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Chapter Text

“I could be persuaded to return Skywalker to you in exchange for General Grievous...I’m sure you will make the right choice.”

That was what Dooku had said. The words rang like a bell through Padmé’s mind over and over. The right choice. What was that, exactly? Save Anakin, versus what, abandon him to his death? Release Grievous, versus handing him to the Republic so that this awful war might end a little bit sooner?

Padmé pressed a hand to her eyes. She had forty minutes left to decide. She sat in a remote corner of Otoh Gunga, the Gungun capital inside Lake Paonga. The lake was spacious, and would have been beautiful at any other time, but now it felt like it was pressing in on her, like the hydrostatic shield of the city walls would crack and she would drown. She opened her eyes and looked out at the dark water.

Give up Grievous, the mass killing machine who slaughtered civilians by the thousands, who invaded planets with his droids to take lives and resources and freedom?

Or give up Anakin, the one who without fail charged after Grievous and saved planets, liberated innocent people, put his own safety on hold for the sake of others? The Jedi’s chosen savior, the hero, the friend and master and husband. Her husband.

She looked at her chrono. Thirty-eight minutes left.

Slowly, like she was moving through the lake water outside the city, she fumbled at her communicator and contacted someone who she prayed would know what to do.

Queen Neeyutnee had been waiting for an update, and Padmé gave her one, explaining the situation. She tried to keep her distress from sounding too obvious. When it was done, the queen looked thoughtful behind her makeup.

“General Skywalker is a hero to the Naboo,” Neeyutnee said thoughtfully. “And I know he is your close friend. But you know better than anyone on Naboo how greatly the capture of General Grievous could shift the war. I do not envy you your decision, Senator.”

Padmé frowned. “What do you think I should do?”

The queen looked thoughtful. “The Naboo strive for compassion. Giving up someone for a trade like this is not an easy task, especially someone who has brought so much good to our planet and others. But I must point out that removing Grievous from the equation could help lessen the suffering of all people in the galaxy. You know as well as I do, Senator, that our people are starving, poor, and cold.” Neeyutnee looked sympathetically at Padmé. “I am sorry to ask you to make this choice alone, Senator, but I will trust whatever decision you make.”

Padmé looked down. “Thank you, your majesty.”

The call ended, and Padmé checked the time. Thirty-one minutes before Dooku’s offer expired.

She paced. Across the room, and back. Across, and back. Deep breaths. Breathe. Breathe. Check the time. Twenty-nine minutes. Her heart was pounding. Her hands were sweating. Breathe.

She looked down at the communicator and froze. Just activate it, she told herself. It didn’t work. She took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. Then, she activated it and contacted a Gungun chief who had a Republic cruiser on standby communications. Twenty-five minutes.

The flickering figure of an officer appeared before her. Urgently and in a pathetically shaky voice, she said, “Hello, yes, this is Senator Padmé Amidala, calling from Naboo. I need immediate clone assistance to Naboo. My people have managed to capture General Grievous and we need to remove him from the planet before the Separatists can launch a strike to retrieve him. I repeat, I need troops here as soon as possible.”

Three minutes left, and Padmé stared down at the communicator like her eyes were glued to it. For a while, she couldn’t move. Then, she activated Anakin’s commlink channel. Dooku’s thin face smirked at her as if he knew already that he had won. Padmé supposed that, in a way, either option was a win for him and a loss for her.

“Senator Amidala, you have certainly taken your time. You have made your decision?”

She had on her senator face. Strong, stoic, fake but genuine at the same time. “I have. I regret to inform you that the Republic will not be accepting your offer for prisoner exchange at this time.”

Dooku looked taken aback. He motioned at two of the MagnaGuards standing behind him. Padmé could hear Anakin’s agonized screams as surely as if she were in the room with him. She forced herself not to react. Dooku said, “Are you sure, Senator? I shudder to think what will happen to young Skywalker should you refuse.”

Padmé looked at the holographic figure of her husband, hanging limply and shaking violently. She didn’t remotely understand how the Force worked, but she willed him to hear her now through it: I’m so sorry, Ani. Please forgive me. Aloud, she said, “So do I,” and shut off the comm.

Her stoic senator face shattered and she fell to her knees, crying.

Grievous had been transported by the Gunguns to Otoh Gunga, the most secure location possible until the Republic arrived. He was guarded by the majority of the Gungun army, which was divided between the interior and exterior of the city shields. Padmé waited at a comm table for the clones to arrive. She had one more call to make. It surprised her to realize she dreaded this one more than the call with Dooku.

The holographic figures of half the Jedi Council – she supposed whichever members were on Coruscant at the time – appeared, standing around the table. Padmé tried very hard not to look at Obi-Wan.

“Senator Amidala,” Mace Windu said. He frowned. “Where is General Skywalker?”

She looked down, suddenly ashamed. Trying to be brave, knowing they could probably see right through her, she reported how the Gungun minister Rish Loo had been working with Count Dooku to manipulate the Gunguns into going to war with the Naboo, and how the Gungun army had managed to capture General Grievous by deactivating the droids that had arrived with him.

Padmé stared at them head-on. “General Skywalker went chasing after Rish Loo and tracked him down to discover that Count Dooku was hiding somewhere on the planet. Count Dooku then managed to capture General Skywalker.” She tried to clear her throat, which was suddenly thick with emotion she couldn’t dismiss. “Count Dooku offered me a prisoner exchange and – I refused.”

She risked a glance at Obi-Wan: he was staring at her, crestfallen. She prayed he would forgive her. She certainly wasn’t sure if she would forgive herself.

Master Yoda spoke. “Regrettable, it is, that forced to make this decision were you. Spoken with us first, perhaps you should have, hm.”

“I’m sorry,” Padmé said. She meant it.

“Nonetheless, a decision you have made. Secure, is Grievous?”

Padmé nodded. “I contacted a battle cruiser. They should be arriving to take Grievous back to Coruscant within a few minutes. Grievous is being held here in the underwater city, guarded by the entire Gungun army.”

“Return with him to Coruscant, you should. Good for the Republic, this will be.”

“And what of Skywalker?” Windu asked him. “Are we to leave him with Count Dooku?”

Yoda, admittedly, looked almost sad. “Try to recapture Grievous, the Separatists will. Do the same for Skywalker, we must, at the first opportunity.” Yoda then blinked up at her. “Mourn not for Skywalker, Senator. Lost, he is not. An opportunity to end the war sooner, the Force has given us. Give us another opportunity to save Skywalker, it will. Feel this, I do.”

Padmé was almost comforted by that. Almost. “Thank you, Master Yoda.”

“May the Force be with you,” he said. The call ended, but not before Padmé could glance once more at Obi-Wan, who had his hand on his beard and looked pensive. As his image flickered out, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had just lost two of her friends.

The Gunguns brought Grievous to the surface of Lake Paonga and handed him over to the clones, who secured him aboard a gunship. Saying goodbye to Jar Jar, who looked positively downtrodden at the prospect of losing Anakin, Padmé accompanied the clones to their main cruiser. As she watched her homeworld shrink through the viewports, one of the clones reported three Separatist ships exiting hyperspace. That wasn’t what scared her; she had been in space battles before. But suddenly, she was afraid that Grievous would be retaken and Anakin would still be in the hands of Dooku and she will have singlehandedly sent the galaxy to its doom.

Naboo fighters flew into space with them to provide the Republic ships with a chance to break through the Separatist defenses. It wasn’t like twelve years ago this time, though, when they had been a single yacht against the entire blockade – this time, the clone pilots navigated expertly through oncoming droid ships as if this were little more than a practice run. Some of the escort gunships alongside them were destroyed, but it didn’t take long for her gunship to dock in a main hangar and for the cruiser to enter hyperspace.

Padmé had sought to keep the war away from Naboo. Maybe she ended up bringing it there instead.

Grievous was safely placed in the highest security military facility on Coruscant, guarded by a hundred clones and two Jedi Masters with several battalions of troops on standby. Padmé went home, exhausted and upset, and collapsed on her couch. She lay there long into the night, looking at the city lights and praying to the Goddess of Safety that her Anakin would be all right.

Count Dooku knelt before the tall hologram of his master.

“Forgive me, my Lord. We have lost General Grievous.”

“This is most unfortunate,” Darth Sidious said. “And a costly error. Grievous was a necessary part of my plan for the Clone War. You have failed me, Lord Tyranus.”

Dooku felt the unmistakable feeling of the Force around his windpipe. Not enough to kill him, not now – just a warning, this time.

“Still,” Sidious said, releasing him. Dooku choked and gasped for breath. “This could play to our advantage. As long as we have Skywalker, we hold the one person in the galaxy strongest in the Force.” His master paused for a long time, considering something. “Transport Skywalker to a secure location out of the Jedi’s sight. Then come to Coruscant. It is time I reveal to you the next part of my plan.”

Chapter Text

Padmé entered the Supreme Chancellor’s office flanked by Dormé and Captain Typho. She had changed into her favorite Senatorial gown – might as well look her best while she felt her worst – and walked with her head held high.

The Chancellor sat behind his desk next to Mas Amedda. Before him stood Bail Organa and several Jedi – Masters Yoda, Windu, Mundi. Obi-Wan stood with them, and Ahsoka off to the side. She had her arms folded across her chest, looking very much like a teenager who felt she did not belong. When Padmé caught her glance, Ahsoka avoided her eyes.

“Senator Amidala!” Chancellor Palpatine said, standing to welcome her. “I am so glad to see you made it back safely.”

Padmé forced a smile as everyone turned to her. “Thank you, Chancellor, although instead I feel we should be glad to see that Naboo is safe from another war and that Grievous can no longer do any harm.”

“But of course, my dear,” he said kindly. “I will always sleep better knowing that my homeworld is safe. And you should be commemorated on your successful capture of Grievous. It’s just a shame it had to come at such a price.”

Stay calm, stoic. Not a big deal. It was just her secret husband, after all. “I hardly did anything – it was the Gunguns who captured him.” She turned to the Jedi. “What will become of Grievous? And – is there any word on General Skywalker?” she added hesitantly.

“We had Grievous transported to the highest security facility on Coruscant,” Mace Windu said. “He’s being guarded by two Jedi and a hundred clones. There are several cruisers standing by outside, although it’s doubtful the Separatists would attack Coruscant directly to get him back. He won’t be going anywhere.”

“Find young Skywalker in time, we will,” Yoda said, looking up at her gravely. “Eyes and ears the Jedi have everywhere.” Padmé nodded in submission.

“Do we know precisely what is going to be done with Grievous?” Bail Organa asked the Jedi, but Palpatine responded instead.

“I’m afraid Grievous’s fate is no longer a Jedi matter,” he said, placing the tips of his fingers together. “It will have to be up to the Senate to decide what happens to him if we are to continue upholding the principles of our democracy.” In the corner of her eye, Padmé saw Ahsoka fidgeting, restless, and she could see why: whenever anything passed out of the control of the Jedi, bad things seemed to happen.

“The issue will go before the Senate in a few days’ time,” Palpatine continued. He looked at Bail and Padmé. “We will have to leave it until then.” He stood; a dismissal. Padmé followed the Jedi out of the office and paused with Obi-Wan in the antechamber. Ahsoka lingered off to the side, staring hard at the ground.

Obi-Wan touched her lightly on the arm. “Anakin will be all right, Padmé. We’ll find him.” He didn’t look reassured.

All she could say was, “I’m sorry.” She looked at Ahsoka. “To both of you.”

Ahsoka looked hard at her. Padmé could see hurt in her eyes, and couldn’t blame her for it. Anakin was her master, and her friend, after all. They were like family. They just didn’t know that Anakin was her family, too.

The Padawan looked at Obi-Wan. “Master Kenobi, shouldn’t the Jedi be in charge of Grievous’s fate? We are in charge of the military, after all, and he’s a prisoner of war.”

Obi-Wan put his hand to his beard. “The Council isn’t fond of the arrangement either, I’m afraid, but we’ve been given little choice.”

“But he’s a serial Jedi killer!” Ahsoka exclaimed. “He should be dealt with by us!”

“I don’t disagree, Ahsoka, but it’s out of our hands. We are simply going to have to be patient.” Ahsoka sighed impatiently, turning away. Obi-Wan briefly shared a glance with Padmé and said, “We should be heading back. Take care of yourself, Senator.”

She could hardly muster a farewell smile as she watched them leave.

The Grand Convocation Chamber of the Senate was enormous, and it often made Padmé feel very, very small. Normally, she could keep her cool, even when she spoke publically and knew, in the back of her mind, that her face was plastered across holoscreens across the Republic. Now, though, it felt like every set of eyes was fastened to her, and whether it was in scrutiny or in praise made little difference to her nerves. Walking through the corridors of the Senate Building from her office to the Naboo repulsorpod she had gotten no less than eighteen congratulations on helping to capture General Grievous. She had politely thanked each and every one, of course, but by the time she was sitting in her seat in the huge chamber all she could think was, at what cost?

When the Chancellor spoke, his voice echoed through the loud speakers of the chamber and through the individual speakers on each pod. “The emergency meeting of this congress is now called into session. We have called you all here today to discuss the fate of General Grievous, who was captured by the Republic just one week ago on Naboo. Grievous, as we all know, is one of the greatest individual threats to the Republic in any of our lifetimes. He has laid waste to countless civilizations, planets, and communities across the galaxy in the last year alone. We are gathered now to hear different motions about options regarding Grievous’s fate.”

Immediately, Lott Dod of the Trade Federation pushed his pod forward. “I suggest we keep Grievous alive. If we could get him to talk he could provide valuable information to the Republic.”

Ask Aak of Malastare likewise flew his pod into the center. “I disagree – Grievous must be executed. If he is kept alive, the Separatists could gather their forces for an attack on Coruscant the likes of which we could not imagine.”

“They could not possibly recapture Grievous,” Orn Free Taa proclaimed. “He’s being guarded by hundreds of clones, as well as Jedi!”

Shouts came from Senators all around.

“The Jedi have never managed to hold Grievous before. What makes us so sure they could do it now?”

“Grievous must be executed!”

“Let him burn!”

Duty calls. Padmé took a deep breath and pushed her pod forward. “Should we not consider the moral side to this?” she said, listening to her voice echo. “I agree that Grievous must pay for his crimes, but he is a prisoner of war. Executing him would be immoral, and unjust!”

As usual, she heard familiar cries berating her, denouncing her as a traitor. She pressed her lips tight together. The insults, the denunciations, they had always hurt and she expected they always would, but she would not abandon her morals to suit the public norm and she would use her voice to speak out for as long as she had it.

“He cannot be kept alive!” Ask Aak cried. “As long as he lives, he is a threat. He must be executed.”

“If he must be killed, why don’t we do it with a show?” Lott Dod suggested, apparently switching sides. “Let us do it and air it on the HoloNet to raise morale for the war effort!”

Padmé felt sick at the thought. Displaying the death of the enemy commander for all Republic citizens to witness? Was that what the Republic had become? She couldn’t pretend to be surprised, though, when Senator Dod’s suggestion amassed shouts of agreement and applause. It was business as usual in the Senate.

“Order!” Mas Amedda shouted. “We shall commence the vote on the subject of executing General Grievous. Please enter your votes now.”

Padmé glanced down at her pod’s viewscreen. With an uncanny feeling her vote would be lost in the minority, she pressed the ‘not in favor’ key.

A few minutes later, Mas Amedda spoke again. “The votes are in. General Grievous shall be executed in two days’ time at twelve hundred hours.”

Padmé sat in her pod and shook her head in dismay. The Republic – her Republic – was crumbling more and more every day, and she was powerless to stop it.

“I don’t like the idea of executing Grievous publicly,” Padmé said, welcoming Obi-Wan and Ahsoka in to her apartment. She was glad to see them, but if she had to admit it, she wasn’t sure she had enough energy to host anyone. The haunting image of Anakin being tortured on the comm haunted her every moment. “It feels a little too barbaric. Is this really the type of Republic that we’ve become?”

“He does deserve it,” Ahsoka said casually, sitting. She continued to avoid Padmé’s glance and folded her arms across her chest as if in the only form of protest she could make. “He’s a monster.”

“He is that,” Obi-Wan said. He just looked tired. Padmé wondered if he had been sleeping this past week. She certainly hadn’t. “I’m not too fond of this either, Padmé, but we will certainly be better off once he’s dead.”

Padmé sat next to them, shaking her head. “It just disturbs me that people will only feel comforted when they see his blood on the wall,” she said.

“I don’t think he has any blood,” Ahsoka mumbled.

Padmé smiled. “I meant it as a figure of speech.” She fiddled with the holoprojector until the Republic HoloNet logo appeared.

Obi-Wan looked at them both wryly. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now other than let it happen.”

They waited for a time, mostly in a slightly uncomfortable silence pierced occasionally by light conversation. Finally, the Republic symbol vanished and a hologram of the Chancellor appeared. He stood at a grandiose podium in his usual crimson formalwear. He did not look at all disturbed by what he was about to introduce. “Greetings, citizens of the Republic, and thank you for tuning in to the HoloNet today.

“For almost two years General Grievous, commander of the Separatist Droid Army, has terrorized planets scattered throughout the galaxy regardless of whether those planets had maintained their loyalty to our Republic or not. For him, this was never a political issue. Grievous is a monster who found pleasure in the suffering of the masses. Today, we are here to finally see the end of this terrible threat to life itself.”

Palpatine opened his arms. “The Senate has chosen to broadcast this publicly so that it may be sent as a message of hope to the citizens of the Republic that this war will not continue to be waged endlessly. Let us all hope as one single unit that the clone troopers and Jedi who nobly serve the Republic can put an end to this terrible conflict as soon as is possible. Let us also continue to be brave and do what we can to help those in need  and those whose lives have been made harder by those leading the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

“And now, I turn the cameras over so that we may see the end of General Grievous.” The image on the flat projection screen shifted to show a large arena-like room that looked to be part of a military facility. The cyborg general was being marched in at blasterpoint. His arms were secured to his body to stop him from lashing out. His claw-like feet were tied together by a rope of energy so that his steps were small and limited in mobility; given his reputation for running away and his physical – mechanical – strength, Padmé wasn’t surprised at the restraints. His chest plate had been pulled open, and she could barely make out a beating heart beneath it. She wondered again why anyone felt this was necessary.

“Why do I feel so nervous?” Ahsoka said, watching the clones march in single file and line up. “I feel a sense of...foreboding, almost.”

“I sense it too,” Obi-Wan frowned. Padmé saw him raise his hand to his beard. She looked back at the screen.

A dozen clones raised their blasters in perfect unison and took aim at Grievous’s heart. Off-screen, a Republic military official began to count down from ten. Grievous, limited as his movement was, appeared to be looking around for an escape even though there were clones standing by on all sides, ready for any movement.

It was over quickly. Most of the blaster bolts hit Grievous’s heart directly on target. He immediately began to struggle, shaking and writhing for a few seconds. It looked like there was a fire erupting in his head. Then with a clang of metal, he fell and didn’t move again.

Padmé exhaled, leaning back for a moment. She felt numb. Grievous was a monster, and she didn’t exactly feel any sympathy for him at all, but some day the heaviness of the fact that trillions of beings had just united in watching the death of a living being would truly hit her. The holoscreen showed clones lowering their blasters and military officials milling about, and she could tell the show was over. She got up to turn off the screen.

“Do either of you want anything to eat?” she asked, ever the good host – though personally, the sight she had just seen had ruined her appetite for the rest of the day. Suddenly, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka’s expressions both froze and she looked back at the screen to see what they were staring at.

She gasped. The hexagonal symbol of the Separatist Alliance rotated in circles on the screen. Ahsoka turned to Obi-Wan and said, “Do you think there’s been an attack?” Obi-Wan frowned, waiting. The screen went fuzzy for a moment and then the gaunt, elderly figure of Count Dooku appeared. He was standing at a podium calmly, mirroring Palpatine from barely five minutes ago.

“It has been brought to my attention that the Republic has seen it fitting to take General Grievous, who was no more dangerous a military commander than any of the hundreds of Jedi Knights that have been waging war on my people, and parade his death throughout the galaxy as if he were a trophy. The Republic, by doing this, has demonstrated to me that it is just as corrupt and bloodthirsty as I had thought. It is because of this action against my general that I found it suitable to hack into the Republic HoloNet to display a certain showing of my own.

“I do not want the citizens of the Republic to think that the death of Grievous is a victory for them. Although the Republic may have gotten their hands on what they considered the greatest threat to their safety, it happens that I, too, can make the same claim. I happen to have in my custody one of the greatest threats, as I and many of my compatriots see it, to the Confederacy of Independent Systems.”

Padmé’s eyes widened. No. Oh, please no.

Dooku gestured to his right. “Please welcome Jedi General Anakin Skywalker.”

“No!” Padmé exclaimed aloud, and she realized that Ahsoka had shouted it too, jumping up from the couch as if there was something she could do to stop what was about to happen. Obi-Wan sat stricken in between them.

The holocam moved to Dooku’s right and focused on Anakin. He was kneeling on the ground between two super battle droids, his hands bound together behind his back and his head drooping. He looked disheveled, his hair messy, but she knew him anywhere. Padmé recalled with clarity the sound of his screams through the hologram as Dooku had his MagnaGuards electrocute him. She wondered how much more of that Anakin had had to endure between then and now. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“I realize that General Skywalker may feel like a personal hero to many in the Republic, so it is most unfortunate we must go through with this,” Dooku was saying. “Indeed, it only seems fitting that we go about his execution the way the Republic saw fit to execute my general – publically. However, I would like to point out that while the Republic felt the need to use a dozen clones to kill an unarmed prisoner, I am very aware that it only takes one droid to kill a Jedi.”

One of the super battle droids loosened its arm and aimed the blaster installed in it at Anakin’s back while the other droid took hold of his hair and yanked his head up so that the audience could see his face. He was breathing heavily; his eyes were unfocused and he looked confused, or – drugged. It looked as though he didn’t know what was going on around him. Padmé saw him close his eyes, waiting for it.

The blaster bolt hit him straight in the back. The super battle droid released his hair and he fell to the ground, not moving, wisps of smoke rising from his body.

The screen redirected to Dooku, who said with a mutely vicious smile, “Thank you for your attention.” The screen went black.

It was over so fast, like it hadn’t even happened. For a long but also brief moment, Padmé was convinced that she had made it all up. That an unpleasant part of her mind was playing tricks on her to tell her you deserve to feel bad for what you did. But when she slumped back in her seat and turned sideways to stare, dumbfounded, at Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, Padmé got the very distinct feeling that her husband had, in fact, just been murdered for the eyes of literally trillions of beings to see.

She watched, unfeeling, as Ahsoka fell to her knees, staring wide-eyed at the floor, and as Obi-Wan released a shaky breath, placing a trembling hand to his forehead. A moment later, he jumped from his seat and staggered out of the room. Padmé got down on the floor and crawled next to Ahsoka to put her arm around the young Padawan’s heaving shoulders but Ahsoka flinched away, stood up, and left Padmé alone.

This was all her fault.

All of it.

Every little bit.

Her husband –

Anakin –

Ani –

 – was dead and it was entirely her fault.

The holoscreen, still on, went back to scheduled programming as if nothing was wrong. Padmé sat alone and in a daze, staring blankly ahead. She wondered why she wasn’t sad. She felt everything and nothing at the same time.

After what felt like a lifetime, though it must have only been an hour, Obi-Wan returned. Padmé looked up; his eyes were red and he had his robe pulled closely around himself like a shield. He approached Anakin’s Padawan, who was sitting near the edge of Padmé’s veranda looking out into the city skyline as if searching for something. “Ahsoka, we should go.”

If she had had it in her, Padmé would have objected to the notion, furiously rejecting along her usual lines the Jedi’s nonsensical adherence to ignoring their emotions, but she didn’t seem to have the ability to speak and Ahsoka stood up anyway and said a quiet, “Yes, Master,” before following him out the door. Neither of them looked at her once.

Only when they were gone did she allow herself to feel.

Chapter Text

The Force itself was screaming in Obi-Wan’s ears. It was idiomatic, of course, because the Force did not, as far as he knew, have vocal chords with which to produce any sort of audible noise. Still, for the sake of using another idiom, the silence was so deafening that something might as well have actually been screaming in his ears. It certainly would have hurt less.

Anakin had been gone from the Force before. They both had. How many times had they been captured? Too many. Usually together. Not this time, though. And this time, Anakin wasn’t gone from the Force. He was just gone.

He was gone. Anakin was gone. Anakin was never coming back.

And everyone had seen it. Everyone, everywhere. And even if they hadn’t, by now everyone had to know. It must be household knowledge by now that the hero of the Clone War was dead.

But Anakin wasn’t a hero, he was a person. An extraordinary person, to be sure, but still just a human. A man. A boy. A boy that Obi-Wan had raised. A boy that Obi-Wan had loved. A boy that Obi-Wan still loved.

Oh Force why hadn’t he ever told Anakin that he loved him?

He leaned over and pressed his forehead to the cool dining table in the kitchen unit. Beside him sat two cups of tea, freshly brewed but getting cold, one for him and one for Anakin, even though he knew. How could he not know? He had seen it with his own eyes. He watched Anakin’s body fall hard on the ground with his own two eyes.

The body. Where was Anakin’s body? What had Dooku done with it? The knots in Obi-Wan’s throat and stomach tightened until he almost couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think about anything else other than Anakin’s lifeless body lying motionless on the ground, smoke rising from the fatal burn on his back. With Qui-Gon there had been a body, something real to burn, a very definite sense of closure, but now there would be nothing, perhaps a memorial if he pushed for it but nothing further because attachment is forbidden, mourn not for those who pass into the Force.

How could he go on? He had to. Why couldn’t it have been him? It didn’t matter, it was over. But it did matter, because it still hurt. But it couldn’t matter, because he was a Jedi Master and he had a standard that he had to live up to and who am I trying to fool, Anakin is dead and I’ll never be able to see him or touch him or hear him laugh again and why did I never tell him I loved him?

Obi-Wan had thought he was prepared for this. He had been preparing for this for eleven years. He wasn’t ready.

The Force was surely going out. Not just that there was an ache from the loss of his Force-bond with Anakin, but everything else seemed a little less bright. The Force’s very own child was prematurely dead and perpetual night was about to fall and Obi-Wan just wished that he could have been with Anakin when it happened.

Obi-Wan sat slumped in his Council chair, stoic Jedi face nonexistent. It wasn’t as if the other six Masters in this room weren’t keenly aware of his closeness to the most recently deceased Jedi. What would be the point of pretending?

“Meditated on it I have, and felt no sense of young Skywalker. Sure I am that what we witnessed was the truth.” Yoda, to his credit, looked saddened at the idea.

“Do you believe this means he was not the Chosen One after all?” Ki-Adi-Mundi said bluntly.

“I have seen in the past that Skywalker was directly linked to the Force and to the Clone War. I still believe this to be the case, even if he has passed into the Force,” Mace Windu said. Obi-Wan felt a distinct threat of nausea in his throat. “If the death of Grievous leads to a quicker end to the war, it is possible that balance will still be brought to the Force and the Sith eventually destroyed.”

“But we have always assumed Skywalker would be the one to destroy the Sith himself,” Plo Koon added thoughtfully.

“Ah, assume things we must not,” Yoda said. “Never assume anything, should we, when the veil of the dark side is this thick. Lost, the war is not. Still, advantage of Grievous’s death we must take. Clumsy, we cannot be, from now until the end of the war.”

“And what of young Padawan Tano?” Mace addressed. “She must be given a new master.”

Obi-Wan put his hand to his beard. Yes, a part of him desperately wanted to take Ahsoka as his own, needed to keep whatever bits of Anakin he had left close to him, but he also wanted her to have the best master she could have and he knew that he would not be that. Not now, not when he felt like the stars had gone out.

“Two options I see,” Master Yoda said, putting his hands together. “Master Kenobi and Master Plo Koon. Know her best, the two of you do. Helpful this will be that she may adjust more quickly to the change. Young, she is. A period of temptation this will be for her.” He hmmed. “Think on this, both of you must, and decide what is best.”

“You should do it,” Padmé told him later when he went to see her. “I don’t know Master Plo Koon very well, but I think it would be good for you. And her.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “He would be a much better master, I’m sure of it. He’s known her most of her life and has been on the Council much longer than I have.”

“What does that matter?” she asked impatiently. “You’re wise and experienced and you’ve served with her for years. She needs that familiarity right now. She’s probably much more used to your style than his anyway.”

He shook his head, and Padmé sighed. He couldn’t admit to her the reasons why, exactly. He couldn’t bring himself to say that he was terrified of failing Ahsoka the way he had failed Anakin over and over. He didn’t want to admit to her that while Anakin had turned into an excellent Jedi Knight, he could have been so much more if he had had a master who was ready, who knew how to train a Padawan, and who would give him the type of discipline he needed.

He certainly wasn’t going to admit to her that the loss of Anakin had punched a burning hole in his chest where the partially-healed, scabbed-over hole left by Qui-Gon had already been, and that he was childishly terrified of losing anything that he tried to fill that chasm with. Like another Padawan, for example. Perhaps it would be less painful to spend the rest of his life cold and alone.

“I would have thought you knew all there was to know about teenagers by now, Obi-Wan,” she was saying. “Looking back at your last teenaged Padawan, what do you think you should do?” When he didn’t speak, she scolded, frustrated, “You’re avoiding your problems. You’re avoiding the fact that you have problems.”

“And what exactly have you been doing?” he asked her wryly. She pursed her lips, and then sighed again.

“You’re right. I am. But I’m scheduled to make an important speech to the Senate next week and if I don’t avoid my problems, I’m not going to make a very convincing call for peace, am I?”

“I suppose not, no.”

When Padmé looked at him again, it was sympathetically. Obi-Wan had to give her credit: she had some incredible capability to put her own pain on hold for the needs of others. He was ashamed that he apparently needed her help to make him feel better. He hoped she wasn’t being too hard on herself, but he knew better, too.

“Take Ahsoka as your Padawan,” she said gently. “Train her, protect her, even get attached to her. I give you my permission to do so.”

He smiled sadly despite himself. “I wish it were that easy.”

“The Council has decided who is going to be your new master,” Obi-Wan told Ahsoka the next day. Master Plo had said to him that Obi-Wan was the better choice, at least at this point in time, although Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to agree.

She scowled. “It hasn’t even been a week!” Well, at least she was speaking again.

Obi-Wan looked down. “I know.”

“Do any of them have any feelings?”

He crossed his arms. “They have a duty to the Republic and to the war, and so do we. The war will not wait until we feel better.”

Ahsoka looked at him incredulously. “My master is dead. I don’t care about the war.”

“I know it’s hard, Ahsoka, but –”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I had to watch my master die on a galactic broadcast of the HoloNet without any warning and now the Jedi Council is trying to replace him four days later?”

“Ahsoka –”

“What is wrong with them?” she exclaimed angrily. “I don’t care if I’m not supposed to have these feelings, because I do and they don’t care! They just pretend I’m fine and assume I can move on! Newsflash: I’m not fine!”

“Ahsoka, it’s going to be me.”

She stared hard at him for a long time as if trying to decipher something. Then she turned flat on her heel and stormed away. Obi-Wan tried to pretend it didn’t hurt.

Dreaming gave him no escape.

The battlefield was covered in bodies, fallen clone after fallen clone. The littered remains of the 501^st. Some were torn apart by laser shells, others had a clear-cut hole from a blaster bolt straight through the chest. All were clad in similar white armor with unique blue streaks and designs. All except one: one body was wearing dark browns and blacks and was lying in a crumpled heap like the rest of them.

Obi-Wan ran as fast as he could through the strewn bodies and threw himself on the ground next to Anakin. He pulled his former Padawan onto his lap as if he were made of cracked glass.

“Master...?” Anakin whispered. His blue eyes were bleary and unfocused. There was blood on his pale face and all over his body.

Obi-Wan smoothed his hair and rocked him back and forth. “I’m here, Anakin,” he said soothingly. “It’ll be all right.” He knew it wouldn’t.

“I don’...wanna leave you, Master. I love you...” He watched, frozen, as his old Padawan struggled to hold onto life. A minute later, Anakin’s eyes slid closed and his body relaxed in Obi-Wan’s arms.

He sensed a dark presence and looked up sharply, blinking back the tears in his eyes, and he saw Dooku standing over him. Suddenly, Obi-Wan could feel nothing but a red hot desire to kill his master’s master where he stood. He gingerly lowered Anakin’s body to the ground and ignited his lightsaber while he stood. When he swung at Dooku, the Sith disappeared in a wisp of smoke and Obi-Wan awoke in a cold sweat.

Something needed to be done about Anakin’s room, he knew. Anakin’s things. Anakin had had a lot of things , a lot more than he should have had as a Jedi Padawan and Knight, but that was one of the areas that Obi-Wan had been lenient on. Who could keep a former slave child from embracing his own freedom through the owning of possessions? He certainly hadn’t been able to. Yet another failing of him as a Jedi Master.

Still, the moment he finally mustered up the courage to walk through Anakin’s bedroom door, the Force hit him so hard with a sense of Anakin that he collapsed backward into the hall, weeping.

They went back to war as if nothing had changed. Obi-Wan thought it was a bad idea, that it was much too soon, but he accepted the Council’s order to go to Umbara nonetheless. Ahsoka participated only in the space battle, which Obi-Wan didn’t like either, because he wanted to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t let her feelings distract her from the task at hand. In the end, though, he was glad, because the looks on his troopers’ faces when they reported Krell’s trick were yet another thing that would be ingrained in his mind for weeks to come.

When he listened to Anakin’s troopers explain what they had done – stealing Umbaran fighters and later rebelling against the traitorous General Krell – he couldn’t help but feel a swell of longing. He had met many clones from many different legions who served under many different generals, but he had never met any as creative, unique, determined, and self-aware as those of the 501^st. Anakin had left such an impression on them.

He went back to Coruscant and collapsed on his bed, returning to a vortex of nightmares and despair.

In some of the dreams, Anakin was already dead. In others, Obi-Wan reached him just in time to see the light fade from his eyes. The injury was different every time – pierced lung, internal bleeding, anything and everything that could go wrong in a warzone. Every single time, Obi-Wan pulled Anakin’s body close to him and let himself cry into Anakin’s hair. Every single time, Obi-Wan looked up and saw Dooku lurking in the shadows and felt an untamable rage to kill the one who had taken Anakin from him. Every single time he would wake up, relieved for it to be over, and then he would remember that Anakin was really dead.

Dreaming about losing Anakin was nothing new, he had had these dreams for years and years, but he had never had them this often, and they had never been this real.

Obi-Wan stood at the entrance to Alderaan’s Senate repulsorpod and watched Padmé hover toward the center podium. He had gone to check in with Bail Organa when Bail reminded him that Padmé was set to make a call for peace to the Senate.

“Honorable delegates of the Republic,” Padmé’s voice echoed through the many speakers in the Grand Convocation Chamber. She looked regal and calm, though even from here Obi-Wan could sense there was much turmoil she was concealing beneath her public persona.

Speaker Mas Amedda looked at her pod floating towards the center and said, “Senator Amidala of Naboo has the floor.”

“It is well known throughout the Republic that I have often spoken to the Senate as a voice of peace. I am here now to be that voice again. With the loss of General Grievous, the last thing we need is to continue the fighting.” Obi-Wan heard distinct booing, but Padmé showed no acknowledgement. “I realize it’s impossible to abruptly end the bloodshed, but it is not impossible to speak with the Separatists and to try to find a peaceful resolution to this conflict. I believe we have never had a better opportunity than we have now that Grievous is gone.”

She gathered herself. “Some of you may also have heard that I helped secure General Grievous’s capture. I do not pretend to take the credit for this, however. It was the hard work of my people that managed to detain him and keep the Separatists from recapturing him. I am using this as an example to show that my people are not defenseless. We understand fighting when it is a necessity. My planet has seen its fair share of wars. But before we resort to violent conflict, we do everything we can to stop it from going that far.

“In this galaxy, it’s much too late to stop the fighting before it begins. I realize that. But aren’t we all tired of seeing the destruction that this war brings? Don’t we want to put an end to destroying and focus our attention instead on rebuilding? I don’t think any of us want to see any more civilians or clones or—” Obi-Wan heard her voice crack for just a moment. “Or Jedi killed just because we refuse point blank as a Republic to even consider peace as a solution.

“I am not questioning anyone’s love for and devotion to the Republic. I simply believe that many of us have lost sight of what is important: the people. The people who are dying, cold, and starving. The ones who are being hit with the full brunt of the war. The ones that we do not see or think about because we are safe in our Coruscant apartments. Please, remember the people. Thank you.”

“I heard your speech,” Obi-Wan said later that day. Padmé was sitting in her office, looking exhausted. On the outside she still appeared the regal senator, but he knew from the dullness in her eyes and the way she slumped back in her chair that now there was nothing to distract her from, well.... “It was excellent. I can only hope that more people actually listen to you this time.”

“Doubtful,” Padmé said, pulling two glasses and a bottle of Alderaanian wine out of a drawer. “When has anyone ever listened to me?”

“Do not doubt the effect that you have on people who are willing to listen, Padmé. You’ve been a senator for many years now. You clearly must be doing something right.” He took the drink she poured for him and swallowed half of it in one go. It’s flavor was up to the quality of any Alderaanian wine, but it didn’t provide him with the relief he would have liked. “I don’t suppose you have anything stronger than this?”

“Don’t I wish,” Padmé said, leaning back in her chair. “Can Jedi even get drunk?”

Obi-Wan smiled wryly. “If we allow ourselves to be.” He took another drink. “You should keep pushing for peace. One day, maybe enough people will listen and no more Padawans will have to go to war.”

She studied him tiredly. “What’s going on with Ahsoka?”

He exhaled sadly. “I took her as my Padawan, as you suggested. She wasn’t thrilled.”

“She’ll be okay. She’s strong. It will be good for you, being together, you already know each other well.”

He sighed and didn’t say anything.

“Maybe if more people knew Jedi personally they would understand why peace is so important,” Padmé said, daydreaming. “Maybe if they knew the people who were being shipped off to die they would begin to form a different opinion.”

“Well, you were involved from the very start,” he said, pouring more wine. “I’m sure you know I don’t think very highly of politicians by default.”

She snorted. “I’m beginning to agree with you.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, lazily watching the traffic fly by.

“When are you shipping out again?” she asked.

“Probably within the week.”

“Be safe.” She reached her hand across the desk.

He took it and squeezed it briefly. “You too.”

The dreams weren’t always on the battlefield. Sometimes it was by Anakin’s hospital bed, and Obi-Wan could feel the Force itself collapse before the heart monitor drew a blank line. Sometimes he watched helplessly from the bridge of his flagship as the eye-catching yellow and silver starfighter exploded after being hit in the wrong place from the wrong angle. Each dream concluded with precisely the same outcome: Anakin was dead and Obi-Wan was not.

A sick, masochistic, twisted part of him, the part that regularly snuck up behind him and reminded him that he had danced with the dark side and that there was no escape, was glad for the dreams. As agonizing as they were, as little sleep as he got because of them – they were the only chance he had for seeing Anakin again.

Obi-Wan didn’t know exactly how Ahsoka managed to find the location of the Zygerrian slave compound, but he had a distinct feeling it had involved some aggressive negotiations on her part. He just knew that when she showed up with Master Plo Koon as backup and liberated him and all the Kiros Togruta, he was incredibly proud of her for not letting her emotions get in the way of the mission.

He began to change his mind, though, when he saw her eyes light up as she watched the compound explode while their gunships left a trail of vapor in the atmosphere. She looked to be on a sort of high, reveling in the destruction of the slavers who had put her people through so much suffering.

They would need to talk about it, Obi-Wan knew. She needed a reminder that the Jedi do not revel in the deaths of others, even if they were evil and cared nothing for the suffering of other living beings. But he was so tired, so weary from bearing the full brunt of slavery, and he knew that Anakin would have felt the exact same way as her had he been here so Obi-Wan let it go for now because who knew when Ahsoka would be happy again?

Back home on Coruscant Obi-Wan entered their – his – suite, pulled off his boots and his belt, and stopped before his bedroom door. He paused, and thought for a moment, then turned around and entered Anakin’s room instead.

He was hit with the same blast in the Force of Anakin as before, though it wasn’t as strong, but this time he kept his resolve and collapsed on Anakin’s bed. Ran his hands over the sheets. Smelled the scent of shampoo on the pillow. This was pathetic, needy. He didn’t care.

His heart ached. So did his whole body, his parting gift from the Zygerrian slavers.

He closed his eyes and leaned into the pillow. Imagined that voice speaking to him. Master, are you okay? And don’t lie to me, ‘cause I’ll know.

Out loud, to no one, he said, “I’m fine, Anakin.”

You don’t have to pretend with me, Master. I know better than anyone what slavery does to a person. C’mon, just let me put some bacta on those wounds at least.

“I can take care of myself.”

I know, but the thing is, you don’t have to.

That night, he dreamed of slavery. In the morning he woke up to sheets that weren’t his and scraps of abandoned droid parts littered around the room and he felt like a fool.

Ahsoka was becoming reckless, and Obi-Wan was powerless to stop it. She would run into battles, lightsabers blaring, jumping atop Separatist tanks to skewer the droids in them, opening herself up to blaster shots and cannon fire and it scared him to bits but he didn’t know how to approach the subject.

He tried to suggest better ways of dealing with things. He encouraged her to meditate, either through sitting calmly or through moving, like Anakin always had done. He tried to get her to restrain herself, but the more he tried to get involved in her own recovery the more she pulled away from him.

He just didn’t want to see her lose herself. He couldn’t bear to lose another apprentice.

When they were back on Coruscant, Obi-Wan went to see Padmé. It was somewhat embarrassing, having to go to someone outside the Order for help, but she was friends with Ahsoka and maybe she would have advice for him.

“I can’t really help you,” Padmé said as they sat on her veranda. “She’s been avoiding me at every turn. The only time I’ve seen her was at your fake funeral. Which was pretty cruel of you, by the way,” she added sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said. “I know it was terrible timing, but it was the only solution to the plot against the Chancellor that we could find. I let Ahsoka know beforehand, but...” Ahsoka hadn’t been happy with his faked death, either. She didn’t want to have to pretend to lose both her masters. “She keeps pulling away. It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. I know I should give her space. But she needs help. Don’t you think you could –”

“She blames me for what happened, Obi-Wan. Every time she’s looked at me since Ani died I’ve been able to tell.” She sighed. She looked somewhat apathetic and terribly exhausted. The dark circles under her eyes told him she was getting even less sleep than he was. “I guess we all have our own problems.”

“Well then what do you think I should do? She’s increasingly reckless, she’s been putting her own life in danger constantly, and she avoids me when I try to talk to her about it.”

Padmé surveyed him. “Obi-Wan,” she said tiredly. “I think you’re lonely.”

“What?”

“I think you’re trying to spend more time with Ahsoka so that you don’t feel so alone,” she said softly. “I think you need to pause and start taking care of yourself before you can take care of her.”

“I have been taking care of myself,” he said stubbornly. “It’s not me who needs help.”

“Think back. Don’t you remember what Anakin was like when he lost his arm and his mother?”

Obi-Wan put his hand to his beard. “I suppose I see what you mean.” He remembered too well. Anakin had been distraught and reclusive and had yelled repeatedly at Obi-Wan for smothering him when all Obi-Wan wanted to do was help him through his rehabilitation. He had turned making Anakin feel better into his only mission and had begun to neglect his own needs. Only when he stepped back had Anakin actually begun to open up to him.

He sighed. “This is different, though. Back then, Anakin was safe at home on Coruscant. Now, Ahsoka is rushing through combat seeking glory and vengeance.”

“Then talk to the Council,” Padmé suggested. “Get her off the front. Then you can try to help her come to terms with everything.” She frowned. “A fifteen-year-old shouldn’t be in a warzone, anyway.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I’ve tried to get them to do that already. They need every Jedi they can get. But I’ll try again.” He knew the front was where Ahsoka wanted to be, but he had to admit – he would rather have an Ahsoka that was furious with him than an Ahsoka that was dead.

In the end, the Council wouldn’t take her away from the war. Not yet, anyway, not until they could tell her performance had taken a turn for the worst. As a master, it scared him. As a member of the Council, he understood. Still, it made him more than a little sick that they were willing to risk her safety because she had not yet proved to be too reckless. Where would they draw the line?

If the Council would do nothing, Obi-Wan decided, then he would have to.

He pressed the chime of Ahsoka’s small room and she let him in. She didn’t look too happy about it.

“When are we going back to war?” she asked. He frowned; they had only been away for less than a week, and already she was jittery and restless.

“I’m not sure,” he said. He sat down across from her. “I’d like to talk to you. I know you’ve been avoiding it, but we need to, Ahsoka.”

She crossed her arms across her chest. “If you’re going to tell me to meditate again –”

“I’m not. I just want to know how you’re feeling.”

Ahsoka looked surprised. “What?”

“You’ve been stressed lately, I can see that. And if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen. Without judgment, and without criticism, if you wish.”

She considered for a moment. “I’m angry,” she said simply.

“What are you angry at?”

“Everything!”

“You can let it all out. I won’t interrupt, I promise.”

Ahsoka stared at him for a long time, as though she expected this to be a trick. Eventually, she burst out, “I’m mad, okay? I’m really, really mad. I’m mad at Dooku because he killed my master and I’m mad at Padmé because she killed my master and I’m mad at you for not having any feelings and I’m mad at the Jedi for not caring about anything ever and for forcing me to go into the war when I was fourteen.” She paused, taking deep, furious breaths, and then added, “And I’m mad at Anakin for leaving!”

She stood up suddenly and paced around her small room. “Everyone tells me to ‘release my feelings into the Force’ but I don’t even know what that means let alone how to do it! I can’t talk to any of my friends because they’ve all been sent off to fight or they just don’t understand and no one could understand anyway because they’ve never had a master who was the Chosen One. Everyone expected him to be perfect and because of that they expected me to be perfect but I’m not perfect and now he’s dead and I don’t know what to do and now I’ve been stuck with a master who doesn’t have any feelings! You keep getting in my face about not being reckless in battle but there is no way you could understand how I feel because you’ve never been in my situation!”

Suddenly, she collapsed on the ground, looking miserable and drained. “It’s not like I’m inexperienced with death. I’ve killed plenty of people. I’ve seen thousands of clones and people die. But this isn’t a clone or a civ or a Separatist. This is Anakin, and I feel like I can’t go on without him.”

She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. Obi-Wan leaned forward. “It’s natural to feel like you do, Ahsoka.”

“I’m a Jedi,” she snarled. “It’s not supposed to be natural to feel anything. You’re a perfect example of that.”

“I do have feelings, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan said gently. “I’ve just had many years to practice dealing with them. In time, you will learn to release them.”

“Did you hear anything I just said?” she almost yelled. “Everyone always talks about releasing my emotions, but they never tell you how, or what that even means!”

He tried not to sigh. It had been a long time since he had a teenager to deal with. “Before you can do that, you must come to terms with how you feel. Please just hear me out –” he added quickly before she started yelling again. “There are other ways to deal with your emotions. Healthy ways. Even sparring, or exercising, or learning something new. I know you feel that combat is your only escape, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Ahsoka stared at him silently, her eyes wide. Obi-Wan knew it was a sign of dismissal.

He stood up. “Just consider other options, that’s all I’m saying. And I am here for you if you need to talk more.”

As soon as he was gone, he let out an exhausted sigh. Force, he missed Anakin.

The nightmares still came to him, but no longer every day. He dreamed still of Anakin dying and Anakin dead and Anakin being tortured. He could still clearly picture the sight of him falling on that platform with smoke rising from the burn on his back, but now he could often dismiss it. Release it. Breathe it out.

Eventually, Obi-Wan began to dream of Ahsoka dying, instead of or alongside Anakin, and there was no comfort to be found in that. His life was a swirling black hole that pulled misery into it without ever letting any back out and he wondered if there would ever be an escape. As of right now, it didn’t appear that there would.

Chapter Text

When Anakin awoke, there were several things of which he became aware. First, he was cold. Second, he had been confined to a containment field. Third, his memory of the past few days was very hazy. The fourth thing he noticed, of more dire importance than the other three and succeeding them in realization by only a few seconds, was that he couldn’t feel the Force. There were a few other things he noticed, too, like the damp, musty smell of the cell and the aching hunger in his gut and the dull throbbing of one spot on his back, but he figured he should take one thing at a time.

Anakin had been without the Force before, of course he had. He’d been held prisoner plenty of times. Once he’d even gone to a planet where the Force was so weak he had temporarily lost the ability to connect with it. This was no different from any of those times, and since he had gotten out of all of those situations he was sure he could get out of this one, too.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t the worst feeling he could ever imagine, though.

The Force was part of his routine, his lifestyle. It was always with him. It was a part of him – quite literally, too, because it was basically his father. Well, maybe. He had never really figured that one out. The point being: losing the Force was like losing half of himself. His ethereal Force essence was trapped in the prison that was his human body. Like this, he was no different from the rest of the population of the galaxy. He was suddenly, for lack of a better term, ordinary. Which, well, there was nothing wrong with being ordinary, but...hell, not having the Force hurt. Like withdrawal from a drug, it left him shaking and sweating and cramping and wanting. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he could physically take being separated from the Force for too long.

Thankfully, he knew he wouldn’t have to. Obi-Wan would find him, or Ahsoka. They always did, and they would this time. Then he could go home to Padmé and –

Padmé.

She had let Dooku keep him.

It was right of her, Anakin thought. Padmé had a job to her planet and the galaxy as a whole. By letting him go, she was protecting the Republic. With Grievous captured, they could win the war. It was for the best. He knew that. He was happy she didn’t deal with Dooku.

The nagging voice in his head that kept him up at night said: But do you really mean so little to her?

It doesn’t matter, he thought. Because Obi-Wan was going to find him. It would be fine. It would be okay.

But what if he doesn’t? the voice in his head asked with an imaginary sneer.

He will. He always does.

Within what was probably two days (come on, couldn’t Dooku have at least given him a room with a window or something? He’d do anything for one gulp of fresh air) Dooku’s first priority had become pretty clear: torture. Conveniently for Anakin, Separatists all seemed to have one thing in common – they wanted to see if they had what it took to break a Jedi.

The first torturer was quiet, a male Devaronian with signature red-tinted skin and a whip – not an electrowhip, not this time, but still a thin razorwhip that carved deep cuts, precise enough to slice through the synth-leather tabards and meet directly with the flesh of Anakin’s back. He bit back grunts every time it lashed into him. He would not let anyone have satisfaction over him, even if it meant his life, and his health, and even his sanity. Even without the Force, at least he had that.

“Does that hurt, little Jedi?” the Devaronian said, putting his whole weight into the crack of his whip. Anakin didn’t grace him with an answer, so the torturer kept coming at him as Anakin’s blood dripped onto the floor.

When the sleemo had left, Anakin was pulled out of the containment field, stripped of his upper tunics, and left bleeding on the floor until a droid came in and disinfected the wounds with its hard metal appendages. At the touch, Anakin couldn’t stop a painful whine escape from the back of his throat, but he supposed it was okay. A droid couldn’t feel satisfaction over him, so there was no point pretending that it didn’t hurt. He heaved a deep breath, smelling the rusty scent of his own blood.

He wouldn’t break, no matter what Dooku threw at him. He could at least vow that much to himself.

Most of the time, Anakin was on the cold, hard floor with his hands forced together by metal binders, themselves attached to the wall by a short energy chain. Though not the electrified kind, they still rubbed against the skin of his flesh wrist whenever he moved (which was too often, he just couldn’t stop fidgeting ) and already the skin was scabbed and maintained a steady throbbing pain.

At present, Anakin found himself being forced back into the containment field in the center of the room and left there, waiting for whatever was to come.

It was Dooku, come to visit him for the first time in – well, how long had it been by now? Dooku raised the lights in the room from blackness to too-bright, and Anakin could hardly see as his eyes adjusted. “I hope you are comfortable with the arrangements we have provided you, Master Skywalker?”

Anakin coughed to clear his hoarse throat and then said, “Yeah, Dooku, it’s great.”

“I would not think that you would want to waste all your energy on jokes at my expense,” Dooku said, admiring his fingernails.

“I’m a little sad you haven’t visited me before now, actually,” Anakin said mock-thoughtfully. “I missed seeing your ugly face.”

Dooku wagged a finger at him. “Now, now, I don’t think you should be talking to your host like that. I do, after all, have some information that you might be interested in, and I would be very willing to withhold it from you if you do not comply.”

Anakin just yawned, sick and bleary from imprisonment, and Dooku smirked. “Good. You see, young Master Skywalker, I have not been entirely honest with you,” he said casually, looking around the room with mild interest. “You have been in here for two weeks, and I see you have already gotten to know some of my friends. At this point I’m sure you still think your friends are out there looking for you?”

“Is this a test?” Anakin said flatly, not really asking.

Dooku responded by pulling a small round holoprojector out of his pocket and activated it. Anakin watched what appeared to be a recording of himself, kneeling before two SBDs before one of them shot him in the back and he collapsed. He made a face at Dooku to tell him he wouldn’t fall for it. “What, is that fake? I don’t even remember that.”

“I assure you that that is you,” Dooku said with a mean smile. “That recording was broadcast several minutes after General Grievous’s public execution aired on the HoloNet. It was quite simple, really, just a blaster-proof vest and a few sedatives in your system. I hate to tell you, but your friends all think you are quite dead.”

“You think they would fall for that?” Anakin said incredulously. “Really?”

“My inside sources tell me that they did. I am quite sure...even dear Master Kenobi will have been convinced by it.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“And why not?” Dooku asked, facing him. “Can he feel you in the Force? I certainly doubt it, given that you’re hidden from it at the moment. I trust you are familiar with Force-suppressors. This particular kind is foolproof: it directly inhibits your midi-chlorians so that your access to the Force is entirely removed. And with your extremely high number of midi-chlorians, you might expect some minor side-effects. You required a higher dosage than most.”

Anakin frowned. He had heard of that kind of Force-suppressor before, and as far as he knew there was no way around it. He would be absent from the Force for as long as Dooku saw fit.

“You’re not gonna break me, Dooku,” he snarled, pulling against his bonds, but Dooku just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Bring it on.”

Dooku smirked at him before he left. “I will be sure to.”

The Sith left, the lights lowered, and two rough pairs of hands came in and chained Anakin back to the wall. He kicked at the people doing it, and one of them smacked him so hard his head snapped back and hit the wall. He leaned against it and tried not to think about what Dooku had said. The Jedi would never fall for a stupid demonstration like that. It was too obvious.

Right?

Well, at least Grievous was dead.

Dooku did, apparently, intend to ‘bring it on.’

The torture probe proved to be his greatest enemy, and maybe his undoing. Anakin had read up on them, fascinated as he was by any piece of technology, but a few seconds after it pushed a needle under his skin he forgot whatever he had read about it and instead could focus only on the fact that damn it was bright in here and why did it suddenly smell so musty? Like, it had the whole time but now it was all-consuming, and there was someone coming in the room and he couldn’t really see who it was because it was so bright but whoever it was was touching him, nothing that should have been awful but they were dragging their fingertips over the skin of his chest and arms and he really, really didn’t like to be touched by strangers and why could he feel so much?

Anakin was squirming against the wall, or at least he thought he was, but he couldn’t really tell what was going on because his head hurt from sensory overload and the Force being gone and why why why was someone touching him, only his friends could do that, only people he trusted, get off get off get off –

He hadn’t realized he had blacked out, but when he opened his eyes he was alone and everything was back to normal but he still felt...unsettled. Violated. Alone worried scared sad helpless. Awful.

He worried about the 501 ^st . He believed in them to no end, he knew that without him they were still the best troopers in the GAR, but he worried what general had been assigned to them in his absence. Many of his men were nontraditional to say the least – they did things against protocol if they determined the situation demanded it. It was what made them the best. But not every Jedi – indeed, not even most of them, were okay with the clones taking their own creative twist on the rules. Many Jedi didn’t even acknowledge them as people. So he worried for Rex, Fives, Kix, Tup, Hardcase, Jesse, Dogma, and every individual man he had ever served with.

He worried about Padmé, and the stress that she put herself through every day, and the fact that no one seemed to take her seriously in the Senate. He worried that someone would try to take her life again and that it would work this time because he wasn’t there to stop it. He worried that she couldn’t forgive herself for letting Dooku take him and that she was losing herself to her misery, but then he remembered that that’s what he would have done and that she was stronger than him in that way. Then he worried about the opposite, she would forget about him and find someone else and move on, turning him away if he ever found his way back home. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if that were the case.

He worried for Ahsoka, because he knew what it was like to be a Padawan and have your master taken away. He remembered Jabiim too well, especially these days when there was little else but the pain to occupy his thoughts. He knew of the anger that Ahsoka was capable of, although she was usually great at hiding or defeating it, unlike him. He just didn’t want her to be like him. He wanted her to be so much better. And he was terrified that without him, no one would have her back and she would be killed and he would come back to a dead Padawan and the thought of losing her, his little sister, killed him.

And he worried for Obi-Wan. His master needed him. Anakin was always saving him from prisons and blaster bolts and hungry gundarks and Separatists and if he came back and something had happened to Obi-Wan...he would have lost his master, his best friend, his brother, his father, his everything. He could not function in this galaxy without Obi-Wan. And he knew that for a fact, because he’d been forced to try in the past and it’s never worked.

For what he was sure was weeks, Anakin had been imagining the day when Obi-Wan and Ahsoka would bust down the door, break his restraints and take him home. For the first time, he was beginning to seriously doubt it would actually happen.

He was always being watched. He didn’t have definitive proof to back it up, but he knew it as well as he knew his own name. When he ate (if he didn’t, they’d force him to anyway so it was honestly easier to just comply at this point) they watched him, staring him down, making sure he didn’t choke. When he was alone in the dark, he was positive night vision cameras watched him to make sure he didn’t bash his head against the wall, or find another way to end his own suffering. Sometimes, the lights would be on and someone would just come in and watch him, never looking away, still as a droid but with that eerie touch of sentience that left Anakin squirming and trying to cover his eyes, as if not seeing them could make them nonexistent.

More than once, he’d considered picking apart his metal arm to try to find something sharp enough to use as a weapon – maybe on someone else, maybe on himself – but he didn’t dare. If he did, they would see within seconds what he was trying to do, and they would tear it off or take it away. Being prisoner was bad enough, he’d at least like to have two hands.

Sometimes, living people armed with medical equipment would come in, give him a wordless checkup, stick him with a hundred hypos. He understood, though he wished he didn’t. Dooku needed to keep him alive, immobile but just healthy enough to be able to perpetually live in this dank cell. Honestly, it scared the hell out of him. He wasn’t stupid; he knew it had to mean something. Dooku had plans. Anakin wished he knew what they were.

Vaguely, he wondered what was going on in the outside world. He wondered how the war was progressing, how many Jedi had died, how many planets they had lost to the Separatists. He wasn’t sure he would ever find out.

Dooku came once again with a holorecorder in his hand. Anakin was in the containment field again – they always put him in there when the Count came. He didn’t really see the point, anymore – it wasn’t like he had any energy to physically launch himself at Dooku no matter how much he would like to, and he was tied to the wall all the time anyway.... He did have to suppose the containment field was more humiliating, which Dooku always seemed to enjoy. Yeah, that was probably why. How comforting.

“You might be interested to see this,” he said when Anakin managed to look up. His face was swollen and everything hurt. The recorder activated and he was looking at what appeared to be a Jedi funeral. A body lay on a table covered by a light blanket. When he recognized Ahsoka and Padmé, his heart burned with longing to be with them. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had seen them in person.

“This is a recording taken by an inside source of mine who was present at the time of the funeral. It appears that your dear friend Kenobi was killed by a single blaster bolt – much like all of these people believe you were.”

“I don’t – believe you,” Anakin choked out. If he allowed himself to accept that recording as the truth, he would lose everything he had left.

“Well, that is your choice, of course,” Dooku said downright gleefully, pocketing the recorder. “And I admit, I would have loved to have faked this as well, but I assure you it is quite real. Kenobi is dead. Perhaps if you had been there, it would not have been the case.”

Dooku left and the torture resumed and Anakin refused to believe that Obi-Wan was dead.

“He’s dead. Say it!”

“No!” Anakin moaned.

“Kenobi is dead. He’s dead.”

“I don’t believe you!”

The Klatooinian torturer smacked him hard on the face. Anakin could taste blood in his mouth.

“Believe it!”

“I won’t...I won’t...”

His torturer took up a fistful of Anakin’s hair and forced his head back and then forward and back again against the wall. He felt something that was almost definitely blood trickle down the back of his neck. His gaze was locked in place as the Klatooinian stared him down, their heads only inches apart.

“I could hold you like this until you believe it,” he said, his foul breath potent and disgusting. “Kenobi is dead. Face it!”

“No,” Anakin moaned, his face screwing up against the discomfort.

The Klatooinian shouted, “You will believe what I want you to believe!” He grabbed Anakin’s chin to force him to meet his gaze, digging his claws into Anakin’s cheeks until the skin bled. Anakin struggled, trying to pull away.

He wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t, because if he did then he would really break, if he wasn’t already broken. Still, when the Klatooinian finally left him sobbing against the wall after what seemed like hours, he couldn’t get the image of Obi-Wan’s funeral out of his mind. Obi-Wan couldn’t be dead, not Obi-Wan...

Anakin was really beginning to comprehend that no one was looking for him. A part of him wanted to believe that Obi-Wan was still alive, and that he and Ahsoka would appear, announce that the war was over and this Separatist stronghold was captured and the Sith destroyed, that they were going to take him home and nurse him back to health and tell him that it wouldn’t hurt anymore. He liked to pretend that they and Padmé would stay by his bedside until he felt better and smooth his hair back and whisper to him that everything would be all right, he was safe now and they would never, ever let anything happen to him again.

(He wondered if that was how his mom had spent her final days, too.)

But it was all just a fantasy. No one was coming to save him. Probably no one even cared about him anymore. He was completely alone.

He wished he knew why they hadn’t just killed him for real.

Dooku almost never came to visit him, but when he did he came with what Anakin decided were most un pleasant surprises. This time, it was just torture, plain and simple. Nothing physical, though, not anymore, and Anakin had to admit he would probably just prefer that because if they physically tortured him maybe he would die and he wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore (which was, indeed, probably why they had stopped physically torturing him). But no, Dooku was favoring some good old-fashioned mental Force torture, and being that Anakin had no access to the Force he couldn’t do anything to defend himself from it.

“Now that we have agreed that Kenobi is dead,” Dooku said, pushing all the dark side’s influence into Anakin’s mind, “Let’s focus on your other friends. Why don’t we start with Senator Amidala?”

Anakin struggled uselessly against his bonds. “You can’t get to me,” he murmured as fiercely as he could. “I know better than – to fall for –”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Something was wrapping around him, something cold and dark and unwelcoming, and he knew it was the Force but he didn’t know it was the Force because he couldn’t feel the Force and wow, he missed it, but it probably didn’t matter because if the Force cared about him at all it wouldn’t have left him here and it wouldn’t have killed Obi-Wan. And if the universe cared about him then it wouldn’t have had Padmé leave him here and if Padmé cared about him then she wouldn’t have willingly given him up. Every bad thought he had ever had raced through his mind as fast as a ship hurtles through hyperspace and he screwed up his face, fighting a losing battle against whatever the hell Dooku was doing to his mind.

In a tiny voice, he whimpered, “Get out of my head....”

“She left you with me,” Dooku said from somewhere far away, his voice was faint but the impact of his words rang clear in the icy snakey grip that was wrapping around Anakin now. “I think it’s clear enough what that means. She never truly cared about you.”

“No,” Anakin moaned in real time. “No, no, no...” He had no energy, though, so he thought it instead of saying it, knowing Dooku could hear it anyway. No no no no no no you can’t get to me

It became a mantra, and Dooku held the swirling, invisible vortex of the dark side around him for as long as he felt like doing before he took it away, and although Anakin was thankful for it to be gone, he realized that was the first time he had felt the Force in what, weeks? months? and a small, really sick and absolutely disgusting part of him wanted the feeling back.

“You’re almost broken, young Skywalker, no matter how hard you try to resist,” Dooku said as he left. “I look forward to seeing the finished result.”

Anakin was surprised that he could even feel pain anymore. But oh he could he could and it hurt hurt hurt hurt hurt. He was a broken shell of a person. He wasn’t even a Jedi anymore. He had betrayed the Jedi. A good Jedi would never have broken the way he was broken. He had failed Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Yoda and Windu and Qui-Gon and everyone. Jedi were supposed to be able to withstand anything. He had failed them.

Ugh, he missed his friends. The way Ahsoka nudged him playfully in the side when they shared in a private joke and the way Padmé twirled her fingers in his hair and the way Obi-Wan smiled that one special smile that was only ever for him. Ahsoka’s hugs, Padmé’s kisses, Obi-Wan’s reassuring touches on his shoulder and back and arm. He wanted to see them again. He just wanted to be with them. The longing was so intense it made him sick, sicker even than the constant pain.

Anakin missed his mom, too. Like mother, like son – how had she felt when she had been in this same situation? Tortured by those stupid despicable awful monsters (that he had slaughtered like farm animals, but he tried very hard not to think about that), holding out a hope that he would come for her. Him, her son, the child she had had without even understanding how but that she had still chosen to love unconditionally. Her mangled body in his arms, the way she collapsed, how in the Force she had been there one moment and gone the next. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. He wanted her back, and he wanted to go home. He wanted everything to end.

Tears slipped down his face. Why couldn’t it just end? Why were they treating him like this, why, whywhywhy why why why, he wasn’t an object, he wasn’t property, he was a real living person who had three amazing and generous friends and an incredible gorgeous wife and a beautiful brave strong courageous mother (who was dead, he thought about her so much but even if he could get out of here alive he could never ever see her again no matter what, Mom...). But, he supposed, none of that mattered here. Nothing mattered, not his wants nor his pain nor his anything, because he was an object now and he was a slave again, he would never get out, never ever ever, he would be here until he died because that was what Dooku wanted and there was nothing he could do about it.

His sobs filled an empty room.

By this point, just the sound of the door creaking open was enough to do it for him. Anakin could hardly lift his head, but he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the worst, whimpering and shaking horribly. His body was already broken in by this point, and he didn’t see how he would be able to take any more.

The room was pitch black and dead silent outside of the light and slow, constant hum from the containment field that held him once again, but even without the Force he could sense that someone else was in here with him. He looked around as best he could, but he could hardly even make out the outline of whoever was in the room with him.

“Please, please just stop, please,” he begged, and he hated himself because he never begged for anything, he was always so much better than that but not anymore. “Please just make it stop!”

He was tensing up, writhing around to try to escape whatever was about to overtake him, when he heard it – a sound from his past, one that haunted him everywhere he went, the battle cry of a Tusken Raider. It felt like his chest was being taken in a vice grip and crushed, he could hardly breathe, he was hyperventilating but sort of screaming at the same time. He didn’t know how Dooku could possibly know about what he had done to the Sand People and what they had done to him but he didn’t care because there was one in here with him and this was it, this was the worst thing they could do to him, and he knew that because even after everything he had been through he had never been this terrified in his entire life.

The Tusken didn’t touch him, but it didn’t need to. He was his own worst nightmare – he thrashed around as much as he could, sobbing his head off, an image flashed in his head of slicing through the Tuskens’ bodies, chasing the ones who were trying to escape him and killing them too, killing the women and the children, killing them all. He cried out apologies and admittances, saying that he was so so sorry he killed them, he did it and he shouldn’t have but please just leave him alone because he couldn’t take anymore. It was all his fault, he was a murderer, but his heart was pounding in his chest and an icy fear encapsulated every cell of his body and he was certain that if this went on he was going to die of fright. In fact, he desperately wanted to.

That was the answer. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he really, really didn’t want to be alive anymore. Obi-Wan was gone and Padmé had surely moved on and Ahsoka probably didn’t care about him anymore and his mom was dead, so he had absolutely no reason to be alive. He was going to die here, he had to, and he hoped it would happen quickly because there was nothing else that could be done to break him worse than what was happening right now.

This had to be the end. Please, Force, let this be the end.

The lights turned on. He couldn’t see anything for a minute as his eyes adjusted and then for longer because his vision was blurred with tears and sweat but he eventually managed to look up and he saw that it wasn’t a Tusken who had come to torment him, it was Dooku himself, holding a recorder and standing before his pathetic form with that condescending smirk.

Humiliation washed over him in droves. Dooku had made it his personal mission to make Anakin’s life as miserable as possible and he had succeeded. He took Anakin’s arm, his dignity, his access to the Force – his freedom. The only things that made him Anakin Dooku took for himself. He was nothing more now than a pathetic broken humiliated human body shaking and cringing and crying while Dooku looked at him, his eyes shining with enjoyment.

He didn’t even feel angry at Dooku anymore, he realized. There was too much raw hatred, fear, and shame to simply be angry at him. What Anakin felt towards his captor went so far beyond anger that he didn’t even think there was a word for it.

Finally, Dooku spoke. “Now that that display is over, I think you have proven that you are ready for the next stage of treatment,” he said as if Anakin had transcended from a sentient being to a science experiment. He actually sounded disappointed when he added, “I’m afraid we will not be seeing each other for a while, young Skywalker.”

The door opened and two humans dressed in long white lab coats entered. One of them held a syringe. The energy binding Anakin to the containment field released and he fell to the floor, moaning in agony, and he was very aware of someone sliding a needle into a vein in his arm before everything turned fuzzy. His eyes grew unfocused and his limbs wouldn’t obey his brain’s commands and he heard but didn’t really feel the doctors assessing and touching him before he blacked out.

Chapter Text

Ahsoka deflected a blaster bolt back at a droid, then another, then another. Most of the tinnies were down, sparking heaps of scrap metal on the dirty village ground, but the SBDs were still coming on strong, as if Dooku himself had sent them to make her life just a little bit harder than it needed to be. She bit back a growl at the thought of him, and launched herself at a pair of droids.

It only takes one droid to kill a Jedi.

Yeah, and two dozen more to kidnap one. Okay, sure, she didn’t know the details around how Dooku had managed to capture Anakin in the first place and she definitely wasn’t planning on asking Padmé the details, but Skyguy was – had been – a super soldier in his own right. He was the best fighter she’d ever seen. A Jedi like that didn’t go without a fight.

Ahsoka’s hands clenched a little tighter around her lightsabers, and the next cut into a droid was probably a little too aggressive.

Then her commlink chimed; she rolled her eyes and activated it. The blue holographic figure of her master appeared with his arms crossed. She looked at it while deflecting bolts with her dominant hand. “Ahsoka, you were supposed to meet me at the rendezvous point for evacuation twenty minutes ago. Why haven’t you checked in?”

She gestured to all the people around her that he couldn’t see. “We’re trying to evac these civilians first. There’s at least four dozen of them, Master, and the Sepper tanks are heading right towards us!”

“I know about the tanks, which is why you were supposed to meet me here with all of your clones!”

She frowned. “But what about the civs?”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes briefly and looked at her. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, but we need to leave them.”

“What?” she said incredulously. “No! I won’t do that!”

“Ahsoka, if we took the time to evacuate every civilian from this planet, our forces would be crushed.” He looked at her sternly, but there was some sympathy in his face. “I don’t want to leave them any more than you do, but we have our orders.”

“I don’t care about orders!” Ahsoka shouted at him. “These people are going to die! We can’t just abandon them! We can take on the Seps, Master, just bring your troops over here and help us out!”

She watched Obi-Wan sigh and look at her hard. “We’ll be there soon. This is not the end of this discussion.” Ahsoka pressed the button on her commlink angrily and ran off to help some civs.

“Get on the gunship, now!” Obi-Wan yelled at her, deflecting blaster bolts back at the tinnies in all directions.

“I am not leaving these people!” Ahsoka screamed at him over the sounds of war. Thirty feet away, one of the gunships was hit with a burst of photons and exploded, killing at least thirty clones. She tried desperately not to let it phase her.

“We don’t have a choice!” he shouted, backing as the droids advanced. The civilians’ settlement was in flames, people of all species ran in every direction trying to escape the destruction. “Are you really going to make this mistake again, now?” Obi-Wan stared down at her as she watched the killing from behind her sabres. “Ahsoka, we need to go!”

She swallowed hard and ran back to the gunships. The clones she was commanding ran back with them and the gunships flew back to the cruisers waiting in the upper atmosphere. Ahsoka looked back at the surface reluctantly as she abandoned dozens of civilians to their deaths, allowing herself, just for a moment, to hate the Jedi and Obi-Wan a little bit.

Back on the cruiser, Obi-Wan stood before her, hands on his hips. “Ahsoka, when I give you an order, you are supposed to follow it. ”

“Most of the time, I do!” she said angrily. “This was a bad order!”

“It is the duty of a Padawan to accept their master’s judgment in all matters.”

Blood rose into Ahsoka’s face. Her headtails turned an angry shade of blue. “This was not my fault!”

“You have to take responsibility for your actions!” he snapped. “You cannot grow as a Jedi if you refuse to accept and learn from your mistakes.”

“I didn’t make a mistake!” she almost yelled. “You ordered me to abandon all of those people back there when they needed us! We’re Jedi, we’re supposed to help people, not leave them to die!”

“Ahsoka,” he said, sighing and putting his hand to his eyes. He looked very old and very tired. “It was a choice between allowing our forces to be decimated on the surface or fleeing and saving as many clone lives as possible. Unfortunately, someone had to make that choice. With the clones alive, they can help other people where we could not help those civilians.”

She stomped her foot angrily. It was a childish display of anger and she felt pathetic and embarrassed for resorting to showing her feelings like this, but she kinda didn’t care because Obi-Wan had just forced her to let all those people die and that was a pretty big deal.

“But they needed our help!” she said furiously. Then her brows knitted together and her voice quavered when she added, pulling out her last and most cold-hearted resort, “Anakin would have helped them!”

She watched as his jaw tightened and he closed his eyes. Frustration seemed to melt off his face, replaced by a frightening calm. “I am not Anakin. Neither are you. He’s dead, Ahsoka, and if you think that that fact is going to continue to hinder your ability to command, perhaps you need to take a break from combat.”

“It’s not hindering my ability to command!” she said indignantly. “I’m just saying that he always did the right thing, and maybe we should be more like him!”

Obi-Wan actually laughed, and it was bitter and cruel. “Oh, I assure you, he did not always do the right thing. He disobeyed orders constantly, and often in a way that jeopardized the entire mission and hundreds of lives. That is exactly what you have been doing for the last four months. It appears now that he passed many of his worst traits onto you.”

She stared at him incredulously. She didn’t care if he yelled at her, but he was not going to criticize Anakin. She didn’t care that he had known Anakin longer and better. “So it’s a bad thing that he tried to help people, is it?”

Obi-Wan crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Anakin didn’t just try to help people. He tried to help everyone. And I’ll tell you now what I have told him a hundred times: you cannot save everyone. You need to learn to accept that.”

Ahsoka shook her head, in awe. “Maybe he’s the only one who really knew what being a Jedi is about, then.”

“You need to learn your place, young one,” he warned. “You have become increasingly reckless and disobedient and I do not think you’re currently mature enough to be on the front. I will be informing the Council of your behavior and seeing if they think you should be taken off active duty for the time being.”

He hit a nerve. “You can’t do that!” she shouted, and waved her hand towards the viewport, gesturing out to the stars. “The galaxy needs all the Jedi help it can get!”

“They need Jedi with cool heads who listen to orders and can command without letting their emotions control them,” he said sternly. “You cannot control a war situation if you cannot control yourself.”

Ahsoka balled her fists and stared at him furiously. “Anakin –” she started, prepared to hurt his feelings to the extreme, but hesitated. Then, impulsively, she decided she wanted it to hurt. “Anakin was a better master than you’ve ever been to me. He understood how I feel. You don’t even try.” She watched with grim satisfaction as faint shock registered on his face and stormed out before he could berate her again.

The Council suspended her from active duty and she shrunk back to her small quarters, livid. How could they do that, taking her away from the one thing she needed to escape? It wasn’t fair. Her heart pumped fast and she couldn’t sit still and she wanted to punch something really hard, but there was nothing to punch so she upturned her blankets and kicked at her pillow and pulled all her extra clothes and robes out of the closet and threw them on the floor and she made a huge mess because she was a huge mess and there was no one who understood and nothing that could make her feel better.

Her anger was not abated by ransacking her room. She needed to throw something, so she took her lightsaber hilt in her hand and threw it hard at the wall and then took up her shoto and threw that too. Then she sank to the floor and cried because she was beyond sad and frustrated and she wanted nothing more than for Skyguy to appear out of nowhere and call her Snips and hug her and tell her he was sorry he was away for so long but everything would be okay now.

