Padmé woke with a grunt, hands flying to her abdomen as a tremor ran up her spine, stilling her breath. The baby was kicking again.

She squinted across the dark bedroom at the chrono: only about three hours since Anakin and Luke had returned.

The image of the young man's pallid face, semi-lucid and barely able to hold down the soup she had been feeding him, hung at the edge of her mind, turning the already present and building anxieties in her stomach. It had already been such a long day. It seemed only natural that she wouldn't be able to sleep after everything.

Beside her, her husband snored obliviously on, his face mashed deep into the pillow and his arm outstretched in her direction, reaching for her hand even in sleep. She smiled down at him, momentarily content with watching the dim lights filter over his peaceful features. It was such a contrast to his usual harried breathing and cold sweats in the night. She wouldn't dare disturb him now, not over something as minute as a small kick.

As she gently traced her pinky down the outline of the scar over his eye, she leaned over to kiss his temple. Then, with the most delicate of movements, she uncurled the duvet piled on top of her and slipped her bare feet into the slippers by her bedside.

Her back popped in protest and she huffed, trudging languidly towards the fresher with a long yawn.

The baby kicked again, this time with more vigor. She let out a winded cough, kneading circles into her sides in hopes of calming the child inside of her. Moments like these made her wish she could tap into the Force as easily as Anakin. Instead, she was left to soothe the only way she knew how, from experience with her two young nieces—soft whispers of reassurance and physical attention.

By the time she slid before the mirror in the refresher, the pain was growing sharper, leaving her light-headed. The reflection that looked back at her was almost unrecognizable, her features gaunt from stress and exhaustion.

She ran a trembling hand down her cheek, pulling at the corners around her eyes and sighing deeply.

Another kick—this one pulling a groan out of her as she gripped the sink to stabilize herself.

A shift of covers came from across the room, Anakin's low, guttural snores fading out into a confused hum.

"Padmé?" he slurred, hoarse and half-conscious.

Padmé peered into the room to see him gripping awkwardly at her empty space on the mattress, his hair falling into his eyes as he squinted in the darkness. She barely got to open her mouth to tell him to go back to sleep before he was sitting up, other hand now searching for his lightsaber.

She rolled her eyes. Only Anakin would wake at such a minor sound of distress.

"Darling, I'm fine. In the fresher."

Anakin spun towards her voice, alarmingly fast for someone still in the process of waking up. He blinked owlishly at her a couple of times before sighing, his shoulders slumping easily back down into the warmth of their bed.

"Everything's good, then?" He rolled over to check the chrono. "It's pretty late."

Padmé stepped out of the fresher and back towards the bed, settling back into her spot, but not yet lying down. "The baby woke me up, that's all. Nothing I can't handle."

Flashing the charming smile that had made her fall in love with him all those years ago, Anakin shuffled closer to her side of the bed, reaching out to stroke her stomach with a gentle back and forth.

"Can you feel anything?" Padmé asked, curious.

"The kicking you mean?"

"No, through the Force."

"Oh, uh..." He closed his eyes, stilling his hand for a moment before shaking his head. "A bit of discomfort...confusion...I'm not sure. It's hard to tell sometimes, since unborn babies don't have much of a presence. Or thoughts, really. It's more of a jumble. Their residual energy blends with yours, so it can be hard to differentiate."

Padmé hummed in thought. "So you could just be picking up my emotions?"

"Possibly." Anakin shrugged, pulling away and tucking back under the blankets. "Why, are you feeling uncomfortable?"

"With a baby kicking in my organs?" She laughed.

"Fair point."

With a sigh, Padmé pulled herself back into bed alongside him, grimacing at the rolling she had to do in order to settle comfortably on her back. Anakin continued to run his fingers up and down her arm, as supportive as he could be with sleep still clouding his mind.

"You should go back to sleep, love. You need it," said Padmé, sending him a chastising look.

"You'll be alright?"

"Of course I will." She kissed him, smiling through her own tiredness as she did. "Now sleep."

"Yes, ma'am," Anakin whispered, eyelids fluttering closed.

Padmé gave a long yawn and decided to focus on the sound of Anakin breathing to help lull her back to sleep. Anything to get past the throbbing in her abdomen, the pain building and building into a crescendo of—

Anakin shot upright, startling a whimpering yelp out of his wife.

