Padmé's Naboo skiff broke from hyperspace into the scatter of rock and white light that was Polis Massa. Docking beacons pulsed in a soft arc; the medical array spun slow and serene, its bays opening like petals to receive the wounded.
On a viewing gantry above the hangar, Yoda stood beside Senator Bail Organa, the Senator's composure tethered to a fragile, eager hope.
"There," Bail breathed, pointing as the skiff angled in. "They're back."
The skiff kissed the deck. Heat haze shimmered off its scorched hull.
Obi-Wan came down the ramp with Padmé in his arms.
Hope died in Bail's eyes before the ramp finished lowering. Padmé's hair was matted with blood; a scarlet streak ran from her nose over her lip. The front of her gown was soaked dark from the waist down, the cloth clinging, still wet. One arm dangled, hand twitching only when the ship's angle shifted. Her breath was thin, catching.
"Med team!" Bail shouted, voice cracking as Polis Massan orderlies and two midwife droids hurried forward with a grav-gurney.
Obi-Wan didn't slow until the gurney met him. He laid her down with more reverence than any vow he had ever made. "She needs neurosurgery and an OB trauma team," he said, too calm, because his voice could not be trusted. "Now."
The taller droid—a GH-7—scanned in a sweep of blue light, lenses ticking as data poured in. "Patient presents with severe closed head injury. Occipital impact with basilar skull fracture—note epistaxis and bilateral mastoid ecchymosis. Acute subdural hematoma suspected. Intracranial pressure rising. Pupillary response sluggish." Its modulators clicked again, dropping to the abdomen. "Blunt abdominal trauma with uterine wall contusion. Significant vaginal bleeding. Retroplacental hematoma—placental abruption. Fetal heart tones present but decelerating. Maternal hypovolemia, coagulopathy likely. Prognosis for the mother is… grave."
Bail's hands gripped the rail until the bones showed. He turned on Obi-Wan. "What happened? Did he attack her? Did Anakin do this?"
Obi-Wan swallowed. The word stuck, then tore loose. "No." A beat. "I—"
Yoda's ears tilted, already bracing.
"It was fast," Obi-Wan said, the confession shaking him apart. "I went to break his line. He slipped it and—" He forced himself to finish. "I… kicked her."
Bail stared. "You what?"
A tremor ran through Obi-Wan's hands. He couldn't meet anyone's eyes. "It was a roundhouse meant for him. She stepped between us."
Yoda closed his eyes and let out a breath that sounded like years. He did not speak. The droids did, because someone had to.
"Prep for emergent delivery," GH-7 said to its counterpart. "Neuro consult on standby. We can stabilize intracranial pressure, but maternal reserves are minimal. Optimal strategy to salvage life: immediate assisted birth to reduce strain. Begin fluids, tranexamic infusion, wide-bore access, crossmatch O-negative."
They pushed the gurney at a run. Obi-Wan moved with it until the doors forced him to let go. He stood in the corridor, hands hovering dumbly in the air where her weight had been a heartbeat ago.
Bail rounded on him again despite himself. "You brought her here like this. You expect—" He bit the rest off like it tasted foul. "Maker help us."
Yoda's cane tapped once, a soft gavel. "Inside, we go. Useful in the hall, grief is not."
They entered the stark white of the birthing theatre. Lights poured down like noon on snow. The air smelled of antiseptic and recirculated hope. Polis Massan medtechs moved with silent efficiency, hands signing quick language that their voiceboxes translated for the droids.
Padmé stirred on the table, a low sound grating in her throat. Obi-Wan was at her side before the impulse finished forming.
"Obi-Wan," she whispered, finding him through the brightness. Her pupils were unequal; her gaze slid, then caught. "Is… is he all right?" Her breath hitched as the GH-7 placed a monitor dome over her belly. "Did you reach him? Did you calm him down?"
The truth had razors. Obi-Wan swallowed them anyway. "Padmé… he fell." His voice broke on the past tense. "Into the lavafall. I couldn't—he's gone."
Her face crumpled without sound. Tears pooled, then streaked over her temples into her hair. She turned her head as if to look past the ceiling toward a different sky. "Anakin," she said, and there was so much love and ruin in the name that the room should have bowed.
"Fetal heart rate dropping," the droid reported gently, as if softness could soften the math. "We must proceed."
Another contraction took her. Padmé gripped the sheets. Obi-Wan reached for her hand and stopped, because the old reflex—it will be all right—had no place here. He closed his fingers around hers anyway, not promising, just being.
"Breathe with me," he said. It came out as prayer.
Yoda moved to the foot of the bed, small and unmoving, presence settled like a stone in a river. Bail stood back, hands clasped behind him in a statesman's pose that fooled no one.
Minutes became counted breaths, measured words, clean instructions. The second droid guided, coaxed, adjusted. The GH-7 called out numbers no one wanted to hear. Obi-Wan felt Padmé's fingers weaken in his.
A thin cry lifted into the lights.
The midwife droid held up a wriggling, furious bundle, wrapped in white, voice modulator pitched soft. "A healthy male. Weight within range. Respiratory strong. Neonatal vitals stable."
Padmé's head turned. "Let me see him."