Ahsoka sat there in the quarters she had laid waste to crying into her knees and rocking back and forth. She had said so many terrible things to Master Kenobi but he was just calling her out on what she did wrong and she felt so stupid like she was back to being the shiny inexperienced Padawan who didn’t understand the war but was forced to fight in it anyway because all the adults that weren’t out fighting had already been killed.

Eventually the tears stopped and she looked around her room, ashamed of her outbursts. She crawled over to where her lightsabers had fallen and picked them up reverently, whispering an apology. She remembered Anakin’s words to her, words that he had been told by Obi-Wan, who she had just yelled and screamed at like the most immature youngling ever: This weapon is your life. She clipped them back to her belts, vowing never to treat them that way again.

Suddenly she heard her door chime, but she didn’t want to see Master Kenobi no matter how bad she felt so she yelled, “Go away!”

“It’s Barriss,” a small voice said, and Ahsoka sniffed and got up and opened the door. Her friend stood before her, looking concerned. “I sensed that you were upset. Are you all right, Ahsoka?” She peered around at all the clothes laying on the floor.

“No,” she said. “I yelled at Master Kenobi. I told him Anakin was a better master than him.”

Barriss looked at her sympathetically. “Did you mean it?”

Ahsoka stared at the floor. “I don’t know.” She stepped aside so Barriss could enter. When the door was closed, Barriss took her and sat her down against the wall.

“Master Kenobi has probably already forgiven you,” she said confidently. “I’m sure he remembers what it was like to be your age, and he definitely knows how hard it is to fight in the war.” Ahsoka sniffed and nodded. “Here, I’ll help you clean up.”

Ahsoka watched, feeling embarrassed and incredibly helpless, as Barriss picked up all her clothes and hung them in the closet. She fixed Ahsoka’s bed and put the pillow back in place, then she opened the blinds to give them more sunlight.

“I bet you’ve never been this mean to Master Unduli,” Ahsoka said miserably.

“Maybe not, but every Padawan knows how it feels to disappoint their master, and every master remembers how hard it is to be a Padawan.” Barriss smiled at her. “You’ll feel better, Ahsoka.”

“Not while I’m stuck here, though,” Ahsoka said, leaning against the wall. “I’ve been taken off active duty because I got too emotional. But whenever I’m stuck here, I can’t get my mind off the war and all the things it’s taken away from me. I know it’s terrible, but the front kind of feels like my home.” She frowned. “I miss my old troops, though. Well, Anakin’s old troops.” She raised her head suddenly. “Maybe while I’m stuck here they’ll come back to Coruscant and I can see them!” Ahsoka smiled at the thought. She missed Rex and Fives and Jesse and Kix and all of them. She hoped they were all okay.

Barriss smiled too, and sat against the wall with her. They sat there for hours, chatting the negative feelings away.

While stuck on Coruscant she was allowed to leave the Temple when she wasn’t doing her assigned duties. Accordingly, she flew a speeder over to the military barracks where the 501 ^st had just come back from a huge battle. She pressed the door release to open the large rec room and beamed the second she saw a hundred of the same familiar face.

The 501^st was unlike any other legion of clones. While all clones were individuals, the 501^st were some of the only ones who flaunted it with their unique armor and hair and tattoos. Ahsoka knew that Anakin had been one of the only Jedi who treated the clones as if he were equal to them. The clones had all admired him tremendously for his respect for them and the fact that he led them in battle rather than lurking behind giving orders. Anakin had passed onto his clones the same thing he had passed onto her: an understanding that obeying the rules isn’t always the best choice. It allowed them to be creative and it led to them being widely acclaimed as one of the best, most successful legions in the GAR. She just wished Obi-Wan could understand the need for that sort of creativity.

The clones immediately noticed her (Ahsoka was quite aware that she stood out in a crowd like a sore thumb) and shouted calls of welcome at her. She smiled widely; coming here and seeing them was like coming home after a few months’ vacation gone wrong.

“Commander!” called a familiar voice, and she could pick out Rex in a crowd any day of the week. He was sitting with Fives and Kix and Jesse, and she could name almost every other man in the room, too.

“How have you all been?” she asked the table of them, sitting down. They were playing some kind of card game she wasn’t familiar with.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been worried about us, Commander?” Fives said cheekily, nudging her with his elbow. Ahsoka crossed her arms playfully.

“Not at all, actually,” she said, pretending to be condescending. “I’ve been super busy with my new yellow-wearing clone friends.”

“Left us for the 212^th, did you?” Kix said, teasing. “I always knew they weren’t to be trusted!”

Ahsoka dropped the act. The playful one, the Jedi one, the Commander Tano one. “I miss you guys,” she admitted. “It’s not the same fighting without you. Who’s commanding you now?”

“We’re, uh, in between generals,” Rex said, rubbing his head. “Something about us being too incompatible with all these other Jedi.”

“Nothing has been the same since Krell,” Fives said darkly. “Well, since before that, you know, but...he really messed the guys up. Me included.” He shuddered.

“I heard about all that,” Ahsoka said. She too had participated in the space portion of the battle of Umbara, but she hadn’t ventured down to the surface. And she had been...distracted. It had been too soon after Skyguy.

“We’ve kind of been pushing our generals a little,” Rex said. “But I think we’re all just too afraid of someone else like him commanding us.”

“Yeah, Commander, hurry up and get knighted so you can lead us!” Jesse said.

Ahsoka laughed. “General Tano? I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon. I’ve kind of been pushing my general a little too much, too.” She sighed. “The 212^th are great men and great soldiers, but they don’t have the...creativity of the 501^st, you know? They’re not really willing to twist orders or bend rules.” The clones nodded, understanding what she meant.

It felt good to let herself be honest with them, just like it had with Barriss. But she still felt bad about yelling at Master Kenobi. When she was done here, she decided, she would go and apologize to him. But first...

“So, what are you guys playing?”

Ahsoka entered Master Kenobi’s living quarters – the ones he had shared with Skyguy, she had been avoiding them for that very reason – and found him in his meditation room.

“Master?” she said, and he opened his eyes and looked at her. “I’m sorry about all those things I said. Especially the ones about Anakin.”

Despite how tired he looked, he smiled. “It’s all right. I suffered many more outbursts from him when he was your age.”

“No, it’s not all right,” she said, sitting cross-legged opposite him. “What I said was really disrespectful and rude and I feel horrible. But I’ve cleared my head and I think I’m all right. I was just really angry.”

“I understand,” Obi-Wan said sadly. “I lost my master, too. But instead of getting another one, I was left with a fragile Padawan who I couldn’t very well take my anger out on. And believe me, I had a lot of it.”

“You did?”

“Oh, yes,” he said softly, looking back. His eyes looked hollow as he remembered. “I killed a Sith with it, in fact. It took me years to get over it. I still feel it, sometimes. Especially recently.”

Ahsoka knew what he was talking about; though he didn’t dwell on it, he had told her about how the Sith he thought he killed had come back and was terrorizing him.

“The trick,” he continued, “Is to accept that you have it, and that you may not be able to get rid of it for good. But I promise you, with much patience and persistence, you will heal.”

She felt doubtful, to say the least. Sometimes she could hardly see a future without Skyguy, even though he had been gone for months. Sometimes, everything seemed bleak and there didn’t seem like there was any way she could get through it. Mostly, she just wanted him back.

“I’ll try,” she promised.

“He was very proud of you, you know,” Obi-Wan said quietly after a long pause. “And so am I. You may be reckless, especially of late, but you have still grown much from the small Padawan who we met on Christophsis. I know that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

Ahsoka’s lips curled into a smile. “Thank you, Master.” Then, she settled into a comfortable spot and meditated with him.

Standing before a large open window overlooking Coruscant, Ahsoka pointed at a young Mon Cal girl who raised her hand.

“What’s the difference between a normal grip and a reverse grip like you use?”

Ahsoka smiled. Many Masters and experienced Jedi discouraged the reverse grip religiously, so she would be immensely pleased if she could pass on her quirk to the next generation of Jedi. “The only difference is the way you hold it. When it comes to combat, Jedi who are well-practiced in the reverse grip can fight just as efficiently. The reverse grip is part of Shien, which you all just recently started to learn. I don’t always use it, only when I feel comfortable doing so, such as when I’m deflecting blaster bolts as well as sometimes when I’m engaged in a lightsaber duel.”

“What’s it like to fight bad guys?” a Rodian boy asked, and Ahsoka shook her head.

“I’m not here to tell you war stories,” she said, scolding him playfully. “We’re here to practice. And hopefully by the time you’re all my age, there won’t be any more bad guys for you to have to fight.”

The fact that the younglings looked sad about not being able to grow up in combat made Ahsoka want to herd them all in a ship and take them to a planet where they could forget about the war. As the war continued to go on, Jedi were being sent to the front lines younger and younger. She was testament to that, and not to brag, but not all Jedi Padawans were as strong as she was.

“All right everyone, reignite your ‘sabers and we’ll –” Suddenly, an alarm began to blare throughout the room they were training in and the corridors outside. Ahsoka was familiar with the alarm, although she had never seen it in use – it was a signal that someone had attacked an area of the temple. She willed herself not to panic. Protocol came first: she was a Jedi, and right now these younglings were in her temporary care.

“Everyone, get to the wall,” she ordered, and she quickly ran over to the door and pressed the emergency lockdown key. Her commlink went off.

“Ahsoka, are you all right?” Obi-Wan’s voice came through. There was no panic audible in his voice, but Ahsoka had served with him long enough to be familiar with his overprotective streak.

“I’m fine, Master,” she said. “I’m with a group of younglings. What happened?”

“Someone set off a bomb in one of the hangars,” he said. Her eyes widened. “I’ll let you know more when I find out, I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

She shook her head a little, but inside her heart was pounding. A bomb? In the temple? Moving over to the initiates, she forced herself to remember that anything she did could rub off on them.

“Everyone try to stay calm,” she said, kneeling down with them. “I’m sure this will be over soon.”

“Padawan Tano?” the Rodian boy asked. “Is it all right if I’m scared?”

Ahsoka smiled at him. “Admitting you’re scared is something that not a lot of grown-up Jedi are able to do. It’s okay to be scared. I get scared all the time. But being a Jedi is about controlling your fear, instead of letting your fear control you.”

“When do you get scared?” a small Twi’lek asked, voice quavering.

Ahsoka sat thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s time I tell all of you one of those war stories you want to hear....”

“That can’t be true,” Ahsoka was saying to her master two weeks later, shaking her head. Because really, it couldn’t. It was impossible. Impossible.

“Unfortunately, it is,” Obi-Wan aid, looking apologetic. “She came to the Council and confessed last night. They sent her off to the military base this morning.”

“What?” she said incredulously. She couldn’t believe Barriss, her best friend and her support system, could have been responsible for the bomb. “They gave her over to the military? But she’s a Jedi!”

“I know, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan said. “But Admiral Tarkin and the Supreme Chancellor feel that because clones and non-Jedi temple employees were killed in the explosion, it’s only appropriate that the Republic itself be in charge of her fate.”

“But – she –” Ahsoka stammered, upset because Barriss was a traitor and because the Jedi gave her over without a fight and because she never liked that Admiral Tarkin. He was sticky and suspicious and gave her major creeps. But now he had his hands on Barriss? Who was a traitor?

“If I go to see her, will they let me in?” she said, staring up at him.

He frowned. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, but I don’t think they’re allowing any –”

“Can’t you pull some strings or something?” she asked him, ready to beg if she had to. “Master, she’s my best friend! I can’t just – even if she...”

Obi-Wan’s expression softened sadly. “I’ll try.”

Ahsoka dispensed her lightsabers and commlink into the tray and the clone at the station told her, “I can only give you ten minutes.” She allowed him to lead her to Barriss’s cell, admittedly not liking his tone. The clones on Coruscant never seemed the same as the ones who went out into the field. Somehow they were ruder, more wound up, and much more formal.

Barriss was sitting on the small cot in the cell, and when she saw Ahsoka her eyes brightened just for a moment. She stood slowly.

“I was hoping you’d come,” she said.

“Barriss, how could you do this?” Ahsoka said abruptly. “How could you bomb the temple?”

The Mirialan looked down sadly. “Something needed to be done, and no one else was going to do it.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the Jedi Council, Ahsoka,” Barriss said calmly. “The Jedi have completely lost sight of themselves. We’ve been acting as war mongers from the very beginning, and as the war goes on we’ve only been getting worse. I wanted things to change, and bombing the temple was the only way I could think to let the Jedi see what we’ve become.” To her credit, she looked entirely depressed. “I never wanted it to go this far. I didn’t want anyone to be killed.”

“But they were, Barriss,” Ahsoka said. “Jedi, and clones, and civilians!”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Barriss said, collapsing on her cot. “I know. That’s why I confessed.”

Ahsoka stood over her, at a loss for words. Her best friend was a murderer and a terrorist. Even if she hadn’t meant to kill, it didn’t matter. Nothing could excuse this. “But Barriss, the Jedi want the war to end just as much as everyone else. We’ve been trying as hard as we can. And with Grievous gone, everyone has been saying we’re getting closer and closer to doing so.”

“Grievous’s death changed nothing, Ahsoka,” Barriss said, her bright blue eyes shining. “Nothing will ever change unless people do something about it.”

Ahsoka just frowned down at her, dismayed. No one had ever been so wrong – Grievous’s death changed everything. “I’m sorry, Barriss.”

Her friend shook her head. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I deserve whatever they’re going to do, I know that.” She managed a smile. “We may never agree on this, Ahsoka, and I know you will probably never forgive me, but...I’m glad we’ve been friends all this time. It’s meant the universe to me.”

“Me too,” Ahsoka admitted. “You helped me through a lot. I just...”

“I know.”

The clone opened the door and said, “Times up.”

“Ahsoka,” Barriss said as the Togruta turned to leave. “Can you please do something for me?” Ahsoka looked at her. “If you see Master Luminara...can you tell her that...I’m sorry I failed her.” Tears suddenly swam in both of their eyes. Ahsoka nodded quickly.

“Goodbye, Barriss.”

Ahsoka sat with Master Kenobi in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, her legs dangling off a rock. “Why does it feel like we have to lose everything?”

“That’s what war does, I’m afraid,” he said sadly.

She drew her knees up to her chest. “Anakin was my best friend. Barriss was my best friend. Who am I going to lose next?” Then she looked at him regretfully. Obi-Wan had just lost someone else of his own. Ahsoka didn’t know the Mandalorian Duchess very well, but she had been at Obi-Wan’s fake funeral a few months ago, obviously devastated, and she had just died at the hands of the Sith that Ahsoka had only heard bits and pieces about. “Are you okay, Master?”

He was looking at the waterfall, his eyes distant. He looked like he had aged a lot in the last few months. He had dark circles under his eyes and his shoulders slumped and his robes seemed loose. He didn’t bother to answer her question. Despite her own pain, she suddenly and violently wished Anakin was here, just for his sake. He had always cheered Obi-Wan up, even if Obi-Wan pretended otherwise, and seeing a normally calm and collected Jedi like Obi-Wan disheveled and feeling almost made her own pain feel insignificant. They were both stuck in a loop of perpetual heartbreak.

Ahsoka hoped they would return to battle soon. It was the only escape.

Before she went back into combat, there was something Ahsoka had to do.

She walked through the halls of the Senate building, always a little self-conscious among these rich and well-to-do elites of the galaxy. She saw her friend Riyo Chuchi and waved before entering Padmé’s office. The Senator was pouring over some documents but looked up when Ahsoka entered. Padmé looked surprised but glad to see her.

“Ahsoka!” she exclaimed, standing up. She looked exhausted and dejected but she smiled nonetheless. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You too,” Ahsoka admitted. “I just came by to say that I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I was really mad at you,” Ahsoka said truthfully, trying not to look away. “I needed to place the blame on someone, and of course I blamed Dooku, but you were a lot easier to take my anger out on. But I let my anger consume me, and I didn’t allow myself to see that you were hurting just as bad. I’m really, really sorry, Padmé.”

Padmé slowly approached her and hugged her. “Thank you for saying that,” Padmé said softly, rubbing Ahsoka’s back headtail soothingly. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Don’t be,” Ahsoka said, breaking them apart. “That was the worst decision anyone could have ever had to make, but you were just making the best decision for the Republic as a whole. I think I can finally appreciate that.”

Padmé smiled, but Ahsoka could see that behind her brave facade she was upset, even disgusted, with herself. This time, Ahsoka wrapped her arms around Padmé. She suddenly missed Barriss and Anakin really, really bad. “If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

Padmé just held her back and whispered, “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

The room was a blur of silver. Silver medical equipment set into silver walls. People in white coats milled around him, checking monitors, paying Anakin no mind. His eyes were unfocused, but he looked down and saw that he was leaning back in some kind of chair with his arms fixed to it by metal restraints. His body still hurt from wherever he had been before and it was hard to concentrate. He felt distinctly uneasy.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before someone acknowledged him, but he was too lethargic from whatever sedative Dooku had given him to care. Plus, frankly, he figured that whatever they did to him now couldn’t possibly be worse than what he had already endured. Finally, someone – they all looked like doctors – pressed electrodes to his chest and clipped a heart monitor onto his finger. They forced his mouth open and placed a bite guard between his teeth before pulling something down that secured his head in place. He was still groggy, but alert enough to know that something was about to happen, something he desperately wanted to avoid, so he let his animal instinct take over and started pulling weakly at the restraints in a useless attempt to escape.

Then the machine turned on.

It hurt oh it hurt it hurt pain pain pain pain pain –

A second later, or maybe it was a few minutes, or maybe an hour, Anakin opened his eyes. His muscles ached like he had been beaten and his head lolled to one side, there was a vaguely vomit-y taste in his mouth and his throat was raw so he must have been screaming but he couldn’t remember any of it. He was no stranger to electrical torture so he knew what seizures felt like but this – this was something beyond anything he’d ever experienced.

They – the, well, doctors? – released the bolts on his arms and dragged him to another room. He had no energy to fight back. They hoisted him up to a flat table that was maybe supposed to pass for a bed and left him alone.

It went on and on and on and on, every day, or maybe every other day. Seizures, vomiting, maybe a little or a lot crying, but it wasn’t for what he guessed was two weeks that he realized he couldn’t remember why he was here.

Shouldn’t he be out fighting in the war? Who captured him? He didn’t know. Where were Obi-Wan and Ahsoka? Had they been captured too? And the 501^st, his men...he wished he remembered and he wasn’t entirely sure why he didn’t, but he knew that the people who moved him around and electrocuted him every day wouldn’t answer so he didn’t bother to ask.

It wasn’t until Anakin realized he couldn’t remember meeting Ahsoka that he figured out exactly what they were doing to him. There was something about crystalline blue skyscrapers and sandy Tatooine...Obi-Wan was there and Rex was laughing at him...and that was it. He racked his brain all day and all night (time wasn’t even real in this place, no windows meant day was night and night was morning) but he couldn’t manage to fill in the blanks.

It terrified him. What if it went further? What if Ahsoka and Obi-Wan found him, and he couldn’t remember her? It made him want to cry. He refrained, at least when he had company, and instead he channeled his energy into fighting back, kicking and punching and struggling. It didn’t really matter. His kicks missed and his punches had no force behind them (and no Force, either, how long had he gone by now without having the Force?) and even struggling became more impossible by the day. He was too weak. Too pathetic. He tried refusing to eat – because he would rather starve to death than forget his friends – but they strapped him down and stuck needles in his arm and put a feeding tube in his stomach to keep him alive.

The seizures were the worst. Well, there wasn’t really a worst (everything was awful, nothing was okay, he was an object) but the seizures were definitely in the top five. He always woke up from them to the mingling tastes of vomit and blood, people milled about him but no one would tell him what had happened, he only knew they were seizures because that was the word they used the most often. Everything was confusing, nothing made sense. He didn’t know where he was, but he wanted to go home. Wherever home was. To his friends. Not that he had many of those. There was Obi-Wan, and Padmé, the Chancellor, and...what was her name....

When he was alone, he laid on the flat table, stared at the ceiling, and tried to remember things.

His mind was a scattered arrangement of memories, flashes of things that could have been either yesterday or three years ago. He could have been here for months, or weeks, or years. He didn’t even know with clarity how old he was. Twenty, maybe, or twenty-one. Maybe older. Not younger, though, because he well remembered being a teenager so those days must have passed.

He had lots of time. He would typically focus on one memory, and when he was sure he could get nothing more from that one he would try to think of something else. The reddish sands of a planet with lots of death, where the Force had been screaming...his mom, limp and fading...Obi-Wan, his arms crossed over his chest as he huffed on about something that wouldn’t matter the next day...Padmé, in a white dress on the balcony of her lake house...clones, a million men with the same face, dying at every turn while Anakin lived on...that’s right, there was a war going on, fighting on a thousand planets while he was trapped here in some silver room, trying to figure out why he had a metal hand in place of a real one.

Tears welled up in his eyes again. He turned on his side and let them out, silent and shaking. What even was this place? Was Padmé okay? Where was Obi-Wan? Was he okay? Was he captured, too? Was he here? Was this happening to him, too? No, Anakin was certain he would know if it was.... Was Obi-Wan out there, fighting the war, or was he tracking down his missing Padawan like his life depended on it? Was anything even real outside of this Force-forsaken mystery torture zone? Was there any life that he could ever have outside this madhouse? Would he ever find out?

Most days, he complied – or, at least, he didn’t fight, though he didn’t actively cooperate, either. He hated it, of course he did, but doing what they said was a lot less painful than resisting and at this point, saving himself from a little extra pain made all the difference. Sometimes, though, he couldn’t help himself, when the rage had been building up for days on end and he couldn’t take being their tool (slave puppet test subject) any longer. One of these times, he socked his mechanical fist straight into a doctor’s stomach and knocked them to the ground because hey, if he had piece of metal attached to his body he might as well make use of it. For a few days (were they days?) they kept his arms fastened to his sides and tied him down. Fine, let them. He was not going down without a fight.

He thought about Padmé a lot. He always had, since the first and last time they had met, and now he was trying to cling to all the memories he could while he still had them. Padmé was such a wonderful queen and the people of Naboo loved her. He loved her too, he was sure, because seeing her in his dreams and thinking about her all the time had to mean that he loved her. She was kind and compassionate, like his mother, and she had talked to him and cared about him even though she was the queen of a Republic world and he was a slave from the Outer Rim.

It was like he was a slave again now, except he wasn’t put to work, just subjected to the whims of his masters. He longed for his current master. He hoped – no, he knew – that Obi-Wan would never rest until he found his Padawan. Then he could take Anakin home and everything would be okay and maybe he would be able to see his mom and Padmé again. There wasn’t a lot (or any, at all) of hope in him anymore, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t dream. Dreaming was probably the only thing that got him through.

Slumped in a chair in the room they kept him in when they weren’t shocking him, Anakin stared numbly down at his own body. Any muscles he had were withering away from maximum disuse, leaving skin that looked strange and disfigured in their wake. His bones all looked especially pointy and a lot of his ribs could be counted. He couldn’t really stand on his own anymore and the food they gave him tasted like the color gray. The metal arm was still a mystery.

What puzzled him the most, though, was the question of how long he had been here. His most recent, clearest memory, a diplomatic mission that had been so boring at the time (he would give anything in the entire universe for a lifetime of boring diplomatic conferences if it meant escaping this hell-prison) had been when he was...fourteen, he thought. In his head, it felt like maybe a month ago, but logic told him it must have been at least a few years. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

He sighed heavily. He wished he knew what they were going to do with him when their work was done, when his mind and body had both been reduced to nothing. That day was coming, and soon, and he wasn’t really sure that whatever made him Anakin would still be around to find out.

On the way to the chair Anakin fought them, moaning nonsensically and trying to throw them off in one last desperate attempt because this was it, there was so little left and all his memories seemed to be taken away in backwards order and the only thing, the only person from his life away from Tatooine that he could picture in his mind with any clarity at all was Obi-Wan and please please please don’t take him away –

“No, please...Master...I want my master...Obi-Wan, please...help me....”

They strapped him down and he writhed against the restraints, moaning, “Please, please don’t take away my master, please don’t take my master, please –”

– and it hurt hurt hurt and when he woke up the next day he couldn’t remember who ‘Master’ was supposed to be.

It was almost all gone. Tatooine was almost gone. His mom was almost gone. He was almost all gone. There was nothing he could do. It was over. They won.

He stopped resisting, for good. There was no reason to, anymore. Everything still hurt, his muscles after a seizure, his head during the treatment, the stump of his arm where metal met flesh, his chest when he was gasping for breath because something set him in a panic. Everything was confusing. Nothing made sense. There was little more they could do to him. He couldn’t remember anything, not where he was from or how he had come to be here or even what his name was. He was an empty shell. If someone had told him he had never lived a life away from this place, he wouldn’t have had anything with which to refute that claim.

He spent his days staring at nothing. When they put food in front of him, he ate it. He couldn’t really stand and he could hardly sit up, so he let the doctors move him around like a puppet. He let them bathe him every few days without objection and he just didn’t really feel the need to cry anymore. What would be the point? Whatever was going to happen to him was going to happen. At this point, there was no reason to care.

Chapter Text

“And thus,” Palpatine was saying from his tall Senate Chamber podium, “It is with a heavy heart that I must regretfully inform this congress that I am being advised by my personal physician to take a short leave of absence to regain my health.”

So the Chancellor was taking sick leave. Padmé listened absentmindedly, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her chair. Vacation was more like it. And, well, she couldn’t really blame him, either, because at this point in the war vacation sounded nice. Relaxing, meditative, peaceful, serene...

...and completely ridiculous. The leader of an entire Republic of thousands and thousands and thousands of systems couldn’t just up and leave because he was feeling a little worn out. It was irresponsible. Outrageous. And, of course, it was going to gain him support and sympathy, a hundred million get well messages and wishes of good health, because he was a tired-looking old man while she, she was just a tired-feeling young woman.

Damn. She wanted sick leave.

The Chancellor continued, “I must assure each and every one of you that while I am away, I will remain constantly available and ready to return at a moment’s notice should a crisis arise. I am honored to be the leader of such a loyal body of constituents and I would never wish to abandon the Republic’s needs so selfishly for my own.”

But yeah, how suspicious would it be if Padmé did take her own sick leave? Two influential members of the Senate from the same planet, who both happened to be feeling extremely unwell of late? She wouldn’t be able to pull it off if she tried. It would be broadcast on all news networks that some conspiracy was afoot, a deep-rooted Naboo takeover or some other ridiculous scandal that someone had probably already made up and was just waiting for an excuse to sell to the HoloNet. The Chancellor wouldn’t be accused of anything, though, just her. It would be political suicide.

“I am confident that in my absence, we will all make our best effort to keep the Republic functioning at its highest capacity, and continue lending our support to the thousands of Jedi Knights who so nobly lead the campaign against the Separatists.”

Suicide, huh?

Oh, no. There were her bad thoughts again. She should probably do something about that.

“I thank you all for your attention and look forward to my return in a few weeks.”

And the session was over. Fine, fine. Except, Padmé didn’t really feel like getting up, or moving at all. Maybe she could get away with a quick power nap on the floor of the Naboo pod, escape the hustle and bustle of government for just an hour or two, or maybe a day, or the rest of her life –

“It’s time to go my lady,” said a small voice from behind her.

Padmé heaved a heavy sigh, rubbed her eyes, and said, “How about you be Senator Amidala for the rest of the day, Moteé? You could take my office, my headdress, everything. Just leave me here to die.”

The handmaiden walked around the pod and knelt down, making a face. “I could never be half the senator you are, milady. And look, your makeup is smudged again, let me fix that for you.” She took a white cloth from the fold in her dress to dab at the black smudges.

“I wonder how that keeps happening,” Padmé mumbled. When she was done, Moteé pulled Padmé to her feet and steered her toward the main hall of the Senate building. And as if on cue, Bail Organa appeared at her side.

“What do you think about this turn of events? Some political move?” he asked straight off. Padmé blinked up at him, only belatedly remembering what he must be talking about.

“I think I would like to see a doctor’s note,” she joked humorlessly, and Moteé let out an obligatory giggle.

Bail had a wry smile on his face. “Well, at any rate, I’m having a small get together at my apartment later and I want you to come. Breha’s finally got a chance to visit, and I’m only inviting a few over. And before you ask,” Bail added with a twinkle in his eye, “It will be a strictly no-politics party.”

Padmé opened her mouth to respond but found herself silent, leafing through excuses not to go in her mind and finding none that she hadn’t already used. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go – she did, sort of, and Bail was one of the best friends a girl could have – rather, it was just that, well, she just didn’t want to go.

Before she could speak, though, Moteé put her hand on Padmé’s arm and said, “She would love to, Senator Organa. She’s just so excited she can’t even speak. Isn’t that right, milady?”

Padmé nodded and faked an over-exaggerated, perky smile. “Mhm.”

“Wonderful!” Bail said, clapping his hands together, the same twinkle in his eye telling Padmé he knew what the issue really was. “Then I’ll see you at twenty hundred tonight!”

When he left, Padmé elbowed Moteé in the side, but the girl just batted her eyes and smiled.

The trip home, an unfulfilling nap, and a long argument between Moteé and Ellé over which dress Padmé should wear later, and Padmé was stepping through Bail’s front door. Alderaan parties were terrific, they really were, but something about the aching fatigue that made all of her limbs three times heavier than they should have been made her want to turn around, go straight back home, and sleep for the rest of eternity.

At least, that was until a quiet, very polite voice from behind said her name and when she turned around, she smiled for what felt like the first time in five months.

Obi-Wan looked tired, as always, and his smile didn’t really have any of his characteristic youthful charm in it. He looked thinner every time she saw him. She said, her own voice sounding more positive than she had thought possible, “I didn’t know you would be here! I’ve been so worried about you, how are you? No wait –” she added hurriedly when he opened his mouth to reply. “Don’t answer. I can’t stand it when people ask me that question, so just pretend I didn’t say anything.” He just smirked, put his hand on her arm for a moment, and went off to greet Bail.

Padmé spent the night trying to laugh, actually laughing a few times, and wavering very distinctly between Moteé was right this was a good idea and I need to leave right now or I’m going to flood Coruscant with my unprovoked tears. She spent time catching up with Breha, because if there was anyone at all in this universe she could relate to it was another queen; they had a late dinner which, of course, was excellent; at one point (having forsaken the no-politics rule almost immediately) she stood in a small group with Mon and Bail, speaking in hushed but strictly disapproving tones about the Chancellor’s absence because really, it was a ridiculous action for Palpatine to take and she was glad she wasn’t the only one who thought so. After a point, she realized Obi-Wan had excused himself from company and she went to look for him.

She found him on the balcony, looking cold and incredibly alone. Naturally, he knew it was her before she could say anything. She put her hand on his arm and they stood in silence, watching the animated Coruscant landscape for a long time.

“How is Ahsoka doing?” Padmé asked, not knowing if she would get a response.

His eyes were exhausted from all the terrible things he had seen and done in such a short time. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said distantly. “It seems like she’s always in motion. Trying to take her mind off things, I think. She’s still exceedingly reckless, sometimes. Too often.” He sighed. “I wish I could get her to slow down, but if I try to interfere she just avoids me.”

“She’s only sixteen,” Padmé said. “That’s much, much too young to be fighting in a war.”

“If only I had a say in it,” he responded, gripping the railing of the balcony so hard his knuckles, bruised and battered from combat, turned white.

Padmé folded her arms around herself, and not only to keep warm against the chilly breeze. “You’re not supposed to be soldiers. Surely even the Jedi Council can’t force you to fight in the war if you don’t want to.”

Thinking, he said, “Any Jedi, including me, would rather die fighting in the war than have someone else do so in our place.” Then, he looked sideways at her. “I’m sure that must sound like a generic response, but it’s how we really feel. If my time comes during the war, then I would be honored to become one with the Force.”

Padmé didn’t say anything. She didn’t have the mental energy to even want to have a philosophical discussion about death and metaphysical afterlife in the Force, whatever that meant. She just wanted him and Ahsoka to be safe, and as long as the war continued they would never be that.

Suddenly, though, Obi-Wan seemed to collapse in on himself, leaning over so that his elbows rested on the railing, putting his face in his hands, taking deep breaths of the stale city air. A moment later, he spun around and looked at her with an almost wild frenzy in his normally calm face. “When I’m away, I can forget about everything. Distract myself. Maybe even pretend that – that I’ll find him in his room when I come back, fiddling with some droid.” Padmé’s mouth fell open. Wait, huh? Where was this coming from?

Obi-Wan shuddered, continuing, “But when I’m here....He was like my brother, you know. But it feels more like losing a child....”

To steady him, or maybe herself because she was definitely shaking now, Padmé put her hand on his back and tried to think of some condolence to offer. Instead, she whispered, “He was my husband,” and after an uncomfortable pause Obi-Wan looked back up at her, appearing faintly shocked. She continued, voice now thick with emotion, “We got married on Naboo. Years ago, after Geonosis.” Her heart was beating so fast, and tears were in her eyes now. “He wanted you to know so badly, but...both of our careers were at stake, and he was so afraid of disappointing you, and....”

Obi-Wan looked back out at the city, unseeing, and breathed, “Married....”

“Please,” she said, “Please don’t think of him badly because of it. It was both of our decisions to lie about it, and he loved and respected you so much. Sometimes, you were all he would ever talk about. He was crazy about you.”

Obi-Wan just shook his head back and forth. “What else didn’t I know?”

That he slaughtered a tribe of Sand People in cold blood, Padmé thought immediately, but no way in hell was she ever going to say those words aloud, to anyone ever.

Her chest hurt so badly, and her throat was too tight to speak, so she just wrapped her arm around his shoulder.

Obi-Wan looked at her again, as if seeing her for the first time. “I am so sorry, Padmé.”

“Me too,” she whispered back. “I miss him so much.”

“Me too.”

They held each other for a long time. Resting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes, Padmé tried not to pretend it was Anakin holding her, instead of Obi-Wan. It was only once they had remembered exactly where they were that they broke apart. Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair and said, not looking at her, “I should probably go.”

She didn’t want him to. Still, she nodded. “Please be safe, Obi-Wan.”

He squeezed her hand once, left her out in the cold, and when she returned to the party she tried to pretend she wasn’t shaking.

If Padmé considered the last few months in terms of good days and bad days, today had to be a bad day. One day, one day after the Chancellor’s departure to who-knows-where and already she was swamped, bogged down in meetings for hours on end, drowning in bills and paperwork and memos and comments and questions and never, never in her years and years of work as either queen or senator had she ever felt this overwhelmed. And everything had to be done perfectly, because if it wasn’t the queen would catch on that Padmé couldn’t do her job, and then she could get fired, and then she would be trapped inside her own head for the rest of eternity and the war would rage on and society would crumble and it would all be because she couldn’t fill out some stupid form without crying all over her desk...

She told herself, think of all the bad things that will happen if you don’t fill this form out right now. Well, for one, someone would look for the form by the deadline date and find that it wasn’t there, and probably be severely annoyed. Then they would trace the disappearance back to her, report her to her sovereign leader, who would bring Padmé back to Naboo, where she wouldn’t be able to help with the larger war effort and as a result people would starve to death, and everywhere she went for the rest of her life everyone would stare at her with looks of unbridled disappointment because she was such an incompetent public servant and why did they even elect her as queen in the first place? What a mistake that was, they would think.

On second thought, she said to herself, don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything at all.

Tears welled up in her eyes, just like they did every day. Fill out the form. Just fill out the form. Fill out the stupid form –

Actually, she decided, taking a nap in her office sounded like a much better idea.

A week later, the pointless form a distant memory (that constantly jabbed at her self-esteem like a red-hot poker because hell, if she couldn’t fill out a form what could she actually do? probably nothing), Padmé pulled a small wooden jewelry box out from underneath her bed. It was a rectangular thing, innocent in appearance, the box itself originally belonging to a beautiful blue gemstone necklace, a gift from her father’s mother. The necklace had been lost years ago by a young and irresponsible politician soon to be named Amidala, but the box now contained two newer relics of the not so distant past. For a few minutes, Padmé held the box in her lap, staring down at it, considering. Then, she opened the metal clasp and took a deep breath.

Besides two years of love and an uptight protocol droid, the japor snippet and the Padawan braid were the only two gifts Anakin had ever really given her. But, Padmé thought as she took the necklace by its rope and hung the snippet around her neck, they were enough. The markings on the wooden trinket were foreign to her, understood only by a community of slaves on a desert planet, but if she closed her eyes and dreamed hard enough, she could imagine the little boy staying up late the night before his big race, carving symbols into the wood and thinking about the teenage girl who had showed up at his junk shop looking to repair her starship.

Looking back in the box, she considered picking up the braid, too, but decided against it. It was too pristine, too perfect to risk snagging the hairs, too personal even for her to touch. Instead, she bit back her tears, closed the box, and thought, happy birthday, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.

The Corellian Sunrise was really, honestly, truly the best alcoholic beverage on this side of the galactic core. It was this delightful shade of orange, and although she had never seen a Corellian sunrise in person, Padmé knew that one day (when she was significantly more sober, perhaps) she would have to hop on over to the planet and see if it really was as beautiful as the drink. And okay, sure, all right, maybe drinking herself into a coma wasn’t the best way to cope with her husband’s death – murder – it was her fault her fault her fault – but that certainly didn’t mean it wasn’t a viable option.

From somewhere she couldn’t see (because her eyes had closed against the ethereal swirl of fruity-tasting bliss) C-3PO’s nagging, worrisome voice was saying, “Mistress Padmé, don’t you think you’ve had enough of that foul liquid by now? This is your third glass tonight.”

“Noooooo, Threepio,” Padmé slurred, wheeling around to face him. “You can go shut down or, whatever you do. I am perfectly – hic – capable of – proceeding along my present course alone – hic –”

“Dear oh dear,” Threepio said, shuffling away with that mechanical sound he made when he walked, and she downed the rest of her glass. Stretching, she stood up to go get herself another drink, made a few wobbling steps towards her liquor bar and –

– the next thing she knew it was morning, she was in her bed, and she didn’t entirely remember what had happened the night before but it must have involved her head being hit repeatedly with a giant metal hammer because there was nothing else that could have explained this headache, oh boy....

At work, her eyes skimmed over the same sentence for what felt like the thirtieth time. It wasn’t anything too complicated, just a dissertation on the public expenditures of neutral systems during wartime, so she couldn’t understand why she was having so much difficulty focusing. If she was going to address the controversial government spending of neutral but trade-heavy planets like Mandalore to her constituents and the toll that the war had taken on the galactic economy as a whole, she would need to be well-read on the issue at hand. Unfortunately, she was yawning every three minutes and kept glancing over her shoulder to lazily watch Coruscant through the window, distracted and uninterested in the discourse before her.

Padmé couldn’t understand why she felt no interest in anything anymore. All she wanted to do was watch bad HoloNet features and lay in bed. It was unlike her and terribly inappropriate for a distinguished Senator such as herself.

She sighed and put her head on the desk. Her headdress was knocked askew despite how carefully Ellé had pinned it to her head this morning. If it wouldn’t have left her looking like an undead creature from the depths of the Coruscant underworld, she would have just taken the thing off completely.

The comm unit attached to her desk buzzed and she fumbled around, trying to find the button without looking. When she heard the click she uttered an, “Mmm?”

“Senator, Representative Binks is here from Naboo.”

“All right,” she mumbled, lifting her heavy head up as Jar Jar entered, decked in the regal senatorial robes he always thought were unsuited to him.

“Hi, Jar Jar,” she mumbled as he sat down. “Thanks for coming.”

“Mesa happy to be helpin’ with whatever yousa need!” Jar Jar said cheerily. Padmé tried to smile for him. “What can mesa do?”

“I’m just so tired, Jar Jar,” she said, leaning back. “Naboo needs my help, and with the Chancellor away there’s so much that I need to do to make up for him being gone. I don’t want to ask you to take on all my responsibilities, but...I was wondering if you might – I don’t know –”

Jar Jar put his hand to his chest. “Mesa would be honored to take on yousa burdens, Padmé,” he said seriously. “Yousa done so much for Naboo and the war, mesa thinken yousa deserve a break.”

She frowned. “You do?”

He nodded. “Mesa know what yousa been goin’ through. Mesa miss Ani too.”

Padmé was too tired to feel more guilt. The weight from it had already crushed her and left her for a pile of goo seven months ago. Still, Jar Jar was one of the first friends Ani ever made when he left Tatooine as an energetic nine-year-old with a haunted past. She remembered the little boy and the Gungan sitting quietly with no one but each other for company as the politicians and the Jedi took care of their Important Business. She remembered concealing her identity from them and trying not to look longingly at these two strange figures who knew nothing of the planet they had been deposited on.

She sighed and then looked gratefully at the Gungan before her. “Thank you, Jar Jar. I really need this.”

If it weren’t for Jar Jar’s help, Padmé was certain she would have been fired by now. After all, if Queen Neeyutnee had any idea that a certain Senator Amidala was lying on the couch of her main room with a blanket draped unceremoniously over her, staring at a holodrama with swollen eyes, her majesty almost certainly would have taken action already. But really, Padmé couldn’t help it – she physically, no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t seem to do anything at all. And because of it she hated herself so much that it hurt to even be alive.

Dormé came over and started smoothing her hair. “Senator, please tell me what’s wrong,” she said gently.

“I killed my husband,” Padmé whispered, choking on the words.

Dormé knelt down beside the couch. “Milady, Count Dooku killed your husband. I don’t think anyone would believe for an instant that you intended for this to happen.”

“Doesn’t matter – what I –” No, she couldn’t even finish the sentence, it was too hard to even speak. Instead, she sputtered, “I miss him.”

“I know you do,” Dormé said, rubbing Padmé’s back in soothing motions. It should have helped, but it didn’t. Nothing could ever help. There was no way she would ever, ever, ever feel better....

Ahsoka was over, propped on the railing of Padmé’s balcony with her legs dangling back and forth. She was saying, “Look, I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you, but...I mean, we’re all having a really hard time, it’s not just you. Maybe you just need to sink yourself deeper into your work or something. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

Padmé, slumped against the wall, covered her eyes with her hand and looked away as the tears slipped out. And that was why she hadn’t told anyone exactly how she was feeling before now. It’s what they all said. Get deeper into your work. Look on the bright side. Just smile. Think about work. No one understood, not at all, not even a little bit.

It wasn’t really Ahsoka’s fault that she’d say that, Padmé knew. The Padawan had never been depressed with a capital D before, but honestly, what more could Padmé do? Did she look like she could wish away these feelings? “You don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice catching.

“I guess not,” Ahsoka said quietly. “I’m sorry. I really do want you to feel better. Have you tried any kind of medication?”

Sniffing, Padmé shook her head. “I don’t trust these Coruscant doctors,” she said. “The last thing I need is for someone to hear a rumor that I’m clinically depressed. No one would ever take me seriously again.”

Ahsoka hopped off the railing and knelt down in front of her. “Padmé, I’m going to say this as your friend. Your wellbeing is more important than anything.”

Before she could stop herself, Padmé blurted out, “I don’t deserve to feel better.”

“Yes, you do.” Ahsoka leaned in, and put her hands on either side of Padmé’s head so Padmé couldn’t look away. “You deserve so much better than this, okay? And I know you’re beating yourself up about that decision, but look at what’s come out of it. Grievous is dead, the Separatist army’s lost it’s main commander. As an army officer myself, let me tell you that that’s a big deal.”

Padmé wasn’t sure, and it must have been obvious on her face because Ahsoka continued, “Listen, I’ve fought with Grievous, and believe me, he was scary. I’ve seen battlefields in his aftermath, and I’ve been to planets that the Separatists colonized. We’re so much better off without him, Padmé.”

“So you think I made the right choice?” Padmé asked, skeptical.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Ahsoka said coolly, leaning back. “I’m just saying that you don’t deserve to be feeling like this no matter how much you think you do.” Then, Ahsoka’s face took on a different, muted expression. “And I’m probably part of the reason you feel this bad. Again, I’m sorry. I wish I could make it up to you.”

“You already have,” Padmé said, taking her hand.

Ahsoka tried to smile. “And about Anakin, well...listen, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Master Kenobi, it’s that sometimes, we have to make decisions and take actions that kill us inside, but are for the greater good.”

Padmé leaned her head back against the wall. If only she could make herself believe that applied here, no matter how true it was. She said, “If I can manage it, I’ll try to find a doctor I can trust.”

“Good,” Ahsoka said, looking reassured and confident. She leaned against the wall, and nudged Padmé gently in the side with her elbow. “I just don’t want to lose another friend. After all, who else is going to hook me up with gourmet Naboo cuisine?”

Padmé faked a smile.

She had been expecting the call from Queen Neeyutnee for weeks, and it had finally come. Padmé was being called back to Naboo, where her majesty had some “Important Matters” to discuss. A part of Padmé wished the queen could have just said it, those two magic words, you’re fired , because it was going to happen anyway and there was nothing she could do to avoid it and she might as well just start planning for her future now....

It was only the second time she had seen Naboo since she had knowingly and mercilessly abandoned Anakin to his death, but even so, Padmé had to admit she was happy to see the rolling grassy plains and the rumbling waterfalls, and to smell the sweet aroma of flowers that blew throughout Theed. If she really had to retire at the age of twenty-six, at least she could do it on the most beautiful planet in the entire Mid Rim.

The queen received her in the throne room with that familiar masked expression on her painted face. Beside the throne stood the queen’s own handmaidens, so like Padmé’s own, silent until called for.

Neeyutnee spoke first, but what she said came as a surprise. “How are you feeling of late, Senator?”

Padmé’s mouth fell open involuntarily. An unexpected inquiry, to be sure. And it would be so, so wrong to lie. So wrong...she cleared her throat. “I’m doing well, your majesty.”

Skepticism was, apparently, one of the emotions that could make it through the queen’s makeup. “The reason I ask is because recently, I have been concerned about your ability to fulfill the demands of your position. Are you having difficulty coping with the amount of work? I understand you have asked Senator Binks to assist you in many duties.”

Padmé looked at the floor, too ashamed to meet Neeyutnee’s eyes. Shame stabbed at her like a knife. “Yes, I have been having trouble.”

Neeyutnee said, “Senator Amidala, you are an excellent representative for the needs of this planet, its people, and our sector. There is not a single piece of legislation that you have pushed for that I have not supported. That being said, if you feel you cannot continue to serve Naboo to the best of your ability, then I will have to ask you to do something that I would rather not.”

Padmé realized she was shaking. Just fire me. Fire me, please, that would make everything so much easier. Or harder, I really don’t know. “Forgive me, your majesty,” she said, bowing her head.

“I am not removing you from your post, Senator.” What? “Queen Jamillia believed you to be the best representative for our planet, and I agree with her judgement.” It’s not true, though, it’s really not. Honestly. “I had hoped that asking you to return to Naboo might help remind you of what you fight for in the senate, in contrast to the harsh atmosphere of the capital. Perhaps some time away will be healthy for you.”

Padmé gaped at her. That was so kind, so thoughtful. She didn’t deserve that sort of kindness. “Thank you, your majesty,” she said genuinely. “I am honored that you have so much faith in me. I promise I will not allow myself to become so unfocused in the future.”

Neeyutnee stood and said, “There is no need to thank me, Senator. I simply do not wish to lose a representative that is as good for Naboo as you.”

A second chance. Padmé was getting a second chance. On one hand, the heaviness of it all felt like it was going to squish her into the ground like a boot squished a bug, leaving nothing but a barely alive pile of goo that couldn’t move and wouldn’t die. On the other hand, maybe if she could just find the energy, she could make the queen – and herself – proud and finally fix this galaxy from the bottom up. Maybe....

When Padmé rang the doorbell to her childhood home that afternoon, she wasn’t sure what she would find. Avoiding the entire planet for seven months straight had meant indirectly avoiding seeing her family in person, and even now a sick part of her wanted to run away while she still had a chance. Even the stone walls and the well-maintained plants on the front steps couldn’t calm her racing heart, or tamp down the sureness that she would be met with looks of stern disapproval from her parents and betrayal from her nieces and –

The door opened, and before she even knew what had happened her older sister had swept Padmé into her arms. “Where have you been?!” the woman squealed, releasing Padmé and holding her at arms length to look her over. Sola was, as always, beautiful, with glowing skin and a soft velvet dress and that shining, beaming smile on her lips.

In response, Padmé just shrugged. “Severely depressed.”

Sola pulled her inside and shut the door. “Mom and Dad are out with the girls, so I think we have plenty of time to talk. I want to hear everything.”

“I’m not sure you know what you’re in for when you say that....”

“Everything.”

So Padmé spilled. About the Senate, and how she couldn’t cope, and how Queen Neeyutnee was two seconds from forcing her into an early retirement; about her feelings, and how much she maybe, sometimes, occasionally wanted to get hit by a passing speeder; about the fact that, well, remember that cute Jedi boy she had brought home that had been her bodyguard that one time? Yeah, well, they had gotten married and, oh, he was also dead and she was a widow and it was her fault that he was dead and she couldn’t stop thinking about him for one second and it hurt so so so so much and Sola....

By the time her parents had come home, the crying had stopped. She felt so drained, but still she swept Sola’s two adorable daughters into a big hug and pressed a million kisses to their cute little braided crowns before moving onto her parents, clinging to each of them in turn like she herself was a child again.

When they separated, Jobal, her mother, said, “How long are you staying?”

“I’m not sure,” Padmé said. “Not long.”

“You’re staying the night at least?” her father, Ruwee, asked, already heading into the kitchen to start a feast. “We have four courses planned!”

Padmé laughed, again kneeling down and hugging Sola’s daughters. “At least.”

That evening, they settled into the most delicious dinner Padmé had ever had, and for just a little while she could forget about the pain.

Later, Padmé sat on the front steps of their house with her mother’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. They were looking up at the stars. There was nowhere on Coruscant one could see the stars from. Maybe a few every once in a while, but the light pollution was so great it might as well have been perpetual daytime. The air was so much cleaner here, too, and everything was quieter, and she wished more than anything right now that she didn’t have to go back.

“I still think you’re overworked,” Jobal said quietly into her ear, stroking Padmé’s hair. Padmé felt a little like a child again, but in the best way. “You look exhausted. Drained. You should stay here for a while.”

“I can’t, Mom,” Padmé murmured. “The queen called me back here to give me a formal reprimand because I’ve been neglecting all my responsibilities.”

“Well one day, when Queen Neeyutnee is a mother, maybe she’ll understand how much it grieves me to see you in so much pain.” Padmé looked up at her. “That’s right, I know. I can see right through you. I don’t know what happened, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to – but I just want you to know that we’re always here if you need to talk. All of us.” Jobal smiled warmly. “You will always have a home here, Padmé.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

They looked back up at the stars.

Before she went back to Coruscant, she got a prescription for antidepressants from her old Theed doctor. It could take a few weeks, she was told, before they started working, and honestly Padmé wasn’t quite sure she would make it that long, but honestly, it was a relief to have a diagnosis to cling to. Well, it was better than living with the nagging idea that maybe it really was all in her head. Somehow, she was finally managing to convince herself that maybe everyone else was right. That somehow, for whatever reason, she actually did deserve to feel better.

It just sure as hell didn’t feel like it.

A month later, it was still hard. Some days, Padmé woke up after already sleeping too late, rolled over, and put her head back in the pillows until Moteé gently forced her to get up. Those days, it felt like the stars had gone out and there was no reason to get dressed because there was a war going on and civilization was crumbling and no one in the Senate seemed to care. Those days, she fought tears when she looked at the Jedi Temple from her balcony and felt sick to her stomach when she realized Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were out there fighting a war that they, like Anakin, might not survive.

Other days, she woke up and she was happy to see the sun. She was eager to put on her headdress and go to the Senate and speak up because hey, there was a war going on, the economy was struggling, people were dying every day, and she needed to do something about it. Peace wasn’t going to happen if she just stood by and watched the Republic crumble. Peace wasn’t going to wait for her to get over her feelings about widowed at the age of twenty-five. Peace wasn’t going to rebuttal against all the calls for more clone troops and more deregulation of government services and more powers to a Supreme Chancellor that wasn’t even present on Coruscant at the moment. Peace needed her to get her head in the game.

Never, though, would Padmé forget the color of Anakin’s eyes or the way his face lit up when he saw her across a room. She wouldn’t forget their wedding day or their wedding night or any day or night since, nor the touch of his hands and the feeling of his hair in her fingers and the tingling she felt when their bare skin touched. Her memories would remain within her but the feelings brought by them would not rule her. With or without Ani, she would always be her own person, and maybe that was enough.

Chapter Text

The brightness of an overhead light blared through closed eyelids. He raised his right hand to his face to block it, cold metal fingers pressing against his skin. He opened his eyes, squinting against the light, and looked around. He was lying on a table, covered only by a light blanket. To his own confusion, he found everything was different, wrong – the walls were black instead of silver, green lamps imbedded into the walls cast an eerie glow in contrast to the sterile, impersonal kind of lighting from before. He must have been moved, but when? A moment later, he shrugged it off. Honestly, it probably didn’t matter.

Everything still hurt. His head, his chest – if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought his metal arm hurt, too. And he could not, for the life of him, remember what his name was.

It hurt to think, so he didn’t. It hurt to be alive. He wished he wasn’t.

After he lay there a while, aching and hungry and anxious, with barely enough will to lift his head, a door slid open and he couldn’t help but cringe, turning on his side and curling in on himself. A man in a dark hooded robe approached him and looked down at him with yellow eyes shining in his shadowy face, then touched gnarled fingers to his forehead.

“How do you feel today, Vader?”

He screwed up his face in confusion. No one ever talked to him, they just abused and tortured and experimented on him, so why was this person doing so now, and who the hell was Vader?

“Have you forgotten so soon?” the old man said. His voice was sort of like a croak. “I have explained this to you already. You will have to work on your ability to remember. My troops found you in an enemy base just days ago and brought you here to me. My name is Darth Sidious. And you...are Vader.”

It bothered him more than it should that the name ‘Sidious’ struck more of a chord with him than ‘Vader’ did, especially if Vader was the name he’d been searching for this whole time. But Sidious...something about that name sent a chill up his spine....

“Tell me,” Sidious said. “Do you remember anything of who you are?” He – Vader? – shook his head. Sidious nodded slowly, putting his hands together on the table. “Very well; I thought not. There will be much time in the future to tell you what you need to know. For now, I will only remind you of that which is most important: this is that you are one of the most proficient Force-users in the galaxy, second perhaps only to me. Do you at least remember the Force?”

The Force? Oh, the Force, how – how could he ever have forgotten the Force? The incredible, powerful, beautiful energy field that bound the universe together. He couldn’t feel it now, he realized, and he didn’t know why that was, but he wanted it back. He nodded yes to the question.

“Good,” Sidious said. “Then your recovery should go most swiftly indeed. When the time comes, I shall begin training you in the dark side as I see fit.” Then, with a wicked, unpleasant smile, he added, “Soon, you will begin to call me ‘Master’....”

In the mirror, Vader saw a gaunt and pale figure with thin, ragged hair and tired blue eyes. He was covered in bruises and his skin was riddled with scars that looked like they had healed badly. His whole body looked strange and misshapen from months of muscle atrophy and he barely had the strength or will even to sit up. Overall, he was a pathetic, thin, lumpy-looking figure who could hardly move and wouldn’t have been able to take care of himself even if they let him try.

And he was always scared. Scared scared scared. Mostly, it was the doctors that took care of him that set him off. The sight of them had him sweating, squirming, and their touch made his heart pound. They were different people – he thought, anyway, he sort of had a lot of trouble with faces – from the ones who had electrocuted him, but they acted the same. Impersonal, like he was a test subject. Well, he guessed, maybe that wasn’t wrong. Regardless, he honestly felt pretty detached from the idea that Sidious had rescued him – from where? And where was this? For some reason, he had a feeling no one would tell him so he didn’t bother to ask.

It was strange. He hated this, but he also sort of didn’t care. Even if he wanted to resist, he wouldn’t. Whatever these people were going to do to him was going to happen no matter what he wanted, so he might as well just go along with it to make it a little less painful. Right?

He was slumped in a chair, staring out a window at a great canyon littered with trees and greenery, stupidly amazed at the image of nature, when Sidious entered the room, followed by a taller, even older man with a white beard who eyed Vader with obvious distaste.

“Are you sure that...this,” the older man said, gesturing toward Vader with his fingers, “Is the best material from which to make a Sith, my lord?”

“He is young, and soon he will be strong again. Be patient, Lord Tyranus. I feel sure that Vader could learn much from your advice.” Finally, Sidious turned to Vader. “This is Lord Tyranus, leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and my Sith apprentice. If ever I am absent, you will listen to and obey him as you would me.” The sides of his mouth curled into the wicked smile he favored. “I will leave you with him now. Listen well to what he has to tell you.”

Sidious left, and Vader looked away, sort of trying to figure out what a Sith was supposed to be without actually asking the question. Tyranus drawled, “You are currently located in my palace on Serenno. While you are my guest, I expect that you will treat me with the utmost respect and obey all commands I direct at you.” Then, he added, “Are you mute, young Vader?”

“No,” Vader said, his voice cracking from disuse. He could talk just fine, probably, if he wanted to – but, well, nothing he said ever seemed to matter to anyone, so why would he bother starting now?

Tyranus said coldly, “You will soon find that my master does not accept failure, and I warn you that any weakness you show before him will be taken as such. I will also warn you that I do not hold the blind faith in your abilities that my master does. I will be watching you very carefully.”

He left, too, and Vader, relieved to be alone again, looked back out the window, feeling nothing.

It seemed like forever before Vader was able to walk like a normal human being. He and his, well, physical therapists? would do it a little bit each day, along with other exercises to fix his neglected body. It was tiresome, exhausting, but still they pushed him, not knowing that he would rather be doing nothing than anything at all. But, he knew, he didn’t have a choice, so he ate what they told him to eat and slept when they told him to sleep and worked out when they told him to work out and eventually, finally, his body looked less bony and he had a little bit more energy and he didn’t feel like dying quite as much as he had before.

“It is time I tell you what you need to know about your past,” Sidious said from the throne of Tyranus’s palace, peering down at Vader. “When you have understood why this happened to you, only then will you be ready to access the Force again and begin training to be a Sith.”

Access to the Force...it sounded like a dream he’d been having for months and months and months. Being without the Force was like being blind, like existing in the universe without really seeing it, and being without memory left him perpetually sad and cold and alone and afraid. Honestly, sort of, he didn’t care about his past, if he had really even had one. Right now, he only cared about the Force.

Sidious began his story, saying Vader had been something called a Jedi Knight from the Galactic Republic. “The Jedi,” Sidious explained, “Are a group of fanatic, dogmatic, hypocritical monks who claim that they are selflessly serving the Republic when in actuality they serve no one but themselves. The Jedi are currently initiating a war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which broke off from their Republic over two years ago to escape the corruption. When I have deemed that you are ready, it will be your duty to help Tyranus and I destroy the Jedi and bring about Sith control over both the Republic and the entire galaxy.”

Controlling an entire galaxy? If he had to be honest, that was one of the last things Vader wanted the responsibility of doing, but he wasn’t going to tell that to Sidious. He kept his face blank, uneven, as Sidious went on, explaining something about the history of the Sith and the injustice of the Jedi, something else about the something of the Confederate Senate, and a bunch of something else’s that Vader had absolutely lost track of by this point. He tried to blink, force his attention on the words, but it was useless. If he had to be honest, he didn’t even remotely care about these Jedi or any war or the power structures of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the corruption in the Galactic Republic. Damn, he just wanted the Force.

“Now perhaps you are wondering why you personally must fight the Jedi,” Sidious said, and finally Vader found he could pay attention. “The answer is this: the only reason that you suffered such great injuries in the first place was because the Jedi allowed this to happen. You see, you are naturally more sensitive to the Force than any of their Order, and they were so afraid of your power that they knowingly assigned you to a mission that would inevitably end in either capture or death. In essence, they willingly left you to die. It’s possible, I think, that they encouraged it. In a way, your memories were taken because they feared your power so much. When the time comes, I will give you an opportunity to seek revenge against them and strike at their very heart.”

Vader cleared the hoarseness from his throat and said, “I understand.”

Sidious smiled cruelly. “Then it is time that you have access to the Force again.”

He could feel it. The Force. It was pulsing through his veins, humming in every cell of his body, swirling around him like tendrils of warmth and light and comfort, like darkness and coldness and terror, like love and hatred and black and white and all the colors of the rainbow. Where he had been tethered with an iron bolt to the bottom of an ocean, now he was free to float through outer space.

Vader withdrew from the universe around him like Sidious had taught him to do, absent from the Force sense of others, an ancient Sith technique of the dark side. Truthfully, he didn’t really care about light or dark, Jedi or Sith, all he cared about was that now he had the Force, he had it, he could feel it and he would rather die than ever let it go again.

It was all he could think about, it was all-consuming. He sat on the floor of his room, playing with the Force like a child with its toys, levitating a dulled knife with his mind, spinning it in circles in the air between his flesh and metal hands. Tyranus and Sidious watched him from a distance, and Vader heard Tyranus say, “He is too undisciplined. He has no commitment.”

“We will teach him discipline, Lord Tyranus. His power is ours, and he has finally unlocked it.”

Vader paid them no mind. Instead, he reached out and levitated a tray, then the table he slept on, then any other loose items in the room, closing his eyes as he actually enjoyed himself for the first time in...well, forever.

With the Force back, Vader found himself full of energy, or maybe it was just a rush of adrenaline but that didn’t really matter to him. He spent a lot of time working out, a little bit more every day, feeling the burn in his finally functioning body, sweating out all the bad feelings. His body was still in pain most of the time and he got these unbearable headaches sometimes, but if he could just find a way to ignore it (he couldn’t, but he sure as hell tried) then he could almost pretend that everything in his life was actually okay.

It did sort of freak him out, though, how sometimes Sidious would watch him from the shadows as he exercised, as if he were waiting for something....

Sidious gave him a lightsaber, silver and cylindrical and familiar even to the touch of his metal hand, as if it belonged there. When Vader ignited it, it had a red blade, and that felt wrong somehow, like the combination of this hilt and crystal was mismatched. Shrugging it off, he gave it a few practice swings, testing it, trying different stances, thinking that for once, what he was doing actually felt kind of right.

A MagnaGuard came at him, his first real challenge after a few pointless sessions with a blaster remote to brush up on...well, for all he knew it could have been years without a lightsaber. The truth: he hadn’t needed to. He was ready to go. Even through months of memory loss and torture, they couldn’t take his raw skill away from him. Or, at least, that was what he had thought until one end of the MagnaGuard’s dual-sided electrostaff punched into his gut and the next thing he knew, he was lying on a hard examining table, confused and exhausted, with burns on his bare chest and doctors pressing hypos into his skin.

When Sidious came later, Vader heard the doctors informing him of the observations they had ascertained after hours of studying ‘the patient’: warning signs of epilepsy and chronic pain. Wait, was that supposed to be news?

“The most likely cause is all the neurological damage from being repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, my lord,” Vader heard a faceless doctor say. “There are medications to prevent seizures, and he may benefit from a variety of different painkillers –”

“I care not for his pain,” Sidious’s voice croaked. “Painkillers would make him less efficient. You will medicate him only on anything that may interfere with his ability to fight.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Vader could hardly move, lethargic as he was from the seizure, but his head had cleared up enough to understand and he tightened his jaw and clenched his mechanical hand so hard the feedback sent a shooting pain up his arm. Less efficient? What was he, a droid? A tool? A slave? That thought made him angry and he didn’t completely know why, but it was probably because for the first time in his memory Vader had the ability to walk and fight and work out and use the Force and yet all he was to Sidious was just a servant?

Sidious looked at him sharply, sensing the nature of his thoughts, and said, “Yes, you are my servant. I am the one who rescued you, am I not? Am I not the one who is allowing you to unlock your potential?”

Through clenched teeth, Vader said, “Yes.”

“I told you to call me ‘Master.’”

Vader was shaking with fury, and maybe something else. “Yes, Master.”

Sidious approached him, towering over him. His yellow eyes bore through the shadows from his hood, straight into Vader, who shivered involuntarily and lowered his eyes. “I am aware that I have encouraged you to embrace your anger, Vader. It is the way of the dark side. However, I expect you to treat me with respect if you wish for me to allow you continued access to the Force. Unless you wish that I take it away from you instead?”

“No!” Vader said too quickly, trying to sit up too suddenly and fogging up his head in the process. He slumped back on the table, grimacing. It was all he could do to plead, “Please don’t take it away...”

“Sith do not beg,” Sidious said harshly. “They take what is theirs. You have not taken full control of your power. When you do, you will be most valuable to me, but until then, if you do not feel you are willing....” He trailed off, letting his words speak for themselves.

An image flashed in Vader’s mind of the pain, the loneliness, the desperation of not being able to feel the Force. “No, Master. I need it, I – I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Then you will not speak to me in that way again,” Sidious warned before he left Vader, shivering and alone.

All of a sudden, he seemed to always be kind of dizzy, and all of the time he just felt kind of weird and generally unwell. He guessed that it might have had something to do with the mystery hypos they injected him with every day, and he tried to draw on the Force to make it go away, but no one seemed to care that he wobbled whenever he stood and that he kept throwing up so he just tried to ignore it like they did.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Sometimes, Vader woke up with crippling headaches. Other times, the pain came on throughout the day, starting out with weird fuzzy spots that he couldn’t rub out of his eyes and slowly amounting to the point where moving even an inch was agony. Regardless, his master demanded he continue with his training exercises no matter how many times he fell, clutching at his head as if trying to keep the pieces of his skull from falling apart.

“Your pain is irrelevant to me,” Sidious said coldly. “If you were facing a Jedi in the field, they would not take pity on you because of some pathetic headaches. They would kill you, mercilessly and without hesitation. You must not let them have the advantage over you. You must kill them first. Do it again.”

“Yes, Master,” Vader said, and reignited his lightsaber, trying to push the thought of this isn’t just a headache out of his head so that his perceptive master wouldn’t catch it. The training MagnaGuards came at him again, pressing the assault. He deflected their blows and blocked and parried, trying to ignore the tears in his eyes and the stabbing ache in his skull.

Another burst of pain, and with a groan his sabre slipped out of his hand. The MagnaGuards, programmed to simulate real world possibilities, thrust their electrostaffs into his stomach. His muscles contracted and he fell to the ground and when the droids pulled their staffs away, he was too nauseous and dizzy to move. Sidious left him there, curled up on the cold floor alone with nothing but the ache in his head to keep him company, saying, “If those had been Jedi lightsabers you would be dead.”

Vader walked behind some of his...well, ‘caretaker’ would probably be the right word for these two, through dark halls and then into the grand main chamber of the palace. Tyranus stood there, and Sidious sat behind the desk, his dark hooded cloak camouflaging all but his white face against the chair. The caretakers left, and a sense of ominous anticipation lingered in the Force. Vader walked before them and knelt – courtesy, protocol, who cares, just please don’t punish him again for whatever he must have done wrong....

Sidious looked down at him. “I have decided to test your skills further,” he said. “You will duel with Tyranus, perhaps the greatest swordsman in the galaxy. There shall be no killing, although I do expect some scrapes may occur.”

Glancing around, Vader stood, holding his lightsaber. Did he think he would be able to beat Tyranus? Well, no, not really, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. Tyranus had an evil glint in his eyes, brandishing his blade in some form Vader didn’t really recognize. Vader decided to make the first move: he spun his sabre in his hand once and then came at Tyranus, who caught Vader’s red blade with his own and twisted it away with a move of his arm. Vader tried again, coming at him in a hard chop from above, but Tyranus took a side step and left Vader cutting through air.

“You have no form,” Tyranus said. He had his left arm behind him as if he expected this would be effortless. “You cannot conquer a Jedi if you have no form.”

Again, Vader threw his sabre into a chop, but Tyranus seemed to almost flick it away and in a flash, tap, Tyranus’s blade touched Vader’s human arm; it was the lightest of motions but echuta, it hurt like all hell. Vader’s mechanical hand dropped the lightsaber and came instinctively to the wound, but of course the metal pressed too hard and it hurt even more. An agonized sound escaped him and he bent over, backing away.

Tyranus deactivated his sabre and placed it on his belt. “You fight me like you fight your droids,” he said. “Your skills are unrefined and careless. Against a Jedi, you would not survive.”

Honestly, Vader thought as he was taken back to his room and given a bacta patch to stop infection, he didn’t really give a damn because his arm hurt hurt hurt so bad. As he lay down, cursing the Sith and Tyranus and everything else, though, he decided that he was pretty tired of being pushed around and demonstrated as weak and that he was going to step up and take the damn power that Sidious was offering him. He was not weak, at least not by design, and he would prove it.

Time passed, and against the MagnaGuards Vader thrived . Three against one, another already dismantled on the floor, his lightsaber was a part of him just like his mechanical arm was. Tyranus called it barbaric, revolting that a human could be part machine, but he didn’t know that Vader could feel the Force flowing through the spot at his elbow where flesh met metal all the way to the tip of his glowing red blade as an extension of himself. His lightsaber knocked one droid’s electrostaff out of his way and a second later the droid was sparking on the floor. A minute later, two more droids joined it.

Vader wiped sweat off his forehead with one hand, deflecting a blaster bolt with his other. The combat training regimens were tough, but he got better at them every day. He had no positive feelings towards Sidious, especially not after that ‘less efficient’ comment – he was a person for kriff’s sake, not a damn droid or, Force forbid, a slave – but, Vader had to admit he was grateful for the power that Sidious had given him. More accurately, had unleashed from within him.

With the MagnaGuards down, he felt almost bored. Blaster bolts, blaster bolts, what else could they throw at him? He could take it. It had been a month (well, he was pretty sure, the passage of time generally eluded him) since his fight with Tyranus, and he was stronger than ever before. His muscles were back, he didn’t get as tired as he used to – he was powerful.

Not that he felt great. Or even remotely good, for that matter. If he wasn’t forced to, wasn’t under constant threat of Sidious hurting him or removing the one thing that Vader felt he could actually rely on, he was pretty sure he might not have the will to get up when they woke him every morning. If it weren’t for cutting down droids and working out to distract him from his pain, Vader was pretty sure he would be pretty dissatisfied with being alive at all.

Before him again, Tyranus stood, brandishing his sabre. Vader was ready this time; Tyranus was what, seventy? Maybe older. Old . Probably brittle, under his dainty exterior. Surely no match for a – um, how old was Vader? Okay, he didn’t know that either, but it didn’t matter. Young enough that taking down Tyranus should be no problem, if he had done his training right.

This fight lasted longer than the first had. Vader came at him, reacting quicker to Tyranus’s sharp movements, using his body and all his strength to gain momentum and pushing his offensive against the old man. It was very possible he may have been a tad too confident, however, because suddenly he moved the wrong way and tap went Tyranus’s blade into his mechanical arm. Vader’s right hand sprung open and he couldn’t move the fingers, sparks were flying from the cut, and it took all of Vader’s meager concentration skills to avoid a second cut higher on his arm by ducking and rolling away.

With his left hand, he reached out with the Force to grab his fallen lightsaber, but even as it came to his hand and activated, it took Tyranus only a few strokes to flip the sabre again out of Vader’s hand and another to press a cut into Vader’s thigh. His leg gave out immediately, and he fell with a harsh grunt to his hands and knees, but his inoperative metal hand wouldn’t support him and he collapsed on the ground in a heap at Tyranus’s feet.

In the background, Sidious laughed his awful, hacking laugh and Tyranus said, “You are a beast. You should be grateful I did not sever that disgusting droid arm instead of only breaking it.”

With a growl in the back of his throat, Vader reached up with his left hand to close the Force around Tyranus’s throat, but the older Sith was quicker: he flicked his hand as if he were brushing a bug off his sleeve and Vader was thrown back across the floor, panting.

Sidious stood from his throne and walked over to them, still grinning. “Good, good.”

“He has no discipline, my lord,” Tyranus said, looking down at Vader on the floor like a revolting animal.

“That is true,” Sidious said. “I shall make his training more strict. I do believe I have something in mind that will make him even more powerful....”

Outside, at dusk, Vader ran. Running felt good, made him feel energized, and the rare days that he could do it without his head pounding terribly were one of the few blessings he had. The air was cool but his clothes were warm and he was sweating. He felt the burn. He couldn’t leave the premises, but being outside at all was a gift. He was sure not to act like it though. If they knew that he liked it, they would take it away.

He stopped running as the cut in his leg ached again and his knee threatened to give out. It would heal, he knew, eventually, as the wound on his arm had, but it made working out hard and running harder.

Catching his breath, he looked around. The sky was pretty. The fresh, foresty air smelled good. The scurrying sound of little animals felt real. The greenery made him want to escape. He was too afraid to try.

“It is time for you to demonstrate to me that you are capable of executing whatever tasks I demand of you. For your first test, you will kill this prisoner from a recently won Confederate colony in the Outer Rim.”

Vader heard the last words as if through a filter. The fear of the quivering Twi’lek woman who knelt on the floor, restrained by two battle droids, was overwhelming his senses, her terror driving white-hot knives straight into him. What? Kill her? Why? He frowned at his master. “What has she done?”

“You should not require a reason to obey my orders,” Sidious said sharply. “Kill her. Now.”

Vader looked between the wide, pleading brown eyes of the Twi’lek and the heartless yellow ones of his master. “I don’t understand.”

Sidious surveyed him. “I believe you do,” he said. “Your feelings are misplaced. This pathetic alien does not deserve your pity. She is a lesser being, one that we have conquered, and now it is time that she die.”

A lump was in Vader’s throat, and he bit his lip. No, his feelings were certainly not misplaced, because this woman had done absolutely nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be murdered in cold blood – she didn’t even deserve the pain of kneeling here listening to them talk about murdering her in cold blood. This was so wrong, Vader couldn’t – Vader wouldn’t –

“I sense your defiance,” Sidious said, his tone strangely light. “Very well. I had hoped you had come farther than this, but if I must....” With a slight movement of his hand, four MagnaGuards burst into movement at the same time, igniting their electrostaffs in one swift motion, pointing them directly at Vader.

The Twi’lek’s fear forgotten, all Vader could feel was his own, swelling inside him, in his heart and chest and stomach. The yellowish crackles of electricity fizzled in the air, they were coming closer, Vader froze and remembered – remembered – being strapped to a chair as they – when they – they were getting closer – they were three meters away, and they would take everything Vader had left – two meters, every time he was electrocuted by those staffs he had a migraine for two days – one, one meter, one meter one meter one meter –

“No, no, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he stammered, taking a stumbling step back. The electrostaffs, still ignited, came to a standstill, and the MagnaGuards lifted them away. Taking a gasping breath, Vader’s hands shook so badly he had to hold his lightsaber with both. The Twi’lek woman shook her head frantically, pleading to him with her eyes. Her hands were bound before her and she tried to pull herself away from the droids that restrained her, her eyes were brown and her skin was green and now her fear was just as tangible as his own, he was getting closer, he was sure she felt towards him what he did towards the MagnaGuards, she must have hated and feared and reviled him, he was about to become an evil horrible murderer and he was doing it by choice –

– and Vader was sure that for his entire life, even if something else happened and he forgot every single thing he had ever known, he was positive that he would always remember what her dead body looked like on the ground.

Alone in his room, Vader curled up in a corner, his human fingers twisted in his hair.

He had killed that woman. Murdered her. Felt her die. He had willingly walked across that room and cut her down. On purpose. For his own stupid self. Because why? Because he was afraid of a little bit of pain? Because his master was cruel. Why was Sidious even his master? Vader didn’t have to put up with this. So why did he? He didn’t know. Probably because he was so, so scared, all the time, all the damn time, couldn’t he just go one second without being so scared –

You killed her.

Maybe...maybe it was for the best. She probably would have died anyway, right? And death by lightsaber was quick. Maybe painless, even. How else would she have died, if he hadn’t been the one to do it?

He shook his head vigorously to rid himself of the thought and buried his face in his knees. Merciful? That was the stupidest thought he’d probably ever have. Killing people isn’t merciful. It’s just wrong.

But you did it anyway.

How many more people was Sidious going to make him kill? It wasn’t like there would only be one. The Jedi, probably, whoever they even were. At the moment, Vader didn’t care. Nothing really mattered. Nothing, at all. Because he was a killer, there was no other way to put it. He killed that woman to save himself.

He wished he was dead. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not ever again.

But would he?

He didn’t want to find out.

Another body on the ground. A tendril of smoke rose from the wound. An alien species that Vader didn’t know – well he did but he couldn’t remember the name. It didn’t really matter, anyway, he supposed as he stared down at the body. Nothing seemed to matter in this damn universe.