Unlike before, his eyes were wide and alert, the curve of his mouth turned down in a pinched frown.

"Ani...?"

"Hold on," he whispered, holding a hand out to quiet her question. She noted that he had managed to grab his lightsaber from its place on his nightstand, the blade not yet ignited, but his thumb hovering neatly over the ignition plate, tense.

There was a long stretch of silence. Padmé could feel her heart in her throat as she mentally went over where she had stashed her emergency blaster and how fast she could send out a holo to her handmaidens. As little as she knew about the Force, she always trusted the instincts of the Jedi, especially Anakin's. If he felt startled enough to potentially ignite his saber, then something was wrong.

Yet, as the seconds ticked by, it was beginning to feel like a false alarm. She chanced a glance at Anakin, who seemed to finally be lowering his weapon after catching his breath back.

Then, just as they met each other's eyes—a scream.

The both of them may as well have teleported at the speed they moved, stumbling gracelessly into the main room only to witness a horror that drained the blood from their faces.

Luke had fallen from his position on the couch and onto the floor, the blankets tangled around him and pinning him in place as he convulsed mutely, his eyes blown wide and his skin ashen. The blankets in question were doused in buckets of perspiration, which stuck to the young man's skin as he rolled around.

Anakin reacted first, sliding down into a kneel before Padmé screeched, "Wait!"

"What?"

"Don't touch him. I think it's a seizure." She gestured at the sofa. "We have to move everything so he can't hurt himself."

Anakin's lips thinned. "Got it."

Without another word, he thrust his hands out and Force-pushed the sofa and the end table far away, clearing the room to where only the silent terror-stricken face of Luke's vibrating body could be seen. Anakin hovered over him with his own trembling limbs, breathing heavily as he impatiently waited it out.

Padmé, on the other hand, was already in the other room, queuing up her communicator and punching in the first frequency she could think of.

The line rang for an unnerving amount of time before Obi-Wan's disgruntled face appeared over the static blue. He was rubbing his eyes and wearing rumpled robes, but he snapped to attention as soon as he saw what Padmé could only assume was her gaunt, frazzled face.

"Senator? I didn't expect you to call back so soon. Is everything—"

"I need you to send Temple Healers to my apartment right away," she rushed out, frustrated with herself over her quivering voice.

Obi-Wan's face darkened, but she could see him already fumbling with something off-screen. Another commlink, she could only hope. "Is it Anakin?"

"No, Luke."

Obi-Wan looked taken aback for a moment before nodding. "Alright. Stay calm, Padmé. You were right to call me. They'll be over there as soon as they can. I can meet you at the Halls of Healing." He was throwing on a robe haphazardly. "Are you alone with him? What are his symptoms?"

"Anakin's with him," Padmé said without a millisecond of hesitation. Obi-Wan didn't react, only nodded at her to continue. "He's having a seizure, we're not sure why. He was out of it earlier this evening, but it didn't seem like anything more than exhaustion. It might be a reaction to the medication the Healers gave him yesterday."

Obi-Wan was stroking his beard and nodding along. Padmé could tell from the jerky movements of his image that he was walking now, already halfway down the halls of the Temple.

"And no one's touched him?"

"No. We moved the couches."

"Good, good."

There was a sudden clamor from the living room that shocked them both. Obi-Wan prepared to inquire before Anakin's shout came echoing back. Padmé kept Obi-Wan on the line and darted back into the room, watching as her husband looked wild-eyed over the now still Luke.

Tears were almost brimming in Anakin's eyes, his hair as askew as Luke's. "I don't know if he's breathing," he gasped, hands scrambling under Luke's tunic to feel for a pulse before unrolling his sleeves in preparation for compressions.

Padmé reached down and grabbed Luke's limp hand, squeezing tightly and praying to the Force for a return squeeze.

There was none.

"I commed Obi-Wan," she said, watching for a reaction in Anakin's face, but getting nothing more than a firm nod as he pressed up and down on Luke's unresponding chest. Stars knew how much experience he had seeing fallen soldiers for over three years. "Healers are on their way."

"How far?"

He pressed down into Luke's chest even firmer, muttering a long string of frantic Huttese under his breath.

