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Rest

Chapter 20: Prosthetics

After the young family's brief mid-night meeting, Obi-Wan returned Anakin back to his room for his much-needed rest.

Anakin regained consciousness much later that day, his body resting up against pillows in a hospital bed. When he awoke, the room was buzzing with the sounds of different droids moving to prepare and attach new prosthetics limbs to his arms and legs; his right prosthetic arm had been removed. Anakin's blurry eyes focused in on Obi-Wan, who realized Anakin had finally awoken.

"Oh, you're up." Obi-Wan turned to grab something from the table next to his seat. "Here, I brought you some shuura juice from the cafeteria." Obi-Wan awkwardly offered the straw of the cup forward to Anakin's head so he could drink.

Anakin, still a little hazy, took a long sip. "Thank you."

Obi-Wan turned away to place the cup back on the table. "Padme is still upstairs with the twins. Her sister came by to say they were doing well and that they'll be discharged from the hospital later today."

Anakin's eyebrows raised, trying to consider what that would mean for them. "Obi-Wan…"

His former master turned back to him and spoke, "Already ahead of you Anakin. The council knows you are in recovery and might take a month or so to come back from your injuries. The war is over, Anakin. You'll have time to rest."

Anakin closed his eyes, somehow grateful for their situation despite the cost of his health. "So I can be with her, be with them here…" he smiled and took a deep breath.

Obi-Wan was still confused at the whole situation. He sat down and rubbed his forehead with his hand. "Anakin, perhaps you could explain this to me now? I knew you and the senator were close, but…"

Anakin opened his eyes and nodded in seriousness. "Padme and I…" of all the times Anakin imagined having to tell Obi-Wan about their secret union, limbless and in a hospital bed on Naboo was not one of them.

*Coruscant, approx. 2½ years ago*

Anakin arrived on Coruscant very late that evening, "borrowed" one of the fastest speeders from the Jedi Temple's landing bay, and showed up at Padme's apartment's landing dock after midnight.

Padme woke from the commotion, and ran to the veranda to greet him. Anakin kissed her, held her close, then turned to hand her a helmet and brown Jedi cloak from the side seat of the speeder. "Put it on," he gave her one of his famous cocky smiles, "We're going for a joy ride."

"What?!" she responded, "Ani, it's like 1am."

"It'll be fine," he said, kissing her again on the lips.

Although she was hesitant, she couldn't resist his smile. "Alright," she said, and dawned the disguise. "How do I look?" came her muffled voice from underneath the enormous, full helmet.

"Like a bobble-headed Jedi," he laughed. He lifted her helmet just up above her lips so he could kiss her again, and helped her get in to the speeder without tripping on the length of the cloak.

They took off, flying high and low around the city scape. Once they were farther from the city centre, Anakin pushed the speeder to its limit, taking them at super-fast speeds and manipulating them quickly through buildings and over motor ways.

Padme held onto his arm throughout the ride, a little scared but completely loving the thrill of it.

When they got back to 500 Republica, Padme invited Anakin in to her apartment for a different type of late-night joy ride…

They both fell asleep shortly afterwards.

Anakin's comlink went off a few hours later, waking them both.

As he was fumbling around to retrieve the device from his discarded Jedi robes on the floor, he accidentally turned it just on as Padme spoke, "Ani, just come back to bed…"

"Shh!" Anakin whispered, at once hearing Obi-Wan's lecturing voice come through the speaker.

"Anakin! Anakin! Are you there?"

"Yes, master," Anakin said, trying to not sound like someone who had just woken up.

"Where the blazes are you?! We have a meeting with the council in fifteen minutes, and there's a speeder missing from the landing deck that I suppose you wouldn't know anything about? The council won't take this lightly after your last incident—"

"Sorry master—"

"Don't be sorry Anakin, just get here! And return the speeder!" Obi-Wan's voice huffed before the comlink disconnected.

Anakin looked up from the comlink in his hand to Padme, who, now awake from listening to the conversation, sat up in the bed with an unimpressed smirk on her face. "Last incident?" she asked.

Anakin started to dress himself in the discarded clothing from the floor. "Another story," he said, pulling his shirt over his head, and leaning in to kiss her, "For another time."

Padme drew her hand forward to lift the drape of his shirt up over his navel. Drawing her longing gaze up to his face, she said, "So you really have to go?"

The look on Anakin's face was of pure torture. He paused to consider for a second, but decided, "…Yes."

"Okay Ani," she said with a pout.

Anakin returned the missing speeder to the landing deck in record time, while somehow managing to bypass any detection. He ran from the landing bay up to meet Obi-Wan in the hall outside the council chambers, and with a minute to spare; the council chamber doors were not yet open.

Obi-Wan looked rather irritated, albeit relieved that Anakin had gotten there in time. He addressed Anakin under his breath while staring forward at the chamber doors, "So good of you to be here Anakin. Has the speeder been returned?"

"What speeder?" Anakin played the fool.

Obi-Wan huffed, and lowered his voice even more discrete, "Was that a woman I heard on your comlink?"

Anakin did not skip a beat, "And if it was?"

Obi-Wan nearly rolled his eyes, "Then I would remind you about the Jedi code and the no-attachments rule."

Anakin used his charm to play it off lightly, "Enjoying the company of a woman doesn't mean there's an attachment."

But his master countered in a firm, knowing tone, "It does if you sleep over into the morning."

Anakin sheepishly stayed quiet; he didn't have a playful response to that one.

Thankfully, just then the council chamber doors opened.

"Padme and I…" he continued, "We got married on Naboo after the battle of Geonosis." Anakin took in a deep breath, his breathing still uneasy. "The council thought I was escorting her back to Naboo. We've… kept it secret since then."