That body was dragged away and another was brought in by a pair of droids. A child, this time, staring at the other one, then staring at Vader. The frightened and hating look pierced right through him like the blistering winds of an ice planet, and Vader definitely deserved it.

“Do it, Vader,” Sidious said from behind him. “Do it so that you can have power. Do it so that I do not have to take the Force away from you.”

But he didn’t want to. He really, really didn’t want to. Remember that emptiness, a voice said inside his head. Remember not being able to walk or feed or clothe yourself? That will be you if you don’t kill this child right now, Sidious will make sure of that.

But it wasn’t that simple, he thought.

It is if you let it be, the imaginary voice said. And yes, he supposed, that was true.

A heavy breath, the tightening of his metal hand, the hissing ignition of the red blade, the pang in the Force of a life being ripped out of a body, and it was done. Another one dead. Another one being brought in.

Just don’t think about it, the voice said. He won’t hurt you if you do what he says.

But that wasn’t true, because every time Sidious made Vader kill something he was hurting him.

That pain will go away.

Vader hoped so, too, as he cut down another body.

It sort of felt like something was chiseling away at him, breaking off outer shells of emotional vulnerability that he’d had for a long time. He used to cry a lot, he remembered, when whoever it was took his memories away. He’d been a pathetic, useless mushy mess back then, scared and confused and afraid and weak and powerless.

Now...now he was power.

It was sick, logically he knew it was sick, that he could kill all these people and not feel anything. But that was just it – he kept killing them and not feeling anything. No remorse, no shame, nothing. How many prisoners had he even killed by now? He sort of wished he had been keeping track. Maybe he had been for a while and forgotten about it. He couldn’t remember anything, after all. It could have been two dozen, or a hundred, or more. He really didn’t know. He really didn’t think he wanted to. It was so much easier that way.

Once again, Tyranus stood before him, brandishing his sabre like he always did. Briefly, Vader thought about the last times, thought about the cuts on his arms and leg. Thought about the humiliation and degradation. That, he decided, would not happen this time. Not again.

He decided to make the first move, only it would be on his terms. He tried a few practice swings, which as expected Tyranus deflected effortlessly. A few more. A few more. Tyranus thought he still had the upper hand, Vader could see it in his eyes, could feel his gleam of confidence in the Force. Vader would have to show him how wrong he was.

With both his hands gripping his hilt, Vader pushed Tyranus’s blade to the side, pretending, just pretending, that he was making a clumsy move, that he didn’t know what he was doing. Tyranus smirked. Their sabres met in midair, locking. Vader gave way to Tyranus, only by an inch. Pushed his sword away. Faked a grunt.

Tyranus took a step back, and said, “Clumsy and weak as ever, young Vader? It appears you have not made as much progress as I have heard.”

Then, Vader flipped his lightsaber around his hand and took a quick step toward Tyranus, pushing all his strength into an overhand cut. Tyranus caught it, took another step back from the force of it, moved his blade up but Vader’s was there, too, catching it, pushing it back. That was just it. Vader was pushing him back, and back, and back, throwing all his energy and all his concentration into the swings of his lightsaber.

It caught Tyranus off-guard, Vader could see it in his eyes though he tried to hide it. Vader was strong, and with the Force behind him, Tyranus’s aged defense was no match. Vader pushed and pushed, met Tyranus’s blade wherever the old man put it, he locked it in midair and threw it so violently to the side that it slipped out of Tyranus’s hand. Vader pulled it to his left hand and pointed both blades at Tyranus, an inch away from his neck.

And it was over, Sidious’s laugh told him so. “Very good, Vader,” his master said, walking down the steps to meet them. “Most excellent. You have learned a great deal.”

Vader listened, and stared into Tyranus’s eyes. They had fear in them, and Vader reveled in it, and they were surprised. Vader deactivated the sabres and threw Tyranus’s across the floor. Then, he turned to Sidious and said, “Thank you, Master.”

“You have become most powerful,” said Sidious, appraising him. “Very few people are a match for Lord Tyranus. You have proven yourself most worthy. I believe you are ready.”

“For what, Master?”

Sidious flashed his ugly grin. “To begin killing Jedi.”

Vader didn’t look in the mirror often, didn’t like the look of his haunted figure staring back at him, but one day he took a glimpse and frowned because hadn’t his eyes been blue? They had been, he was sure of it, his memory couldn’t have been so bad to forget the color of his own eyes, but there he was, gaunt and yellow-eyed and clothed in black. His hair still looked thin and brittle and he looked generally unwell, he still felt sick and empty all the time, but Sidious seemed to think he was ready to leave Serenno nonetheless.

His master’s gnarled hands handed him a mask. It was black and skeletal-looking, apparently molded around his features although he didn’t remember when they could have done that. It matched a set of clothes that had been designed for him, the top part form-fitting and made of synth leather, with a plate of armor that went across his shoulders.

“This mask will conceal your identity from those who we do not yet want to recognize you,” Sidious said, his mouth curling into a smile as Vader put it on. “The Jedi cannot be permitted to know who you are. If they did, they may try to take you back to their temple with them. They may even kill you, thinking you betrayed them. Certainly they would be less fair to you than I have been.”

Vader nodded, and Sidious continued, “You will leave with a Confederate ship, which will transport you and several battalions of droids to Felucia. Currently deployed there is a Jedi Master named Leth Chen. This should be a relatively easy target for your first Jedi kill. You will kill him and report to me.”

“Yes, Master.”

“In the meantime, I have other duties to which I must attend,” Sidious said. “You are not to contact me unless it is to give me your report on killing the Jedi. Do you understand?”

“I do, Master.”

Sidious smiled. “Good. Go then, Vader, and do what must be done.”

Thousands of bodies swarmed the battlefield. Some droid, some organic, some sparking on the ground and some dead. The Jedi’s blue lightsaber was not easy to distinguish among the hundreds of identically colored blaster bolts. In the Force, however, color was irrelevant. In the Force, the battlefield was like a candlelight vigil around a bonfire. Each clone was a flame flickering in the wind, and but the Jedi amongst them burned bright and the light they cast was like a beacon. Especially on Felucia, where the Force was thick as a dense fog, it was an easy task for Vader to duck around clones and under massive tree leaves and to jump the Jedi from behind.

If Vader had to be entirely honest with himself, he didn’t really remember killing the Jedi. It had only taken a minute or two, he thought, but even when it was done and the body lay at his feet Vader never stopped moving, deflecting blaster bolts back at clones in what felt more like another training exercise than anything.

He liked fighting. It was hot here, just like he liked it, though he could do without the humidity, and the heat of battle made it so that he didn’t have to think. Not about the way the Jedi’s death had felt like a punch in his gut, or the way the Force had seemed to whine in protest of the death of one of its own. Strangely, even as photon shells collided with bioluminescent Felucian trees, even as clone after clone and droid after droid dropped around him, fighting was like a welcome relief.

He didn’t exactly know what his position and rank were. High enough that the droids followed his orders if he ever gave them, although he could see in Tyranus’s face that the older Sith was not pleased about these arrangements. Vader himself certainly didn’t care about commanding, he just wanted to be out there , watching exploded tanks and gunships and fortified encampments light up the night like fireworks. He breathed it. He lived it. The sweat and the burn and the heat of the action. Out here, the pain didn’t matter. Out here, he didn’t have to remember.

It was almost, kind of, sort of funny how he, the man who couldn’t remember anything, actually had things he wanted to forget.

Chapter Text

I. AHSOKA

The holorecording was grainy, but the image was clear enough to make out. It was a battlefield, that much Ahsoka could tell, though she didn’t recognize the planet. Somewhere rocky and barren, which didn’t narrow the list down very much. The footage didn’t seem particularly noteworthy, if she had to be honest. It belonged maybe in one of those HoloNet newsreel documentaries about the Jedi and the war effort, not in the main communications center of the temple for a hundred odd Jedi to be watching. That was what she thought, anyway, until the image zoomed in on what was unmistakably two figures, each flashing a lightsaber (one green and one red) and engaged in a duel to the death. It didn’t last very long. The Jedi never had a chance. The image lingered on the killer – a tall humanoid clothed in all dark, form-fitting clothes – before the clone that shot the footage was hit by a blaster bolt and the holocam fell to the ground.

Mace Windu shut down the recording and raised the lights in the room with a wave of his hand. “This footage,” he said, his tone grave, “Was taken by a clone during a recent battle on Abraxus. It was recorded seven standard days ago and was discovered in the holocam yesterday after the clone who took it was killed. After careful analysis, we have come to the conclusion that this figure is most likely Dooku’s long-awaited replacement for either General Grievous, Asajj Ventress, or both.”

Careful analysis? Ahsoka didn’t need careful analysis to tell her that a Jedi-killer with a red lightsaber was a Sith apprentice, or assassin, or...whatever Ventress had been. She shivered involuntarily.

“At least four separate clone reports from the scene of the battle indicate that the droids were overheard referring to someone by the name of ‘Vader,’ so for now we will operate under the assumption that Vader and the figure in the recording are one and the same.”

Now Yoda stepped forward, hobbling like there was a heavy weight on his shoulders, leaning hard on his walking stick. “The first Jedi that this Vader has killed, Master Tinlar was not. At least one more there has been, Master Leth Chen, on Felucia. A great threat, and a great mystery, this new enemy is. Be careful you all must be, if leave Coruscant for any reason you do.”

“Until we can determine a pattern in Vader’s attacks and appearances, we must be extremely careful,” Windu said. “For the time being, we will be making every effort to assign at least two Jedi to every mission. Unfortunately, our forces are spread too thin as it is, and this will not always be possible.”

“If go into the field you do, keep your sense of the Force open. Trust in the Force we must, to protect us from this new threat.” Yoda stood still for a moment, blinking, and then said, “May the Force be with us all.”

Around her, Jedi began leaving, whispering amongst themselves, worry etched clear into some of their faces. The ones less experienced with Jedi stoicism, Ahsoka guessed. She glanced at Master Kenobi, who had his hand on his beard and looked wearied beyond his years. She didn’t blame him; what was the point of Grievous – of Anakin – dying if now there was just some stupid new Sith to replace him?

II. OBI-WAN

Obi-Wan didn’t exactly know why he was standing in the Supreme Chancellor’s office, listening to Yoda welcome the man back after four or five months of absence, when really it felt like he should be out there, tracking down this new Separatist threat and striking Dooku another blow that he desperately deserved. It was a terribly downbeat thought, and Obi-Wan shouldn’t have been having it here of all places – well, he shouldn’t have been having it at all, because revenge was most certainly not the Jedi way, but in between the week’s time when he first saw the holorecording and now, Vader had somehow struck down yet another Jedi so it was just a tad difficult to abide by the revenge rule.

He fought a sigh. When had he become like this?

In reality, Palpatine was saying, “Thank you, thank you, Master Yoda. I am most glad to be back, and not a moment too soon. I have, of course, been informed of this ‘Vader’. A frightening spectre to say the least. Have you any information on them?”

Yoda gripped his walking stick with both hands and frowned as his response.

“It is quite a shame,” Palpatine continued. “As if we need another new threat against the Jedi. Still, I am confident that your graces will be able to put a stop to Vader. I still have a great deal of faith in the Jedi.”

“Might I inquire as to your health, Chancellor?” Mace said, bravely if Obi-Wan had to admit it.

“I am doing quite well, Master Windu,” Palpatine said sincerely, putting his fingers together on his desk. Then, he glanced around the room as if checking for unwanted ears and added, hushed, “As you can understand, I can hardly speak of this in the public sphere, but it is justified that the Jedi Council be informed. I had been unwell for quite some time – not anything to interfere with my work, I assure you, but my physicians all recommended that I take time to rest that I not come down with anything that may have inflicted my ability as a politician. The respite did me quite well, and in fact I feel better than I have in years. Quite ready to tackle politics again.”

Windu bowed slightly, and the masters exchanged a few parting words with the Chancellor. When Obi-Wan turned to leave, Palpatine, quite unexpectedly, stopped him. When Obi-Wan turned back, the Chancellor had somehow changed in appearance from a proud politician to a weary old man.

“Master Kenobi, I’ve never had a chance to tell you how sorry I was about what happened to Anakin. He was quite a dear friend to me, as you know. In fact, I would hardly be surprised if the loss of him is part of what made me so ill. I simply cannot imagine how this past year has been for you.”

Obi-Wan shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Yes, the man had been Anakin’s quite dear friend, and Obi-Wan had never exactly approved. He certainly didn’t now. And the wound from his loss of Anakin would never heal, if only because people kept jabbing at it.

Force, Obi-Wan still missed him so much it ached.

“Thank you, Chancellor,” he said formally. “It has not been easy.” He bowed, hopefully respectfully, and tried not to rush out the door when Palpatine’s dismissal was clear.

A quite different type of politician met him on his way out. Padmé’s eyes lit up when she saw him, and Obi-Wan found himself smiling when she hugged him.

“I can’t stay to chat, but you should meet me for dinner later,” she said quickly, beaming. “Bring Ahsoka. Uh, nineteen hundred hours, at the Skysitter, on me!” He could barely nod before she patted him on the shoulder and followed her fellow senators into the Chancellor’s office. She looked good – much better than he felt. The color was back in her cheeks, she looked eager as a young child to work on whatever project she had going at the moment. He was glad. She certainly deserved it.

III. PADMÉ

It had been a long, long week.

It was all over the HoloNet now. It was the subject of whispers in the Senate halls, the reason for the worried faces on everyone, everywhere. Because like Padmé, everyone was tired. Of the war, of the rising death counts, of the financial crisis, of the fighting and of politics and of waking up in the morning not knowing if today would be the day that everything was lost. Since the end of Grievous, the phrase the war is finally winding down had become an axiom, a universally accepted truth, effectively a slogan for the war itself, and now – well, now had come a confirmation that it wasn’t true.

‘The New Grievous,’ everyone kept calling them. Vader was their name. It sent a chill down Padmé’s spine whenever she thought about it, thought about that image, a shadowy figure with a red lightsaber, standing over the body of a dead Jedi while the horrors of war raged about them. The rumors she had heard so far were absurd – that Vader was a spectre from the underworld, a malevolent incarnation born from all the souls of Jedi who had died in the war. Now, Padmé knew enough about the Jedi religion to debunk that theory, but she couldn’t deny that it did freak her out a little bit.

So prominent was Vader in everyone’s thoughts that Padmé knew their dinnertime conversation would inevitably center around it. Sure enough, Ahsoka was the one who brought it up.

“So did you hear about the new Sith?”

Padmé put down her napkin and sat back. “More times than I can count. It’s all anyone will talk about.”

Ahsoka blinked, and looked awkwardly down at her plate. “Sorry. That’s true. I just figured we couldn’t have this dinner without acknowledging the bantha in the room.”

Obi-Wan’s jaw was tight, but his voice sounded soft. “It’s all right. I’d rather we acknowledge it rather than pretend we’re not all thinking about it.”

“It’s just that you have to wonder what the point is,” Padmé said, distant. “Of course, I know what the point is, it’s ending the war as soon as possible so that people stop having to die, but....”

She looked off into the distance for a while, food abandoned, staring out at the glimmering permacrete and chrome of the city. Eventually, Obi-Wan said, “Padmé?”

She looked at him. “Oh, I – sorry,” she said lamely. “It’s just that I...don’t suppose it ever goes away, does it?”

“What?” Ahsoka said.

“This feeling that I keep getting,” Padmé said, looking down at the empty chair beside her. They were seated at a table meant for four, even though they were only three. She didn’t know how to put exactly what she was feeling. “With the three of us together, it just sort of feels like he should be here right now, doesn’t it.” They both looked away. She felt awful, and a little stupid. She didn’t know why she always felt the need to bring it – him – up.

They sat in silence, picking at their food. After a time, Padmé squared her shoulders and said, “So what was it you were talking about earlier? Mynocks?”

Ahsoka jumped to attention. “Oh yeah, it was crazy, our ship was covered in them, they were suctioned to the viewports and everything. Artoo was wheeling back and forth trying to fix everything, then we had to fly to this planet and they all started exploding, I couldn’t eat for, like, three days....”

IV. VADER

Vader stared aimlessly out the viewport of his ship. The stars, so far away, felt like home.

Ten Jedi dead, by his hand. He looked down at it. Metal, and as unfeeling as the rest of him. He felt so empty. So apathetic. How many more victims would he have? Who would be next? Did it even matter?

The communications function of the ship finally activated, and Vader had a feeling he was about to get his answer. He took his mask off and knelt on the floor before the hologram of Sidious.

“I have a new mission for you, Lord Vader,” Sidious said from under his hood. His eyes were gleaming with all the passion of the dark side. “One that will prove to me that you are truly worthy of being my apprentice.”

“Yes, Master?” Vader said, faking attentiveness.

“There is an individual Jedi who has been particularly troublesome for us in the past. Both of my previous apprentices have failed to kill him. If you are successful, you will have proven to me that you are more worthy as an apprentice than either of them. Do you feel you are up to the task?”

“I do, my master.” Actually, he sort of didn’t. He didn’t really feel like anything.

“Good. His name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Find him, and kill him. At all costs.”

Vader bowed low, ended the conference, and prepared to do as his master said.

BONUS SCENE: DOOKU

Dooku stood beside his master as they overlooked the vast canyon of Serenno through the green-tinted glass of the window. Sidious sat in Dooku’s throne, of course; an apprentice must always bow to his master’s will. Sidious had effectively taken Dooku’s palace as his own; an intentional reminder that Dooku was subordinate. Dooku had, of course, expected this from the very moment that his master had revealed the plan to remove Skywalker’s memories, but that did not mean he had looked forward to it with much...enthusiasm.

Furthermore, that cybernetic scum Skywalker was not someone that Dooku enjoyed having around, memory or no. Every time Dooku saw the spot at Skywalker’s elbow where metal melded with human flesh (too often, of late) Dooku sincerely wished that he could return to Geonosis and take the boy’s head instead.

“I plan on having Vader kill Kenobi,” Sidious said suddenly, breaking the silence. Dooku looked down at him. So soon already? It would be risky at any point, but after only six months without his memory? Skywalker and Kenobi had been too close – disgustingly close, in Dooku’s opinion. He vividly recalled being tied to them by those filthy pirates on Florrum, having to sit through their quips and grins and sheer idiocy. If he had not been standing next to his Sith Master, he might have rolled his eyes at the thought.

At least Skywalker did not remember that. It was remarkable, really, the change in the boy. There was something particularly satisfying about turning an insolent Outer Rim pest into a spiritless killer. To be sure, the Sith had tamed him better than the Jedi ever could have hoped to. And to have him kill Kenobi...why, if successful, that might be the most delightful thought Dooku had ever had.

“If it is your wish, then of course, my lord,” Dooku said graciously, “But are you sure it has been long enough? If Skywalker’s memories are reawakened –”

“Skywalker is dead, Lord Tyranus,” Sidious said. Then he looked at Dooku. “Unless you believe you were unsuccessful in your efforts?”

“I was successful, my lord. I simply meant that perhaps Vader should kill more Jedi first, to improve his skills. Kenobi is very talented with a lightsaber.”

“You bested Kenobi, and Vader bested you. I am quite confident he can dispose of Kenobi.”

“And if Kenobi recognizes him?”

“Then I suppose this will be his test,” Sidious said. “Once Kenobi is dead, our greatest obstacle regarding Vader will be destroyed. The time is coming, Lord Tyranus, when our control of the galaxy shall become known and no one will be able to stop us.”

A pleasant thought, but Dooku did not share his master’s confidence. Skywalker – Vader – was not ready for this. Not yet.

Chapter Text

For the time being, we will be making every effort to assign at least two Jedi to every mission.

Those were Mace’s words weeks before, and yet here Obi-Wan was, unaccompanied by any others outside the 212^th. It was hardly himself he was worried for, of course not, but he certainly did not feel comfortable with Ahsoka out of his sight, waiting at the temple for her name to be drawn out of a hat for the next mission the Jedi Council needed spare hands for.

He sighed to himself. Really, he shouldn’t be worrying. Ahsoka was more than capable of handling herself, even against the likes of Dooku’s playthings. Still, the thought of her alone against someone who had killed ten Jedi in a month made him shiver. The idea of losing someone else close to him, after all he had already lost – Qui-Gon, Satine, Anakin – it was just too much. Well, he was only human.

Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes. He was tired, if he had to admit, and he could see that same weariness even in his clones. They had been on Ord Trasi, a dull, sparsely-populated and unremarkable industrial world, for nearly two weeks. The fighting was over, the droids were defeated, but still they lingered to stake out Separatist threats and defend a critical factory that manufactured ships by the thousands. A mission that would have had either of his Padawans jittery and unsatisfied.

He stretched and made his way over to a comm table that had been set up at the main camp, fully expecting the same update he had gotten for the last three days: Nothing yet, General.

“Tricks, come in,” Commander Cody was repeating. “Boxer, do you read me? Come in, Arrow. Anyone in the recon group, please respond.” With a sigh, he smacked the side of the table in frustration uncharacteristic to him.

“Is something wrong, Cody?” Obi-Wan said.

“Yes, sir. None of the men we sent out on the recon have reported in, and no one is answering their comm either.”

“That is troubling.” Obi-Wan put his hand to his beard in contemplation. He had felt a disturbance not long ago from an unknown source; perhaps this was the answer he had not yet been able to find.

“I don’t like it, sir,” Cody said, taking his helmet off. “None of the men in that group would have forgotten to check in, and they wouldn’t have turned off their comms either. Something must have happened to them.”

“But the question is what?” Obi-Wan pondered. The craggy area the clones had been sent to survey was far, at least eighty klicks away. The group was intentionally small to avoid catching the eye of the possible enemy presence they had been sent to look for.

“Separatists, sir?”

Obi-Wan stared in the direction of the cliffs for a long time. “It’s probable.” He came to a decision. “I’m going to go check it out.”

Cody looked hesitant. “Perhaps we should send another group of clones, General –”

“I can handle a few droids, Cody,” Obi-Wan said, smirking at him dryly. “I’ll check in once I get there.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Cody muttered to himself, and Obi-Wan grinned as he moved off to the shuttle nearby.

It didn’t take long to approach the cliffside by shuttle, though Obi-Wan touched the ship down out of sight and ran the rest of the way through the sparse forest. The Force was tense around here, as though dozens of creatures waited to pounce on him at any minute. He kept his senses open as he moved in between the rocks, pausing behind boulders to listen for the sound of metal. He didn’t hear any animals – in fact, he didn’t hear the sound of anything at all.

The binary suns of Ord Trasi lit his way among the rock formations as he moved silently. Suddenly, he saw them – three clone troopers lying dead on the ground, each with what was unmistakably a lightsaber cut embedded deep into his chest. They were scattered feet apart from each other. They clearly hadn’t gone down without a fight. Exhaling softly, Obi-Wan commed Cody.

“Yes, General?”

“I’ve found them, Cody,” Obi-Wan said, touching one of the corpses lightly on the shoulder. “All dead.”

“What was it, sir?” Ever the professional soldier, Cody’s voice betrayed nothing of what the man may have been feeling.

“Someone with a lightsaber.”

Cody was silent for a moment. “Vader?”

“I would guess so.”

He stood and looked around him, cautious. “Should I send backup, sir?”

“No, I think I can handle them, whoever they are. Continue monitoring for Separatist activity. I’ll check back as soon as I can.”

“And what if it’s a trap, General?”

Obi-Wan smiled wryly to himself. “I’m counting on it.”

Regretfully, he left the clones’ bodies where they were and walked carefully through the crag, eyes and ears and Force senses alert and waiting. The Force was thick with tension, but he could feel nothing of the assassin. The dark side lingered still from the clones’ deaths, no different from any other war zone. Still, something felt...wrong. As if he were being watched. Cody, this was most certainly a trap.

Forced to abandon his fate to the assassin’s whim, he scanned the surrounding cliff walls with his eyes: first the one basking in sunlight, then the one in shadows. Sensing nothing, he walked, watching and listening, until he pointedly realized he had hit a dead end. Tense, he took a deep breath and turned around – just in time to see a dark figure leap from a concealed spot on the shadowy cliffside and rise to face him.

They were just as Obi-Wan had seen in the grainy holorecording a month ago: tall, humanoid, muscular, covered head to foot in a form-fitting black clothes, apparently male. He had black plates of armor covering his shoulders with enough maneuverability that his arms would have full movement, not unlike what Obi-Wan had worn during the early years of the war. His slightly curly hair fell about the skeletal-looking mask that covered his face. He already had the hilt of his lightsaber clutched in his hand. He approached in a purposeful strut, stopping several feet away.

“So, you must be Dooku’s new pet,” Obi-Wan said mock-conversationally, taking his own lightsaber in his hand, vaguely wondering why he could feel nothing from his new enemy in the Force. “I don’t suppose you’ve been told what happened to his last one?”

Silent, Vader ignited his blade, bathing him in red light.

“I suppose you must have figured it out, considering she’s no longer around,” Obi-Wan continued casually. He was testing, now, to see what kind of reaction he could get. Grievous and Ventress, Dooku’s other pawns, would have responded to the threat with an angry battle cry, or a dry comment about how he was surely about to pay dearly for being Jedi scum. Not Vader, though. Sensing he would not get a response, Obi-Wan ignited his own lightsaber.

Without a word, Vader came at him, and his initial blow had such crashing power behind it that Obi-Wan had to grab his hilt with both hands to stop his blade being pushed back toward him. He remembered without much concern that no Jedi had yet survived an encounter with this Sith killer. He wondered briefly if he would join the list of dead.

Vader pushed the assault with powerful strikes and Obi-Wan allowed himself to be pushed back, circling around so that he was not pushed against the dead end of the cliff wall. Vader’s technique was aggressive, powerful, energetic, and Obi-Wan found this particularly interesting: Vader clearly did not acquire his lightsaber techniques from Dooku, who favored a classic fencer’s approach to dueling.

Vader attacked and Obi-Wan blocked, then Obi-Wan countered and Vader dodged. Vader swung his sword in a low sweep and Obi-Wan jumped over it and met his blade right in between them. Vader pushed him back; his strength was impressive.

When he had a window, Obi-Wan took it, and he threw a push of the Force out with his hand. Vader met it easily and they pushed the Force at each other, lightsabers locked between them. Obi-Wan glanced at Vader’s face, hidden behind the mask, trying to decipher why he felt such a familiar connection before the pushes got to be too much and they were both thrust back and fell backwards onto the ground, a short distance away from each other. They jumped up at the same time.

Obi-Wan took a few deep breaths while he had a chance, sabre held out warily. “Your fighting technique reminds me of someone that I used to know,” he commented, as if this were just a simple sparring session with an old friend. “Someone your master Dooku killed, actually.”

“Dooku is not my master,” Vader hissed, and his voice had a sort of mechanical tinge to it, like it was being filtered or generated for him by a vocabulator. Obi-Wan frowned; was Vader a cyborg, like Grievous had been, or did he simply wear the mask for protection, or to conceal his identity? Obi-Wan decided he would very much like to know.

He made a feint, not sure it would work but confident that it might. He took a quick step forward and thrust his sabre out, making it look like he was about to press the offensive. Vader fell for it and jumped on him at the same time, but Obi-Wan took a quick sidestep so that Vader stumbled through midair. When Vader turned around to come back at him, Obi-Wan reached his left hand out and pulled on the mask around Vader’s face with the Force.

Vader’s hand rose to grab the mask but it slid from his grip and flew to Obi-Wan. For a moment, Vader stood with his hand concealing his face as if unsure what to do. Eventually he looked up, and his stolen mask slipped from Obi-Wan’s suddenly numb fingers.

But –

No –

A hundred thousand thoughts raced through Obi-Wan’s mind at once, tripping over each other and never making their way to completion. In a heartbeat, an icy chill washed over him and his chest tightened like he was underwater, suffocating, drowning. In a few more heartbeats, Anakin started to attack him again.

It was the best Obi-Wan could do to block the blows, backing up, staring at Anakin’s sickly yellow eyes and the long sabre scar down his face. He managed to block Anakin’s red lightsaber – the same lightsaber, Obi-Wan suddenly realized like a kick in his gut, but with a different crystal – and held it at bay long enough to say, “Anakin?”

His friend pushed his blade away with all the strength of his mechanical hand and said, “Who the hell is Anakin?”

“What?” Obi-Wan managed to exclaim before Anakin pushed his offensive with full strength. “Anakin, it’s me! It’s Obi-Wan!”

There was no comprehension in his face when Anakin sliced at him. Thrown completely off-guard, it was all Obi-Wan could do to dodge the attacks. With a block, he thought about Anakin consciously betraying him and the Jedi and everything he’d ever thought for. With a duck, he berated himself, because there was no chance Anakin would ever turn on him and how could he even consider it? When he threw himself to the ground and rolled away from a thrust of the red saber, he realized the only possibility:

He really doesn’t know who I am.

Obi-Wan didn’t have time to dwell on this, for Anakin seemed to get angrier and more persistent the more Obi-Wan backed away. Obi-Wan himself certainly couldn’t see a way out of this while Anakin still had his sabre clenched in his mechno grip, so he concentrated on manipulating his attacks that he might twist the sabre out of Anakin’s hand. It worked, and Anakin’s lightsaber, the one Obi-Wan had seen him build after Geonosis, flipped out of his hand and fell behind a nearby rock.

Something feral seemed to take over Anakin, as if the fury that had been latent earlier now seemed to consume him. He let out an angry growl before he went into a low lunge at Obi-Wan and used his metal arm to chop at Obi-Wan’s own forearm. Obi-Wan couldn’t help his own lightsaber springing from his hand and flying a few feet away.

Anakin jumped on him automatically, pinning him to the ground and trapping Obi-Wan’s right wrist with his left hand. His mechno closed around Obi-Wan’s throat and Obi-Wan instinctively clawed at it with his free hand. Anakin’s yellow eyes bore into his with impartial cruelty, pushing all his weight down on his right arm before Obi-Wan found an opening to knee him in the gut and push him off, coughing. Before he could pull his lightsaber toward him – he had shamefully lost track of it at this point – he felt Anakin spring on him from behind and he turned around, catching Anakin’s arms and pushing, holding him at arm’s length with all of his strength.

“Anakin, please, listen to me –”

His neck ached and his voice was raw from the choking. His old friend kicked at him and Obi-Wan was forced to let go and jump out of the way.

“You know who I am,” he said, holding his arms out as if trying to show a wild animal he wasn’t a threat. He risked putting a suggestion of the Force behind his words. “Look at me, you know me –”

“No, I don’t,” Anakin muttered, launching his whole body at Obi-Wan but Obi-Wan caught him around the waist and pushed him to the ground. Anakin rolled them both over and forced himself on top of Obi-Wan, throwing a punch that landed squarely on Obi-Wan’s jaw. The hardness of the metal fist knocked his head back to the ground and Anakin continued to punch him, using all of his energy and grunting with each thrust of his fist. Coming out of his daze, Obi-Wan managed to catch Anakin’s forearm and then his other one, gripping them as hard as he could.

“Yes, you do!” Obi-Wan cried, ignoring the pain in his head.

“No!” Anakin shouted and wrenched his right arm away. Obi-Wan stared up at him from behind swollen eyes, all too aware of the blood in his mouth and all over his face. Anakin raised his fist for another punch, but he held it in the air a little too long and Obi-Wan pushed Anakin off of him, rolled over and sprang to his feet. His head was ringing, he was dizzy, but he was not going to let his formerly-dead best friend kill him today.

He turned around and Anakin came at him but he blocked the blows and slid around to come behind Anakin and sprang on him, wrapping his elbow around Anakin’s neck and his other arm around his chest, locking Anakin’s left arm to his side. Anakin tried to shake him off, elbowing him from behind and using his legs to try to shake Obi-Wan’s weight off, but Obi-Wan resisted, pulling on Anakin’s neck and listening to him struggle for breath.

“I don’t want to fight you!” Obi-Wan managed as Anakin’s movements became more sluggish. They both fell to their knees. “I just – want to talk to you – please –”

Anakin let out a strangled breath and collapsed against him, unconscious. Gently, his heart beating so hard he thought it might give out, Obi-Wan laid him on the ground as if he were made of glass.

He only had a few seconds before Anakin got back up, Obi-Wan knew, but – well what was he supposed to do? What could he possibly be supposed to do? Take Anakin home? That would never work, Anakin wanted to kill him – try talking to him? His old friend didn’t appear very willing to have a conversation. Biting his lip, Obi-Wan pressed a trembling hand to the crown of Anakin’s head, trying to sense anything at all because how – how? – could this have possibly happened? But before he could get anything meaningful from the Force Anakin shifted, blinking back into consciousness, and Obi-Wan pulled his hand away.

Anakin’s metal hand rose to press against his eyes. Beside him, Obi-Wan froze, not even breathing. Five seconds later, Anakin glanced at him, gasped, and threw himself back, crawling a few feet away and staring, wide-eyed.

Obi-Wan put out his hands like he had before. “Wait!” he begged. “Please, just wait a moment – let me talk to you, please –”

Anakin looked around frantically, trying to find his lightsaber. He spotted it, and made to grab for it, but in his dizzy post-unconscious state he was too slow, and Obi-Wan thrust out his hand to grab both Anakin’s sabre and his own with the Force. Anakin gaped at him, pushing himself to his feet, and wavered where he stood as if about to approach.

“Wait, Anakin, please,” Obi-Wan said, backing away. It went unacknowledged, and he looked around, trying to get his bearings. Anakin had his back to the rock wall off the cliff, only a few meters away now, and just a push of the Force would – no, Obi-Wan couldn’t do that, it could just make everything worse – but – if he didn’t –

Swallowing thickly, he murmured, “Forgive me for this,” and a second later he thrust out both his hands and Anakin was knocked back those few meters so that he collided with the rock wall and collapsed on the ground. Staying for just a moment to make sure his friend would be all right, Obi-Wan dropped Anakin’s lightsaber hilt on the ground, turned around, and ran, and he didn’t stop running until he reached the cockpit of his ship, where he flipped switches and pushed off the surface and only once he had jumped into hyperspace did he finally collapse back into the pilot’s seat and allow himself to think.

And his immediate thought was: oh, Anakin. Oh, no, no, no no no....

Obi-Wan felt his throat swell, his eyes water. He let his face fall into his hands.

Alive. Anakin was alive. Living, breathing, functioning, feeling. His friend, his best friend, his Padawan, his child, his brother – was – was a –

A –

A Sith. He was a Sith. A brainwashed, amnesiac, unrecognizable, serial Jedi-killer with sickly yellow eyes.

Oh, Anakin....

What did Dooku do to him? Or perhaps not Dooku – Sidious? Both, probably. But how, how could they possibly have done this to Anakin, whose will was stronger than anyone Obi-Wan knew? Who wore his sense of self and his freedom on his sleeve? How – how many months of torture –

He was going to be sick. He was almost certainly going to be sick. Actually, no, he was definitely about to be sick, right now –

He should have known Anakin was alive.

Obi-Wan shook off the thought. There was no use for should haves, no matter how much truth there was to it.

He sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the chair. The right thing to do, now, would be to inform Cody that he had fought Vader, and inform the Council who Vader was. Instead – and this was a mostly involuntary decision on Obi-Wan’s part, given the nature of his body being entirely paralyzed from a multitude of emotions that would send each Council member into a series of disapproving stares – he sat slumped in his chair, watched the swirl of hyperspace, and thought about Anakin’s yellow Sith eyes.

Chapter Text

Late in the Coruscant evening, Obi-Wan touched the shuttle down in the empty temple hangar. He flipped off the engine, lowered the exit ramp, collapsed back in the pilot’s chair and closed his eyes. A wave of fatigue hit him, and for a reasonable amount of time he considered falling asleep right here because getting up meant confronting the Council and confronting the Council meant telling them the truth....

And then his eyes were startled open by the sound of footsteps coming up the ramp and with a glance at the chrono he realized with some embarrassment that he actually had dozed off, though only for a few minutes.

A voice called, “Master?”

“I’m here, Ahsoka.”

She came into the cockpit and sat in the chair next to his. She let out an exhale at the look of his injuries. “So it’s true? You fought Vader?”

Briefly pressing his eyes shut at the sound of that infernal name, he tried to center himself in the Force. “Yes. Vader.”

She swiveled the copilot’s chair awkwardly. “Well, there’s four Jedi Masters waiting out there for you to report to them,” she said. “I only came in because you weren’t coming out.”

Finally, he turned to look at her. He reached up with one hand to poke at the swollen side of his face. “Ahsoka,” he said, trying to push a tired determination behind his words. “Before I tell them, I need you to know first.”

The markings on her brow bone knitted together. “What is it?”

Suddenly, Obi-Wan felt extremely tired. He just needed to say the words. Just a few words. Right now. Just a few...ah....

“Ahsoka,” he said again. “Vader is Anakin.”

She blinked, a few times. She looked unbearably hesitant. “Master,” she said slowly. “Um...I, um....”

“He’s been brainwashed,” Obi-Wan said, turning to her more fully, gripping the back of his chair for support. “He didn’t remember who I was. He didn’t respond to his own name. I don’t know what the Sith did to him, but he’s – he’s alive, it’s really him.”

“Master, I – um – okay – do you want to go tell the Council?”

Of course she didn’t believe him. He shouldn’t be surprised. All of a sudden, Obi-Wan found that his patience was gone. “Ahsoka, please don’t look at me like that. This isn’t something that I could have made up if I wanted to.”

Ahsoka was at a loss for words, he could see that. He said, “I’m not lying!”

She hesitated. “I don’t think you are either, Master, I just...don’t really think you know what you’re saying.”

“I do know what I’m saying,” he snapped. “I’m saying that Anakin is alive. I’m saying I fought with him, and that he doesn’t remember who I am.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to doubt you, I’m just a little shocked, is all. We should go tell the Council.”

Obi-Wan threw up his hands. There was no time for this. “Fine.”

They left the shuttle, and the first thing Mace Windu said to him was, “Obi-Wan, I’m glad you made it back alive. Do you need medical attention?”

Obi-Wan waved him off. “No, thank you. Just a few nights of sleep will do.”

“Actually,” Ahsoka said, glancing up at him, “I don’t think that would be a bad idea.” She looked apologetic. He was sure she was apologetic, but there were a few more important things that he had to do right now like finding Anakin and saving him and bringing him home.

He took a deep breath and decided to be frank. “All right. The truth.” Another breath. “I fought with Vader. We were very evenly matched, and I was interested in seeing who he was under the mask that he was wearing so when I had the opportunity, I pulled it off with the Force. To my extreme surprise, I discovered that Vader was actually Anakin, who is apparently alive and has been brainwashed by someone, probably Dooku, into being a Sith. He did not know who I was beyond the target that the Sith had sent him to kill.”

Windu looked down at Yoda, and his expression was as clear as Naboo was green. Obi-Wan cut them off before they even thought of a reaction. “If I was going to make this up to fulfill some wild fantasy of mine, I would have done it months ago. This was real.”

They didn’t believe him. Windu said, “No one said you made it up.” Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan, but I have to agree with Padawan Tano. I’d like you to report to the Halls of Healing. Then we can talk about this further.”

He considered resisting. He didn’t have time for this, there was a mystery that he needed to solve and a Padawan that he needed to find. But he knew, very well, that resisting would only exacerbate the problem.

He took yet another deep breath. “Very well.”

Ahsoka stayed outside the room while the healer gave him an examination, cognitive and physical. When she was done, she said, “You’re slightly dehydrated and under significant stress, which is understandable enough, but your physical wounds mostly just need bed rest. I am not doubting your account of these events, but I would like for you to stay here at least overnight and see how you’re feeling in the morning before you speak with the Council again.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. She led him and Ahsoka to a room with a bed. He fought a sigh. They were only wasting time.

“I’ll come see you tomorrow, okay, Master?” Ahsoka said. “Please try to get some sleep.” He nodded curtly, and she lingered in the doorway for a moment before leaving him alone.

It wasn’t until he had settled in the bed that he realized how exhausted he was. A part of him wanted to stay awake, to dissect the fight in his mind second by second, to figure out how...how? But, he found, the second his head had settled in the pillow, his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed and the world turned hazy around him...

I’ll find you, Anakin, he managed to think before he drifted off. I won’t let them hurt you ever again. I promise....

He woke up the next morning to a blurry orange figure sitting beside his bed. Before Ahsoka noticed he was awake, he said blearily, “On your left.”

Ahsoka jumped and dropped her datapad in her lap. Looking embarrassed, she cleared her throat and resettled herself in her chair. “So...how are you feeling, Master?”

“Isn’t there another question you would rather ask me?”

She fiddled with the hem of her sleeve and frowned, silent.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Listen, Ahsoka. I know it’s easy to assume that I’ve...lost my mind, or something like that. But I haven’t. I know what I saw.”

Ahsoka reached up to scratch one of her headtails absentmindedly. “But – but, I mean...,” she stammered. She kicked at the floor with her legs. “I mean, I’ve been thinking about it all night. I just – I mean, if he somehow did survive that, wouldn’t we have known? How – I just don’t see how.”

“Believe me,” Obi-Wan said tiredly. “I don’t either.”

She fell silent again, and he looked past her out the window. “Ahsoka,” he said in a very low, quiet voice, “When he ambushed me, I didn’t know who he was. I thought he was another Ventress, some assassin that Dooku would use up and replace just like he had with her. Then I pulled off his mask using the Force to find out who he really was and do you know what the first thing I saw was?” In his peripheral vision, he saw her shake her head. “His eyes. They’ve turned yellow, just like the Zabrak Sith that I fought so many times. Then I saw the scar that Ventress gave him, the one on his face, and his lightsaber, and his hair, and I felt the metal of his arm. Several times, at that.” He touched his face again, feeling the swollen skin ache.

He turned to look at Ahsoka. She was staring at him with wide eyes. “You really, really mean it,” she almost whispered.

“Would I lie about this?”

“I never thought you were lying,” she said. “I thought you were....”

“Trying to convince myself of what I wanted to believe, I know.”

Her gaze drifted off to a spot on his blanket and remained there, probably as she tried to reach out in the Force and find her first, long-lost master. A foolhardy effort. Obi-Wan should know – he couldn’t seem to stop trying it himself.

A day later, and he was out. Unusual, that the testimony of a teenaged Padawan would be enough to convince the Jedi Council of his sanity, but he was grateful for it. Next, he just had to find Anakin again. He never should have ran away in the first place, he was such a fool....

In the dead of night, Obi-Wan shifted in his bed. Something had woken him, but he didn’t know what it was until he felt a metal hand close around his throat. His eyes startled open and his hands automatically rose to claw at his neck. Anakin was hovering over him, his yellow eyes boring into Obi-Wan’s with impartial cruelty.

“Anakin –” Obi-Wan tried to choke out but no sound escaped from his lips. He tried to push Anakin off him but his arms felt like water hitting stone.

“I don’t know you,” Anakin hissed, but his voice didn’t sound like Anakin’s, it was dark and evil and it filled Obi-Wan with unbridled fear. “You mean nothing to me.”

Obi-Wan tried to struggle, but he could hardly move. The life was leaving him, his vision grew blurry and everything seemed to fade out except for Anakin’s Sith eyes.

Before Obi-Wan blacked out, he could have sworn he heard a croaking, despicable sounding voice say, “He’s mine, Kenobi….”

Obi-Wan sat up in bed, gasping for air and feeling his neck, freed from the false reality of the dream. It hadn’t felt like a dream, though…he suddenly recalled what Anakin always used to say of his visions, how he always seemed to know when his dreams and nightmares were something more. The voice that he had heard had channeled directly into his brain as if it was a message meant only for him to hear.

He pushed the covers off him, suddenly hot and decidedly unsettled by the all-to-real feeling of his best friend trying to squeeze the life out of him. The memory of his fight with Anakin was fresh in his mind. The lack of recognition in Anakin’s eyes hurt like a bleeding wound.

He left his room and, as if in a trance, entered the one across from his for the first time in months. Inside, he collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. Anakin’s bedroom was practically untouched: tools littered the work bench and the crates by the wall were full of spare droid parts. The yellow starfighter model Anakin had designed and built (Obi-Wan pointedly realized the cruel irony that the eyes that now haunted him were Anakin’s favorite color) sat in front of the poster he had brought with him from Tatooine. The residual feeling of Anakin’s presence in the Force had faded from the room with time, but simply sitting in here reminded Obi-Wan so much of the nights he had sat by the bedside, stroking his Padawan’s hair as Anakin tried to cope with all the tremendous burdens that the universe had seen fit to place upon him.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and gathered his resolve. He would bring Anakin home. He would, and he didn’t care if it was the last thing he ever did.

Obi-Wan was let into Padmé’s regal apartment by Anakin’s old droid, C-3PO. He had gotten to know the thing quite well; Anakin had had the droid with him at the temple for a few weeks after Geonosis. It was fussy, worrisome, and somewhat irritating, but Obi-Wan had never complained. He knew how much Anakin had cared about the thing and upsetting his fragile, orphaned Padawan had not been something he had wanted to do. However, Obi-Wan had been extremely glad when Anakin and Padmé had done their droid exchange – at least R2-D2 had never tried to wait on him every minute of the day and was, ahem, useful .

“Good evening, Master Kenobi, it is such a pleasure to see you again,” the droid said to him now, ushering him in. “Mistress Padmé is in the other room, and I’m sure she will be most grateful to see you. Can I get you anything? Some tea or a drink, perhaps?”

“No thank you, Threepio,” Obi-Wan said, patting it on the shoulder and moving into the other room. When she saw him, Padmé jumped up and hugged him close.

Then she held him at arm’s length, looking him over. When she caught sight of the bruises on his neck and the swelling in his face, she pressed her lips together in a fine line. After a long moment, she said, “I’m sure you’ve been informed of this, but you look awful. What happened to you?”

He didn’t really know how to answer, and he didn’t really want to at all, so he said, “I have something to tell you.” He hoped this went better than the last two times he’d given this news.

She crossed her arms. “Good news or bad?”

He hesitated. “Both.”

There was a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow. He should be more in charge of his own emotions, but here he was standing before her, putting off revealing to her that her secret murdered husband had not, in fact, been murdered.

“Padmé...,” Obi-Wan trailed off. His voice was little more than a whisper. He put his hand on her arm. “Anakin is alive.”

He watched her face carefully, giving her time to digest his words. It was clear no digestion was happening. “What?”

“Anakin is still alive, Padmé.”

After a long moment of blankness, Obi-Wan watched as her expression turned hard. Ruthless, even. She backed away from him,  She stared at him like a vile sewer creature from below the planet’s surface.

“Why would you – what –” Padmé stammered, a pink flush rising in her face. He could feel her anger flare up and bite at him in the Force. “What is wrong with you?”

Obi-Wan tried to take a measured breath. “Padmé –”

She held up her hand to stop him. Her voice was cold when she said, “I have spent months, months, trying to reconcile with what I did, and now you think it’s all right to – force me into some sick fantasy of yours –” she heaved a heavy breath and let out a bitter laugh. “I really didn’t think you had it in you, Obi-Wan, but I guess I should have expected it. I mean, I got this treatment from Ahsoka and I guess you’ve finally snapped too. What are you trying to do, test me?”

A realization hit him that these emotions were not new to her – she had been burying them, suppressing them, and now Obi-Wan’s poor execution of this revelation had apparently lit the fuse.

“Am I not good enough for you, is that it? Am I not good enough to be married to your best friend? Is that it? Are you mad at me for taking your Padawan away from you?”

It was true, a little, or at least it had been in the past, but that didn’t matter right now. “Padmé, please –”

“Because you should be!” she yelled, and suddenly her face was twisted as if in pain and there were tears in her eyes. “You’re right! It’s my fault! Thanks for reminding me, Obi-Wan!”

“I’m not trying to trick you!” he said, perhaps a bit too forcefully, but her silence told him it must have had some effect. He took a few slow steps toward her and said, much more softly, “I’m not lying to you.”

She stared at him for a long time, trying to decipher something. Finally, Padmé said, “I saw him die.”

He took a steady breath. “And I just saw him alive.”

“Where?” she said. Humoring him.

If there was a way to say it that made her both believe him and reconcile with the truth, Obi-Wan would have liked for it to come to him now. Because no such inspiration came to him, there was no way to put it other than saying the simple truth. “He’s Vader.”

For a long time, Padmé stared at him, and then she crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, shaking her head continuously. “You want so hard to believe that he’s alive that you’ll believe anything. You’ve repressed your feelings so hard over this last year that now you’re making up stories about Anakin being a Sith assassin. Anything so that he’s alive, right? Am I right?”

Obi-Wan tried, and failed, to wrestle with the beast of impatience inside him. “Do I look like I fought with my own denial?” he snapped. He pointed to his neck. “These bruises are real, Padmé. They came from the mechanical hand that I watched him build. I touched him, I saw his lightsaber, it’s the same one. And his eyes –” He swallowed thickly. “His eyes are yellow now.”

He would never know which were the words that convinced her, but she did believe him now. He could see it shining in her own brown eyes. Still, she said, as if it were so simple, “He would never work for Dooku.”

“I don’t think he had any choice.” Obi-Wan looked at the floor. Anakin’s look of unrecognition flashed in is mind like a bolt of lightning. “He doesn’t remember anything. He’s been – brainwashed, or I don’t know what.”

There was a very long pause between them while they stared at each other, and when Padmé spoke again her voice was weak. “Anakin is alive.” He nodded.

Then, she grabbed his arms and her face broke into a disturbing and maniacal grin. “Anakin is alive!” She threw her arms around him and rocked him back and forth. “He’s not dead!”

He hesitantly maneuvered out of her embrace. “Padmé –”

“No!” she said, pressing her finger to his lips. “Shh, I know, I know, he’s been brainwashed, he’s a Sith, he’s a murderer, but Obi-Wan – he’s alive!” She threw her arms out like a playful child. Her shoulders shook with mirth and her breathless giggle was decidedly unsettling. “Just let me – just give me a moment, all right, because I – I can’t believe it! I can’t –”

She laughed and laughed and laughed and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure when the transition happened but then suddenly she was crying into her hand. “I can’t – I can’t –”

“Padmé...”

She was whimpering, “He doesn’t remember? What doesn’t he remember?”

“I’m not sure. Me, probably you, possibly everything. His own name.”

“He doesn’t remember his own name,” Padmé whispered back at him in disbelief. “Oh, sweetheart. Oh, no, Ani....” She reached behind her and collapsed backwards on her couch, sobbing. “The things they must have done to him. Oh, Anakin....” Obi-Wan just sat next to her and rubbed her back. He’d never seen her like this before – red-faced, smudged makeup, not in control at all – and he hoped he never would again.

Eventually, she said, “How did he look?”

It bothered him that he could hardly think of anything other than the color of Anakin’s eyes. “I didn’t have a lot of time to look. He was quite occupied with trying to kill me.”

“But how – how could you not know –”

“He can use the Force, but he’s absent from my sense of it. I wish I knew how.”

“What are we going to do?” Padmé whispered.

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m going to bring him home. I don’t know what I have to do. I don’t even care if I die trying. I am going to bring Anakin home.”

She sniffled, and said, “I’m coming with you.” Then she snapped, “And don’t try to stop me, because I’m the one who made this happen to him and nothing you say can change that.”

Eventually, Obi-Wan nodded. “Ahsoka and I are going to try to track him down. When we do, I’ll contact you.”

Padmé gave him a very small, hopeful smile and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

The late afternoon’s sunlight cast narrow beams through the blinds in Yoda’s private meditation chamber. Obi-Wan sat across from him, waiting patiently as Yoda communed with the Force, immersed deep within it in a way that Obi-Wan was sure he would never be able to emulate. Hundreds of years of practice and a high number of midi-chlorians gave Yoda an added advantage. Privately, Obi-Wan had always hoped that with practice Anakin, who’s Force potential dramatically exceeded even Yoda’s, would be able to find this level of connection. That dream had, with many others, died out months ago, but now there was a renewed chance that it could come true if the Jedi played their cards right.

Yoda opened his eyes slowly, his ears rising and falling with his breathing. “Looked much, I have, and found no trace of Skywalker. Gone he is from the Force.”

As Obi-Wan had expected. Well, at least they believed him now. “How is that possible? He still has access to it, I saw him use it.”

The Grand Master looked pensive. “Concealed himself he could have, in the dark side.”

“Can that be done?”

“An ancient technique of the dark side, it is. Learned it only from a Sith Lord, he could have.”

Obi-Wan leaned in. “The one thing he told me was that Dooku wasn’t his master. Do you think... Darth Sidious?”

“Likely it is.”

A determined frown etched itself on Obi-Wan’s face. “I must find him, Master.”

Yoda looked at him, his wizened face looking tired. It was a weakness he revealed only to other Council members, and barely even then. “And when you find him, what will you do? A servant of evil he has become.”

“We don’t know that he made that choice,” Obi-Wan assured him. “He doesn’t appear to remember a thing. Sidious could have given him no alternative.”

“Still, rejected the dark side, Skywalker could have. Gone down a dark path he has, and forever will it dominate his destiny.”

“I have to try to help him,” Obi-Wan said. Then he grimaced, and remembered the words every Padawan learned from Yoda at a young age. “No, not try. I will help him.”

“And if lost, Anakin is? Accept this possibility, you must, before you confront him again,” Yoda said, and remarkably there was a cadence of sympathy in his words. Yoda, Obi-Wan recalled, had always had a complicated relationship with Anakin. He had opposed Anakin’s introduction into the Order from the start, yet he had admired Anakin’s connection with the Force. He had never excused Anakin’s faults, but he had, Obi-Wan believed, had faith that one day Anakin might change the galaxy for the better.

Obi-Wan sighed and said, “The Force has always been with him. I do not believe he will be lost so easily.”

Yoda took a deep breath as he sunk back into meditation. “I hope right you are, Obi-Wan.”

Chapter Text

The uncomfortable feeling of lying on rocks...an ache in the back of his head...Vader groaned, and rolled onto his back. The Jedi was gone, he didn’t need to open his eyes to see that. Gingerly, he touched the scrape where his head had hit the rock wall – blood. Not much, but enough to sting. Great. Another head injury. That was sure to help.

He remembered. Anakin. That was what Kenobi had called him. When he recognized him. Oh no. When he recognized him.

Sidious was going to kill him.

How many times had Sidious said it? Vader was not to be recognized. A part of him sort of just wanted to lay here, maybe until some hungry predator came and devoured him. It would probably be less painful than whatever Sidious was going to do to him. Once he found out.

Vader shuddered, and sat up. He looked around. He called his mask and his lightsaber to him with the Force. The mask was dirty. He shook it off. Sat for a moment. Swallowed thickly.

I don’t want to fight you!

He didn’t understand. One moment, Kenobi was trying to fight him, then the mask comes off and he wasn’t? Who was Anakin? Okay, him, fine, but...well, it did sound familiar...

And Kenobi – in the Force, he had felt –

Like an old dream Vader had never had. Like a distant memory.

Slowly, taking as long as he possibly could, Vader stood. Put his mask on. Brushed dirt off his clothes.

Kenobi was alive. Vader hadn’t killed him. Kenobi knew who Vader was. Kenobi would tell the Jedi. Vader would have to tell Sidious.

Oh, he was afraid.

In the cockpit of his ship, Vader waited. A few minutes passed. Then, a hologram of Darth Sidious appeared. Vader got onto the floor and knelt.

Without any other words, Sidious said, “Kenobi is dead, then?”

Vader’s heart pounded in his chest. He felt sick. He might be sick. “No, Master. I failed.”

Sidious’s face twisted in anger. “And?”

“He recognized me, Master.” Vader’s voice was a whisper. He couldn’t seem to make it louder. He bowed. “Forgive me.”

“Sith do not forgive,” Sidious spat. “This is a critical error, Vader. One that may cost me my entire plan for the galaxy. You have made a foolish mistake with the most critical of targets, though I do not expect you to be able to understand that with your limited intelligence.”

Vader tried to keep his face even. That wasn’t fair – he wasn’t stupid, it was that his damn brain didn’t work. “Yes, Master.”

Sidious made a derisive noise and said, “You will return to Serenno. I will follow. Stay there until I have returned so that you avoid making any other stupid mistakes.”

The hologram cut off. Vader stayed where he was, kneeling. His jaw tightened. He wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t his fault, Kenobi had grabbed the mask with the Force.

Anakin, it’s me!

He put his fist to his head, hitting it lightly a few times. As if he could knock the memory out. Kenobi was manipulating him, yeah, that was it, because he was a Jedi and Jedi were power-hungry – what was it – hypocritical...somethings, who were waging war across the galaxy and slowly taking over.

Vader frowned in confusion. Wasn’t that what the Sith were doing, too?

This was bigger than him. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about anything. He especially didn’t want to go back.

But he had to. There was no where else to go.

Poke. Prod. Tap tap. Poke.

Every touch by the doctors on his bare skin felt more pronounced. The clinical smell of these rooms was too much. It felt like everything was closing in on him. He wished they would stop inspecting him like a science experiment.

Vader heard a doctor say, and it sounded like it was coming from a distance though really it was two meters away, “The subject is agitated. Breathing and heart rate too high, cognitive response limited. Should we proceed?”

He didn’t hear the answer. The subject. He wasn’t a subject. He was a person, with a name. Vader. Or Anakin, maybe.

“Affirmative, we will prepare him for Lord Sidious’s arrival. Standby.”

Vader kind of wanted to cry again. He didn’t do it, but he wanted to. He didn’t know why. Before all this, before Kenobi, he had been fine. Following orders, killing without a thought. Because that’s what he was. A killer. A subject. Nothing else.

They gave him back his clothes. His lightsaber was nowhere to be found. Taken, like they usually did. He wouldn’t have given it a thought, normally, but he did now. He dressed, ate the tasteless food they put before him, kept shaking. Why wouldn’t he stop shaking?

Then, someone pressed a hypospray to his neck and said, “Follow me.” He was going to do it anyway, probably, but a tall human male doctor grabbed his flesh arm firmly and led him. Vader stumbled a little, but they made it down a hall and then another and into a room. There was a small crowd of people in there, some checking monitors, some standing around a metal chair with straps and armrests and –

No – no –

strapped down, sobbing, pulling as hard as he could but it was no use, he had no strength, no access to the Force, nothing, please don’t take them away, stop stop stop stop stop stop please don’t no pain pain pain

Then he was back. It was fake. It was a memory. Just a memory. But actually, he realized, it was real, because they were about to do it again. He couldn’t move, instead they were moving him themselves, guiding him across the room and putting him into the seat, putting his arms in place. Vader was frozen, completely frozen, he was going to die wasn’t he, this machine had never killed him before but it was about to now, the terror in his body told him so, it was happening again no no no no no

“Please don’t,” he tried to whimper, but no sound came out. He remembered: Sith do not beg. But he wasn’t a Sith. He wasn’t. No no no no no

He pulled. He pulled and pulled. Or, at least, he tried – he couldn’t seem to move any of his muscles but it didn’t matter anyway, because he was strapped down, trapped. A doctor grabbed a fistful of Vader’s hair and forced his head back as another pulled the thing down over his head. Took hold of his jaw and forced the mouth guard between his teeth.

He struggled, to no avail because he still couldn’t move, he pulled and kicked and screamed and – wait.

Wait.

No. This wasn’t going to happen.

Because he had something he didn’t have last time.

The Force.

He could feel it. It was everywhere. It was waiting for him.

The machine turned on. He screamed. Electricity surged into his brain. He curled his metal hand into a fist, and squeezed. Pushed out with the Force. Something shattered, he didn’t know exactly what, but he heard sparking and smelled burning metal and the feed of electricity stopped as abruptly as it had started. He was disoriented, drained, but he gathered the Force and pulled pulled pulled with his mechanical arm on the restraint binding it to the armrest. The restraint creaked, and broke open. Someone came at him, and he swung his freed fist into their stomach, knocking them to the ground.

Again, Vader squeezed his metal fingers around an invisible ball. Ten Confederate doctors rose into the air from their necks. He twisted his wrist, and the Force twisted their necks.

No survivors.

He used the Force and his metal hand to pull up the restraint on his other wrist and pushed the thing off his head, pulled the mouth guard out. He heard the familiar buzz of electrostaffs, and looked up to see two MagnaGuards approaching. Another flick of the wrist sent them flying against opposite walls.

Vader stood, and fell. His head – or maybe the world – was spinning. He clutched at his head with his left hand, and got back up. There was no time to think, no time to stay. He needed to get out.

He walked, unsteady, through the door. Grabbed the opposite wall to keep from falling again. Wait, where was he? He couldn’t remember. That place – no, it didn’t look like that place. It looked like Dooku’s palace. On Serenno. Not that other place, wherever that had been. But the electro chair – why would the chair be here –

He walked, and walked, down corridors that he didn’t know, no destination in mind. Air, he wanted air. He wanted to breathe. He wanted to get out. He needed a ship. He had to get away.

A sharp pain laced through his chest, and he grunted. Ignore it, ignore it, keep walking. Get out.

He saw a door. It looked familiar, and Vader decided to hope that that familiarity was a gift from the Force, a message for where he needed to go next. He burst through it.

It wasn’t a gift. At least, not one from the Force itself, and definitely not for his benefit.

Sidious was here. Vader backed up against the wall and collapsed. Cowered. Shivered. Covered his face with his hands as if he could make Sidious go away by not seeing him, like a child with monsters under its bed. There was no point in pretending – he had never, it felt like, been this afraid in his entire life.

He couldn’t speak. He didn’t even try. He just sat there before Sidious, shaking and breathing in sharp gasps that offered no relief and waiting, waiting, waiting.

Finally, Sidious said, “I see you are trying to escape before you spoke to me.”

He didn’t know why he did it, but Vader was shaking his head. “No,” he stammered, but it was a lie and Sidious knew it.

“Kneel before me, Vader.”

Vader moved mechanically, crawling on his hands and knees to Sidious’s feet. He bowed his head, and his curly hair obscured the dusty hem of his master’s black robe. Nausea rose in his throat and he hoped he could keep it down. Sidious said, his voice low and dark and full of purpose, “You will learn what it means to fail a Sith.”

Nothing happened. Slowly, Vader looked up. He stared into Sidious’s yellow eyes for what felt like eternity.

Blue lightning burst from Sidious’s fingertips and hit Vader straight in the chest. The sound that ripped from his throat was rough and aching and long and loud, hurting just like the rest of him. It was fire, all over his body, there was smoke in his lungs, tears stinging in his eyes, he was on the ground, rolling or twitching back and forth as if he could put the fire out, can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe at all –

He didn’t know how long the pain lasted. Instead, he only knew when it was over. That pain – that was – unlike anything he’d ever felt. That pain...

“Get up.” It was Sidious’s voice, but it took Vader too long to register the meaning of the words, so Sidious barked an even harsher, “Get up, now.” Vader did, kneeling again, shaking, shaking, shaking. “Do you have something to say to me?”

Maybe. He didn’t remember. Did he? Yes. “Forgive me...” He said it slowly, stupidly, saying each syllable at a time. He couldn’t think, except about the pain. He was twitching. He still wanted to cry.

“You forgot something.”

Vader swallowed thickly. “Master.”

“Say it again.”

Vader bowed. “Master.”

Sidious’s voice was deathly cold. “What am I?”

“My master,” Vader said again. He hated it, hated Sidious, hated himself and life and everything, but his stupid feelings didn’t matter. Only the pain.

“That is correct. You are mine, and that you shall always be. Now stand up.”

He did. His knees wobbled, his head swam. It was a miracle his feet could support his weight.

Sidious said, “You will go and correct for your mistake. By now, Kenobi will have already informed the Jedi of your survival, which will hinder all the plans I have devised thus far. You will find Kenobi again, and this time you will kill him.”

“Yes, Master.”

The Sith gave handed him something. He took it without knowing immediately what it was – oh, his lightsaber. He’d forgotten he didn’t have it.

“I warn you, Vader,” Sidious said, “If you fail again, you will not escape my wrath. Now get out of my sight.”

He did. He still wobbled where he walked, he still didn’t know where he was going, and he was pretty sure he vomited somewhere along the way, but after what felt like forever he stumbled into the hangar bay and over to his ship.

Kenobi would die. Vader would make sure of it this time. Because if he didn’t....

Vader dragged the bodies of two dead Jedi toward the river by the collars of their tunics, his heart still racing from the rush of the kill. Their bodies smoldered where his blade had pierced them and they left trails of smoothed over grass in their wake. Good – that would lead the Jedi straight to him when they inevitably came to investigate these disappearances.

When he reached the river, he took a brief look at his victims. One, an Ithorian, looked shriveled and regretful in death. The other, a young human, had a thin plait of hair over one shoulder and his open eyes still held a firm determination. He heaved their bodies into the still river without a second thought and walked away as they were submerged in murky water.

He walked. He had nowhere to go, for now. It would be a while before the Jedi came looking for their own, but they would come. Somehow, he knew Kenobi would come.

I just want to talk to you!

After a while, he sat down on the grass. This planet – what was it called again? He had forgotten already – was cold, covered in windy grass plains and forests. He shivered, and considered going back to his ship for a while, but...well, where was his ship? He couldn’t really remember that, either.

That was probably going to be a problem.

He hit the ground with his fist. The electro chair. He had tried to fight it but it had still messed him up. The surprise Force lightning from his master hadn’t really helped, either.

It was so cold. Drawing his knees up to his chest, shaking his hair out of his eyes, he tried not to think about it. He wedged his freezing human fingers between his arm and his side, and looked up at the stars. The night was clear, and they twinkled for him. He wondered, for no discernable reason, how many of those stars had planets, and how many of those planets he had been to.

Anakin?

It was a name from a time long gone. He didn’t know how long. It was so familiar, somehow, but it still felt wrong. Part of him was certain that Kenobi had been mistaken. Even through months of torture and memory loss and humiliation, how could anyone forget their own name?

A tear slipped down his cheek, and then another and another. He pulled his mask off and the bitter wind stung his face. He lowered himself fully to the ground, and curled in on himself. He was crying, crying, like a frightened child, for what he was pretty sure was the first time since he’d lost all his memories to begin with. It wasn’t that he had anything against crying, at least not when he was alone. He didn’t. Instead, it was that he hadn’t felt the need to cry for the last few months. He hadn’t, he realized, really felt much of anything until now. Just pain. Humiliation. Weakness. More pain. Now, he felt everything. Still pain, but with sadness that felt so heavy it was like he was falling down an endless, pitch-black hole and he would never see the light again.

This was all Kenobi’s fault. Vader didn’t know how, but he knew that it was. If his master was this adamant that Kenobi die, then everything had to be linked back to him. Killing him would make everything easier. If it didn’t, Vader wouldn’t know what to do next.

He didn’t know how long he laid there, crying until the crying stopped and then crying again. He couldn’t see the stars anymore, his vision was too blurry from the tears and something else, a blotchy, distorted spot that wouldn’t go away even if he rubbed at his eyes. He knew what that meant, because he had gotten them too many times before. A migraine was coming. Terrific – exactly what he needed.

His ship. He wanted to find his ship. He wanted to be warm. His clothes were warm, but not warm enough. He looked around. There was a forest nearby. Maybe his ship was there.

He got up, and went looking, coughing and wiping tears off his cheeks. He shivered again. He hoped Kenobi would come soon, and that the migraine would be short. He wanted to go back to not feeling.

Chapter Text

Twist this lever. Connect those two wires. Check the power couplings. Yup, everything was all good. Nothing wrong with the ship’s engines whatsoever.

Of course, that should be a good thing. Well, it was a good thing. Except for a bored-slash-restless Togruta Padawan named Ahsoka Tano, who was trying very hard not to think about the fact that her formerly dead master might be somewhere on this planet and they were just sitting here waiting.

Of course, they were waiting for Padmé, which was a pretty good reason to wait (she still felt bad about how she had treated Padmé for those first few months – the senator really deserved better) but the waiting itself was what was driving Ahsoka mad.

The call had come a day ago. Two Jedi missing on some nowhere planet called Sharlissia. A little negotiating with the Council on Obi-Wan’s part and a call to Padmé later and here they were. Waiting. There was only a chance, of course, because a million and one things could have happened to the two missing Jedi – broken communications function, forced to go undercover, who even knew – but considering that ten other Jedi had been killed in a month or two, Ahsoka had to admit it was a pretty good chance that the perpetrator was Anakin.

She still couldn’t believe he was alive. Well, she did believe, because she believed Obi-Wan, but it seemed to good to be true.

Oh, hey. The Force itself must have heard her thoughts, because not a minute later an alarm went off and Ahsoka jumped out of the engine alcove before Obi-Wan even had the chance to tell her Padmé was here. She glanced at the console at the scan of Padmé’s Nubian yacht before she grabbed her cloak and ran down the exit ramp.

Okay, wow. She probably should have checked the weather report because wow it was cold on this planet. Not that there was a weather report for a planet that no one had ever heard of before. Point was, it was windy, bitterly cold, and really quiet.

Padmé appeared a moment later, pulling a warm-looking jacket over her bodysuit. “Is he here?”

“We’re not sure,” Obi-Wan said from behind Ahsoka, “But the Force is thick with the dark side, it would be easy for him to hide himself in it.”

“Well how are we going to find him if we have nothing to go on?”

“We will have to use our instincts.”

Padmé put her hands on her hips. “Listen, I trust you, but I personally need something a little more reassuring than that.”

Ahsoka closed her eyes while they jabbered. Feel for him...feel for him....

She didn’t feel him, but she felt something else. “I think we should go that way,” she said. They looked in the direction that she was pointing.

After a minute, Obi-Wan said, “Agreed.” Padmé made a slightly impatient movement before gesturing for them to lead the way.

Their instincts led them to a ship, crashed. A Jedi ship, Ahsoka realized, just like the one they had flown here. Shot down, scorching on the hull, transparisteel viewport cracked, wing torn off on impact. Trees were bent and broken. No sense of life in the Force.

“Stay here,” she said to her elders, and she jumped inside the ship. Used her extra spatial awareness and the yellow-green hue of her shoto to avoid injury. Jedi shuttles were small, with two or three rooms, and it didn’t take long to inspect. No survivors.

She climbed out and shook her head. Obi-Wan crossed his arms and touched his beard. Padmé looked at him and said, “It could have been a droid. This is a Separatist controlled world.”

“It’s possible,” Obi-Wan said, distant. He ignited his sabre and scanned the ground with his eyes. “There – footprints.”

Ahsoka saw them too. One humanoid, one web-shaped. She exhaled involuntarily – well, that matched the missing Jedi. Now where did they go?

They followed the tracks. Five minutes of walking. Ten. Twenty. They were on a flat, grassy plain now and the wind was even colder. She had a hard time imagining that someone like Anakin, who complained about the cold as much as he did, would hang around on a planet like this waiting for a Jedi to find him, but she couldn’t deny the Force felt a little more tense every fifty steps or so.

Abruptly, Obi-Wan stopped walking and looked at the ground. He heaved a deep sigh and said,  “They were killed here.” Ahsoka looked around, trying to figure out how he knew. Sure, the dark side was swelling in this spot in a maelstrom of energy, but she didn’t see any physical evidence of their deaths – or so she thought, before she looked at Master Kenobi’s hands and saw him holding two similar-looking lightsaber hilts. They shared a brief, solemn look of mourning for the dead Jedi before Ahsoka noticed something over his shoulder.

She pointed. “There.” There were two trails of smoothed-over grass, rustled by the wind but distinct still. They set off again, following the paths to a riverbank, and the trail ended.

“This is more like the work of an animal,” Padmé muttered.

Obi-Wan said, “Or a Sith.”

“So what now?” Padmé said, a hand on her hip. “I’ll grant you that this was probably him, but do we just wait here? What if he killed and ran?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “This is a trap. I’m certain of it.”

“Are you sure it’s –”

“It’s not wishful thinking,” he said quietly. “He’s here. He is going to come.”

Ahsoka frowned, and turned away from the river. Something was over there, she felt it. It didn’t feel like Anakin, she would know if it was him. Something else. Something calling to her.

She said, “I’m going to go over there and check something out. You stay here.”

Obi-Wan looked around and said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We should stay together.”

“It’s not him, Master,” Ahsoka said. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Plus, if we split up he’s more likely to appear, right?”

He glanced at Padmé and then said, obviously protesting, “All right, but stay in my sight. This isn’t safe.” Ahsoka waved him off. Stay in his sight? Yeah, it was sort of impossible not to on an endless plain like this one.

She walked, and walked. It was dark – if this planet had any moons, they weren’t out tonight. She glanced behind her – she could sense Obi-Wan and Padmé, but couldn’t see them anymore – too far away, or too dark, she couldn’t tell which. Oops. Oh well. Might as well keep walking ‘til she could tell what the disturbance was.

Another step, then another, and her foot kicked something hard. She looked down, and picked up whatever it was. A mask? In the low level of light, it looked black, and skeletal, and creepy and – oh no, Skyguy....

Ahsoka looked around, to no avail. Strange, the Force felt – wrong, somehow....

Her comm beeped. She rolled her eyes, and pressed the button. “I’m fine, Master.”

“I thought I asked you to stay in my sight.”

“Look, I’m coming back now, okay? I’ll turn my lightsaber on so you can see me if it’ll make you feel better.”

“But –” His sigh was audible over the comm. “Fine, but keep your senses open. And be careful. This is too dangerous.”

She smirked, and plucked her shoto off her belt with her dominant hand, igniting it. Briefly, she glanced down at the mask she was holding again. Even creepier in the suddenly eerie yellow-green light. She turned back to the riverbank. A second later, she heard a rustle of grass and felt the mask slip from her fingers as the Force pulled it away from her. Her chest constricted, and fear stabbed at her heart like a knife. Wide-eyed, she turned around.

The figure was distinct, but not their features. Their left arm was reaching out to grab the mask. Hesitantly, Ahsoka raised her shoto to bathe the figure in the blade’s light. Her jaw dropped open.

It was him. It was really, really him. In the flesh. Alive. His hair was a mess and his nose and cheeks looked pink like he’d been out in the cold too long and his irises really were yellow, just like on they had been on Mortis. His clothes were thick synth-leather and black and he stared at her with little interest in his eyes, silent and waiting and without even a tiny twinge of recognition. In the Force, it was like he wasn’t even there.

Through the comm, Obi-Wan’s voice said, “Ahsoka? What is it?”

Instead of responding, with her eyes never leaving Anakin’s shadowy face, she slowly lifted her left arm to her right hand and shut the commlink off.

“Please don’t make me fight you,” she said – pleaded – to Anakin. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he reached the mask up to his face and put it back on, then ignited his lightsaber, already in his hand. Red light illuminated the ground. A second later, Ahsoka’s sense of Obi-Wan was engulfed in a wild panic. One more second and Anakin moved at her, lightning fast.

She caught his lightsaber with hers, holding her shoto tight with both hands. He was strong as ever – insanely strong. The Force was pushing his blade down, even though she couldn’t feel his presence in it at all. Her eyes flicked momentarily up to his, hidden behind his mask. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t afraid – or, okay, terrified.

The Force pushing his blade down let up but his lightsaber was coming at her again from a different angle, then another, then another. She still had two hands on her shoto, he was moving so fast she didn’t have the time or window to grab her other saber with her dominant hand – problematic, because she knew as well as anyone that she wasn’t as good (anymore) with just one sabre.

She ducked, and tried to move away but his lightsaber blade was there, blocking her. No, she didn’t want to do this, she didn’t want to actually fight back because then she might hurt him by accident, or he could....but he really wasn’t giving her any other choice. Ooooh this was bad. This was so bad.

Behind her, finally, she heard the ignition of another lightsaber and a second later a flash of blue intercepted the red. She stumbled backwards as Obi-Wan took her spot, catching her breath as she flipped her shoto to her left hand and grabbed her regular lightsaber off her belt. Very briefly, Ahsoka glanced behind her and saw the dark, shadowy figure that was Padmé running toward them, then she looked back at Obi-Wan, holding his lightsaber in a taut defense against Anakin’s.

“Wait!” he shouted, as Anakin released his blade and swung it down and then up, where Obi-Wan caught it. “Please –”

Her heart pounding in her chest, Ahsoka approached them slowly, sabres crossed before her. Obi-Wan backed away, and Anakin flipped his lightsaber around his hand. Ahsoka said, “Please, we’re your friends!”

Anakin’s voice, except it wasn’t really Anakin’s voice but some filtered, altered version of it through the mask, muttered, “You’re my mission.”

He kept coming at them, flashing his lightsaber so fast it didn’t stay in the same place even for half a second. He was a powerful match, even for the both of them together, though Ahsoka had to admit it was easy to forget that it was Anakin under that creepy black mask, and he kept coming and coming with one hard strike from his sabre after another –

Something happened. It was so fast that Ahsoka couldn’t really keep track of what, exactly, but Anakin made some kind of clumsy move and Obi-Wan flipped Anakin’s lightsaber around in a circle so that it slipped from his mechanical fingers and fell to the ground, unignited. Obi-Wan pulled it into his left hand with the Force before Anakin could make another move.