"Not far. Probably only—"

A speeder suddenly swung outside of her balcony, emblazoned with emergency medical lights and the logo of the Jedi Order. Two Jedi Knights and a clone trooper came bolting out, entering the apartment with silent professionalism and barely able to peel a shouting Anakin off of Luke before getting the boy onto a hover gurney.

IV lines of liquid, an oxygen mask, and multiple things involving the Force that Padmé couldn't recognize were done in a haze of movement. Phrases like "healing trance" passed through her ears, but she could only focus on gripping tight to Anakin's elbow to prevent him from hindering the medics with his panic.

The trooper was giving them instructions on following them in their own speeder, and just like that, Padmé found herself driving into the brisk, Coruscant night, still in her pajamas, with her husband gripping his head in the passenger seat, his breathing uneven and his eyes dull—the same way he looked whenever he was having a nightmare.

◂◂◂

All Luke knew was pain.

It was blurry and hazy and he was sure a few people were calling his name, but that was nothing compared to the agony coursing through him.

He was drowning, crawling across the blackness of nothing, drifting and unable to stop. Lights flashed occasionally, but only for a split second before the darkness returned.

Never had he wanted to die more, not even when the Emperor had mercilessly electrocuted him to near death.

He cried for his mother, his father, even Han and Leia, but no one could hear him.

Maybe this was it? The whole time travel thing had been nothing more than the hallucinations of a dying man clinging to life, his physical reality instead a crumpled corpse limp on the cold metallic floor of the Second Death Star, his father watching on as the Emperor roared in triumph, remnants of electricity still dancing around his ruptured fingers.

Was that simpler? Death?

He had told Leia what to do if he didn't make it, that she would be the only hope left for the Alliance, the last of the Skywalker line.

But he hadn't said goodbye to Han. He hadn't been able to face him. Not when he knew it would break the man's heart, how he would surely grip him by the shoulders and shout until he was hoarse to, "Stop being a damn martyr all the time, kid! Do you think you mean nothing?"

He regretted it now more than ever, instead resigned to scream...and scream...and—

"Luke."

The cold panic of an unfamiliar voice shot Luke into coherency. The world around him was still dark, but the pain had miraculously faded.

He glanced down at his body, patting himself down to check for injuries. Soft cotton met his hands, and he stumbled back in alarm. He was draped in a long white cloak, similar to the design of the Jedi robes, but just different enough to feel foreign. Perhaps it was the contrast against the pitch black, but they seemed to emit an unnatural hue of pale blue.

At least, that was what he thought, until he realized that the hue was actually coming from him.

"I'm dead," he said aloud, taken aback by the echo to his voice.

A low chuckle came from the darkness, and he whirled.

"You're not dead, young one. Not yet."

Luke reached for his saber. Nothing but fabric. He clenched his fists. "W-who are you? Show yourself!"

"No need to panic. I'm a friend."

"Oh?" Luke scoffed. "And why should I believe you?"

A figure suddenly materialized from the darkness, dressed in the same white robes with the same glow. From what he could make out, it looked to be a tall Human man with shoulder-length gray-brown hair and a scruffy beard encircling a sharp jaw. Smile lines tugged at his eyes as he regarded Luke, but he moved no closer, almost ethereal in the way he stood.

"I know you must be frightened."

Luke paused at the warmth of the tone. He couldn't get a read of his Force-presence—everything still felt jumbled in a numb distance—but he didn't seem to hold any mal intent.

He lowered his fists.

"Where am I?"

The man smiled. "An in between place. The healers should be placing you into a healing trance as we speak. It allows your body to heal, but your mind to escape into the pure, living Force, a place of no time or space."

Luke glanced around the dark skeptically. The word healers rattled around his brain. "You said I'm not dead. But I must be dying then, no?"

"You...are not in a great spot, no. And I'm afraid it will only get worse if you don't do anything about it."

"Do anything about it? I'm unconscious!"

"In body. But the Force is still with you."

Luke ran his hands through his hair, shaking. "Well it hasn't felt like it. I...I was so close to getting through to Anakin. Then what? I—" He paused. "What even happened to me?"

The man sighed. "You were poisoned."

"What? How?"

A wave of a hand, and then:

An image. Back in the Halls of Healing, Kirei and him talking right before she injected the syringe of medication into his vein, the purple liquid steadily pumping into his bloodstream.

"No..." Luke shook his head. "She...didn't know she was poisoning me, did she? Someone tampered with the medicine."