Obi-Wan took the child without thinking and lowered him to her. The tiny face, red and wet, scrunched in protest at the universe. A shock of dark hair. An impossible familiarity around the eyes even when they were still closed.
"Luke," she whispered, relief and resolution braided into the name. "His name is Luke."
The GH-7's tone shifted. "Maternal blood pressure falling. Pupillary asymmetry worsening. Ventricular hemorrhage likely. We are losing her."
Obi-Wan bent close. "Stay," he begged, and the old Jedi could not recognize his own voice. "Please, Padmé. Stay."
She looked at him like she was looking through him, past him, to the boy and the life he would have. "Raise him right," she said, words thin and lucid. Her fingers found Obi-Wan's wrist and squeezed. "I forgive you." She managed a tiny smile at the panic on his face. "I know you didn't mean it. It was an accident. And… I'm sure Anakin is still safe." A breath. "There is still… light."
He shook his head, tears finally breaking free. "Padmé—"
Her hand loosened. The monitor sang one long, clean note and then none at all.
Silence settled like snow.
Obi-Wan bowed his head to her shoulder and wept in the quiet way of a man who had run out of words years ago. The Force around Yoda dimmed in mourning. Bail's jaw flexed once; his knuckles were white behind his back.
Luke fussed, a soft question. The sound pulled Obi-Wan upright. The midwife droid clipped and sealed the cord with deft hands, then eased the child into Obi-Wan's arms.
He looked down and saw Anakin in the angle of a cheek, in the stubborn set of a mouth that did not yet know what to be stubborn about. It broke something new and necessary inside him.
"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan whispered to the boy who was not Anakin and carried him anyway. "What did we do?"
From the doorway, Bail spoke, voice low and edged. "So. You did it." His control frayed into honest fury. "You killed her, Kenobi. You murderer."
Obi-Wan did not defend himself. There was nothing to say that didn't cheapen the truth. "I know," he said, and it sounded like an admission and a sentence. "I don't know how to atone. I can't. But the child—" He lifted Luke a fraction. "Take him. You have a daughter now, don't you? A week old. They could grow together—brother and sister."
The mask Bail wore slipped clean off. He recoiled as if struck. "No. Absolutely not." The words were out raw before the statesman could catch them. He shut his jaw, pulled the composure back over himself with visible effort. "I mean—no. I cannot. Not for… political reasons. Alderaan's succession is delicate. My daughter is the future queen. An adoption now is impossible. Questions would spiral. Suspicion could endanger her."
Obi-Wan blinked, thrown by the vehemence under the polish. "He'll be hunted. He needs a family."
Bail looked at Luke and something like shame rippled through his eyes. He turned it cold. "He needs to disappear."
Yoda's ears angled toward Bail, measuring more than his words. "Strange, this is," the old Master murmured, gaze narrowing. "Two, the currents whispered. One, we hold. And heavy in you, Senator—anger, grief… jealousy, even."
Bail's mouth thinned. He ignored the remark because to answer it was to set fire to the room. "There is a moisture farmer on Tatooine," he said instead, stepping into the safer script. "Owen Lars. Family by marriage to Skywalker. He lives in dust and debt. No one from the Core looks that far down. Take the boy there."
"Tatooine?" Obi-Wan recoiled like from a blow. Sand. Slavery. A small grave. "That planet broke Anakin before we ever found him. You would send his son into the same sun to burn?"
"Enough," Bail snapped. The mask fell again and this time he didn't bother to pick it up. "You did this. You fix it. I gave you the only suggestion that keeps him alive." He took a breath, forced courtesy. "Do what you must." He glanced to Yoda. "Master Jedi, forgive my… outburst. My wife will be expecting me." He bowed shallowly, which was worse than not bowing at all, and turned for the door. At the threshold he looked back at Obi-Wan. "Fix it," he said, softer and more vicious than a shout. Then he was gone.
Yoda watched the door close, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. "Much anger, jealousy, and fear, I sense in him," he said. "Very strange."
"Indeed," Obi-Wan murmured, staring at the space Bail had left. He held Luke closer without realizing it. "But he is not wrong about the Empire."
Yoda turned to the child, to the little knot of light in Obi-Wan's arms that hummed like a new chord in a tired song. "Risk, Tatooine is," he said. "But hidden, too. Back to the beginning, the current pulls. Watch over him, you will. From a distance. Interfere, you must not—unless no choice remains."
Obi-Wan nodded, because duty and love had become the same aching thing. "I don't like this plan," he said, honesty costing him nothing anymore.
"Like it, I do not," Yoda answered. "But the Force, we trust. And in you, I do."
Obi-Wan stepped back to Padmé's side one last time. He touched two fingers to her temple where the blood had dried. "Your name will be the truth he hears," he promised her. "Not what the Empire writes."
He turned, squared himself around the weight in his arms, and found that he could still walk.
"Prepare the skiff," he told the GH-7 quietly. "Fuel and supplies. No record."
The droid inclined its head. "Of course."
In the corridor, the station hummed its indifferent song. Ships came and went in distant bays. Somewhere beyond, an Empire was being born.
Obi-Wan did not look back at the theatre door. He didn't need to.
What he had lost would walk beside him for the rest of his life—and what he had left to do waited under twin suns.
He held Luke a little tighter and headed for the hangar.