Hours had gone by since the Mustafar Duel, and now Obi-wan sat in silence and grief within the Polis Massa Medical Facility,
There he listened to the droid's voice that was so calm as it spoke so clinically, so cruelly.
> "Massive trauma detected. Internal hemorrhaging in the lower abdominal wall. Subdural hematoma. Multiple rib fractures. Cranium contusion."
However in reality Obi-Wan heard none of it, he just couldn't, couldn't focus anymore. His cloak was soaked in blood—her blood. It clung to his chest like hot guilt. He sat beside the medical slab, trembling, staring at the body he had brought across the stars.
Padmé.
Her face was pale. Her lips, split and bruised. Her eyes barely moved beneath fluttering lids.
Her mouth opened to speak, but only blood came out.
He tried to wipe it away, but he couldn't find the strength to do it.
It all happened so fast, just hours Earlier in Mustafar. He hadn't meant to strike her. He told himself that, over and over again.
But in that moment, when she screamed Anakin's name, when she shielded him, when she called Obi-Wan a liar, he had just lost control.
His boot had struck her midsection with full momentum.
She had flown backward through the thick, smoke-choked air, her body slamming against the edge of her own ship. The sound—metal meeting skull—was wet, final, too loud.
Then she collapsed.
And lay still.
Anakin said nothing, he just rawed in rage, drew his blade, igniting it and then he charged like a beast of war. Obi-Wan never had the chance to check on her.
And now the droids hovered silently. Their scanners hummed. The lights flickered, casting sterile shadows on the white walls.
> "She is dying."
One of them said it with soft finality. Not if. Not possibly. Just truth.
Yoda stood near the corner, hands clasped tightly, his eyes closed.
Bail Organa paced outside the sealed glass, watching through the window with clenched fists and unspoken fury.
Obi-Wan sat with her.
Held her hand.
Watched her fade.
"I didn't mean to, I swear." he whispered. His voice cracked.
> "It just happened so fast, I I. I didn't mean to do it."
Padmé stirred faintly.
A slow tear leaked from the edge of her swollen eye.
Her breath caught in her throat—and then came a cough, deep and wet.
Blood dribbled from her mouth again.
A crimson line slid down her chin and soaked into the white pillow.
Her hand weakly squeezed his.
"Anakin…" she rasped. "Is he…?"
Obi-Wan couldn't answer.
He couldn't lie.
He couldn't tell her what he saw—Anakin's broken body floating on a platform away, and down a lava waterfall, screaming his name in hatred as he fell to his doom.
He couldn't tell her the truth: that it wasn't Anakin who broke her.
It was him.
> "Luke," she whispered, barely audible.
Obi-Wan turned to the droids. "Get it out. Now. Save the child. Please—save the child."
They nodded, and the bed lit with surgical lights.
Minutes Later, a high-pitched cry filled the air.
It was sharp. Piercing.
A boy.
Obi-Wan looked up as the droid gently held out a blood-slick, squirming infant.
> "He is healthy," the droid said softly. "But… there is no twin."
Padmé's eyes opened one last time.
She saw the child. Just once.
A flicker of peace—then pain.
"Luke…" she whispered, and then her heart stopped.
Seeing it all, Obi-Wan just sat in silence, watching as the droid covered her body with a white shroud.
He didn't cry, he just couldn't. For the blood on his hands wasn't metaphor anymore.
Then the medical droids turned away. One of them dimmed the overhead lights, as if trying to offer a kind of mercy.
Obi-Wan remained seated beside Padmé's covered body, her fingers still barely curled in his lap.
The door hissed open behind him.
Footsteps—measured, but heavy with emotion—crossed the sterile floor.
Obi-Wan didn't look up.
"I thought Jedi were supposed to be protectors," Bail Organa said softly. His voice, usually so composed, cracked like old stone.
Obi-Wan still didn't move. "I tried," he whispered.
Bail scoffed. "Tried?"
He stepped closer, his boots now almost touching the corner of the slab.
"She came to you for safety. For guidance. And you..." he paused, his voice tightening, "...you broke her ribs. You collapsed her lung. You kicked her so hard the droids said her child almost didn't survive."
Obi-Wan flinched.
Bail's voice dropped to a cold whisper. "And now Anakin is gone. And she's dead. So tell me, Master Kenobi—what exactly did you protect?"
Obi-Wan looked up slowly. His eyes were hollow. "I didn't mean to hurt her. It was—it was reflex. Rage. Confusion."
"That's a convenient excuse for someone who was trained to feel nothing," Bail said, voice sharp. "And yet, somehow, you managed to feel just enough to kill her."
A long silence.
Obi-Wan looked back down at Padmé's still form. "I was too late to save Anakin. I failed him. I failed her."
Bail's jaw clenched. His next words were quieter—more dangerous.
> "You didn't just fail her, Kenobi. You destroyed her."
He stepped back, then turned toward the glass where the infant lay in the droid's cradling arms—small, crying, unaware.
> "And now I'm supposed to raise her son? To hide him, guard him, because you couldn't keep your hands from breaking the one woman who tried to save your precious Chosen One?"
Obi-Wan stood at last, slow and stiff, his cloak still stained.
He looked older now. Smaller.
"I'll take the boy," he said, voice rasping. "It's my burden."
