Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Covalent Bonds ❯ Chapter 40
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: pronker 
Non Anime: Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Action | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 10.16.2008 | Updated On: 10.17.2008 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 513 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Action | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 10.16.2008 | Updated On: 10.17.2008 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 513 | Status: Completed
"It's nice to be here today, Lu, even a bit boring. I could use 'boring' right now. When I go back to the front, there'll be enough excitement to pass around." Obi-Wan had not exercised yet this afternoon and did not desire to sit. He eyed the infirmary's equipment more closely than usual, especially the operating suite in a large room to the right of Luminara's desk, its ominous entrance a continuous purple sterifield flanked by bright transparisteel windows that stretched floor-to-ceiling. There was a table inside fit for Galactic Standard-sized patients and a Healer of Luminara's height. The table had a flat, utilitarian look with some disturbing straps hanging down and the only out-of-place element was on the far wall, a holoposter of a flamegem with a spiral design that most likely was used to distract patients before they succumbed to anesthesia. "Do you think my procedure could wait until next week, maybe? Something's come up." Anakin's Knighting tomorrow is private until Master Yoda declares otherwise. He adjusted his tabards as he turned back to his friend, wanting this entire episode closed, safe in the past. At least no one would invade his mind for this. This is simply a physical thing that can be removed, like a wart.
My friend is a pregnant Jedi, not a term I'd ever thought to use. Now the evidence of the Master and Padawan pair's closeness was staring her in the face and she could shunt aside the knowledge of post-Code Revision love and its logical results no longer. "Ahem. Obi-Wan. You'd better sit." That kriffing imprinting. Plo, you don't know what you've unleashed for my friend.
Guh. 'Sit.' Bad news coming. Obi-Wan sat. He noticed the way that Luminara smoothed her cowl to hang exactly even on each side. He noticed her deep intake of breath. He waited.
"I hope that boredom is the worst thing that ever happens to you."
"Do you say that to all your patients or just me?"
"I'm not taking the cloned organ out before consulting with you further because there's something in it."
"What? B-But the, the menses, I had them once and y-you said, you said, Lu, th-that in nongravid health, they flow freely, in health, Lu, you said --- "
"The bleeding is something that females occasionally have when they are newly pregnant." He's as mottled as Bant now.
"I don't recall much from Winna's and An-Paj's lectures, Lu, but I do remember that menses stop, and anyway, you said --- it can't be true, it can't --- "
Be his Healer. "But they don't always," Luminara said crisply. "Sometimes light bleeding goes on at the regular time, at least for a month or two while the body's hormones adjust, and yours have. No more of that symptom, right?"
"No. Kriff, Lu, I thought at first it might be spleenrot or something fixable like that. You can always do without a spleen, right?" This can't be true. It's mine and Anakin's. Not Siri's and mine, no. It's mine and Anakin's. It's mine and Anakin's.
And so we go on to the next part. "Well, this is fixable, Obi-Wan, if you choose to, and then I can remove everything --- "
"No."
Be his friend. "Don't you want to ask Anakin on this?"
"No, I do not. We've discussed the possibility and I know where he stands because we are closer than ever before and why didn't this show up on the earlier exam?" Before I wrestled with the Dark Sider and endangered it?
"The area couldn't be discerned clearly until today. The Force obscured them, I told you that before you left. Today my scanner works on your uterus, but not my Force-senses, at least not normally. They simply tell me that you and they are well without giving more details." They are safe swimming around inside you and anything that would injure them would injure you too severely to worry about them. And now there's that worry wrinkle on your brow. Poor man. "Obs, you are well."
"Them."
"Yes."
"Tw--- "
"Yes."
"Wh--- "
"Early next spring."
"H--- "
"I'll remove them surgically. I've done it once or twice with civilians on New Hospice when they were caught in the crossfire." But never twins. Thirty-six weeks total instead of forty, most likely. Thirty-two to go.
"Is there any other way?"
"The clones' way, with tanks. Kaminoan, or we could import something --- "
I love them already. And I want the best for them. "No tanks," Obi-Wan said firmly. "And no decanting. These babies will be born. Maybe not completely naturally, but close enough. And that's the way it will be."