Obi-Wan nodded, looking at the floor, "I suppose there were times I wondered if you had… someone… you returned to."

Anakin nodded, wincing as the burns around his neck moved with the motion. "It was always her."

"And now the twins," Obi-wan noted.

"Not… entirely planned. But entirely welcomed."

Obi-Wan nodded in understanding.

The pair waited in silence as the droids prepared. In a few minutes, one approached Anakin to monitor his health measures again and inform him about the process of attaching the prosthetics.

"…We've also taken liberties to reproduce the prosthetic arm you had on your right. It appeared to be of superior functionality with the synth-net neural interface. We will be replacing the damaged one and have created a left arm based on the original."

Anakin was impressed. He created his mechno-arm himself because the original offering synth-skin prosthetics fell short of what he wanted. Obi-Wan spoke up, "I let them know you'd prefer something akin to the mechno-arm, and not that poorly functioning realistic stuff."

"Thanks, Obi-Wan," Anakin said sincerely.

When everything was prepared, the droids began in a flurry, working between limbs, cleaning the remaining bacta from the stumps of his arms and legs and drying his skin for the synth-net neural interface on his arms and silicon casings on his thighs. They removed the IV fluid drip from his upper arm, and another droid checked his lungs again for their functionality.

"You will need to remain on oxygen support for the time being. We have a mobile oxygen support system for you to carry with you or wear on your back."

Anakin nodded. As the meddroids moved around his body, his mind drifted to Padme and the twins. He could barely wait to be with them again.

The droids worked on his legs, encasing one thigh at a time in air-tight suction liners. Anakin winced in pain as the tight material was rolled up against his healing burns, the feeling of the flames licking at his skin returning as each nerve ending was stimulated. Finally, both liners were on his thighs, and the prosthetics were placed just below.

"We will help you stand up. The prosthetics will suction onto the liners attached to your legs. This way the prosthetic limbs will stay attached and you'll be able to use your thigh muscles in a normative way to allow you to walk," spoke the droid.

Anakin frowned as he nodded. "Obi-Wan, help me up." The older Jedi helped Anakin sit up, then a droid assisted him in helping Anakin stand into the prosthetic legs. Air gently hissed as Anakin felt his weight being lowered into the sockets of the prosthetic legs.

"You may sit back. We will do the same with your arm prosthetics then work on coordinating your movements."

Similar liners were attached to his arms, but this time with electronic muscle sensors that could be used to coordinate the movements of his prosthetic arms.

Once the arm prosthetics were attached, Anakin played with the arm movements he could generate by flexing the muscles in what was left of his upper extremities. He slowly got the hang of them. "Almost as good as the ones I had," he lightly joked, but the humour fell short at his new reliance on prosthetics.

Obi-Wan smiled. He turned to the lead droid, "Shall we try to get him up?"

"Yes." The droid brought forth a walker, like the ones used for the elderly to support themselves in their balance and gate.

Anakin looked apprehensive at first, but shook the feeling. He would use the walker, conquer walking in prosthetics, and leave the walker behind.

As Anakin sat forward again, the droid's digitized voice spoke, "Wait, there is one more thing. This is the mobile oxygen supply carrier you will have with you. With this you will not have to cart around a tank. Please inform us if you experience any signs of faintness from lack of oxygen."

Anakin nodded with pursed lips. They reconnected the oxygen tubing from the machine at his bed to the mobile carrier, made sure the oxygen tubes were correctly positioned under his nose, and placed the oxygen carrier pack on the handle of his walker.

Anakin felt like he was being prepared for another Jedi trial, this time somewhat pathetically armed with prosthetics, an oxygen tube, and a walker, rather than a lightsaber and Jedi robes.

He sat forward, shifting his weight up. He focused on coordinating his upper arm movements to have the prosthetic arms reach forward and grasp the walker. When they didn't hold like he wanted them too, he became frustrated, then used the Force to close the prosthetic hands around the bar of the top of the walker. This worked.

Obi-Wan watched intently. Anakin looked up to him to briefly smile before shifting his body weight forward, and trying to use his arms to pull his torso up above the prosthetic legs. Slowly, and with a great deal of nerve pain, he stood up on his new legs.

It was an odd sensation to stand without one's lower extremities supporting oneself to the ground. Anakin felt dizzy and slightly nauseated. "Focus," he told himself, and he lifted one thigh to step a leg forward. Then another, and another, and soon he was controlling the most bizarre mechanisms he'd ever piloted – a pair of prosthetic legs.

"Great Anakin," praised Obi-Wan, but he was too quick to speak – within a few more steps, Anakin soon fell short of breath. His vision went blurry, and he nearly fell backwards. It took all his might to remain standing, using the Force to secure himself in space.

"Help," he whispered, feeling like he was about to collapse.

The droids quickly brought forward the wheel chair he used yesterday to visit Padme. "Knight Skywalker, please sit back down." Anakin winced as he tried to lower back down, the skin feeling tight and painful around his thighs and buttocks.

"I've got you, Anakin," Obi-Wan grabbed around Anakin's back, and Anakin hissed as his skin rubbed against the seat of the chair and his hospital gown.

The monotonous voice of the droid spoke, "Due to the level of strain on your circulatory system, you will have to use the wheel chair for the majority of your mobility until your lungs are fully functioning again. Otherwise, you will easily be overexerted, as just demonstrated now."

Anakin was frustrated. He thought this would be easier to get going; he felt he could manage the pain of the burns, he could learn to deal with the clumsy feel of the prosthetics, and he wanted to get up and moving so he could be with Padme and help care for and raise the twins. He grimaced as he asked, "How long until my lungs work and I can get moving?"

The droid calculated a response, then digitized, "Lungs will likely recover to full functional capacity between 2-3 weeks and never."