The night was silent, other than the rustle of grass in the wind and the sound of Padmé’s running footsteps approaching. Anakin backed away from them, hunched over in the dual-colored light from their sabres like a feral animal, watching from behind the lenses of his mask.

“We’re going to talk to you,” Obi-Wan said carefully as Padmé ran up beside him, out of breath. “We just need you to hear us out –”

An invisible collar tightened itself around Ahsoka’s neck. She gasped, or at least she tried to, and dropped her shoto on the ground to bring a hand up to her neck reflexively. In the corner of her eye, she could see Obi-Wan do the same, and Padmé. Of course, of course they should have expected it, a Force-user like Anakin didn’t need a lightsaber to kill –

She felt herself lifted into the air, only a few centimeters but it was enough. She couldn’t breathe, she was suffocating, she was going to die like this, Anakin would be a Sith forever because they were all about to die and they were the only ones who could save him –

Then she went crashing to the ground, and her feet gave out from under her and she fell backwards, coughing and gasping for breath as Obi-Wan and Padmé did the same. Something hit her, something in the Force, a flash of terror and cold and horrible pain, hitting her like a fallen tree branch and then disappearing like it had never happened at all. She opened her eyes, not having realized they were closed, and sat up. Her cough sounded terrible, her hip and her back lekku hurt from falling on them so hard, and her head was swimming. The only light around her was blue, from Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. He was holding his throat with his free hand – the familiar, stolen lightsaber hilt had fallen on the ground – and he was staring at Anakin like his life depended on it so she did, too, igniting her own lightsaber again so she could see better. She hoped he wouldn’t take it as a threat.

Something was wrong with Anakin. He was on his knees now, his hands holding either side of his head, pressing against his temples, hunched over himself like he had been punched in the gut. A moment later, he wrenched the mask off his face and dropped it on the ground, gasping for breath. He had the most terrible, agonized look on his face.

Ahsoka looked sideways. Padmé was staggering to her feet so she did, too. Obi-Wan looked at them each in turn, mouthing, ‘Are you all right?’ Ahsoka nodded. Then, Obi-Wan cleared his throat and said to Anakin, his voice hoarse but audible and full of concern, “Are you hurt? Did we hurt you?”

Anakin didn’t answer. Ahsoka wasn’t even sure he recognized that the words were directed towards him. He wasn’t looking at them; he now had his right hand pressed firmly to his eyes while his left arm leaned against the ground for support. His breathing was loud, discernable over the hum of the two lightsabers and the occasional sound of wind, coming in gasps and then pausing for too long. Something wavered in the Force, a tiny whisper of pain, a blinking and tremoring candle of light that faded in and out. It was him, or her sense of him; Ahsoka could recognize Anakin in the Force any day, no matter how much time had passed.

Nobody spoke. Padmé shifted. With a sideways glance, Ahsoka saw her gripping her hands tightly in one another, though not in a way to keep warm. More like she wanted to reach out and touch Anakin, but had to physically restrain herself from doing so. Ahsoka’s eyes flicked to Obi-Wan, who appeared to be studying Anakin as if analyzing something.

Finally, Obi-Wan said softly, “Ahsoka, turn your lightsaber off.”

Her eyes widened. “What?!”

“Just do it,” he said impatiently, and deactivated his own. Hesitant, she complied, though she kept her hilt tight in her hand. The night was almost pitch-black now. Everything was shadowy and bluish and she could no longer clearly make out anyone’s face. Obi-Wan said to Anakin, “Is that better? Was it the light that bothered you?”

Ahsoka knew none of the humans could pick up on physical movement the way her montrals could, so she resolved to paying special attention to the space around her incase Anakin tried to pull something. She hoped he didn’t, but it didn’t seem likely, anyway. She felt and sort of saw him pull his hand away from his eyes and look up at them. He muttered, “I don’t need your help,” and Ahsoka had to bite her lip hard to stop a sudden fit of tears from falling – she had never, it felt like, heard anything as wonderful as the sound of his voice right here and now. She missed him so so so much.

“You don’t have to need it,” Obi-Wan said in the gentle voice of a Master reaching out to their Padawan in comfort. “You just have to accept it.”

A tiny sliver of something like nausea slid across Ahsoka’s old bond with Anakin as he stumbled to his feet, one hand gripping his knee to stay upright. In a strained voice, he said, “What do you want from me?”

“To just give us some time to talk to you,” Obi-Wan said carefully. “That’s all. Why – why don’t we introduce ourselves to you?” He glanced sideways, and Padmé took a tiny step forward.

“My name is Padmé,” she said, and her voice sounded strained and quaky like she could barely choke the words out. “I’m not a Jedi, I’m a senator from the planet Naboo, and...well, I’m your wife.”

Ahsoka’s head snapped to the right. Wait, what? Huh? Excuse – why did someone forget to tell Ahsoka that piece of information? It seemed a little too important to overlook here, and –

Obi-Wan interrupted her thoughts, saying, “I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi, though you probably know that by now. I was the one who trained you to be a Jedi, ever since you were a child, and I think I would be right to call myself your best friend.”

Ahsoka cleared her throat. “And I’m Ahsoka Tano,” she said, suddenly remembering back to Christophsis, a shiny youngling shipped out to a master who didn’t want her. “I was your Padawan learner – your Jedi apprentice. And your friend.”

Something else was wrapping around her sense of him in the Force, stronger this time, an ache behind her right eye and spreading throughout her head. Her heartbeat picked up its pace and she felt something swell in her chest, a cold sense of fear that wavered, like a holo that kept flickering in and out or a dying ship’s engine. She shivered involuntarily and rubbed her arms with her hands to warm herself up. Then, to distract herself from the discomfort, Ahsoka continued, “And you’re Anakin Skywalker. You were a Jedi Knight, and a general in the Clone War.”

“It’s all right if you don’t remember, that doesn’t matter to us,” Padmé said gently, though Ahsoka was sure all three of them knew that was a lie. Of course it mattered. How could it not? “What really matters is that we want to keep the Sith far away from you.”

“We want to give you the freedom to make your own decisions from now on,” Obi-Wan added. “You don’t need to follow the Sith’s orders anymore if you don’t want to. Whatever you want to do is up to you.”

Barely, Ahsoka could see Anakin shaking his head. “No,” he whispered. He was shivering, she could feel it now, he was so cold, cold cold cold, freezing, but still she found herself sweating under her robes with anxiety that mostly wasn’t her own. Just barely, she thought she saw a tear stream down his cheek, but she couldn’t tell for sure. She had never in her entire life felt anyone this scared.

She could tell Obi-Wan felt it, too, because when he spoke again his voice was especially shaky. “Please, Anakin, just hear us out. We don’t know what the Sith have done to you and you certainly don’t have to tell us, but you don’t have to serve them anymore. We’re giving you a way out. If you come with us, they won’t be able to hurt you.”

Anakin shook his head more violently, and the wind blew his hair into his face. “You don’t know...what he’s capable of,” he uttered, his voice cracking from emotion and trembling from the cold. Ahsoka wondered if he meant Dooku or...the other Sith. “If I don’t kill you, he’ll get me, I don’t know how but he’ll find me, somehow he’ll find me and....”

“He won’t,” Padmé said, wedging her fingers between her side and her opposite arms and squirming as the wind blew even harder. “Really, we can keep you safe. It’s going to be okay from now on, Ani. We’re here now, and it’s going to be okay.”

He cried out something that sounded like a sob, cradling the sides of his head in his hands as if trying to keep the pieces of his skull together. Ahsoka took a step closer. “You deserve so much better than this, Skyguy,” she said, mirroring Padmé’s use of nicknames, hoping it would have some effect. “We owe this to you. Even if you don’t remember, you’ve saved all of our lives time and time again. You’ve been protecting us and saving us from danger ever since we all met you.”

“And now it’s our turn to keep you safe instead,” Obi-Wan said.

Padmé added, pleading, “Please, Anakin –”

“Stop calling me that!” Anakin near-yelled suddenly, and for a second Ahsoka thought the earth beneath her feet shook but then she realized he had released a pulse wave of Force energy strong enough to nearly knock them down. He let out an agonized cry and then a blast of pain, stronger than any before, hit Ahsoka like a slap in the face, concentrated in her head, pounding to the beat of a drum. An involuntary groan escaped her. Her vision went fuzzy, but it passed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m sorry,” Padmé said breathlessly, and in her montrals Ahsoka felt Padmé reach out her hands towards him. Ahsoka peeked her eyes open, having closed them at some point, and everything was falling to pieces before her. Beside her, Obi-Wan was leaning over like the gravity was on too high, his free hand holding his knee to keep him upright. Anakin was kneeling on the ground again, his arms wrapped around himself, shaking, shaking, shaking, and she could hear his sharp breathing even over the sound of the blood rushing through her head.

Padmé, oblivious to the pain in the Force but aware that something was terribly wrong, was saying, “We just want to give you a home. Please, just think about that. A home.” She took a steadying breath. “Home. Where you can be with the people who love you, and who will keep you safe. Please, sweetheart, please....”

Another splitting pain shot into Ahsoka’s head. She heard a voice, but couldn’t understand it, couldn’t concentrate on anything, everything was just pain and fear and Anakin – no, Vader – no, Anakin – a thought hit her, something about lightning, death, coldness, she was so cold, she was so scared, she had never been this scared, she had to kill them, if she didn’t she would die, she was going to die, die of cold or lightning or the splitting pain in her head, she was going to die die die die die....

“Ahsoka,” a voice said, feminine, familiar-ish. “Ahsoka, are you okay?”

She opened her eyes. She saw stars. Real stars, twinkling in the sky. There were two people on the sides of her vision. One of them put a hand on her shoulder.

“Ahsoka?” a different voice said, masculine. She flicked her eyes between the two people. It was dark, but – oh yeah, the Force. The Force told her it was Obi-Wan and Padmé.

No Anakin.

“What happened?” she asked no one in particular. Her voice was still hoarse from the cold and the choking.

Padmé said softly, “After you passed out, Ani sort of jumped and stared at you and started backing away, and I tried to talk to him but he kept saying ‘Leave me alone’ over and over. Then he grabbed his lightsaber, turned around, and ran towards the forest.”

A wave of emotion seemed to come out of nowhere, and Ahsoka felt her eyes fill up with tears. “He was so scared,” she whispered. She looked at Obi-Wan. “Did you feel it?” Obi-Wan nodded, and didn’t say anything. In the Force, tension and worry seeped through the unstable cracks in his self-defense. His grip on her shoulder was comforting but firm.

Padmé helped her sit up, and ran a few fingers down Ahsoka’s back headtail. “It’ll be okay, Ahsoka.”

She was crying now, she couldn’t help it. She shook her head in response to what Padmé had said. Residual emotions from Anakin, maybe, she didn’t know, but these feelings were real, and she couldn’t stop them. “What if he dies again?”

“He won’t,” Padmé said, soothing, but Ahsoka could feel the worry in her plain as day. “Because we’re going to go after him, if you’re up to it.”

Ahsoka took a deep breath. She wasn’t, really, but she also wasn’t going to let him go. Not now, not when they were so close, and not when he was in so much pain. She wiped the tears off her cheeks, though they kept falling down, and nodded. They looked at Obi-Wan, who said distantly, “Agreed.”

Padmé hooked her arm through Ahsoka’s and helped pull her to her feet. Obi-Wan handed over her lightsabers. “He went in that direction,” Padmé said, and Ahsoka let herself be tugged along as the senator led the way.

She didn’t know what was going to happen next. She didn’t know if she wanted to know. But she did know that something dark was coming, something that blanketed the Force with a sheet of tension, and she knew that they needed to find Anakin now, or else....

Chapter Text

Step over that tree root. Duck under that low-hanging branch. Walk. Don’t trip, don’t fall, don’t die, don’t forget to breathe, keep walking.

If there was one single, individual thing that Vader – Anakin – Vader – regretted most in his entire six plus months of memory, it had to be this.

They had been so kind. So warm, somehow, even in this cold freezing frigid hell-planet. Honestly, it was probably only just barely below freezing, and his clothes were designed to sustain him in temperatures like this for a certain period of time, but the truth was he no idea how long he had been on this planet, no idea what this planet was even called, and no idea what destination he’d had in mind when he had run off in the first place.

it’s our turn to keep you safe

you deserve so much better than this

you can be with the people who love you

His head hurt so bad.

Take another step. Another. One more. Now keep going, just like that. It’s fine. It’s all right. Everything is okay. A woman’s voice in his head was saying, we’re here now, and it’s going to be okay.

Why had he left them? Well, the fact that that girl had passed out because his migraine had somehow been transferred over to her through a psychic connection he didn’t even know they’d had was a pretty big reason. Because if he couldn’t stop hurting Jedi, and civilians, and the people who loved him then he wouldn’t ever be able to stop hurting anyone and it was probably just better that he be alone for the rest of his life.

Home, they had said. Home. The people who loved him. They loved him. Why...why would they.... A sob escaped him, and the spike of pain that went straight through his brain stopped the thought from reaching conclusion. Pain pain pain pain –

He tripped over a root in the ground, but instinct brought his right hand to a tree branch and he grabbed it to keep from falling. His vision blurred, then cleared up, then blurred again. A moment later he was on the ground, though he didn’t remember when that might have happened, and he opened his eyes to the taste of vomit in the back of his throat and blood in his mouth. His muscles ached more than they had before, his limbs were too heavy to lift. Each breath felt like a stab in his throat and his lungs. His head pounded relentlessly. He couldn’t move. Even if he could have, he probably wouldn’t have wanted to. He’d never been this cold in all his life.

He was going to die here. It wasn’t really a wish, or a premonition, or anything at all. Just a feeling, worked out logically because if he couldn’t talk or stand or move, there was really no way he would survive out here. It was just the truth. The eventual conclusion to these circumstances. Vader took a deep breath and felt the cold air bite at his lungs, but his face was half-pressed into the dirt and he could taste the sourness of it in his mouth along with the vomit-y taste. He felt his heart beating like a drum against his chest. His metal arm was positioned uncomfortably under his side but he couldn’t find it in him to move even an inch.

He closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep. It didn’t work. He didn’t know how long he lay there, aching and sad and too tired to be afraid anymore, and he didn’t know how much time had passed before he heard something over the rushing sound in his head. It might have been close, or far away, but it was – the clanking of battle droids, he would know that sound anywhere. His heart seemed to squeeze in a nauseating flutter of panic. They found him, Force no the Confederate army found him, how did they find him? He had come to this planet alone, right? Not that he knew where this planet was. Maybe they were just patrols or scouts. They had to be, please they had to be because he couldn’t ever, ever go back to Sidious and his lightning and his evil laugh ever again, please please please –

Pass by, pass by, please don’t come over here, just keep going –

“Sir, humanoid life signs are coming from that direction.” The call came from the metallic, nasally-sounding vocal generator of one of the droids. Vader opened his eyes just barely and could see white lights illuminating the forest around them, disappearing and reappearing momentarily as the scouts slipped behind trees and bushes. There was still time, he thought, if he could get up now maybe he could still get away. Or, he could have anyway, if his arm and legs weren’t numb and if he had any energy or will at all. He let out a shaky breath, felt another tear slip out of his eye, and surrendered himself to fate.

It found him a moment later. “There he is! Get the medic over here!” Another few moments, and Vader felt rather than heard or saw two sets of footsteps, sentient, approaching him in a run, then kneeling down beside him. He heard the beeps of a portable medical scanner above him and felt two fingers press against the pulse at his neck. He opened his eyes again, but his vision was still blurry.

“No major injuries, core temperature thirty degrees, heart and breathing rate slowed,” one of them said. “He’s hypothermic, and it’s severe. He’s been out here too long. Postictal, too.” Vader heard him whistle at one of the droids. “Get me the medical capsule right now!”

The other person said, “Post – what?”

“Means he had a seizure not too long ago.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because I’m a doctor, you’re not, and I’ve seen him like this half a dozen times. Good enough?” The second snorted, and the first said, “Now help me get him onto the capsule, and try not to rustle him too much. I’d rather not have Lord Sidious’s most prized possession go into cardiac arrest before he gets back.”

Vader felt something swell in his chest, a thought of I am not his possession and a half-hearted urge to kill these people with his bare hands, but he had no energy even to want to try. He barely felt two sets of hands turn him over and hoist him onto something hard. His eyes closed against the blinding lights above him as a mask breathing warm oxygen into his lungs was fit around his nose and mouth. The capsule he was lying on radiated artificially-generated heat but he was still shivering.

The non-medical personnel’s voice said, “You – scan for life signs around this area.” Then he said, quieter so it must have been to the doctor, “Wait – isn’t he supposed to be on meds for that?”

“Yeah, but he’s been away too long and can’t take them himself, we do it via hypo back at the lab.”

“Will he make it back?”

“It’ll be our heads if he doesn’t.”

Vader registered a sting of nervous anticipation in the Force, not his own. “Well, then, let’s go.”

“Right – move out.”

He felt the medical capsule he lay on being turned around and pushed forward. Even through his eyelids, the flashing bright lights added to the stinging behind Vader’s eyes and the pounding on one side of his skull. Still shivering. Still aching. Still too tired to move. Everything was silent besides the footsteps of droids and walkers and two humans and the crack of tree branches beneath their feet and the rustle of wind in the foliage. Then –

“Sir, my sensors are detecting several humanoid life forms approaching from that direction.”

“How many?” a sentient voice demanded.

“Three, sir.”

“Damn – open fire on that area, wide range.”

“Roger, roger.”

The sound of blasters firing by the dozen sent a bolt of panic lacing through Vader, constricting in his chest. A few seconds later, he heard the ignition of a lightsaber, then two more, and his aching head instinctively snapped toward the direction where the sound had come from. Something snapped within him, a racing thought of please don’t let them take me back to Sidious don’t let them please help me help don’t let them take me back –

Vader forced his eyes open. Despite the whine that he couldn’t stop escaping from him, he raised his head an inch, then another, over the low side of the capsule and in the direction where he saw flashes off light, bursts of red and waving flashes of green and blue....

His eyes squeezed shut again and he collapsed back. He tried to make a noise, as if the Jedi would even be able to hear him, the lights hurt so bad, Vader took a deep breath and with an ache throughout his whole body pushed out a thought of help me that any trained Force-sensitive in the area would have picked up on.

A voice that sounded like it was coming from down a long tunnel said, “Dammit, pass me that sedative hypo, he’s agitated –”

Vader was too tired to resist. He felt the cold metal of the hypo press against his neck. A few seconds later, everything was fuzzy, like the world around him was vibrating, he felt numb all over, even if he had energy he wouldn’t have been able to move....

Everything was black. He couldn’t even see the blinding lights through his eyelids anymore. There was a quiet, muted jolt in the Force, a flash of pain, a burning sensation and then....

When Vader woke up to the hardness of metal beneath him and the vibrating thrum of a hyperdrive, he figured out almost immediately where he was. A Confederate cruiser. Well, that wasn’t unusual. Then, a moment later, when he registered the complete inability to feel the Force around him and noticed that his wrists were shackled together by stun cuffs, he put the rest of the pieces together.

They had lost. Those people, his...whoever they were to him...they had lost... they had failed to keep him safe like they had promised.... Well, he had told them, hadn’t he? And he hadn’t really expected anything more. Sidious took what he wanted, as always. No negotiations. No mercy. No notion of safety could ever exist while the Sith were at large.

He hoped, inexplicably, that the others were okay. His Jedi Master and his Jedi apprentice and his wife.

He didn’t expect to ever find out.

Through the black halls of Tyranus’s Serenno palace, Vader walked. His hands were in cuffs, an armed escort of droids and doctors surrounding him as if they expected an escape attempt. As if they thought he would even try when the Force was so absent that he felt like a ghost. They knew just as well as he did that no escape attempt could ever work. He was powerless.

They halted, and a door opened. Vader looked inside and felt his heart pick up its pace, his lower lip trembling like he was still hypothermic, his throat swelling. A droid nudged the tip of its blaster into his back and he went into the room. Two firm pairs of hands grabbed either of his arms to restrain him while a doctor undid the cuffs, then they pulled off his combat jacket and forced him down into the electro-chair where the metal restraints activated over his forearms. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down to stop his trembling lip and let the doctors do their work, putting the heart monitor onto his finger, the electrodes to his chest, the IV in his arm.

He waited, and waited, shaking while the noises of working medics shuffled around him, activating the machinery that would take it all away again. Maybe, Vader tried to tell himself, maybe it would be better when it was over. When his memories were burned out of his head.  Life had been so much simpler barely a week or two ago.

The main door to the room hissed open. He knew immediately who it was from the hush that came over everyone else in the room. His shaking got worse, and he felt so nauseous he might throw up on the spot. Sidious approached, then stopped before him, and Vader looked up into his yellow eyes.

“You have been a great disappointment to me, Vader,” he said, quiet and menacing. “You disgrace the Sith and your own Force potential, and you inconvenience me by repeatedly necessitating my return. You are weak.”

There were a lot of things Vader could have, and maybe would have, said, if he’d had the guts. You kidnapped me, was one. You took everything from me, another. Instead, what he said was, “I’ll kill him for you...the Jedi, I – I’ll kill him this time....”

“Kenobi is no longer your concern,” Sidious said, brushing him off. “He and his companions were killed by the troops that I sent to find you. When you have been reconditioned, you will continue your work as if Kenobi had never existed.”

Suddenly, Vader remembered: a jolt of pain in the Force right before he had passed out on that medcapsule...but no, they couldn’t be dead, a few droids couldn’t kill two Jedi...Sidious had always lied to him...but what if this time he was telling the truth.... His heart hurt, worse than he even knew it possibly could. He sputtered, “But Master...they knew me....”

Sidious scowled, and gestured at the doctor standing nearest the chair. “Quiet him.”

Vader shook his head desperately, felt himself choking up. “No, no, they knew me, Master, they said that I knew them, too, they – they knew me – no, please –” But the doctor was already grabbing his chin and forced the bite guard between his teeth. Vader let his eyes squeeze shut as a sob wracked his whole body, then another and another.

“I don’t know how many times I shall have to repeat myself,” Sidious said coldly, “That Sith do not beg.” With the last word, blue lightning shot from his fingertips straight into Vader’s chest, then his legs, and his arms, and his head. It poured through him and over him and under, it ignited in his veins so they felt like he had lava inside him instead of blood. Fastened to the chair by his arms, he seized and shook and screamed until he couldn’t take it anymore and then longer still.

The lightning stopped. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see anything. He was breathing in gasps that offered no relief. He twitched against the restraints, his muscles jerking of their own accord. He could smell smoke, probably rising off his own skin or maybe his clothes. A moment later the lightning had started again even worse, or maybe it wasn’t worse, it might have just felt like it because the pain was building building everywhere in Vader’s body, or Anakin’s body, or whoever he was, there wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t feel like it was on fire –

He couldn’t remember when it stopped. He didn’t know if it had been an hour ago, or ten seconds, but somewhere off to the side a heart monitor was going wild. Sidious was talking again, his voice sounded muted and muffled but Vader was pretty sure that that was just him.

“I do not have time to continue returning here every time you make a stupid mistake,” he said. “There are many greater things than you in this galaxy that require my attention, and I tire of fixing your errors. From now on, Lord Tyranus will oversee your reconditioning, and when you return to the field you will be accompanied at all times by trained handlers to make sure you obey all orders. I will not have you make such grievous mistakes again.”

Then, Sidious turned to the side and said, “Wipe him.”

A nervous voice answered him, “My lord, with so many repeated shocks there is some risk –”

“I said, do it.”

“As you wish, sir.”

It hurt even worse than it ever had, and when Vader woke up later he found that he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened in the last few days.

Life went on, though it seemed to stay still. The Force was coming back bit by bit, getting brighter and brighter like the individual minutes of a sunrise. Tyranus, in his own words, had been ‘delegated the task of overseeing the restoration of Vader to a condition in which he could continue the Sith’s work.’ Vader was, despite both Tyranus’s and Sidious’s frequently voiced observations, smart enough to figure out that that meant ‘fix the broken Sith weapon so he can kill more Jedi so that we don’t have to do it ourselves.’

Every minute of every day his joints and his head seemed to be aching so intensely he was sometimes sure his bones were about to crumble and break apart. Maybe that was why this whole ‘recovery’ thing (personally, Vader didn’t feel that torturing someone into submission exactly constituted recovery, but he was apparently the sole minority on that account) was going so poorly. And it wasn’t like he could just tell them about the shooting pains that zipped through his body when he tried to sit or stand because they slapped him or beat him every time he tried to talk. And, even if they had let him talk then he wouldn’t even have been able to explain why he just didn’t have the strength to lift a spoon to his mouth three times a day when they put food before him, but he thought it might have been because simply existing took all the energy he had to expend. So it was that they hooked him up to an IV and threaded a feeding tube into him and left him there feeling as if he were part of a machine, and worth just as little as one.

The electro-chair treatment didn’t stop. As always, it had him shaking and anxious beforehand and dazed and confused afterwards. He didn’t fight it, not anymore, but he did always seem to end up crying to himself while expressionless doctors treated him like an animal at the vet. And Vader tried, he tried so hard, to figure out why the situation he was in now was different from before, because there was just something about the way everyone acted that struck him as odd, but he just couldn’t remember what it was. Still, a small part of him, immeasurably small, was grateful for the treatment. Whenever it ended, they would bring him back to his room and just have him sit still, or lie down, doing nothing. It was the only time when nothing was expected of him, when he could just...be.

Always, though, there was something on the edge of his mind, something he was sure hadn’t been there before. A memory, maybe, or a feeling, or the memory of a feeling. Something warm, like a beacon on a foggy night leading him to safety. Something cold, too, the fear of losing everything he had. And there was a name on his mind, one he couldn’t ever seem to stop thinking about, one that he was inexplicably sure was actually his, from a time that was either very long ago or surprisingly recent.

Anakin....

Chapter Text

By the time they had destroyed the last of the droids, the lights of the Separatist convoy had already faded into the dense blackness of the forest. In the corner of her eye, Ahsoka saw Obi-Wan kick at the ground in an uncharacteristic show of fury. “Blast!”

Though she was still shaking, she wheeled around to him and Padmé. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she exclaimed. “We can still catch them, come on!”

“It’s too late,” Obi-Wan said, his voice low and devoid of hope. He was facing away from them, his palm against the trunk of a tree, shoulders slumped and head bowed. “They’re gone.”

Ahsoka felt her hand clench around both her sabre hilts. “Are you crazy? He called out to us to help him, and that’s what we need to do!”

Padmé’s head snapped up. “What?”

Obi-Wan wheeled around. Unrestrained irritation bit at Ahsoka in the Force. “Do you think I didn’t sense it? Because I did, Ahsoka. But what I’ve also realized is that there is probably an entire battalion of droids waiting for us to follow them to their ship where they can either kill us or capture us, and I’m not particularly keen to let the Sith do to us what he did to Anakin.”

Padmé said again, “What do you mean he called out to us?”

“So you’re just giving him up?” Ahsoka near-yelled at Obi-Wan, pointing in the direction the Separatists had fled. “We can take them! We at least have to try!”

Obi-Wan snapped, “We can’t save Anakin if we’re all dead!”

“Do you think if it was one of us, Anakin would just let us be taken back to Sith headquarters? Oh, right – you don’t know what Anakin would do because he’s in the hands of the Separatists right now!”

“Excuse me!” Padmé said. She was sitting on a fallen log, her palm pressing down on the blaster wound in her shoulder. “Some people aren’t Force sensitive and would like to know what exactly my husband called out to us.”

Obi-Wan exhaled sharply. “He asked for us to help him, that’s all.” He looked back at Ahsoka, who felt her teeth grind together. He was speaking in that eerily calm tone he used when he was upset. “And as much as I would absolutely love to do that, it is no longer possible for us to do so. It is too dangerous.”

“I don’t care!” Ahsoka shouted. “I’m not letting them take him back! I’m going after him, and if you won’t come then I guess I’ll do it alone!”

The last thing she saw before she turned around was Obi-Wan and Padmé exchanging a startled glance. She still had her lightsabers unignited in her hands when she started off, but within a few seconds she heard running footsteps and a moment later, Obi-Wan and Padmé had reached her and grabbed her arms to stop her.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Obi-Wan said chillingly. “I said it’s too dangerous.”

Padmé’s voice as a little warmer, but still reminded Ahsoka of the strict crèche masters at the temple. “I am not going to lose you to.”

She tried to wrestle them off, but they were too firm. “I don’t care! I’m not leaving him!”

“Do you think you’re the only one who cares about him?” Obi-Wan said harshly, letting go of her arm and stepping in front of her to block her path. Padmé’s grip loosened but stayed still. “Do you think you’re the only one of us who’s lost someone important to them?”

Anger was swelling inside her now, and she snapped, “It’s not the same!”

In the Force, Padmé felt hurt. “How is it not the same?”

“Because!” Ahsoka exclaimed. “You’re only with him when he’s on Coruscant! I was with him all the time!” She looked at Master Kenobi. “And you’re on the Jedi Council! You’re supposed to be above things like feelings!”

Obi-Wan’s jaw visibly tightened. “Well, forgive me for not being perfect.”

Padmé said, “This is not about who knew him the best or who was with him the most. Ahsoka, I want to go find him just as much as you do, but Obi-Wan is right – we can’t save him if we’re dead or captured.”

Tears that were both sad and angry swelled in Ahsoka’s eyes. “But we might not ever see him again.”

“We will,” Obi-Wan said, his voice softer now, but unsure in its confidence. “He’s too powerful for the Sith to dispose of him like they did Ventress. I’m certain they’ll send him back out against the Jedi.”

“Yeah, after he’s been brainwashed again!”

“There’s nothing we can do, Ahsoka,” Padmé said. “It’s too late.”

There were a thousand million things she could have said, but even a dozen insults and pleas and fits wouldn’t change the fact that they were right. Glumly, she nodded. Padmé squeezed her hand once and then walked back over to sit on the fallen log, wincing every time she moved her arm. Obi-Wan wrapped his cloak around himself, and Ahsoka kicked at the ground.

After a pause, Ahsoka said, “How could they have known where he was, anyway?” The Separatists had gotten there too soon to be reinforcements, and they had known his location too precisely. How....

Obi-Wan answered, sounding tired and worn out. “They probably implanted him with a tracking chip.”

“Like he had when he was a slave,” Padmé added quietly.

Ahsoka whipped around. “Wait, what? When he was a slave?”

Padmé and Obi-Wan glanced at each other, then at her. “Anakin was born into slavery,” Obi-Wan said. He sounded more bitter and scornful than Ahsoka had ever heard him. “Bought and sold in the markets on Tatooine, as if he and his mother were imported goods.”

“Outer Rim slaves are implanted with chips that detonate if they try to escape,” Padmé supplemented, almost dreamily.

“Let’s hope the Sith value his life more than the Hutts did,” Obi-Wan murmured.

Ahsoka let herself collapse against a tree. Numbing sadness seemed to fill all her veins and arteries and muscle tissue. Anakin’s voice seemed to echo through her mind, saying of his past, I don’t want to talk about it. Slavery, on Tatooine...marriage, to Padmé...there were a lot of things her master hadn’t wanted to tell his Padawan. She wished she knew what they all were. Though, she realized suddenly, she probably now knew more about Anakin’s life than Anakin did, at present, and that wasn’t a very comforting thought.

Obi-Wan let out a final, heavy sigh and said to Padmé, “Do you think you’re up to heading back?” She nodded, wincing again as she stood, and with a reluctant glance over her shoulder, Ahsoka followed.

They’d hardly been back for ten minutes in the blasting artificial heat of the Nubian yacht when the call came. Padmé’s head snapped to attention and she activated the communications. A moment later, the flickering blue figure of Bail Organa appeared. He looked immensely relieved to see them. “At last! I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where are you?” Then he glanced around, saw Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, and added, “Getting into trouble again, I suppose.”

Padmé, in a somber tone that betrayed the toying smile on her face, said, “Did I miss it?”

“Only the appeals,” said Senator Organa. He had a look on his face that Ahsoka had never seen before, one of disappointment that he seemed to try to hide. “The vote is in two days. There’s still time. Not much, but we can still make an impact. We’ve been working nonstop.”

Padmé bit her lip. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll be there soon,” and she shut the comm off. Then, she leaned all the way back in her seat and let out a heavy breath.

“What was that about?” Ahsoka asked.

“There’s an upcoming vote on whether the Republic should make serious attempts at peace with the Separatists,” Padmé said, speaking too gloomily about something that normally would have her the opposite.

“But that’s great,” Ahsoka said, leaning forward. “That’s what you’ve been trying to do for years!”

“I know.”

Ahsoka glanced at Obi-Wan, who wasn’t looking at either of them, then back at Padmé. “Come on, I’m sure you can still convince some undecided voters!”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try,” Padmé said, her voice utterly devoid of hope. As miserable as Ahsoka felt, as gray as everything seemed, the way Padmé sounded so unsure of anything was so...wrong. Ahsoka wished she knew how she could help.

“Then you should be going back,” Obi-Wan said, standing abruptly and heading out of the cockpit. His voice sounded strained and he still avoided eye contact. Ahsoka stood as well and started to follow him, but he put his hand out and said, “Why don’t you go back with Padmé, Ahsoka? Her ship is much more comfortable.” Which, Ahsoka knew, translated from Obi-Wan into Basic as, I want to be alone.

“Wait!” Padmé cried after him, seeming to snap back into her usual self. “You’re not going to try to follow them, are you?”

Finally, he looked at them, though his eyes were distant. “There’s nothing to follow,” he said. “They’ll be halfway through hyperspace by now. We’ve missed our chance.”

Obi-Wan went back to the Jedi shuttle, and as Padmé warmed up her yacht’s engines they watched the other ship rise and depart from their complete and utter failure of a visit to this planet. A few minutes later, they were in hyperspace, en route to Coruscant.

Ahsoka pointed over to the other room with her thumb. “Come on, let me have a look at that wound.”

Padmé touched her shoulder and appeared to wince. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”

Ahsoka put her hands on her hips. “I’m the one who fights in the war, Senator, I think I know when a blaster wound is ‘fine’ or not.”

The senator smiled tiredly and led the way to the back. Briefly, she went into her private room and changed, coming back out into the open space in a casual sleeveless shirt. Ahsoka peeled away the towel Padmé had pressed to the wound and let herself frown. It wasn’t that bad of a wound, but Padmé was a senator, she wasn’t supposed to get hurt like this, it was so wrong....

She set to work, cleaning the burn with water and bacta and wrapping it up in a bandage. Eventually, after a long time staring absentmindedly at the wall, Padmé said, “Ahsoka, what happened back there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why were you and Obi-Wan effected like that? I’ve never seen Jedi – well, other than Anakin, that is, overwhelmed like that.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said, putting the spare medical supplies back in the kit. She shrugged. “Well, normally we can sort of keep control over how much we let ourselves be exposed to other people’s emotions and pain, but it was just that...neither of us have felt him in over a year, and I guess we got a little carried away.” She frowned. “Even despite the headache thing, I just couldn’t stop wanting to feel him, you know?”

Padmé looked away from her, brown eyes distant. “Sometimes,” she said quietly, “I wish more than anything that I had the Force. Not usually, I mean, it’s not like it’s something that keeps me up at night. But when I’m with you, or Obi-Wan, or Anakin especially, I just...see the way it effects you, and I wonder what that’s like.”

Ahsoka bit her lip. She wouldn’t know how to begin explaining it, so she didn’t even bother to try. Instead, after fiddling with the hem of her armband for a moment, she nudged Padmé in the side to change the subject. “So, marriage!”

Padmé nodded, with barely even a weak smile. “Yeah. Sorry to have kept it from you, but, well...it happened before you came around, and we never really told anyone....”

“That’s okay,” Ahsoka said, shrugging like it didn’t actually matter to her. “I just think it’s amazing that you managed to keep it a secret this whole time. I mean, I knew there was something going on with you two, but I never would have thought you were married, you know?”

Instead of responding, Padmé pressed her eyes shut and bowed her head. An awkward minute later, she looked back up. She said, “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, I just don’t really feel like talking right now. I think I’ll call it a night.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said again, letting her face fall. She looked away. “Okay...I get it, I’ll just, um...I’ll go keep an eye on the ship.” Padmé flashed her a smile that looked more like a grimace and left her alone. Ahsoka got up and walked slowly to the bridge. Inside, she collapsed in a seat, put her chin in her hand, and swiveled back and forth in her chair like a jittery Jedi initiate in interplanetary relations class.

No, really, it was fine. Honestly. Really. Everyone else wanted to be alone, and that was fine. It was fine that Anakin had run off because she had passed out. Fine that Obi-Wan had saddled her off onto Padmé because he wanted to fly back alone. Fine that Padmé didn’t want to be saddled with her in the first place. Everything was fine.

Ugh. What a joke.

Hours later, Ahsoka was startled awake by the sound of the cockpit door opening. She was still huddled in her chair from earlier, and she must have fallen asleep some time ago because all her joints ached from being curled in the same position for too long. She stretched, and looked at Padmé, who smiled at her and handed her a tray with a cup of water and a small breakfast meal on it.

“I’m sorry if I upset you last night,” Padmé said, sitting in the chair next to Ahsoka. “I didn’t mean to give you the cold shoulder. I just couldn’t juggle my thoughts and a conversation at the same time.”

“It’s fine,” Ahsoka said, maybe lying or maybe not.

“I thought I’d ask if you wanted to come with me to the Senate when we get back,” she said. “I know politics isn’t really your thing, but I thought maybe you’d want to spend some time together.”

Ahsoka took a sip of water, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You won’t,” Padmé assured her. “Besides, the more people we have fighting for peace, the better a case we’ll have. Not to mention that you’re a Jedi, and a Padawan at that.” She winced. “Not that I’m trying to use you, or anything. I’d just really like it if you came.”

Ahsoka thought of Obi-Wan’s avoidant gaze, and the coldness of Sharlissia, and the impersonality of the Jedi and decided yes, actually, at the moment she would rather be with someone who actually expresses her feelings than those who thought emotions were taboo. So she said, “Yeah, sure.”

Padmé beamed, and prepared to pull them out of hyperspace when the warning beacon sounded.

“Thank the stars you’ve returned,” Bail Organa said, striding into Padmé’s office with Senator Mon Mothma beside him. “We need your help.”

Padmé snapped her head up. If Ahsoka hadn’t known better, she would have thought all distress had simply vanished. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

“Since you left, the language of the bill has been altered to say that the Chancellor would personally be given the authority to create a committee, which would then decide on how to proceed in peace negotiations,” Senator Mothma summarized. “It is not strictly a Senate committee, so he would have choice of any government official including bureaucrats and military personnel. At this time, it is unclear whether a Jedi would qualify for a position.”

“The best we can do right now,” Senator Organa added, “Is to convince as many senators as possible to vote in favor of the bill. We can figure out the specifications later.” He fiddled with something on his datapad. “I’m sending you a list of representatives we’ve not yet been able to speak with, if you could meet with as many of them as you can –”

“I understand,” Padmé said. She looked down at the list, scrolling through it. From the side, Ahsoka could see how long it was. Padmé’s face was as calm and stoic as the most wizened Jedi Master, but beneath the layers of dress and makeup Ahsoka could sense her trepidation.

After a minute, the two senators left, and Padmé looked at Ahsoka with a cautious bravery Ahsoka could only pretend to emulate. She said, “Ready?”

No, Ahsoka wasn’t. Oh, may the Force be with them....

To start off what Ahsoka predicted would be a tiresome and stressful day in and out of meetings, they met with Senator Edcel bar Gane of Roona, who sat in his high-backed chair with his hands together before him. As Padmé and Ahsoka sat down, he said in a chillingly impersonal tone, “Are you under the protection of the Jedi again, Senator Amidala?”

Padmé leaned forward eagerly. “Actually, Padawan Tano is with me today to remind the representatives that it is living beings who are fighting –”

“I have no interest in what the Jedi do with their own,” bar Gane said, sounding bored. “What I am interested in is how you can possibly defend a call by the Republic for peace when it was only last year that a similar piece of legislation ended in bloodshed. I do not suppose you have forgotten that the Separatists attacked us at our heart, in the Senate Building itself, at the very moment when a similar bill was on the floor?”

“I, too, was there the day of those acts of terror, Senator,” Padmé said patiently. “But you must take into consideration what has changed since that attack. Since the last vote, both sides have become much worse for wear, and it is not us who are bearing the full brunt of the war but the people, on both Republic and Separatist worlds. Even though the military commanders of the Confederacy are inflicting attacks upon our people, the members of the Separatist Parliament recognize that the economy of each government cannot last under the strain this war has put on both sides. With the absence of General Grievous –”

“The death of Grievous changed nothing, so far as I can tell,” bar Gane drawled. “The Separatists continue to attack us at every opportunity. They are a collection of barbarians whose only language is violence.”

“The actions of the Separatist Droid Army do not accurately reflect the attitude of those who operate the Confederacy of Independent Systems,” Padmé countered. “You claim you are not interested in how the Jedi operate in the war, and you can correct me if I’m wrong but I assume you feel that same indifference towards the clone army. Although the military and Senate are linked in that they are both government bodies, they function separately enough that the opinions and beliefs of our Senate do not in any way effect the operation of the army. It is exactly the same with the Separatists.”

“An interesting point, Senator,” bar Gane said, leaning his elbow on the armrest. He considered them for a moment, and then said, “You, Jedi. Do you feel there is a significant gap in the operation of the Senate and the Grand Army of the Republic?”

Ahsoka gulped. She had not expected this. She glanced at Padmé, who nodded encouragingly, and said to the senator, “Well, when I’m out on the battlefield, the Senate is never really something I hear about. Our orders always come from the Jedi Council and the military, so I guess it is pretty separate. And...I’ve only ever once met a Separatist senator, so I’m never really exposed to their Senate, either. So yeah, I would say it’s very detached.”

Bar Gane nodded. “I suppose I have never thought of the war in precisely that way. Indeed, the only news of Jedi and clones that ever seems to reach my ears is casualty counts.” He stroked his chin, looking thoughtful, and then glanced at them. “I will consider what you’ve said, Senator Amidala, though I do not think any peace process could be as simple as you make it out to be.”

Padmé stood up. “I know that all too well, Senator bar Gane. Thank you very much for your time.” She bowed, and Ahsoka followed her out, and when the door to the senator’s antechamber had hissed shut behind them they glanced at each other and squealed.

“I can’t believe it!” Padmé said happily. “That was a good start, although I am sorry he put you on the spot like that.”

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka shrugged. “Who’s next?”

All afternoon, they made the rounds, visiting those on the list that Senator Organa had given them that were available to be seen.

To one senator that Ahsoka had already forgotten the name of, Padmé said, “During the last year alone, military spending has accounted for almost half of government expenditures. If we were to achieve peace with the Separatists, putting aside for now how long that would take, we could lessen our military spending and increase spending in areas that have been dramatically neglected during the war, such as social welfare for those who have lost their jobs or who have been displaced from their homes or planets...”

To another, “And clones have hardly been the only ones fighting, either, many planets have local militant groups that often recruit children or people who otherwise shouldn’t be forced or persuaded to fight. If we could only end the fighting on a large scale we could focus on demilitarizing these smaller groups so that there are fewer unnecessary deaths in local communities.” (“Why should I care about people on a planet that is not my own?” the Iktotchi representative Padmé was trying to reach snapped at her.) “Because,” Padmé answered, “If a planet’s population can maintain its own safety and security without the Republic’s support, the Republic would be able to save billions of credits per year that it could use in other areas, such as education and social welfare and paying off debts from the war....”

Ahsoka may not have been a politician by any means (not even close), but in her opinion the day seemed to be going pretty well. Padmé was, as ever, passionate and convincing, her points well-thought out and eloquent. Ahsoka could tell she had been working on these arguments for weeks, and Padmé’s sureness of herself even with this second loss of Anakin was nothing short of inspiring.

So it was that they met with Nix Card, Muun representative of the Banking Clan, who, as Padmé had remarked to Ahsoka before their meeting, was rude and conniving and money-grubbing and almost certainly in favor of the war from both a personal and working perspective. Just as Padmé finished making a good point about the absurdly high number of clone deaths that could be avoided if the fighting ended in numerous less-than-vital campaigns, Card stood from his chair and faced the window with his hands held behind his back.

“Senator Amidala,” he said, “The clones were bred to die in combat, and I personally have never seen any indication that they want any more than to do just that. After all, are they not conditioned to be entirely devoted to the Republic?”

Padmé’s face was stoic as ever. “I realize it may seem as if that were true, Representative, but the clones are human beings, and just because they were grown in a laboratory does not mean there lives are worthless.”

“I never said they are worthless,” Card said, glancing at her. “As you know, the Banking Clan is the Republic’s primary means of paying for additional clone troops. I am very much aware of how much each clone is worth.”

“A living being does not have monetary value,” Padmé said carefully. “The clones are not slaves. Just because their job is to fight does not mean we should treat them as if they were battle droids. They are not expendable. Of course, I cannot speak for them, but....” She cleared her throat, and glanced at Ahsoka, a plea in her eyes. Oh, no, don’t you dare – “Well, Padawan Tano is much closer to the clones than I am, of course. What do you think, Commander?”

It was almost hard to tell, but the Muun looked almost amused. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Ahsoka as if he wished to be entertained. With a crease of her brow, Ahsoka sat a little straighter in her chair. “Representative, have you ever met a clone before? Have you ever talked with one?”

He waved a hand through the air. “My business is with money, child, not with artificial soldiers.”

In the Force, Ahsoka sensed Padmé’s nervousness. Oh, there were a lot of things she wanted to say to this tall-headed, selfish, ugly alien, but she would keep her cool. She took a deep breath. “Well, if you ever have time to talk with one then I think you should, because maybe then you would see how every clone is not just a copy of one Mandalorian’s DNA. Every clone has his own personality, and his own name. Just because they were grown in tubes on Kamino doesn’t mean that their lives and deaths are worth only money. Their education system does teach them to be loyal to the Republic, but they aren’t pre-programmed machines. They have thoughts, and feelings, and even if they’re willing to die in the line of duty doesn’t mean they want to die in battle.” She took another deep breath. “I’ve seen thousands of clones die in the last two years, and they’re doing it in order to make our galaxy safe. They’re brave, and strong, and – and –”

“And both they and the Jedi have been dying for years,” Padmé finished. “Even if negotiations of peace can’t end the war in an instant, which of course they cannot, we would at least see lower casualty rates.” She stared hard at the representative. “If you need me to put it in your own terms, that would be millions of credits flowing through the economy that had not been spent commissioning more clones or providing for the medical care of those who were wounded.”

All of a sudden, the comm unit on the senator’s desk buzzed and Padmé jumped slightly in her seat. Card activated it, and his assistant said, “Lott Dod and Mak Plain here to see you, sir.”

“Send them in,” Card said, and Ahsoka shot an alarmed look at Padmé, who still kept her cool. “You forget, Senator Amidala, that I am not a member of your Republic, necessarily. The Banking Clan has no stake in who wins or who loses this war. You would do well to remember that.”

The door opened, and another Muun and a Neimoidian walked in. Ahsoka knew them both – Mak Plain was a leading member of the Banking Clan and Dod was the senator for the Trade Federation. Both were slimy and commonly known as Sepper conspirators.

“I see you may have beaten us to the punch, Senator Amidala,” Lott Dod said as Padmé rose to acknowledge them. Ahsoka hastily clambered to her feet, still feeling flushed after that rant to Card. “Or, that is what I would have said if you had been here during the debates. I wonder if you are not as devoted to peace as you once were? Why else would you have let yourself be absent from the Senate during such a critical time?”

Ahsoka felt both her hands curl into fists, but Padmé ignored his words and turned to Card. “Representative, please, if I could just have a moment more of your time –”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with the delegate from the Trade Federation, Senator,” Card said blandly. “I’m sure I would have listened ardently to what you had to say during the debates, but my mind is already made up.”

“Are you sure?” Padmé asked, putting her hands together in one final plead.

“Good day, Senator Amidala,” he said, not looking at her, and Ahsoka watched as Padmé frowned, then straightened her back and walked proudly out of the room.

When they had returned to Padmé’s office seven floors up, Ahsoka burst out with what she had been dying to say for ten minutes. “Can you believe that guy?”

Padmé just shook her head. “I’m so used to this kind of treatment I don’t even think about it anymore,” she said miserably. Then she put her hand to her forehead. “They were right. I should have been here.”

Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, what kind of talk is that?”

The senator peeked at her through her fingers and let herself have an exhausted smile. “Pessimistic talk, I guess. I suppose I’m a pessimist now.”

“You can’t just be Senator Amidala of Naboo, you know,” Ahsoka said softly. “You’re a person, not just a legislator.” At that, Padmé laughed out loud. “Did I say something?”

Padmé waved it off. “It’s nothing. You just...reminded me of something Anakin told me a long time ago.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Padmé leaning back against the sofa with her eyes closed. Eventually, the senator said, “I just don’t see how every...government official, every bureaucrat, can be so cold-hearted.” She looked at Ahsoka. “I’ll admit, at the beginning of the war, I had trouble seeing the clones as individual people, too. I was at Geonosis, but I had only learned about their existence about a few hours before. But since then – well, you know.”

Ahsoka did know. “The Jedi are all about...detached compassion. Caring for others, but not being emotionally dependent on them. What baffles me is that everyone else in the universe is allowed to indulge in their feelings, yet us, the detached Jedi, seem to be the only ones who care about the clones besides the clones themselves. Even the Kaminoans don’t....”

Padmé smiled sadly. “You did well in there, Ahsoka. I’m proud of you.”

Ahsoka shrugged, bashful. “I’m proud of you, too. And I’m glad you asked me to come. Seeing you in action is...inspiring.”

The senator laughed. “Well, that’s a new one for me. Thank you.” She glanced out the window. The sky was beginning to turn pink, the low-hanging sun reflecting off the chrome of the buildings outside. Padmé said, “What say we grab some dinner and then get back to it?”

Ahsoka grinned and followed her out the door.

That night, Ahsoka ended up crashing at Padmé’s apartment. She was still in the same outfit she’d been before they even went to Sharlissia, so Padmé offered her a shower and a sleep outfit to wear. Rifling through the nightclothes section of her walk-through closet (Ahsoka had definitely never seen this many clothes in her life – the closet was a whole hallway long) Padmé murmured, “Let’s see. We’re about the same size, right? I’m sure I can find something good for you.”

Ahsoka glanced through the clothes, touching the material of some of them just to see what it felt like to wear luxury all the time. Her hand rested on the sleeve of a textured black tunic, and she picked it up, suddenly realizing – “Is this Anakin’s?”

Padmé flushed red, cleared her throat, and said offhandedly, “Yeah.”

Ahsoka thought for a minute. That meant – ew, Master – should she – no, she shouldn’t, but –

“Were you two in love?” she blurted out. Padmé stared at her for a few seconds and then burst out laughing as if it were the funniest thing in the universe. Ahsoka rubbed her back headtail and turned away slightly. “Sorry, I guess that was a stupid question.”

“No, no, it wasn’t,” Padmé said, still giggling. “I’m sorry. And yes, we were very much in love.”

Ahsoka picked at the material of the sleeve, so familiar but at the same time, suddenly foreign. “I guess I didn’t really know him at all.”

Padmé looked at her in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Ahsoka shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “It’s just that...I didn’t know he was a slave, I didn’t know you were married...I knew he liked you a lot more than a Jedi should but I didn’t know he was in love with you....” She clapped her hand to her forehead. “And I spent all those months mad at you! I thought you didn’t care about him as much as I did and that’s why you were okay with giving him to Dooku! I’m so stupid....”

Then, Padmé took Ahsoka’s arm and led out of the walk-in closet and over to the bench at the foot of her bed. “Listen to me, Ahsoka,” Padmé said gently. “Your reaction was perfectly understandable, and I don’t blame you for it, because honestly? I blamed myself a lot more than you ever could. I fell into the trap of beating myself up over what I did.” She sighed. “Truthfully, I’m still in the trap, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get out of it. But if there’s one positive thing I’ve gotten out of these months of depression, it’s that I’m finally coming to accept that not everything wrong in my life is my fault. And it was an impossible feat, but I hope that you can accept that, too, if not now then one day.”

Ahsoka smirked and fiddled with her armband. “I’ll try.”

“I know you will,” Padmé said, running a hand down one of her lekku. “That’s why you’re such a good Jedi, and a good friend.” After a moment of comfortable silence, Padmé got back up. “Now, back to the hunt for some nightclothes....”

Ahsoka entered Padmé’s state of the art kitchen the next morning, stretching, and sat down with the senator and a group of her handmaidens. She didn’t recognize the dish that was already steaming on the table, but it looked and tasted absolutely delicious. When it was done, Padmé got up to have her hair and outfit done for the Senate just as Ahsoka remembered something she’d wanted to ask.

“Did your handmaidens all change their names to sound like yours or is it just a coincidence?”

Padmé grinned. “You’ll have to quit the Jedi and become a handmaiden if you want to find out.”

Ahsoka turned her head to the side. “I’m not sure I look enough like you to be a handmaiden.”

Despite themselves and all the tension surrounding the vote, they burst into giggles.

Three hours, an almost-nervous breakdown on Padmé’s part, and a brief period for Ahsoka in Padmé’s waiting room while the senator had important last minute meetings later, and they found themselves in the Senate chamber, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Finally, Palpatine and Mas Amedda stood. The Chancellor raised his arms to silence the chattering crowd of onlookers and addressed them all, saying, “We have come here today to vote on an issue that has been brought before our Senate many times. Throughout the Clone War, our Republic has seen hundreds of systems withdraw from our government and join the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Although at first our relations with this new body were nonviolent, every person in this room by now knows how much this terrible conflict has ravished our economic, social, and political lives because we are so at odds with the Separatists.

“Some in this room would argue that peace between our Republic and the Separatists cannot be achieved. Others have insisted that peace is always a foreseeable goal that can be accomplished between willing parties. The purpose of this bill is to determine whether or not, by democratic process, this Republic wishes to pursue making peace with the Confederacy. I know perhaps better than anyone the importance of a functioning democracy, and I am confident that whichever path the honorable delegates of this congress vote for will be the correct one.”

He nodded to Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda, who said, “Thank you, Chancellor. If the bill on the floor is passed today, then a special committee will be created to draft terms of negotiation that will then be proposed to the Confederacy of Independent Systems. There will be twelve seats on the committee, and the Chancellor will have full authority to choose the persons who will draft terms. Please make sure that your voting panels are active and ready.” A minute later, he continued, “And now, we shall commence the vote.”

Two options and a timer appeared on Padmé’s pod’s screen. Padmé took a deep, shaky breath and pressed in favor.

They waited. One minute. Two. Five. Ahsoka could feel Padmé’s tension as surely as she could feel her own. Then, with a funny look on his face, Mas Amedda whispered something into Palpatine’s ear. Palpatine nodded and stepped forward, clearing his throat.

“The results are in. The Senate has voted in favor of peace negotiations with the Confederacy of Independent Systems.”

Throughout the room, scattered cheers of excitement broke out from senators young and old. Padmé was one of them. She clapped her hands over her mouth and looked around at Ahsoka, then threw her arms around the Padawan, squealing, “We did it! We did it!” Then a second later, she pulled away, suddenly wincing and grabbing her shoulder, and suddenly Ahsoka remembered the blaster wound and felt horrible because she should have changed the dressings before now –

“Are you okay?”

“I really am,” Padmé said, breathlessly giggling. “Actually, I’m wonderful, I’m – Dormé!” she said suddenly, turning around in her seat, then getting up and pulling the handmaiden into her arms. “Dormé, we did it! Oh, gods – thank you, Shiraya, I –” She laughed, and laughed, and Ahsoka couldn’t help but feel all warm inside because she didn’t think she had ever seen or felt anyone so genuinely and purely happy as Padmé was right now.

She supposed the only thing that could have made it better was if Anakin were here....

Two weeks after the Senate’s vote (two weeks and two days, therefore, since she had last seen Anakin) Ahsoka found Obi-Wan pouring, yet again, over a comm table with a tired but determined and slightly ferocious look in his eyes, the same he had had yesterday, and the day before that, and the week before that. She had seen Anakin do this, too, more than once. He and Obi-Wan were a lot more alike than either of them had ever seemed to realize. She wondered if this particular behavior had originally belonged to one of them, or if they had developed it together over the years.

Honestly, she kind of couldn’t take this anymore. More accurately, she knew he couldn’t take what he was doing to himself anymore. She walked down the steps into the room and up to him, careful not to startle him. “Master,” she said. “I really think you need to take a break from this. You’re kind of obsessing, and that’s not really...you.”

“I’m not obsessing,” he snapped, not looking at her. “I just can’t afford to miss anything. If I locate him then I’ll have a very short time to trace him before they take him away again.”

Ahsoka leaned over the table to force herself into his sight. “Well, you need to sleep.”

He huffed. “I can sleep in hyperspace.”

She raised her brows. “That’s definitely obsessive behavior, Master. Come on, you can come back tomorrow morning. Anakin will still be out there when you wake up.” Of course, neither of them knew if that would be true – what if some other Jedi, one who didn’t recognize him or didn’t have sympathy for a brainwashed Sith assassin, found him first? What if he wasn’t actually out there at all? What if he had changed his mind, and no longer wanted to be found? – but she figured maybe if she vocalized the reassurance, it would have a higher likelihood of coming true.

Obi-Wan just shook his head. “Maybe in an hour.”

Ahsoka sighed, and resigned to join him in his search. In an hour, she decided, if he didn’t comply, she would throw him over her shoulder like a child having a fit and carry him back to his room if she had to.

Really, she would do it. She meant it. Don’t test her.

Chapter Text

There was a room in Tyranus’s palace on Serenno that called to Vader.

From the outside, it appeared to be a completely innocent room. The door was unmarked, windowless, with the same keypad that every other room in this corridor had on the wall beside it. And he was certain that the room itself wasn’t what was calling to him, but rather something inside. Something that the Force desperately wanted him to find. It was too risky, he knew. When he passed by it with his little personal escort, he made sure not to even glance at it. Because if someone turned around at the wrong time, or if someone was watching him too closely, they would know, they would tell Sidious, and bad things would happen to him.

Since he had returned from the planet that he barely remembered, everything was different. Every day was different. There were days where he felt like a Sith, where the need for revenge boiled in his blood, where killing came easy and the blood on his hands made him feel like this was his purpose. Days where he thought that of course Sidious was right, this was all he was good for, doing the Sith’s work to purge the galaxy of Jedi filth until not a single one was left standing. And he thought, deep in his core, that this was what he was going to do until he died.

Then there were the other days, the days when he thought, why? Why should he have anything at all against the Jedi? They’d never, as far as he knew, done anything to him. They weren’t the ones who brought him in and subdued him, tamed him like an animal captured from the wild, stripped him of everything he had ever had. Those were the days when he didn’t feel like Vader, or a Sith, at all. Those were the days when he felt like Anakin. Anakin, the name that had belonged to him a lifetime ago, the name that belonged to hazy, foggy, unsubstantial memories that resurfaced at the worst moments.

And as time went on, day by crawling day, the balance was shifting. The Vader days came less, the Anakin days more.

Today was an Anakin day.

In the preparation room (it’s unofficial name in Anakin’s head, anyway) they geared him up, refitted him with his lightsaber, his field gear, the heavy, suffocating durable synth-leather jacket. He barely listened as they briefed him on the mission – another battlefield, another Jedi for him to kill, another long day full of death and destruction. Then, when they were done, they moved him out, down a corridor and then another, and soon they were approaching that door that seemed to be targeting him specifically as if it was a sentient entity looking for prey....

His heart picked up its pace. He could – no, he shouldn’t. But, neither Sidious nor Dooku were here, true that they concealed themselves from the Force but even with their power they couldn’t prevent the blanket of stifling darkness that covered the area when they were around...and, this might be his only chance....

“Wait,” he said suddenly, putting a strong push of the Force behind his words, not letting his voice show his nervousness. Like a charm, the company of four halted at his command like droids on the battlefield and looked at him, waiting for orders. With a slight wave of his hand at waist-level, Anakin continued, “I need to get in this room.”

“You need to get in this room,” one of them repeated as if in a trance, snapping to attention and crossing three paces to the keypad. For a second, Anakin was sure everything would go wrong, an alarm would sound and he’d be forced to the ground and back into the chair, back into a waking nightmare, Sidious would come back and Anakin would never have a chance to be Anakin again. Instead, the entered authorization code worked immediately and the door slid open.

Anakin took a deep breath. “Wait here,” he said, and entered the room with the door sliding shut behind him. The lights on the ceiling were off, but monitors on the left wall blinked at him. As if in a dream, he let the Force pull him over to a drawer he could barely see. His metal hand came to a rest on the handle. So many things could go wrong, a dozen security alarms could go off and send this place on shutdown, it could be locked, there could be nothing in there at all, this could be some elaborate set-up, a trick with the hopeful conclusion of giving Sidious a reason to finally do away with his tool –

The drawer opened with the lightest of tugs, and a soft blue light filled the room. There was just one thing, sitting on a small cushion in the middle of the drawer. Crystalline, small in the palm of his human hand, but warm like it had always belonged there. For too long, he stared at it, then broke out of his trance and looked around. Something, possibly the Force or maybe something else, told him that if he scoured every inch of this room, he would uncover more secrets that were hidden only from him. But time was running out, he’d spent too long in here already, so with a regretful glance behind him he pocketed the crystal and went back into the corridor.

“To the hangar,” he said with one last push of the Force, and the same man who’d let him in the room nodded once and started them off.

He would have to do something about this crystal, he knew. It would be fine for now, but once he got back to Serenno after this mission and however many others, they would find it when they looked him over and hand it over to Sidious. Deep in his gut, he knew...something had to be done....

This was a Vader day.

Another day, another battlefield, another dead Jedi on the ground. This was the third, Vader thought anyway, since the hazy gap in his memory and the time he’d spent being shocked again (it was cold, there were three people who knew him, but what had happened to them and where were they now? that part he couldn’t quite remember). And now he was waiting, waiting, for whatever would happen next, sitting on the ground against a thick tree trunk while the droids and humans lingered around him at a distance. The ship that had been sent to pick them up was late. At least, that was what Vader gathered from the irritated-sounding conversation between his handlers and the Confederate commander.

“Think the Republic might have gotten to them first?”

“Not likely. Someone’s slacking off, that’s what I think, and I’ll bet you anything it’s Wilkes.”

“Wilkes was transferred to Ordonna a week ago, told me so himself, so it can’t be him.”

“Oh yeah? Well, good riddance. What’s he doing over there?”

“I think Dooku put him in command of some big droid factory or shipyard or something. Runs off slave labor. Really efficient, except for the riots. I think that’s why they needed better commanders, to shut down the riots. Damn slaves can’t just put up with the life they’ve been given.”

it was hot and dry as ever, and there were at least thirty different species in this one room, bodies seemed to be pressing in on each other but maybe that was just because he was so small, everyone was still talking about the race yesterday but he couldn’t seem to think about anything other than the aching wounds across his back, his punishment for

The same commander was saying, “I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me. Yeah, we took their planet, but in return we gave them work and food and a place to sleep, none of which any of them had before. Why would they rather be dirt poor with nothing to eat than given a job and food for free? I just don’t get it.”

“Works pretty well for this one, eh?” A laugh.

“Right? The perfect example. Barely resists, does whatever he’s told. Hell, you can beat him up all you want and he’ll still do whatever you say. I bet Lord Sidious wishes all his slaves were that easy to manage.”

Vader’s eyes shot open, and he looked at the men who were talking with a frown. Sidious’s...slave?

An image flashed so clearly in his mind he could almost see it, looks of disgust sent his way, as if he were some vile creature that crawled out of the sand one day and made its nest in their garbage pile. The distant memory of shouting, directed towards him, flashes of pain. Sunlight burning his skin. That word, over and over and over, slave slave slave slave – why did it sound so familiar, what did it remind him of –

“Rendezvous was supposed to be ten minutes ago,” one of them said, glancing at a chrono. “If it’s not Wilkes, who is it?”

“Why are you complaining to me instead of contacting the cruiser?”

pain across his back, the smell of blood, a woman was crying and his back hurt so so so much, would this pain ever go away

“Vengeance come in, this is landing party. The shuttle is late for rendezvous, what is your status?” The words through the commlink sounded muffled from this far away. The commander gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know who I’m speaking with, but you and everyone else aboard that cruiser should know that regulations prevent me from verbally giving our coordinates in case any Republic scouts are monitoring our communications. Activate Vader’s tracking signal –”

all slaves have transmitters placed inside their bodies somewhere

“—which you should have been doing in the first place. Adema out.”

“Damn. Even Wilkes was more competent than whoever’s up there.”

“Whole Confederacy’s gonna fall to pieces if people like them are in command.”

all slaves have

“Well, here’s to that not happening.”

They fell silent, and the recollections of voices in Vader’s head stopped. The shroud of twilight was beginning to fall on the forest floor. The stolen crystal sat heavy in the pocket of Vader’s clothes. If they went back now, they would find it, and take it, and tell Sidious. If they went back now, he would be punished, pain and pain and pain, the third strike of his failing Sidious. If they went back, he would be a slave for the rest of his life. If they went back....

It was a choice. It was so simple. So easy. Two choices – go back to Serenno, or....

He would never have a better chance than right now.

He just had to take it.

you’re a slave?

i’m a person, and my name is

Vader’s gloved human fingers ghosted over the fold in his clothes where the crystal was. His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment. Slowly, very slowly, he inched forward bit by bit, and looked around, taking count. Probably twenty droids, plus the ones he couldn’t see, and four living. It would be quick, and easy. Twenty clones would have been harder, but these were the cheapest droids Tyranus’s money could have bought. And he was – damn, he was the best.

“Uh, hey. What’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t know. I’ll check him out, you stay here.”

The, uh, handler, was crossing twenty paces and knelt down before Vader, who stayed tense. It would be too suspicious to relax. The man said, “Do you sense something? Republic activity? Or is it the evac shuttle?”

Sometimes, non-Force-sensitives astounded him. He wasn’t a droid with life sign scanners, he couldn’t do a thorough sweep of the area using his sensors. He could, however, use the Force for other purposes....

His metal fingers curled around the air, and the Force was there at his command. The Confederate man’s hand rose to his throat, his mouth gaped for air like a fish, his eyes were wide with panic. Vader leaned in and said in a low voice, “I am not his slave.” A moment later, the man was dead on the ground. Another few moments, and Vader was surrounded by droids with their blasters pointed at him.

“Freeze!” one of them said in its tinny, nasally voice.

He’d felt frozen before, and it hadn’t really done it for him. Last time, he’d been recaptured by the forces of the man who had brainwashed him and taken away every single thing he had ever had and enslaved him. This time, Vader decided, that would not happen again.

Against the deep blue hue of the evening, the red lightsaber ignited.

Honestly, he couldn’t entirely believe it. It was like Sidious had wanted him to escape. Arming a rendezvous shuttle with a hyperdrive? Sidious called Vader the stupid one, but that didn’t really appear to be the case anymore, did it?

And now he was flying. Flying. He’d flown before in his memory, but it had only ever been to a battle, to hunt down a Jedi, to do someone else’s dirty work for them. Now, he was flying on his own terms, and he loved it.

Out of the atmosphere and into space, he saw it: the dark grey exterior of a Confederate navy cruiser. And they didn’t know – Vader could have started laughing – they didn’t know. It was so easy, he was going to get out of here before they had even figured out what had happened – no time to initiate a tractor beam, or even to shoot him down –

The comm activated, and he heard a droid’s voice say, “Shuttle 792-B, we are preparing docking bay three for your arrival, acknowledge.” Vader felt his mouth twist into something that wasn’t quite a smile. Yeah, Sidious. Acknowledge this.

He pulled the lever, and five seconds later he was in hyperspace.

He hadn’t really planned where he was going. Truthfully, he had just picked the first planet he had thought of – Vanqor – when going into space, more of a barren detour of a planet to stop at than a place to put down anchor. He would need to check the ship for a homing beacon, of course, so he would need to land for a little while, but as he pulled out of hyperspace he was sure that he would have plenty of time to –

Scratch that. There, hovering outside the Vanqor atmosphere, three Confederate cruisers with their noses pointed right at him, as if they were waiting for him. As if –

They were waiting for him –

Without hesitating, Vader grabbed at the steering yokes and wrenched them around as three dozen smaller droid ships hurtled toward him, releasing a barrage of cannon blasts at him. He raised the shields and swerved, Force instincts lighting up with left up down speed up right slow down dive but this ship wasn’t meant for combat, this was a shuttle, not a fighter, not nearly as speedy as the robotic droid ships and not half as maneuverable. But that couldn’t stop him now, because he had to get the hell out of this system before the cruisers got close enough to lock him in a tractor beam –

He reached his shaking hand down to the console, trying to think of a planet, a neutral planet where there would be no Separatist presence to abduct him and no Republic fleet to shoot him down. Neutral planets, neutral planets – Toydaria was neutral, he thought – fine. He typed it in with one hand and steered with the other, maneuvering around vulture droids and droid fighters, obviously Sidious would rather have him dead than escaped, but that wasn’t a problem because he was a better pilot than any droid, not to mention he had the Force –

A laser blast hit him and the ship buckled, the systems flickered but the shields held up, finally a noise told him the calculations for hyperspace were completed and without looking he grabbed the lever, pulled it back –

And collapsed back in his seat to stare numbly at the swirling blue vortex.

How – how the hell, how – how?

Easy enough, they were either tracking the ship for sure or they had calculated his trajectory out of the planet from which he had stolen the shuttle. But if that how was solved, the more urgent how was how the hell was he supposed to get away if they countermanded every move be made before he even had a chance to make it?

Okay, so Sidious wasn’t as foolish as he’d hoped.

Well, this time he would be ready. They would not recapture him. Not if he could help it.

Toydaria went the same way, only this time, he almost didn’t make it.

Collapsed back in the pilot’s chair, Vader was so tired, but he had to be on guard. The chronometer said he had another ten minutes before he came out of hyperspace to face yet another fleet of ships trying to kill or kidnap him so, just for now, he allowed his eyes to close and his joints slacken, letting his mind drift away in whatever direction it chose...his limbs were all so heavy, he wanted to sink right through this chair into the ground...he’d been awake for so many hours he wasn’t sure how many more he could make it if he had to keep doing this over and over and over...his eyelids were so heavy now he didn’t think he could open them if he wanted to....

outside, sandy wind whipped across the desert settlement, battering the sturdy buildings that littered the spaceport. Later, he would have to sweep dirt from one side of the junkyard to the other, cleaning off scraps of machinery ‘til his nails were caked with sand and his fingers were bleeding. But for now, he was safe at home, and so was she, swabbing the scrape he’d gotten earlier with just a teeny, tiny bit of water because they didn’t have much. The sound of the wind outside made him thirsty, but he had already had some water today and they needed to save some for tomorrow. In fact, he was pretty sure the threat of dehydration was the only thing that kept him from crying sometimes, even when he thought about Amee’s mom bleeding onto the sand because she did something that her master wasn’t happy with, or the possibility that one day, he and his mom might be sold to separate masters and would never see each other again....

Anakin’s eyes shot open and he gasped, jerked awake by the memory. By the memory. Of –

Mom –

Oh, Mom....

She was kind. Patient, selfless. Brown hair, he thought, and brown eyes. Though the sight of her face and the sound of her voice where nowhere to be recalled, he knew beyond a doubt that she was the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, the most loving, he clasped his metal hand over his mouth to stifle the cry of pain that no one was going to hear anyway, he could almost feel her arms around him if imagined hard enough, squeezing his eyes shut until the tears dripped off his face. Her name was Shmi. There was a desert, hot and dry and merciless to those who knew not how to handle it. Hundreds of different species of rough, cursing people who didn’t want to be noticed. And then there were slaves. Like her. And like him.

He didn’t understand. This didn’t line up with any version of events that he had been told, not by the Jedi and not by the Sith. How does a slave from the desert become a Jedi? But, somehow, he knew they hadn’t been lying to him. At least not about that.

The hyperdrive beacon started beeping and he pushed the lever back, then wiped at his eyes. A second later, before he’d even gotten a chance to look out the viewport, something outside collided with the side of the shuttle and he nearly fell out of his seat.

Ugh – he made a noise of frustration and grabbed the steering yokes, wrenching the ship into a backbreaking dive and swerving around the vultures. More than being dangerous and terrifying, this was just getting annoying. Quickly, he switched the hyperdrive navigator to the preplanned coordinates and was hurtling faster than light within a few seconds.

Vader kicked at the console panel. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?

But now, he knew. He knew what Sidious must have thought. Once a slave, always a slave, right, Master?

Well, Vader – no. Anakin. Anakin, the name his mother gave him. Well, Anakin had something to say about Sidious’s excuse for enslaving him.

Angry, feeling heat rising into his face, he leaned back in the pilot’s seat and put his hand on his chin, thinking back to the planet where he’d stolen the shuttle. He wondered if those handlers knew that he’d been a slave before. He supposed it didn’t really matter, since he had killed them like they deserved.

Then, he remembered something else about that planet. The voices he had been thinking of, talking about slavery – had that been his mom, or a fabrication of her? What had she said...something about...slave transmitters...

placed inside their bodies somewhere

activate Vader’s tracking signal

He gasped, and jumped up from his seat, running through the door and back to the basic medical station. Ran his fingers over touchscreen keys and activated a bioscan. He sat down, almost seemed to feel the non-corporeal light that moved over his body, and watched the screen. And there it was. Small, inconspicuous, so much so that without the scan he would never have needed to know it was there. He pulled up the hem of his jacket and saw the thin white surgical scar, just a mark maybe two centimeters long, blending in with the array of bruises and burns and marred flesh that marked the rest of his body.

Anakin’s metal hand clenched as he rifled through compartments, looking for surgical tools, because even if the Sith hadn’t been using this thing to track his whereabouts it was still placed inside his body without his permission and that idea disgusted him to his core...his hand curled around the silver metal of a knife’s handle and he pulled it out, sitting back down and taking deep breaths, waiting for his hand to steady.

With thirty-four minutes left in hyperspace, he cut into his skin.

It was a tiny thing, really. About one square centimeter, thin and insignificant in appearance. He cleaned the blood off of it and then smashed it in his gloved metal palm. With a sharp stinging in his side whenever he moved, he chucked it in an escape pod and when he emerged from hyperspace again for just a minute, he sent it back to the Confederates.

Anakin was probably going to have a seizure sometime soon.

It wasn’t that they were predictable, or that he got any particular feeling to warn him that one was about to happen. Rather, he’d overheard enough about his own seizures from the doctors on Serenno to be able to figure it out intuitively. Without the meds, they had said, he would have withdrawal, and that withdrawal could trigger a seizure. It was what had happened last time, on that cold, cold planet that was so fuzzy in his memory, and even in turning the stolen ship’s interior inside out he hadn’t been able to find extra medicinal hyposprays or even just a name of the medicine and a dosage. He had a feeling there was no time to search the ship’s computers, so when he came out of hyperspace after two more precautious jumps to throw the Confederacy off his trail, he piloted the ship towards a planet that the scanners called Riileb.

It was an ocean planet, dotted with mostly deserted islands covered in white sandy beaches and thin tree cover. If the databanks were right, the island he landed on was unpopulated, so he opened the exit ramp and went outside to make sure with finality that the shuttle itself hadn’t been tracked. When he was satisfied, Anakin went back inside, pried off the panel to the ship’s comm unit, grabbed a tool box and set to work with one goal in mind.

Cross those wires...fiddle with the console...override the signals that blocked Confederate transmissions from being received by Republic communication control...scramble the code...almost there....

What he was doing was crazy. He knew it was. It could get him killed. Actually, it probably would. It could end up in a dozen Jedi coming here and killing him as mercilessly as he had killed so many of them. It could end in him dying before he ever even had a chance to get to know those three shadowy figures that lingered on the edge of his memory, telling him that they were his friends and that they wanted to bring him home. If he did what he was doing, he might never be able to know exactly what he was to them.

But if he didn’t do it...well, then he would definitely never know.

And he was done. A scrambled, coded transmission sent to the heart of the Republic itself. It was just a shot in the dark, a gamble, a small chance that he might be able to salvage something of the life that the Sith had taken away from him. It was the only way he might ever be able to see his mother again, to be held by her and talk to her and get to know her. It was – was....

Heat. That was the first thing he felt. The sound of waves, that was the first thing he heard. Beneath him, the floor was hard and cold and very uncomfortable. In his mouth, he could taste blood, and something else, something metallic. His eyelids were too heavy, and he didn’t know where he was. What his name was. What he was doing here.