I didn't want to push decanting anyway. As close to natural as possible is always best, and now my article will be unique! Luminara wrote the abstract swiftly in her head as she gestured to him to sit still. She fine-tuned her scanner for a second sweep, more in detail than the first. Could be ectopic, could be implanted in the lining dangerously near the outlet tube --- could a name be generated for the tube, something like "Unduli's Outlet" --- no, not that self-serving, perhaps "Jedi Cross-Gender Flow Valve." Hmmm, no, ectopic or an analog to placenta previa conditions are definitely unhealthy, the Force wouldn't lead my diagnosis wrong there. Luminara stopped herself from humming as she noticed her friend's befuddlement. In her mind's eye, she scrolled to the first page of her article. "Jedi: pregnant male Master, age thirty-eight, human. Partner: male Padawan, age twenty-three, human." Luminara saw as irrelevant that Anakin was Obi-Wan's very own Padawan. Nobody else needed to know any more cogent details, outside the Order. She wondered how Adi would take this news. It would certainly cement her arguments for making a schism in the Order.
In a blur, Obi-Wan saw Luminara's lips say her usual "mmhmmm"s and "hold your breath"s and "excellent"s. When all was still after her work and she looked at him as if he were the most fascinating creation in the galaxy, he grabbed her hand and placed it against him, using her talents along with his own to search within himself. There was nothing that he could discern in the Force, no beating hearts, no nascent brainwaves, only the murmur of his own echoed heartbeat. He pushed her hand harder against him. There, a sheltered spot, like when he used Luminara's sinus clearing technique while floating on Gitchy's broad waters. He had not been able to sense the bones of his own skull, only the channels leading to his congested sinuses. It was the same here; the womb inside him was as protected as if it were solid bone, no way of reaching inside it to probe with the Force. The scanner worked, science worked, but not the Force in this case. He would have to take her word for his condition today, or else request to see her scanner's output in detail. What would it show? A blob with two smaller blobs inside, she said the readings were minimal, maybe some other time I can stand to look, uh, I have to ask ...
"Luminara, will the babies have allergies like mine used to be? Is there any way to prevent them from forming?"
You are already thinking ahead, how like you. "Some allergies can't be avoided, Obi-Wan. Yours weren't so bad." Except for that hoi-broth one. That is an absolute Jedi-Killer.
"They're inconvenient, and, and noisy. Sneezing, coughing, wheezing, you name it. What if the little, uh, Someones are on a mission and need to sneeze and there would be a surveillance assignment blown right there --- "
Luminara said gently, "Obi-Wan, there's nothing to say your children will or will not be Force-sensitive. It's the Force's way to ensure complete democracy and a meritocracy in the Jedi, not to mention the Republic." Mace thought this way, and Luminara agreed with him, though she did think a dynasty of Jedi might not be a bad thing. Pride in being part of such a dynasty could lead to the Dark Side, though, and the thought of selective breeding of Force-sensitives appalled her. As a Healer and a scientist, it was part of her speculative life, not that she ever wanted it to become reality. Some things were best left to authors of fiction.
"Well then, why is the Force protecting them so strongly, if they aren't Force-sensitive?" If Bant weren't indisposed, I'd ask her. I need a second opinion.
This was getting them nowhere. Luminara made to end this appointment. Her fifth hour was due. "Maybe because they aren't, and you are. Maybe because they are below your range of heightened midichlorians, Obi-Wan. Maybe they are above it. When you know every last way of the Force, you let me know, won't you." This is beyond my experience, too. "Until then, a little meditation to clear our minds?"
"Fine. Yes." The lines on Obi-Wan's face took several minutes to fade. "All, all right, Lu. This isn't your fault, any of it. It's no one's fault." I can't negotiate out of this.
He's resting his hand over them. He's trying to include them in his meditation unconsciously. "First level, begin."
I'll breathe for you, littles, until you can breathe on your own. "Begun." My Telling-Upsetting-News kata, yes, Anakin and I must go for an evening flight tonight. And I can't tell him about his Knighting. Oh, Mother. The Force held him sure and strong and he gave in to its embrace.
