken sheets across the landing platforms. The air carried salt and static, heavy enough to cling to the skin. It was the kind of weather that felt permanent.

The journey from Coruscant had taken nearly two days, long enough for urgency to settle into something colder. Sharper. Instinct had given way to calculation. Kamino. The dart. The erased archives. The possibility of an army. Who had ordered it? Why in secrecy? Who stood to benefit?
Every answer only led to more questions.

He’d spent the last few days tracing leads, reviewing files, walking the gleaming white corridors of Tipoca City with measured calm. Everything here was built to a purpose—walls without seams, floors without echo, air without warmth. A place engineered to strip away distraction, comfort, anything human.

He stepped into his assigned quarters. Larger than expected, but just as sterile: two beds, both neatly made; a console blinking in the corner; a desk without so much as a mark on it. The second bed—untouched.
Standard layout, he told himself.

Still, something in his chest pulled tight.

He set his satchel beside the far bed. The scent of sterilizer clung to the air, faintly undercut by ocean salt. The rain drummed against the window, steady and relentless.

Anya hadn’t called when she said she would. She’d promised every day. In the end, she’d called twice—once while Padmé was in the refresher, once mid-signal drop, her voice dissolving into static.
Thirty-six hours since the last one.

He unfastened his cloak, draped it over the chair, checked the security console out of habit. Then he sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the other.

He could almost see her there—sprawled diagonally, boots half-off, datapad alight with conspiracy theories about Kaminoan cloning protocols. Complaining about the lighting. The furniture. The way the air smelled “too clean.”

But there was only the smooth, untouched blanket.

He hadn’t meditated that evening. Couldn’t—not with the quiet pressing in like fog. He’d reread the same mission briefing three times and retained none of it.

The commlink chirped.

His breath caught.

He reached for it, thumb brushing the button.

Incoming Transmission: Skywalker.

Her face lit the small holopad. Dim cabin lights softened her features; she was curled on her side, hair mussed, Obi-Wan’s tunic unmistakable around her. His tunic. The sight was so familiar, so hers, that for a moment it felt like she was right there.

“Hi,” she said, grinning. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier. We hit the edge of the sector and the signal died. Did you know public transports still use three-decade-old relays? Padmé says it’s quaint. I say it’s sabotage disguised as charm.”

He didn’t speak. She didn’t seem to notice.

“She told me more about the actors,” Anya went on, “—they despise each other. Can you believe that? After that season finale kiss? Liars. The whole industry.”

Obi-Wan leaned back against the headboard without thinking, mirroring her posture. One arm folded behind his head. Eyes drifting shut. Letting her voice fill the cold, antiseptic space until it felt almost bearable.

She laughed—something about a droid malfunction, a spilled cup of caf—and the sound threaded through the rain, through the quiet, until it was all he could hear.

“Are you listening, Master?”

“Of course,” he murmured.

A pause. “Good.”

She didn’t sign off. Just kept talking, softer now. Like she knew he was half-asleep but wanted to keep him company anyway.

He thought of asking her to promise she’d call tomorrow—just to hear her say yes—but the words sat too close to need. He swallowed them and let her speak.

And for the first time since he’d arrived on Kamino, the room didn’t feel quite so empty.

The civilian transport touched down on Naboo on the sixth day.

Padmé hadn’t expected to enjoy the journey. Public transport was noisy, cramped, stripped of every comfort she was used to as a Senator.

But somehow, with Anya beside her in that little cabin—barefoot, wrapped in an oversized Jedi tunic she’d clearly stolen from her Master, talking endlessly about everything and nothing—it hadn’t mattered.

She’d started watching her more closely.

Noticing the way Anya’s legs folded beneath her when she read, the curve of calf and thigh beneath soft fabric.

The way her braid came loose by the end of every day, curls escaping in a halo that made her look unfairly young and impossibly beautiful.

The way her voice softened when telling stories about missions gone sideways, her hands gesturing broad arcs, muscles shifting under sun-browned skin.

The way her laugh seemed to press warmth into the air.

Padmé found herself leaning in when she spoke. Staying in those moments longer than she should have.

By the time they landed, the rhythm between them had taken root—shared meals, shared silences, shared warmth. They arrived early in the morning, a full day ahead of the Royal Guard.
Which meant one day. One unguarded day.

They spent it in the fields above the lake, bare feet brushing through wildflowers, wind catching their laughter. Anya moved with a bright, unselfconscious energy, pulling Padmé toward every patch of color, every drifting insect.