The man looked on in somber silence.

Luke bit down hard on his tongue, struggling to calm himself down. He had known someone in the medcenter knew something, he had felt it. But he had missed it, had missed something that, in hindsight, should have probably been obvious. Even so, he had seen her eyes, had sensed a genuine conflict inside her over the war and her place in it.

"The Dark Side is strong, Luke. Young Jedi are losing faith in their methods and resorting to...ulterior paths," the man said, no doubt sensing his thoughts.

"So it was her, then? She's the one that informed Sidious of my existence."

"It was not something I accounted for, but that is why I have come to you now. To give you as much guidance as I can." The man stepped closer. "Luke. You cannot blame yourself for not sensing her deceit. I sent you here so you could fix the mistakes that I, and many other Jedi have made. Anakin is the Chosen One, but we still failed him. Failed all our students. We were blind. Naive. But not anymore. Not with you. You saw good and love in Vader, despite being told it would lead to your downfall. You saw good in that Padawan despite everything; you still do. Your father can't believe that people like that, people with that much hope and strength of will, even exist. Which is why he needs you."

Luke swore he could feel the lingering pain creeping back up his throat, blurring his vision. It was a lot to take in, to be seen as some ultimate hero despite the violent actions he had undertaken in the name of peace. He didn't feel like the ultimate selfless person. He didn't even feel like some destiny-driven prophecy child.

He was just a boy who wanted his family back.

He looked up at the man, suddenly brimming with a blend of curiosity and fright. "You sent me here?"

"It was the Force's will." A faint smile. "With a little nudge from me, of course."

"You... Then, who are you? You can't possibly manipulate the Force on that scale, not unless—"

"I was messing with things I shouldn't have been?" The man gave a deep laugh. "Yes, well, I suppose you would be correct. But I see it less as forbidden and more along the lines of opportunity."

"Sidious sees it as an opportunity too," Luke challenged, watching the man's face fall. He was well aware of the fact that the man continued to dodge his question on his name. "How do I know this isn't a trick from him? Some mind game to get me to agree with his methods."

The man sighed. "You're perceptive. That's good. But I can assure you, my goal is to get you to awaken and finish your mission to save your father. No manipulation of Sidious's would be requesting you do that, that much I can be sure of. Plus," He stepped even closer, almost in Luke's personal space now. "Sidious still hasn't mastered the abilities he claims to know. He wants them. Which is why he needs Anakin. He needs that level of power to truly unlock the deeper aspects of the Force."

"But...then how can you access them?"

"I am one with the Force. I have no direct influence on the living world anymore, am nothing more than a mere spectator, but, every so often, if the Force wills it, small things can happen. Like bringing you to the past."

"So you're a Force Ghost. Like Ben was."

The man's smile grew softer. "Yes. Obi-Wan. I was the one that taught him the ability. Helped him to look after you when you were just a child. Stars knew he needed a familiar face."

Luke's head jerked up. "You knew Obi-Wan?"

"Of course. I was his teacher."

For some reason, the concept of old Ben being taught had never truly crossed his mind. The man had always seemed so wise and experienced, like he had come into the world with a weight on his shoulders. He almost giggled as he tried to picture a young Obi-Wan toddling along behind this tall man, a Padawan braid down his shoulder and a prideful lift to his shoulders.

Luke paused, suddenly recalling a conversation with his mother. "You're Qui-Gon Jinn. The one that rescued my father from slavery."

"Yes," Qui-Gon dipped his head in shame. "And left behind your grandmother. A decision I have had to live with for a long time."

Luke frowned at the memory of the two lone headstones outside the farm where he had grown up—one for his Grandpa Cleigg and one for his Grandma Shmi. Aunt Beru had always told him the stories of how warm she had been, how she was looking down at her grandson from beyond the stars. Uncle Owen, on the other hand, only acknowledged it with a grumbly huff and a dark warning to his nephew about keeping an eye out for Tuskens. There was a lingering guilt hidden behind his eyes that a young Luke could never comprehend, but he had never thought twice about it. For him, Shmi was the only connection he had to the parents he had never met. So every morning, right as the suns were peeking over the horizon, he would sneak out to say hello to the gravestone, tending to the small patch of dying flowers that had, unbeknownst to him, been placed there long ago by his father's trembling, sand-roughened hands.