Meanwhile, in the Room of a Thousand Fountains ...
Late afternoon generally was a quiet time for the peaceful room and the two Jedi entertaining each other did not notice that they were alone. "T'ra, you're off your form." Tholme's avatar monnok waved the club that it had used to brain T'ra's houjix. The poor creature hadn't stood a chance.
T'ra trembled. "What do you mean by that?" Their cloaks lay discarded behind their bench and she had thought to detain Tholme on them for a leisurely hour or two. Condensation from the burbling fountains dripped from her brow.
"I mean, my dear, that usually you have me at the end of your blade by now in this game." Tholme tapped the base of the dejarik board and his monnok gave a final screech before derezzing. "Tell me what's wrong." Tell me why you aren't the same. For all your shapeshifting talents, you were unchanging in your essence to me through the years. And now you're not.
He suspects. "What's the use? We'll never agree."
"Try me." I have a bad feeling about this.
"Haven't you felt stifled by your years, Tholme? Didn't you want to have, to feel something different each day, the way you did when you were young?" To cast your seed and see it take root, to know that your kind will be replenished?
Our differences, of course we're different. We've weathered so many storms and droughts together, though. "So you're bored, T'ra? With everything, me included?" He placed a hand on her knee and slid it up to mid-thigh. Her muscles were like rock beneath his touch.
"Adi is leaving. She is deserting your precious Order, Tholme, the Order that you've fought, lied and cheated for." There's no hope. "There's no hope here in the Order or the Republic, Tholme, no hope at all," T'ra said, changing and stretching to a shape that Tholme had never seen before. Her long gown popped open with the strain as she resumed her natural thick grayish body. Her fingers split and split again. She retained her Romin head. The fingers reached for him and enfolded him before he could shout for help. He dropped from the bench and tried to crawl away from her, but her tendrils grasped his bad leg and then they hurt him with their rough bark as she pulled him towards her middle. She swallowed him inside her, crooning. "You are strong in the Force, but I am strong, too, Tholme, and all I need to do, all I need to do, is delay you until Dooku is freed. Come rest inside me, love."
"You're hollow, where is the rest of you, mfffff--- " A tendril bulged into Tholme's mouth and he bit down to no avail. He gasped for air, but it seemed enough for T'ra to immobilize him. The bark grew around him evenly, and when Master Ali-Anann led the Bear Clan on their nature walk to relax before bedtime, Initiate Liam found Tholme's cane and gave it to Ali-Anann for safekeeping. Behind the stone bench on the path stood a zaela tree with shivering needles, but no one took special note of it.
TBC
My friend is a pregnant Jedi, not a term I'd ever thought to use. Now the evidence of the Master and Padawan pair's closeness was staring her in the face and she could shunt aside the knowledge of post-Code Revision love and its logical results no longer. "Ahem. Obi-Wan. You'd better sit." That kriffing imprinting. Plo, you don't know what you've unleashed for my friend.
Guh. 'Sit.' Bad news coming. Obi-Wan sat. He noticed the way that Luminara smoothed her cowl to hang exactly even on each side. He noticed her deep intake of breath. He waited.
"I hope that boredom is the worst thing that ever happens to you."
"Do you say that to all your patients or just me?"
"I'm not taking the cloned organ out before consulting with you further because there's something in it."
"What? B-But the, the menses, I had them once and y-you said, you said, Lu, th-that in nongravid health, they flow freely, in health, Lu, you said --- "
"The bleeding is something that females occasionally have when they are newly pregnant." He's as mottled as Bant now.
"I don't recall much from Winna's and An-Paj's lectures, Lu, but I do remember that menses stop, and anyway, you said --- it can't be true, it can't --- "
Be his Healer. "But they don't always," Luminara said crisply. "Sometimes light bleeding goes on at the regular time, at least for a month or two while the body's hormones adjust, and yours have. No more of that symptom, right?"