The sunlight caught on the blue crystal on her soft skin, swinging freely with every movement. It flashed whenever she turned her head, sharp and alive.

Padmé found herself watching the glint almost as much as the girl who wore it.

Later, they swam. Padmé had lent her a swimsuit—chosen with precision, under the guise of practicality. Anya had called it “tactical fashion,” and Padmé hadn’t denied it.

She hadn’t been prepared, though—Anya in sunlight, droplets of lakewater sliding down the curve of her shoulder, heat blooming across her skin. Strong arms braced against the stone ledge, waist narrowing to hips that flared in clean, striking lines, legs built for power and grace.

No Jedi robe to temper it. Just strength and sun and laughter.

Padmé barely remembered the aide dropping the tray. She hadn’t blamed him. She herself had been looking too long.

They dried on the wide stone steps of the villa, talking until the light began to fade. At some point, they ended up inside, pulling half of Padmé’s wardrobe apart in the sitting room. By the end, Anya’s pack bulged with leggings, tunics, and two delicate nightgowns she swore she didn’t need.

Tomorrow the guards would come. But tonight, there was only this—only the lake breeze, the scent of lilac, and the quiet knowledge that the hours left were few.

The fire was low, flickering gold. The windows stood open to the night air. Dinner had faded into wine, and wine into slow conversation.

They sat curled together on the loveseat, legs tangled under a blanket. The last of the wine caught the firelight in its glass. Anya was telling a story—something about Obi-Wan, a diplomatic misunderstanding, and a herd of livestock with an unfortunate appreciation for poetry.

Padmé was smiling, but not listening to the words.

Her gaze had drifted to the kyber at Anya’s throat, swaying just above the line of her gown. Whoever had given it to her had known exactly what they were doing. The length drew the eye to the hollow of her collar, to the slope of her neckline—deliberate, calculating.

Palpatine’s gift, she realized. That cunning man.

Her gaze rose to Anya’s mouth—the way her lips curved around her sentences, the way they softened when she paused. The flicker of firelight in her eyes when she glanced over.

Padmé leaned in.

She didn’t think about it. She simply closed the last inches.

Anya stilled mid-word, breath catching. “…Padmé?”

Her name in that voice—quiet, uncertain—pulled at something deep. Padmé kissed her.

Anya’s inhale shivered through her, a startled gasp against Padmé’s mouth. Then her lips parted, tentative but real, and Padmé deepened the kiss, her hand sliding to Anya’s jaw.

She felt the faint tremor beneath her fingertips. Anya’s hand found her waist—hesitating before settling, the other curling in the blanket as if to anchor herself. She kissed back—first cautious, then certain—until their breaths tangled in the warm air.

Padmé shifted forward, gently pressing her back into the cushions. Their thighs tangled. Her fingers brushed the edge of the gown Anya wore, skimming along warm skin. Anya arched before she realized it, lips parting wider—

And froze.

Her hands rose between them, palms pressing lightly to Padmé’s ribs. “I—” Her voice caught. “I can’t, Padmé.”

Padmé stilled, breathing uneven. She didn’t pull away right away. “Is it because you’re a Jedi?”

Anya’s lips parted again, but no answer came.

Padmé searched her face. “Or,” she said softer now, “because your heart already belongs to someone else?”

Silence stretched, but the answer was there—in her eyes, in the ache between them, in the Force itself pulling taut and quiet.

Padmé’s mouth curved—not bitter, just knowing. She brushed a loose curl from Anya’s temple. “Master Kenobi is a very lucky man.”

Anya’s lips trembled. She still didn’t speak.

Padmé leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple—farewell folded into touch—before rising. Her hand lingered at Anya’s shoulder for one heartbeat longer.

“I’ll see you for breakfast.”

And then she was gone, leaving Anya in the golden firelight, alone with the warmth still lingering on her lips and the truth she hadn’t needed to speak aloud.

The villa was silent now.

Padmé’s footsteps had faded down the hall. The wine glasses were gone. The fire was down to embers. The blanket lay on the floor.

Anya hadn’t moved. She sat curled on the loveseat, knees drawn tight, her head resting where Padmé’s perfume still lingered—floral, warm, familiar.

The kiss lingered too.

Her lips still tingled. Not with yearning. Not regret. Just the memory—the shape, the heat, the press of it.

She’d noticed Padmé’s gaze before, lingering and curious. But the kiss had still caught her off guard. One moment, laughter. The next, her mouth was full of someone else’s breath. Someone else’s want.

And for a heartbeat, she’d let go—let her body answer without her mind.