He shifted at the sudden knot in his stomach, his throat dry and his eyes wet. Qui-Gon continued to smile at him.

"I cannot stay much longer. You're fading in and out, and I can only do so much to help you hold on," he said. Luke's heart dropped.

"But what am I supposed to do? You said you can see all futures. You can show me, can't you?"

"Nothing is set in stone, Luke. This is your journey to take. Yours and your father's." He sighed. "And perhaps even the entirety of the Order's. For now, continue to trust in the Force. I do not know if we will speak again, but know that I am here."

A sudden spark of pain shot back up Luke's spine, jerking him forward with a gasp. Qui-Gon's shape grew fuzzier.

"W-Wait, how do I—" He recoiled back, curling his arms tight against his abdomen. "I can't stop myself from dying."

"No. But you can choose to hold on. Think on your loved ones, maintain a connection with the physical world. You must."

"I—" Luke squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly bombarded with flashes of green and brown. The smell of a campfire and the sharp tang of freshly-opened Corellian ale swirled around him. As he opened his eyes, Qui-Gon was nothing more than a wisp amongst the shape of giant, lumbering trees, his face taught in determination. "Where..."

"Luke?" A painfully familiar voice echoed from behind, nearly making Luke sob.

"Stay strong, child," said Qui-Gon, his voice dissolving into the air as Luke found himself spiraling once more, desperate to reach out for the voice he knew he heard. Delirious and drained, he stumbled back into the dark, Leia's warm, troubled brown eyes flashing in his peripherals before blanking away, back into the painful abyss.

He could just feel Leia's desperate reach towards him as he fell, her muted presence at the edge of his mind the only thing keeping the pain from overwhelming him completely.

◂◂◂

Red-tinted golden eyes flew open with a startling intensity. Cold wisps of dark energy snaked eagerly within the Force, bursting with the anguish that was crippling Luke Skywalker's turbulent Force presence.

Sidious allowed himself a few moments to relish in the taste of such power—a brimming supernova sputtering slowly over his palms. The temptation to breathe it all in was potent, but he could only go so far beyond the thick blanket of protection Anakin had obliviously swooped around the boy, his own Force presence even more intoxicating. Especially when it was dripping with fear and rage, exactly what he had hoped the younger Skywalker's demise would trigger.

He refused to lose all the progress he had made with Anakin. Not when he was so close. Luke's very being in the past only solidified his confidence that his plan would follow through exactly as he had foreseen, but he still couldn't take the chance of the opposite.

The galaxy would be rid of the Jedi disease, no way around it.

It took him a moment to register the beeping of his commlink, the steady buzz drawing him out of a thin meditation in his personal rooms. He sensed the guards outside his door draw steadier at the sound, but they made no intentions to enter, remaining as statues of protection that, unbeknownst to them, Palpatine had no requirement of.

A small blue hologram of a kneeling Barizaan finally appeared, her Padawan braid falling low over her pale blue face.

"Rise, young one. Tell me what has transpired."

Kirei shakily rose to her feet, her Force presence, even from a distance, erratic. Palpatine kept his gaze aloof, waiting impatiently for her voice to crackle through.

"It is done, my lord. Young Skywalker is on his way here as we speak, and so far no one suspects any foul play. They said he had a seizure. They'll no doubt attribute it to his previous ailments." It may have sounded convincing to an outsider, but Palpatine was no fool.

"And what of the other medics? When they eventually locate the poison as a source, they will attempt an antidote of some kind. We cannot have that."

"H-he will most likely be placed in a healing trance and be monitored for a while. I will keep tabs on his status and re-dose him if required. Master Osh won't suspect me if I say I'm refilling his intravenous line."

Palpatine nodded, still squinting. "Very well, then. You have proven yourself to be quite useful, child. I suggest you keep it up. For your sake. Because as long as Skywalker continues to breathe, I grow more and more tempted to take my frustrations...elsewhere. Is that clear?"

Kirei bounced her head so vigorously that it may as well have disconnected from her soldiers. Her fear wasn't quite as potent as Skywalker's bursting through the Force, but he reveled in it all the same, practically feeling the young girl's teeth drawing blood from her cheek.

"Excellent. I'm glad we understand each other."

He clicked off the holo, quickly returning to sucking away at the drifting remnants of Luke Skywalker's soul.