"No. Kriff, Lu, I thought at first it might be spleenrot or something fixable like that. You can always do without a spleen, right?" This can't be true. It's mine and Anakin's. Not Siri's and mine, no. It's mine and Anakin's. It's mine and Anakin's.
And so we go on to the next part. "Well, this is fixable, Obi-Wan, if you choose to, and then I can remove everything --- "
"No."
Be his friend. "Don't you want to ask Anakin on this?"
"No, I do not. We've discussed the possibility and I know where he stands because we are closer than ever before and why didn't this show up on the earlier exam?" Before I wrestled with the Dark Sider and endangered it?
"The area couldn't be discerned clearly until today. The Force obscured them, I told you that before you left. Today my scanner works on your uterus, but not my Force-senses, at least not normally. They simply tell me that you and they are well without giving more details." They are safe swimming around inside you and anything that would injure them would injure you too severely to worry about them. And now there's that worry wrinkle on your brow. Poor man. "Obs, you are well."
"Them."
"Yes."
"Tw--- "
"Yes."
"Wh--- "
"Early next spring."
"H--- "
"I'll remove them surgically. I've done it once or twice with civilians on New Hospice when they were caught in the crossfire." But never twins. Thirty-six weeks total instead of forty, most likely. Thirty-two to go.
"Is there any other way?"
"The clones' way, with tanks. Kaminoan, or we could import something --- "
I love them already. And I want the best for them. "No tanks," Obi-Wan said firmly. "And no decanting. These babies will be born. Maybe not completely naturally, but close enough. And that's the way it will be."
I didn't want to push decanting anyway. As close to natural as possible is always best, and now my article will be unique! Luminara wrote the abstract swiftly in her head as she gestured to him to sit still. She fine-tuned her scanner for a second sweep, more in detail than the first. Could be ectopic, could be implanted in the lining dangerously near the outlet tube --- could a name be generated for the tube, something like "Unduli's Outlet" --- no, not that self-serving, perhaps "Jedi Cross-Gender Flow Valve." Hmmm, no, ectopic or an analog to placenta previa conditions are definitely unhealthy, the Force wouldn't lead my diagnosis wrong there. Luminara stopped herself from humming as she noticed her friend's befuddlement. In her mind's eye, she scrolled to the first page of her article. "Jedi: pregnant male Master, age thirty-eight, human. Partner: male Padawan, age twenty-three, human." Luminara saw as irrelevant that Anakin was Obi-Wan's very own Padawan. Nobody else needed to know any more cogent details, outside the Order. She wondered how Adi would take this news. It would certainly cement her arguments for making a schism in the Order.
In a blur, Obi-Wan saw Luminara's lips say her usual "mmhmmm"s and "hold your breath"s and "excellent"s. When all was still after her work and she looked at him as if he were the most fascinating creation in the galaxy, he grabbed her hand and placed it against him, using her talents along with his own to search within himself. There was nothing that he could discern in the Force, no beating hearts, no nascent brainwaves, only the murmur of his own echoed heartbeat. He pushed her hand harder against him. There, a sheltered spot, like when he used Luminara's sinus clearing technique while floating on Gitchy's broad waters. He had not been able to sense the bones of his own skull, only the channels leading to his congested sinuses. It was the same here; the womb inside him was as protected as if it were solid bone, no way of reaching inside it to probe with the Force. The scanner worked, science worked, but not the Force in this case. He would have to take her word for his condition today, or else request to see her scanner's output in detail. What would it show? A blob with two smaller blobs inside, she said the readings were minimal, maybe some other time I can stand to look, uh, I have to ask ...
"Luminara, will the babies have allergies like mine used to be? Is there any way to prevent them from forming?"
You are already thinking ahead, how like you. "Some allergies can't be avoided, Obi-Wan. Yours weren't so bad." Except for that hoi-broth one. That is an absolute Jedi-Killer.