It wasn’t her first kiss. There had been others, stolen in the margins of missions and galas. Brief, meaningless indulgences—when Obi-Wan wasn’t watching, when she could pretend to be someone else.

And Padmé… Padmé was no different. Heat, yes. Hunger, yes. But no ache. No anchor in her chest. No hum in her blood. No resonance.

Her gaze drifted to the dying fire. And without meaning to, she thought of him. And she wondered—just once, just briefly—how it would feel to kiss him.

Not as her Master. Not as the one who steadied her. But as the man who saw her—entirely—and stayed anyway.

They had always been close. Always touched without thinking. Sparring. Resting. Leaning into each other, half-asleep, during long transports. Fingers brushing. Shoulders aligned. Breath shared. The lines had blurred. Then vanished.    

It had always been simple.

Until it wasn’t.

Until the day in the training halls when he’d pinned her—wrists caught, back flush to the mat, his breath unsteady above hers.

Until the night in Coruscant, when he stood in the crowd and watched her dance under red-gold lights, as if he’d never seen her before.

Until the night before she left. When she curled into his side as she always had—and the Force between them pulsed like a held breath. His hand lingered in her hair, his temple pressed to hers, and when he kissed her there—gentle, instinctive—it hadn’t been routine. It hadn’t been nothing.

These moments lived in her now, sharper than memory, threaded through with the knowledge that it wasn’t one-sided.

That he felt it, too.

And here—kissed by someone else—she could still feel him. The phantom beat of his heart beneath her ear. The pull of the bond, warm and aching, like a promise unspoken.

No touch had ever stayed behind in her ribs like his.

No presence had ever made her feel like she might come undone—without a word, without a touch.

Only his.

Her jaw tightened. She tried not to feel it. Tried not to want it.

They were Jedi, and duty came first.

Even when her heart had always been his.

She exhaled—and sleep took her before she could feel the bond stir again.

The commlink beeped softly in the dark.

Obi-Wan blinked awake, the sound slicing through the unending drone of rain against Tipoca City’s high windows. The storm hadn’t let up in days. It never did.

He sat up slowly, the cot narrow and cold beneath him. His shoulders ached from long hours bent over Kaminoan data terminals, his spine stiff with the strain. The second bed in the suite remained untouched—its sheets still perfectly smoothed. Too much space for just one.

Without thinking, he reached for the comm.

Incoming transmission: Skywalker.

The holo shimmered to life.

Anya’s face flickered into view—dim-lit, curls loose, a faint sheen of sweat catching the light. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, and the moment the connection steadied, he felt it.

A ripple in the bond.

Not fear alone. Something older. Heat. Grit. Loneliness worn into the bone.

“Anya?” His voice cut sharper than he meant. “What’s wrong?”

Her lips parted, breath stuttering.

“I… had a nightmare.”

He said nothing, letting her speak.

“It’s been so long since I dreamt of the sand,” she whispered. “I was standing in the desert. The air was so hot it burned to breathe. My feet sank in—it felt endless in every direction. And then—”

Her throat worked.

“I heard her. My mama. Not just her voice—the way she used to say my name when she was afraid. But she was screaming, Master. In pain. I couldn’t see her, couldn’t find her. I kept running but the horizon never got closer. The sun just… kept getting hotter.”

Her fingers tightened on the comm until her knuckles paled. “I woke up, but it still feels like I left her there.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes for a breath. The ache in her voice dug deep beneath his ribs. She almost never spoke of her mother—not like this. He knew how deeply she’d buried that part of herself. To hear it surface again…

“Do you think it could be real?” she asked, barely more than a breath.

“You think it was a Force vision?”

“I don’t know. It felt real. Too real.” Her voice wavered. “I’m scared.”

The word hit him like a physical blow She never said it lightly.

He lifted a hand to the hologram—almost touched it—then stopped. His fingers curled back into his palm. Useless, across a transmission. The instinct to touch her was so strong it startled him.

“We’ll be together soon,” he said softly, voice low enough to be almost a promise. “We’ll figure it out. I swear it.”

Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. Not all.

She looked down, then back up. “Can you stay?”

The Force pressed between them—warm, unyielding. His chest tightened until it hurt.

He didn’t hesitate. “As long as you need.”

She shifted out of sight, curling onto what must have been the villa couch, the comm still propped close. When her face returned to the frame, her eyes were half-closed, her breathing slower. He found himself matching it without trying.

Neither of them spoke again.

Obi-Wan stayed in the sterile Kaminoan suite, listening to her breathe through the static and the storm—slow, steady, alive. Hers.