Finally, he opened his eyes. Everything felt strange, like he was detached from his own body, in it but not in control of it. His head hurt, though not terribly bad, and his muscles were all sore. He was hungry, and thirsty, and the sunlight coming from outside was bright. His right side ached like he had been stabbed.

A name finally came to him – Anakin, that was him. And Vader, that was him too. He didn’t know which one was more true, but he liked Anakin more so he decided he would go with that.

He was so tired. He lay there on the floor, trying to keep his eyes open because there was something – something important he was supposed to be doing, and if he fell asleep now he wouldn’t be able to do it. He couldn’t remember what it was, but he thought that if he could just manage to stay awake then everything would become clear.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he found the energy to sit up, then stand up, then walk dizzily over to the sink in the back and pour some water. There, he held the cup in his hand, looked blearily around the place he was in – a ship, right, a shuttle – the sunlight was coming from the exit ramp, and so was the sound of waves....

Anakin stumbled over there and all but collapsed on the exit ramp, wishing beyond anything else that he could fall asleep instead of waiting – waiting, for...for what? Huh....

His eyes fell shut. He felt the Force around him, a comfort in this empty, mean-hearted universe...smelled the saltiness of the ocean as it lapped against the shore...heard the sound of birds, somewhere...he rested his head on his metal hand, stay awake, stay awake....

He thought about his mother. Her brown hair, her smile, her hugs. Tried to remember what her face looked like, or where their home was. Somewhere with lots of sand, though not like the sand of this planet, which was white and sparkled in the summer sun....

What was that? He thought he felt something with the Force, or maybe heard something with his ears. Was something going to attack him? He wrenched his eyes open, blinked in the light, saw a blurry figure standing some five meters away. Anakin looked at it, tried to figure out who or what exactly who it was that – oh. Yes. He remembered.

It was Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Riileb

13°47’S 98°26’W

Help me

That was what the message had said. On Coruscant, they had all thought it would be a trap. Truthfully, even Obi-Wan hadn’t been sure it wasn’t a trap. But now, staring into Anakin’s empty, forlorn expression, he was quite sure the message was the real thing.

If Obi-Wan had been someone with much less restraint than a practiced Jedi Master of thirty-eight years, he may have been sorely tempted to break into a run, pull Anakin into his arms, and hold him there until he could be absolutely, completely, no-doubt-in-the-galaxy certain that Anakin was really here, in the flesh, alive. Indeed, if Anakin hadn’t eventually looked up and noticed his presence, Obi-Wan may have been content to stand here and stare at him forever.

His friend looked nothing like he had the last two times they had met. He wasn’t yellow-eyed and feral, like the first, or frightened and in pain, like the second. Rather, he didn’t look to be feeling much at all. His eyes had a heavy sadness and he didn’t appear to be entirely aware of his surroundings. He was slumped on the exit ramp of his Separatist shuttle, his elbow leaning on the floor of the ship and his head resting on his hand. He stared at Obi-Wan with his mouth slightly agape and said nothing.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “I got your message,” he said unnecessarily, to silence. He frowned. “You did send that message, didn’t you?”

Anakin’s face maintained a steady blankness. His eyelids blinked repeatedly. At first, Obi-Wan was sure the question had not been heard. Then, Anakin said, “Uh huh.”

All right, well that was an acknowledgement, at least. “Is it all right if I sit down?”

After a long pause, Anakin said, “Okay.”

He approached, and cautiously walked up the exit ramp to sit, half a meter’s space in between them. Obi-Wan could have touched him. Up close, Anakin looked so pale. His hair was thin and unkempt, his shoulders slumped like something was weighing him down. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say, so he tried, “Are you all right?”

He already knew the answer, plain as day. His friend looked more exhausted than Obi-Wan had ever seen him, and with all the missions they had been through over the years, that was saying something. Anakin’s metal hand, which had been supporting his head, fell limp as he looked around. He shook his head unsteadily.

Obi-Wan leaned in. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Anakin rubbed his eyes, looking concentrated. His words were slurred. “Seizure.”

What? A seizure? When had – what – “Do you get seizures often?”

Slowly, Anakin nodded. “Um...,” he frowned. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Obi-Wan hushed. “Don’t be sorry. Do you need anything?”

His friend blinked, and rubbed his eyes again. “Just need to...put my head down...for a minute,” Anakin murmured, and he curled in on himself, resting his head on his arm. He shifted, trying to be comfortable on the cold metal surface. Then, a minute later, he was asleep.

Obi-Wan sat back, astonished. If he had expected anything, coming here – and he hadn’t, particularly – it certainly wasn’t this. Faintly, he remembered the image on the blue-tinted holoscreen that day, Anakin dead on the ground while Dooku stood over him. Dead in Obi-Wan’s nightmares, a thousand different ways. Those memories were so real he could almost touch them. Touch them....

Carefully, slowly, Obi-Wan reached over and pressed his fingers lightly to the pulse in Anakin’s neck. Steady, regular, normal. Obi-Wan bit back a swell of emotion and pulled his hand away.

One year ago, Anakin had been dead. Now, he was alive. Limp, pale, fragile, beaten and damaged and passed out cold on the exit ramp of a Separatist shuttle but so, so alive.

Four hours passed before Anakin woke up. Clouds passed in front of the sun, then away again, and the horizon began to turn faintly pink. Obi-Wan spent the time meditating, watching the ocean, watching his friend. Finally, Anakin shifted, stretched, rubbed his eyes once more – then whirled his head around at Obi-Wan as if seeing him for the first time.

“How long have you been here?”

“Not too long,” Obi-Wan assured him. “All that happened was you told me that you’d had a seizure, and then you fell asleep.”

“Oh,” Anakin said blearily, pushing himself into an upright position. “That happens sometimes....” He looked around, frowning. “Are you alone?”

“It’s just you and me.”

Anakin looked surprised. “Oh. You, um...you were there, right? On that cold planet?”

“You mean Sharlissia? Yes, that was me. And two of your other friends.”

“Right,” Anakin said slowly, looking in the air as if searching for something. “Well, you – or, maybe it wasn’t you, but someone, you said...well, why I called you here, I need, um....” He could barely look Obi-Wan in the eye. “I’m not used to talking this much.”

Well, if that didn’t feel like a blow directly to Obi-Wan’s chest. “That’s all right, take your time. There’s no rush.”

Anakin took a deep, trembling breath. He was shaking horribly. “I don’t remember the word, um...like, when you’re on one side, and the people on your side are out to get you, and you want to go to the other side but you need help getting there, and, um....” He grimaced.

Obi-Wan put his hand to his beard. “Asylum?” he suggested. With fondness, Obi-Wan noticed Anakin’s nose scrunch up the way it always did when he was confused. He elaborated, “As in, political asylum. Seeking refuge from those who wish to hurt you. A safe haven.”

Anakin nodded, looking relieved. “Yeah, that.”

“Well, I think we could give you that,” he said. “The Jedi, I mean. I’ll have to talk to them, first, but I’m confident they would agree to take you in.”

Anakin looked at the ground. “Even after I....”

“Yes, I think so,” Obi-Wan said, though to himself he had to admit he wasn’t so sure, which was precisely the reason he would be establishing a holoconference with the Council once he had returned to his own shuttle. He was certainly not intending on bringing Anakin back if it meant trying him as a criminal. Pointedly, he remembered Barriss Offee, and how she had been given to the Republic military without even talk of a trial. Well, he decided, if they planned on doing anything of the sort with Anakin, they would have to go through him.

Anakin was fiddling with his glove, looking down. His whole face was concentrated in a frown, and his eyes were frightened. “I didn’t want to kill anyone....”

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said softly. “You don’t have to convince me. I believe you.”

His friend blinked up at him. “Why?”

“Because you asked me for help,” Obi-Wan said simply. “And because I have known you for a very long time.”

Anakin looked at him curiously. “How long?”

“Since you were nine years old.”

“How old am I now?”

Obi-Wan repressed a shiver, and tried to force a comforting smile. “Twenty-two.”

Anakin looked heartened, though somehow crestfallen at the same time. “You really mean it. You really want to help me?”

“Very much so,” Obi-Wan said sincerely. “You and I have been through a very great deal together, and it hurts me to see you like this. I want to make sure that you have the ability to make your own choices from now on.”

Anakin bit his lip. “I just want to be away from the Sith.”

“Well, there is no better place for that than the Jedi Temple on Coruscant,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t think there is anywhere safer that you could go. If you would like, we can go back to my ship and contact the Jedi Council....” He left out the addendum, to make sure they wont try you as a Sith agent.

Slowly, Anakin frowned. He looked at Obi-Wan, out at the ocean, at his hands. Then, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.” With one final look around the Separatist shuttle, Anakin followed him down the ramp, closed the ship, and they set off.

“I landed a little ways away – just, you know, in case your message had been a trap,” Obi-Wan explained, feeling his face flush and suddenly regretting having said that. Anakin didn’t say anything.

It was a long walk, even with a shortcut through the thin array of tropical trees and jungle-like plant life, though admittedly a nice one. If fate had taken a different turn, it was the sort of walk that Obi-Wan and his old Padawan might have taken when they had time to kill on a world they had never been to before, admiring the diversity of life in their expansive, complicated galaxy. To be sure, the remoteness was a refreshing change from the overwhelming war atmosphere he was used to, the greenery much preferable to the silver city walls of Coruscant.

Obi-Wan was just beginning to think about showing Anakin the temple gardens when Anakin stopped abruptly in his tracks and said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Well, there is only one thing – one person, actually, that I remember from...before all this,” he stammered, suddenly looking nervous. “Um...did you know my mother?”

Obi-Wan felt his mouth fall slightly agape. Anakin remembered his mother? That was tremendous, what a wonderful – he cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I never met her, but you have told me about her in the past.”

Anakin kicked at the ground. “Would – would, uh...would you know where to find her?”

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, no, Anakin. Oh, oh oh oh.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said slowly, turning to face him more fully. The look on his face must have given it away. This – oh, no. “Anakin, your mother...she died. Almost three years ago.”

At first, Anakin just stared at him. Then his eyebrows drew together, his whole face twisted in confusion. “No,” he whispered, as if the word could bring his mother back. His eyes, so blue again, looked betrayed. “But, that – no, but she’s – the only thing that I....”

It felt like Obi-Wan was following down a bottomless hole. His heart was in his stomach. All he could bring himself to say was, “I’m so sorry....”

Anakin laced his human hand through his hair. He pressed his metal fist to his lips, then to his hip, looking around like he was lost. He walked a few paces away, then back, then away again, and then he lowered himself to the ground and stared at the dirt.

Obi-Wan didn’t move. He couldn’t, really. A deep, terrible sadness pressed against his chest like a weight. He had never, never even considered that he would have to have this conversation, so soon, here, in the middle of nowhere on their way back home, before he had convinced Anakin that he was trustworthy and that the Jedi could help him and that everything was going to be all right....

He watched as Anakin slowly, gingerly lowered himself to the ground and curled in on himself, eyes squeezing shut, silent. Ten meters away, Obi-Wan sat down in the meditative position and tried ease his mind off the terrible howl of agony that was lighting up the Force like fireworks. It was no use. No matter how much it hurt, he couldn’t bring himself to focus on anything other than the familiar sense of his friend in the Force for the second time in months and months and months.

After a time, the hitched breaths of his old Padawan slowed. From here, Obi-Wan could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, the deadened, emotionless, vacant stare in his eyes as he looked blankly up at the sky, body slackened as if he wanted to lay in that spot forever and never move an inch. After a longer time still, Obi-Wan got up, crossed the few paces in between them, and said, gently he hoped, “Do you want to go now?”

He wasn’t sure if Anakin would answer, or if he even could. Then, Anakin said, “Okay.” Obi-Wan reached out a hand to help him up; Anakin pushed himself to his feet on his own.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. When the Jedi shuttle came into view, Anakin stared up at it with little interest then followed Obi-Wan inside. They went through the main compartment to the back room, where Obi-Wan, partly out of habit, heated up some water for tea. Anakin hovered around until he was done.

He gestured to the pair of chairs bolted to the floor. “Sit, please.” Anakin did, wincing, so far the only change in expression since his unwelcome revelation. Obi-Wan frowned. “Are you hurt somewhere?”

His friend looked as if he didn’t understand the question. “Oh,” he said blankly. “No, I just – s’nothing....”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of knowing you,” Obi-Wan said, “It’s that ‘nothing’ is always something.”

Slowly, Anakin rested his human palm against a spot on his right side. When he spoke, it sounded like every word cost him a great effort. “The droids kept...finding me, and...I didn’t know what else to do....”

Suddenly, Obi-Wan felt very sick. “Did you...have something implanted in you?” Anakin’s nod confirmed his suspicions, the one Obi-Wan had had since the Separatists had recaptured Anakin on Sharlissia. “And you cut it out yourself?” Anakin nodded again. Obi-Wan crossed the small room, put two cups of tea on the table, and sat next to him. “Can I see the wound?” With a shrug, Anakin’s metal fingers curled around the hem of his thick synth-leather jacket and raised it a few inches above his waist. Obi-Wan let out a breath. The wound certainly wasn’t the worst he had seen, but if he didn’t take care of it now it would soon get infected.

He asked, lightly, “Do you mind if I clean it up for you?” Anakin shrugged again. When Obi-Wan turned his back to get the medkit, he allowed himself a frown. Apathy was not one of Anakin’s most frequently expressed emotions. The man was passionate on all accounts, and to see otherwise always unnerved him.

Obi-Wan wet a cloth and dabbed at the inflamed skin. It should have been painful, if only slightly, but Anakin didn’t react. His eyes were distant, glossy, his expression sunken. Obi-Wan swabbed the wound with a disinfectant and pressed a bacta patch to the skin before closing the medkit and sitting up. “There we are. Is that better?” Anakin didn’t respond.

They sat in silence. Obi-Wan sipped his tea. Anakin sat, mostly unresponsive. Eventually, without moving, he said, “How did it happen?”

Obi-Wan didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. He set his cup down. “A little like you, actually, she was kidnapped and tortured,” he said, his throat suddenly dry and shaky. “By Tusken Raiders on Tatooine. Your home planet,” he added. Anakin squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his head back against the wall.

“Why did this happen to me?” he whispered. A pause, and he opened his eyes and looked straight at Obi-Wan, desperation pleading in his eyes.

Obi-Wan told him. About the Gungans, Naboo, Grievous. Padmé’s decision, and it’s aftermath. The only thing he left out was how much it had hurt. The weary look in Anakin’s eyes betrayed his youth. Once again, despite all unspoken Jedi platitudes on physical affection and its implications of attachment, Obi-Wan wanted nothing else but to pull Anakin close to him and never let go.

When the explanation was done, Anakin swallowed heavily and squeezed his eyes shut. He took a big, gasping breath to keep from crying outright. He whispered, “But why me?”

Obi-Wan leaned in. “Listen,” he said softly, “I know it hurts, and I’m not going to pretend to know how you feel, but you have friends who want to be here for you no matter what the Sith put you through. I am going to stay with you through this for as long as you want me to. I promise.”

Anakin wiped a tear off his cheek, then another, and Obi-Wan asked with finality, “Will you come home with me?” Anakin nodded, silent except for his gasping breaths.

When Obi-Wan had gotten up to speak to the Council on Anakin’s behalf, he had hoped that a talk with them would have gone easier than this. Instead, he found himself sitting stubbornly, trying to reach the senses of two wise Jedi Masters. “We need him to trust us.”

The holographic Windu looked at him with disapproval. “As much as you want to, Obi-Wan, we cannot trust him. He has been trained as a Sith. We do not know what his true intentions are.”

“I’ve told you, he wants help. He wants to be somewhere that the Sith can’t control him. I’ve studied him closely. There is no deception in him.”

“Seeing only what you want to see, you are, Obi-Wan,” Yoda said. “If bring him here you do, under guard he must be placed. Afford him the benefit of the doubt, we cannot.”

“He doesn’t need to be imprisoned,” Obi-Wan said sharply. “He needs to be given as close to a regular life as possible. He needs normalcy. He would never agree to what you’re suggesting.”

Windu said, “Then you must convince him another way.”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to lie to him.”

“It’s the only way, Obi-Wan. Now is not the time for you to let your attachment to who Skywalker was a year ago get the better of you.”

“Master, I am not going to lie to him.”

“Then you are jeopardizing the galaxy as a whole by suggesting we allow a Sith to roam free,” Windu said, stern.

“This is not a Sith we are talking about!” Obi-Wan all but snapped, losing his patience. He took a calming breath and berated himself. Yoda and Windu were only looking out for the Republic and doing their duty as Jedi. They were wise and had been serving for much longer than he had. They couldn’t know the emotional baggage that Anakin was carrying around with him. Still, a part of him felt like they were still taking part in their age-old resistance to Anakin’s existence as a whole. He tried again. “This is Anakin, who was kidnapped and brainwashed and forced to do what the Sith told him to do. He never wanted this to happen, and now he’s looking for help, and we are the only ones who can give him what he needs.”

Yoda’s long ears rose and fell with his breathing. “Attached to Skywalker, you are. Blinded you to all possibilities, your attachment has. Perhaps right you are, Obi-Wan, but perhaps right you are not. The nature of the dark side, deception it is.”

“And in your current state, it doesn’t appear deceiving you would be very difficult,” Windu said.

Obi-Wan held his ground. “He’s not. I am absolutely certain. Besides, no one is foolish enough to try to kill Jedi from within the temple itself. Anyone would know that that’s a death wish.”

Windu said, “The Sith are not rational.”

“He is not,” Obi-Wan said, a little too coldly, “A Sith. He is a frightened man who needs help from people who care about him. I care about him, even if I am not allowed to, and – and if you will not authorize for him to return without imprisonment, then I will help him somewhere else.”

Mace frowned and crossed his arms. “Do I need to remind you that you are a Council member with a Padawan in the temple, Master Kenobi?”

“No,” Obi-Wan said carefully. “And I don’t suppose I need to remind you, Master, that Ahsoka is just as keen to see Anakin in good health as I am.” Windu and Yoda exchanged an unreadable look. Obi-Wan tried again, “Masters, you know how much respect I have for the Council. I have always been very careful about obeying your orders, and I have tried to instill that same obedience in my Padawans, to varying success. But if you are going to ask me to do something that I think will hurt Anakin more than he has already been hurt, then I will not do what you wish.”

“Give us a moment,” Mace said, and the image of them vanished. Obi-Wan sat back in the pilot’s seat and ran a hand through his hair. Briefly, he watched the leaves on the trees outside sway in the island breeze, vaguely wondering if he should go check on Anakin until the hologram reappeared.

“Very well, Obi-Wan,” Windu said. “You may bring Skywalker back to the temple under three conditions. First, he will be stripped of his lightsaber indefinitely. Second, he must remain with you or under guard at all times. Third, when you arrive we will closely examine him for ourselves to be sure that what he has told you is the truth.”

Obi-Wan listened, and nodded. “That seems fair. I will give him your conditions.”

“He’s going to have to be very careful, Obi-Wan,” Windu warned. “We will not treat any slip-ups as such. We will be operating under the assumption that he may still have some allegiance to the Sith.”

For a moment, Obi-Wan considered responding. Instead, he said, “Thank you, Masters,” and shut off the comm a little too quickly.

It was almost nightfall on Coruscant when they arrived. The sky had a rosy glow about it when they entered the atmosphere, and Anakin stared off into the distance as he had stared off into hyperspace the entire way home. So different from the chattery Padawan of years ago.

Obi-Wan pointed off into the distance as he flew. “That round-topped building over there is the Senate, there’s the entertainment district. And there is the Jedi Temple.”

He had to admit, he was glad to be home. Those five temple spires against the dusk night were a comfort to any war-weary Jedi. Over the comm, Obi-Wan informed the temple of their arrival and piloted the ship to the main spire’s hangar. A bit of a bumpy landing, but then again of the two in the shuttle Obi-Wan was not the better flyer.

“Do you still like to fly?” he asked conversationally as they shut the ship down. Trying to lighten the mood. Trying to keep Anakin from worrying about whatever interrogation he was about to get.

Anakin just looked at him for a minute like he was caught off-guard, like he didn’t understand why anyone would ask. “I guess.”

Obi-Wan flipped a switch and lowered the exit ramp. In the artificially lit hangar bay stood a small reception, waiting for them. Ahsoka, Mace – and four faceless temple guards. Anakin seemed to figure it out and shot him an accusatory glare. “I thought you said that....”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said, and he meant it. “I didn’t think they would do this. It will be all right. Just – try not to hide from the Force. Just try to be honest with them. They already know the circumstances, hopefully there will be no surprises.”

He walked forward, and Anakin followed behind. When they approached, the temple guards raised their unignited lightsaber hilts and said, “Hands up!”

Glancing at Obi-Wan, Anakin did as they said. He looked confused and frightened as one of the guards plucked his lightsaber off his belt. Ahsoka was staring angrily at Windu. Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest and said to Mace, “Master, I don’t think this is necessary. Anakin is not a threat.”

“We will determine that, Obi-Wan,” Mace said coolly. He looked at Anakin. “Follow me.”

They did, out of the hangar and into the main turbolift to the Council’s chamber. Anakin squirmed under the watchful gaze of the Jedi. Ahsoka lingered back with Obi-Wan and they exchanged a worried look. When they entered the Council chamber, thankfully the guards remained outside. Good. Their presence had been unnecessary, anyway, especially given that the nine Council members currently on Coruscant were also nine of the most proficient warriors in the galaxy. Mace went to his seat, Anakin went to the center; Obi-Wan remained with Ahsoka by the door.

Yoda spoke first. He opened his eyes, probably coming out of meditation. “Welcome back, young Skywalker. A long time it has been.” Anakin fidgeted with his hands and didn’t say anything.

Windu, stoic as ever, said, “Anakin Skywalker. You are responsible for killing fifteen Jedi Knights and an uncounted number of clone troopers. Do you deny this?”

Obi-Wan’s sense of Anakin wavered. He could tell Anakin was trying to keep the Force open, honest, like he had said. “No,” Anakin said.

“To whom does your allegiance lie?” Master Mundi asked.

Anakin put his arms around himself protectively. “No one. Myself, I don’t know.”

“To the Sith?” Windu asked.

“No.”

Yoda put his hands together over the grip of his stick. “Your Sith master, Darth Sidious is?”

“Was. Yes.”

“Tell us who this Sidious is, can you?”

Anakin’s face twisted in confusion. “I don’t know. He’s just Sidious.”

“Does Sidious have direct influence on anyone in the Galactic Republic?” Windu asked.

“Not that I know of,” Anakin said. His voice shook. “I don’t know.”

“Is it true that Darth Sidious has full control over the Senate?”

Anakin bit his lip. “I really don’t know anything about the Republic, honestly.”

Windu sat back in his chair and surveyed Anakin with an unreadable expression. “I and many others on this Council find it difficult to believe that you could work so closely with a Sith Lord and be so unaware of his actions and identity.”

“I didn’t ‘work closely’ with him,” Anakin said. “I just did whatever he told me to, because if I didn’t....” He trailed off, and looked distantly at the floor.

Breaking the silence, Yoda said, “Tell us where he is, can you?”

Anakin looked up, a heaviness pulling at his frown that hadn’t been there before. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again. The room waited as he closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them. Looked around again. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, did you ask another question?”

Obi-Wan saw Ahsoka glance at him. Saw a few Council members glance at each other, too. He tried to keep a straight face. Yoda repeated his question, and Anakin said, “Oh. Um...he – he was on Serenno, but I think that was a few weeks ago. He’s probably not there now.”

Obi-Wan frowned deeply. He said, “Were you in Count Dooku’s palace?” Anakin looked at him and nodded. Obi-Wan had to admit he felt a tad sick at the thought – he had visited Dooku’s palace undercover not eleven months ago. Oh dear Force please tell me I didn’t visit it while Anakin was there. But that mystery would have to wait.

“And you have no more information as to Sidious’s whereabouts?” Windu said, his tone explicitly suspicious.

Anakin said, “No.”

The meeting lapsed into silence, and suddenly it was just like over twelve years ago, when a nine-year-old boy had stood in that same spot, cold and afraid and longing for his mother. It was the same now, really. Obi-Wan took a deep, calming breath. Patience, he told himself. Wait it out.

The Council Chamber was like a nucleus of Force-power. Ideally, the Force here was supposed to be reflective, light, meditative, serene. More often of late, it was conflicted, tense, shadowy. Now, it was...uncomfortable. It was a reflection, Obi-Wan knew, of Anakin’s own feelings; the man was like a battery-powered generator of Force energy. In the Council Chamber of all places, his feelings were magnified, and with him keeping himself open, any trained Force-sensitive could see straight through him. So it was that the Masters in their chairs did now. Looking at Anakin’s truth. His darkness. His fears.

And Anakin looked so uncomfortable. The defensive, protective master in Obi-Wan wanted to jump to the rescue. Just wait, he told himself. Wait, and be calm for him.

Two more minutes. Five, of just silence. Ten, and it was too much. Not for him, but for Anakin. He looked like he wanted to cry. When he saw Anakin glance at him, a sort of plea in his eyes, Obi-Wan decided to end this.

“That’s enough,” he said, breaking the silence and moving to join Anakin in the center. A room full of the eyes of his superiors turned to him. Some were surprised. Very well – it was true that standing up to the Council was not one of the things for which he was better known.

Windu looked at him. “We have not yet finished our examination, Master Kenobi.”

Calm. “Twelve years ago, your examination took several hours and you had already made up your mind before you began,” he said pointedly. “Forgive me, Master, but what else is there that you could possibly need to find out?”

“The truth,” Mace said sharply. “As I said, it is difficult to believe that someone who was so comfortable with killing Jedi can come seek forgiveness from us without an ulterior motive. The crimes that you have committed to this Order cannot be forgiven.”

Something changed in Anakin, and in the corner of his eye Obi-Wan saw him cross his arms over his chest. “I don’t need your forgiveness,” he said, with just a touch of his old, typical defiant nature. “I just need a – uh –” He glanced sideways at Obi-Wan. “What did you call it?”

Oh. “Asylum,” Obi-Wan said, glancing at Windu, whose eyebrows raised in unsympathetic skepticism.

“Asylum is granted for refugees, victims of another state,” Windu said, his words harsh and biting. “Not war criminals.”

Obi-Wan replied coolly, “In a democracy, asylum is granted to those who are in danger. That situation applies here.”

“In what way?”

Before Obi-Wan could speak, Anakin cut him off. “They tortured me! That’s the only reason I ever did what they told me to in the first place, because if I didn’t they’d keep torturing me until I did!” Obi-Wan realized he was shaking. Anakin continued, “No one lasts under that kind of torture. No one.”

Stern, Windu refuted, “You cannot expect us to admit someone who has murdered fifteen Jedi to roam the temple as he pleases.”

“I don’t care about the temple, I just –” Something changed again, and in an instant Anakin went from the echo of his past arrogant, overconfident, brash self back to his bruised and battered self of the present. “Just keep me away from the Sith, please, that’s all I want. I don’t care about anything else.”

For a long moment, Yoda and Windu exchanged looks with each other. Then, Yoda said, “A moment alone with Obi-Wan, we need, Padawan Tano, young Skywalker.” Ahsoka and Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan before walking out together. Obi-Wan watched them leave, then turned to Yoda and Windu. He waited.

Yoda spoke first. “Much fear there is in him,” he said. “More even than when he first came here.”

“Much of that fear is directed at the Jedi,” Saesee Tiin added. “He hardly spoke, and he seemed withdrawn.”

“That is because he thinks the Jedi want to kill him,” Obi-Wan said. “I told him on the way here that the Jedi are benevolent and just in nature. I would very much like for him to believe that, as I do.”

Windu said, “I don’t trust him.”

Obi-Wan looked at him. “With respect, Master, you never have.”

Windu looked at Yoda, then the other members of the Council. “Obi-Wan, what I think you haven’t fully come to terms with is that the boy killed at least fifteen Jedi, including two Padawans.”

“So what do you want to do, Master?” Obi-Wan said flatly. “Imprison him? You must have sensed it. He was not lying. All he wants is protection from the Sith.”

Ki-Adi-Mundi said, “The safest place for him, therefore, would be under guard within the temple.”

“A servant of the dark side, he has become,” Yoda added. “Full of fear and anger he is, more than ever before. If not fully gone to the dark side is he, soon may he fall the rest of the way. A dangerous effect that would have, on Jedi in the temple.”

Obi-Wan said, “I will work with him to ensure that does not come to pass.”

“Such energy you have?” Yoda asked. “Such commitment?”

Plo Koon said, “Skywalker is no longer your Padawan.”

“And furthermore,” Windu added, “You have a responsibility to Padawan Tano, this Order, and the seat on this Council to which we have appointed you.”

“And I am very appreciative of that position, Masters, but that does not mean I can stand by and let Anakin be treated the opposite of how he deserves. The circumstances that he has been thrust into are not his fault. We cannot punish him for things that the Sith did to him.”

“The circumstances in which he committed these crimes are inconsequential,” Mundi said. “We simply cannot allow him to roam the temple freely.”

“You won’t have to,” said Obi-Wan. “I will look after him. He won’t go anywhere without me or Ahsoka being there.”

Saesee Tiin was next. “Do you believe Padawan Tano could fend him off in event of an incident?”

Obi-Wan forced the beast of impatience inside him down. “There will not be any incidents, because Anakin is not a Sith agent. You have my word on that.”

Mace leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, considering him. “Obi-Wan, the time for you to take responsibility for all of Skywalker’s actions is long past. He is no longer a child. He is old enough to know exactly what he’s doing at all times.”

“He is a victim.”

“With victims of his own.”

“He never wanted to kill those Jedi,” Obi-Wan said, allowing only a little desperation to show. “He told me so himself. Please, Masters. He needs a normal life. He needs time. I’m not asking that you trust him. All I am asking is that you give him a chance. Let me look after him. I will not let anything happen, to him or to anyone else.”

“That may not be in your power,” said Master Mundi.

His jaw was tight. He loosened it. “No,” he agreed, “It may not.”

Yoda put his hands together. “Looked into Skywalker we have. Lying he was not, unless using the dark side to deceive us he was. Dangerous it is, to have a user of the dark side in our midst. Encourage him to break that habit, you must.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “He will be allowed to stay then?”

“Many exceptions we have granted Skywalker in the past,” Yoda said. “Another we must make now, if any chance there still is that the prophecy is true.” Obi-Wan wanted to bite his lip. Yes, of course. The prophecy. The only reason Anakin was ever relevant to them at all.

He chided himself. Surely that wasn’t true. Surely.

He said, “Thank you, Masters. I do not believe you will regret this.” He bowed.

A moment later, Anakin and Ahsoka were brought back in, joining Obi-Wan in the center circle. He could only spare them a few second’s glance, but it was easy to see that Anakin’s eyes were red and Ahsoka looked stricken. Oh, dear.

“We will allow you to stay, Skywalker,” Windu said, “Under the conditions you have already been given. You are to remain with Master Kenobi or Padawan Tano at all times.” Then he looked at Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. “Any mishap, therefore, will be your responsibility.” They nodded, and he looked back at Anakin. “In the past, we have been lenient towards you because of your possible Chosen One status. You should not expect that same leniency now. We will not give you the benefit of the doubt if something happens. There will be no second chances.”

Lenient? Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to agree. From pre-pubescence to adulthood, the child and the man alike had been criticized, placed under a spotlight, outcast. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what universe someone would have to be from to think that Anakin had been treated with leniency. But then, Obi-Wan had to suppose he was biased.

Anakin nodded, and said quietly, flatly, “I understand.”

Yoda said, “May the Force be with us all.” Dismissal.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, “Will you please come with me?” and he ushered both Anakin and Ahsoka out the door, through the antechamber, and down the turbolift. The temple guards didn’t follow. Relief washed over him once again. The worst was over with, for now.

Through the halls and across the temple, they walked until they finally reached the living quarters. Obi-Wan went in first. Glancing at Anakin, he said, “We used to live together when you were my Padawan, and when the war started and you were knighted we never changed living arrangements.” He pointed around. “That’s the meditation room, over there we have a small kitchen, and a living area.” Then, he paused. Hesitated. “Does...anything seem familiar?”

Anakin looked around, and his expression gradually turned sad, like his expectations were let down. “No.”

“Let me show you your room,” Obi-Wan said. They walked down the short hall, and he pressed the button to open the door to Anakin’s bedroom. “Here it is,” he said, gesturing inside. With a wave of his hand, the lamp across the room turned on. Anakin poked his head in and looked around, uncertain. “There’s a ‘fresher through that door, and spare clothes in the closet. I cleaned it up a little, but I haven’t changed anything,” Obi-Wan added. Not that it mattered, he reflected. Anakin probably wouldn’t know the difference.

“Can I get you anything?” Obi-Wan asked. “Are you hungry?” Anakin shrugged and looked at the floor. Obi-Wan said, “Why don’t you get settled in, and I’ll bring something to you.”

“Okay,” Anakin said. “And, um...thank you. You didn’t have to fight for me.”

Obi-Wan smiled at him. “You’re with friends now. Friends fight for each other.”

Anakin looked at him with an expression that was almost a smile, nodded, and went into his room. Then, Obi-Wan walked back into the living area and collapsed on the couch where Ahsoka had made herself at home. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Well at least that’s over with.”

Quiet, reserved, she said, “I never thought I’d see you standing up to the Council like that.”

He chuckled. “I suppose I’m finally living up to my master’s legacy.” She smirked humorlessly, and picked at the hem of her skirt. “Are you all right, Ahsoka?”

She shrugged. “It’s not me you have to worry about.”

“If I don’t, then who will?”

Her eyes distant, she didn’t respond. Instead, she said, “He’s going to need more help than we can give him, Master.”

“I know.”

“I – I don’t know how to deal with stuff like this.” She looked at him, wide-eyed. “I’m scared.”

“So am I.” Feeling immeasurably old, Obi-Wan stood up and headed towards the kitchen. “So am I.”

Chapter Text

PART I: THE THIRTEEN DAYS

The very first thing that Anakin did when the door to his new, or old, bedroom closed behind him was collapse against the wall and slide to the ground. Kenobi – uh, Obi-Wan –  had turned the light on, so he looked around. There was a workbench covered with tools and a scattered arrangement of machine parts; a dusty circular chair probably used for meditating, like Sidious had said the Jedi do; a poster on the wall, and in front of it what looked like a small yellow model ship; tarnished metal crates, piled in a corner; the bed had red sheets, smoothed out and meticulously neat. Through the open blinds of the window, the dark cityscape of this planet – Coruscant, right? –  shown in the form of a thousand pinpricks of light. There was, notably, nothing in this room to indicate that he specifically had been the one to live here.

He supposed that made sense. On the way, Obi-Wan had said that Jedi relinquish all material possessions besides what they can carry on their person. Indeed, Anakin hadn’t exactly expected a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a comfortable-looking bed. Not that he had really had many expectations at all, but...this was a lot more than he could remember (which was basically nothing) and a lot more than he’d thought he would ever get. He didn’t know what to do with all of it, so instead of doing anything he just kind of sat there, against the wall, until a buzz on his door sounded and he said, “Uh huh.”

The door opened, and it was Obi-Wan again. He noticed Anakin there against the wall, cleared his throat, and knelt down. “I, ah, brought you some soup, if you want it. I know you said you’ve had a liquid diet, so I thought it would be a good idea to try to adjust back to solids slowly.”

Anakin nodded dumbly. “Thanks.”

Obi-Wan looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he put the soup on the floor and said, “I’ll just leave it here. And, like I said, just...let me know if you need anything.”

The door closed again. Anakin looked down. The soup was just a light broth, but it smelled good, and a sample sip gave him a taste of herbs and vegetables and actually, it was delicious.... Okay, well, maybe anything would be delicious after that mush he used to eat, after months of ration bars and IVs and worst of all those feeding tubes...but he was also sure that if he could only eat one thing every day for the rest of his life he would be fine with it if it was this soup. When had he ever enjoyed eating?

When his stomach was full (in fact, so full he thought he might throw up, but then again he felt vaguely nauseous a lot of the time so who’s to say it had to be the soup?) he got up and laid down on the bed. Two minutes later, he got up again, because there was no way he could ever fall asleep on this thing, it was more like a cloud than a surface to sleep on, too plush and soft for someone who’d done the things he had done so instead he got down again on the hard floor and in another two minutes he felt very, very sleepy....

On the second day, Anakin woke up and blinked in the sunlight, not quite sure what to do with himself, and when he finally got up off the floor he started examining his room. There were heads of droids and arms of droids and torsos and legs, and wires and screws and plates and gears and the tools to put them all together. In the crates were more materials, airbrushes and power converters, tangled cables and motivators, broken commlinks and spare eyes for protocol droids. One whole crate was dedicated to accessories for an astromech, but there was no such droid in sight so he left it for later and explored elsewhere.

Under his bed were findings even more interesting. Piles of flimsi packets of droid schematics and starship schematics and schematics for a metal arm. He looked at his with newfound amazement – perhaps he had been remembering wrong the whole time, but he had always sort of assumed the Sith had given the arm to him in order to, ahem, making more use of him. He put the plans off to the side to reassess the arm situation later.

Also he found writings, reports, datachips with tiny labels. In a small box he found disks of holorecordings, some of HoloNet broadcasts and programs and speeches by a woman with a pretty face and ornate outfits. And there were drawings, done by his own hand: drawings of more starships, and he recognized one as the yellow starfighter model that he had only spared a passing glance to before; drawings of different alien species, of animals, of speeders and podracers, some dated as long as twelve years ago; and of people, pages and pages of doodles of a woman in different dresses and hairstyles. He wondered if it was supposed to be the same woman as in the recordings. He supposed the only person that could really answer was himself.

Halfway through the day, Obi-Wan reminded him to eat; he did, and then Obi-Wan said, “I don’t know if you saw, but there’s a closet in your ‘fresher with all your old clothes. I know it might feel strange wearing Jedi attire, but....” So Anakin looked, and he found tunics and synth-leather tabards of dark browns and blacks, black boots and mismatched gloves, the rights of which had metal clasps and were made of a material used for insulating droid parts. It wasn’t until he had taken a shower and put on these new clothes that he remembered just how suffocating the Sith’s outfit for him was. He threw the latter in a corner of the closet and only spared it a final glance when he retrieved the blue lightsaber crystal from a pocket and hid it under the pillow on the bed.

It was so bizarre. It was unreal. This was him. This was who he was, or who he used to be. Someone who planned out starships, who built droids, who watched the HoloNet for speeches by this woman, who put together models of starfighters in his spare time, who had designed his own metal arm and drew pictures of the people he had met, who had a list of planets that he had visited in the past and had a poster of a podrace on his wall. It felt strange. It didn’t feel right, not at all. It felt stolen. These things, they didn’t feel as if they belonged to him. And really, they didn’t. Because that person didn’t exist anymore, and he probably never would again.

Anakin – if he really had a right to call himself that (what would the old him have thought if he had known what was in store for him?) – rubbed his eyes. Who really was he?

On the third day, Anakin went out and asked Obi-Wan if he would repeat the story of how he had come to be used by the Sith (because the first time, to be honest, all he had been able to think about was the fact that he’d never be able to see his mom ever, ever again, and, well...). With a hint of hesitation, Obi-Wan obliged, telling him about a prisoner exchange deal that someone named Padmé hadn’t gone through with, about Anakin’s death being faked over the HoloNet, and that oh yes Padmé was his wife, the human woman from that cold planet that the Sith had tried to wipe from his memory.

“I don’t really remember that day,” Anakin said, fiddling with the material of his glove.

“That’s all right,” Obi-Wan reassured him. “Not much actually happened. But, I was just talking with Padmé yesterday, and we thought maybe you would like to meet her again some time.”

Confused, Anakin asked, “But didn’t you just say that she....”

Obi-Wan frowned. “That she refused to accept the prisoner exchange, yes, but...you have to understand, Padmé is a politician, and an excellent one at that, and General Grievous was responsible for millions of deaths across the galaxy. It wasn’t a decision that she wanted to make, but it was the one she thought was morally right. And believe me, she suffered immensely because of it.”

Anakin looked at the table and didn’t say anything. Obi-Wan leaned in and said, softly now, “All I want you to do is meet her. I think you’ll be able to see how much she cares about you, and that she never wanted to lose you in the first place. Just think about it, please?”

Unsure, Anakin nodded.

Four days, and Anakin accepted Obi-Wan and Ahsoka’s offer to tour the Jedi Temple. He hadn’t really looked at it on the first night – that anxiety attack outside the Jedi Council room had really done a number on him – but the place was very impressive. Huge ceilings in every corridor, every chamber, massive windows that showed a plane of uneven permacrete and chrome as the city stretched on for miles outside. Similarly clothed persons of all species roamed the halls, some old and some young, some rowdy but most quiet. Some didn’t spare them a passing glance, some gave a curt nod of acknowledgement which Obi-Wan returned, and some flat out stared. At them, sort of, but mostly at Anakin, and most of these were young, teenaged or younger. He bit his lip, fought the sudden wave of nausea as he remembered smoldering young bodies lying on the ground, and looked out the window as if it were the most interesting thing in the universe.

“How young do people join the Jedi?” he asked.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka shared a look he didn’t try to decipher. Obi-Wan said, “When children in the Republic are born, they’re given a midi-chlorian test, and if they’re applicable the parents can choose to give their children to the Jedi or not. So, to answer your question, no older than three.”

“Except you,” Ahsoka said. “You were nine.”

There was a lot more to it than that, Anakin could tell, but he decided not to press it right now, right here. Instead, he asked, “How many Jedi are there?”

Ten thousand, they said, which meant Anakin had killed fifteen out of ten thousand. Well, that didn’t sound so bad, actually, when he thought about it....

No. What the hell? What a stupid thought. He had killed fifteen whole – ugh. He didn’t want to think about this now. Of course, trying not to think about it just made him think about it even harder....

They showed him around. Eating areas, outdoor areas, training dojos, the archives, there’s the healing ward and here’s the fountain room, more training rooms over there. Science labs, teaching rooms, there was too much to consider and not enough space in his brain for all of this (which implied that there was something filling up his brain like, say, memory, so on second thought maybe that wasn’t true) and everywhere, everywhere they went it not only felt like there were eyes on him but he was really pretty sure that there were actual eyes on him, too. Peeking through doorways, around corners, sideways glances at them by eager-looking children and wizened, ancient elders, he felt claustrophobic, smothered by all the looks and attention and please he wanted to shrink from existence not be the center of everyone’s focus, and –

Obi-Wan noticed. “Are you all right, Anakin?”

Anakin swallowed. He didn’t know the answer to that question. “People are watching us.”

Ahsoka looked around like she was oblivious, but Obi-Wan exhaled sadly. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, but the Council has been rather, well....”

“Uptight and overly-suspicious,” Ahsoka offered, then looked at Obi-Wan. “No offense.”

Obi-Wan’s expression was shrewd, but it softened a moment later and he said to Anakin, “We can go back if you want, we’ve certainly already seen enough....”

Anakin nodded, trying not to feel the seemingly thousand different stares in his direction, but then Ahsoka said suddenly, “Wait!” and they looked at her. She pointed at the large metal door near them. “We’re just by the hangar, which is where you always used to hang out, and there’s something I wanted to show you in there. Please? Then you can go back. It’ll be quick.”

Reluctantly, Anakin agreed, and behind the door was a very large, cavernous hangar with more than a dozen starfighters and gunships, and people rushing about. The clanging of metal and the whirring of drills and the unintelligible chatter of all the beings, he saw clones and more Jedi and people who appeared to be neither. This was where he’d` spent his time, Ahsoka had said, and he could see why, because somehow this place felt more like home than the too-comfortable bed and the stranger’s clothes and –

He heard what sounded like the excited whistling scream of something in binary and five seconds later a white and blue astromech was hurtling toward him so fast it couldn’t stop in time and it collided with Anakin’s knees, knocking him back a step. It backed up and looked up at him, beeping over and over and over, YOU’RE BACK, YOU’RE BACK, YOU’RE BACK –

Ahsoka was laughing. Anakin looked up at her, astonished. She said, “This little guy is R2-D2. He always went on missions with you, and I’ve been using him since you...but I thought you might want him back.” With a grin, she added, “And I knew he would want you back.”

The droid beeped. YOU DON’T REMEMBER ME?

Anakin said, “I don’t remember anything.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows shot up. “You can still understand what it says?”

R2-D2 whistled an indignant response, and Anakin felt his face twist in a frown. “I didn’t forget how to talk, did I?”

Obi-Wan flushed pink and looked away. “Sorry.”

Glancing between them, Ahsoka leaned down and patted Artoo on his canister body. “Well, you’re free to take him if you want. He could probably use some work, but we owe a lot to this little buddy. Right, Artoo?”

The droid beeped, YOU HAD BETTER BELIEVE IT, and Anakin, kneeling, had to hide a sudden smile behind his hand. Sure, he would take him, he had all those astromech parts in his room after all and this must be why, and the way this droid shook itself back and forth on its two standing legs reminded him of an excitable house pet that wanted to go for a walk. Then –

There, in the corner of his eye, Anakin saw someone looking in their direction, and he remembered, the stares all around him boring into him like laser beams –

He stood up, pretending nothing was wrong, and said to Artoo, “Come on, little guy. You wanna come home with me?”

On the fifth night, at zero hundred hours, Anakin sat outside on the small balcony that was connected to their suite by a transparisteel door, staring out at but not really seeing the thousand pinpricks of city lights against the horizon. No stars were visible from this planet. There was hardly any sound, either; the main city was too far away. Somehow, it felt like he was all alone, isolated from both the thousands of Jedi in the temple and the trillion civilians on the rest of the planet.

strapped down screaming seizing against the restraints pain pain blackness, waking up, he couldn’t make sense of anything, people moving around, tasting vomit and blood

It was chilly out, not that cold probably but he was cold anyway. It didn’t matter. Inside the temple, he didn’t belong. It was too luxurious and comfortable. He wanted to like it, but he couldn’t make himself do so.

a hypo pressed against his skin, the unpleasant tickle of people running their fingers over him, a mechanic fiddling with his metal arm, touching touching touching, there was a bad taste in his mouth and he had a headache but no one could know, show no pain, show no discomfort

He heard the sound of a door sliding open, and Anakin couldn’t tell if it was real or in his memory, but a second later a voice said his name and he looked around. It was Obi-Wan, dressed in cream-colored nightclothes, looking down at him with an expression Anakin would probably describe as ‘gentle.’

“Do you want some company?” Anakin didn’t really know how to answer that, and Obi-Wan seemed to sense as much, so he said instead, “Can I sit down?”

Anakin nodded. Obi-Wan sat and leaned against the wall. Anakin looked back at the city. It strained his eyes to focus on something so far away so he closed them instead.

the onyx colored walls and floor of Tyranus’s throne room seemed to glisten as his lightsaber and the MagnaGuards’ staffs hit each other, bright flashes of light in his peripheral vision were enough to throw off his concentration because he couldn’t focus on anything, one droid’s staff hit him in the back and he fell, he could sense Sidious’s disapproval as surely as he could feel the electricity pulsing through his body

He opened his eyes and looked sideways at Obi-Wan, who glanced at him and smiled.

the heat of two suns, the gentle feeling of warmth and longing as his mom ran a hand through his hair and kissed him on his forehead and told him that everything was going to be all right

That one probably wasn’t a real memory. Some of this stuff he was sure he made up. Still, he felt his eyes well up with tears and bit his lip hard and turned away so Obi-Wan wouldn’t see. It felt like there was a crushing weight on his chest and a pressure pushing him down and down and down.

He didn’t know how long they sat in silence. Obi-Wan didn’t say a word, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

Eventually, it had probably been half an hour, Obi-Wan turned and said, “I think I’ll call it a night. Do you want to come in?” Anakin shook his head. “All right. It’s cold, so don’t stay out all night. Try to get some sleep.” Nod.

left in a room all alone, that’s what he was, alone alone alone all the time even when he was surrounded by people he was alone....

Anakin opened his eyes, not having realized he closed them. The sky was a different color, a sort of rich shade of blue. He was shivering again. He must have dozed off. He got up, went back to his room, pulled a blanket around himself and curled up on the bed. It was still too soft to sleep in, but that was okay. He didn’t want to go back to sleep. He didn’t want to do anything at all.

When he woke up on the afternoon of the sixth day, Anakin knew that something was going to happen. At first, he wasn’t sure if the sense of foreboding he felt was in his mind or in the Force, but he tried to act normally, eating breakfast and taking a shower, hoping he was just being paranoid. Two hours later, though, he noticed something obscuring his vision, a blotchy spot and strange squiggly lines. Another half hour, and he was back in bed as a tiny nonexistent being burrowed in his brain and hit the right side of his skull with a hammer over, and over, and over and over and over and overandoverandoverandover and why was this pain even so bad, he wasn’t even fighting droids or killing Jedi or flying ships, he was lying in bed so why was it still so bad, someone turn down the sun and for the Force’s sake make it stop....

Late on the seventh afternoon, the pain had subsided, and Anakin couldn’t stop counting his blessings. This was the shortest one ever, he thought, and not short enough, but at least it was over and at least he could move again without sending what felt like ice picks up to stab his brain.

When he left his room to get some water, Obi-Wan looked up from what he was reading, clearly relieved. “There you are, I was worried. Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah,” Anakin said casually, pouring the water. “I just had a headache.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “You mean like the one from Sharlissia? You should have told me, I felt how bad that one was through the Force, and if I had known it happened again I would have brought a doctor here.”

Suddenly, Anakin found his throat swelling up, and his hands started shaking. “Well, I’m fine now, so....”

“Well, I should still take you to the healing ward,” Obi-Wan said matter-of-factly, as if it were so simple. “If you keep getting migraines and seizures, then there’s obviously a medical problem behind it.”

Anakin put the glass down on the counter, looking away. “It’s fine, really,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and quaky. “They um – they already looked at me on Serenno, and it’s fine.”

Obi-Wan put his hand on his beard. “Well, there are plenty of medications that could help, if you would at least consider a check up –”

“I’m fine!” Anakin said again, a little too quickly. Obi-Wan’s eyebrows raised. It felt like there was a weight on Anakin’s chest, making it hard to breathe. “I just – I don’t need a doctor, okay? My seizures aren’t that bad, and – and this wasn’t a migraine, it was just a headache, and headaches happen, honestly there’s nothing wrong with me, okay? It’s fine.”

He knew Obi-Wan wasn’t buying it. He knew Obi-Wan could see straight through the lie. Still, Obi-Wan said, reserved, “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

On the eighth day, Anakin worked up the nerve to accept Obi-Wan’s offer to leave their suite again. He was sure they would still be spied at by a host of different parties, but something about being cooped up in their suite was starting to make him feel jittery and restless. They went to the temple archives, which they had only glanced into on their first walk around, and Anakin had to admit there was something awe-inspiring about the place. Shelves from floor to ceiling were packed with information, which Obi-Wan noted was the most expansive collection of sentient knowledge in the entire galaxy, collected over thousands of years. Anakin had never seen anything like it. Well, technically he had, but....

They settled at a computer terminal, away from everyone else. Obi-Wan told him about the Jedi, their history, their place in the war, and whenever Anakin asked him to repeat something he did so, patient and understanding. And that in itself was nothing short of a relief – when had anyone ever been anything near patient and understanding towards him?

While Obi-Wan was rifling through information at a computer terminal to find things that might be useful to function in this very large and confusing galaxy, Anakin said, “I just remembered something that I meant to ask you...last week, in the Council, someone said something about a ‘Chosen One’? What is that?”

Obi-Wan had a funny look on his face at that, something halfway between apprehensive and irritated. “Oh, well...there is this, ah, prophecy, and – well, let me pull it up.” He fiddled around with the terminal until a few lines of text waited on the screen.

Anakin stared hard at the words, willing his annoying brain to concentrate. He skipped some it but for the most part he gathered,

destroy the Sith

bring balance to the Force

Blankly, he said, “They think this is about me?” He blinked. “Why?”

Measured, Obi-Wan replied, “When my master, Qui-Gon, found you on Tatooine, he believed that the Force brought him to you because you were chosen by it to bring peace to the galaxy.” He exhaled, looking weary. “No one knows for certain if this actually has any relevant meaning, or if it’s really meant to be you.”

Anakin still didn’t get it. “But why me?”

Obi-Wan let out a soft sigh. Anakin knew logically that the annoyance wasn’t directed at him, but it still sort of felt like it was. “Well, you have the highest midi-chlorian count ever recorded in a lifeform. You were born without a father, and you showed up seemingly out of nowhere during the beginning of a galactic conflict unlike any we’ve ever seen.” He put his hand to his mouth and looked pensive and a little melancholy. “Those are the reasons they give, anyway.”

Anakin glanced at the words and then back at Obi-Wan. Suddenly, a thought struck him and a heat rose in his face. “Is this the only reason you brought me back?”

“No!” Obi-Wan blanched. “I promise it’s not. I meant everything I said, I really just want to help you.”

“Well is it the reason they allowed me to come back?” Anakin demanded, and Obi-Wan looked down. “Tell me the truth.”

Slowly, Obi-Wan said, “Yes. Probably. I haven’t been with them in all of their meetings.” He looked dejected, and Anakin stared at the wall, angry and dismal and a little (or a lot) betrayed. Obi-Wan noticed. “Listen, I don’t want you to worry about this right now. You have enough on your mind, which is why I never mentioned this before. Besides, there is no proof that this prophecy is talking about you.”

Anakin nodded dully, and tried to return Obi-Wan’s comforting smile. No success there.

On the ninth day, Anakin took to fiddling with R2-D2. The astromech was surprisingly lifelike, more so than any droid Anakin had ever met at least, and it wasn’t long before Anakin realized he was more comfortable talking to this funny beeping machine than any living being.

“It’s like,” he explained one afternoon in his room, “If all your memory banks were wiped clean but all the other stuff, like technical data and mechanical instructions were still there. I never forgot how to talk or how machines work or anything, but I can’t remember a thing about who I am or anything I’ve done in the past. Well, except my mom.” He heaved a sigh, and leaned against the side of his bed. “And she’s gone.”

Artoo beeped mournfully in understanding, and whistled, YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE FOR YOU.

Anakin surprised himself by laughing. Force, that felt good. And a little strange, that a droid could make him crack his first real smile in...well, um...he didn’t want to think about how long.

He patted the droid on the dome. “Thanks, buddy. That means a lot.” Artoo’s indicator light twinkled cheerfully.

More people should have droids as friends. They’d be surprised.

Day ten, and Anakin found himself in the backseat of a speeder next to Ahsoka as Obi-Wan flew them to the apartment of that woman – his wife – Padmé. They parked in the lot and rode the turbolift up, stopping at the penthouse and entering a room with a transparisteel ceiling and yellow couches. A gold protocol droid shuffled up to meet them.

“Good afternoon, Master Kenobi, Mistress Tano, and – oh my –”

“Wait, Threepio!” a female voice called, and up ran a pretty woman with curly brown hair and excited brown eyes. She came to a jolting stop next to the droid. “Hold on, Threepio –”

“The maker!” the droid said, throwing his arms as high as they would go. “Master Anakin, it is so good to see you again, it has been such a long time and ever since I heard you were alive I have been hoping you would return –”

It took a moment to register what the droid had said, and Anakin had to drag his gaze away from the woman (who he suddenly realized was the same woman from the holorecordings in his room) to look at the droid. The woman – Padmé – cut in, “Threepio, remember what I just told you?”

The droid looked at her, then back at Anakin. “Oh, yes. Forgive me. I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. I am fluent in over six million forms of communication, and I am most pleased to say that you, Master Anakin, are my maker.”

Anakin’s mouth fell open slightly, lost for words. Off to the side, Ahsoka was smirking, and Obi-Wan seemed exasperated. Padmé said, beaming, “Threepio was the first droid that you ever made, and I had hoped to introduce you more subtly than that, but...anyway.” She cleared her throat and smoothed out her dress. Then she broke into a wide grin. “Come in, all of you, please.”

They did, through the entry room and down some stairs, into a charming dining space with light purple walls and a white-clothed table. Through the windows, Anakin noticed, he could see the Jedi temple far in the distance. Before he had a chance to sit down beside Obi-Wan, however, Padmé said, in a significantly weaker voice than just a moment ago, “Anakin? Would you um...mind talking for just a minute, in private?”

With a glance at Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, he nodded, and they stepped through the doorway of another room and let the door close.

Padmé was wringing her hands together. She gave him a sort of weak smile, but it didn’t last. “So, um, Ani – Anakin,” she said, her fingers fidgeting with the ends of her hair. “So, I know this might be awkward or uncomfortable for you, because I know Obi-Wan told you about what happened a year ago....” She cleared her throat nervously. She didn’t appear able to meet his eyes. “Well, I um...I thought I might be more cognizant if I wrote it all down, so....”

She pulled something out of a fold in her dress. It was a folded up piece of flimsi, and she held it out to him delicately like it was a bomb waiting to go off. “You can read it whenever you want. Or, well, if you don’t want to, I’d understand. I just – don’t think I’ll ever be able to convey how sorry I am about what happened to you. It was my fault, I – if I had ever known that the Sith were going to do this to you, I never would have done what I did. Never.” She sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”

He was so distant from all of this. It felt like she was apologizing for something that had happened to someone else. He took the flimsi with his metal hand and said quietly, not sure if he meant it or not, “Thank you.”

She tried to smile at him but still could barely meet his eyes. “If I can ever do anything for you, please just ask. I owe you so much, and...if you ever need anything, I – I’m here.”

Anakin nodded. “Thanks.”

They stood for a moment, not looking at each other, maybe half a meter’s space in between them. Then, Padmé cleared her throat and said. “Do you want to, um....”

“Yeah,” he said, and together they went back into the room where Ahsoka and Obi-Wan were sitting. Padmé smoothed her dress again and excused herself to get refreshments. When she returned, it was like nothing had ever happened. She had a smile on again, even though her cheeks and forehead were flushed red, and Anakin couldn’t help think that the rosy glow of her made her even prettier.... She sat across from him and smiled at him as if she had not just lost her composure only two minutes ago.

As it turned out, Anakin actually thought the day went kind of...well, nice, for the most part. The food was incredible (though, truthfully, he was still sure that any meal aside from grey mush and tasteless liquid was a wonder to behold) and his stomach kept fluttering whenever Padmé looked at him with that smile playing at her lips. When the food was finished, they moved down through a hall and then onto a large veranda with white silk curtains and a small fountain and bronzium statues of what looked like dancing gods.  The open view of the city stretched on into an endless collection of bluish skyscrapers.

C-3PO followed them to the curved circle of couches and asked, shy as a droid could be, “Master Anakin, I don’t suppose you would be interested in giving me a tune up? Some of my gears have not worked properly in I don’t know how long. At a more convenient time, of course.”

Padmé gave the droid a stern sort of look, but Anakin said he’d be fine with doing it right now if no one else minded, and five minutes later his three – well, friends? – had settled into the couches beside him, chatting and laughing with each other while he only sort of half-listened, opening up the droid’s casings to have a look. Well, these wires needed replacing and those servos were somehow fused together, there was something jammed in Threepio’s neck and his photoreceptors were so outdated it was a wonder he could still pick up the range of visual electromagnetic waves that he did....

Time passed, and eventually Anakin realized that it was silent so he looked around and saw that Padmé, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka were all staring at him. He said, suddenly nervous, “Did you ask me something?”

Padmé was the first to respond, and she looked flustered enough that Anakin could tell plain as day that they had not asked him something. “Yes!” she said, clearing her throat. “I was just wondering if you had any questions you wanted to ask us, about things that happened, or, you know, anything.”

Actually, no, Anakin didn’t, because how could he have questions about something he didn’t remember if he had no reference point to start with? Still, the patient way that Padmé looked at him with those pretty brown eyes made him want to answer, so he looked around, trying to find something, and – oh, there’s one. “Yeah, actually – what happened with this?” He held up his right arm.

Obi-Wan leaned back in his seat and pulled his robes tight around him. “Ah. That was Dooku, during the first battle of the Clone War. You were still a Padawan.”

If he hadn’t felt so disgusted, and if the memories of Tyranus making lightsaber cuts in his arms and leg on Serenno weren’t so fresh, Anakin might have laughed. Dooku? Like, ‘That Droid Arm Is Disgusting And So Are You’ Dooku? Vader had known Tyranus hated him but this was a whole new level –

Not Vader. Not Vader. Anakin, remember?

don’t think about it, think about something else, ask someth

“How did we meet?”

Padmé laughed. “Now there’s a story. Do you want to tell it?” she asked Obi-Wan.

“Oh, no, you go ahead.”

So they told him, and normally it was hard for Anakin to pay complete attention to such long-winded explanations but now he found that with his hands busy with Threepio, he could actually follow most of it. Padmé had been queen of her planet Naboo, they said, and Obi-Wan had escorted her to Anakin’s planet Tatooine, there was a podrace and a spaceship that a nine-year-old Anakin had blown up (what?!), Neimoidians taking over Naboo and Obi-Wan killed a Sith (good) and Anakin was allowed to become a Jedi at an age older than anyone else ever had.

When they were done, Ahsoka told her story, how she and Anakin became apprentice and master (please no one ever call him ‘Master’ again), and how they escorted the kidnapped, ailing child of Jabba the Hutt back to Tatooine. An image flashed in Anakin’s mind, those two suns and the burning sand, slaves and slimy space slugs and a loving woman...then he realized Ahsoka was still talking, about other adventures and clones and different species and battles. Padmé and Obi-Wan added details and their own stories, and for the rest of the night that’s all they did, the three of them laughing together and remembering things with smiles on their faces and fondness in their voices while Anakin sat there, listening like a stranger.

Suddenly, coming at him like an electric shock, Anakin found that the gap in his memory seemed to be three times as pronounced as it had ever been, and he wished without showing it on his face that he was at home, in bed, away from all this cheer and love and these stupid memories that other people had of him, about him, in front of him. Then, when Padmé said his name to get his attention, Anakin realized it actually had been showing on his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Anakin,” she said sincerely. “We got carried away, didn’t we? That was probably too much all at once, I’m sorry.”

Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Anakin found himself thinking, spontaneously annoyed at something he couldn’t quite place. He feigned indifference when he said, “It’s fine.”

He avoided their gazes while they looked between themselves awkwardly, and eventually Obi-Wan said, “It’s rather dark out, isn’t it?” Yeah, we all have eyes. “We should probably head back.”

Anakin turned Threepio back on, and stood up with the rest of them. They were making to leave when –

“Oh, I almost forgot! Anakin,” Padmé said. “It would probably be better if you don’t mention to anyone else that we’re married. I don’t know if you know, but the Jedi don’t really – well, allow romantic relationships, and if word got out I could lose my career, and....”

Anakin was sure his look of confusion was clear, for Obi-Wan said, looking hesitant, “You see, the Jedi Code discourages attachments between people, and your relationship with Padmé had to be kept secret or else the Council might have expelled you from the Order, and – well, I would be happy to explain all of this in greater detail later....”

“It’s fine,” Anakin found himself saying. It really wasn’t, though, but he sort of kind of just really wanted to go home and think about this some other time. “I won’t say anything.” Like, who did they even think he would have told?

He was so tired. This was just too much. Way too much. It suddenly felt like there was a heavy weight on his shoulders. Everything was so complicated. Where was he even supposed to begin understanding it all?

He just wanted to sleep. Sleep was better than trying to understand. Sleep was the only escape.

Day eleven was uneventful. He woke up, stretched, ate enough to get rid of the nausea, lay in bed and watched the ceiling. More than once, he considered unfolding the piece of flimsi that Padmé had given him to read what she said was an apology, but...something about the idea made him so nervous that he ended up shoving it under his bed with the rest of his clutter and spent the rest of the day curled up under his covers, feeling very alone.

Early on the morning of the twelfth day, Anakin woke up from a nightmare. It was hardly the first – he had bad dreams almost every night that he managed to sleep at all – but this one left him sweaty and panting and shaking and very, very confused as to why he was in a comfortable bed with red sheets and not being woken to a metal table in a brightly lit room with hypos and needles and doctors and the pronounced stinging of chronic pain in seventeen different parts of his body – actually, he did still have the last one....

It was still dark out – four hundred hours, his chronometer told him – but he Forced the lights on, dove under his bed, and pulled out the schematics that he’d found the second day for the arm that he had built from scratch. He pulled his sweaty sleep shirt off and sat against the wall, examining his arm. Tyranus had broken it all those months ago with his stupid lightsaber and the mechanics who had worked on a replacement were a disgrace to the field, if you asked him. The thing was cheap, and the electricity – no don’t think about that don’t think about that don’t – had always made it short-circuit. The joints didn’t have full mobility, and it sometimes made this buzzing noise sometimes that Anakin hadn’t really noticed until he had come to Coruscant.... Yes, this arm would have to go.

“Artoo,” he said, and the droid’s processing light came on. “Hey, I need you to help me with something....”

By day thirteen, Anakin felt...well, honestly, he felt great. He hadn’t even known it was possible to feel this good. Sure, he was tired, because he’d hardly slept since he’d started the arm, but having a project that actually motivated him was such a blessing that he didn’t want to stop (because stopping meant sleeping and sleeping meant nightmares, not escape, how could he be so stupid to think there was any escape to be had for him at all) and by the early evening Artoo attached the new arm with only the smallest of electric feedback shocks up his arm. Twenty minutes later, flexing his numb shoulder, he went out of his room to show Obi-Wan with an actually real smile on his face.

Obi-Wan was beaming, too. “It’s incredible you made one so fast, I’m impressed. And I’m glad you’ve found something good to do.”

“Yeah, well,” Anakin said, collapsing on the couch, admiring the metalwork. “Turns out Artoo knew where there was a whole crate of spare parts for my old arm, so it wasn’t really that hard. It needs some tuning, but it still works better than that piece of poodoo I had before.” At that, Obi-Wan chuckled, and Anakin looked up. “What is it?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “Sorry, you just...sounded like your old self again.”

Anakin’s face fell before he even knew what had happened, and he knew Obi-Wan noticed. He looked away, and pressed his eyes shut. After a long silence, he said coldly, “You know, if you’re waiting for the old me to come out of nowhere with all of his memories of you, that’s not going to happen. Whoever you knew is gone.”

Obi-Wan paled, and leaned forward in his seat. “I’m sorry, Anakin, I shouldn’t have said that –”

“But you did,” Anakin snapped. He stood up. “Because that’s how you really feel.”

Obi-Wan stood, too. “Anakin, I really am sorry. I’m still coming to terms with this. It’s hard to know what to say and what not to. It’s not easy for me to adjust to this.”

“And you think it’s easy for me?”

“That’s not what I meant –”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant!” Anakin said, his new hand clenching hard into a fist. Somewhere inside him, a boiling pot of anger that he hadn’t known was there spilled over. “You think you had it hard this year? You and Padmé think a few ‘sorry’s are gonna cut it? I’m the one who had my own life sucked out of me! I don’t even know what the hell the truth is, let alone who I can trust! Well guess what? I don’t trust anyone. Not the Jedi, and sure as hell not you.”

“Anakin –”

Too late. Anakin stormed past him and Forced open his bedroom door before Obi-Wan could say another word. Two minutes later, he sat on his bed and let his face fall into his hands, feeling like the stupidest idiot in the galaxy.

What had he even gotten angry about in the first place? He had honestly already forgotten. But, hey, that wasn’t new, because his brain couldn’t seem to decide which memories were worth saving and which weren’t, and apparently this one didn’t fit the criteria. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought there was some microorganism in his head choosing what to save and what to delete. But the truth was, there was no microorganism, no secretive parasitic being feeding on him. His body and all his organs just didn’t want to work correctly. That was it. He was broken.

Ugh. He hated himself so much.

PART II: CRASH AND BURN

“Anakin?” a voice was saying. “Can you hear me?”

His body hurt. His head, his arms and legs, his tongue, everything else. Something was hard under him, probably the ground, and he was curled up on his side. His head rested on something soft. A hand ran through his hair, brushing it out of his face.

“It’s all right, Anakin. You’re safe, it’s all right.”

He tried to respond, but no sound came out and he wasn’t even sure those words made sense to begin with so instead he shifted his head and blinked open his eyes. Nothing was clear. There was a person next to him, and silver around the room, silver so he must be...back on that planet...the one with...but no, because wasn’t he not there anymore? Where...?

“Anakin, it’s all right. You’re home. It’s okay.”

Home? He shifted again, bringing his hand up to his eyes – it was made of metal – wait he could move his hand? Normally his hands were still bolted to the chair when he came to.... Wait, home?

“You’re in the Jedi Temple, Anakin. In our apartment. You just had a seizure.”

Huh...?

“It’s Obi-Wan, remember? Everything is all right, Anakin.”

Whoever was talking was rubbing his arm, the one that wasn’t made of metal. With their other hand, they brushed his hair out of his face again and then wiped something off his cheek with a towel. No, he didn’t remember. Wait, yes he did. Obi-Wan. Yes, he knew who Obi-Wan was. The Jedi. And the person leaning over him now. The person running their fingers through his hair. And he was surprised, because he had thought until now that when people touched him it was either to jab him with hypos or to hurt him, but now, this made him feel, like....

“It’s going to be all right, Anakin. I’m here.”

Something in the sound of Obi-Wan’s voice made Anakin think that yes, that was true. Made him think that, maybe it was okay that he was lying immobile on the floor, because Obi-Wan was here, and...

“I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.”

Days blurred into nights, and suddenly Anakin couldn’t keep track of how long he had been here any more. He didn’t know how long ago the seizure had been, but he still didn’t feel quite...right. This always happened, he recalled, but he’d always had to ignore it to avoid being hurt again. Now, the only distractions were those he could find for himself. For a few days, he kept toying with machines, fixing up droids he must have never had a chance to finish before, anything to keep his mind and body occupied. He cleaned up Artoo, repaired some of his wiring, replaced some outdated appendages, upgraded his systems. When that was done, he went through all his crates and then went through them again and still couldn’t find any projects that interested him, so instead he resigned to collapse on his bed and do nothing at all.

Through the blinds on his window, murky yellow sunlight faded and returned, then faded and returned, as clouds moved in front of the sun. His whole body felt so heavy, and seemed to melt right down into the mattress. He pulled the blankets around him and curled up to watch the sunlight shift.

Why did he feel so sad? So empty? He had been feeling good a few days ago. And not just that, now he felt so off. Sort of detached from the world around him, sort of like if he just lied here in bed for the rest of eternity, the universe would keep spinning and no one would ever notice that he was no longer a part of it.

Sleepy, he closed his eyes, and decided he would save any more thinking for later.

Lying on the couch in the suite’s living space, Anakin idled around on his datapad. The thing that Obi-Wan had said in Padmé’s apartment about Jedi not having attachments had belatedly struck him as sort of, um, odd – because, well, attachment meant affection, which was tied to friendship, so did that mean the Jedi couldn’t have friends? Couldn’t feel fondness for anyone else? Or, not that they physically couldn’t, but that they weren’t allowed to? Because honestly, that was, firstly, the stupidest thing Anakin had ever heard and secondly, pretty contradictory to the please come home Anakin we’re your friends we care about you case that they had made to Vader all those weeks ago. It just didn’t add up. Anakin hadn’t had anyone who acted remotely kindly to him in the last year of his life, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognize friendship when it was directed at him.

So here he was, researching the Jedi Order on his datapad like a child at school, and the first thing he found was just that – there is no emotion, there is peace. No ignorance, but knowledge. No passion, but serenity. No chaos, but harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

Then it got more complicated. There were rules upon rules upon rules, and startlingly insufficient explanation for any of it, as if they thought it was self-explanatory. And the one that probably bothered him the most, no one admitted into the Order over the age of three. In other words, no one allowed to enter at an age when they would be able to make a choice for themselves. Children committed to something without being asked, or without being able to understand the implications. Unknowing that they would be trained to grow up and die in a war.

It wasn’t like that, Obi-Wan tried to tell him. The Jedi were raised to be compassionate, he said, their only goal being to do good and keep the galaxy safe, and the cost of not growing up with their families was worth the reward of helping so many lives.

“Besides,” he added, “Jedi are free to leave the Order if they wish. Some take extended leaves and almost all of them come back of their own volition. It isn’t servitude by any means, and I don’t know of any Jedi who would say that it was.”

Well I would, Anakin thought, and he supposed that was the main reason he would never be a Jedi again.

He was pretty sure that the mornings were getting grayer, like every time he woke up everything just seemed a little less bright. Like there was less of a reason to eat, or to shower, or to get out of bed at all. He remembered three – four? – weeks ago when his bed had been so plush it was uncomfortable. Now, it was the most divine thing in his life.

He rolled over, and looked at the chrono sitting on a box beside his bed. Thirteen hundred hours. He’d slept in too late. He sighed, and closed his eyes again. Sank back into his pillow. Time passed, though he didn’t know how much. He opened his eyes again. Fourteen thirty hours. Ugh, he thought. Get up.

He started to sit up. Stretched his aching joints. Ran a hand through his hair. Thought about standing up. Decided to lie down again, instead.

This was probably not good, he knew, but he didn’t really feel like doing anything about it right now. Maybe tomorrow. Probably not, though, because tomorrow was just going to be even grayer, and the day after that, and the day after that....

“Listen,” Obi-Wan had said earlier, “There’s nothing wrong with being mentally ill. It’s just that, an illness, not a weakness, and after everything you’ve been through it’s perfectly understandable that you would be traumatized and have depression.”

But Obi-Wan was wrong. He was so wrong. Anakin wasn’t depressed. He wasn’t. Because how long ago had it been that he had been feeling great? When he had made his arm and met Padmé and toured the temple and was able to eat? He didn’t remember, but probably not long. He wasn’t depressed. He was just stupid, lazy, ungrateful, he was so ungrateful, he was weak and pathetic and stupid. That didn’t equate with depression.

Except, well...there was the fact that he was starting to cry, like, really easily. If the saying was ‘at the drop of a hat,’ for him it was more like the drop of a hydrospanner or, say, a spoon. Or at the ache of his head, or a look in the mirror at his sunken eyes and scarred skin and all the other things that reminded him that he’d been the property of others his entire life. Or after the flashbacks, at the memories of death and pain and murder and blood that plagued him every day and every night. Hell, he was crying right now, sitting on his bed trying to convince himself that he wasn’t sick in the head.

Wiping his eyes, curling on top of the bed once again, he reached under his pillow and took hold of the kyber crystal he’d stolen from Tyranus’s palace, which in turn he assumed been stolen from him in the first place. The soft blue glow it emitted filled the room, and the gentle hum of it in the Force calmed him as he was sure nothing else could.

“Artoo,” he said quietly, and the droid spun its dome in acknowledgement. “Can you play that audio track? The ocean one?” Artoo beeped an affirmative tone. The sound of waves, of seabirds calling, reminded him of his mother. They may have hailed from the desert, but he thought, even though he barely remembered her, that she would have loved the ocean.

He wished she was here so bad.

the wind was so cold, it seemed to penetrate his entire body as he knelt there, shaking shaking shaking, he was three seconds from throwing up but they didn’t know that, these three people, they knew him but he didn’t know them

“If you come with us, they won’t be able to hurt you anymore....”

his limbs were so cold they were all gonna fall off, his ears and nose were burning like they were on fire, how can the cold make you feel like you’re burning that doesn’t make any sense

“We can keep you safe...it’s going to be okay from now on, Ani...we’re here now....”

his head his head his head hurt so bad it was going to kill him

“You deserve better than this...we owe you....”

in fact he hoped it would because nothing sounded better than dying right now

Vader opened his eyes, jerked back into consciousness. Without a second’s delay, he reached for his lightsaber – it wasn’t there – but he had to kill them because that was his mission and if he didn’t Sidious would –

Oh. Oh, it was okay. Right, everything was okay. Home, he was home. If he could call this home. On the balcony outside, where he had come hoping the chilly afternoon breeze would shock his system into being awake enough that he could pretend he was actually somewhat in control of his life. Well, clearly that had failed, just like everything else he did. Ha. What a surprise.

One day Ahsoka dropped in, lounging next to him on the couch, playing with something on her datapad while he stared lazily at the holoscreen. He liked Ahsoka. He could tell that she was uncomfortable around him a lot of the time – he was sure he would be, too, in her situation – but she still came here to hang out, never trying to ask him anything personal, just if he was feeling okay or if he wanted a glass of water or something. She didn’t press him like Obi-Wan did sometimes; rather, she was just content to pretend to watch some silly HoloNet movie with him. This one was a cartoon, about anthropomorphic animals living in a starship, flying around helping those in need. Nothing complicated, nothing intense. And yeah, okay, maybe it was meant for kids, but that didn’t mean adults with or without head injuries couldn’t enjoy it, too.