Bail turned, eyes narrowed.
"No. The boy's not your redemption. He's hers. You don't get to wash your hands with him."
Obi-Wan stared at him.
"And if I had any faith left in the Jedi," Bail continued, "I might have handed Leia to you too."
Obi-Wan blinked. "Leia?"
Bail's face froze.
A second too late.
A single heartbeat passed between them. The air turned heavy.
"You said… Leia," Obi-Wan repeated.
But Bail only shook his head once—slow, final.
"You heard nothing. You saw nothing. Take the boy, Obi-Wan. And if you ever speak her name again, I'll make sure even the sand won't remember you."
And with that, he walked out, the door hissing shut behind him—leaving Obi-Wan standing beside the corpse of a queen, and the weight of a galaxy's sins on his shoulders.
Outside the chamber, all was quiet. Yoda stood at the edge of the room, barely reaching the height of the surgical table. His silhouette was small, but the air around him was heavy.
Obi-Wan turned slowly. He was still blood-stained. Still shaking.
"She's gone," he said. "And I… I was the one who—"
Yoda raised a hand, stopping him with a slow breath.
> "Grief, yours is. Regret, I feel. But the boy—alive, he is."
Obi-Wan looked down at the bundle in the droid's arms. A newborn. Swaddled in white. His cries were soft now, as if he too could feel the weight of the room.
"Luke," Obi-Wan whispered. "She named him Luke."
Yoda stepped forward and placed a three-fingered hand gently on the child's chest.
> "Strong, the Force is… in this one. But dangerous, his path will be."
"I won't let him walk it," Obi-Wan said. "I'll take him somewhere far—Tatooine. Owen and Beru. He'll grow up hidden. Quiet. A life without war."
Yoda's ears twitched.
> "The child of Skywalker, peace will not find. But hidden, yes. Protected, yes."
Obi-Wan knelt beside the cradle. "No lightsabers. No Jedi training. Not until he chooses. Not until the Force calls him."
Yoda nodded, slowly.
> "And when the call comes… ready, he must be."
Obi-Wan stood again, gathering the child gently in his arms. "I'll watch over him. From afar. I won't interfere."
A pause.
Yoda turned his back, staring into the stars beyond the viewport.
> "When the time comes, Obi-Wan… a teacher, you will be again. But now… only a shadow, you are."
Obi-Wan nodded once. "Then let the shadow fall."
He turned and walked toward the waiting shuttle. Each step felt heavier, as if he were dragging the entire Order behind him.
Then the door hissed shut behind him.
And Yoda, still watching the stars, whispered to no one:
> "In exile, we all are now."
***
It was late dusk on Tatooine, at the Lars Homestead, located at the Dune Sea. 3 days had passed since Padmé died. Up above the suns were setting, twin streaks of gold vanishing behind the dry ridge. The vaporators whined in the distance, casting long shadows across cracked soil. The ground smelled of rust, heat, and old oil.
Obi-Wan's boots crunched quietly as he approached the outer steps of the Lars homestead. In his arms, swaddled in dust-stained white, lay the last thing left of Anakin Skywalker.
Owen Lars stood waiting at the threshold, arms crossed, face unreadable. His build was massive—broad-shouldered, his frame blocking the last light of the sky. Beside him, Beru emerged from the stairwell, eyes soft, gaze fixed on the child.
Obi-Wan didn't speak.
He simply stepped forward and held out the boy.
Owen didn't move, but Beru did.
She took Luke like a priestess accepting a relic. Her hands were calloused, but gentle. She looked down at the boy, her lips trembling.
Then Owen finally said, "You're just going to drop him off? Like a crate?"
Obi-Wan looked up, hollow. "I have nowhere else to bring him. The Empire is hunting anything Skywalker."
Owen stepped forward now, his voice low and hard.
> "We're barely surviving out here. Bandits. Hutt taxes. Raider threats. Moisture output down twenty percent. And you bring me a child?"
He glared at Obi-Wan. "This isn't charity. You owe us."
Obi-Wan met his eyes. "You're right."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut bone.
> "I'll pay. Not with credits. With action."
Beru looked up, startled. "What are you saying?"
Obi-Wan exhaled slowly. "I'll protect the region. Quietly. Discreetly. I know the bounty boards. I know how the Hutt enforcers think. I can intercept, kill, vanish. No one will know he's here because I'll be the ghost they fear."
Owen's jaw tightened. "You'd kill for him?"
"I've killed for far less."
They stared at each other—two war-weathered men, both carrying ghosts in their eyes.
Finally, Owen nodded once. "Then don't come back here unless you're bleeding or bringing supplies."
Beru added, softly, "But if you need water… there'll be a bowl on the porch."
Obi-Wan turned without a word. He walked toward his old, scorched transport—the ship barely held together by salvaged parts and stripped paint. Its transponder had been burned out days ago.
As he climbed aboard, he opened the side locker. Inside lay a long case.
He opened it.
Armor. Rust-colored, worn, unmistakable.
The gear of Rako Hardeen.
Obi-Wan took off his robe, piece by piece.
And slid the armor on like a second skin—one he never thought he'd wear again.
> "If the galaxy only lets me be a killer… then I'll be the best one it's ever known."