He closed his eyes, letting it wrap around him like warmth on cold stone.

He told himself it was only duty. That she needed his steadiness, nothing more. That her voice in the dark didn’t make his chest ache in ways he could barely stand. That he hadn’t been waiting all day for this call.

Lies, every one.

Still, he stayed.

Because in the quiet between her breaths, the part of him that should have resisted had already given up.

Chapter Text

The villa was awash in morning gold. Sunlight poured through tall arches, scattering across pale stone floors. Beyond the terrace, the lake gleamed like glass, lilac on the breeze softening the air.

At the door, the Royal Guard stood like statues, scarlet robes unmoving. Their presence was a reminder: the reprieve was over.

Anya waited near the balcony steps, satchel slung over her shoulder, cloak folded in her arms. Loose curls caught the light in threads of bronze. Padmé’s gaze lingered longer than she meant before she forced herself back to composure.

With a word, she dismissed the guards. When the chamber was theirs alone, she crossed the floor with measured grace.

“I trust last night will not cast a shadow over our friendship,” she said, voice calm, assured.

Relief broke across Anya’s face in a smile so bright it made Padmé’s chest ache. “Never. You matter too much for that.”

“Good.” Padmé inclined her head, then gestured toward the terrace doors. “Come. I want to show you something.”

They descended the steps to the hangar platform. Morning air curled cool around them, carrying the scent of wet earth and blossoms. Waiting in the sunlight was a starfighter—sleek, silver and gold, Naboo’s newest craft gleaming like a jewel against the sky.

Anya stopped short. “By the stars…”

She moved forward slowly, reverent, one hand lifting to brush the curve of the hull. Wonder flickered across her face, unguarded, hungry. She circled the ship, words tumbling faster with every step.

“Radial engines—reinforced. She’d eat a climb like nothing. Stabilizers with no drag. The cockpit—everything right where it should be. If it were mine, I would—”

“It is,” Padmé said softly.

Anya’s head snapped up, curls bouncing. “What?”

“It’s yours,” Padmé answered, warmth threading through her formality. “The Queen insisted. I agreed. Not a gift—recognition. A promise that Naboo will always stand with you.”

Anya bit her lip, torn between longing and disbelief. “It’s too much. The Council will never—”

Padmé leaned closer, conspiratorial, silk over steel. “It was Sheev’s idea. With a Senator, a Queen, and the Chancellor behind it… they won’t dare object.”

For a breath, Anya only stared. Then her grin broke wide and helpless. She launched forward, throwing her arms around Padmé with such force it nearly toppled her. Padmé staggered, catching her with a startled laugh—unguarded, bright—as Anya’s embrace tightened, fierce and radiant.

When she finally drew back, eyes alight, Padmé steadied her hand on her arm. Her voice gentled.

“Bring yourself back in one piece. The ship can be replaced.”

“I promise.”

They embraced once more, quieter this time, before Anya mounted the ramp. At the top she turned, lifted two fingers in farewell, and vanished into the cockpit.

Padmé lingered on the terrace as the engines roared to life, the sound reverberating through stone, the wind tugging at her gown. She watched until the starfighter dwindled to a streak of silver, then nothing at all.

Her hand brushed her lips before falling back to her side.

The kiss would fade. The friendship would endure.

Still, despite herself, she smiled faintly.

Lucky man indeed.

The storm on Kamino was endless. Rain fell in silver sheets, flattening horizon and sea into the same gray expanse. Salt clung to the air, sharp as metal, layered with the chemical tang of sterilizer that seemed to seep into everything in Tipoca City. The platform gleamed slick beneath Obi-Wan’s boots, trembling faintly with each wave striking far below.

He had not moved in some time. His cloak was heavy with water, hair plastered to his temple, but he stood still at the platform’s edge. The bond lingered at the edge of his awareness, stretched thin, nearly silent. For more than a week it had been that way—too faint to reach. He had not realized how much it cost him until now.

Then—sudden, bright, undeniable—it flared.

She was here.

The Naboo starfighter broke through the clouds in a blaze of silver and gold, slicing the storm as if sunlight itself had torn the sky apart. Too alive, too radiant for this sterile place. As the ship descended, the bond surged—flooding into him, filling hollows he hadn’t known were empty until they were whole again. His chest ached with the force of it.

The cockpit opened.

Anya vaulted down, boots splashing into shallow rain. Water streamed down her braid, clung to her lashes, plastered the tunic to her skin. She should have looked bedraggled. Instead, she smiled as if she had outrun the storm itself—radiant, unshaken, alive.