The film was just getting to a part where a moof and a tooka had to stop their ship’s hyperdrive from blowing when Anakin noticed that everything around him suddenly seemed kind of fuzzy, there was this really weird, looming feeling like something was going to happen, he didn’t know what but he turned to Ahsoka and tried to say, “Do you feel that?” but her brow markings just looked confused and for some reason her words in response just sounded garbled.... He tried to stand up but his knees were locked in place and he felt like he was sort of being pressed back into the couch by some invisible force.... He closed his eyes tight to try to concentrate on whatever was happening but all he really knew was that his hands seemed to be twitching of their own accord....

He heard a voice, saying something like Master?! Obi-Wan get in here now –

And the next thing he really knew was that he was curled up against a pillow somewhere, the girl whose name he thought was Ahs...Ash...something was gone and a man with a reddish beard was kneeling next to him, checking his pulse, telling him that everything was okay....

“Anakin....”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Anakin snapped at Obi-Wan, involuntarily curling his metal hand into a fist. “And I told you, the answer is no.”

“You know, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” Obi-Wan said, pleading with his hands but Anakin ignored that part. “It’s just that you’ve been through so much, and I at least would sleep better knowing that you’re not medically in danger.”

“I can handle everything that’s wrong with me,” Anakin said, not looking at him. “I’ve been handling it for months. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“But you shouldn’t have to handle anything!” Obi-Wan retorted, exasperated. “Don’t you want to try to relieve your migraines? Or stop the seizures?”

“I never asked for you to look after me through those! You can stop any time you want, I would get it!”

“You –” Obi-Wan started, but cut himself short. He took a deep breath and tried again. “The Jedi healers and doctors are not like the ones who tortured you. They don’t even know about you being Vader. They would have no grudge, no reason or desire to do anything that would harm you.”

A metal hand slammed against the kitchen table and Anakin pushed himself out of his chair. Obi-Wan didn’t flinch once. “I just can’t, okay?! I’ve told you a hundred times, I can’t, so just stop asking!” Then, he stormed around the table, past Obi-Wan, down the hall and into his room.

Obi-Wan didn’t know. He could never know. If he had been through ten days of what Anakin had been through – the feed of electricity, the needles, the hypos, the IVs and feeding tubes and electrodes, the gloved fingers checking for fractures, forcing part of a metal machine over his head, strapping him down with metal restraints that rubbed his skin raw, never once talking to him or telling him what they were going to do or why, touching touching touching. Obi-Wan didn’t know. Didn’t know the panic or the fear or the feeling of not even being human. The feeling of being owned by another living thing. But Anakin did. And he always had.

He glanced at the podracing poster on the wall. Remembered, for the thousandth time, Obi-Wan’s words: Your mother...she died. Almost three years ago.

Tears welled up in his eyes again, but instead of surrendering to them this time he kicked his bed and punched the wall and threw a Harris wrench at the window and a bunch of other tools and then, when his metal hand came to rest on the handle of a utility knife, he stopped. Picked it up. Held it in his hand, and looked at it. Flicked up the sharpest blade of the bunch. Bit his lip, then walked shakily into the ‘fresher and sat on the edge of the tub, never taking his eyes off the blade.

Just a few cuts would do it, really. Even one would help. On the soft flesh of his forearm...or on his side, where he had gouged out the chip the Sith had given him...or on his thigh...just a few cuts, enough to bleed but not too deep.... It would help, he didn’t know how but he knew it would, a physical excuse not to think about how much it hurt in his chest, his heart, his whole body, who ever knew that feelings could hurt this much.... He closed his eyes, and imagined the blood running down his wrist and onto the floor.... Opened them again and pulled his sleeve up to his elbow, holding the knife to his skin but not cutting, not yet....

If he did it, he would never be able to hold a utility knife in his hand again without thinking about cutting himself until he bled. If he did it, he would be adding more scars to the ones that had been given to him by those that had stolen his body for themselves. If he did it, it would always be a physical reminder of Sidious, and Tyranus, and Serenno, and everyone he had killed. If he did it, and if Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Padmé found out, they would be so, so upset...

He let the tears fall now, letting the knife slip through his metal fingers onto the ‘fresher floor. He laced his fingers through his hair and tugged, enough to hurt but not to pull any out, still thinking about the image of cuts down his arm and blood all over his skin, he didn’t want to do it but he also didn’t want to feel like this any more, just like how he didn’t want to kill himself but he didn’t want to live this life anymore....

Anakin took a deep breath. Then another, and another. Sniffled, wiped the tears off his cheeks, kicked the knife across the floor, then turned on the shower and hoped that when it was over everything wouldn’t hurt as much.

(It still did.)

Chapter Text

In the early afternoon, Padmé stood amongst a group of her friends in the Supreme Chancellor’s public office, a room drenched in ornate red decoration with a backdrop of a wall-sized window. Outside, the thousands of chrome and silver skyscrapers stretched on into a bluish infinity. Much closer, Palpatine sat in his high-backed chair and observed them.

The Senate’s vote had been weeks ago, but in typical bureaucratic fashion it was only now that something was finally going to be done about it. As used as she was to Coruscant bureaucracy, every day they waited was another thousand clones being killed on twenty distant planets, a hundred thousand more displaced civilians travelling to refugee camps that didn’t have enough supplies to house and feed them, and a million more credits down the drain.

“I don’t have to tell any of you how important this opportunity is for us,” Palpatine was saying. “For years you have all been striving for a peaceful solution to the Clone War and I am beginning to think we may actually make it there.”

Padmé glanced at Bail Organa, who said, “Have you decided who you will be appointing to the new committee?”

Palpatine steepled his fingers together in front of him. “That is why I called all of you here, of course. I have already carefully selected a few other members from military ranks and other government departments, but I thought you may appreciate the opportunity to choose from amongst yourselves.”

Padmé raised her eyebrows in surprise. It was an incredible opportunity, but she had to wonder – what was in it for him? She said, “Thank you, Chancellor, on behalf of all of us. It is an honor to have your trust.”

The old man behind the desk smiled at her. “Why of course, my dear. I’m confident that this will prove to be a good choice.” To the entire group, he added, “I must have your decision within the next two days.”

They bowed graciously, and on their way out Padmé noticed the Chancellor give her a familiar look and she waved Bail to go on without her. When the other senators were gone she said, “I’m so relieved we may finally be able to end this horrible war.”

He offered her a kindly old smile, like the ones he used to give when he was the Senator and she his queen. “I, too, will be most glad to have the responsibilities taken off my shoulders. This war has taken its toll on all of us.”

“How have you been feeling, anyway, Chancellor?”

“The respite did me well,” he admitted, allowing himself to look old and slightly vulnerable to her as he leaned back in his chair. “I was still working to a degree, of course, but the vibrant colors of Naboo always help me rest. I feel more refreshed than I have in years. I am glad to be back, of course.”

“Of course,” Padmé said, leaning an elbow on the armrest of her chair. “The last year hasn’t been easy for me, either, but things are starting to look up.”

“Ah, yes,” Palpatine said, leaning forward again. He looked as though suddenly he had found a youthful energy. “I heard something – a rumor, if you will, and I was wondering if you might know whether it’s true. I heard that Anakin is still alive.”

For some reason, Padmé felt unexpectedly uneasy. She hadn’t heard a rumor about Ani’s return being spread anywhere, and the last thing Anakin needed was unnecessary attention. Still, it shouldn’t be that surprising; Anakin was a war hero, after all, beloved by the Republic and renowned in skill. It made sense that rumors of his return would make their way to someone as well-informed as Palpatine.

Try as she might, she couldn’t suppress a sloppy smile. “Yes,” she admitted, a little more breathlessly than she intended. “I spent a short amount of time with him some days ago, and he looks to be recovering well.”

To his credit, Palpatine looked as if a weight had been taken off his shoulders. “That is such a relief,” he said. “I do hope one of these days he’ll be able to see me.”

Padmé frowned. “Oh, there is one thing, he – something happened to him, we’re not sure what, but he doesn’t have any of his memories from before the Separatists captured him.”

Palpatine looked crestfallen. “It must have been a terrible ordeal. You will keep me informed of his progress, won’t you, my dear? As I’m sure you know, he and I used to be very good friends.”

“Of course, Chancellor.”

The old man nodded for a moment, seeming to smile for himself as if reminiscing about days gone by. Then, he seemed to remember where he really was. “There is one more thing I wanted to say, Senator. I do hope that you will consider being on the committee.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “I thought we would elect Senator Organa. He’s more generally respected than I am, and I think he would be much better suited to –”

“Actually,” Palpatine interrupted her, “What I am suggesting would be appointing you in addition to Senator Organa.”

Padmé blinked at him. “But as you’ve said, you’re looking for delegates with different perspectives. Surely there would be outcry if both Bail and I –”

“It’s actually quite simple,” Palpatine  said, spinning halfway in his chair to look out the window. “One of you – that would be Senator Organa – would be the representative of the Loyalist Committee, a faction that is known for supporting the office of the Supreme Chancellor.” He looked back at her. “You, on the other hand, would be vocally representing the anti-war movement. This would be your opportunity to say exactly what you’ve been saying on the Senate floor for years, but to a much smaller group of people who would be forced to give equal weight to your words as to all the rest, and finally take action either in favor of them or against them.”

She raised her hand to her mouth, and bit her lip. “But the anti-war movement is ridiculously unpopular. I mean, yes, I am a member of it, but no one in the government seems willing to take it seriously. I would be a laughing stock as ever.”

“I cannot deny that there would be many against you in this,” Palpatine said lightly, “But my dear, you must consider how many people you would truly be representing. You would be a voice for the people, the same ones you are constantly advocating for. I cannot spare many seats on this committee to those without precise areas of knowledge and experience, but I know beyond a doubt that the former queen of Naboo would be the best representative for the trillions of common people who themselves are anti-war, but do not have the ability to let themselves be heard.” He leaned forward slightly. “Please, Padmé. You must consider it.”

Well, it wasn’t like she could just say no.

“On the contrary, Chancellor,” she said, smiling, “I would be happy to accept right now.”

That night, she met with the rest of the Loyalists in Bail’s office and explained to them what Palpatine had suggested to her.

“It’s suspicious, if you ask me,” Giddean Danu said, looking grim. “How can we be sure he doesn’t have a hidden intention?”

“We can’t,” said Bail, taking up his drink from the table. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take advantage of this opportunity.”

“It may be the only chance we have to get our voices heard,” Padmé agreed. “I wasn’t hoping to be on the committee, but if he’s giving me the chance then I cannot say no.”

“Do we know who else he is electing to the committee?” Bana Breemu asked. “A Jedi, perhaps?”

Bail said, “He said military officials, but he didn’t elaborate.”

Padmé frowned. “Surely he must. The Jedi are the ones leading the fighting, it would only make sense that one should be given a seat.”

“But distrust in the Jedi has reached an all-time high,” Bana said. “We’ve all heard people talking. The public does not hold the Jedi to as high esteem as they one did.”

“I suppose we will have to wait and see,” Bail said, and they all nodded in reluctant agreement.

Then it was official. Twelve people, herself and Bail included, an unnamed other ten. It was the chance of a lifetime. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was, above all else, time to end this war.

Except wasn’t going to work. How could it ever work? How could they ever even have a chance?

In her apartment, she paced. Up and down the veranda, up and down, up and down. Oh, boy. This could never work. Never, ever, ever. Peace, for the Republic? What a wild, crazy, unrealistic dream. It would never happen. It couldn’t. Not with these constituents. No way.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and she jumped, and wheeled around. It was Moteé, who was gesturing in –

“Obi-Wan!” Padmé said, delighted, trying to pretend that she hadn’t completely forgot he was coming over, which she had. With a flutter in her heart, she glanced over his shoulder and saw – nothing. Her face had already fallen before she even realized it had happened. “Is it just you?”

A steely cold expression crossed his face and his gaze cut into her like a knife. She backtracked, “That’s not what I meant. I just...thought Anakin would be with you.”

Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, well, I couldn’t get him out of bed.”

“Well you could have called ahead and told me that,” she said casually, drumming her fingers on the top of her couch. “What if I had planned for two guests?”

His eyebrows raised. “Did you?”

“No, but I could have,” Padmé said coolly. Then, her shoulders slumped in resignation and she sighed. “I’m sorry. This committee thing is making me lose my mind. Oh, I didn’t tell you – I’m on it. The committee. The big one.” She took a deep breath that did nothing to calm her racing heart. “I’m on the committee. I am on the committee.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” Obi-Wan said, sitting slowly on the couch as if something was pressing him down. “Palpatine has not even been considerate enough to mention it to the Jedi Council.”

“What?” Padmé exclaimed. “That’s absurd, the first meeting is tomorrow, he –” Realization hit her too slow. “He’s not giving the Jedi a seat? You’re leading the war effort, that’s – ridiculous, that’s –”

“I know,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “It’s worrying all of us, but...I suppose its out of our hands, now.”

Finally, she looked him over. Every time she saw him, he looked more and more ruffled. The trimming of his beard was less meticulous, the placement of his robe over his Jedi tunics less crisp and precise, his eyes sunken with dark circles framing them from below. Truthfully, she probably didn’t look much better, which was why she had taken to avoiding mirrors lately, but now she decided she would have to square her shoulders and do something about this.

“Obi-Wan,” she said, eyeing him carefully for a reaction. “I have something in mind that I believe will help us both cope with the many stressors in our lives.”

He laughed. “What are you talking about?”

She raised her chin like a well-to-do pubescent princess strutting through the Naboo Royal Palace, regal and not-quite-innocent and adamant that she get her way. “Today, Obi-Wan, we are going to the spa.”

And that was how, an hour later, Padmé found herself lounging at the spa with esteemed Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was a familiar scene, here; the owner was one of the Naboo, a friend of her sister’s husband’s brother whom she’d met years and years ago. The soothing ambiance, the light trickling sound of water from the fountain nearby, the relaxing music, the fluffy white robe and the cushioned recliner...this was exactly what she needed....

“You know,” she drawled quietly to Obi-Wan, “I think more Jedi could use spa days. They would be surprised.”

“Well, we have a very large room with natural foliage, a ceiling that emulates the sky outside, and real waterfalls, so I suppose this isn’t quite as appealing as that to most,” he said. All right, Obi-Wan, she thought with a smile, let yourself think that. You can’t fool me.

She leaned back into her recliner and closed her eyes, trying those breathing exercises Moteé had looked up for her. This was it. Her happy place. Spa days were what she lived for. It felt like she was floating, lying back on a cloud, nothing wrong in the universe. For a moment in her fantasy, no one was dying, everyone had enough food and water and a roof over their heads, the fighting had stopped, everyone lived in harmony. In her imagination, the war was over and Anakin was home with her, it was night and they lay together, she looked up at his adorable smile and his scrunched up nose, she felt his hair and laughed at his goofy jokes and rested her head on his shoulder and breathed with him, tracing patterns in the sheet across his chest....

Suddenly Padmé felt like crying, like she had all those months when she imagined the same thing. She was closer to that reality than ever before, but what if it never came true? What if he never came back to her? What if he did, and he was even worse than before, more possessive and obsessive, more jealous and angry and out of control? She bit her lip. He was so frightening sometimes. She hated to admit it, but it was true. How could it not be? Like on Tatooine, after his mother died, when he....

She took another deep breath through the nose, like Moteé had said. Don’t think about it. This was spa day. Not think-about-Anakin-and-how-damaged-he-must-be day. Another deep breath. Was he all right? Right now, how did he feel? Sad? Afraid? Lonely? Numb? It was all her fault. What if he never wanted to see her again? She would deserve it. Another breath, and another. Don’t think about it. Just stop. Stop thinking about it. This is spa day.

It was okay. It was fine. Ani would be fine. She was fine. Everything was fine. More breaths, and her heart stopped pounding against her ribcage. Everything was fine.

Then, Obi-Wan said, very quietly, “He’ll be all right, Padmé. He just needs time.”

A second later, Padmé’s eyes snapped open and she found herself sitting up and pointing a finger at him. “Okay, you know what, Obi-Wan?” she said, and he looked at her with surprise. “Have you ever considered that maybe I don’t want you and other Force-sensitive people prying into my mind?”

He looked affronted. “I’m sorry. I just sensed that you were worried.”

She huffed. “Yes, I am worried. But that doesn’t mean I need your opinion on my private thoughts, which are in my head and not yours, which means they’re for me and not for you.”

Obi-Wan’s jaw tightened, and he leaned back into his recliner. “I understand.”

Her fist clenched, and, trying to keep her voice as moderately hushed as possible because this was a spa and spas were for relaxation, she said, “No, you don’t. You’ve had the Force since you were born. There is no way you could ever understand.”

He opened his eyes, and sighed, irritable. “Fine. You’re right. I can’t understand.” He drummed his fingers on the cushion. “I suppose I can’t understand anything, these days.”

“Oh, don’t make this about you.”

“It’s never about me,” he said contemptuously. “It’s never been about me in my life.”

At that, Padmé propped herself up on her elbows, looking him over. His posture was tense as stone, rigid and unrelaxed, immune to the ambiance and serenity that the finer Nubian spas had to offer. “Obi-Wan, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I am perfectly well, thank you.”

“Oh, come on,” Padmé said. “I’m not stupid. It’s about Anakin, isn’t it?”

He rolled his eyes. “Isn’t everything?”

Her eyebrows shot towards her hairline. Where was this coming from? Knowing she might, maybe, regret this in a few minutes, she urged, “Go on.”

Obi-Wan looked at her, and released a sharp exhale. “Well it’s always up to me to fix him, isn’t it? It’s always up to me to fix everything. While he was a Padawan, I had to fix his anger issues, his impulsiveness, and his attachment to his mother. After Geonosis, his attachment to you. Well, none of those efforts ever worked, did they?”

She sat up completely, and turned towards him. “You had to fix his attachment to me?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Padmé,” he said tiredly, waving it off. “He was a Padawan. He had committed himself to something greater, and giving into the dark side because he had fallen in love with a senator was hardly something the Council wanted for their Chosen One.” He said the last words with so much contempt Padmé almost could have reached into the air and held it in her hand.

Against her own temptation, refusing to have that argument here and now, she said, “What else?”

Briefly, he looked at her as if he knew how off-limits this was. “And now he’s worse off than he’s ever been, and I’m the only one who is in a position to do anything about it. And it isn’t his fault, of course, it’s....” He trailed off, looking away.

“Mine,” Padmé finished for him. “It’s mine.”

He looked extremely hesitant. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s true,” she said in a whisper. She looked down, and her gaze came to a rest on her lap. “It shouldn’t be your job to fix him. I’m the one who gave him to the Sith, it should be mine.”

“It isn’t my job to fix him. I volunteered for this, which is why I might like a little bit of sympathy. Besides,” Obi-Wan snapped suddenly, “He isn’t a tool or an object that needs to be repaired. In fact, I think it’s precisely that way of thinking that has him so...for lack of a better term, non-functioning.”

Honestly, Padmé wasn’t so sure. “Even so, I should have a bigger part in this. No matter how much time passes, it’s always going to be true that I’m the reason this happened to him.”

“Padmé,” Obi-Wan said, his voice drenched with exhaustion, “I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to remind you of this, but what the Sith did to Anakin was not your fault.”

She thought about refuting that, reminding him that it explicitly was her who had commed Dooku and said...she remembered her exact words. I regret to inform you that the Republic will not be accepting your offer for prisoner exchange at this time. She had sealed her fate with those words. She would never, ever forget.

Heavily, Padmé sighed, and leaned back into her recliner. Muscle by muscle, like the exercises she’d been through two dozen times, she relaxed. When that was done, she opened her eyes and turned to Obi-Wan. “Can I tell you about something my parents made me do when I was a child?” To Obi-Wan’s silence, she continued, “Whenever me and my sister would act up, as in, throwing a fit because we didn’t get our way, my mom or dad would hold up both their hands and say, ‘time out.’ Whenever they did that, we had to walk away from the situation for at least fifteen minutes, and if we came back and we were still angry about whatever it was in the first place, they would hear us out. I guess the point was, during that time we could cool off and decide if what we had been angry about in the first place was really worth being angry about at all. And usually, it wasn’t.”

“I didn’t imagine you were ever the type to have fits,” Obi-Wan said casually. “I don’t suppose you brought that up during your royal election campaign.”

She swatted him on the arm. “Be serious,” she said playfully, then sobered. “The point, obviously, is that I think we should do that. You should take everything that’s on your mind recently, and I’ll take everything on mine, and we should think about it for a while. Then, when we’re done here, we can regroup and see if our cooler, more relaxed heads are still upset. Sound like a good idea?”

He chuckled, and shrugged lightly with his hands. “Why not.”

“Great,” she said, and half-forced herself to grin. She stood up, and stretched. “Then I think I’m going to go treat myself to a body wrap....”

Three hours, a massage, and a manipedi later, and not only did Padmé feel much more at peace, but she was also ready to tackle the monster of a conversation that they were about to have. They had agreed that going out for hard alcohol negated the point of a spa day, so instead they met in a dimly lit café and huddled around a table in the corner over two steaming cups of caf.

Fixing her hair as her drink cooled, Padmé leaned back and said, “You know what, Obi-Wan? We should just leave, you and I. After this. Let’s just go. Get in a ship and fly away. As far across the galaxy as we can go, or maybe to another one.”

He laughed, his posture notably more relaxed than it had been before he had left for the sauna room. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just so tired,” Padmé said emphatically. “Of the war, of these people, of working. Aren’t you?”

He nodded, watching the cream in his caf melt in a swirl of milky happiness. “If you could call what I’m doing work, then yes, quite so.”

She knew what that meant without having to ask. Taking a sip of her caf, she said, “Have you found out they did to Anakin?”

Obi-Wan just shook his head mournfully. “I’ve been too afraid to ask. I want him to come to me when he’s ready, but I’m not sure it will ever happen.”

“Well if it was bad enough to make him fight so hard to get away....”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said. He suddenly looked nervous. “I didn’t tell you. On our way home, he told me...” He leaned in, hushing his voice. “Padmé, he remembers his mother.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open. “Oh.”

“And,” he added, “I had to tell him. About...what happened.”

On cue, she remembered: And I slaughtered them like animals! But that wasn’t what Obi-Wan was talking about. Obi-Wan didn’t know about that, and Padmé hoped beyond all hope that Anakin didn’t, either.

Trying to think of something, anything, to say, she whispered, “How did that go?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. The look on his face said it all for him. She ran a hand through her hair, which was loose and fell around her shoulders, so unlike the way she usually presented herself in public. Oh, Anakin. Oh her poor, poor darling, he shouldn’t have had to go through that the first time let alone a second....

Because Obi-Wan could probably read her thoughts anyway, she said aloud, “I should have done the trade.”

“Padmé,” Obi-Wan said, sympathetic. He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his. “I know it isn’t nearly this easy, but you need to get past this. Continuously blaming yourself like this is going to destroy you.”

A tear welled up in her eye, then another. “How can I not?”

Taking a measured breath, he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about it. The Sith, and Grievous, and Ventress, they’ve all been killing Jedi for years. They could have taken any of the Jedi that they’ve killed hostage and done to them what Sidious and Dooku did to Anakin, but they didn’t.”

She looked at him, frowning. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I think the Sith wanted him all along,” Obi-Wan said in a very low, dark voice. “I think that bringing Anakin over to their side had been a goal of theirs for a long time before your decision. And it all fits together, too. He’s more sensitive to the Force than anyone else, he’s the one the Jedi call the Chosen One. Turning him to their side would crush the Jedi’s spirit, and using him as a weapon against us...I hate to even think about it, but it could have destroyed us.” He took a deep breath. “The Sith have been trying to take over the galaxy for thousands of years. Even if you had agreed to the trade, I think the Sith would have fought to their last breath to force Anakin into joining them, one way or another.”

She stared at him, numb shock coursing through her. If that was true...but even if it was true she had still given him up...but if it would have happened either way, maybe it....

“We need to help him,” Padmé said faintly. “We need to keep him away from them.”

“I would die before I let them have him back,” Obi-Wan promised, something dangerously close to passion shining in his eyes. Despite herself, she smiled. Because if Obi-Wan felt so passionate about something, maybe....

“All right, Obi-Wan,” she said matter-of-factly. “I need you to answer one question, and answer it out loud because if you say it out loud then it’s real, and no one can say it isn’t.” He looked at her, waiting, and she continued, “Why are you doing this? Why are you giving your everything to helping Anakin recover from what the Sith did to him?”

Fiddling with the hem of his sleeve, he said, “Because I want him to be happy.”

“Why?” He stared at her incredulously, and she said, “I know it seems obvious, but you need to say it out loud.”

Looking only moderately uncomfortable, he said, quiet but sincere, “Because I love him.”

Padmé beamed, and a grin took over her face. “Now you know what you need to do? You need to let him know that. Better yet, you need to tell him that. It will mean so much to him, Obi-Wan.”

Then, he surprised her by saying, “I know.” He rubbed his eyes. “I know it will. But...well, he’s not exactly on the road to getting any better. In fact, he’s getting worse by the day.”

“Can’t you take him to see a doctor or a therapist or something?”

“He keeps refusing,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head erratically. “Something about the mere idea of seeing a doctor terrifies him to his core. I don’t know what to do.”

She drummed her fingers on the table, thinking. “What about a medical droid? He could use mine.”

He put a hand up to his beard. “That...might work, actually,” he said, thoughtful. “He does still like droids, I’ve noticed. I’ll ask him.”

Padmé was quite aware that the sloppy grin plastered on her face must have made her look like a lovestruck fool, mostly because she could see herself in the window’s reflection over Obi-Wan’s shoulder – but also because, well, she was a lovestruck fool, and any chance at seeing Anakin again, no matter what state he was in, made her heart flutter like a little girl with her first crush.

Suddenly, Obi-Wan’s commlink began to chime. Without a moment’s hesitation, he activated it.

“Master, are you coming home any time soon?” With a glance, Padmé could see in Obi-Wan’s eyes the same thing that she felt: suddenly, the weight of reality came crashing down as if it had been hanging above their heads and someone cut the wire. Even over the comm, Ahsoka sounded so tired.

Softly, Obi-Wan said, “Yes, Ahsoka. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how long it’s been. I’m out with Padmé, but we’ll go back to her apartment now and I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay,” was the dreary response, and the transmission ended with a beep.

They went back, and at the base of Padmé’s apartment building she enveloped Obi-Wan in a quick hug before letting him go. “Obi-Wan,” she said quietly, taking his hand in hers. “I just want to say that I think you’re really strong for doing this. I can’t imagine what it must be like to take care of someone the way you are of Anakin, but...I know that one day it’s really going to pay off, if only because you’re so good for him.”

He looked down at their hands, contemplating. “The only reward I need is being able to see him every day,” he said slowly. “It’s been so long since I’ve had that.” For a long moment, his eyes clouded with something that, if Padmé had to admit it (and she gladly would) made her heart warm up like a loaf of sweet bread fresh from an oven. Fine, maybe she was still thinking about those pastries from the café, but no matter how amazing those had been, seeing Obi-Wan open up to her was infinitely more heartwarming.

A second later, he seemed to snap out of it and looked away from her, but not before she saw the light pink flush of his cheeks. “Anyway, good – good luck with your meeting, Senator.”

Padmé couldn’t help the giggle that shook her whole body. “Thank you, Master Kenobi.”

When Padmé woke up the next morning she rolled onto her back and stretched her arms above her head, blinking in the light of the morning. She had slept soundly, peacefully, and she was  ready for the day ahead. Slowly, she got up, fingered tangles out of her curls, smoothed her airy, revealing nightgown, and left the bedroom to greet her handmaidens.

When they saw her, Dormé raised her eyebrow and smirked. “Someone feels good this morning.”

“What’s the occasion?” Moteé asked playfully.

Padmé grinned. “I feel great, my husband is alive, and I’m about to negotiate peace for the entire galaxy. That’s the occasion. And I can’t do it without you girls.” She walked over and took Ellé and Moteé’s hands in hers. “I need you to make me look my best.”

The girls emitted a delighted noise and hurried into her closet, pulling out what they knew was one of Padmé’s favorite outfits, her knee-length deep-blue layered velvet gown and silver Shiraya-inspired crescent moon headpiece. It was a deceiving outfit; it looked heavy, but really it was light, preciously soft and very pretty. Once that was on, Moteé did Padmé’s hair while Ellé took care of makeup, and heavens, was Ellé good. The girl was an artist in her own right. Padmé sincerely hoped that if she ever decided to quit her job as handmaiden, she would enter some Nubian art academy. She was just that talented.

Not that Padmé had been made up to look like the queen she had always been, with the white face paint and the scar of remembrance on her lower lip. Rather, Ellé’s talent was in subtlety, contouring and highlighting, somehow seeing deep into her subject’s soul and making Padmé look as confident and beautiful as she felt. Maybe her handmaiden was secretly Force-sensitive. Now there was a funny thought – Jedi giving up sacrificing themselves for the Republic to become makeup artists instead.

Note to self: next spa day, bring Ahsoka and the girls.

The first meeting of what had been officially named the Senate Committee for Peace Negotiations was to take place in the Senate Building, in a meeting room with a slightly curved silver table and a dozen chairs on either side. Padmé entered the conference room with her head held high, taking a seat on the opposite side of Bail, two seats down from him. As they had discussed, they avoided each others eyes; rumor of a Loyalist conspiracy would not suit them well if they were going to do what needed to be done.

The room filled up quickly. Padmé kept her gaze low, pretending to study her datapad, though her eyes flicked to those with whom she would be negotiating. Some were senators; there was Lott Dod, Neimoidian of the Trade Federation and known affiliate of Nute Gunray; Nix Card, Muun and conniving representative of the Banking Clan; Halle Burtoni, ruthless Kaminoan who was always calling for the creation of more troops. There were other government officials, some she recognized and some she didn’t but all doubtlessly significant to the operation of the Republic as a united entity. At the end of the table, sitting with his chin high as though he were better than everyone else, was a military officer with a thin face and grey hair. Padmé wasn’t sure if any others felt the same way, but the lack of a Jedi or clone representative was poignant.

The chronometer on the wall hit eleven hundred hours and barely a moment later, the thin-faced naval officer turned his head slightly and addressed them. “I suppose we should begin, shall we? First, I would like to point out that not all of us whom the Chancellor have chosen for this committee believe that peace between the Republic and the Confederacy can successfully be achieved. Throughout the war, it has been consistently demonstrated that the only language the Separatists seem to understand is violence, and I highly doubt that any terms this committee drafts, no matter how all-inclusive, will be accepted by the leaders of the Separatist Parliament.”

Well, that certainly was a way to begin. In the corner of her eye, Padmé saw Bail lean forward. “Not all in the Confederacy see this war from a military perspective, ah....”

“Admiral,” the officer offered with an aristocratic flair. “Wilhuff Tarkin.”

Bail nodded in acknowledgement. “Senator Bail Organa, Alderaan. Admiral, despite the ban on communications between those on Separatist and Republic planets, it is clear from what we have heard of the Confederate Senate in the past that there are some who do believe that peace can be attained.”

“I don’t suppose you have forgotten the attack by the Separatists on the Senate, Senator Organa?” Lott Dod questioned. “It was only a year and several months ago. Do you not agree that a loss of lives makes more of a statement than words in a Senate session?”

Padmé took her chance while she had it. “An attack by a small group of militant Separatists does not accurately reflect the attitude of many in the Confederate Senate,” she said. “The organization of the Confederacy as a whole was originally passive, and I do not believe that attempts to make a peaceful arrangement with them are futile.”

“You are an idealist, Senator Amidala,” Nix Card drawled. “You exist in a daydream. You operate out of a false perception of how this galaxy operates, whereas the rest of us deal with reality.”

She squared her shoulders. She would not be ganged up on. “Representative Card, if you and others do not believe that peace is a realistic goal, then perhaps you are on the wrong committee.”

The Muun pointed a long finger at her. “I will not be instructed by the likes of –”

“Senators, please,” Bail interjected. “We have all been put on this committee for the same purpose, and if we wish to make good use of our allotted time, then we should begin our work.”

“Indeed,” Admiral Tarkin said with a raised eyebrow. “As we all know, the function of this body is to draft terms of negotiation to propose the Separatists. First, we should suggest where this proposed meeting would take place....”

Back home, at night, Padmé wanted to cry. Wait, actually, she was crying. She didn’t know exactly why, but in the mirror she looked awful, tears down her face, skin flushed, eyes red.

This was a stupid reaction, she knew, tears just because a few people had tried to shoot down her points all meeting long. She was better than this. No one in that committee had any more power than she and Bail did together. They were a force to be reckoned with. They were going to bring peace to this galaxy if it was the last thing they did.

But...there was Tarkin, esteemed military admiral in the navy, and Dod, Nute Gunray’s pawn, and Gunray was controlled by Dooku who would fight tooth and nail until this galaxy shattered into a hundred pieces so the Sith could swoop in and take over and this was hopeless....

No. No. Stop feeling like this. It wasn’t that easy, of course it wasn’t, but damn it, she was a queen. Queens don’t cry over people trying to beat them down with words. Padmé wiped the tears off her cheeks and stared her reflection in the eye. She took a deep breath. Put on her queen face, her strong, neutral expression with that sideways stare that she liked to imagine sent chills down her enemies’ spines.

She would end this war.

Because she was Queen Amidala of the Naboo, and she had the power to get things done.

The next day she spent in and out of meetings, shoving lunch down her throat, reapplying gloss to her lips, a holoconference with Queen Neeyutnee and Naboo officials, then more meetings. At home, finally, she received a message, relayed by Captain Typho – that unless it was inconvenient, Obi-Wan and Anakin would be coming by at twenty-one hundred later that evening for ‘matters previously discussed’. With her heart suddenly pounding in her chest, she showered and re-did her makeup, ate again, and tidied up the apartment until, right on time except actually half an hour late, her three dearest Jedi crossed the threshold into her apartment.

And Obi-Wan sure hadn’t exaggerated. Anakin looked awful – his hair was messier beyond his usual level, his face sunken, his incomplete Jedi outfit looser than it should be. He didn’t look her in the eye once.

As promised, she led them to the med droid and switched it on. It raised its head, looked around, and said, “Hello, I am MDRP-2187. How might I be of service?”

“A basic medical exam today, please,” Padmé answered, making sure all her medical supplies were in stock and operational. Truthfully, she didn’t really need any of this equipment, but the Naboo Royal Housing Department which had put together her apartment had generously and overprotectively insisted she have immediate supplies in case there was an emergency....

“Certainly,” the droid said, turning around. “Please give me a few minutes to prepare. Will the patient please sit on the examining table and remove your shirt so that I may examine your vital signs?”

Swallowing, Anakin shakily hoisted himself onto the table. He raised his hands to his belt to undo the tunics but then froze, and he turned his head towards the rest of them without looking anyone in the eye. “You can wait outside.”

Obediently, Ahsoka and Padmé backed out, and Padmé heard Obi-Wan say, softly, “Let me know if you need me.”

The door closed behind them, and they waited in the plush chairs in the antechamber. Obi-Wan seemed to melt into his, leaning back into it and releasing a deep breath. He looked nothing short of relieved.

Ahsoka, meanwhile, was fiddling with the material of her armchair. She looked up at Padmé and said, “So, how is the Senate committee thing?”

Padmé sighed. “We’ve only had one meeting and already I can tell how hard it’ll be to talk some sense into these people. Halle Burtoni, Lott Dod, and this military admiral named Tarkin –”

“You’re working with that guy?” Ahsoka said, wrinkling her nose. “I hate that guy! Or, um – not hate, because you know, Jedi don’t hate people, but – let’s be honest, I hate that guy. Sorry, Master.”

Obi-Wan managed a weak smile. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

They fell into silence. Outside, the city stretched for miles, manifesting through the window as a million lights against a black backdrop. Inside – well, Padmé didn’t have the Force, but she could still almost reach out and touch the tension in the room. She wondered what had been going on between the three of them back at the temple, but she didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask. Somehow, even though it was the health and wellbeing of her married partner at stake, it just didn’t feel like her place.

The exam didn’t take long, and soon enough the door opened and the droid was saying, “Your test results will be in tomorrow. Thank you for your patience, and have a nice evening.”

“Thanks,” Anakin said quietly, and then he looked at Obi-Wan, who was suddenly upright and expectant in his chair. “All good.”

Obi-Wan asked, “Did you tell it about the migraines?”

Anakin looked at the floor. “Yeah, it’s all fine.”

Padmé watched Obi-Wan shut his eyes tight for a moment and steady himself. “Did it recommend that you –”

“I said it’s fine,” Anakin snapped. “Can we just go?”

“Anakin –”

But Anakin just rolled his eyes and stormed away. Obi-Wan sighed, and rigidly got up to follow him without looking at anyone else. Ahsoka hesitantly made to follow them, glancing at Padmé. She sputtered, “Sorry – can I comm you tomorrow night?” Padmé nodded, pulled her into a quick hug, and watched Ahsoka bound off with a final wave of goodbye. Then, she fell back into her chair and stared at the caf table, numb. Well, that boy had depression if she’d ever seen it, and she knew a little too well how that felt. Oh, Ani....

Chapter Text

“And now he’s been here for a few weeks but it just doesn’t seem like anything’s getting better. I don’t know what to do. None of us do.”

The small blue holographic figure of a helmetless Captain Rex shook his head in disbelief. “I shouldn’t be so surprised. ‘Spose if anyone could survive the Separatists for a year, it’d be General Skywalker. You’d think word would have gotten out by now, though. And it’s been weeks?” Rex let out a whistle. “Guess Jedi secrets don’t leak, huh.”

“It’s ‘cause he hasn’t left this apartment in ages,” she said, curving her spine where she sat and dropping her head into her hands. “I don’t know what to do. We’re all miserable.”

“How ‘bout a trip to see the old troops, eh? We’ll be swinging by Coruscant next rotation to resupply. How about showing the general the old stomping grounds?”

Ahsoka bit her lip. She wanted so, so badly to say yes. What else but a tour of a star destroyer to trigger what would hopefully be a long series of reawakened memories in her old master? If only that were actually possible. If only....

If only, a voice in the back of her mind whispered, she could hitch a ride on Rex’s cruiser and go back out to war with him.

She shook off the thought. It was impractical, and she had better get over it.

“It’s, um, a little more complicated than that,” she said.

Rex cupped his hands together behind him. Not in any outward annoyance, but more in confusion. “What do you mean, Commander?”

She wished she could tell him. In fact, if there was anyone in the universe (outside of those who already knew the truth) that might understand, it was Rex. Besides Obi-Wan, Padmé, and herself, Ahsoka was sure Rex knew Anakin better than anyone. It was a regularly spoken mantra of the clones that you don’t know who someone really is until you’ve fought beside them, and Rex and Anakin had been fighting side-by-side since Ahsoka was still an initiate. Rex knew how to deal with all of Anakin’s moods, had seen Anakin in all of his most extreme states of mind. Except for, well, one.

The dark side.

“Let’s just say that...this situation isn’t as black and white as it seems,” Ahsoka said quietly. She looked back up at Rex. “It would probably be best if you didn’t tell anyone else about this. Just, um – you know, for Anakin’s privacy.”

Rex seemed to know something more was going on, if the hesitant expression was any indication. But he was still a clone, after all, duty-bound to accept the chain of command and defer judgement to his commanders. Just this once, Ahsoka decided to take that for granted.

“Understood, sir. I wish General Skywalker the best, on behalf of the five hundred and first.”

Ahsoka tried really hard to smile. “Say hi to the men for me. I’ll try to drop by the ship if I can.”

Rex saluted and Ahsoka waved the comm off, getting off the meditation chair and stretching the tightness out of her legs. She needed to start stretching regularly again, or soon she’d be less bendy than an uncooked noodle. Then, she made her way into the living area where Anakin was scrolling idly through a datapad with the HoloNet on in the background. His eyes looked glossy and Ahsoka had the feeling he wasn’t paying much attention to either.

She sat on one of the armchairs and glanced at him. “I just got off the comm with our old army captain,” she said, hoping to get some kind of response. “He said he hopes you’re doing well.”

It looked to take a long minute for the words to travel across the room and into the language centers of Anakin’s brain, as if the speed of sound had slowed to a fraction of itself. All Anakin managed to say was, “Oh.”

She curled herself into the chair. “Do you mind if I change the channel?”

He shook his head no and she reached over for the control. When she finally found a serial that she liked, broadcast out of the capital of Meldona, she slumped in her seat and let her mind wander. She and Anakin had been to Meldona once, a small, uninspiring Core world that was mostly self-sufficient, famous for exporting just about nothing, notable in her memory only because of some conspiracy they’d gone to investigate about a virus that had been infected into the planet’s grain supply by alleged Separatist criminals. Then she remembered the blue shadow virus on Naboo, and how she had been about twenty minutes away from dying before Anakin and Obi-Wan had showed up with the antidote from Iego. She had been fourteen, then...barely a Padawan for more than a few short months and already she’d almost died half a dozen times. She wondered briefly if all Master-Padawan duos ran into this much life-threatening trouble, or if there was something about their lineage that got her and her masters into crazy situations.

That was, really, really crazy situations. Like, ‘going to a planet made of the Force’-type crazy. ‘Breaking into a Separatist stronghold while frozen in carbonite’-type crazy. ‘Being abducted then brainwashed into serving the Sith and now sitting on the couch five feet away from her’-type crazy.

Surely, if they had gotten through all that crazy, crazy stuff, they could get through this, right?

No, actually, Ahsoka wasn’t so sure they could. Because that crazy stuff had to do with the universe trying to kill them a thousand different ways. This crazy stuff involved the dark side and mental problems and things she didn’t really understand because she had been taught her whole life not to let emotions get in her way. Now, emotion was all there was. Some of hers, some of Anakin’s, some of Obi-Wan’s, some of Padmé’s.

They were all a mess.

She didn’t know what to do.

Her attention shifted to Anakin, who was slowly getting up. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“’M tired,” he said, and he sure looked it. But, well, he always did. He got up and went to his room and left Ahsoka sitting there, stuck in her own reverie, thinking about how messed up this all was, and how if she hadn’t just sat here wordlessly but had actually taken any kind of action to help him then maybe there wouldn’t be such an awkward, uncomfortable tenseness around here all the time.

She didn’t know what to do. That was it. She just...didn’t know what to do. About anything.

Half an hour later, according to the chronometer on the wall, Obi-Wan came back. Ahsoka got up to leave without even really thinking about it, leaving the holoscreen on and letting her feet guide her out the door.

Obi-Wan put a hand on her shoulder on his way in and said, “Ahsoka?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and she left feeling as confused as he did in the Force.

The next day, she tried to visit Padmé. Ahsoka knew that Padmé had been working on the peace committee like crazy, but only when the senator’s assistant told her that Padmé had been holed up in her office in meetings all day did Ahsoka realize just how busy “busy” actually was. Still, she decided to hang around in case she had a moment to pop in and say hi, so she sat in the corner of the spacious waiting room trying not to make eye contact with Padmé’s assistant.

Half an hour passed, then another, and Ahsoka couldn’t figure out why she was still there. Political figures were coming and going and still Ahsoka sat. After all, she’d been here long enough, and she thought it’d be kind of weird if Padmé’s assistant told the senator that Ahsoka had waited for an hour and a half and then left, so Ahsoka figured she might as well wait a little longer...and a little longer...and maybe just a liiittle longer....

She was about to go, maybe, when the door opened and Ahsoka dared to look up. And there she was, regal and poised but still looking and feeling stressed. Padmé’s hair and makeup looked like it needed touching up and she didn’t even glance around the room until her assistant awkwardly pointed in Ahsoka’s direction and the senator glanced at her.

“Ahsoka!” she said, shuffling over. “Have you been here long?”

“Not really,” Ahsoka lied. “I just thought I’d drop by to see if you weren’t busy.”

“I really am,” Padmé said, and she looked apologetic. At this point, Ahsoka was so tired she kind of didn’t care anymore. “I’m so sorry, but there’s a meeting I have to go to. I’m trying to campaign for more people to approve the Senate committee’s proposal for when the vote comes. Would you mind dropping by another time?”

“No, it’s fine. And yeah, I will,” Ahsoka said, standing up. She tried to grin, but it probably didn’t look right. Padmé just put a quick hand on her shoulder and left with a smile.

Not looking at Padmé’s assistant, Ahsoka followed her out after a minute. Briefly, she considered dropping in on her friend Riyo Chuchi, but Force knew Riyo was probably offplanet or otherwise occupied so Ahsoka just glanced at her haunted-looking reflection in a glass display case, sighed, and headed back to the temple.

In her room, she’d been lying on her sleep mat for a good three hours by now, staring out the window at the blue, starless sky, sort of trying to sleep but also trying to think of a good way to convince everyone who mattered that she needed to go back out into the field. Fighting was all she was good for, anyway, and she was old enough to make her own decisions, even if she was still a Padawan, right? Right. So why did they want to keep her here so badly?

It made her so mad. Why couldn’t she just go back to war? She’d been on her own before. She’d helped rescue Padawans from Trandoshan hunters and saved Togruta slaves from Zygerrians and sure, she’d made plenty of mistakes in the past but she’d learned from them. She wasn’t the snippy youngling that had been shipped off to Christophsis at fourteen, courting an ailing Huttlet across the Dune Sea on Tatooine while her grumpy new master refused to talk about the fact that he’d been enslaved on that planet as a child. All she wanted, really the only thing (okay maybe not really) was to rendezvous with the 501^st and take down the Separatists and help Padmé end the war so that Anakin and Obi-Wan would never have to go out there and risk their lives in it again.

She sat up, and punched her pillow with her fist, and then with her other fist, and then got up and paced around the small space. She would do it. She would show them that she deserved to be out there, that it was her place out there, that keeping her here was wasting resources when they already had so little to begin with. It was already late, and getting later, but she opened her closet and changed into her workout clothes and ten minutes later she was at the training gym, tapping a droid on the shoulder plate to activate it, saying, “Spot me.”

So there she was, at probably twenty-three thirty doing some heavy lifting, with the weight cranked up as high as she thought reasonable, doing as many reps as she could before her screaming muscles felt like they were about to give out. When she was doing her triceps, she noticed a young, barely-Padawan-aged boy sneaking in from the door across the hall and quietly making his way over to do some reps of his own. If she’d had energy to spare, she would have grinned. She’d been just like him at that age. And, well, maybe still. Or, definitely still.

When her arms were beginning to feel like cooked noodles, she switched to toning her legs. When they felt like they were about to give out, she finally made her way over to a treadmill, setting it on an incline. She ran. She ran and ran and ran. She was sweating so bad. Her lungs felt like they were full of glass. She kinda thought she might throw up. Instead of stopping, she kept running.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was doing to her body. She knew that over-exerting herself past midnight, without warming up and without replenishing electrolytes, to make up for days or weeks of missed workouts wouldn’t solve anything. If anything, she was just going to make herself feel worse. But right now, right here, she just had so much energy and she needed to get rid of it all or she might actually explode.

She ran, and imagined.

She was running through a thick, thorny island forest beside abandoned Padawans being used as hunting targets. Through a battlefield, every step avoiding a blaster bolt aimed at where she had been just a second before. Through a cruiser that was irreversibly damaged and on a collision course straight into a planet. Down a long winding path, wildly chasing after a speeder bike that had some enemy of hers or another on it. Dooku, she was running after Dooku. Her hands clenched into fists and she cranked the speed up, almost to a sprint. She would get him. She would beat him. She would kill him. Just like he had killed Anakin.

Ahsoka ran. But not fast enough.

One wrong step and she tripped, tripped on nothing, and suddenly her knee was coming into contact with the moving treadmill, everything moved fast and hurt and then suddenly she was on the floor and the treadmill was moving without her, the hovering, textured conveyor belt going on and on while she rubbed her knee and felt like a fool.

Figuring maybe it was time to call it quits, she stood up to turn the machine off and then began to head towards the door to slump her pathetic way back to her room. Suddenly, though, her head was kind of foggy, her knee hurt really bad and was sort of weak under her still, her lungs ached so much and both her sides and her head, too...this was such a mistake, she was such an idiot, she took another step and her knee gave out under her, why had she even come here, what was she trying to prove, her head was pounding, what...what....

...

...

Her head was swimming...she groaned, remembering immediately what had happened only because of the musty, sweaty stink of the training gym. Muscles aching, lungs feeling like they were gonna fall out, she opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the young human, with his short-cropped Padawan haircut that she’d always thought looked kinda silly. He was kneeling over her, looking sweaty and nervous and just a little bit blurry.

The boy said, “Are you okay? I called a medic, she should be here soon....”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka said, putting a hand to her forehead. Strictly speaking, that was a lie. The world was spinning, even worse so when she tried to sit up. She blinked at the boy. “What are you doing here so late, kid? Isn’t it past curfew?”

His cheeks turned a funny shade of red, and his brows creased. “Hey, I called the medic for you, so you can’t report me.”

Ahsoka gave a lifeless snicker. “Wasn’t gonna. I used to do it all the time. But you could have been caught by someone way scarier than me – you ever met Master Windu?”

The Padawan shuddered. “This isn’t my first time out after hours.” He handed Ahsoka a disposable cup of water. “What’s your name? I’m Caleb Dume.”

“Ahsoka Tano,” she said, clutching the stitch in her side as she pushed herself fully against the wall. “You have a master, Caleb?”

He blushed again, looking down. “No.” Of course not – that’s why he was here in the first place. Trying to work himself up so he could impress a knight well enough that they would voluntarily take him on. Sometimes she wondered if any master would have ever picked her out for themselves, or if she would have been stuck in some boring temple position her entire life because she was too...well, snippy.

She leaned her head back. “Well, don’t be in a hurry to get one, ‘cause soon as you do, you’ll be shipped out to fight in a war that’ll take everything from you.”

Caleb was silent for a moment, then asked quietly, “Is that what happened to you?”

Ahsoka sighed, and looked away. “I don’t even know.”

He clearly didn’t know how to respond, but he didn’t have to, because a moment later a door slid open and a new voice said, “I heard it was a Togruta Padawan who had fainted, but I’m not sure I expected it to be you, Ahsoka.”

“Master Unduli?” Ahsoka said, trying to sit up more but Luminara pushed her gently back against the wall as soon as she knelt down. “I didn’t know you were a healer.”

“I’m not, exactly,” Luminara said, rifling through her medkit to find a portable vital scanner, which she lifted up and waved near Ahsoka’s head and chest. “The medical ward is so short staffed because of the war, they need all of the recruits they can get. Besides, I’ve always been interested in the healing arts, especially since...well, you know.” She paused for a moment, looking mournful. Ahsoka did know; Barriss had always had a passion for healing. She’d made it look so easy, too...

Luminara cleared her throat. “You’re dehydrated, Ahsoka. Have you been drinking any water?”

Ahsoka bit her lip, suddenly feeling years younger than she was. “No...but I’m fine, Master, I just got a little dizzy for a second. I’ll go back to my quarters and lie down, I’m sorry to drag you down here this late –”

“The only place you’re going is to the medical ward,” Luminara said, gentle but stern. “With me, now.”

Ahsoka closed her eyes for a moment and bowed her head. There was no use putting up a fuss. It would just make this worse. She felt like a child when she said, “Yes, Master.”

Caleb, however, was leaning forward with curiosity. “You wanted to be a healer since what?”

Luminara turned to him, looking him over with the a subtly amused expression. “I thank you for looking out for Ahsoka, young one, but I do believe it is past curfew for initiates.”

The boy looked startled, and sprang to his feet. “Yes, Master. Um – goodnight.”

Ahsoka waved at him. “Wait, Caleb –” The boy turned to look at her, his eyes wide. “Enjoy your childhood while you still have it.” He looked puzzled, but he nodded slowly and left.

Ahsoka accepted Luminara’s help to get up, holding her hand to her still-swimming head. As they walked out, she said tiredly, “I want to end the war before more kids like him have to go out and fight.”

Luminara said, quiet, “I do, too.”

They were quiet the rest of the way to the med ward. Ahsoka thought about Barriss, about how her friend had used to dream about studying Force healing after the war was over, about how she’d wished she could stop fighting to stay at home and help the wounded Jedi and clones, but couldn’t because she wasn’t far along enough in her training. Ahsoka fought a sigh. She wished Barriss was here. More so, she wished Barriss hadn’t done what she did.

At the med ward, Ahsoka pulled off her boots and her belt with her sabres attached and leaned back in bed while Luminara briefly disappeared, then came back with a light meal and copious fluids. She sat on Ahsoka’s bed. “Care to tell me how you’re doing, Padawan?”

Ahsoka fiddled with a piece of bread. “I’m just tired.”

“I know you’re more than just tired, Ahsoka,” Luminara said with a sad smile. “Pushing yourself past the brink of exhaustion when you’re safe at home isn’t like you. This isn’t a warzone. What’s on your mind?”

She sort of felt like she wanted to cry. Not sad tears, or angry ones, but more like the ones you cried when you were so tired of everything that you just wanted to sleep forever. And not sleep forever as in dying, just a deep sleep to make up for all the nights you’ve ever missed. “I just feel like there’s no reason for me to be here. In the temple, I mean. I’m not doing anything here. No one really needs me. I just want to go back out and fight.”

“I thought you were helping Skywalker with his recovery?”

Ahsoka huffed and stared pointedly at a random patch of bed. “I’m not helping anyone, and he’s definitely not recovering.”

Luminara put her hands together in her lap. “Tell me more about that.”

Leaning back in her reclined, elevated hospital bed, Ahsoka wondered if any of this was supposed to be off limits, if she was allowed to talk about what happened to Anakin and if anyone outside her and the Jedi Council knew or even suspected the truth. But she guessed she could still talk around the issue, if not providing the revelation that Anakin had been turned into a dark side murder machine by two very evil Sith Lords....

“Every time I see Anakin he looks even worse,” Ahsoka said. “I’m just supposed to be there whenever Master Kenobi steps out for a breather or to do Council stuff, because someone needs to be there to...look after him, but...I’m not actually helping him. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Word around the temple is that he was held captive for the entire year,” Luminara said quietly. “I try not to listen to rumors, but when it’s a Jedi as...renowned as Skywalker it can be difficult to avoid. Is it true he’s lost much of his memory?”

“Most of it,” Ahsoka confirmed, getting a little misty-eyed. It was hard not to when she thought about how hollowed and sad Skyguy’s eyes were all the time. She had never seen him like that before. Honestly, it scared her. “He doesn’t really talk a lot...I don’t know.”

“And how is all of this affecting you, Ahsoka?”

She shrugged. It was so weird how it was the question she wanted someone to ask, but she still didn’t have an answer she was ready to give. “I’m fine.”

“Again, if you were, then you wouldn’t be in this hospital bed right now.”

Ahsoka looked down. “I guess.”

“Have you told Master Kenobi how you feel?” Luminara asked.

Ahsoka shook her head. “He’s too occupied with other things. He’s the one who should have had a meltdown by now, he’s doing everything for Anakin and still being on the Council and I just don’t know how he does it all. I don’t want to bother him.”

Luminara smiled gently. “I have known Obi-Wan for a very long time, and I’m certain that you would not be bothering him. Obi-Wan is one of the most –” she looked around the room, searching for the right word, “—caring Jedi that I’ve ever met. Often a master and Padawan accept each other as independent individuals, but I remember that Obi-Wan would always put the needs of his Padawan before his own, to the point that – please don’t tell him this – some used to joke that he was more of a parent to Skywalker than a master.” The upturned corners of her mouth slowly turned into a frown. “I can attest that as a master to a Padawan, it can be difficult to devote yourself so fully to having someone under your care. To avoid becoming too attached, masters often keep a certain distance and sense of privacy. But Obi-Wan – well, he is certainly an exception.”

It was true...Obi-Wan cared so much about his Padawans that sometimes it became overbearing, and intrusive. And Obi-Wan himself knew that. Maybe that was why they’d had trouble communicating lately. She didn’t want to give in so much, and he didn’t want to grow so attached. Not again.

“I just wish everything could go back to the way it was a year ago,” Ahsoka said.

“So do I, sometimes,” Luminara said mournfully. “But we, as Jedi, know well enough that such thinking is unproductive. Not meaningless, just unproductive. But what would be productive would be for you to tell Master Kenobi how you’ve been feeling. I really think he would want to know.”

With a sigh, Ahsoka nodded. “Can you please just not tell him what happened today?” she asked. “I don’t want him mothering me when he already has so much on his plate.”

“I will respect that,” Luminara said, “But only as long as you take better care of yourself from now on. You know better than to be so careless.”

“I will, Master.”

“Good,” Luminara said with a smile, standing up. “Then finish your meal, and go to sleep. Someone will be in tomorrow morning to do your bloodwork and then you can go. Deal?”

Ahsoka nodded with a faked grin and slumped back into the bed when Luminara shut the door behind her, thinking about how talking to Obi-Wan about this would be a lot easier said than done.

When she went to talk to Master Kenobi the next day, she stopped short right after she entered his and Anakin’s suite when she heard him talking quietly to someone in the kitchen unit on the other side of the wall. With a little scooching and investigating, she realized he was talking to Master Windu over his comm. And, yeah, okay, maybe it would have been the ethical thing to do to leave him to it, but she thought that if she left now she would never find the courage to talk to Obi-Wan at all so maybe a little snooping was, just this once, appropriate.

The voice of Mace Windu said, “It’s been a month, Obi-Wan. I don’t know how much longer we can hold off.”

“A month is a remarkably short time to expect someone to come back from this sort of thing, don’t you think, Master?”

“We need every Jedi we have, you know that. Every week we lose more. We need you out there.”

“And what are you going to do when there are none left?”

“You know I don’t have an answer.”

There was a silence, and Ahsoka felt a certain swelling in her chance. Send me out there, she wanted to say, coming around the corner and begging Master Windu to ship her out. She didn’t know what was stopping her.

“There are other options, you know. You don’t have to be the one to look after him.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Yes, Master, I do know. Believe me, I know exactly what the situation is, and I am doing the best that I can. But I can’t – this isn’t something that can be rushed. There will come a time when Anakin no longer wants or needs my help, and when that happens you will be more than free to send me out into the field. But I need time, Master. He needs time.”

Another pause, and then: “Well that time is running out.”

A beep told Ahsoka the conference was over. A few seconds later, and she heard Obi-Wan say, “Didn’t your master ever tell you it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

Oops. She moved around the corner into the kitchen. “Guess I’m a slow learner.”

He gestured tiredly to the chair opposite him and she sat down, watching him. He had his eyes closed and his head resting in his hand. “Sometimes I just can’t believe them,” he said, voice hinting at disdain. “It’s like they think he’s a machine. Why does everyone seem to think I can fix him? He’s not broken, he’s in pain. How can an empath be so devoid of compassion?”

It was rhetorical, but still Ahsoka wished she had an answer. She watched him rub his eyes and then lean back in his chair, then look at her as if just now realizing she was here. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka. Did you want to talk about something?”

She bit her lip. Maybe – okay, this wasn’t what Luminara had meant, but this was the perfect opportunity – “You know, if Master Windu needs someone to go out into the field, I could do it. I mean, if they need someone....”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “There’s nothing in particular he needed me for, they just...for the future, you know....”

“Well,” she said slowly, “I’ll be here in the future. I want to help, however I can, and if they’re short on Jedi then I’m more than capable of helping them out.”

He looked a little nervous, eyeing her with a crease between his brows. “I’m sure they’ll hold on without us. Especially if Padmé’s committee does its job.”

Urgh – fine, out with it. She put her hands down a little too forcefully on the table. “Master, I want to go out in the field. I want to go back to war. I hate being cooped up here, I need to be doing something.”

He blanched. “What? You are doing something –”

“No, Master –” she leaned forward as far as she could. “I need to be out there. I haven’t been in one place this long since I was an initiate, and I hate it. I can’t stand it. I’m going stir crazy. I just miss it, okay? I miss the action, I miss the clones...I miss the 501^st. Please, just tell Master Windu that I’m available to ship out at any time, all on my own, you know I can do it –”

Obi-Wan held out both his hands. “Hold on, Ahsoka. Where is this coming from? How long have you felt like this?”

“Since all of this started!” she said. “Since everything else became a priority for everyone else! I don’t want to be here anymore!”

Her master looked faintly stunned. He said, “I – I should have noticed something was wrong. I’m sorry, Ahsoka.”

“Master,” she said flatly, “This isn’t about you. Don’t apologize. Just send me out there.”

Obi-Wan had a funny, apprehensive look on his face. “You would really rather be on the battlefield than...home?”

She nodded, waiting for his real answer.

“Well,” he said, reaching up to rub his beard. “No.”

“What?!” she near-shouted, jumping up out of her seat. “I’m not even needed here! There’s nothing for me to do! Out there, they need help, people are dying –”

“And I don’t want you to be one of them!” Obi-Wan said, a little more forcefully than he usually talked. “We all think we’re invincible until we’re the ones cold on the ground with a blaster hole through our chest. I am not letting you throw your life away.”

“But it’s my life!”

“You are sixteen years old!” Obi-Wan said sharply, leaning across the table. “If it was my choice you never would have gone out there in the first place.”

“Have I not proved myself to you or something? Because I can! I will, I’ll show you –”

“Ahsoka–”

She was already whirling around and springing towards the door when something caught her eye, something lingering around the corner of the wall, someone who had been listening to their conversation for some indeterminate amount of minutes and had overheard what she suddenly decided was too much information.

Sometimes, she actually forgot that Anakin was here. Sometimes she was sure that this was all a wild delusion that she had thought up and that he was still dead. Sometimes, when she saw him in person, her heart started racing and skipping beats and she felt a knot of nauseous terror lump up in her throat because she was positive she was looking at a ghost. Right now, this was sort of what happened, although it only took a couple gut-wrenching seconds before she remembered that if Anakin wasn’t alive she wouldn’t even be on this planet in this room facing these problems so really she wouldn’t have anything to worry about to begin with.

So, after a tremendous gasp, she tried to steady herself and said, “I didn’t know you were there.”

Behind her, she felt Obi-Wan spring up because he, too, had not noticed the new presence in the room. First, Ahsoka vaguely remembered that the Sith had trained Anakin to conceal himself in the Force, explaining their momentary ignorance. Then, she registered that Obi-Wan had only sprung up from his seat when he realized Anakin was there, not when she was storming out on him, and she felt a sting of fury bite at her.

But then, it vanished a moment later when Anakin said, “I don’t think you should leave.”

Ahsoka registered bewildering confusion. “What?”

“To the war,” Anakin said. “You shouldn’t go. You should stay here.”

Rage forgotten, she shared half a glance with Obi-Wan before looking back at Anakin’s face. It looked to be as hard for him to meet her eyes as it was for him to speak. His eyes were red and his voice was strained and his face just looked overall kind of droopy and puffy, like he’d been crying a lot. She bit her lip, hard – the thought of him crying made her want to, too. Bad.

“I, um...,” she stuttered, beginning to forget what she’d been so angry about in the first place. “It’s just that, I’m kind of just taking up space here, and....”

Anakin sort of fiddled with the hem of his sleeve and looked down at his hands. “I just want you to stay.”

In the corner of her eye, Ahsoka saw Obi-Wan looking at Anakin like a treasure hunter would look at precious gemstones at the richest mine on an uncharted planet. She, too, was speechless. Seriously. She couldn’t think of any words, like, at all.

“I – uh,” she stammered, feeling her headtails flush a dark blue. “I – okay. Okay, I – I won’t. Leave. I’ll stay.”

Anakin nodded and finally looked away from her. He almost reminded her of a child, separated from his parents in a crowd of people, like he didn’t want to stand still but neither did he know where to go. Eventually, he said, “Thank you,” and sort of turned away then went outside to the little balcony and sat against the wall.

Ahsoka couldn’t do anything other than gape up at Obi-Wan, who had fallen just as mute with astonishment as she had. She tried to say something, but it just came out as a few ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ but Obi-Wan put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I know.”

Then, she couldn’t stop herself no matter how off-limits it might have been, but she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Obi-Wan’s torso and rested her forehead on his shoulder. He tensed for just a moment but returned the hug.

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“It’s all right, Ahsoka,” he said, rubbing her back gently. “It’s all right.”

It was only a few hours later that she felt like she had finally recovered from the whole mess of emotions that she’d felt when Anakin had said, I just want you to stay here. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, and how much effort it must have taken him just to come out from hiding and face her long enough to say that. Being honest about one’s feelings, especially out of the blue, was hard – believe her, she knew.

So, only a little bit still shaken up, she was going back to her quarters after stopping elsewhere for lunch, when there was a repetitive sound that she kept hearing, like a tap, tap, tap, behind her that made her turn around, and she realized like a dolt that Master Yoda had been following her for a good minute or so.

“Master Yoda,” she said, trying to act like she had been ignoring him on purpose. Actually, maybe not – uh, which was better?

“Wondered I did if you would ever look around, Padawan,” he said with a light-hearted cadence, but even with his jovial tone Ahsoka felt a chill ripple through her. It was amazing how even after all these years, just one look from Yoda could paralyze anyone, let alone make them rethink every life decision they’d ever made.

“Visiting a group of younglings, I was,” Yoda said, looking up at her with both hands on the handle of his walking stick. “Nice it is, to speak with Jedi who are my size. Spoiled you humanoids are.” He let out his little Yoda-chuckle. She couldn’t help but smile, though it felt just a little bit forced.

“I guess I’ve never thought about it, Master,” she said, shrugging.

The old Jedi took his time finishing his laugh and then clearing this throat. “Spoke with Master Luminara I did, and mentioned you were. Feeling better, are you?”

She felt her headtails flush, and her throat felt a little swollen. “Master, I was at a low point that night, but I swear I’ve meditated on it and –”

“Mmmm,” he interrupted her. “Explain yourself, you need not. Thought you would need this time off, the Council did. Forgotten you we have not. Ignored you we have not. Tell me, how do you feel?”

She shuffled her feet, and struggled to meet his big greenish eyes. It would be folly to lie. He would know. He always knew. “I feel...useless, Master. I feel like I should be doing something.”

“Fighting in the war, you mean?”

She looked down. “Yes.” She hesitated, and said, “That’s what I’m best at, Master. That’s why you sent me out all those years ago.”

“Hmmm, no it is not,” he said, tapping his stick on the floor with each syllable. “Sent you were so that learn from Skywalker you could, and so that learn from you he could. And learn you did. Grew, you did, as did he.”

She stared at the floor. “I still have some growing to do, I guess.”

“Hmmmmm. A Jedi never stops growing. Growing still am I. Stagnant we cannot be, nor can the Force. A change of scenery you need, I think, but stay here you will. Not return to battle until you appreciate the time you have here. To do that, other things we will find for you to do. Important things.” He blinked slowly for a few long moments, and thought. Then, he continued, “Enjoy working with younglings, do you? Seen you with them many times I have. Work with them you could. Guidance they need from experienced Jedi during this dark time.”

“I could do that,” she said shyly. Yeah, actually, she would like that. Younglings were sweet, uncorrupted, and eager. She had been one not three years ago, and that Yoda had called her an ‘experienced Jedi’ was an honor beyond anything a Padawan could hope for.

Yoda nodded. “Good. Start tomorrow you will, if you are ready. Help Master Sinube for a time, you will.”

Ahsoka bowed low. “Thank you, Master. Your trust means everything to me.”

“More important it is to trust in yourself, Padawan. Only then can you live up to your potential. My trust you do not need.”

She nodded, and with one last tap of his stick straight to one of her kneecaps – why did he always feel the need to do that? – she watched him hobble off into the growing muddy darkness of the dimly lit corridor.

At the end of the next day, Ahsoka was amazed to realize that working with younglings could leave her just as exhausted as the battlefield could. The differences, of course, outweighed the similarities – no explosions, for one, although she was sure the Padawans would have liked that, and generally no one trying to kill her – but if she had known how busy and involved this job was, she would have done it from the start. The younglings, as ever, were chock full of laughable, entertaining questions and comments: “What’s the coolest planet you’ve ever been to?” “Check out my skills, I’m gonna be the one who takes down Count Dooku!” “How many battle droids have you destroyed?” And Ahsoka’s personal favorite, “Did Master Window have hair before the war started?”

It wasn’t the most fun she’d ever had. It was hard work, physically draining but mentally rewarding. Most importantly, it did feel like she was actually doing something meaningful. And yeah, every now and then she did still wish she was leading clones into a fireworks show of blaster fire and facing death head-on (she meant that in the heroic way, not the suicidal way) but overall, she was pretty satisfied.

To be one hundred percent honest, though – she wasn’t that confident that it would last.

Three days had passed from the start of her new adventure, and finally Ahsoka had a day off. She slept in until eleven hundred hours, worked out in Luminara-approved moderation, took a quick speeder trip out to a restaurant because temple food seriously got boring fast, whipped back to her bedroom to grab her datapad, and finally she found herself pressing her palm to Obi-Wan and Anakin’s suite keypad with one goal in mind: spread her newfound cheer to those who needed it. Really needed it.

It amazed her each time, without fail, how this two-bed two-bath suite, fit snug and inconspicuous in the living area of the temple, seemed to have its own atmosphere. Right now the air in here was stuffy, and the lights mostly off. In the Force she felt Obi-Wan at a height of tranquil calmness, tucked away in his meditation room. She was glad that he, too, could get some peace of mind, even when he was stuck in this...situation.

She saw light bouncing off the walls near the sitting area, so she quietly rounded the corner to see if Anakin was there. He was actually awake this time, curled into the couch as if it were his shell, with his eyes staring at the holoscreen like he was mesmerized by something. She turned her head to see what he was watching and suddenly she wanted to throw up.

It was something Ahsoka had hoped she would never see again. There was Dooku, standing high and tidy at a podium, and there was Anakin on the screen, about to be fake-shot by a couple of super battle droids, and here, now, was Anakin in real life, watching the three minutes that had changed everything with a completely blank, emotionless expression on his face, his head casually resting on his hand. She didn’t understand, and she never would, how he could voluntarily sit down and watch this thing, the thing that haunted her for twelve months and then some, and not appear to feel a thing in the world. Especially not when he was supposed to be the one who felt everything.

Ahsoka must have made a noise, or maybe subconsciously cried out in the Force, because Anakin suddenly looked in her direction and gasped, bending over where he sat and scrambling to turn the screen off. But the damage had been done – Ahsoka could barely move, and barely think except for the one thought that she really, really wished she had decided just to spend a quiet night in her quarters tonight. But no, she had come here, committed to having a nice evening with old friends and that was exactly what she still planned on doing. It would just, um, take a minute for her to get there.

They were silent for a time, until Anakin said, “I was – just flipping through the...channels....”

Ahsoka nodded numbly, pretending to assume that was true. “How – many times have you watched that?”

Anakin bit his lip. “Maybe seven.”

She drummed her fingers on the wall. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No...do you?”

“Not really.”

They waited in uncomfortable silence that Anakin, thankfully, broke.

“Do you, uh, want to sit down?”

“Okay.” Her knees were trembling, so she took her time walking over to the couch and sitting one whole cushion away from him. In the corner of her eye, she saw him eying her warily before looking down to fiddle with his glove.

They sat in awkward silence for a long time. She was too nervous, suddenly, to look up from the corner of the low table in front of her. Neither of them wanted to be the one to speak first. Eventually Anakin said, “So...I heard you found something to pass the time?”

She nodded, still looking down. “I’m helping out with the initiates,” she said. “Like a teaching assistant type thing.”

Another minute, and she said, “I shouldn’t have come unannounced –”

Anakin was quick to respond, “No, I didn’t hear you come in, I would have turned it off....”

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka said. No, it totally wasn’t. “It’s just that, it wasn’t that long ago, and – I still remember it like it was yesterday....”

Anakin said, “I don’t remember it at all.”

She turned her head to look at him. He was staring sideways at her. For a little while they just sort of gazed at each other, but not in a kind of way where she wanted to break it off. Both his eyes and himself in the Force were kind of clouded, not giving anything away, but at the same time she felt closer to him than she had for the last two months. Even if he wasn’t sharing, he wasn’t pulling away, either, and she would damn well take that as progress.

“I brought something I wanted to show you,” she said, breaking contact after a comfortable time. She picked up her datapad and turned it on. “There was this, well, game that we used to play sometimes when we had a day off. It was just kind of something where we could forget everything that was happening in the universe and pretend that our lives were...normal, I guess. I thought you might want to play it again.”

She felt kind of silly bringing it up, now, because after all he was no longer privy to the meaning behind all the private jokes and personal connections they’d had before. Regardless, and she didn’t know if it was to humor her after that mutually embarrassing exchange or because he was genuinely curious, but he looked over at what was in her hands and she tilted the screen towards him. Displayed now were a handful of colorful cartoon characters on the main menu, bouncing around and waiting in the nonexistent world of cyber recreation for the game to start.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, a little shakily, and again she wasn’t sure if it was to humor her or not, but she forced herself to shrug it off as she picked his datapad off the caf table and synced them together, then with the holoprojector. For a moment, she stared at the blue-tinted holoscreen as if to make sure that the image from a few minutes ago was definitely, certainly not there, before she activated the first level.

“I’m just going to put it on easy mode,” she said, fiddling with the controls. “Do you want me to put the tutorial on?”

“I...think I remember, actually,” Anakin murmured, sort of to himself, staring down with a slight frown at his hands on either side of the datapad. Then he glanced up when he felt her gaze on him and added, quickly, “Not, like, the game itself, just the general idea of the controls.”

“Right,” she said quickly, like she had known all along that’s what he meant. She selected ‘Go!’ on the screen to start the level, and they started playing. They took their time at first, looking around at the world and trying to find all of the hidden collectibles. For a little while, she became dreamily lost in the routine of the game, falling comfortably into her psyche of a year ago when they had done this all the time. Their characters roamed the world together, utilizing nonverbal teamwork to solve puzzles, until Ahsoka became stingingly aware of how awkward she felt all of a sudden. She wondered if he felt it too.

“Hey,” she said after a while, clearing her throat. She turned her head to look at him. “Hey, I don’t mean to – um, I mean – is it, like, weird if I ask you about...the whole, memory loss thing?”

Anakin looked back at her and shrugged. “Go for it.”

“Well,” Ahsoka said, swinging her legs mindlessly where she sat. “I know that I haven’t really been around, much. I hope you understand that it’s because I don’t really know what to say, not because I don’t care.” In fact, she wasn’t sure she had really understood that herself until she’d said it just now. He nodded, not saying anything. She cleared her throat again. “So...what do you actually remember?”

He took a deep breath and let his hands fall gently into his lap. “Not much. A little bit from when I was a kid, and a little from more recent stuff. Nothing at all that’s Jedi related. Honestly, that’s really it. There’s gotta be...I guess, maybe fifteen years that are just...gone.”

“Do you remember everything since you came here?” she said, trying to understand.

His mouth twisted into sort of a confused grimace. “I don’t think so. I’ve figured out that I forget stuff easier when I’m really tired, which is most of the time. I know sometimes I have to ask Obi-Wan a question half a dozen times because I won’t remember that I’ve asked it before. ”

“That...stinks,” she said, lamely. “Is there anything that I could do to help?”

He bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

They went back to playing for a little while longer. The cheerful music and pastel coloring was a good distraction from her sudden onset of nervousness when she tried to think of things she could do or say to help him without making it look like she thought that he couldn’t take care of himself. Truth was, she didn’t know if he could or not. She didn’t really understand exactly the extent of what had happened to him. She wasn’t at all sure if she wanted to know. But she did want to help, suddenly more than ever before, because as much as Anakin might be calm, not-quite-sedentary, and awake right now, she had to remind herself that he was still super depressed and not at all in a good state of mind, right now. She wondered, since he did seem to be doing so well right now, exactly how he felt right at this moment.

“Hey, um,” she said. She paused the game because she knew this wasn’t something she could say while multitasking. She turned fully in her seat and looked directly at him. “I don’t really know how to say this, but I just want you to know...that I know I’ve been mostly absent, but that’s only because, like I said, I just don’t really know what to say. But if you ever need anything, literally anything at all, please just ask me, because I swear I’ll drop everything and come here right away, no matter what it is.”

He kind of stared at her for a moment and then looked down and away, chewing on his lip and apparently trying to figure out how to respond to that. Ahsoka gulped, and felt her heartbeat pick up its pace. “Was that not okay to say?”

“No!” Anakin said quickly. “I mean, yes, it was. It’s just, you know...I haven’t...really been around people who say things like that to me.”

She wished she could hug him, but that was way out of bounds. For now, anyway.

“Well, you are now,” she said definitively. “And I swear I’m gonna beat the stuffing out of the next Sith that tries to come within two lightyears of you. I mean it.”

He finally smiled, a real bashful grin that reminded her of the good ol’ days, and though her heart was still pounding in her chest she was glad she said it.

