A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews. We'll see fairly soon if you guys end up liking where I'm going with this, I guess. As far as whether Obi-Wan is aware of Saduj's consortship with Palpatine, I went back and rearead what I wrote of Obi-Wan's reaction to Anakin's vision and I agree that it was unclear. Then I tried to remember if I was going for ambiguity. I'd like to pretend I was, but I wasn't. Obi-Wan was able to discern from Anakin only the word "Palpatine" and the image of his cloaked hologram. From there, our genius Master Kenobi just sort of put two-and-two together, assuming he also sensed Anakin's pain and foreboding. Anyways, on with things here. Hope you enjoy.

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Mace steepled his hands, leaning back in his seat as he watched the stars fly by like the unraveling of some endless thread. That wasn't so different from the way he'd always viewed the Force - an endless thread unraveling from the fabric of existence. He shut his eyes and thought further on the matter, wondering why man's clearest thinking always preceded its most irrational of actions - the destruction of itself. Mace had not been a perfect man, certainly not a perfect Jedi. But for all he'd done wrong, he'd never once subverted the Force or its will purposefully. He had been so loyal to that cosmic commodity to which all life was in debt.

For the first time, though, he found himself doubting the Force. If Yoda was correct, they'd been used as pawns, then left out to dry in the darkest hour. Rivers of blood would be shed by angels and bastards. Men's fath and character would tremble and be tested. If the Jedi were to fall, he wanted to be nowhere but on the frontline, but the responsibility weighed heavily on him. It struck him then that there had been occasions where he'd wished the Force hadn't been so dead-set on its preferred paths. He wished now that it hadn't obliged that call.

Beside him, Kooth was lost in his own musings, filtering the stars through his own analogies, making peace with the Force in his own way. Mace stood and crossed the room in several long strides, staring out another larger window that gave the stars a greater sense of both grandeur and foreboding. Every star they passed brought them closer to the cataclysm.

A few minutes passed, and then he felt his friend cross the room to join him. Kooth studied him briefly before turning his attention back to the vastness of space.

"I feel the Force grow stronger in me with each lightyear."

Mace nodded mutely.

"I thought for sure the boy was the chosen one."

Neither said anything for a time and Kooth wasn't surprised by that, nor was he expecting his friend to reply. Their relationship through the years was one nurtured by subtlety and silent understandings, short answers and dangling meanings. Mace surprised him when he broke with tradition.

"We were all blind to the change that has been building."

Kooth searched his eyes, but found nothing.

"What change, Mace?"

"A change in the will of the Force," he replied distantly. "The end of prophecy and the beginning of something much different."

"But what?"

Mace turned and met his eyes a moment, finding no emotion there just as he'd expected. He looked back at the stars.

"The era of prosperity," he said. "Or the area of darkness."

Several minutes passed, each lost once more in their own thoughts. When Kooth spoke again, there was an edge in his voice that neither had ever heard.

"Our estimates place the Chancellor's dispatch well over 1.2 million. And once he secures Naboo and eliminates the Jedi..."

Mace waited for him to finish the thought, and when he didn't, the dark-skinned Councilman prodded him.

"... and once he secures Naboo...?"

Kooth frowned. "I thought for sure you'd heard. The report came in an hour ago from one of our operatives in the Outer Rim."

"I was meditating," Mace replied coolly. "What of this report?"

His friend had not expected to be the one to provide him with this latest piece of news, nor did he want to be.

"We have unconfirmed accounts from third-hand sources. These figures could be incorrect. There is still hope that -"

Mace bowed his head. "Tell me."

Kooth watched him for a moment, then looked away.

"There's word that Palpatine will have as many as thirty million clones inside of the next six months."

The figure staggered Mace, who had been sufficiently in awe of the 1.2 million he'd raised for today's battle. The Jedi and those who fought with them truly were the galaxy's last hope. He felt a wave of frustration hit him as he thought about all of the diplomats he'd spoken to from countless worlds all over the Republic today. Some dismissed his call for armed forces, implying today's conflict was a mirage of the paranoid Jedi Order. Some had declined, declaring neutrality under the guise that it wasn't sufficient cause to sacrifice the lives of their people. What they failed to understand was that if Palpatine prevailed today, their people would die in droves under far less noble circumstances. Some had declared their loyalty to their Chancellor and committed troops toward that end - all told, another million men probably, pushing Palpatine's military strength past a mark of 2.2 million.

