pronker

Part Eighty-Four

Threepio's photoreceptors remained as black as Artoo's single orb. Now ensconced in a corner of Anakin's room, their delivery had been a thorny issue this morning.

"And why is Senator Amidala giving these broken droids to you, Padawan?"

"It's a gift."

"I see." There was an ocean of confusion in Obi-Wan's eyes. "Did --- Did you tell me that they were arriving and I was absent-minded?" He chuckled at himself. "I forgot to take my memory vitamins this morning."

Master Lu said I'd need to be proactive in his treatment, and I wasn't. Still thinking about Palpatine. Kriff. It would have been easy for Anakin to pin any awkwardness on Obi-Wan's condition, but he refused. "No. I didn't tell you before."

"And it's a gift because ... " He ran a hand over Artoo's frozen dome and didn't look at Anakin directly.

" ... because Padmé knew I'd be at home for a while after our mission ended and thought I could use a project. Because she's my friend. I commed her the first night we got back, along with all my other friends." Because Artoo became my friend and I built Threepio to be my friend and Mom's helper and I want all my friends to be well, including you. Well, most of all you.

"Your friend." Anakin busied himself with his tools, surveying Artoo's barrel shape with the thrumming monitor function on his portable scanner. No activity, down to the tiniest circuit and fluidic artery. No carbon scoring, no burned wire detritus, not a thing to trace physically. This was worse than the near-terminal droids that Watto had assigned him to fix and had punished him when he could not. He was no child now, and he had developed his skills in later years and used up-to-date equipment. All right. Run diagnostics next. He programmed his portable scanner, wishing that the Jedi Analysis room could be called into service, but his and Padmé's secret could not come out yet. He resented their double life in a burst of frustration, offered it up to the Force and waited for the effort to take effect. It took longer than it should have. Back to business. Those yellow eyes had to have come from somewhere.

Obi-Wan sat on Anakin's narrow bed to watch. He was supposed to rest, but it ran against the grain. "Can I do anything?" He could handle simple repairs; this one looked far beyond his scope. He was in awe of Anakin's talents and didn't mind being the support system to any of his projects. Anakin would keep him from touching anything important. There was the Yimpian incident to consider. Obi-Wan shivered slightly.

"Nope. Maybe later." Anakin considered using the Force to diagnose Artoo, knowing there was no way to shield Obi-Wan from the knowledge of its use in such close quarters. He undid the mag-seals to Artoo's dome, placing it upside down on the carpet. He removed the clips from Artoo's primary photoreceptor and radar eye, loosening its lens, the round portal to the little droid's personality. Artoo did have a personality, Anakin told himself, just as Threepio did. By random absorption of stellar radiation when he drew extra-vehicular duty, by after-market tweaking of unnamed previous tinkerers, however the transformation from factory-issue heuristics into a personality occurred, Anakin would miss Artoo if he could not repair him. And so he would access the Force to repair him if the diagnostics strategy bombed out. He didn't think Obi-Wan would call that frivolous.

Am I up to dealing with Anakin's disillusion today? Palpatine/Sidious showed a side of life to him that I could never do. Palpatine/Sidious always made Anakin feel better, more confident. Obi-Wan knew that he himself did not. 'Watched his career with great interest,' my foot. That sleemo lured my Padawan --- my Anakin! --- into his clutches by preying on the boy's feeling out-of-place ... that ... that ... Obi-Wan called upon all his considerable discipline to guide his raging thoughts out of their red-tinged path and onto a grass-lined one beside a still pond. The Jedi path to discipline offered a good life, if a Padawan could stay on the narrow road; he so desired that Anakin could. The Jedi Service Corps offered different paths, less demanding, but less rewarding in Obi-Wan's opinion. He lay back on Anakin's narrow bed, tugging up his slippersox. How odd not to get dressed today. Wrapping his blue bathrobe around his chest and crossing his arms, he examined his right arm through the soft weave. In all ways, the limb felt normal.