“Only if you let me help,” he said. She grinned back at him, adjusted herself on the couch so that she was less than one whole couch cushion away from him this time, and unpaused the game.

Chapter Text

“And here it is – the Room of One Thousand Fountains,” Obi-Wan said, his gaze wandering around at the ambiance of perhaps the single greatest indoor arboretum in the galaxy. Yes, he thought – infinitely better than Padmé’s Nubian spa.

The room was its own ecosystem. Given a few, say, hundred million years or so it could surely develop its own evolutionary traits that would make it scientifically unique. With a holographic ceiling engineered to mirror the sky outside, irrigation systems that sprinkled rain-like water for precisely two hours every other morning, and the most biologically diverse collection of flora from a thousand different planets, the room never failed to impress. Indeed, even the mere idea of this actually being, in fact, a room never failed to impress, because this was as close to being outside as one could ever get without leaving the comfort of their own home.

So it was that Obi-Wan had brought Anakin here, and so it was now that he steadied his gaze on Anakin’s face, which was currently the same type of awestruck that it had been as a nine-year-old boy visiting this room for the first time. His eyebrows had raised, making his eyes round and his mouth slightly agape. All he said was, “This is inside?”

Obi-Wan laughed and led him down one of the narrow dirt paths that cut under foliage, so that every few steps they went in and out of shade from the artificial sunlight. In his ears Obi-Wan heard the dull rushing of the largest waterfall, interrupted by the quieter fizzing of the smaller fountains and sprinklers. He remembered, years ago, when a much smaller Anakin had been jumping back and forth in conversation between wow, it’s so green here and wow! there’s so much water what do you do with it all, there’s enough in here to fill the whole Dune Sea! And where often such wistful memories filled him with unbearable longing of late, today they actually made him feel...young. Oh, how time had passed.

He led Anakin down a path he’d walked dozens of times, under a canopy of leaves that rustled as they moved by. Side by side, they found themselves soon in a small space by a stream of water that would be recycled to serve as the rain and irrigated into the turf. Obi-Wan reached down to confirm that the grass was dry enough to sit upon, and lowered himself to the ground to take in the beauty all around him.

To his credit, Anakin – who was perhaps the most consistently impatient person Obi-Wan had ever known – seemed remarkably calm and still. His eyes were filled with awe as he looked up at the projected image of the sky. Maybe he missed flying, Obi-Wan thought, the freedom of controlling a ship and the ability to travel infinitely in any direction. Though really, the latter had never been true. Assignments, missions, tasks – every place they had ever gone together, they’d had an objective. Obi-Wan had always favored a Jedi’s travels as a symbol of freedom, but for Anakin, he thought, the endless stream of predetermined destinations and orders had always been another sign of bondage.

Sometimes, Obi-Wan thought he should have done more about that. Anything at all to make Anakin more comfortable growing up in his new, unfamiliar world. He couldn’t quite say for sure, but Obi-Wan had always suspected that the temple had never felt like home to Anakin the way it had to himself. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, of course. The boy was from another world, literally. Coruscant and Tatooine were different as two planets could be, and their cultures equally so. Perhaps Anakin would have felt more at home on the artificial surface, thousands of meters below the highest spire of the temple, where people of less fortunate backgrounds gathered and struggled to make end’s meet. And that thought made Obi-Wan feel terribly sad; if Anakin and the regality of temple life were so incompatible, what childhood must the boy have had in the desert?

He’d always tried not to think about it. He had tried to help Anakin adjust. But, Obi-Wan thought now, he had probably tried too hard. He hadn’t been ready for his responsibility. Qui-Gon’s request notwithstanding, he probably should have let someone else take Anakin under their wing. But he hadn’t. Why? After all, Qui-Gon wouldn’t have known. During that time, Obi-Wan had been in too much pain to believe that Qui-Gon might have been somewhere else, actively watching from the netherworld of the Force. So what had it been inside him, that made him take this child and teach him every bit of knowledge he had ever accumulated?

It had been a long time coming, but Obi-Wan was finally beginning to accept the answer.

He had been lonely.

It was simple enough. His most trusted companion had died in his arms. Most of his friends of that time had advanced past the Padawan stage and into the true Jedi experience of adulthood. During his long days at the temple after Qui-Gon’s murder, he had been so chillingly lonely, barely finding comfort in anything, let alone the youngling entrusted to him. And, he knew, Anakin had felt much the same. In those early days, they had circled around each other, not entirely knowing what to think. What to do. What to say. Not knowing where to go from there. It had been awkward, confused, and above all, lonely. And really, that was what had connected them, in the end. Anakin had been so small, so afraid. Obi-Wan had, too. They had both lost someone, and finally found each other.

Maybe the memories of those feelings were what kept him going now. Maybe he saw those same feelings of loneliness in Anakin now, and that was what drove Obi-Wan to keep going. Because he knew, he remembered, how it felt to be lost in a brand new world and not know how he was supposed to fit into it all. It was how Anakin must have felt. It was how Obi-Wan felt, too.

They had started out as strangers, brought together by a quick succession of unfortunate circumstances. They were strangers now, too. In a sad way, they had always been strangers. It was true that Anakin wasn’t the type of person that Obi-Wan would have ever expected to be his best friend, but there they were. There they always were. Two strangers who happened to know each other inside and out.

He hoped he could reignite that spark. Maybe their relationship would never be the same, but...but, on the other hand, maybe it could be even better than it had been before. It would be delusional to say he and Anakin had never had problems with each other. Maybe this was their opportunity to fix all of that.

Maybe that was part of why he had brought Anakin here, to the fountain room, in the first place.

Or maybe, he thought sardonically, it wasn’t nearly that complicated.

Then, and Obi-Wan in all his ruminations didn’t quite notice the precise moment it happened, but suddenly he felt a distinct buzz of pain and brief nausea in the Force and he looked sideways at Anakin, still standing, who suddenly had one hand on the side of his head and another covering his eyes. Then he groaned, lowered himself to his knees, and bent over himself as if he were about to be sick. Obi-Wan instinctively reached to grab him for support, but thought better of it just in time. Instead, he knelt beside Anakin and said, “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

It took Anakin a few seconds to answer in a stutter, “Just came out of nowhere....”

Obi-Wan frowned. Another migraine. This was the third, or perhaps the fourth, in the nearly two months since they had been here. He needed to do something about this. Anakin needed something to be done about this. It was time to stop putting it off.

“You know,” he started, slow and careful. “The Halls of Healing are right nearby here, just two floors up, we could be there very quickly, and I’m sure they would have something to help –”

He mostly expected the usual rebuttal and dismissal, so he was surprised when he actually heard Anakin say, in the tiniest voice that made Obi-Wan’s heart ache, “Please...please don’t make me....”

“I’m not making you do anything,” Obi-Wan assured him as gently as he could manage. And that was true, but how could he make Anakin get it? “I need you to understand that, Anakin. Whatever you choose to do is your choice. And the way I see it, you’re letting your fear make your choices for you. I’m offering you my help, but I can only help you so much.”

Anakin took a heaving breath and shuddered. “I know...I know.” He turned his head slightly toward Obi-Wan. “I’m scared.”

“That’s all right,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s okay to be afraid, but you can’t let your fear overcome you. If you avoid things that scare you forever, your fear will only continue to grow.” He took a deep breath. “Just do this for me, ask yourself: do you want to keep feeling like this? Or do you want to stand up against your fear and take back control?”

Anakin looked at him through locks of hair that had fallen in his face. He was breathing in gasps, his face constricted. Through the Force, Obi-Wan could still feel whispers of his nausea, and he knew from the way Anakin held his hand over one eye that the pain had not subsided. He appeared to be considering, or at least trying to, but Obi-Wan knew that his friend’s ability to think was often muddled of late.

Finally, he whispered, “Soon,” and he looked at Obi-Wan like he meant it. “Soon, I will. But now I – just want to go home. Please.”

It wasn’t the outcome he had hoped for, but Obi-Wan smiled at his friend nonetheless. “Okay,” he said softly, and then held out his arm in a gesture of offering. “Can I?” Anakin peeked at him and nodded, and Obi-Wan wrapped his arm around Anakin’s back and helped him up. They walked slowly out of the fountain room and toward a turbolift, and as they made their way back to their living quarters, Obi-Wan found himself momentarily stunned to realize that the advice he was giving Anakin now – not to let go, but to allow himself to feel – was at least slightly out of line with generalized Jedi dogma as he had traditionally practiced it. Then, in an even more stunning revelation, Obi-Wan realized that he believed every word he had said.

Hm....

That bore further consideration, at a later time.

For a few hours, he left Anakin in his room to rest, allowing himself to sink into meditation and to be grateful for the progress he and Anakin had made, regardless of how long it had taken. And really, they had. True, Obi-Wan still had days of unstoppable frustration and nights where he himself was shamefully close to tears, mornings where Anakin couldn’t get out of bed and afternoons where Ahsoka wouldn’t look him in the eye. But more and more, Obi-Wan got the feeling that, unless he was just too foolishly optimistic, Anakin was again beginning to consider him a friend. Outside of the nights that they didn’t, they frequently ate together, or watched the HoloNet, or sometimes even just sat and talked. For Obi-Wan, it was enough.

But Anakin still needed help.

Later, though the sun was still high, he went in to check on Anakin and found him awake, curled against a pile of pillows on his bed. It was with a distinct crease between his brows and a quivering lower lip that he blinked up at Obi-Wan, who handed him an ice pack for the back of his neck. Then Obi-Wan draped a cool cloth across Anakin’s forehead and let his fingers linger there, smoothing a bit of hair back. That was when he had a thought. Perhaps, he considered, enough time had passed to try something else....

“Anakin,” he said gently, trying not to sound pushy. “I know something that might be able to help, but I need you first to trust me.”

There was no change in Anakin’s droopy eyes. “I do.”

Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief. “Then I need you to open yourself up to me. Close your eyes, and relax. Let me in.”

If Anakin was confused, he must have been too exhausted to show it. Instead, he did as requested, letting his eyes slide shut while still maintaining tenseness in his brow and his shoulders. Obi-Wan rested his hand on the crown of his friend’s aching head, and gingerly took Anakin’s human hand in his other.

He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He considered his environment, the stuffy cool air in the room, the plushness of the bed under him, Anakin’s warm body twisted in blankets, twisted in pain. He considered how his own body felt, the tension in his shoulders, the slightly uncomfortable way he sat, the weight of gravity pulling him down, but the strength of his back keeping him upright. He focused on his breathing, made himself breathe along with the count of four in his head, four counts to breathe in, four to hold, four to breathe out, four to hold. He considered what was in his mind, a wild collection of things he needed to do, whether important or inconsequential. He considered them, then he set them aside for later. Finally, nearing the height of a zen, meditative state, he released the tension in his shoulders, unclenched his jaw, loosened his hold around his friend’s sweaty hand, and sat entirely still.

Now, he could turn his attention to Anakin.

Mind detached from body, he let the Force flow in and around him, a constantly moving current, a turbulent and invisible but very real swirl of energy that connected every part of him to every part of Anakin. Simultaneously they were both two bodies and two ethereal entities. Not for the first time, he allowed himself to feel astounded at how resounding Anakin’s presence was in the Force, the sheer intensity of his friend’s sensitivity to the energy field that a small fraction of life in this galaxy could sense to any substantial degree. Even when they were connected in this way, like two links in an energy chain that bound the whole plane of the universe together, the strength of Anakin’s Force presence seemed to surround him unlike any other. And also not for the first time, he found himself wondering what it must be like to have that kind of spiritual connection to the hidden aspect of the universe to which Obi-Wan had dedicated his entire life.

Truthfully, even when they were bonded together as such like two atoms forming a molecule, there wasn’t much Obi-Wan could do for his friend’s physical form. He wasn’t a Jedi Healer, not that Healers interacted with their patients in quite the same way as this. He didn’t have the innate or learned ability to heal ailments through the power of the Force alone. But that wasn’t his goal, not now. Right now, it wasn’t about what he couldn’t do for Anakin, but what he could. And what he could do was simple: he could make Anakin feel more comfortable. He could help him sink deep into relaxation. He could distract him from what harmed him on a physical level by giving him something to cling onto spiritually.

He could make Anakin feel more at home. He could make Anakin feel loved. Perhaps that was his real goal.

So there Obi-Wan sat, barely conscious of his own physical form, living instead in the endless haze of the Force. Perfectly aware of his surroundings and circumstance, ready to return to them at will, but entirely separate from them.

Slowly, he felt it working. He felt the brightness of Anakin dim like the fading sky at sunset, the stinging, throbbing pain fall second to fatigue. He felt his friend’s consciousness slip away into what would likely be vivid dreams that depicted sights and sounds the conscious human brain could not understand. Still, he continued to release soothing pulses through their connecting energy, making sure his friend stayed asleep, before Obi-Wan gradually allowed his concentration to return to the material world and, eventually, his eyes to open.

In his sleep, limp and curled under his sheets, Anakin looked so innocent. Anyone in their own state of sleep would, but it struck Obi-Wan now more than it ever had. He pushed a lock of hair out of Anakin’s relaxed face, then let his hand slide down, coming to rest at a scar just below Anakin’s left shoulder. There were many like it, each telling their own story. Obi-Wan had been there to witness some of them. Many of them were new, unfamiliar. This one in particular looked shockingly similar to the scar that Obi-Wan himself had in the same spot, one from Dooku on Geonosis. There was the one on Anakin’s right arm, received that same fateful day, scar tissue where the flesh melded with metal. So many more, hiding away under the sheets. But Obi-Wan knew they were there. And all he could think...was how young Anakin really was. Young, but experienced beyond his years.

He sat there for a while, gently tracing his finger over the scar on Anakin’s arm, making sure he was asleep. And he vowed, to himself and to the Force, not nearly for the first time, that he would protect Anakin until the day he died.

It was the same day, though it didn’t feel like it, when Anakin reemerged from his room. Obi-Wan had elected to take a nap, too, though more for his mental stability than his physical comfort. It was late in the afternoon now, and when Anakin found him, Obi-Wan was sitting on the couch in the living area, reading something on his datapad that, for once, was for leisure and not for the war.

When Anakin sat down beside him, his body language portrayed anxiety but his presence in the Force was calm. Obi-Wan put his datapad down and asked, “How’s your migraine?”

“See, that’s the thing,” Anakin said, and it was then that Obi-Wan realized how Anakin was looking at him as if he had never seen him before. With awe, bewilderment, and sheer wondering amazement. He said again, “That’s just it. It’s gone.”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. Maybe he should be a Healer after all.

“Which has never happened before,” Anakin continued, clearly awestruck. “What...exactly did you do?”

“I tried to access our connection to each other through the Force,” Obi-Wan explained. “Was it too much?”

“No,” Anakin said, shaking his head back and forth. “I just...I mean, I...I knew you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Anakin said, apparently struggling to turn his thoughts into words, “I’ve been...I’ve had to trust everything you said about...well, everything, but now, I...I know that I knew you.”

Obi-Wan felt his jaw drop slightly. “You mean, you remember?”

“It’s more like you unlocked something,” Anakin said, looking confused. “It might sound stupid, but I feel like there was something hidden away, or buried, and you dug it up again.”

Obi-Wan took Anakin’s hand in his. “You remembered.”

“I remember how I felt. About you.” Anakin stared right at him, and Obi-Wan saw the eyes opposite him were beginning to glisten. When he spoke again, it was thickened by layers of emotion that, for once, didn’t seem to be bad ones. “I know that I trusted you. And...I know that I missed you when I was gone.”

Until you forgot me, Obi-Wan thought, biting his lip. He hadn’t suspected – he hadn’t known that trying to dissolve his friend’s headache through the Force would trigger anything else. He hadn’t known it was possible. But then, there was nothing about the pair of them or their situation that had any sort of precedent. He should be grateful for this. And he was. Oh, he was.

In a whisper, he said, “I missed you, too.” He truly, truly did.

They stared at each other for a minute and then sat there, not knowing what to say. Or rather, not really needing to say anything. The connection through the Force had, for Obi-Wan at least, conveyed everything just fine.

After a time, Anakin was fiddling with the hem of his sleeve when he said, “If you still, you know, wanted to go to the doctors, then I...I’ll go. Or, whatever you want.”

Obi-Wan smiled sadly. “I want it for your own benefit. I’m often guilty myself of not getting treatment when I need it. And you do need it. I know you know that.”

Anakin nodded. “I...don’t really know if I trust them or not, but...I know I trust you. So....”

“So, you want to get it over with, I presume?”

Another nod.

“Well, then. Let’s go.”

To be perfectly candid, the hospital unit of the temple was not Obi-Wan’s favorite place to be. There would be no use in trying to remember how many times he’d been here during the last few years; the effort alone was enough to make him feel depressed. He didn’t think he wanted to be here much more than Anakin did, in fact, but sometimes...they all had to make sacrifices.

In fact, he and Anakin had each individually been here so often that the apprentice at the reception desk nodded to him in recognition and said, “Dr. Bhel is free, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Doctor Bhel Jhassar was a stout and green-skinned Tekho that had essentially acted as Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s primary physician since the start of the war. A few years older than Obi-Wan, she was patient and kind and practiced exactly the kind of bedside manner that Anakin needed right now. As soon as she called them into her office, she sat them down and sat casually on her desk with a friendly smile on her face.

“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I wasn’t sure this day was going to come.”

Despite himself, Obi-Wan grinned. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you. How’s Ahsoka?”

“Better, but she’s kept much to herself. You would have to ask her.”

Dr. Bhel nodded with a sly smile, then hopped off her desk and manually pulled her office chair around her desk to be close to them. By the time she sat down, something within her had changed to the model of professionalism. She held a datapad in her lap and leaned over slightly, looking at Anakin, who stared directly at the floor.

“Anakin,” she said gently, “My name is Bhel Jhassar. You and Obi-Wan have been my patients many times throughout the last three years, so I’m glad to see you now.” She glanced down at her datapad, then up at Obi-Wan. “Now, Obi-Wan has been kind enough to explain some of the medical situation to me already. I understand that you’re suffering from migraines, seizures, post-traumatic stress. Is there anything else bothering you?”

Anakin eyes flicked up to her. He looked, from Obi-Wan’s perspective, very much like a child at school who did not want to be noticed. He was drawn in on himself, arms clenched to his sides. He shook his head and looked back at the ground.

“I can tell you’re uncomfortable,” Dr. Bhel continued, “and I don’t want to keep you here longer than is necessary. But if I’m going to treat you, I need your help. So can you tell me – is there anything else that hurts? Any injuries or problems you’ve been having?”

Obi-Wan watched as Anakin took a deep breath. It seemed to take a lot of effort for his friend to say, “No.”

“Okay,” Dr. Bhel said with a small smile. “Then I’m going to ask you some questions to try to get a handle on the extent of what you’re facing. Some of these questions might be uncomfortable, but they’ll each help me to help you. First, I’m going to start with your migraines and seizures. As you may know, both of these, as well as memory loss, are commonly caused by head injuries. Are you aware of any head injuries you may have sustained, and how long ago they may have occurred?”

Anakin didn’t, or couldn’t, answer. Instead, he was sitting shock still, frowning down at the ground. Dr. Bhel appeared sympathetic. She said, “Listen, I know what I’m asking. From what I understand, which may not be much, you’ve been through many terrible ordeals. I don’t want to ask you to tell me about what happened, but there are certain things that I need to know if I’m going to be able to help you. Even if you can tell me the bare minimum and nothing more, that will help. So please, just let me ask this: did you, to your knowledge, experience physical trauma to your head?”

As he watched Anakin struggle, Obi-Wan wished he could chip in any information, but truly – he didn’t know. He didn’t know what had happened to Anakin. He had ideas, theories, dozens of them – but he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He wondered if he was about to find out.

Finally, Anakin managed to say a single, shaky word: “Electricity.”

Yes. That confirmed theories one, two, and three. Dooku’s favorite torture method taken to a whole new level.

“Electricity?” Dr. Bhel confirmed. “Can you elaborate at all?”

Anakin reached up and pointed to his temple. He stuttered, “They used it – to – to erase....” Then he cut himself off and clamped his jaw shut.

Dr. Bhel nodded in dawning understanding. “In order to cause the damage they did, they must have done it periodically over time. Is that correct?” Anakin squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. Obi-Wan’s heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst through.

“That explains much of it,” Dr. Bhel said, getting up and pulling her chair back behind her desk. “See, the problem with treating brain injuries is that each one is as unique as each brain. Sometimes it astounds me, but millions of years of scientific studies behind us and there isn’t a single discovered species of life of which we fully and completely understand the brain. Humans are, I’m afraid, no exception.”

She then typed some words into her datapad and a moment later pulled a diagram of the human brain to the screen on her wall. “As you know,” she said, “Different parts of the brain control different functions. Over here” – she pointed toward the middle of the diagram – “Is where memory tends to be stored. That, then, is the easy part, because we know for a fact that this part of you has been purposely damaged. Despicable, but true. The more complicated question, therefore, is what residual effects did that damage have, and how do we help it?”

Dr. Bhel stared at the diagram for a moment, considering, and then looked at them. “Here’s where the problem is. As I said, we know that this part of the brain has been injured. But you see, both migraines and seizures can have a number of different causes. Migraines tend to be caused by changes in blood flow to certain areas of the brain, and seizures by heightened electrical activity within the brain. But then, there are different types of each of these, and on top of this we also have to address your emotional trauma, as well.”

For a moment, she put her hand to her chin, thinking. Then, she said, “I think it would be best if we start with a brain scan. There is no way for me to know exactly what’s going on unless we can actually see the damage that’s been done. We can do it tonight, if it’s all right with you.”

Obi-Wan looked sideways at Anakin, who muttered in the smallest voice, “Whatever you want.”

Dr. Bhel nodded, and stood at once. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go inform the technicians and be back as soon as I can.”

She left the room, and Obi-Wan saw Anakin visibly relax. He wondered what was going on inside his friend’s head, but didn’t ask. Anakin seemed content to ruminate inside his own thoughts, so Obi-Wan stayed silent. It must have been ten minutes later when Dr. Bhel returned.

“All right,” she said, “We’re all ready for you. The technicians could explain better than I how the machine works, but I can assure you that you won’t feel a thing. It should only take about a minute or two, and we’ll be able to look at the results shortly after. Ready?”

Anakin took a few deep breaths, and then got up, keeping close to Obi-Wan as they followed the doctor out of the room and down a hall. Every part of his body seemed to be clenched tight as if to form a shield around himself. His arms were drawn in close around him as if he were out in the snow. Obi-Wan, as usual, tried to send out a soothing pulse through their Force connection, the same one they had reactivated just this afternoon. He truly hoped it would help. Anakin needed this. He needed this.

They entered a room near which Obi-Wan saw a sign for the medbay’s ‘Bioscans and Imaging Center’, somewhere he had been to himself many times – enough concussions and fractures as a result of the war tended to necessitate that. They rounded a corner, then entered another room which was occupied by two other people, a collection of non-threatening medical scanning equipment, and the cushioned table on which a patient would typically lay during the test....

Something was already...off, in the Force, and Obi-Wan had a guess as to what it was; when he happened to turn around the precise moment the door hissed shut behind them, and saw Anakin flinch visibly and then collapse back against the wall, his suspicion was confirmed. Anakin was looking all around, his eyes flicking from one piece of equipment to the next, his breathing suddenly shallow, rushed, uneven –

Obi-Wan looked, only a little frantic, to Dr. Bhel, who had a strange look on her face. She waved for the technicians to leave the room through another door. Anakin was sitting on the floor now, pressing himself back against the wall as if he were trying to squeeze through the solid metal surface, and both Dr. Bhel and Obi-Wan knelt down to be at his level.

He hated himself for it, but Obi-Wan hadn’t the faintest clue what to do or say, so he let Dr. Bhel make the first move. “Anakin,” she said very gently, “I promise that no one here is going to hurt you. You’re not in any danger.”

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head toward his chest. Dr. Bhel seemed, despite all her worldly knowledge, totally unprepared for this. She said, “Perhaps if I left you alone. I’m going to go get you a private room.” She nodded at Obi-Wan, and left.

Obi-Wan made an effort to keep a respectful distance. “Anakin,” he said, leaning in only a bit. “It’s all right. We’re alone now. Please, look at me.” Anakin raised his head. He was shaking uncontrollably, his eyes wide as he stared into Obi-Wan’s own. The Force was drenched in panic, and fear hung thick in the air around him. They were all alone in the room, and Obi-Wan was determined to keep Anakin’s attention on him.

“I need you to focus on your breathing,” Obi-Wan said softly. He took a long breath in and another out, modeling it. “Try to match mine. If you can do that, everything else will follow.”

Anakin nodded, frantic, trying to obey. When it grew shallow again, Obi-Wan repeated himself. “Breathe,” he said. “Can I take your hand?” His friend’s eyes flicked downward, and then nodded again, and Obi-Wan took Anakin’s human hand and held it firm.

Between his breaths, with tears slipping down his cheeks, Anakin whispered, “I don’t want...to forget again....” He grimaced. For just a moment, the Force flashed with cold.

“You won’t,” Obi-Wan said. He massaged Anakin’s hand with his thumb. “Remember where you are? The Jedi Temple, where you came to be safe. I am going to keep you safe, Anakin.”

“Please,” was all Anakin could say.

It was a short while before Anakin’s breathing finally did manage to even out. Eventually, Obi-Wan asked softly, “Do you want to get out of here?” Anakin nodded, and gave his permission for Obi-Wan to gently wrap one of his arms around Anakin’s shoulders to help him up. Then, he Forced open the door, and waiting patiently for them outside was a young Twi’lek. She bowed.

“Maser Jhassar has requested I show you to a room,” she said, and then led them back out the way they had come. The whole way, Anakin was clamped to Obi-Wan’s arm like it was his only lifeline.

“Please let us know if you need anything,” the Twi’lek said, before leaving them alone in their designated room. Obi-Wan saw Anakin take a minute to familiarize himself with these new surroundings, and then helped him over to the bed, where Anakin pulled the covers around him tight and Obi-Wan sat in the bedside chair.

They stayed that way for a long time, Anakin with a blanket cocooned around himself like a barrier between him and the outside world, Obi-Wan sitting quietly and waiting for his friend to find calmness. They both waited, and waited, and then finally Anakin managed to say something. And that something was: “I killed people.”

“I know.”

“No,” Anakin said, shaking his head. “No, you don’t. I killed them. I – murdered them. I don’t even know how many. But I did.”

Obi-Wan tightened his grip on his friend’s human hand. “And what if you hadn’t? Sidious would have tortured you until you couldn’t fight him anymore, or until he killed you himself.”

“But,” Anakin whispered, “But wouldn’t that have been better? If he had just killed me? Why couldn’t he have just done that in the first place? Wouldn’t we all have been better off?”

“You’re thinking about it from your perspective now, not from back then,” Obi-Wan said, reaching up to smooth Anakin’s hair back. His hand paused a moment to brush a new set of tears off his friend’s cheeks. “You responded to these horrible experiences by surviving the only way you could. It’s what anyone would have done.”

Anakin looked at him. “You wouldn’t have.”

“There is no way to know that,” Obi-Wan said, gentle but firm. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of in order to survive. What matters to me isn’t what you did under threat of torture, but how hard you fought to get away. You escaping from them was the greatest testament to your strength that I could ever need.”

His friend shook his head again, this time more insistently, so that locks of hair fell into his face. “I could’ve gotten away sooner.”

“You are not the villain here, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, taking both of Anakin’s hands in his own. “Don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise. Sidious did this to you. He wants you to think this is your fault. You can’t let him have that victory over you.”

“’S hard,” Anakin choked out, holding onto Obi-Wan’s hands now as if they were his last hope at remaining linked to this world.

“I know,” Obi-Wan whispered, wishing he had more to say, but unsure what ‘more’ might entail. Sure, there were things, things in his mind that flew around like electrons in their cloud, going too fast to collide and form a coherent thought. Strings of advice that he wished he could give, and felt that he should, but knew all the same how anti-Jedi they all were.

But, Obi-Wan thought, as he looked down at Anakin, who still held onto Obi-Wan’s hands as if he would be pulled from gravity and sucked into the vacuum of space if he let go, his eyes squeezed shut against nothing but his own pain – maybe that was just it. Maybe the thing that Anakin really did need was – was what Obi-Wan had told Padmé during that sunset café rendezvous. Love....

Anakin didn’t need Obi-Wan to treat him like a Jedi. Anakin wasn’t a Jedi. Not now. What Anakin was, however, besides a friend and family member and loving partner, was a vulnerable man who had faced death too many times in too short a lifetime. Who had escaped enslavement twice, each time worse than the last. Who was always there when someone needed him to be. Who loved so deeply, and who had always expected and needed to be loved just as intensely in return.

Carefully prying his left hand out of Anakin’s mechno, Obi-Wan moved to the edge of the bed, gently pulling Anakin in closer to him. Anakin seemed to melt into him, reclaiming his hand and instead twisting it in Obi-Wan’s tunic, placing his head high on Obi-Wan’s chest. Anakin curled in on himself against Obi-Wan, his shuddering gasps gradually turning to breathy sobs, as Obi-Wan folded his arms around his friend, securing him there, feeling Anakin’s shaky weight press them both into the soft pillows and sheets.

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan whispered into Anakin’s hair, feeling hot tears wetting his collar, sliding down his neck. He felt his own eyes sting. The Force was lit up like an explosion and he tried not to flinch. “Don’t hold anything back. Just let it out.”

In the haze of the next morning, they didn’t say anything to each other, but they didn’t need to. Anakin seemed drained, more complacent, similar to how he appeared after a seizure, and was content to sink back into his pillows and wait for time to start passing again. Obi-Wan sat quietly beside him, eating a light breakfast after Anakin had declined one, trying to think of how they would proceed from here.

After not too long, the doctor from the previous evening poked her head in through the door.

“You’re awake – may I?” she said, and Obi-Wan gestured her in. She looked at Anakin and smiled. “How are you feeling?” Anakin just shrugged, and wouldn’t meet her eyes. She pulled over a chair and sat near Obi-Wan, who put aside the empty tray and almost unconsciously reached for Anakin’s hand. It was the metal one, so Anakin didn’t seem to mind the contact.

“I’ll be to the point,” Dr. Bhel said. “I understand if you’re hesitant to move forward after last night, but I would like to know if you might be willing to try again.” She paused, looking at both men. “Now, I’ve spoken with another member of the healing staff, Dr. Broca, who has a particular interest in psychology. Since the war started escalating, she has spent less time practicing Force healing and more working with the Jedi with certain mental health issues that tend to have a stigma within the Jedi Order. It wasn’t her main field of study while she was in training, but there is no other in the temple as qualified to diagnose and treat trauma-related mental illnesses. The only other option would be seeing a therapist outside of the temple, but, well...”

She cut off for a moment, looking somewhat flushed. “But I believe that because of the extenuating circumstances of your case – meaning, well, the involvement of the Sith – I just don’t think the Jedi Council would approve of outside counseling in this situation.”

Obi-Wan glanced down at Anakin, who was staring, expressionless, out the window. “Is that something you would be willing to do, Anakin?” At the sound of his name, Anakin looked back at Obi-Wan. He shrugged again, halfhearted.

“We don’t want to pressure you into it,” Dr. Bhel said, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but wonder who the we in that sentence was supposed to be. “It’s certainly atypical for a Jedi to go to therapy. But medications and the Force can only go so far when most of the damage exists in memories.”

“Or lack thereof,” Anakin murmured.

“Indeed,” she said, looking sympathetic. “It would be a journey, and a learning experience for the both of you. But without her help – that is, without any sort of therapy – then your recovery could likely come to a standstill. It’s amazing how much talking things out can really help.”

Obi-Wan rubbed his beard with his free hand. “What do you plan to do about the physical symptoms?”

“That,” Dr. Bhel said apologetically, “Is where the brain scan comes in. I absolutely do not feel comfortable giving any firm diagnosis without first looking at everything available to us, and I can’t give you any medications without a diagnosis. And, without medications, the migraines and the seizures are going to continue to be as crippling and painful as they were from day one. We need to do a brain scan.”

She fell into silence, and both she and Obi-Wan looked down at Anakin for a response. After a minute, Obi-Wan shook the metal hand just a bit. “Anakin?”

Anakin bit his lip, thinking, his brows furrowed slightly in concentration. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

“So will you let us give you a brain scan?” Dr. Bhel asked gently, leaning in.

There was another long pause. Obi-Wan could see the same cloudy fear in Anakin’s eyes, and could feel the same thing in the Force. Nevertheless, Anakin gave a slow and thoughtful nod, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but feel himself buzz with pride.

It went smoothly, this time. Anakin was still tense, anxious, but managed to keep his cool during the brief procedure. When they went to take blood, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, waiting for it to end. When they went over the pills they wanted him to try, he nodded, not really listening, so they addressed Obi-Wan directly, instead.

And finally, it was over. They were back to their quarters by early afternoon, with Anakin agreeing to come back to meet a counselor – mostly, Obi-Wan thought, so he could get out as soon as he could. Anakin retreated into his room, and Obi-Wan let himself relax with a cup of tea, unable to think of anything other than how relieved he was.

Everything was going to clear up. Everything was going to be better. He didn’t know it to be true, but...he had faith. Faith in Anakin, and faith in the will of the Force. And that was enough.

“I’ll be honest, Obi-Wan,” Mace said, staring pensive through the blinds of Yoda’s windows with his elbows on his knees, “I cannot make sense of why you’re doing this. What is it that makes you want to dedicate your entire life to Skywalker for the second time over?”

It was two days after the eventful trip to the medbay, and Obi-Wan stared at Mace like he had never seen him before. “I’ll be honest, Master,” he replied coolly, “I fail to see how anyone who has trained a Padawan could possibly need to ask that question.”

“Masters do not equate to parents,” Mace said, raising an eyebrow at him. “It’s no longer your responsibility to care for Skywalker as you had to years ago. If ever there was a time for you to finally let him go, it would be now.” He sighed. “But as usual, you’ve done the opposite.”

Obi-Wan looked at the floor. “I do not regret the choices that I have made.”

Mace paused, then said, “If you’re trying to atone for any mistakes you think you made with him in the past, there’s no reason to do so. He doesn’t remember you, and he possibly never will.”

“My caring for my Padawan is not based on what he can give me in return,” Obi-Wan said. “Mace, if you don’t understand now, then you never will. I’m not doing this because I feel the need to. I’m doing it because I want to, and it is as simple as that.”

“And if he gets worse?” Mace questioned. “Are you prepared to commit to him so fully?”

Obi-Wan thought about that for a moment, but truthfully he need not. The answer was, he already had committed himself, completely and entirely. And no, he thought, he would not take back a single day, given the chance. “Respectfully, Master, I will not abandon him to the will of the Council, no matter how long this process takes.”

Finally, Yoda opened his eyes. “Careful you must be, Obi-Wan,” he said slowly. “In a dark place, Skywalker is. To darker places yet, he may go. Affect even you, it could, if loosen your attachment to him you do not.”

But the thing was, Obi-Wan thought, that despair, that prevailing veil of darkness already had affected him. It still was, and it would continue to, indefinitely. But if he stopped now, then Anakin would be left in the darkness, alone, left to his own devices and...he hated to even imagine it, but back into the hands of the Sith. Obi-Wan would, quite honestly, give his life before he gave Anakin to the dark.

“Have you ever thought,” he said, distant, to Yoda and Mace, “Whether attachment itself may be the will of the Force? That the reason it is so hard to let go is because we’ve got it all wrong?”

Mace looked at him with something in his eyes that, in the murky light, was not quite irritation. “The Jedi Order has flourished for over a thousand years because of our principles. The Jedi themselves hold discipline in the highest esteem, and it is with that discipline which we vanquish our attachment.”

“The Order is not flourishing, Mace,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “We’re generals in an army that the galaxy does not approve of. You hear it every day; the public does not believe in us as they once did. The Jedi have stagnated but the galaxy has move on. The Force itself is changing. The Sith adapted to that, but we haven’t. How else could they have resurfaced without us having any clue at all until they personally revealed themselves to us?”

He leaned over and ran a hand over his beard. “Ahsoka had said something to me, months ago. That the Jedi instruct their young to release their attachments, but they don’t say how. I had never thought about it, but she’s right. We repeat the mantra, release your anger, your fear, your attachment, through meditation and discipline, and while that works for a great many of us, the fact is that not every Jedi seems to be able to put it into practice, which gives the Sith every advantage over us. We ship out Jedi that have not been fully trained in either the Force or their own emotions, and as a result we have now have need for a trauma counselor in the healing ward.” He took a sharp breath to steady himself. “Anakin was twenty years old when we first sent him out to war. Ahsoka was fourteen. How much longer until all the adults have been killed and we have an army exclusively comprised of Padawans that have not been adequately trained in our antiquated rituals?”

“Our predecessors defeated the Sith once using the principles that we stand by now,” Windu said, his brow bone frowning more than his mouth. “The Sith have many advantages over us, but our tradition is not one. What you call ‘antiquated rituals’ will lead the galaxy to peace once again. Otherwise we might as well have stopped trying long ago.”

“Ideas can’t change the galaxy, Master,” Obi-Wan countered. “Only the actions of individuals can do that. You can say that we will have peace as many times as you’d like but that doesn’t make it any more true. This war is tearing the galaxy apart and it is our duty to end it. Perhaps it is only cynicism but I do not believe that we can do what you say we can in our present state.

“Unfortunate are the circumstances of war, but much choice we do not have,” Yoda said, looking weary. “Time it is not to make these changes you seek. Not now, not during this war. In the future, maybe, but agree with Master Windu I do, that we must let the Force show us a way to peace.”

Obi-Wan had to fight the urge to clench his fists, and his jaw. “Mace, Master Yoda, you know how much respect I have for the both of you, but sometimes....” He sighed, sharply. “Someday, you might try opening your eyes and looking outside the Force for answers. And preferably sooner, rather than later, or we might just give up our only chance.” With that, pushing himself to his feet, he left the room and wondered if he had overstepped his bounds.

Just this once, though...he found that he simply didn’t much care.

Chapter Text

And now, a summary of how Padmé (Naberrie) Amidala’s life is going right now.

She’s sitting in a committee meeting, as she has been for about two hours and forty-three minutes. There are exactly seventeen minutes left of today’s discussion, and they have accomplished precisely...nothing.

She looks around the table. The Committee for Peace Negotiations has moved their gathering locale since the first meeting; they now sit evenly spaced around a large, round table in a large, round room. Each delegate has their own space cluttered with datapads, spare pieces of flimsi, and long-cold cups of caf. In the center of the table hovers a hologram of a space station, an option for where they might hold the peace conference. And that’s a very gentle might, because by now Padmé has lost count of how many space stations they’ve seen diagrams of. Big ones, small ones, short ones, tall ones, she feels like someone borrowed a book from their child and brought it for show and tell. And she gets the very real, persistent idea that the two committee members who put together this presentation are stalling. It is almost as if the two people who profited the most from the war of anyone here, don’t want to get anything accomplished.

Respectfully, Padmé holds her tongue. There are fifteen minutes left now, and if she were to bring up anything now it would never get approval. The others would say, oh we’ll table that for next time, and when the next time actually came around it would have become stale and they would say, oh we covered that last time. So she will wait. She will be passive. Patient. She will bide her time. And two days from now, at the next meeting, she will bring to the (large, round) table a thirteen-point plan for the relocation of refugees to the participating planets that have sufficient resources and the space to hold them. And when she does that, they will listen. She will have their undivided attention.

The meeting is over. She goes home. Changes into something comfortable, flowing, loose. Lets her hair down, removes her makeup. Lounges back and checks her private messages. Calls her sister, talks briefly. The kids, Pooja and Ryoo, are doing well in school. Pooja still wants to be senator like Aunt Padmé, but Aunt Padmé hopes Pooja will change her mind the way six year olds do. She doesn’t want her niece’s adorable curly-haired innocence and good faith in people to be lost to the vicious politicians in the capital.

When the call is over, she yawns. Stretches. It’s not late, but she’s tired. Tomorrow she needs to work on her presentation. Right now, she will let her twenty-seven-year-old-but-feels-older body rest. Because she takes care of herself now. She has to. Or else....

They’ve already covered plenty of points. When they have their meetings every other day, they fine-tune what they will present to the Separatists. It’s amazing and disappointing, she thinks, how much time they need to prepare a suggestion of armistice. But their relationship with the Confederate government is more rocky than an asteroid field, and so they will take as long as they need.

They have made good progress. They know where the conference will be held (having settled upon one of the space stations in the last five minutes of the last meeting). They know how many delegates will be permitted to attend on each side. They know that it will be five days long. And five days isn’t nearly enough to do what they need to do, Padmé knows, but she is willing to yield the military and safety considerations to those that know more about that type of thing.

They have agreed that the Jedi will be necessary for protection, but what surprises Padmé is how long they took to reach that conclusion. She pitches in, says that the Jedi are an integral part of the Republic and far outmatch any other guard forces that they could find. As usual, she receives sneers to her face, snide comments that she is too friendly with the Jedi and trusts them too much. She retorts, respectfully, that she is close with the Jedi because she has worked with them many times, a pleasure which most at this table have not had. She does not add that she is close friends with two and married to one. She also does not add that of course the Jedi are necessary for the conference because the leader of the entire Confederacy is a Sith.

Finally, it is Padmé’s moment to speak. Each member here is given one chance to speak uninterrupted, and this is hers. She will put it to good use.

Padmé’s goal here, she thinks, is to trick these rich, immoral, credit-loving diplomats into thinking there is something in it for them. She thinks that she can do this, but she doesn’t know for sure.

“Of course,” she says, continuing her speech which has already been going on for some time, “There will be incentives for these planets to accept and care for the refugees. We will be prepared to offer tax cuts to governments and organizations that assist in our program. The departments that had their budgets cut eleven months ago during the Wartime Budgetary Reallocation Act will have their credit flow redirected back to those original departments once it is no longer necessary that those credits go towards military spending. That is, as soon as the fighting has stopped and no later. It is absolutely critical that this change in credit flow occur immediately, because the necessities that the refugees require are just that – that without which they cannot survive. Food, clean water, healthcare, places to stay unconditionally until they are able to return to their homes. These things shouldn’t even have to be said, but the truth is that without incentives, the planets reluctantly housing these refugees will ignore all basic sense of the refugee’s rights in favor of their own profit. Therefore, it is our job to make sure that these incentives are good enough for the planets and organizations, and that the refugee relief efforts will actually be followed through to conclusion.”

The real problem, she thinks, is that none of these diplomats have a vested interest in helping the refugees. Try as she might, and as she has for years, she can’t convince anyone that everyone gifted with sentient life deserves to have their basic rights honored. What should be so obvious, so innate, has been absent in all of these committee members from the start. Bail excluded, of course.

“Out of curiosity,” Lott Dod interrupted, “How much longer is this going to take? Some of us would like to get on to discussing more...important matters.”

Padmé squares her shoulders, makes her own tiny body appear taller. “Representative, with all due respect, while you and I have been busy legislating, there are billions of people in thousands of star systems that are dying. You may not see them, you may not be around them, but they exist. In fact – how about I show you.”

She presses a few buttons on her console, and a three dimensional holograph appears at the center of the table. With sick satisfaction, she hears at least three gasps. Floating before them, rotating so everyone can see, dead bodies. Blue, transparent bodies of people who are most certainly dead. She zooms out. It’s an entire town, but there is not much town left. Just smoke, ruined buildings, and dead bodies.

“Senator, please,” says a blue-haired representative named Milnar Peeq from Totogon Beta. “This is horrific, and inappropriate.”

Padmé changes the picture. It’s a battleground, and it reminds her personally of Geonosis. There are clones and droids firing at each other and civilians running for safety in the background. She had asked Obi-Wan for something like this, and he delivered.

“Senator!” Peeq cries again, looking away. Padmé stares around the table.

“Absolutely I agree, Representative Peeq. This is horrifying. And short of ending the war, there may be nothing we can do it stop it. But what we can do, and what we must do, is give these people a chance at recovering. And it’s not even just basic living rights – its economics. We give these people the resources to rebuild their communities, and they repay the galaxy at large by producing, trading, exporting, building, learning, educating, and helping others in turn. Our goal with this peace conference is to end the war, and it would be simply foolish to not at least begin to account for what happens after the war is actually ended. Everything we are doing here is a smaller piece of what is going to help this galaxy bounce back from this financially devastating intergovernmental crisis. Everything, including what I’m talking about here today. If our proposal to the Separatists does not include points which account for the people that we’re supposed to be governing, then we’re not doing our job well enough, and that is not negotiable.”

There is silence in the room. Some of the haughty expressions mock her, while others are thoughtful. Bail is smiling. Padmé sits down, not allowing her interior trepidation and lingering pessimism to show outwardly. The diplomats take a few moments to gather themselves and the next member stands to give their presentation.

But all is not lost, Padmé thinks. Because for once – for the first time in a very long time – she has gotten the final word.

She only suppresses most of her grin. About eighty-five percent.

This is a day in queen, senator, diplomat Padmé’s life. And it’s a good one.

Chapter Text

When Ahsoka was called one day to a Council-led strategy meeting, and found out that in three days, she and Obi-Wan would be shipped out to a planet called Rydonia, she was surprisingly disappointed. Apparently, Master Mundi said, there was some kind of Separatist fiasco (her words) that was sure to escalate into a full-scale battle any second, and he needed backup. As it were, out of an order of ten thousand Jedi – Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were the only ones available. Suuuuure.

If she was unhappy about going, however, Obi-Wan was dramatically more so.

“They didn’t even tell me beforehand,” he was saying as they marched through the temple halls, hopefully out of earshot of any potential eavesdroppers. His strides were long, and Ahsoka had to shuffle to keep up. “Were they not the ones who put me on the Council? Or have they just decided to pick and choose when they want me to be a master and when they don’t?”

Despite herself, Ahsoka couldn’t help but snicker. Obi-Wan skid to a halt and wheeled around to face her. “What could possibly be funny?”

“Nuh-thing,” she said, drawing out the first syllable, giggling. “You just sound a lot like Anakin.”

Obi-Wan clapped a hand to his forehead. “Anakin. What am I going to do about Anakin?”

“He’s gotten better,” Ahsoka said, though truthfully she felt the same as he did. She didn’t want to leave him alone. Honestly, it wasn’t really fair – she had practically begged Master Yoda himself to send her out there just a few weeks ago and was refused time after time. So why now?

“I know he has, but...,” Obi-Wan said, looking off into the distant horizon through a window. He looked like he had more to say, but instead he trailed off, left the thought hanging.

They told Anakin right away, and he reacted by going, “Oh,” and looking down at the ground like he was trying to figure out all the planet’s secrets.

Ahsoka left the room while Obi-Wan tried to assuage any doubts or fears (though, judging by the way Anakin felt in the Force, Ahsoka actually thought that Obi-Wan might be the one more afraid) and later, Anakin came to sit with her, collapsing back into the couch and appearing deep in thought.

The thought of going back into battle was actually kind of...odd. A little surreal. It had been the most natural part of her life for years on end, the cannon fire and endless barrage of blaster bolts and smoke and dead bodies. So why, now, did it feel so strange to think she would be there again? Why did she feel so thrown off, unprepared? Why was she so nervous?

It was only after a reasonable time quasi-meditating on her feelings that she decided she didn’t want to just sit around and read preparatory datapads with every tiny bit of information on everything that had ever happened on Rydonia. And yes, she would do that, at some point, but right now, she decided, it was time to have some fun.

And she knew someone who needed a little fun....

“Hey,” she said casually, knocking Anakin out of his own thoughtfulness. He looked sideways over at her. “Do you...want to go to the zoo?”

It took a full five seconds before he reacted by scrunching up his nose. “What?”

She turned to him. “I don’t want to leave you here alone, but when it comes to Council decisions, there really isn’t any negotiation. In other words, we pretty much have to go. It’s probably going to be miserable for everyone, so I figured, why not do something fun first, right? So what do you think? Do you want to go to the zoo?”

His eyes flicked around the room, as if he thought this was a hallucination or something. He thought for another ten seconds or so, then finally looked back at her and said, “...Okay.”

And that was how, bright and early the next morning, they met in a hangar bay at oh-eight-hundred hours, in front of a shiny red speeder with nothing but some credits in Ahsoka’s belt pockets and Obi-Wan’s blessing to “Stay safe, have fun, and be careful!”

At first, this whole excursion seemed so unlikely that they stared at the speeder without really having a clue how this day was going to go. “So...,” she said slowly. “Do...you want to fly?”

For a brief moment, he looked about to say yes, longingly staring at the enclosed collection of machinery. Then, he raised his hand to the back of his head and said, “They said I’m not supposed to fly for a few months at least. Because of, you know...the seizures.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said, with so much blood rushing into her face from the embarrassment, suddenly regretting everything she’d ever said and done, ever. Really, she felt so bad – Skyguy loved to fly. It was literally part of his name. And, like, what even were the odds of that? “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Anakin shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him (she knew it did) and got into the passenger seat. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ahsoka hopped in the pilot’s seat, and started it up, ashamed. “How, um...how long has it been so far?”

“I think about a month,” he said, looking far off into the distance, averting his eyes.

“Oh.”

What a great start to the day. Not.

She started up the speeder and they made their way, obeying traffic laws like good citizens, not taking advantage (as she could, if she wanted to, which she kind of did) of the Jedi privilege of going really fast. It took an hour to travel two thousand klicks away – there were closer zoos, but she would settle for nothing less than the ones that treated their animals the best. When they arrived, she was suddenly really excited. How often did a Jedi get to spend their day staring at cute animals? Not enough!

She paid their admission and they started walking around, looking at animals and reading signs with facts on them. They went to different exhibits and buildings, and Ahsoka had to admire the sheer space and environment that these animals had, each specifically designed for their biology. Considering the different biomes of the thousand planets these animals came from, and the different levels of atmospheric pressure and gases and gravity and pollution, it was really remarkable how each animal seemed to feel right at home.

They walked around for a while, eventually stopping for refreshments in the rainforest area. Ahsoka sipped her drink while watching the meerca in the enclosure next to their table. “So,” she said casually, “What do you think of Padmé?”

In the corner of her eye, she saw Anakin glance over at her. “I don’t really know her.”

“But she’s nice, right? And pretty?”

She wasn’t that great in noticing those subtle changes in human skin tone that they always pointed out on holodramas (“You’re blushing!” “No, I’m not!” “Yes, you are, you like him!” Humans were so petty.) but she thought his cheeks went a little redder than normal. He said, “Yeah, I guess she is.”

Ahsoka said, “And she’s really dedicated to her job. She’s been a public servant forever, and she’s only, like, twenty-seven. She’s incredible.”

Anakin dropped his chin in his hand. “You’re real subtle.”

She shrugged, suppressing a grin. “Don’t know what you mean. I’m just telling the truth. For instance, did you know that Padmé has managed to raise over a million credits for refugee camps on Naboo through fundraising and networking? She sure is great.”

Anakin had something like half a twisted smile on his face, looking down at his hands. “I know what you’re trying to do. I guess it just – well....” He trailed off.

“Go ahead,” Ahsoka prodded, relieved her little ploy actually managed to get them somewhere. Very, extremely relieved, actually, because Anakin never opened up. Therapy must have been working wonders.

“I feel like I should feel differently about her than I actually do,” he said, drumming his fingers absentmindedly on the metal wire table. “I mean, I should be mad, right? Because, you know, she kinda.... But I’m not, and I don’t know why, because anyone else would be.”

“You can’t really know that,” Ahsoka said. “Just because, I mean, no one else has ever been in a situation like yours. Only you can really know how you feel, and feelings are never wrong or right, they depend on how we interpret them.”

Anakin looked at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. “That was kinda deep.”

She snickered. “I had to study psychology last year. It was really boring.”

He smirked. “She gave me this handwritten letter of an apology, but I haven’t gotten myself to read it yet.”

“Are you afraid of what it might say?”

“I guess.”

Ahsoka watched the meerca gallop around its enclosure for a moment before saying, “I can’t speak for her, but...she really didn’t want to do...it. You know.” He nodded, eyes foggy and distant. She wondered if he remembered the ‘it’. “Padmé is kind of that rare person who is so selfless you’re like, can she even be real? But she is and that’s what makes her so amazing. I mean, I’ve only known her for maybe two years but whenever I’m with her she’s always talking about things like social welfare and ending the war, and political stuff that I don’t really understand. Like, people have tried to assassinate her way too many times but she just keeps doing even more radical and progressive things.” Ahsoka cleared her throat, realizing she was rambling. “I just really look up to her.”

Across from her, Anakin was chewing on his lip. “Can I tell you something kind of embarrassing? I found all these holos in my room of, well...her,” he said, lamely. “Senate speeches and press conferences and stuff. Some of them are from ages ago...I may not remember her, but I do know that I liked her...a lot....”

“I would hope so,” Ahsoka said, trying to make light of the topic. His face had fallen, blanked, when he mentioned his memory loss, but she didn’t want him to feel sad. “You married her, after all.”

They sat in silence for a little while. Ahsoka noticed the thrumming hum of life in the Force, from him and from her and the people around them, from the meerca and the flora in its enclosure. It vibrated with calm serenity in a way that she’d scarcely felt since the start of the war. Just like them, all these civilians had come here to escape from the thought of war, from the persistent nagging thought that there were people out there who were dying and two governments that wouldn’t do anything about it. Across from her, Anakin was watching the clouds.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Ahsoka said slowly, “But I think you should read that letter.” Anakin’s eyes slid down to her. “I mean, you’re gonna be thinking about it nonstop until you actually read it, right? And you’re going to avoid her until you do. And trust me, she’s the kind of person that you want to spend as much time with as possible. I know I do.”

“Maybe,” he said, resting his chin in his hand.

Near the end of their stay at the zoo, they bought what might have been considered a strange amount of stuffed animals for two people of their respective ages – hey, the sign said all proceeds went to protecting the remaining .97 percent landmass of Coruscant that actually wasn’t covered in city, which was a very Jedi thing to do, right? Which got her thinking about how crazy it was that this planet was actually one whole city, which then got her thinking about how many millions of species must have went extinct on this planet during those years of industrial development, which made her really glad after all that she had bought all these stuffed animals....

She was examining the extremely cute stuffed bantha Anakin had picked out (banthas were probably the only cute thing to ever come out of his dustbowl home planet, she thought) when he suddenly said something that may have sounded very peculiar coming from anyone else.

“Hey, uh...this is out of nowhere, but...sorry I tried to kill you that one time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ahsoka saw the gray-haired head of a human woman swing around and look over towards them. Ahsoka just shrugged and said, “Hey, no hard feelings.”

“Really? Because I feel bad.”

“Nah. I get it.”

“Okay, well...sorry anyway. And, I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

“Thanks. I’m glad we’re both alive.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Ahsoka smoothed down the hair on the stuffed ogrin, thinking briefly that if she couldn’t be a Jedi, she would kind of want to be a farmer or endangered species breeder or exotic animal trainer or something. Then she asked Anakin if there were any more animals he wanted to see.

“I kind of want to go to the aquarium,” he said, looking at a map of the expansive, too-big-to-see-in-one-day zoo. Ahsoka squirmed in her seat with excitement and nodded.

Fish were so cool.

Later, when they were seated snuggly across from each other in a cramped diner booth, waiting for her meaty dish and his spicy one to cool off, Ahsoka said, “Hey, can I ask you something?” He nodded. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but...what is the dark side like? The Jedi always tell you to avoid it at all costs, and I get that, but...they never really tell you why, or what it’s like.”

Anakin looked away, out the window at the pedestrians and speeders, and Ahsoka didn’t think he was going to answer so she awkwardly blew a bubble in her drink with the straw. It took a minute, but he spoke, and his voice sounded more somber than it had all day.

“It’s like you’re cold all the time,” he said, his eyes distant. “You have all this power over other people, but whenever you use it you hate yourself a little more. Which, I guess, is kind of the goal, because suddenly, one day, you realize that you don’t feel anything at all, anymore. Hurting people just becomes second nature. And you know you can never get out.”

He stared off at nothing for a while, until he finally seemed to snap out of his trance and looked at her. He said casually, as if nothing had changed, “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Ahsoka stirred her straw around the glass. “But you did get out.”

He looked away. “I guess.”

“’Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny,’” she said, echoing words she had heard her whole life. “That’s what Master Yoda always says, anyway.” Then she shrugged, and he shrugged back.

Looking at the table, Ahsoka said, “Do...do you still feel it? The dark side?”

She couldn’t tell from his expression if he didn’t have an answer, or had one but didn’t want to say it aloud. He just said, “I don’t know what I feel.”

They picked at their food, and Ahsoka wished she had never brought it up, or at least not here. She decided to change the subject to something that would almost definitely take their minds off the morose. “Do you...wanna have a speed eating contest?”

He stared at her for a moment, and then said, very seriously, “Yes.”

“Okay, go!” she exclaimed suddenly, and they dived into their dishes, much to the obvious disgust of the elderly Twi’lek couple at a nearby booth.

Padmé’s blue-filtered brown eyes narrowed somewhat playfully over the hologram. “You need a favor? What kind of favor?”

Ahsoka kicked at the ground, and kept her eyes wide and sincere and hopefully innocent. They were, technically, supposed to be back at the temple in an hour, but she was having so much fun she couldn’t bear the thought of this day actually ending, because if the day ended that meant it would be the next day, and the day after the next day was the day she had to leave. That was when she had concocted an...idea. “We just need you to, you know...lie to Obi-Wan for us that we’re staying overnight at your apartment.”

Padmé raised one of her eyebrows. “While you do what, exactly?”

It hadn’t turned out to be too complicated, actually. Ahsoka usually saved her monthly stipend, having nothing really to spend it on anyway – she only ate out every once and a while, and it was usually at cheapo food joints instead of real fancy places, and anything she generally bought offplanet was typically the Outer Rim kind of cheap in both design and price. Renting a small, two-person transport to Malastare in somewhat junky condition had only siphoned off about half of what she had saved up, which was when she realized how small Jedi allowances were, all things considered. But again, whatever – this was a special occasion, and there was absolutely, positively, no one else in the galaxy she would want to spend it on than Anakin.

Say, what had happened to his stipend savings when he....

Padmé, as it turned out, didn’t seem that enthusiastic about the idea of them going offplanet to see a podrace of all things, but she didn’t outright reject it, either. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. It’s not safe.”

“It’ll only be for a day,” Ahsoka said. “You don’t have to do anything unless Obi-Wan calls you to check. I promise I’ll tell him everything when I get back, you don’t have to take the blame for anything.”

“I can handle Obi-Wan,” Padmé said, crossing her arms with a small smile. “It’s the other Force-sensitive people in the galaxy that I’m worried about.”

“They won’t ever even know,” Ahsoka said, waving it off, pretending not to give it a second thought. She put on her cutest smile. “Besides...I already paid the rental fee.”

Padmé shook her head, smiling. “Listen,” she said, glancing between Ahsoka and Anakin. “I’ll cover for you, but I want you to comm me the moment you get there and when you’re coming back. I know it’s just a very illegal and dangerous race, but there are a lot of people in the galaxy who’d like to get both of you. Be careful.”

“Thank you, Padmé!” Ahsoka said, the commlink on her arm shaking while she looked around at Anakin, who had a shy smile on his face.

“Yeah, thanks,” he echoed, and Padmé’s smile turned brighter as they exchanged a brief look that made Ahsoka feel a little warm inside and also a little confused.

“Have fun,” Padmé said, “And comm me!”

Ahsoka waved and shut off the commlink before looking up at Anakin. “To Malastare, then?”

The purple-ish sand blew in their faces as high-speed pods chased each other down the racetrack. Malastare was hot, though not nearly as hot as Anakin’s home of Tatooine, which Ahsoka was distinctly grateful for. Ahsoka had pulled on her trusty goggles, but Anakin seemed impervious to the sand and dust and instead seemed to thrive in it, grabbing the metal railing of the stands in which they watched the podrace and leaning over it to watch the racers speed down the track.

Coming to Malastare was, hands down, no question, absolutely positively the best decision she had ever made. Obi-Wan, the Council, and the Sith be damned – it was worth every risk to see and feel the unbridled and absolutely pure, exhilarating joy that was emanating out of Anakin was he watched the race. It was a transformation from the sullen, stiflingly depressed trauma victim into someone with the boyish enthusiasm of the little kid from the desert that she had never known.

“Woah – did you see that?” he shouted emphatically, his eyes following the pods as they zipped past, darting from one to another to take in as much as possible.

She laughed, and then coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of dust. “It was kind of impossible not to!” she choked out. Another few racers flew by and he turned to her, a heat rising in his face.

“I can’t believe I used to do this!” he yelled. “That’s so wizard!” Then he blinked, and looked at her, and said in a normal voice, “Uh – I don’t know where that came from.” She just punched his shoulder playfully and they went back to watching the race.

The pods made some maneuver that had the crowd screaming with heated enthusiasm and Anakin seemed to be absorbing their energy into him, siphoning off the excitement and demonstrating that he was in fact, by nature, an angry but thrilled Huttese-spewing Outer Rim native. “I could have done that better when I was seven!” he shouted at the racers who obviously couldn’t possibly hear him. “And I’m a human!”

On the overhead screen, the leading racers were hurtling through the sparse trees of the forest that lay beyond the purplish plain. Anakin’s eyes were glued to it, his left hand knuckles white as they gripped the railing with anticipation. It was kind of hard to follow because the pods were moving so fast, but Ahsoka saw one of them make the slightest of turns to the right at the same time that the racer behind them accelerated and –

There was a crash! sound that reverberated from the speakers and the screen lit up with orange fire, then smoke, and the crowd rose out of their seats with mingled cheers and screams so loud it just sounded like a deafening garbled static. Beside her, she barely heard Anakin utter something in a language that definitely wasn’t Basic and although Ahsoka could definitely admit that the energy of the crowd made it exciting, she couldn’t really figure out why seeing people crash and blow up was something worth cheering about.

When it was over and the screams of the crowd were dying down, Anakin put his hands to his face as if he couldn’t take it. “That was so wizard,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Inkabunga. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” Finally he looked up at her, totally out of breath. “That was the best. Hakee na tobo cootmalya. Thank you so much, Snips.”

She froze, and gaped at him. “What?”

“I just said thanks, that was the best thing ever –”

“No, what did you call me?”

“Snips?” he said, and then he froze too, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open almost comically as he realized. “I called you Snips.”

“You called me Snips,” she repeated, dazed. They stood there gaping at each other like idiots while Malastare moved around them, and then at the same moment they broke out into breathless laughter and threw their arms around each other and hugged for what was probably a long time, at what was probably the weirdest place to be hugging like this.

When they broke apart, he had a wide grin on his face. “I don’t remember anything else,” he said, as if he needed to explain himself.

Ahsoka just shook her head and said, loudly over the din of the arena, “It doesn’t matter. Well, I mean – it doesn’t matter to me – well –”

“It’s okay,” he said, laughing. “I get it. Thanks. Snips.”

Yup. Best day ever for sure.

When they got home, second only to calling Padmé (“You, uh, should go find Obi-Wan,” she had said, in that tone that let Ahsoka know they were really in for it), they made their way through the halls of the temple, arms laden with stuffed animals, giggling so furiously that it was easy to ignore the disapproving looks from Jedi Knights and masters that they passed. When they reached Anakin and Obi-Wan’s suite, Anakin shifted the chubby stuffed bantha wedged under his left arm to press his palm to the keypad.

The first thing Ahsoka saw when the door opened was Master Kenobi, and she couldn’t help but almost burst out laughing even harder. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw locked in that (up)tight clench that he did when he was annoyed. He looked more ruffled than an avian would after being caught in a cyclone.

He cleared his throat, and shook a piece of hair out of his eyes. “What in the universe,” he said, quiet and emphasizing each word, “Could you two possibly have been thinking?”

“Master, it’s okay,” Ahsoka said. “We’re fine! We were fine!”

“You are fine, yes, but there was no way for me to know that that was going to be the case, now was there?” He sounded hushed and harassed and like his blood pressure had probably hit an all time high.

“Obi-Wan, it’s okay,” Anakin said, sounding reassuring. “It was just a couple hours of fun.”

“I –” Obi-Wan said through clenched teeth, balling his fists. He closed his eyes for a short moment. “You know, I got this awful jolt through the Force when you went into hyperspace, and I thought – I really thought that – I can’t even say it.” Suddenly, Ahsoka realized with a knot in her throat what he meant. She suddenly felt so, so bad. Obi-Wan’s voice was tight and restrained when he said, falsely calm, “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Ahsoka looked down at the floor. It was so hard when he talked like this – he got very quiet and calm when he was angry. “I’m sorry, Master.” She only hoped it sounded as sincere as she meant it to. “I – I’m sorry.”

“I understand why you lied to me,” Obi-Wan said, voice barely above a whisper. “I know I can be restrictive and overbearing. But this was not all right, especially with the situation with the situation that you are in, Anakin. You both knew better than this.”

Ahsoka didn’t look up, but she heard Anakin repeat, very quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Obi-Wan sighed, turned around, and headed back toward his room. He said, “I know,” and disappeared.

She looked up at Anakin, and realized how...weird it was to be lectured (rightfully so, she admitted) while both standing with armfuls of stuffed critters. They had planned on keeping their favorites and donating the rest to some younglings. Wordlessly, Anakin shifted all but two into her arms, so that now her immediate area was forty percent Ahsoka and sixty percent stuffed animals. He waved at her, and she watched him walk back down the hall, gently place the brown toy tonu at the base of Obi-Wan’s door, and kept the bantha for himself.

Suddenly, she felt kind of empty. Like, she just didn’t know what to do now. But she couldn’t just stand here all night, thinking about how shameful and embarrassed she suddenly felt, and how she had been having the time of her life while Obi-Wan had been boiling in a stew of worry. Slowly, she walked out the door and down the hall, walking slowly and a little listlessly, arms laden with stuffed animals. It was a weird situation.

Then, as she approached her room, she looked up when she heard laughter. There was a small group of younglings, standing around in a circle and giggling over something. Fondly, Ahsoka remembered when she used to do that, hanging out with those in her youngling group and fawning over anything that came from outside the temple walls.

The giggling stopped when they all saw her coming. She walked up to them, dropped all but her favorite stuffed animal at their feet, and winked and put a finger up to her lips before retreating backwards into her room.

From inside, she thought...the cheers and excitement of those kids reminded her of Anakin at the podrace.

Snips....

Okay. Maybe not the best day EVER, but...pretty freaking close.

Chapter Text

When Ahsoka and Obi-Wan left for war, Anakin didn’t think he had ever felt so alone. Alone, and maybe, a little...abandoned.

And really, he knew in his logical mind that that was unfair. No one had abandoned him, absolutely not. It wasn’t their choice to go, and even if it had been, he couldn’t rely on them forever. But the thing was, his depressed mind seemed to have dominance over his logical mind right now, which made getting along in life a bit harder than it could have been.

There were things that helped. The meds seemed to be helping, somewhat. The therapy definitely helped, even though the idea of it made him enormously anxious. Part of him hated giving intimate details of his life to a stranger. Little R2-D2 helped out a lot, too. Metal or not, the droid was a friend that Anakin knew he could count on in the long run.

For now, he was just kind of trying to live life day to day. To face each hurdle when he came to them. Big or small, he tried to accept each challenge for what it was: just another bump in the road. Tried to accept that, really, after everything he had been though, not just in the last year but the bits and bits that he was slowly beginning to remember...if he could get through all that, he could get through this, too.

That was the main lesson, he thought, that he had gratefully taken from the therapy sessions with Dr. Broca. She had told him, a few times until he finally accepted it, that just because the challenges he faced now seemed small by comparison, that didn’t mean they were insignificant. A year ago, she said, when he was facing torture and despair every single day, he persisted through it all and survived. And now, today, when he was facing a different kind of torture, still he survived every day. It was a hard lesson to really comprehend, but he thought he was beginning to.

Slavery. Death. War. Abuse. Losing himself. Being turned into a human weapon. Being made to kill. Hunted. Escaping. Finding friends. Finding family. Finding...what he was pretty sure was love.

Sometimes, he was so shocked that he had been through it all and, indeed, survived, that he was almost glad his memory was so bad. Part of him was sure that if he could remember it all...he would just...break.

Maybe...maybe it was better not knowing everything.

Maybe it would just be better to make new memories.

Maybe....

“I just hate that...I feel so clueless. Things happen, and I forget them. But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I’ll remember the most pointless, random thing that happened ten years ago. It’s so inconsistent. I hate living like this.”

“How do you feel when you recall something you had forgotten?”

Anakin was staring at the tiny waterfall fountain in Dr. Broca’s office. He said distantly, “I always try to remember the rest. There are always details that are gone, like – I can remember where I was, but not who I was with. Or the other way around. Sometimes all I remember are feelings. The only thing that’s consistent is that, if I try really hard, I can usually find some connection to how I’m feeling at the time.”

Dr. Broca put her hand to her chin. “Is there any particular instance of this that stands out to you?”

“Sure,” he said, drumming his fingers nervously on the chair. “The other day, maybe yesterday, I remembered training, maybe as a teenager. There were other students, and I just remember feeling, like...I didn’t belong with them.”

“Like an outsider.”

“Yeah.”

“And you have that sense again now.”

“It sounds...cliché, I guess, but...I’ve never felt like I was the same as anyone. I remember it from back then, too, people just...look at me different. I don’t know if it’s just me, or if everyone feels that way, but...everywhere I went, everyone I was with, I was never the same as anyone else.”

“So you always wanted to fit in with the norm?”

“That’s not really it,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t mind standing out. I’m used to that. I’m...good at a lot of stuff, and people appreciate that.”

“But it sounds like you feel they expected too much of you.”

“It’s just that they expected so much, the bar they set was so high, and it just kept getting higher. The Sith did that too. When I thought I had done what they wanted, it was never good enough. I’ve never understood what people want from me. I mean – they call me the Chosen One. What does that even mean? Why me? Why did any of this happen to me?”

Dr. Broca said thoughtfully, “That sounds like the question you desperately want an answer to, but also know that there is no answer. It happened to you because that’s just how it happened.”

Anakin nodded. She wasn’t wrong.

“Maybe something to consider,” she continued, “Is that instead of striving to the expectations of the Jedi, or the Sith, or your peers, you could try to meet your own expectations instead. Set goals for yourself that no one else needs to know. Hold yourself accountable, but understand that sometimes it’s all right not to meet your highest expectations. Listen to yourself, to your needs, to your body. Take into account how you feel. Cut yourself some slack when you need it. Say, if you’re feeling too lethargic to do anything, don’t criticize yourself for resting. But if you feel like you are able to get out of bed, enjoy that and take advantage of those feelings. And remember that it’s not about the end result – it’s about how you get there.”

That was a lot to consider. All he said was, “Hm.”

“And one more thing,” Dr. Broca said. “There is one ally that you will always have, to always support you wherever you go and in whatever you do.”

“What?”

She smiled.

“The Force.”

Lying in bed, he felt so achingly alone...it had been a week and he missed them so much...he wondered for a second if they had felt like this when he was gone, when they thought he was dead, but that was such a ridiculous thought because they weren’t dead, they were just away, he couldn’t possibly be so selfish as to think that he was suffering as much as they had that whole time....

He wondered what it had been like for them. To lose someone so suddenly, so abruptly, and then to have them come back? He wondered what they had done all that time he was gone. He imagined them living their daily lives, eating and sleeping and reading and relaxing when he....while he....

Lightning and pain and freezing cold –

He took a deep breath. He had to acknowledge that these things happened. That they were real. If he would only consider the thoughts in all their enormity then he would have ownership of them. He could control them. He could control himself.

But it wasn’t that easy. Not when his whole life was made up of strings of intrusive thoughts, one right after another.

And a little too intrusive, because sometimes he thought those thoughts so hard he could almost feel the physical pain. And that pain was a little easier to bear when there was something to distract him. Someone who could distract him just by being there. Close by. Around.

But he only had two someones, and they weren’t around, and wishing they were wouldn’t make it any more likely to happen.

That was when, suddenly, he remembered it. It. Barely even thinking, he rolled over and reached his metal hand under the bed, thinking it would be easier with the other hand but he was so tired he could barely move. With a minute of groping he found it, and rolled onto his side, staring at the folded up, opaque piece of flimsi. There, he held it in his hands, not knowing what to do, what action to take....

Carefully, he unfolded it....

The letter was in handwritten script, uncommon these days but nice, somehow. His eyes scanned over the text once before he took a deep breath and read.

Anakin,

I’m so embarrassed to put something as important as this in a letter, but I know that the moment I would look at you and try to say all these things my mind would go blank and no words would come out. I hope it’s all right, but I just don’t think I can articulate orally what I need to say to you. I’m sure you can understand that. And I hope that if you can read this at your own pace, in your own time, it might be a little easier.

One year ago, I was placed into a situation where I had to decide whether to have General Grievous destroyed, or to save you from the Sith. Grievous was, in the truest sense of the word, a monster. He was what little kids across the galaxy were afraid would come and get them in the middle of the night. He killed for pleasure and destroyed entire civilizations, and if I had the ability to do away with someone like that – if my decision could have the potential to save thousands of lives at the cost of one – then I felt I had to do it, no matter how personal the consequences would be. For both of us.

Please understand, this is not a decision I made lightly. You were my husband, one of my dearest friends since we were young. I’m not begging for your forgiveness, as I know I don’t deserve it. But neither can I change the decision that I made, or the truth that what happened to you, happened because of a few words I said to Count Dooku many months ago.

That’s the thing I hate about this the most. Your pain came to you because I made a choice. I used you in a way that I had no right to. And I knew that if our places had been reversed, you would have chosen to save my life. I knew that and I still did it. I knew that you would probably die, and I still did it. No amount of words, no apologies, could ever make up for that. What happened to you, happened because of me.

I am so sorry.

I can’t say much more than that. If it would make everything okay, I would say I’m sorry a hundred thousand million times. I’m sorry for the suffering you endured under the Sith, and the pain you’re in now. I’m sorry that I made a choice that required trading your life for another. I’m sorry that I betrayed you. I’m sorry that I’m too much of a coward to say this to your face.

I can’t ask that you forgive me, but I do hope you can understand that I never wanted to let you go. This choice was not what I wanted. You were what I wanted. You and your safety and your love.

And no matter how you feel about me, I can promise you this: that I loved you then, I love you now, and I will always love you, no matter what. You unconditionally have my heart. It’s yours in case you ever decide that you want mine, too. If not, believe me, I understand. If nothing else, I hope to one day at least be your friend, and give you support during the hard times that are ahead of you.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for giving it any consideration at all. It is more than I deserve.

All my love,

Padmé

Anakin folded the letter in half again, and let his arms collapse.

It was like something out of a dream. Meaning, it didn’t even feel real. He didn’t really comprehend it in a way that it applied to him. It was...strange. It felt like she was talking to someone else, but someone with his name. He felt neutral towards it. Though, to be fair, he felt neutral about pretty much everything, right now. Neutral, and a bit dead inside.

But, at the same time...now that he thought about it...he felt a little...warm, inside, too. All my love....

Um...

He put the flimsi on the metal crate that served as a bedside table.

Then he rolled onto his other side, so that he wouldn’t see it.

He just...needed to think, for a minute. On his own terms.

That was a lot of stuff....

Maybe he would just go to sleep for now.

It had been about two weeks when he got the call. Not an active transmission, just a message that was delayed because of interference. There was no visual, and the audio was poor enough quality, but it was Obi-Wan for sure. “Anakin, I’m sorry,” he was saying over the static, “But we’ll be here another week at least. It’s hard to say. Things aren’t going well. But we’re both fine, just focus on yourself. Take care of yourself. Don’t you worry about us, all right? We’ll be back soon. I’ll see you then.”

Yeaaaaaaaaah...it’s fine. It’s fiiiine. He was fine. They were fine. Everything was fine.

Everything was just fine.

It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’sfineit’sfineit’sfine it’sokayit’sokayit’sokayit’sokayit’sokay....

The best thing about going to therapy was that it was something that he had to do. And because it was something that he had to do, it actually got him up. Got him to leave his bed without that much dread at all. It had almost become mechanical by now, moving like clockwork when his timed programming activated.

Okay, maybe not quite like that. But that was just the thing, see....

“I wish I could be like a droid.”

Dr. Broca looked interested. “In what way?”

“They don’t have to feel anything,” he said.

“I see,” she said, appearing to think intently. “So you like mechanics?”

“I love it,” Anakin said truthfully. “It’s so uncomplicated. If things don’t work, you fix them until they do.”

“And what if you can’t fix something?”

He shrugged. “I can fix anything.”

“Okay,” she said, “Let’s consider that. So, you would want to be a droid so that everything is simple and fixable. That’s fair enough, it sounds like a good deal. But, say there isn’t anyone around to fix you. You’ll sit broken and tarnished in a junk pile until someone comes around who needs a part or two that you’re made of. Would you want that?”