The only support the Jedi had garnered thus far had been in the form of 150,000 men from Kaveet, Timoria, and Corinthius. While all three had formidable and well-trained ground forces, their space-faring might would be vastly inferior to that at the call of Palpatine. And though the ground forces were far beyond competent, such a disparity in numbers spelled their end before they even arrived on Naboo. They would be forced into guerilla warfare no doubt, into tactics they would take no pride in. Such was the savagery of war, though, and while they had wished at all costs to avoid it, the Force was rather inisistent.

When Mace spoke, his voice was a quiet confection of disbelief and regret.

"How was he able to keep these clones a secret?" he asked. "How could we not sense what was coming, or sense the Chancellor's dark heart?"

Kooth didn't reply, just as Mace did not expect him to. Silence reigned once more. Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty. The door opened behind them, but neither could tear their gaze from the stars.

"Do you bring news?"

The young courier in the doorway couldn't tell which man had asked, a fact which in itself unnerved him. He was intimidated enough by these men already. All Jedi made him uneasy, but to that their status as Councilmen and he was terrified. If the sixteen year-old padawan he'd encountered down the corridor could read his thoughts, then he couldn't even imagine how far into his head these two could. He found solace, though, in recalling that he was here to deliver a meager bit of good news.

"Yes, sir," the courier said. "Word just came from Alderaan. They're sending forty-thousand men. They should arrive not long after us. And from Lacuvus, I've just received Senator Parsons' assurance that he will provide anything you deem necessary."

This was strange news, but not welcome. While Alderaan's military was not known at all for its might, it had grown slightly more competent in recent years. If nothing else, the men would fill space and provide the illusion of strength where there may be none. Parsons had always been a man concerned with his image, voting along party lines. His assistance surprised Mace. When the going got tough now, though, he was one of the few who was standing stock-still to meet it. Lacuvus, while not having much to offer in the way of man-power on the ground, was always on the cutting edge of technological innovation. Their fleet of space-going vessells were the most heavily equipped in the entire Republic. At the least, they would provide a lengthy distraction in the dead of space while the ground war was waged on Naboo.

"Thank you," Kooth replied quietly.

The courier turned to leave.

"May the Force be with you."

He stopped and turned around, unsure of who had said it. Whoever it was, he smiled a moment, then nodded and left the room.

Mace looked at his friend, noting the indecision in his eyes.

"Your thoughts linger on Skywalker."

Kooth nodded. "He was to be the chosen one. But what now, who?"

Mace's gaze lingered just as Kooth's thoughts did. He searched his eyes for something. Whether he found it or didn't, he waited a beat and then looked away.

"The future is no longer written. Our destiny is ours to make. The chosen one will be the Jedi whose mettle defies reason."

The storm was five hours away. Neither spoke another word. They watched the stars unravel.

---

Padme leaned her head against the door, sighing at her love's stubborn insistance. He'd gone into the lavatory and shut the door, telling her in rather direct terms to pack herself a bag of necessities and join Brummell on the porch. Naturally, her own stubborn insistance had surfaced and she stood defiantly now on the other side of the wood partition between them. If he thought he could just send her on her way to hide from whatever was to come, then he had another thing coming to him. If he thought he could make her leave him to the wolves, then he had another thing coming to him. If he thought preserving her at the expense of himself was an acceptable game plan, then Force help him because he had another thing coming to him.

When she spoke, her voice was soft, coaxing, her words spoken in a way that she knew (for it was not long earlier that he confessed) struck him to his very core.

"Obi-Wan."

When he didn't reply, she knew it was working.

"Obi-Wan, why don't you come out here and lie down for a little bit? You can just lay down for a little while and then we'll go find a place where no will get to us - all three of us, we'll all go."

Still nothing. She started to doubt her methodology. As she plotted her next move, though, the door opened and she slid toward the ground, caught mere inches from the floor by the startled Jedi. He hauled her to her feet and steadied her, then looked down on her with a sad smile. She was nothing if not persistent.

