Chapter 26

Obi-wan was barely awake when Xanatos dragged him into the kitchen and pushed him up against the wall. He gritted his teeth when he hit the wall as the mix of pain from his leg and child birth hit him, it had been hard enough on the bed. His hands automatically went to Xanatos' hand, which had taken up residence around his neck.

"Where is the child?" he demanded pushing harder then releasing slightly so that he could reply.

"You said that all the women could go, I assumed that meant the baby too,"

"It was supposed to be a boy. I was assured that it was a boy." Xanatos snarled pushing again on Obi-Wan's throat.

Obi-Wan was now well and truly awake and risking his captors wrath he drew on the Force to help him further and to 'see' who else was in the room. He was relieved but slightly distressed when Qui-Gon reached back, caressing their bond which had lain dormant for almost 6 months. He allowed the bond to wash over him as Qui-Gon gave him strength through it.

"And who told you that? No one knew what the child was,"

In answer Xanatos turned and summoned a blaster from a nearby guard then shot the same man with it, "That is what happens when people give me false information." He turned back to Obi-Wan, "But it doesn't matter, I will have that child, no matter where you hide her. I will find her and I will train her as my apprentice and you two will live in the knowledge that your daughter will be of the dark side and will one day destroy you and the Jedi Order." That said he pulled Obi-Wan away from the wall and threw him away from him towards Qui-Gon where he landed with a thump and a cry of pain before he fell unconscious again, from pain and lack of Oxygen.

When Obi-Wan regained consciousness he was no longer at home but in a large white room which he recognised as part of the local medicentre paternity ward, from the other beds and small pink/blue cots next to some of the beds.

As soon as he had assured himself that he was safe and Xanatos was no where nearby, his thoughts turned to his daughter. While he trusted his sister he wasn't sure she would be able to stand up to anyone who demanded she handed over the baby. Reaching out with the Force he was able to ascertain that his daughter was in the medicentre somewhere close by, definitely within two or three floors below him.

Pushing back the thin sheets and blanket that were covering him, he moved to swing his legs over the side of the bed only to find that once again one of his legs was encased in a heavy cast, apparently while he was unconscious the medicentre staff had had enough time to attend to the damage and set the bone more thoroughly then Terrian had been able to with his limited supplies. With a bit more effort then he would have otherwise needed he managed to swing his legs to the floor wincing at both the pain and loud noise the action caused.

When none of the other patients where disturbed and no nurses came charging into the room ordering him back to bed he called on the Force again to temporarily dull the pain from his leg before standing and leaving the room, making sure to put his encased leg down as softly as possible, to reduce the cluck of every other step.

Thankfully the nightshift had a skeleton crew so the corridors were basically empty and it was easy to avoid any wandering patients and nurses.

The new father decided that the best place to start his search would be the nursery, which he had seen during his last stay at the medicentre, and which was situated halfway between the maternity ward and the paternity ward, and so just down the hallway from the room he had woken up in.

Being filled with infants who had no concept of reasonable waking hours yet, this part of the ward was full of activity, both with nurses checking of the babies health, and exhausted but adoring parents feeding, changing and rocking their newest family members back to sleep.

Although Obi-Wan had not had a chance to see his daughter properly when she was born, due to the situation they had been in. He was intimately familiar with her force signature which he had been able to sense growing stronger as she had grown inside him. So while he would not be able to identify her by looking at her he was able to tell from the entrance to the room that his daughter was not there and turned away towards the elevators to try the next floor.

He immediately dismissed the 5th floor, which was next down, without even requesting the floor because it was declared as the Burns Trauma wards by a small plaque next to the number, and the 4th because it was for Cancer patients. Selecting the 3rd floor, which was for no specific wards, he leaned back against the wall and moved all his weight to his uninjured leg, until he arrived on the selected floor.

Like the Maternity/Paternity floor, these hallways were mostly empty, except for the occasional nurse, and the patients were mostly asleep since there were no children to keep them wake.

Now that he was closer he was sure that his daughter as on this floor, along with most of his family, he limped slowly along the halls, reaching into each room he passed with the Force to see if it was the correct room.

As he turned into one of the corridors though he found that he didn't need any special abilities to find what he was looking for, it was a wonder more patients weren't awake with the loud 'whispering' that was coming from one of the rooms.

"NO! Ben told me not to let ANYONE hold her until HE told me otherwise," Sandra sounded very upset and her voice rose and fell between being told to soften her voice.

"Darling, I am sure he didn't mean not to let her be treated by a healer, we need to check her out to make sure she's healthy," someone else countered, Ben thought it was probably on of the medicentre staff.

"He said not to trust anyone; you can look at her when he wakes up."