"They're inconvenient, and, and noisy. Sneezing, coughing, wheezing, you name it. What if the little, uh, Someones are on a mission and need to sneeze and there would be a surveillance assignment blown right there --- "
Luminara said gently, "Obi-Wan, there's nothing to say your children will or will not be Force-sensitive. It's the Force's way to ensure complete democracy and a meritocracy in the Jedi, not to mention the Republic." Mace thought this way, and Luminara agreed with him, though she did think a dynasty of Jedi might not be a bad thing. Pride in being part of such a dynasty could lead to the Dark Side, though, and the thought of selective breeding of Force-sensitives appalled her. As a Healer and a scientist, it was part of her speculative life, not that she ever wanted it to become reality. Some things were best left to authors of fiction.
"Well then, why is the Force protecting them so strongly, if they aren't Force-sensitive?" If Bant weren't indisposed, I'd ask her. I need a second opinion.
This was getting them nowhere. Luminara made to end this appointment. Her fifth hour was due. "Maybe because they aren't, and you are. Maybe because they are below your range of heightened midichlorians, Obi-Wan. Maybe they are above it. When you know every last way of the Force, you let me know, won't you." This is beyond my experience, too. "Until then, a little meditation to clear our minds?"
"Fine. Yes." The lines on Obi-Wan's face took several minutes to fade. "All, all right, Lu. This isn't your fault, any of it. It's no one's fault." I can't negotiate out of this.
He's resting his hand over them. He's trying to include them in his meditation unconsciously. "First level, begin."
I'll breathe for you, littles, until you can breathe on your own. "Begun." My Telling-Upsetting-News kata, yes, Anakin and I must go for an evening flight tonight. And I can't tell him about his Knighting. Oh, Mother. The Force held him sure and strong and he gave in to its embrace.
Meanwhile, in the Room of a Thousand Fountains ...
Late afternoon generally was a quiet time for the peaceful room and the two Jedi entertaining each other did not notice that they were alone. "T'ra, you're off your form." Tholme's avatar monnok waved the club that it had used to brain T'ra's houjix. The poor creature hadn't stood a chance.
T'ra trembled. "What do you mean by that?" Their cloaks lay discarded behind their bench and she had thought to detain Tholme on them for a leisurely hour or two. Condensation from the burbling fountains dripped from her brow.
"I mean, my dear, that usually you have me at the end of your blade by now in this game." Tholme tapped the base of the dejarik board and his monnok gave a final screech before derezzing. "Tell me what's wrong." Tell me why you aren't the same. For all your shapeshifting talents, you were unchanging in your essence to me through the years. And now you're not.
He suspects. "What's the use? We'll never agree."
"Try me." I have a bad feeling about this.
"Haven't you felt stifled by your years, Tholme? Didn't you want to have, to feel something different each day, the way you did when you were young?" To cast your seed and see it take root, to know that your kind will be replenished?
Our differences, of course we're different. We've weathered so many storms and droughts together, though. "So you're bored, T'ra? With everything, me included?" He placed a hand on her knee and slid it up to mid-thigh. Her muscles were like rock beneath his touch.
"Adi is leaving. She is deserting your precious Order, Tholme, the Order that you've fought, lied and cheated for." There's no hope. "There's no hope here in the Order or the Republic, Tholme, no hope at all," T'ra said, changing and stretching to a shape that Tholme had never seen before. Her long gown popped open with the strain as she resumed her natural thick grayish body. Her fingers split and split again. She retained her Romin head. The fingers reached for him and enfolded him before he could shout for help. He dropped from the bench and tried to crawl away from her, but her tendrils grasped his bad leg and then they hurt him with their rough bark as she pulled him towards her middle. She swallowed him inside her, crooning. "You are strong in the Force, but I am strong, too, Tholme, and all I need to do, all I need to do, is delay you until Dooku is freed. Come rest inside me, love."
"You're hollow, where is the rest of you, mfffff--- " A tendril bulged into Tholme's mouth and he bit down to no avail. He gasped for air, but it seemed enough for T'ra to immobilize him. The bark grew around him evenly, and when Master Ali-Anann led the Bear Clan on their nature walk to relax before bedtime, Initiate Liam found Tholme's cane and gave it to Ali-Anann for safekeeping. Behind the stone bench on the path stood a zaela tree with shivering needles, but no one took special note of it.
TBC