"Obi-Wan - " She paused, reaching a hand up to touch his cheek, smooth now except for faint traces of his shaved beard underneath his chin. His hair, which he'd become accustomed to wearing a little bit longer, now showed signs of a half-finished cut She reached up and ran her hand through the newly cut part. He looked just as he had as a padawan when they'd first met all those years ago. "We wasted so much time."

He hadn't been ready for that.

"What?"

Padme's hand trailed through his hair and down the back of his head, then came back around to rest on his cheek. He looked back at her with glazed eyes and though it could have been from fever, somehow she knew that it was out of love of her, that for him, looking into her eyes was the only true rapture ever experienced by a human being, some paradise set aside by the Force for Obi-Wan only and no one else. She drew his head down toward her, guiding his lips toward hers.

"We should have been doing this seven years ago," she whispered as his lips grazed hers and then paused a moment as if the sensation was so overwhelming that his mind and his heart and his soul needed a moment's rest.

He spoke, brushing her lips faintly with each word. "I wanted to."

Then his mouth captured hers in a way that was both passive and earnest, savoring her taste, unquantifiable, indescribable, so sweet and indulgent and full of life's essence that he knew he'd been missing the point for twenty-seven years. Everything he'd ever done or been had all been meaningless exposition, unavailing filler stretching out over the days and months and years in that same way as this kiss stretched out over nanoseconds and milliseconds and seconds. When she pulled away, it was like someone stealing the platelets right out of his blood.

"Padme."

She shut her eyes at the sound of her name and smiled, leaning into his hand when he brought it to her face.

"Padme, it's getting time for you to go."

That got her attention. She stood up straighter, lifting her chin defiantly. "I think not."

Obi-Wan's lips twitched at that, threatening a smile that never quite came. She was so pure of spirit, direct without being blunt, diplomatic without being insinscere, wonderful without knowing it. Here she was, told calamity was on a collision course with the world she loved and the people in it, told the course of existence would change forever, and all she could think of was him, of his safety and not her own. She was the reason he would fight this day, the reason all Jedi would fight. Padme was everything worth preserving in this galaxy.

"Padme," he tried again, his affection almost palpable. "Love, I need for you to do this for me. I need to know that you're safe, because if I don't, then I'll only be half a man. This war can't be won by the half-whole."

She lowered her head, refusing to meet his eyes. The Force was nothing but a damn thief, stealing happiness from her in the same moment as she found it. Why did everyone and everything conspire to keep out of she and Obi-Wan's reach all those things which might give back some of the meaning the universe took from them at every opportunity? He brought his hand to her chin and gently forced her head up until she looked into his eyes once more, begging that she might drown there. His soft smile inspired one of her own.

After a moment, she ran a curious hand through his hair again.

"Why did you shave your beard? Why are you cutting your hair?"

He might have thought of a lie if he hadn't been in such a trance looking on her face. The truth was something he owed her anyway. He waited a moment, licking his lips, looking down. This time, it was Padme who brought her hand to his chin. He met her eyes.

"Because if I am to fall today, I will hide nothing of myself. The man who slays me will look on my face and he will know who I am and what he's done."

Padme nodded, averting her gaze as her eyes clouded with tears. She willed herself to stop, to do anything but cry. Her final moments with Obi-Wan weren't to be like this. If he did fall as he said, she couldn't bear to think that his final moments would be guilty musings of the pain he caused her. If the cost of his arms were an eternity of slow, calculated, gruesome torture, she would pay the price twenty times over. But to think her dear Jedi's last act in this life could be one of spiritual self-mutilation was unbearable. Somehow, he seemed to sense this discord in her and gave her the moment she needed to gather herself.

When she looked back at him, her eyes still glistened with tears, but her lips curved up in a genuine smile indebted to sanguinity. Obi-Wan brought his hand back to her face, ready to halt the tears that dared to fall.

"I love you," he said.

Padme touched the longish locks toward the back of his head.

"Let me finish cutting your hair," she said quietly, a plea more than a command.

Obi-Wan watched her a moment, then nodded.

"Okay."

The scissors felt so heavy.