Artoo's orb, separated from its housing, rested in Anakin's glove as a disjointed part of his little friend, a useless member of Padmé's --- and his --- household. If he could restore Artoo and Threepio to her use, she might thaw in her acceptance of his and Obi-Wan's arrangement. For that reason, and his own fondness for the droids, he persevered. Nothing on the diagnostics. It's as if a damper on their circuits exists from an outside source. The droids can't communicate in binary what's wrong, much less move. Anakin knew to err on the side of caution. "Master, please shield your eyes. I'm going to try something." He cupped a protective mechno-hand around the lens and fished the unmarked chip out of his robe's inner pocket. He knelt on the floor in front of his bed's footboard, turning his back to hide the chip from Obi-Wan. He was in a corner facing a blank white wall, not only in his bedroom, but in parts of his life. Stupid. How long are you going to hold out from telling him about you and Padmé? Shaking his head at himself, he shoved the thought away and drew upon the Force.

Obi-Wan didn't budge. "Padawan, that sounds dangerous. As much as I like Luminara, I don't want to see her again so soon for her services. What are you planning?" He needs the Force for this?

Kriff, kriff, double-kriff, triple-kriff ... if this chip interacts with Artoo's lens and produces images corresponding to what the SP-4 spouted ... or engages Threepio's vocabulator somehow ... For his Master's greater good, Anakin lied, "I'm going to kromitz the farkulator in Artoo's primary photoreceptor. It may make a flash, and you've been blinking your eyes a lot in bright light lately." He twisted around to look at Obi-Wan. "Please let me take care of you, Master."

"Very well. Is the flame retardant handy?"

"Yes, I recharged it after you prepared Muja Flambé and put it back in the kitchen. Bottom drawer below the oven this time, so you don't have to reach."

"Proceed, then." Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "I have all the faith in the galaxy in you, Padawan."

Anakin hurriedly reconfigured his portable scanner and aimed it at the silent Threepio, setting the scanner's range to collect any utterances by the protocol droid and store them without any outward sign. He propped it up on his toolkit to stabilize it. At Obi-Wan's words, he jerked a smile, not looking up as he turned his back again. He switched the chip to his mechno-hand and held the lens by its edges in his flesh hand, adjusting a small level of Force-protection over his hands as he brought the two slowly together.

The river sparked.

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Part Eighty-Five

It wasn't until the chip and Artoo's lens were one centimeter apart that anything happened. With the Force, Anakin sensed a discharge was about to occur and he braced himself against its power, sitting back on his heels rather than kneeling upright. He hunched over the lens and the chip to protect Obi-Wan, prepared for an arc, but none came. He was glad of his foresight in wearing a minuscule earbud from his portable scanner to monitor any pickups from either droid in realtime. The scanner's recordings he could study later; his first impressions might be priceless.

"OOOOooooowooooWOOOhooooahhh ... " moaned Threepio to Anakin only, a most distressing sound. Artoo's dome made a quarter-spin to the right from where it was upended by Anakin's bare left foot, Artoo's barrel body frozen before him. Anakin realized that an accelerated burst transmission was emanating from Artoo's dome and streaming to the lens, initialized by the chip in his mechno-hand in conjunction with Threepio's now-activated algorithms. He held his hand steadier with a bit more of the Force. From the lens bulged a sizzling blue outline of a lump that might have been a human form, no, it was two, and as the image coalesced poorly in only two dimensions on Anakin's own bedroom wall, he heard in his earbud the phrase, "what are you doing" followed by a whimpered "oh Mama." An incomplete profile of two partially-defined figures spread itself over the white wall.

Sick with dismay, he watched the half-meter in diameter offering in front of him. He forgot about Obi-Wan until his Master asked, "Are you almost there?"