“Maker, this place is miserable,” she called over the rain, striding toward him. “Cold, wet, and it smells like someone bottled sterilizer for air—”

Her words broke the instant she reached him. Without hesitation, she slid her arms around his torso, pressing close, her head fitting against his shoulder as if it had always belonged there.

And Obi-Wan, for the first time in days, breathed.

The bond roared back to life—not a frayed thread but a current, fierce and undeniable, rushing between them until every hollow ache went still. The storm itself seemed to pause, rain slackening for a heartbeat, as though the Force had sighed with them.

Anya exhaled against his collar, laughter trembling in her breath, though her arms only tightened. She hadn’t realized how empty she had felt until this moment either. Warmth filled her so quickly it left her shivering.

His hands rose to brace her back, fingers curling at her waist. He told himself it was only to steady her on the slick platform. But he did not let go.

“You didn’t call every day,” he murmured at last, gentled, more confession than reproach.

She tipped her face toward his, curls damp against his jaw, smiling as if caught. “I brought you a starfighter instead. That should count for something.”

One brow arched. “A starfighter?”

“Newest Naboo model.” Her voice quickened, eager, tumbling fast the way it always did when she tried to hold joy too big for her. “Reinforced engines, flawless stabilizers, cockpit so clean it feels like silk. Padmé insisted I take it. And—” her grin turned conspiratorial—“the Queen and the Chancellor approved. Tell me even the Council will argue with that.”

Obi-Wan almost missed her words. He was too busy watching the light blaze across her face even through the rain, joy burning against gray like fire.

“You’re impossible,” he said softly. It should have been reprimand but it came out reverent.

“Maybe.” Her smile softened. “But you missed me.”

He should have denied it. Should have smiled, turned aside. Instead his hand lifted, cupping her cheek, rain-cold curls brushing his knuckles. She leaned into the touch without hesitation, as if she too had been starving for it.

Their foreheads touched.

The storm vanished—or perhaps it raged louder than ever. He could not tell. All he knew was the bond thrumming steady, alive, filling every hollow space it had left behind. There you are.

Anya’s breath stuttered, her fingers tightening at his waist as if to anchor him there. For a long moment, neither moved. Neither wanted to.

When he finally pulled back, it was slow, reluctant. His hand lingered before falling. He smoothed his expression, reclaiming composure. “Try not to crash this one,” he murmured.

Her laughter rang bright enough to cut the storm in two.

And though he tried to hide it, he found himself smiling too.

They walked side by side through Tipoca’s corridors, the city curving in seamless white arcs, humming faintly with hidden machinery. Light reflected cold from the floors and walls, the transparisteel panels rattling with every gust of rain. It felt hollow. Lifeless.

Inside their quarters, Anya tugged her damp cloak free and hung it neatly beside his. Then, with a dramatic sigh, she threw herself face-first onto the nearest bed, curls spilling across the sterile pillow.

“I am so tired,” she groaned into the coverlet.

Even here—in a room scrubbed of color—she looked irrepressibly alive. The tunic clung damp against her, tracing the long lines of her body, the flare of her hips, the curve of her thighs. Obi-Wan’s gaze lingered a beat too long, heat catching low in his chest before he drew it back with a practiced breath. Too long. Too much. He smoothed his features.

“You did not make any stops,” he said, tone clipped. “It’s expected.”

She rolled onto her side, chin propped on her hand, a slow smile curling across her face. “I made it in eighteen hours, Master. That ship is a dream.”

His lips threatened to curve before he mastered them.

A knock came at the door—precise, polite.

Anya sat up at once. In a heartbeat, the teasing girl on the bed was gone. She smoothed her tunic, pushed curls back over her shoulders, and by the time he opened the door, her expression was the very picture of composure.

Taun We stood in the hall, tall and pale, voice smooth and measured. “Master Kenobi. Padawan Skywalker. Your timing is impeccable. Mr. Fett returned earlier today. The Prime Minister has arranged a dinner so that you may both meet him.”

Anya inclined her head with practiced grace, her voice even. “We will be there.”

She shared a glance with Obi-Wan—quick, knowing, layered with more than words. The storm between them had not settled.

And outside, the real one raged on.

The corridors of Tipoca gleamed under cold light, reflections stretching pale across the floor as she and Obi-Wan walked side by side. Outside, the storm rattled faintly against transparisteel, but inside, silence reigned—engineered, sterile, suffocating in its precision.