Ben now reached the doorway to the room and was able to see that Sandra was standing in the middle of the room clutching a bundle of light pink blankets which he could sense contained his daughter. His father and brother were propped up in their beds watching the argument, while his other sisters were somehow sleeping through it, he thought perhaps because of the sleeping tablets that had been forced on the earlier, and his mother was standing with a group of nurses and doctors who were trying to talk Sandra into giving up the baby. It seemed that his worries about his sisters' resilience in the protection of his daughter were uncalled for.

"Your brother he had to be anesthetised for the surgery to fix the damage to his leg, and he also has the gas that security had use to subdue your captors in his system, he will not wake up for at least another 3 hours, and probably won't be coherent enough to make any decisions until at least tomorrow morning. Newborn infants need to be checked out as soon as they are born, especially when they are premature. She is almost 6 hours old; this can't wait another 10 for your brother to wake up." The healer explained this all in a very condescending tone, which didn't help at all to make Sandra relinquish the child. Ben was starting to think that she coped with stressful situations like her brother, by finding something she was responsible for and could concentrate on and not letting another sway her. Even though she looked dead on her feet having gotten no sleep the night before, and having gone without food even longer she was still not letting up, even in the relative safety of the medicentre.

He decided that now would be a good time step in and allow them all some rest. He moved across the room towards his sister, this time not disguising the noise his cast made on the floor. Everyone turned towards the noise and the nurses rushed to help him, though he brushed them off.

"Its ok Sandra," he said when he reached her, "I'll take her now, go get some rest."

This time Sandra gave no objection and handed her niece over to her father, then moved to her bed and curled up to sleep

At the nurses' insistence, Ben moved over to the only unoccupied bed and climbed into it and allowed the healer to check him over, while one of the nurses left to call his ward to tell them where he was, though when she returned she informed them that they hadn't noticed his absence.

Obi-Wan however ignored them all as they prodded, poked and questioned him. He was engrossed with this seeing his daughter properly for the first time. He pulled back the small blanket covering her from view and was able to see immediately that she had inherited his thick, red-brown hair, but had thankfully been saved the indignity of his chin; through she had his high cheek bones. She had her other father's nose and though he couldn't see her eyes, because she was sleeping, but he was sure she would have Qui-Gon's eyes too.

"She's beautiful," his mother said, coming up beside him.

"Yes, she is." He replied.

After a moment he looked away from the newborn to see a highly frustrated healer and nurse standing over him, the other nurse had moved over to check on Sandra, who was now almost asleep.

"Mum, could you please take her to be checked out."

The healer adopted a smug look, while the nurse just looked relieved.

"Please don't let her out of your sight, and please be quick I won't be able to rest without her close." He said this last part one because he knew it would get his mother to hurry them along, secondly, because it was true, he wouldn't feel safe until he knew that Xanatos was dead or gone from the planet, the man was too resourceful; and finally because he could feel that she was force-sensitive, and so the council would soon be sending someone to take her away from him, to the temple.

It was an hour later before Sara returned with his daughter and one of the nurses who was carrying a clipboard and some papers.

"She's a perfectly healthy baby girl," his mother assured him, loud enough so everyone could hear.

"Yes she is," the nurse confirmed, "she is a little under weight, but her lungs are fulling developed so she will be able to stay with you from now on. All we need now is a few details for the birth certificate," she looked down at her paperwork before continuing, "your mother was able to give us most of the detail but there are just a few small things. We need the time of birth?"

Obi-Wan told her an approximate time of birth, which Terrian promptly corrected him on. There were a few more questions after that, like Qui-Gon's place of birth, before they got to the question they all wanted answered.

"…And finally, have you decided on a name?"

Everyone looked to Obi-Wan, who seemed engrossed in his daughter, for the answer.

"Kae-Lyn, her name's Kae-Lyn."

A/N: Alright, I would apologise again for the extremely long wait that I have put you all through, but I am sure you are all fed up with them.

I haven't been in the right mood to do any writing in a while, and any I have done has been completely spur of the moment 'quick has someone got a pen!' pieces. Which is what happened yesterday, and this is the result. It is nothing like what I planned, which was to stay in the house for a bit longer, but I decided that since this is mostly from Obi-Wan's POV and he was knocked out again, I thought it would be best to skip forward a bit and I hope that will help me to get past the colossal writers block I have had recently. In the next chapter I will go into what happened to everyone else and Obi will be told what happened in the house. Hopefully it wont take 8-9 (Nov 06 - Aug 07)months again (though that is an ironic length of time ;D)

Hope you enjoyed this chapter,

Lov

JEDI-BANT

P.S. for anyone interested Kae-Lyn, I got from though it was actually Kaelyn meaning Pure, but I wanted to keep with the hyphened name style like her parents.