From unknown, untested strength, Anakin gained control of his voice. "No. A little while longer --- it's a bit tricky." Obi-Wan's words cued a vast shudder of resolution to the shivering images. Anakin made out the sounds from his earbud more clearly, too. Quiet kisses, soft moans and slick slurping sounds penetrated his stunned mind. Amid a tangle of two upraised legs, he discerned a mop of curly hair, a lighter shade than dark brown or black, but not a lighter shade than medium blonde. If the being were human, that is; he could not tell. This was definitely not Padmé's hair, and from the timing that she had mentioned, it could not be his. Besides, this is that thing that we never did. I wonder if we'll ever get a chance to, or if I even want to. He watched a moment more and turned away. The visual transmission from Artoo's dome ended when he put the lens in his toolkit and shut its lid with numb fingers. His earbud continued to whimper, but now an overarching voice intruded, building to a male's deeper timber. " ... marvelous ... splendid ... heh-heh ... marvelous ... splendid ... heh-heh ... marvelous ... " said the voice in a headache-inducing loop, and as Anakin rocked back on his heels to slump against the footboard, he recognized the voice as Palpatine's. It was the same tone and words the Chancellor had used to exclaim over the opera's finale during their last Courier ride around Galactic City. Anakin opened his legs at a wide angle and leaned his head back with a thump against the footboard, clenching the unmarked chip in his flesh hand, not daring to put it in his powerful right one.

xxxxx

"Are you done yet?" Obi-Wan felt the need for a rest and reclined, laying his head on Anakin's pillow. Through his eyelids, he saw the afternoon sun's red power infiltrate the room's open but completely privacy-screened window. A surge of joy slipping through their bond had prompted Obi-Wan to ask his question, followed by what he thought he had heard Anakin mumble: "Just wait till I tell P--- ", but that part seemed to have been his imagination. Anakin slammed up shields as strongly as he had in Upper-Cremba-on-Gitchy's commons. They had nothing to do with him shielding his own physical pain from his Master and everything to do with privacy. At Anakin's response to his question, Obi-Wan turned onto his side, drawing up his knees. Still shielding so strongly, my own Padawan? Do you need for me to tell you that I love you for your smile, your dedication to the Order and to me? I think you are ready for me to tell you ... today. Yes, today. We have the leisure. Today would be good. Anakin needed something to cushion the blow of revelation about Palpatine that Obi-Wan was not quite ready to deliver. Obi-Wan figured that Anakin's shields just now involved protecting Obi-Wan in some way, from frustration over the progress on Artoo, or something to do with ... Senator Amidala. Obi-Wan huffed and rolled away from the sun to face the door, still keeping his eyes tightly shut. Since one year ago, Obi-Wan knew that his Padawan harbored deep reawakened feelings for the Senator. Even though she did not act responsibly. Even though she abandoned a nineteen year-old to his own efforts at self-healing his grief over his mother's death ... she abandoned him ... Obi-Wan left off before he started to blame Amidala for everything up to and including a rainy day.

He lay still, feeling a thump reverberate through the mattress when Anakin lost his balance and slid into the footboard. He thought he heard teeth grinding. Frustrated. I know one way to relieve frustration, that is if he weren't grieving over Palpatine. On the veranda would be pleasant surroundings; Anakin decorated the space last year with a small touch of Nature involving hanging plants, potted palms and wicker furniture. Obi-Wan slitted his eyes open. Must be taking a break and forgot to tell me. He opened his mouth to ask, "Padawan, how about some tea?" when he heard Anakin retching. Obi-Wan leaped to the foot of the bed, falling to his knees beside Anakin, holding his head efficiently as Anakin leaned to the side and lost his lunch, heaving until there was nothing left inside him. He is as helpless as he was at eleven with the Togorian measles and he needed me day and night for a week, Obi-Wan thought as he wiped Anakin's face with the one clean sleeve of the Padawan's now-soiled robe. Obi-Wan folded the mess inside as he stripped the robe off, rolled it up and threw the voluminous material to one side. Anakin seemed stunned, staring glassy-eyed at the corner of his room, muttering, "Palpatine? Was it Palpatine?" Obi-Wan put his arm around his Padawan's shoulders, sitting beside him until he could speak again.

The river disbelieved.

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