They wore their formal robes, deep navy fabric falling clean and precise. She had been the one to pack them, as always; left to himself, he would have brought nothing but plain Jedi garb. The shade suited her—sharp shoulders, fitted lines, the color brightening the blue of her eyes. At her throat, her kyber crystal caught pale light like fire bottled in glass.

Beside her, his robes matched. By design. A habit long-ingrained, making them appear less like Master and Padawan, more like equals. She tugged at her sleeve, lips curving.

“What would you do without me, Master?”

He gave her a sidelong glance, expression schooled though the corners of his mouth betrayed him. “Most likely arrive in plain Jedi robes and offend our hosts without realizing.”

Her laugh warmed the hollow corridor. She looked at him again, gaze lingering. She had seen him in these robes countless times before, but tonight—matched to her, stride aligned, copper hair bright against navy cloth—he struck her anew. Handsome. Striking. And she let herself enjoy the sight, if only for a moment.

The dining chamber loomed ahead, doors flanked by Kaminoan attendants. The panels parted, revealing a room as immaculate as the rest of the city—arched walls seamless and pale, a long white table gleaming under steady light.

At its head sat Prime Minister Lama Su, Taun We poised behind. Their pale eyes swept over both Jedi, but lingered longer on her—the navy robes, the glint of crystal, the painted lips against a face too vivid for their sterile world. Even their impassive gazes tilted slightly, as though noting something unexpected.

Opposite sat Jango Fett. Broad-shouldered, armored, his presence wound sharp as a wire. His gaze found her and held. Not admiration, not disdain—but it lingered. Longer than formality required. A soldier’s measure sharpened by something colder. At his side, the boy stared more openly. Boba’s eyes fixed on her face, curious and unblinking, before darting down the instant she noticed.

“Master Kenobi. Padawan Skywalker. Your presence honors us,” Lama Su intoned, voice smooth as glass.

Obi-Wan inclined his head, every line composed. She bowed in the same instant, robes shifting cleanly with the motion. Seamless. Deliberate. United.

They sat together, navy fabric falling in mirrored lines, two shadows against white. The rhythm of diplomacy came as second nature: Obi-Wan’s voice measured, each phrase shaped with care; Anya following in the spaces between, warm where his was cool, intuitive where his was deliberate.

Not rehearsed, but lived-in. Years of practice had honed them into a single cadence. Where he steadied, she brightened. Where he pressed, she eased. They did not need to look at each other to know.

“We’re eager to see the clones,” Anya said, truth brightening her tone. Her mouth curved faintly as she turned toward her Master. “I can’t believe he has been here a full week and has only seen them from a distance.”

Her words sparked a ripple—Taun We’s neck tilted, Lama Su blinked once—but her smile carried the jest, playful rather than sharp.

Obi-Wan’s brow rose, his voice dry. “I have been occupied reviewing the documentation, Padawan.”

She smothered a laugh behind her cup, warmth threading between them even here.

Taun We inclined her head smoothly. “That can be arranged. A tour of the facilities will be prepared tomorrow.”

Delight curved Anya’s mouth. “Perfect. I look forward to it.”

Lama Su’s pale gaze shifted to Fett. “You are aware, of course, that Mr. Fett is more than our donor. He also directs the planning and oversees their training.”

Her attention shifted. “That must be quite the responsibility. And one you must enjoy—living here, guiding them?”

Jango’s gaze locked with hers. Unblinking. Deliberate. “It serves its purpose.”

Nothing more.

She held the silence, smiling faintly, giving him room to elaborate. He didn’t. If anything, his mouth twitched—amusement, faint and cutting, at her attempt to draw him out. Her charm, so often devastating, had struck nothing here but steel. The refusal itself was an answer: testing, weighing.

So she turned instead to the boy. Her tone softened. “And you, Boba? Do you like it here?”

The child straightened instantly, small shoulders squaring. “I’m already used to it.” Then, after a beat, pride cracked through. “But… I like the sun, when we leave Kamino.”

Her smile gentled. “The sun is better than endless rain.”

Obi-Wan’s voice entered smoothly. “You travel often, then?”

The boy’s eyes flicked toward his father, but pride tipped him forward. “Papa is the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. He gets a lot of jobs.”

The words landed like a stone. The Kaminoans betrayed nothing. Jango’s face did not move. But the boy’s pride had cracked the shell.

That was when Obi-Wan’s leg brushed hers beneath the table—firm, deliberate. A signal. Her eyes stayed forward, but she felt the warning echo through the bond: Too much coincidence. The assassin they had been chasing, almost forgotten in the shadow of this army, might be seated across from them now.

She did not let it touch her face. Her smile curved silk over steel. “How curious, Mr. Fett. A pastime?”

His mouth twitched again—not a smile, but something close. “It keeps me in shape. That’s all that matters.”

He held her gaze too long. Deliberate. A challenge sharpened into a test.

Her fingers brushed the chain at her throat, grounding herself in the crystal’s smooth edge. She answered with the same bright warmth she had worn all evening. “Then I’m sure we’ll see the results tomorrow.”

And she smiled once more—easy, disarming, as though nothing of weight had passed at all—while under the table, her leg pressed lightly back against Obi-Wan’s.

Yes. They both knew.

The quarters were hushed save for the low hum of the storm pressing against transparisteel. Obi-Wan reclined on his bed, dressed simply in tunic and cotton pants, datapad balanced in one hand. Reports scrolled past in pale lines, unread. He told himself he was working.

From the fresher came the steady hiss of water. Then it cut off. Fabric rustled, bare feet shifted against tile.

“You have to admit it, Master,” Anya called through the door, playful. “I’m your lucky charm.”

He lowered the datapad slightly, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Lucky charm?”

“I arrive, and suddenly Fett appears. At dinner, it comes out he’s a bounty hunter.” A pause, the slide of cloth. “And I got us the tour—which, I still cannot believe, you hadn’t pushed for already.”

He exhaled through his nose. She wasn’t wrong. In hours she had cracked what he’d been circling for days. Fett revealed. The Kaminoans conceding ground. A path into the heart of the facility. Her presence was movement. Always.

The fresher door slid open.

Anya padded out barefoot, curls damp and clinging to flushed cheeks. She wore loose sleeping shorts and a tunic—his tunic. Not borrowed. Not offered. The one she had stolen before Naboo. Carried across systems, worn in silence while he had been left with nothing but absence.

He had seen her like this countless times before—oversized tunic, bare legs slipping easily into bed after long missions. Familiar. Harmless.

But tonight, it struck differently.

Her legs stretched long beneath the hem, golden skin catching the low light. Toned, strong, endless. Her hips curved beneath the loose fall of fabric, the cotton sliding soft over her waist, brushing the bare slope of her chest beneath. And the tunic itself—his tunic. Once his. Now hers. It burned him to see it cling to her, to know she had carried it with her, slept in it, claimed it.

His throat tightened. He tore his eyes back to the datapad, words collapsing into blur.

“You should rest,” he said, voice too even. “You haven’t slept in more than a day. Tomorrow will be long.”

She only sighed, crossing the room with unhurried grace. The sheets rustled as she slipped into the bed opposite his, curls scattering over the pillow. She burrowed beneath the covers with a soft hum of contentment. He dimmed the lights, leaving only the storm’s glow shimmering faintly on the glass.

For a while, silence stretched. He stared at the datapad, but his eyes betrayed him—straying to the shift of fabric as she settled. She had always liked to sleep with one leg bare, kicked free of the covers, and tonight was no different. The hem of his tunic rode high, golden skin bare against the sheets, her thigh long in the dim light.

He forced his eyes back to the datapad. Looked again. Again. Until at last he set it aside altogether.

The bond hummed in the quiet, louder now, filling every hollow space. It felt like the storm outside—unrelenting, insistent, impossible to ignore.

“I missed you, Master.”

Her voice was quiet but certain. His heart clenched. He turned.

She was watching him, blue eyes luminous in the dark, curls damp against the pillow, lips parted slightly. She looked impossibly young and yet not at all—her presence filling the room the way the storm filled the sea.

“I missed you too, Anya.”

The words slipped out softer than he meant. Too soft. Too true.

Her smile curved faintly, and her eyes drifted closed, breath easing into slow rhythm.

But Obi-Wan did not move. The storm battered the transparisteel, the sea pounding the platform below.

Across from him, wrapped in his tunic with one leg bared to the sheets, she breathed steady. Familiar. And tonight, unbearable.

Sleep would not come easily.

The desert stretched without end. Dunes rippled to the horizon, molten gold beneath the glare of twin suns. The heat was merciless—pressing down, reflected back from the sand, scalding her lungs with every breath. Sweat stung her eyes, her skin burning as though she had been left to wither beneath the sky. It was worse than she remembered.

Then—

Anya! Oh, my child!

Her heart seized. She knew that voice. She would always know it. “Mama? Mama! Where are you?”

Only silence.

Help me… please… gods, just take me…

“Mama!” Panic ripped her chest. Sand lashed upward, stinging her face, the storm spiraling higher as if even the desert echoed her desperation.

The ground gave way beneath her feet.

She fell—through heat, through grit, into suffocating dark.

The first thing that struck her was the stench. Sweat. Blood. Rot. The air clung damp and rancid against her skin, heavy enough to choke her.

Shapes wavered, then sharpened.

A cot. Rusted chains, links caked in filth. A figure bound to it.

Her.

Shmi Skywalker.

Anya’s breath fractured. Her mother lay gaunt and broken—skin stretched thin, hollow cheeks fever-bright. Bruises marred every inch of her body, wrists torn raw where manacles bit into flesh. Sweat drenched her, soaking hair and linens alike. Her chest heaved with effort, each exhale a struggle.

“Mama!” Anya dropped to her knees. Her hands reached, trembling—only to pass through empty air. No warmth. No resistance. As if Shmi were smoke. “No—please! I’m here! Look at me, I’m here!”

Shmi’s eyes fluttered open, glazed with fever. Her lips parted, cracked and dry. “Anya… my baby…” Tears spilled weakly across her temples. “I prayed you’d never see me like this.”

“No!” Anya sobbed, frantic. “Don’t say that! You’re going to be all right—I’ll get you out, I swear it—just see me, Mama, please see me!”

Anya.

A voice cut through the dark. Not hers. Low. Familiar.

She shook her head violently. “No! I can’t leave her—I can’t!”

She clawed at the chains, at her mother’s hand, at anything to keep her anchored—but her touch slid through, over and over. Shmi sagged back against the cot, breath so shallow it barely stirred her chest.

Anya. The voice again. Closer now. Urgent. Wake up.

“No!” Her scream cracked her throat. “Mama! MAMA!”

The world snapped apart.

Anya jolted upright with a gasp, lungs heaving, curls plastered damp to her temples. Sweat soaked her clothes, her body shaking with the force of it. The storm rattled against the transparisteel, its steady drumbeat merging with the pounding of her heart.

A hand settled gently on her shoulder. The mattress dipped beside her.

“Anya.” Obi-Wan’s voice. Quiet. Grounded.

She turned to him—and broke. The sobs came hot and raw, spilling out before she could stop them. Grief, rage, impotence—all of it crashing loose.

He gathered her instantly, no hesitation. His arms wrapped around her, firm and steady, holding her as if nothing else in the galaxy mattered.

“I—I couldn’t help her,” she gasped, her voice muffled against his tunic.

“Your mother again?” His tone was soft, tender, though his jaw tightened where she couldn’t see.

She nodded hard. “I saw her. She was in so much pain. They—they hurt her. There was so much blood.” Her eyes lifted to his, wide and stricken. “She called for me. But she couldn’t see me.”

Obi-Wan’s chest ached at the sight of her—so strong in battle, so fierce in defiance, now trembling and undone in his arms. He lifted her chin gently, cupping her face. His thumbs brushed tears away, though more kept falling. “A nightmare, or a vision, dear one?”

Her breath hitched. “It felt real. Too real. I could smell it, feel the heat of her skin. It wasn’t like the last one.”

He exhaled slowly, drawing her against him again, his own heart steady where hers faltered. She clung tight, her fists knotted in his tunic as though the storm outside had broken into her veins and he alone held her together.

“A Force vision, then,” he murmured into her hair.

Her sob cracked again. “What are we going to do? I can’t—I won’t leave her like that.”

He pressed his lips against her temple, his hand sliding through her damp curls, his other arm firm around her shoulders. “I know. And I would never ask you to.”

His thoughts churned beneath the calm words—Kamino, the clones, Fett, the Council waiting. And her mother’s cries threading through it all.

“We’ll take the tour tomorrow. Then speak with Fett. After that…” He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, steady, unflinching. “We’ll go.”

Her voice was a whisper, broken. “You’ll come with me?”

Something twisted deep inside him. He smoothed a curl from her cheek, his hand lingering there, thumb brushing her skin. “Of course, Padawan of mine. You won’t face this alone.”

Her eyes brimmed, but she nodded, trembling still, before pressing herself back into his chest. He held her through the ragged breaths, through the shudder of her body, through the storm’s relentless battering on the glass.

Outside, rain lashed harder against transparisteel, the sea below hammering the platform, the wind keening against Tipoca’s hollow spires.

Inside, silence pressed close, broken only by the sound of her sobs easing and the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her ear.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, anchoring her tighter, telling himself it would be enough.

But the Force thrummed low between them, restless, insistent—like the storm itself, warning of what was still to come.