Anakin leaned his head on his hand. “Well, technically I would run out of power long before that could happen.”

Dr. Broca smiled. “Sure, this isn’t the best analogy I could probably come up with. But the point I’m trying to make is that if you’re a droid, you have no hope to fix yourself. Droids and machines are created by us to be disposable. But as a living being, you have the power to control yourself and your own recovery, rather than depending on others to fix everything wrong with you. Does that make sense?”

Putting aside for now his ardent disagreement that droids were dispensable tools whose only purpose was to serve the living (now what did that remind him of?)…. “I guess.”

The doctor nodded. “I hope so. Everything you’ve told me up to this point gives me the impression that you crave having power over yourself. You didn’t have that power for a very long time, which is what’s making it so difficult for you to accept now. But you do have that power, and you demonstrate it every time you come here. If you were mechanical, you wouldn’t be able to make that kind of decision. You would be forced to follow your protocol, same as any other order you’ve ever been given.”

“But I also wouldn’t be able to feel.”

“You’ve been there before, though,” Dr. Broca said bracingly. “You told me that at the height of your time in the dark, you didn’t feel a thing. Do you want that again?”

Anakin shivered. “No.”

She nodded. “Exactly. Being able to feel the way we do is the most remarkable thing about being alive. And frankly, I imagine that you feel more than a whole lot of us here in the temple. I know it’s overwhelming, but your terrific ability to feel so strongly is what saved you from the Sith. Do not underestimate your own inner strength, Anakin.”

“I don’t feel strong.”

“I know,” she said. “But one day far in the future, you will realize what an incredible feat it was to make it through everything that you have seen and done, and that has been done to you. And I’ll repeat a point I’ve already made several times – everything was done to you.”

Anakin shook his head. “I made choices. I voluntarily killed people. That was me.”

“And what would have happened if you hadn’t?”

He made a tight fist with his metal hand. Metal, like a droid. Unfeeling. He felt fierce irritation in the parts of him that could feel. “You know, that’s what Obi-Wan keeps saying, too, but that doesn’t excuse any of it. I watched and felt people die by my lightsaber. I killed them one after another. Those people were just like me, they were torn from their lives for someone else’s purposes, but unlike me they didn’t kill anybody to protect themselves.”

“Anakin,” Dr. Broca said softly, “There is nothing I can say or do to stop making you feel guilty. But the very act of feeling sorry, of your guilt and your regret, is what sets you apart from your abusers. You speak of making choices – but your greatest choice was to stop doing what you feel so guilty for.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Forgiveness,” said Dr. Broca. “You need to forgive yourself. That may possibly be your greatest challenge, but if you can do what you’ve done so far, you can do anything. I believe that.”

Nice, because Anakin wasn’t sure that he did.

Slumped in bed, he couldn’t fall asleep because he’d already slept the entire day. He just lay there, staring at the wall, nothing particularly interesting going on in his head.

The door opened, and in came R2-D2, his extendable arm balancing a tray which the little droid then put down on the bed. Anakin saw a couple of pills and a ration bar but didn’t feel much like moving his arm to get them.

That was when R2 beeped, PLEASE CONSUME THESE. IT IS NECESSARY FOR PROPER HUMAN FUNCTIONING.

He couldn’t believe he was reduced to this.

When he made no motion, R2 whistled, I WANT YOU TO FEEL BETTER. CAN I HELP?

Anakin found a sigh, and a whisper. “You are helping, buddy. Thanks.”

R2 beeped, and it sounded as cheery as binary could. Well, if Anakin could only move and do things because wanted his little droid friend to be happy...that was as good a reason as any.

It was a very long drop. That’s what Anakin thought, standing on the balcony with his hands gripping the railing.

No, no, no. It was fine. He had no intent. It wasn’t something he was going to do. Not now, and he hoped not ever. Because there were very few things that scared him more than dying. So no, he didn’t want to die. He just didn’t want to be alive. It was different.

But maybe not to most people. It was amazingly hard to convey, even to Dr. Broca. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to say it to anyone else. He wished he were dead, but he didn’t want to die. It didn’t make any sense, even to him.

But he had been here, shaking, for about twenty minutes now. Frequently he had the thought, maybe even the wish, that he would have a heart attack, or something like that, just something to end it all really quick, really painlessly. Truthfully, it might not be too unrealistic. He had a whole ton of problems, and some of them were with his heart. Thanks to Sidious, and his electricity.

He was shaking so hard. He didn’t want to die. But he didn’t want to live like this. Why did it hurt so much. Why did it always hurt so much. Why. Why.

He stared off of the ledge. No. He wasn’t going to, he wasn’t planning on it. But the thought was there. The thought that both he and everyone else would be better off if he were gone. He shook his head to himself. He felt so alone.

He wished someone was here. Ahsoka. Obi-Wan. Even Padmé.

Oh...

Well, maybe....

He didn’t...know her. He knew what she’d done, but he didn’t know her.

But Obi-Wan trusted her.

Ahsoka trusted her.

He – well, the old he, the ‘he’ who wasn’t around anymore – that ‘he’ had trusted her.

As if on autopilot, he let his mecho activate the comm, set to audio only. He felt so sick with anxiety, but at the same time, so empty.

It took about twenty seconds of waiting. Her voice came on, and she said, “This is Padmé.”

There was a lump in his throat. His heart was pounding so hard. He didn’t know if he could speak. He hadn’t spoken at all, to anyone, in a day or two.

“Hello?”

He took a very deep, shaky breath. “It’s me.”

It sounded like she dropped something. There was a staticky thump and then a pause. “Ani? I mean – Anakin?”

He actually did remember his childhood nickname. His mother had used it, and all the rest. Right now, he missed her most of all.

“Yeah.”

Padmé surprise was clear. “I, uh – oh, sorry, I just didn’t expect this. I mean, I’m delighted. How – how are you?”

He didn’t have an answer she would like, but he had to say something. “I don’t know.” His voice sounded weak, even to himself.

“Is everything all right over there? Is something wrong?”

“No, no, I just....” He ran a hand through his hair, and over his face. “I just needed to...hear someone’s voice. I’m sorry.”

“No!” she said emphatically, “Don’t be sorry! Do you need to talk about something?”

He felt so stupid. He exhaled, his breath a little less shaky now. “That’s okay. I, um....” Stupid stupid stupid. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll go.”

“Wait!” she said, “Hold on. You’re not bothering me. Are you okay? Do you want me to come over there?”

“No, it’s okay –”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. And yeah, that was true. “I can tell. I don’t want you to be alone. Meet me at the front steps to the temple. Can you do that?”

A tear slipped down his cheek. He had never felt so relieved. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll keep my comm on if you need me.”

He hung up, and managed to find some motivation to actually stand up. He felt like a zombie, barely conscious of the steps he was taking, only thinking about actually being able to be with someone for a little while who might actually want to be with him, too.

Outside, he moved over away from the main entrance and sat on the steps, about halfway down. Sitting, he stared at nothing, able to concentrate only on how truly awful he felt inside, involuntarily nervous that Padmé might never actually come.

It was a bit of a waiting game, but finally, there she was. She looked...different, somehow, than usual. Plainer, but not in a bad way. He was just so used to seeing her dressed up and made up, and to see her otherwise was...nice. She sat next to him, not to close but not too far. She faced mostly toward him, and tucked her hair behind her ears.

“I’m sorry to keep you,” she said, as if they were meeting up for a lunch date, as opposed to the steps of the Jedi temple late at night. “My security team is stubborn. How are you feeling?”

Anakin shrugged. The answer was, he was feeling too much, but he didn’t say it out loud.

Padmé seemed understanding. “I’m glad you called me,” she said. “No one should be alone when they’re feeling so bad.”

He agreed. He couldn’t look at her when he whispered, “Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a little while. Anakin didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, because everything inside him was just a big jumble of words mixed with discomfort mixed with that nagging, persistent thought of If I wasn’t alive I wouldn’t feel like this....

Eventually, Padmé broke their silence. “I don’t know if you know,” she said slowly, thoughtfully, “But I, myself, have actually been dealing with depression for a while, now, too.”

He glanced her way, and shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said. And suddenly, she seemed somewhat...subdued. “About a year ago, I...well, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t get out of bed. I could barely move, sometimes. I stopped talking to a lot of my friends and didn’t contact my family for months. Even now, I can’t really put into words how I felt. I just...hurt.”

Anakin picked at his sleeve, looking down. “A year ago....”

“Yeah,” Padmé said, sighing. “I know.”

He really hadn’t known that. That she had been...that she had felt like this. Because of what she had done. To him. He had wondered, many times, what had that year been like for all of them. Thinking he was dead, not having any way to know the truth. Completely oblivious to the fact that he was still alive. He just couldn’t comprehend it. He didn’t know.

“But I have to say,” she continued, looking at the horizon, which was illuminated only by the city lights, “I don’t feel that way anymore. Or at least, not the way I did, and the only reason is because I got help. I went on medication, saw a therapist for a bit…it was a slow process, but eventually I realized I was truly happy to be alive.”

She paused for a moment, then turned a little more toward him. “I won’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling. No one can truly know how another feels. I know the future seems bleak, but we, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and I, we’re here for you every step of the way.”

Anakin didn’t feel enough energy to respond, but he was sure Padmé would understand. He closed his eyes against the illuminated skyline and let his head fall into his hand as if it weighed too much to hold up. He felt so much but also nothing at all.

But there was something, too, about…about having someone next to him, close enough that his human senses could feel her presence just as well as his Force ones could.

Padmé gave it a few minutes before speaking. She said, quietly, gently, but with just a hint of hesitance, “I was thinking…up to you of course, but…if you don’t want to be alone tonight, I would be happy to have you over at my apartment. Just so you can have some company. If you want.”

He looked up, and suddenly she was looking down at her hands. It was too dark to see much color in her face, but he could feel how she felt in the Force. Genuine, caring, and compassionate. It felt…as if he were in good hands. More than anything, she felt real. And really, that was enough for him, for now.

They went back to Padmé’s apartment. Just like her, it looked different than it did normally. In the dark evening glow, it seemed more subdued, and less ornate. They didn’t really do, or say, much at all. She brought him to a room with an artificial fire that gave off real heat, and got warm blankets for each of them. C-3PO brought them warm drinks, and eventually he realized that the hurricane of emotions that had overwhelmed him for days was distracted, replaced temporarily by a sensation of numbness. Eventually, he found that his eyes were having trouble staying open.

That night, he had a dream.

He was floating in an endless fog, no surface around him at any angle. And he felt something, someone, using a sense deeper even than the Force...

An image started to form in a mirror or a reflective pool of water that hadn’t been there a second before,  and he knew before it was complete that it was himself. Except he didn’t look the same – he looked healthier, happier, more confident, though not quite sure of himself. His face wasn’t sunken, wasn’t as tired. He didn’t look quite so hopeless. But it was still him. Still Anakin.

“It’s okay,” the reflection of himself said. “None of this is your fault.”

“But it hurts.” So much, in fact, that he could barely talk through the pain.

“I know,” his other self said. “But think about it. You’ve survived slavery twice now. You only feel this way because he wants you to hate yourself. Sidious can control you without even doing anything. Don’t. Let. Him.”

“I just can’t remember,” Anakin said, desperate. “Please, just help me remember. Maybe then I won’t feel like this.”

“You can’t,” the other him said. “I don’t exist anymore, but you don’t need me, or your memories. All you need is exactly what you already have – your friends. Trust them.”

“I do.”

“Good,” his reflection said, fading, giving way to more fog. “Now get out there, and show me what you can do.”

They had breakfast the next morning, and he was surprised at how much better he felt. Padmé was acting so normal, going about what appeared to be her regular morning routine. She sat next to him at the counter, scrolling through her datapad. Her cooks were really good, and she already knew what kind of food he liked. Their lack of dialogue was comfortable, but still he felt that he should say something. Like....

“I read your letter.”

She looked up from her pad, and looked a little relieved. “I was wondering.”

“I don’t blame you.”

Padmé smiled sadly. “I would understand if you did.”

He looked at his plate and said, “I tried too. It seemed like what a normal person would do. But nothing about this is normal. I’m trying to stop denying my own feelings.”

“That’s a good step,” Padmé said, fidgeting with a napkin. “And a hard one to make. I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.”

Anakin shrugged. “Trying to, anyway.”

She asked, “Do you want to come with me to the Senate? Just to get out a little?”

He bit his lip, and shook his head. “Maybe another time.”

She grinned, and hid it in her cup of caf. “Sure thing.”

There was something really...interesting, about Padmé.

See, as far as the things on Anakin’s mind went, she didn’t have much of a presence. She was kind, nice to be around, but still somewhat removed from the whole picture. She had been there as early as his second attempt to kill Obi-Wan (something he actively tried not to think about, and was glad had not succeeded) and it was the times like that, and the times he had with her now, that set her apart from everyone else.

It may have been something about the way she treated him. She, like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, talked to him so naturally. They seemed not to care, though he knew they did, that he couldn’t remember them outside their more recent encounters. He and Padmé, they were married, but there was no expectation, really not even any acknowledgement of it. She gave him every chance to go at his own pace, and he needed that. She was understanding, patient. And he really did get this sensation of love coming from her, but she didn’t act like she was waiting for anything in return.

She existed so apart from him, but the second he needed help from her, she delivered.

Yeah...there was just something about her....

He continued to see her after that one night. Slowly, she began to develop from that presence that was sort of just there to someone who was actually, well, here. She worked nonstop during the day, every day, so they spoke at night, kind of about nothing at first. She would tell him about her day, she would kind of rant to him in a really personal way. The things she did at work didn’t really interest him but he listened, and some of the problems seemed a little small or insignificant to him, but they were significant to her, which mattered. She was fighting a political battle to end the war, which he wasn’t really sure she could win because of factors like the Sith, but he didn’t say that. Because he was sure this stuff was important, if a little over his head, and she had so much political power it sort of amazed him that she had ever bothered with him in the first place.

That last part made his insides, um, flutter a bit, because really. She had chosen him, or they had chosen each other, way back even before the war started, when she was already in her current position and he was where Ahsoka was now. Those were the details he did know. As for the rest of the more intimate details, well...he was kind of beginning to get it.

Sometimes, he would suddenly recall the whole, she had sacrificed him to Tyranus, thing. But that was just it – because he knew remorse, he knew what it felt like and how it showed, and he had seen it in Padmé. When she said she was sorry for what she had done, he knew it was true. Knew it beyond any shred of doubt. And really, what right did he have to be upset with her after all the things he had done, and people he had killed?

So that was it. Anakin trusted her. He just couldn’t help it. How could he not? She was so genuine. She tried so hard never to lie, and she put so much effort into helping people that she ran herself ragged by the end of every day. And after all that, after her tireless days fighting for what might be a lost cause, still she found the time to talk with him. It was therapeutic, comforting, and he tried really hard not to depend on it. Because right now, he really needed to be independent. For his own sake.

Things were getting better. Only a little, but honestly he couldn’t really handle anything happening too fast. He still felt...fragile. Like all the pieces he had been in were only given some weak adhesive, the type that little children use in crafts. Move too fast and the bonds would just – snap!

It was still really a day-by-day sort of thing. If he could get out of bed in the first place, it was easier to do other things. If he could find the strength or willpower to actually leave the suite altogether, those were the good days.

Eventually, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka came back. They looked exhausted, but glad to be home. A few patched up scrapes and scratches, but mostly all right. They lazed about for a few days, trying to rest their minds and bodies, and Anakin did his best, the absolute maximum effort he could exert, to be the proactive one of the three. Nothing was easy, but some things weren’t as hard as others. Doing something for the others seemed to come easiest of all.

He spent more time with Padmé. Her project, the committee that she had been working so hard on, had finally wrapped up, and now she seemed restless, anxious. When they were talking one night, she asked him again if he would come to the Senate with her for the session where they would finally find out whether the Separatists agreed to their proposal, saying she didn’t want to be alone, and he agreed. And again, he didn’t really pay attention to any of this, or comprehend most of it, but he wanted her to succeed and he wanted to spend time with her.

She and her driver swung by the temple, and again he wished he was allowed to fly. He was sure he would be fine if he tried, hadn’t knowingly had a seizure in at least two months, but that look of disappointment on Obi-Wan’s face last time he and Ahsoka had made a bad decision haunted him still.

Padmé introduced him to the man that she jokingly called her partner in justice, Bail Organa, and by now Anakin was no stranger at being introduced to people that already knew him. He watched absentmindedly as Padmé shuffled around, making last minute calls, trying to occupy every spare second, and Anakin felt powerless to help in any way.

They eventually made their way to the huge Senate chamber, with hundreds of circular docked pods stacked upon hundreds more. There was an enormous bustle, and he sat next to Padmé as she fidgeted and shook and waited. Nervous energy was soaking the Force. This room had so much energy in it that it was almost overwhelming. It made him feel numb, but that wasn’t unusual.

A single pod was rising up now on a spire in the center of the room. Three figures were on it, a bald white-skinned woman, a tall horned Chagrian, and an elderly man who seemed...familiar, somehow. Anakin assumed that must be the Chancellor of the Republic, and felt a little stupid that he didn’t already know these people. The room quieted, and first the Chagrian spoke, just an introduction, and then the elderly man – Palpatine, right? – addressed the room.

“People of our great and noble Republic,” he began, and Anakin found himself frowning. The man had a gentle, calm and quiet voice, and Anakin felt something strange...like he was subconsciously trying to remember something, but just didn’t know what....

The Chancellor continued, “For the past several months, a group of twelve public servants have been working tirelessly to form the proposal of peace that we have already extended toward the Separatist leaders. This proposal has been public for three days, and today we have gathered to learn directly from Count Dooku himself whether they agree to our terms. Please be patient as we await the transmission from Raxus.”

A low buzz of chatter filled the empty air, and Padmé seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack. She was breathing deep, looking toward the bottom of the pod above them, tapping her fingertips against the armrests of her seat. Anakin thought time was passing very slowly, and guessed that the world of politics was normally like that.

Finally, the Chancellor in the middle of the room spoke again, alerting them all that the transmission was coming through, and a few seconds later Anakin found himself flinching when a giant hologram of Tyranus filled the room. He adverted his eyes, and shielded his periphery. Padmé was immune – she leaned forward in her seat with wide eyes.

“I will keep our answer very simple,” Tyranus said in that same arrogant, condescending tone he had always used to Anakin. “In accordance with the decision made by our Confederate Senate, we will accept your proposal.”

Without skipping a beat, Padmé gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. Tyranus kept speaking, not allowing a moment for shock.

“Our only condition is that the conference begin precisely ten days from today at the appointed location. And I would like to say that if the Republic is to try anything that might indicate a betrayal of these terms, you should not expect us to accept any more suggestions of a peaceful end to the war that you started.”

The transmission ended, and immediately the chamber was bursting with sound. Anakin heard the people in the center podium trying to regain control, but it seemed hopeless. In the Naboo pod, Padmé had stood up, and was talking to air.

“It’s happening!” she was saying, “It’s happening, oh, oh dear gods and goddesses it’s happening, I can’t believe it, I can’t, oh – ten days, okay, we have ten days, that’s okay, we can do that, we’re going to do this –”

The center podium had already vanished, traveling down to its base. Padmé was looking at Anakin now, and he couldn’t help but smile at the pure and wholehearted joy coming from her. She held out her hand and he took it and they walked out of the pod, and she kept chattering, saying the same things over and over because yeah, it really appeared that she couldn’t believe it, and Anakin himself was kind of surprised because he hadn’t really thought that peace was, well, a thing in this galaxy. Padmé ran into some friends and they all were shaking each others hands and exchanging words of excitement, she hugged Bail Organa and a woman in white with short red hair, and she kept looking back at Anakin in between groups of people and grinning at him as if she had won the war already....

A male in dark clothes was walking up to Padmé now, and she seemed to recognize him, and he said, “Senator Amidala, the Chancellor has requested your presence in his public office.”

Padmé nodded along. “Yes, of course, I’ll be right down.”

The man didn’t leave. He gave her a look and said, “He also requests you bring Master Skywalker along with you.”

That did make Padmé pause. She looked a little stunned, and confused, but said, “Oh – okay. Thank you.”

The man walked away, and Padmé looked at him a little hesitantly, coming down from her high. “Only if you want,” she said, gesturing down the hall. “I’m not sure if we told you, but he actually used to be your friend.”

Anakin had been told that, yes, and it seemed no less strange than him being married to someone who used to be queen. He didn’t really have any feelings one way or another, but she seemed to want to go, so he just shrugged and nodded. She seemed to perk up, and it was worth it if only for that.

They made their way to the base of the building, and Anakin realized that the Chancellor’s offices were at the base of the huge chamber from which the podium rose. This part of the building was surprisingly barren, though very ornate and decorative, and something about it made him a little uneasy. The man from before was outside the chambers and nodded for them to go in. They entered the door into a short hallway, and turned left toward another door, which opened before them to a large, red-themed room with an expansive window that seemed to show the entire horizon.

Padmé seemed perfectly at ease when she greeted the elderly Chancellor. Anakin couldn’t figure out why the Force felt so strange – that was, until the man turned around.

He looked very, very different up close.

Very different....

But so much the same....

Why had he – not noticed – before –

Everything was just numb....

He heard Padmé’s voice in the background, and it still sounded happy, like nothing was wrong....

Fight, flight, freeze...well he was frozen, which seemed to be a habit for him....

His heart rate had just skyrocketed, higher than the tallest building on Coruscant. And he felt more than certain that he was about to die....

He thought he heard his name, except he couldn’t entirely remember what it was, and he felt a hand on his arm, it was small and gentle and he knew it belonged to Padmé...he didn’t realized he had moved until he was already sitting...why wouldn’t the world stand still, why was he here, why had he walked into this trap, why hadn’t he listened to the Force’s subtle warnings....

There were voices in the background, one which sounded like music to his ears and one which was so familiar, he didn’t recognize it but he knew who it belonged to....

Her hand was on his forehead. “Ani, are you all right? Talk to me. It’s okay.”

“Does this happen frequently, my dear?”

“I...don’t know. Anakin? Can you tell me what you need?”

“What a terrible ordeal he must have suffered. I can only imagine”

He couldn’t react. He wanted to react but he couldn’t. He was so scared. He was so so so scared. He didn’t want to be. It would give – him – so much satisfaction. But he couldn’t help it. There was nothing he could do. He was trapped. This was it. This was the end.

“Ani, sweetheart, it’s okay. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay. You’re safe here, I promise.”

Sidious...he was so close...too close...right next to him, sitting down....

Please, Padmé....

“My dear,” Sidious said. “Why don’t you get poor Anakin a glass of water? Perhaps something cool might help him snap out of this.”

No....

“Uh –” Padmé said, hesitant. “Yeah. Maybe. Is that okay, Ani? I’ll be right back, okay?”

Nonononono

The door hissed shut behind her. Anakin couldn’t breathe. The room was closing in. He felt a hand on his back like a hot metal poker used to brand farm animals. Or slaves.

“Now, now,” Sidious said quietly into his ear, and this was the voice Anakin remembered. Horrible, dry, raspy. He winced, and wished he could shrink into nothing. “We don’t want to make a scene in front of Senator Amidala, now do we? And you haven’t even got your lightsaber. Even after all this time, the Jedi still don’t trust you. And with good reason...you did kill so many of them....”

It took every ounce of effort for Anakin to whisper, “Leave me alone....”

“You are not in a position to demand anything from me, Vader,” Sidious hissed. That name made him – he, Anakin – wince again. “Not after you ruined all the hard work I put into shaping you. And was it really worth it? Are you so much better off in a place that has made you want to...end your own life?”

“You –” Anakin stuttered, hearing his own voice crack and go out. His hands clenched the edge of the couch. It seemed to be the only movement he could make, no matter how hard he tried to move. “– don’t know anything about me….”

“On the contrary,” Sidious said. His hand slid from Anakin’s back to his shoulder, and Anakin shivered. “I know everything about you, Vader. I am the one who created you. For years, without you knowing, I have been shaping you. I made you what you are, and I could just as easily undo you. In fact – I think I already have.”

The Sith moved away from him barely one second before the door swished open and Padmé hurried back in.

“Here,” Padmé said hurriedly, coming to sit on Anakin’s other side. Her presence next to him was enough to get him just to move his head in her direction, the rest of his body still clenched. He felt her press something cold into his human hand.

Sidious rose from the couch, once again speaking in the fake voice, the politician’s one. “Poor Anakin seems quite shaken up. I am no expert on these things, of course, but I do wonder if he might feel better at the Jedi temple.”

Shock was enough for Anakin to be able to look up at him with a fearful incredulity. Back at the temple? Sidious was...letting him go? Actually go? Wasn’t going to restrain him and then do away with Padmé in order to hide the evidence? Wasn’t going to cart him straight back to Serenno like exported cargo? He was so distracted by the concept that he barely even noticed Padmé helping him up to his feet.

“I’m sorry you had to meet like this,” Padmé was saying. “Chancellor, I can come back –”

“No, no need, Senator,” Sidious...Palpatine...someone said. “I simply wanted to congratulate you on your hard work. I am sure you will do the Republic very proud at the conference.”

Padmé nodded. “Thank you, Chancellor. This was a victory for all of us.”

Anakin was distantly aware of Padmé leading him out of the room, then stopping in the antechamber. “Ani?” she said, reaching up to put a hand on his forehead. With that, as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on him, he was suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings. He looked around to see a red room with dim lamps and curved red couches. “You okay in there?”

He was shivering. He definitely wasn’t okay. “I need to go home.”

She looked up at him with a sympathetic, gentle smile. “Of course. I’ll ask Obi-Wan to meet us there.”

And that was exactly what happened. The ride back to the Jedi temple was a blur, he felt so cold, so sick, more confused than perhaps he’d ever been. He wanted to tell Padmé, but he was so nauseously sick with anxiety that he couldn’t say a word. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was, or who he was. One look at Sidious’s face and he –

Sidious had called him Vader, but that wasn’t his name, was it? Was any of this real, was it all some kind of sick joke, or just some deep-rooted conspiracy, or some kind of virtual reality simulation....

It wasn’t until he was somehow back in the safety of the kitchen in their apartment and Obi-Wan kneeling in front of Anakin as he slumped in a chair, that he found himself able to speak. It took a minute in his dizziness for his eyes to find Obi-Wan’s.

He took a deep breath.

“I need to tell you something."

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan Kenobi could easily, if prompted, outline the three worst days he had ever had. The first was, of course, the day he watched had Anakin die – the fact that Anakin had not, in fact, died that day did not change the fact that Obi-Wan would have that image burned into his eyelids for the rest of his life. The second worst day, then, would be when Qui-Gon died, and Obi-Wan had lingered so dangerously close to the dark. Following a pattern and coming in at third had to be the day Satine had been used as bait to draw Obi-Wan to Mandalore, and then murdered before his eyes. They were three days that Obi-Wan remembered as if they were yesterday, and he sincerely hoped nothing would ever happen to give him a new top three.

There was now, however, a day that Obi-Wan would probably in the future claim as the fourth worst day of his life, and as it happened that day was today.

It wasn’t just the fact that the Chancellor was the Sith Lord, and the Sith Lord was the Chancellor. Palpatine, Sidious, Sidious, Palpatine. No, rather it was the thousands of smaller truths that were born from, and could be connected back to, this one truth.

An example: Sidious had trained Maul, who had killed Qui-Gon and Satine. Again, the second and third worst days of Obi-Wan’s life, respectively. Then, Sidious had trained Dooku, who had pretended to kill and proceeded to torture Anakin, leading to the actual worst day (few months) (or, entire year) of Obi-Wan’s life thus far. Obi-Wan had known that Sidious had done these things, had looked upon the idea of a powerful Sith Lord with that name lurking in the shadows of every recent galactic disaster, but here was the thing, the new information that was so difficult for him to manage: Obi-Wan knew Sidious. Obi-Wan had been around Sidious. In his actual presence. Together in a room many times with a man who was perhaps the greatest liar the universe had ever seen.

It felt, and this was barely an exaggeration, as if the planet were crumbling from underneath him. The Sith was the Chancellor. The Sith controlled both of the two warring governments. He had influence over the banks, over the militaries, over trillions of lives spread across thousands of planets...

How could this be possible....

And he wasn’t through realizing things. Thoughts flooded through him, revelations, pieces of the puzzle fitting together.

Especially, there was Anakin. Where even to begin. On Naboo nearly thirteen years ago, where the newly appointed Chancellor had applauded both he and Anakin for their bravery and heroic deeds. Then on Coruscant, meeting with the Padawan, encouraging in him ideas that went against the Jedi’s grain. Obi-Wan had always thought it strange, but he had never...there was no way he could have known, but he should have, somehow he should have....

He knew now for a fact that what he had told Padmé was true. That Sidious, that Palpatine would have stopped at nothing to take Anakin for his own. He would have tried to get Anakin over to his side no matter what. The heavy weight of that knowledge was terrifying. Sidious really did think Anakin belonged to him.

Fortunately, Obi-Wan knew better.

Because he knew something Sidious didn’t, and couldn’t because Sith Lords only dealt with anger and hatred and fear:

They had love on their side, and love always wins, in the end.

They told Yoda and Windu first. It was with them that Obi-Wan had had the most personal discussions about the Sith; Yoda had the personal connection to Dooku, and Windu had tried so hard to help Obi-Wan destroy Maul. It was they who Obi-Wan most looked up to, who he trusted with this information. They were the two most revered among the Jedi ranks, experienced and wise beyond measure. They, Obi-Wan hoped, would know what to do.

Still, it frankly amazed him how they could manage to keep their composure in light of the most devastating of revelations. In fact, neither of them moved an inch, except to look at each other with completely neutral faces. For only a moment, Obi-Wan wondered if they had even understood him correctly.

The Force was so rich within this room that Obi-Wan felt hyperaware of his own inner workings, afraid they might be reflected back to the others as if bouncing off a mirror of the Force. And how could it not be? Windu, Yoda, and Anakin all in a room with him. It made Obi-Wan feel rather small by comparison, but also just a bit glad. Sometimes, he thought, being so sensitive to the Force might hinder rather than help. To constantly hear in one’s mind the voices and thoughts and feelings of others...he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle it.

Finally, Windu and Yoda seemed to come out of their own, entirely private discussion, focusing back on Obi-Wan and Anakin, the latter of whom seemed lost in his own thoughts and fears.

“I only wonder,” Windu said to Anakin, “How it is you didn’t discover this until now. You’ve been here for three months. Surely you must have seen his face somewhere. HoloNet broadcasts, news programs....”

“He doesn’t look the same,” Anakin said quietly. “If you saw him as Sidious, you would understand. He changed everything about himself, even his voice.” He looked at the ground, avoiding anyone’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

The way he sounded, as if he thought the Jedi might abandon him, as if he wasn’t giving the Jedi precisely the information they had been looking for for years – it made Obi-Wan’s heart hurt. He put his hand on Anakin’s arm and looked between the two Jedi Masters. “What are you going to do?”

“Act now, we cannot,” Yoda said, his eyes closed in thought and meditation. “Too important a time this is, for our Republic. If taken away their Chancellor is, backlash against the Jedi we will face. The trust of the Senate we will lose. Understand our reasoning, they will not.”

“But neither can we allow him to remain,” Windu said. “He must have known Anakin would give us his true identity, which means he must have a plan. Speaking of which – did he say anything you to?”

Anakin looked up, frowning. “He said....” He was staring off into the distance as if trying to see the memory itself. “I, um...he said that....” He trailed off, and didn’t continue.

Windu seemed to accept that as an answer, regardless. “The peace conference takes place in ten day’s time. Palpatine has said repeatedly that he will not be attending for security reasons. If we were to take action then, while everyone else is occupied, there would be less attention drawn to us than otherwise.”

Yoda had his hands together, his elbows on his knees. “True, this is, but oversimple. Planning something, Sidious is. Ruling over both sides of the war, he is. Allow it to end so easily, he will not. Violence there will be at this conference, blood shed on both sides.”

Mace nodded, his hand covering his mouth in contemplation, then looked up at Obi-Wan and Anakin. “We will deliberate over this further and inform the rest of the Council,” he said. His eyes flicked to Anakin specifically. “You were right to bring this before us. We now have the final piece of a puzzle that’s been incomplete for years. If we play our cards right, we may be able to rid this galaxy of the Sith once again.”

“Hmmm,” came from Yoda. “May the Force be with us all.”

Later that evening, they met with Ahsoka for dinner, and telling her the truth came much easier than telling the Council.

“No way,” she said with a visible shudder. “I always thought he was creepy, but oh man!” Then, she sat up straight in her chair with a gasp. “Wait – so that whole time he was away all those months – he was on Serenno? Oh, man!”

Obi-Wan had thought about that too, with a distinct chill down his spine. The famed Supreme Chancellor, claiming to take off work three entire months for his health, and there wasn’t a single soul that hadn’t believed it....

Anakin, who seemed to have recovered from his justifiable panic, didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. “What?”

“Yeah!” Ahsoka said. “He took these few months off a while back, saying his doctors recommended it for his health. I remember some people talking about how irresponsible it was, because I mean, the leader of a gazillion people taking a vacation? but no one did anything about it. He always had everyone in the palm of his hand. I guess now we know why, huh.”

“Huh,” Anakin echoed, his chin in his hand. “I always thought it was weird that he would...um...complain, about having to come back sometimes when I, did certain things...but I never figured anything out. He never even gave a hint.”

“Creepy,” Ahsoka reiterated. “Oh man! I can’t even comprehend it.”

To be sure, neither could Obi-Wan. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to, not if that would make it real....

“He’s coming,” Mace said, with his forehead in one of his hands as he leaned back in his seat. He had asked to discreetly speak with Obi-Wan, to cover a meeting with the chancellor that, for personal reasons, Obi-Wan had declined to attend – truth be told, he simply did not trust himself to pretend nothing was wrong around the man that had tortured his best friend.

“What do you mean?”

“To the peace conference,” Mace said, lowering his hand and looking directly into Obi-Wan’s eyes. “He said that it would reflect poorly upon the Republic if the leader of the Separatists attended the negotiations, but the chancellor of the Republic did not. Some nonsense about keeping up appearances and morale. I think it’s obvious what they’re really after.”

“They’re planning something,” Obi-Wan agreed, frowning. “What are you going to do?”

“The only thing we can,” said Windu. “Send as many Jedi Masters as are available. Prepare for a fight.”

Obi-Wan did not suppress a sigh. “It will be Geonosis all over again.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Early evening sunlight filtered in through the blinds, illuminating them in a reddish hue. Obi-Wan watched the light on the floor, thinking, rubbing his beard. He said, “We need to let everyone think this conference has a chance to work. Even if it doesn’t, even after it’s over – there needs to be something to salvage from the wreck. We cannot let them know we suspect an attack.”

“Agreed,” Mace said. “I’ll see who’s available and call a strategy meeting tomorrow. And, Obi-Wan –” he broke off, looking only as hesitant as a seasoned Jedi Master would allow himself to be. “I’d like you to bring Tano and Skywalker with you.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. “Why did I know you were going to say that?”

The communication center had become one of Obi-Wan’s more frequent haunts during the war, perhaps second only to the bridge of a star destroyer (and sometimes both at once). Being here most often meant that either him or someone he knew was about to launch a complicated campaign in need of extensive planning. The same was true of today – the only difference was that it was possible, just possible, that this could be the last such meeting of the war.

Above the comm unit hovered a hologram half Obi-Wan’s height of the relatively new space station Diligence, which sat peacefully on the edge of Republic space. It had been chosen, it seemed, by the delegation of elected representatives exclusively for its expansive conference halls and polished aesthetic. For practical purposes, however, it failed nearly every security check that would have been accounted for if the Jedi, or even the Republic military, had chosen the venue. If it was in reality the way it seemed to Obi-Wan, then the senators and representatives were of the type of believe that bad things only happened to others, not to themselves.

Around the table stood most of the Council, many of whom would be attending themselves, as well as a few chosen other Jedi Masters...and, of course, Anakin and Ahsoka. Those Jedi that communicated through holograms were on secure, private, and scrambled channels. In the spotlight, as always, were Windu and Yoda, who were addressing the group.

Windu was saying, “As you all know by now, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has decided,  against every piece of advice given to him by both ourselves and his security advisors, to attend the negotiations in person. In any normal circumstance, this would already be the highest security situation of the war. But, as each of you know, the spot we are in now goes above and beyond any precedent. Most of you have already been given specific instructions of your role at the conference. Master Plo Koon and the Wolf Pack will be situated outside the space station on star destroyers, while the rest of you will be placed at strategic locations throughout the station itself.

“Now, Padawan Tano.” Windu turned to Ahsoka across the wide circumference of the holocomm table. She held herself at attention. “Because of your admirable performance protecting Queen Neeyutnee and the Senate’s delegation during Naboo’s Festival of Lights one year ago, the Council would like you to preform the same task at the negotiations. In the event of an attack, it will be your job along with Master Secura –” the hologram of Aayla nodded in acknowledgement – “To ensure the safe evacuation of the Senate delegates from harm.”

Ahsoka bowed slightly. “Understood, Master.”

Windu nodded, and gazed around the table, looking grim. He stopped his gaze at Yoda, who sat beside him in his hover chair, and then said, “Every one of us should assume that conflict will break out at any moment aboard this space station. The Diligence is equipped with a small security team, but not enough to withstand a sustained Separatist attack. According to the agreements between our respective governments, each side is allowed three large cruisers, and as such we have ordered one ship each from the 104 ^th Battalion, the 327 ^th Star Corps, and the 501 ^st Legion. The admirals and clone commanders of each ship will be on standby.”

“Foolish is the Senate to think that no attack is imminent,” Yoda said, “Even if know they not what we have found out. Unlike any other war situation will this be. The Sith Master and Sith Apprentice, in attendance both will be. Be wary of the dark side’s presence, you must.”

“The Chancellor will know by now that we’ve discovered his secret, which is where Skywalker comes in.” Obi-Wan saw Anakin look toward Windu, who seemed to have suddenly aged a few years in the past few days. He was staring directly at Anakin. “I had my misgivings about allowing you back as if nothing had happened, but I have heard arguments from Master Kenobi attesting to your recovery and behavior, and accordingly the Council feels comfortable asking this of you. You are free to decline given the risks involved, but there is a possibility that if you attend this conference, we may give Sidious a reason to reveal himself not only to us but to the public. In doing so, it would give the Jedi an easier time securing a solid transition to a new leader.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t look at Anakin directly. He already knew what this was about, and the idea made him sick with worry.

Anakin was drumming his fingers on the computer console. Movement helped him focus, Obi-Wan knew. He wished, oh he wished, that Anakin would say no, turn tail and march straight out of here and stay far away from the Sith forevermore. But memory or not, Obi-Wan knew Anakin. He couldn’t stay away from action, and from what he believed was right. He simply could not not help people.

“You want me to be bait,” Anakin said, appearing to consider. Obi-Wan could sense Anakin’s nervousness, or perhaps that was just his own. “Do you really think you can stop him?”

“Powerful is Sidious. Very powerful,” Yoda hummed from his hoverchair. “Deceived us for many long years, he has, but never a better opportunity will we have. About can or cannot, this is not. Defeat him we must.”

“We will benefit from any insight you can give us,” Windu added.

Anakin’s face was concentrated. “I never fought him. I’ve never even seen him with a lightsaber. He has Ty – uh, Dooku, do all of his work for him.” He exhaled, frowning, staring at the holodiagram of the space station as it rotated on an invisible axis. “But I want them both gone. I’ll do it.”

Windu nodded, appearing satisfied but worried, too. “If my hunch is correct, then he’ll be going after Obi-Wan, as well. I’d like to fit you each with comm tracking devices that you would activate in case you manage to pin down Sidious’s location. I will then proceed directly to your coordinates to apprehend him.” He raised an eyebrow with a vague air of amusement about him. “I would like to recommend that you two stay together, but I don’t think that even needs to be said.”

Obi-Wan felt his face get slightly hot, and glanced at Anakin so he wouldn’t have to stare at the smirks around the table.

Yoda brought their attention back to the matter at hand. He addressed the entire group. “Until back on Coruscant you are, assume you must that the Separatists will attack. If no attack comes, wary you must still be. The Sith are cunning, and together they may surprise us. Regardless of the outcome of these negotiations, apprehended this Sidious must be. Control over this galaxy he has had for far too long. Stopped he must be, at all costs.”

Windu said, “Each of you should do your best to memorize the layout of space station Diligence before the event. The Separatist leaders have also been given a partial layout for equality’s sake, but I would like the Republic forces to be the better informed. Pay special attention to the locations of the airlocks and hangar bays, as well as the main power and life support conduits.”

“The safety of the Republic, our first priority is,” Yoda added. “Should an attack occur, lives will be lost. Accept this we must, and move on. Stopped must the Sith be before the Republic can be truly safe. In each of your hands is this responsibility.” He looked around for others to speak. When none did, he heaved a deep breath and said, “Stay here I will, to look after the temple. Experienced you all are. Masters are most of you. Believe in the Force, and you shall succeed. May the Force be with us all.”

There were two days left before the conference when Obi-Wan asked Anakin to meet him in one of the outdoor courtyards after a council meeting. Anakin was already there when he arrived, leaning against the temple wall in the shade of a tree. Obi-Wan sat next to him.

“I have something for you,” Obi-Wan said, pulling something from his sleeve and handing it over. “Since you’ll be coming with us, you just might want to have this.”

Anakin’s face lit up when he took his lightsaber in both hands. “You got it back?”

“It’s all yours,” Obi-Wan said, grinning. He watched as Anakin examined it, making sure it wasn’t damaged, rubbing off a mark on the hilt. Then, he paused, staring at it.

“They took the crystal,” he said. Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised that he noticed – kyber crystals were rich in Force saturation unlike any other stone. It was not an exaggeration to say a Jedi could feel their lightsaber as an extension of their arm. What Obi-Wan did notice was that Anakin’s free hand ghosted over to one of the pockets on his belt and remained there. “I guess that makes sense. Red is kind of suspicious, huh.”

“We can get you a temporary crystal,” Obi-Wan said as Anakin flipped open the pocket cover and reached inside. “Perhaps in a few weeks we can go to Ilum, where Jedi go to get....”

Without speaking, Anakin placed his reclaimed sabre on the ground beside the small, two-inch long crystal that he’d pulled from his belt, and closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Raised his hands, humming with the Force. Obi-Wan watched as the lightsaber came apart, each part disconnecting and floating in the air. He saw the crystal spin upwards to meet the chamber where it naturally belonged, the parts reconnect, and the casing click back into place. The entire process took perhaps a minute, and Obi-Wan’s mouth was hanging slightly open in astonishment the entire time.

When it was over, Anakin looked sheepishly over at him. “I felt it calling to me on Serenno before I escaped,” he explained, answering the question that didn’t need to be asked. “I think the Force was telling me it was time to get out.” He held the hilt in both hands and ignited it, staring up at the humming blue energy. Obi-Wan felt as though he had never seen a more beautiful color.

“You never fail to impress me,” he murmured, and Anakin actually laughed.

“Sounds like we might get some action,” Anakin said casually. “Don’t suppose you want to practice...in a much less deadly way than the last time?”

“Only so long as you don’t try to kill me,” Obi-Wan replied, smiling as he stood up and took his own blade in his hands.

“You got a deal.”

Then, with the sky as their backdrop their sabres clashed, blue against blue against blue.

Chapter Text

The space station Diligence was easily, by far, the most aesthetically beautiful machine Ahsoka had ever seen. From the moment she stepped off her gunship, she was struck by the pure excess of money and design that must have gone into the construction of this station. From the docking bays to the bridge, each corridor was lined with soft blue carpeting and decorated with warm light fixtures and expensive paintings. The main hall, the one where the conference would be taking place, was sprawled in red and lit by enormous chandeliers. The long rectangular table where the Republic and Confederate representatives would meet was neatly set with ornate glasses and lined with fancy, high-backed chairs.

That, however, was about as much praise as Ahsoka could give this hunk of expensive junk. Located in interstellar space, sandwiched between the proclaimed Republic and Separatist borders, right off the edge of a major hyperspace route, the Diligence didn’t have a single gun turret or laser cannon to its name. It was absent of weapons lockers, didn’t have the equipment for properly monitoring the ships around it for security threats…while they were here, the Republic would have to rely exclusively on tech aboard the three destroyers that lingered off the starboard side. Of course, all of that would normally be fine — if, that was, this event wasn’t almost guaranteed to escalate into an all out battle.

According to the terms agreed upon, and Ahsoka’s mission briefings, each government was allowed three stationary cruisers, as well as an unrestricted number of smaller, nonmilitary ships. If either party were to infringe upon this agreement, it would be taken immediately as an act of violence. Onboard, meanwhile, to be evenly matched in case of conflict, and to avoid the threat of stray blaster bolts and assassinations, security officials and bodyguards were not allowed blasters. Most significantly, this meant the Separatist guard droids would be armed with electrostaffs to match the Jedi’s lightsabers, as if that would make them any less dangerous. Any clones and blaster-wielding droids would therefore have to remain on their cruisers. At the end of each day, delegates were permitted to return to their respective ships for lodging, and security was allowed to remain aboard the Diligence.

The conference was supposed to last five days. Staring around at the decorated walls, feeling the plush carpeting under her boots, Ahsoka didn’t think they would make it past the first.

Throughout the few hours before the delegates were due to arrive, Ahsoka and her Jedi superiors scaled the station, looking for last-minute security conflicts or evidence of Separatist interference, and found none. All around them were Separatist officers and droids doing the same. Then, with some downtime, she pulled out a datapad to make sure she remembered where the airlocks and life support conduits were, as well as any potential places in which she could hide her charges when the battle ensued. She was just scrolling past the storage lockers when suddenly she felt a very familiar, very friendly feeling in the Force, and she looked up to see….

“Rex?” she said, and there he was in his white and blue armor with the pauldron on his left shoulder and Mando Jaig eyes on the helmet….

“Commander Tano,” the captain said with a formal salute. “Good to see you, sir.”

“Oh, quit the formality, it’s been ages!” Ahsoka said, finding herself with a huge grin. “How’s everything on the front?”

With a glance to both sides, Rex pulled off his helmet. “As good as you can expect. We seem to lose brothers faster than we gain them. Spirits are low in the five-oh-first.”

Ahsoka nodded. She’d been keeping up with the reports the whole time she’d been on Coruscant. The 501st Legion was still one of the most productive batches of clones, yet nowhere as successful as it had been with Anakin at its head.

Speaking of whom….

“Have you seen Anakin yet?” she asked, looking around. He was standing by Obi-Wan, looking at a hologram of something.

“Negative,” Rex said, his eyes landing on his old general. He paused for a moment, like he couldn’t look away. Then, he let out a snort-like laugh. “Didn’t expect him to be here, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve never known the general to back down from a fight.”

As much as that was true, Ahsoka really wished she could tell her old friend the truth. She changed the subject. “So, do you think there will be a battle?”

“Seems likely,” Rex said, still looking over at Anakin. Then he seemed to become aware of himself, and put his helmet back on. “A galaxy at peace is a great idea, and don’t think I wouldn’t enjoy my retirement, but the boys and I are ready for a good, long fight.” Ahsoka saw him absentmindedly tapping the two empty holsters, absent of his signature dual pistols. “At least, we will be when I’m back on the cruiser.”

Ahsoka grinned. “Well, I’ll catch you out there on the battlefield. Good luck, Captain.”

“You too, sir.”

Soon after, Master Windu called her over to help him greet the Senate delegation that had just arrived. Fortunately for her, she wasn’t on welcome duty, instead standing guard by a door with her hands clasped behind her back, surveying the room while a parade of finely dressed diplomats and their aides filed off the luxurious Senate transport ship.

From there, nothing much struck her as particularly eventful. An overhead voice announced the arrival of the three approved Separatist warships to match the Republic’s three, and soon enough the delegates from both parties were sidling over to their chairs in the enormous conference hall, security officers and a few battle droids in tow. Eventually everyone was seated, save the Jedi and the droids opposite them. Ahsoka couldn’t help but feel cold inside, seeing Palpatine right across the large table from Dooku. Instinctively, feeling something protective rise in her, she glanced over at Anakin, who was leaning against the wall next to Obi-Wan with his eyes pointed at the ground.

The conference started off generally how she had expected it to. Immediately she found herself losing the ability to focus on the words being spoken, no matter by whom; politics was so boring. Necessary, sure, but not a path Ahsoka would have taken if her cells had a few less midi-chlorians.

Giving up hope of absorbing the information right from the start, she occupied her time with scanning the room, mostly the Separatist side, her eyes occasionally coming to rest (or glare) at the two Sith, at the security droids and MagnaGuards, and occasionally at that jerk Tarkin. She hated that guy. What a jerk.

They took their first break around an hour and a half in, giving everyone a chance to stretch their legs, get their blood sugar up. Ahsoka remained at her post, watching as the delegates from each side remained carefully separated as if by some invisible barrier. She remembered that Republic law forbade its citizens from having contact with citizens of the Separatist worlds, but she didn’t know if that law applied here as well. However, given the immense looks of dislike some delegates had been shooting each other from across the table for the last hour, Ahsoka didn’t think they would be much interested in talking even if it was legal.

Which was sort of why, when it all came down to it, Ahsoka was pretty sure this conference had been doomed to fail from the start. But hey…she’d been wrong before.

A couple hours in, Ahsoka was still zoning out until she noticed that the voice that was speaking belong to Padmé, and she found her attention focused on the politicians for the first time today.

“…have an idea that should mitigate the struggle that often goes into organizing relief efforts for these refugees. The Republic has had a problem throughout the war of giving aid to everyone who needs it because funds tend to get tied up in certain relief efforts and get used up before we’re able to move on to the next planet that needs it. We could designate members to a special task force made up of both Republic and Confederate representatives to ensure that populations on both sides of the conflict are being included in our efforts. This would prevent anyone from getting the idea that funds are being diverted to either government. We would make our efforts public and be open to listening for those who need our help. If someone came forward and said they needed our aid, we wouldn’t have to get bogged up in Senate hearings. Instead, we could decide quickly how soon we can help these people and how much effort and supplies it will take on a case-by-case basis.”

“I second the motion,” announced a male Zafara from the Separatist side. “My own hometown was lost as collateral damage, and my planetary government diverted funds immediately to help them rebuild. It is a simple process for those who are willing, and I would be happy to do what we did on a larger scale.”

“Which also brings up the issue of the ban between Separatist and Republic communications,” Bail Organa said. “For bipartisan task forces such as these to work, would require an immediate repeal of the ban.”

“The Confederacy has no such prohibition,” replied the Zafara. “Therefore, the creation of such a task force would be contingent solely upon the Republic.”

“The Republic does not have the funds to dedicate so much to an effort such as this,” Lott Dod of the Trade Federation interrupted. “Each planet must be responsible for its own refugees. Why should Cato Neimoidia have to fund relief efforts for planets destroyed by the clones?”

Ahsoka found herself rolling her eyes. Um, maybe because the Trade Federation was the one manufacturing the droids in the first place? No one at the table said that, of course, which was another reason Ahsoka could never be a politician. Maybe these politicians needed more aggressive negotiations….

“Again, where the Republic funds come from is up to the Republic itself,” the same Separatist representative said. “I motion that we include the Senator from Naboo’s idea in the accords. Refugee crises are a bipartisan issue, and a beings rights issue.”

If either Dooku or Palpatine had a Sith-charged issue with this proposal, neither of them showed it. Dooku raised his hand. “All in favor?” Each representative pressed a key on their console, and Dooku nodded to the clerical droid. “It is in the accords. Moving on, we must discuss the issue of the forced occupation of neutral planets….”

Hours later, at the end of the first day, Ahsoka escorted the Senate delegation back to their ship for lodging, as per her mandate, and now she was free to lounge as long as she stayed on the ship and remained alert. She was walking casually down one of the corridors, glancing around and making sure everyone was all right when she heard —

“Ahsoka,” and she turned around to see Padmé with her hands on her hips, a playful smile on her lips. She had Bail Organa with her, who nodded at Ahsoka with his own pleasant smile. “Is there anything you can tell me about why I’ve had a Jedi bodyguard that I didn’t ask for tailing me for the last ten days?”

Oh. Right. At Obi-Wan and Anakin’s request, after the whole Darth Sidious revelation, thing, the Council had agreed to send a Jedi to guard Padmé, given her history of (as far as they knew) friendship between her and Anakin, and the danger that put her in. Ahsoka’s two masters had declined to guard the senator themselves, feeling it would be better if the two of them remained in the temple until the conference, away from Sidious’s influence. Obi-Wan felt that given the sensitive situation, it would be best to keep Padmé temporarily in the dark as to Palpatine’s true nature. And even though Ahsoka could see his point, she also knew that Padmé might not take the deception very well when the truth finally came out.

So now, Ahsoka put her hands behind her back, trying to appear nonchalant. “Um…did you ask the Jedi guarding you?”

Padmé shot her a very dry look and said, “Yes, and I was dutifully informed by Master Tiplee that the Jedi Council was ‘concerned for my safety.' That’s it. And I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Obi-Wan, either.”

Ahsoka just shrugged. “You know him. He has a great time with difficult conversations.”

Padmé laughed, and put her hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Are you off duty? Bail and I are getting dinner.”

She nodded, and walked with the two senators to Padmé’s quarters, wishing briefly that Republic cruisers had catering droids like these fancy ships did, instead of crowded mess halls stocked with bland government rations.

As Padmé sat down in the booth at the small dining table, waving for her friends to do the same, she said, “All I’m saying is that if someone is trying to assassinate me again, I think I have the right to know who and why.”

Ahsoka didn’t entirely disagree. She took a deep breath. “Master Kenobi told me to tell you…hold on I can’t do the accent as well as Anakin can…’If Padmé asks you about it kindly inform her that I am sorry, but the Council feels that for her own protection it will have to wait until after the conference has ended.’ And then he muttered something about politicians and stormed off.”

Senator Organa let out a laugh of his own, and Ahsoka remembered that he and Obi-Wan were friends, too. “Now, what did politicians ever do to him?”

The conversation turned back to politics. Ahsoka watched and listened as the two senators discussed what had been covered today, discussed strategy for the upcoming four days. She didn’t have anything to contribute, but she didn’t mind being there. She liked Senator Organa, and was glad that the two of them had been chosen to represent the Republic for these conferences, over and over. Even if the Sith were in charge, even if the Sith was the one that picked them…it still had to be good, right?

She thought about Anakin, and Obi-Wan, holed up on the 501st flagship, away from anywhere the Sith could get them. She hoped Anakin was all right, but she wasn’t supposed to activate any communications unless it was an emergency. She would catch up with him tomorrow morning, she decided, before the negotiations started.

Full of Padmé-selected food, she headed to her quarters, small and unremarkable relative to the senator’s, and lay back on her bunk, sleepy and thinking…thinking that if this conference had to end in war…then she would do anything to protect her friends from the Sith. Anything, she thought with a yawn. Even if it meant….if it meant….

It seemed to be a popular third-party opinion that Obi-Wan enjoyed the process of negotiation. He wasn’t quite sure who had started the rumor, but Grievous himself, the monster that he was, had found it quite amusing. The truth was, however, that despite all the good things that came from it, Obi-Wan often found the process tedious, drab, and all too, well, boring.

He was grateful that the war was maybe, possibly coming to a close, of course, because even with the respite he had had these past few months (could one call it a respite?) he still woke up each rainy morning with aches and pains that, as a man of thirty-nine, felt terribly premature. And true, he did believe that diplomacy and negotiation had their place – but unlike Satine had, may she rest soundly in the Force, he truly believed that combat was sometimes simply the most effective solution to a problem. And when that problem was an end to a war of galactic consequence, Obi-Wan was just not sure that a smattering of politicians with nothing in common, coming together to sign a treaty they did not believe in, could ever really work.

And that wasn’t even taking into account that both of these parties were headed by Sith Lords.

Speaking of which...a glance to the side showed him that Anakin’s tense anxiety from being in the room with his two abusers had dulled significantly in the three days that they had been here, likely out of sheer mind-numbing boredom rather than any newfound courage. A glance at Ahsoka, standing by a door at the side of the conference room, showed him the same expression on her as on Anakin: relaxed eyelids, leaning against a wall, entirely distracted. He should scold them when he got back, but the truth was, the two would spring into action the second danger was near. Such was their nature. He could not fault them for relaxing when they were not needed.

Obi-Wan could draw only one conclusion from his absentminded observations: guard duty, necessary as it was, did not befit a Jedi.

He focused his attention back on the delegates, first taking a glance at Padmé near the end of her side of the long table. Straight-backed, attentive, contributing when needed. Ever the public servant. She was so predictable.

Another half-hour passed, and Obi-Wan listened. There were a few matters that had been laid out so far: for one, the Republic’s massive debts, shockingly larger than the Separatist’s, would be assisted by loans with ‘generously decreased’ interest rates by multiple parties, those same parties like the Banking Clan that claimed to have no stake in the war. Second, Obi-Wan was pleased to see that Padmé and Bail had managed to get the status of refugees, homeless, and prisoner-of-war populations on the table so early, the two having been appointed specifically to delegate that task themselves. The treaty, it was decided, would include a measure allowing for a list of planets to be drawn up on both sides for potential refugee camps while their homeworlds rebuilt. An imperfect solution, indeed barely a solution at all, but Obi-Wan knew that as long as it was in the treaty, Padmé would be able to enforce and encourage its continued development. He wondered if she already had a list of such planets on the datapad placed neatly on the table before her.

It went on, and Obi-Wan noticed that both parties seemed to be putting off the discussion of an actual armistice, a formal declaration of peace, and perhaps most importantly whether or not the already seceded governments would be expected to rejoin the Republic. And the longer this seemed to be put off, the more Obi-Wan was beginning to grow suspicious.

It was almost as if, he thought sardonically, the two Sith Lords at the center of the table were waiting for something.

And that was when, and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he only noticed it now because he was only now thinking about it, he saw that Windu had an concentrated and concerned look on his face, one that coincided with Obi-Wan’s keen realization that the Force felt rather odd, and not only because, again, there were two Sith Lords in the room and the Jedi couldn’t do anything about it. He leaned over slightly to Anakin to whisper, “Stay here,” before moving quietly over to Mace.

“Is something wrong, Master?” he asked, and Mace swept his gaze over those at the long table before he responded.

“Admiral Serkit aboard the Formidable picked up a coded frequency coming from one of the Separatist cruisers. We’ve not yet been able to decode it. For now, lay low. Wait for my orders.” Obi-Wan nodded and headed back to Anakin, who didn’t seem too interested in this new information and shrugged when he heard it.

“About time for some action,” he murmured, leaning back against the wall and staring out at the corner of his eye at something to the left. Obi-Wan had an idea which senator may have caught his attention, and hid his smirk despite himself. Indeed, Padmé was predictable, but Anakin was a whole other level....

He looked back to the center. If Palpatine and Dooku knew something was coming, they hid it remarkably well. Though, admittedly, they hid just about everything else about themselves even better, so Obi-Wan shouldn’t be surprised.

“I believe my constituents and peers will agree,” Dooku was saying, “That we cannot allow the Republic to force a reabsorption of populations that wish to be independent. If the Republic will not agree to allow my people to remain independent of any exterior government then neither can we consent to a ceasefire.”

“Independence is not the problem,” said Palpatine, as if the two weren’t cohorts. Really it was astounding how well they pretended to be strangers. So astounding it was almost convincing. Almost. “There are thousands of systems that remain peacefully neutral that have not caused a large-scale war costing trillions of credits and millions of lives.”

“With all due respect, Chancellor,” said Dooku, with the same sense of generous wisdom that he had tried to use to turn Obi-Wan years ago, “The Confederacy was not the first to open fire. We began as a perfectly passive group of systems that could no longer tolerate the way our people were treated by the Republic. If we cannot address that mistreatment, then we cannot find peace.”

“Why Count, I’m afraid that you initiated this conflict when you personally attempted to assassinate two Jedi and a Republic Senator, all three of whom are here today, I might point out.”

Obi-Wan tried not to notice pointed stares shot his way. Mostly, he tried not to think about Geonosis. If ever there was a thing to blame himself for, it was Geonosis. A planet that gave him no feelings other than regret.

Come to think on it, indeed it was strange that he, Padmé, and Anakin had been the ones that had, so to speak, lit the fuse of the growing conflict that became the Clone War. Strange as in, surreal. And more than a little heartbreaking. Why did they always seem to be at the center of everything related to the Sith?

He suddenly imagined Qui-Gon’s voice. The Force works in mysterious ways, Obi-Wan.

Off to the side, Obi-Wan saw Windu reach up to his small earpiece to activate the comm. With his face kept remarkably free of expression, he passed on the message to the Jedi nearest him, and then made his way over to Obi-Wan and Anakin. He whispered, “Three droid ships just came out of hyperspace. Wait for now, but at my signal quietly head toward the portside airlock and intercept any droids you find.” They each nodded in turn, exchanging a glance while the politicians bickered at the table.

It was suddenly difficult to pay attention. They’d moved past the calm before the storm, by now having a definite confirmation of aggressive Separatist activity. The stipulations had been very clear — a single star destroyer beyond the three allowed would be taken as an act of war. A glance out the large decorative viewport in the conference hall showed nothing remarkable; barely a quarter of one Republic cruiser could be seen from where Obi-Wan stood, without so much as a stray blaster bolt crossing in front of the window. How carefully orchestrated on Dooku’s part.

But Obi-Wan had much more than his eyes to tell what was going on around him. Inside this room was an aura of tenseness, yes, but such tenseness was relatively calm. Outside the room, outside the ship even, there was not yet a sense of aggression, but neither was there calm.

He waited, and watched. No one at the table appeared any the wiser, and another quick look out the expansive viewport showed nothing that had not been there a day or two before. It was not until he heard the faintest echo throughout the poorly insulated station, an echo of a boarding ramp being attached to an airlock, that a beacon on his commlink blinked.

“That’s Mace’s signal,” he whispered to Anakin. “Let’s go.”

With a final glance around the room, they sidled over to the closest exit, and as soon as the door had slid shut behind them their lightsabers were in their hands.

“All right, well, this is exciting,” Anakin said as they made their way swiftly down the corridor toward the portside airlock.

“Is it?”

“Sure. When’s the last time we fought together?”

“Oh, let me think,” Obi-Wan said, his hand touching his beard. “I believe we were on Bothawui.”

“Okay, what happened on Bothawui?”

“As I recall, our forces were overrun entirely and we were forced to make a full retreat.”

“Oh,” Anakin said. “Well, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen this time.”

Obi-Wan smiled grimly. “Agreed.”

They made their way to the airlock, not as yet breached by droids. Anakin crooked his head toward the door and Obi-Wan nodded, the two positioning themselves on either side of the door, flattening themselves against the wall. A moment later, the door was blasted against the opposite wall and the first pair of battle droids emerged.

“Hey,” one said to the other in that awful nasally voice, “No interference. This is going to be easy —”

A second later, two blue lightsaber blades sliced down two droids, and a stream of blaster bolts emerged from the docking tube. Simple work, really, Obi-Wan thought as he deflected the bolts easily back at the droids — over in a flash. A minute or two of work, and the last of the first wave was sparking on the floor.

Anakin looked down and kicked the head of one of them. “Can you believe they made me lead these things in battle?”

“Yes, I’m sure that was the worst part of your time as a Separatist,” Obi-Wan said with a smirk, then pressed a button on his commlink. A small blue figure in a Republic military uniform appeared on his arm.

“General Kenobi, what is your status?”

“We’ve disposed of the first wave of droids, but they’re going to find other ways onto the station,” Obi-Wan said to the figure of Admiral Serkit. “The Separatists have already broken the agreement, I recommend you send armed clones aboard at once before the droids can do too much damage. Station your men around the entrances to the conference hall, we cannot allow any droids to get inside while negotiations are ongoing.”

“Very good, General.” The admiral turned his head to the side, listening to someone out of comm reception range. He turned back to Obi-Wan. “We’ve just received a report of super battle droids in sector two.”

Obi-Wan said, “We’ll head over there as soon as your men meet us at the portside airlock.”

More droids had already begun to emerge from the airlock by the time the men of the 327th arrived. Obi-Wan nodded at the leader, an ARC trooper with a yellow pauldron over his left shoulder, over the swing of his lightsaber. “Commander Bly, continue hold these droids back. Stay at the entrance to the loading dock, there should be no need for any of you to board the Separatist cruiser. Contact the Formidable if you need reinforcements.”

The clone commander nodded, and Obi-Wan waved at Anakin to follow him down a corridor, then a few more, and as they met the super battle droids in combat he said over the din, “So how do you feel about the idea of command?”

Anakin shrugged as his lightsaber deflected bolts back at the droids. “I would have to brush up on my protocols, I guess, but if they asked me I would probably do it. I want this war to end as much as the next person.”

As Obi-Wan cut through the cheap metal of the droids, he suddenly had a thought, an overwhelming need to communicate something to his dearest friend in the event that something did, in fact, happen to them –

“Anakin,” he said in a raised voice over the sound of blaster fire, easily deflected by both of them back at the droids. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you this, but it’s important to me that you know – that you know how much I love you.”

Anakin turned his head to stare at him, not watching his own beautifully blue sabre blade deflect a bolt back at the last battle droid and then swipe down to cut it into two pieces. “Really?”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but let out a breathless laugh. His heart was pounding, and he felt so suddenly alive. “Of course, though I’ve never had the courage to say it.”

He watched as Anakin’s mouth curved into a smile. “I love you, too, Obi-Wan.”

Their attention was diverted suddenly when they heard the sound of more metal footsteps approaching at a run. Quickly, Obi-Wan clasped a hand onto Anakin’s shoulder and said, “Shall we?”

Ahsoka knew that things were going on, but for whatever reason no one had decided to clue her in on the scoop. But, she decided, she didn’t really mind, because for some reason she was finding it a little, well…morbidly entertaining, to watch the regally dressed and theoretically well-mannered politicians jump every time they heard a noise from somewhere off in this poorly insulated and somewhat chilly space station. It wasn’t fair to laugh at them, a tiny voice inside her head told her, but she couldn’t help but think that for all the grandeur of the Diligence, it would look the same as any other wrecked and abandoned station when the imminent battle was through. Maybe then these stuck up snobs (Padmé and Senator Organa excluded, of course) would see the value in picking a real sturdy, well-engineered space station to hold their next end of war conference.

Not that the war was about to actually end. Ahsoka felt like the war had been going on half her life, even though it had only been a couple of years. She felt like she’d always lived in a galaxy of war. Maybe that was the reason that she couldn’t fathom the Clone War actually ending.

Somewhere far off, she felt and also heard the vibration of a landing dock connecting to one of the station’s airlocks. She saw Lott Dod of the Trade Federation look all around him. “What was that?!” he cried, and then pointed at each Separatist in turn. “They set us up! This is a trap, we are not safe, we must –”

“We are safe until our protectors, the Jedi, inform us that we are not,” the Sith Chancellor said, looking round at Ki-Adi-Mundi, who sat at the table for whenever a Jedi’s input was required. “Is that not right, Master Jedi?”

“I am sure that my comrades have everything under control,” Master Mundi said, bowing his head graciously. “Please, let us continue to draft our agreement.”

“There will be no agreement if your clones are here to capture us all!” a Separatist senator that Ahsoka thought was called Golar cried, springing from his seat. “I knew that this would be a trap set by the Jedi! It is as Count Dooku has always said, the Jedi cannot be trusted, even by those in the Republic –”

“Sit down, all of you,” Count Dooku admonished. Ahsoka could have sworn she felt the station buckle just the slightest, tiniest bit. She wasn’t sure it would hold up in the line of fire. In fact, she was sure it wouldn’t. But the droids wouldn’t fire if their own commanders and leaders were on board, would they...?

“Representatives, please,” Ahsoka heard Padmé say above the mutters and whispers. She leaned forward so that everyone could see her. “The galaxy has not stopped for us while we battle out our differences. For the sake of all of our peoples, we must continue to negotiate. It is the only way to end this conflict in a way that will keep the galaxy together.”

“Only Senator Amidala would suggest that we sit quietly while our lives are fully at risk,” drawled a senator whose name Ahsoka honestly couldn’t remember. “I move that we table this discussion and continue at a later date, over holographic communications.”

“Nonsense!” a purple-skinned Skeith woman from the Separatist side proclaimed. “I move that these discussions be thrown out completely! If the Republic is going to suggest we concede and then proceed to attack us, we have no business negotiating with them!”

“It is not the Republic who is attacking,” snapped a Republic naval officer in the typical gray uniform. “Though I can assure you the fleet standing by is more than prepared to handle your battle droids.”

The station rattled again under Ahsoka’s feet, but now the delegates seemed too busy arguing to notice, all shouting over one another so that Ahsoka could only manage to hear a few individual lines every couple seconds. Padmé was now sitting with her head in her hands. Across the room, Ahsoka’s eyes met with Aayla Secura’s. Master Secura nodded at her that she was ready to evac the delegates on her half of the room as soon as was necessary. Ahsoka would have suggested that they try now, but....

“You Republic dogs bred an entire army to die for you, and you dare call us the barbaric ones!”

“That’s because you’re not brave enough to stand up for yourselves! You send droids to do your dirty work for you, you have no dignity or pride!”

“I will follow Count Dooku until the day I die!”

“The Republic will absorb your worlds and make sure you can’t build your armies up again! You’re done for!”

It all died down when the lights started to flicker. They dimmed, brightened, went out completely and came back on. Every person in the room was silent. Ahsoka found herself staring at the Sith, who held each other’s gazes. Her hands tightened around her sabres, wishing she could kill them both right here, right now, and then –

A voice came on the intercom. It was a droid, Republic, speaking more calmly than any sentient being could have in this situation:

“Attention, life support breach in decks nine and thirteen. Emergency bulkheads closing. Please alert station personnel if you are in need of assistance. Maintenance crews are being deployed now.”

First, Ahsoka couldn’t help but think how bizarre that message was, as if the droid had not been made aware that a vitally important conference was being held in the station’s rickety meeting halls. As if this were just another standard day at a Republic communications hub.

Second, a few heartbeats after the message cut off, all hell broke loose.

Ahsoka had never, in her life, seen anything that was so ridiculous and chaotic at the same time. The room which had been full of dignified, calm delegates just an hour ago now contained the same people, some now screaming, reaching for their assistants or personal bodyguards, crying for someone to get them out of there to a ship. Ahsoka launched herself into the fray, trying to herd together her assigned charges because there was absolutely no danger that she could sense even remotely close to them (except for the Sith, but they would never strike in an open space like this) but then some of them fled out of the doors at the sides and front of the room before she could stop them. She put her foot down, called at them to listen to her, feeling a little bit like she was herding either very young children or tookas (she wasn’t sure which would be harder) but in the end, she only ended up with a team of three. Padmé, who had her sleek Nubian blaster in her hand already (leave it to Padmé to smuggle a blaster into a neutral zone), Bail Organa, and a military commander that wasn’t the one who had spoken earlier and wasn’t that guy Tarkin, either.

She waved her new charges to follow her, pressing her thumb down on her commlink. “Rex, do you read me? It’s Ahsoka. Meet me at the designated rendezvous point with whoever you can gather.”

A voice said through the static, “Copy that.” She did as she said, trying to direct as many people to safety as she could. There weren’t a ton of people at the conference, but it wasn’t a hugely expansive meeting hall, either, and with all the movement around her and in the Force it was hard to keep track of everything. After all, she was used to battling, not chaperoning, but soon enough she made it to the rendezvous with Rex, who saluted her quickly before recapping what he knew.

As it turned out, there were at least four breaches of security where droids were making it onto the station, and the ones that hadn’t been blocked by the Jedi and clones in time were supplying the station with a seemingly endless supply of battle droids.

Rex pressed a button on his arm panel and the schematics of the station appeared above his wrist. “There’s a report of a battalion of droids here,” he said, pointing. Ahsoka noticed that her little party had gained two more members, who were looking around frantically as if they would be shot at any moment. “If we go through these three corridors here, we can cut them off before they reach any of the main power centers.”

“Do it,” Ahsoka said, and when Rex nodded she made to follow before she remembered what she had been ordered to do. She looked over the people in her group – Padmé had both hands on a blaster and was watching around a corner for incoming tinnies, and Ahsoka had to wonder exactly at what age the Senator-Queen had learned to fight. Ahsoka made a decision.

“Okay, listen up,” she said. “My orders are to protect as many civilians as I can, but I can’t stand by and let the Separatists take control of this station. There aren’t any arms lockers, so you’re going to have to use whatever weapons we find along the way. If you stay with me, I will keep you safe, but I need your cooperation. Understood?”

Someone in her group, they looked like a lost and confused senatorial aide, said, “Shouldn’t we get to a ship?”

“I can guarantee that no Republic ships are going anywhere any time soon,” Ahsoka said, assuming a command stance, back straight and hands clasped behind her. “The Separatists are going to try and destroy our cruisers, so you won’t be any more safe on one of them. More star destroyers are on their way, but until then, the Jedi and clones here are all we have. Now, we have to protect the power conduits if we want to keep life support functioning where we are, and I’m going to go help my clone captain defend them. Follow me closely, and you’ll be okay. Now, move out!”

She didn’t give them a chance to respond, to tell her that hey, why don’t they find somewhere safe to hide where the droids wouldn’t think to look instead of actively seeking danger. Truth be told, Ahsoka didn’t want to hear it. Instead, she waved her arm in a military signal that most of them wouldn’t understand and started running toward wherever Rex would be, not looking back to see how many of them would decide to follow.

The situation aboard the space station Diligence as experienced by Obi-Wan Kenobi was, so far, quite the typical scene from the war. There was absolutely nothing at all unusual as far as the battle itself was concerned: battle droids followed by super battle droids followed by more battle droids. Clones beside him and behind him, dozens and hundreds of blaster bolts flying in red and blue and green. He never stopped moving even for a moment, running down a corridor to meet more droids in one second and then swinging his lightsaber the next. The only constant for him, right now, was Anakin by his side, both of them entirely comfortable with the ever-looming presence of danger that made these battles so undeniably exciting.

Well...perhaps exciting was not the best word for it. Obi-Wan couldn’t to pretend to enjoy these fights the way Ahsoka and Anakin sometimes seemed to. But really, what better way to describe the heart-pumping, sweat-inducing, adrenaline-producing action he engaged in now?

In the heat of battle, it could be difficult to think. That was why, he thought, both his Padawans had always seemed so eager for it. For Obi-Wan, it was quite the opposite. He preferred to think, to strategize, to analyze and act accordingly. But in battle, there was no time for that. Plans went wrong, accidents happened, and there was no time for rational thought. There was only time for action and reaction. It was as much a part of Jedi life as sitting and meditating. He was used to it.

Currently, they were positioned close to a docking bay, doing whatever they could to stem the flow of battle droids entering through the nearest airlock. The floor was littered with the sparking remains of droids, and still more and more came, flooding the halls like water.

The battle invaded all of his senses. The smell of ozone, the warm, almost stifling heat from a dozen blaster bolts per second. The deafening sound of metal and destruction. The thrill of combat and the comforting presence of Anakin at his side.

From behind, a new sound approached, and he saw Anakin swing around, his lightsaber never halting. With a glance at Obi-Wan, he called, “MagnaGuards — I got this!” and Obi-Wan couldn’t stop smiling from his friend’s confidence.

And by the sound of things, it appeared that yes, Anakin did have this one, although Obi-Wan tried to ignore the intense burning of rage in the Force that accompanied his friend dueling the two droids.

But he could not let himself be distracted — there, coming through the fray, three commando droids bouncing and weaving toward him, barely lingering in one spot for more than a second. He deflected their bolts, three at once, then two, then four, cut through one of their bodies and ran toward the next. A moment later, a second wave of blue slashed through the third and Obi-Wan glanced over his shoulder to see the MagnaGuards in half a dozen pieces on the floor.

By the time the commando droids were down a group of five clones emerged from a corridor near them, and one was shot down almost immediately by a blast from a super battle droid. They, the clones and Jedi and droids, were in close quarters, it was inevitable that some clones would die — inevitable, but no less full of sorrow.

So there was Obi-Wan, waving his saber in a great blue arc, deflecting bolts and cutting down droids and existing entirely in the very moment, in the Living Force, like Qui-Gon had always said —

And then, out of nowhere, something hit him in the Force like a bucket of ice water being poured on his head, and just as chilly and heart-stopping, too. Still focused on the blaster bolts around him, it took a moment for Obi-Wan to realize the sensation had come from Anakin, so he turned his head as his lightsaber continued to move and looked until he saw what Anakin was staring at –

Oh, no –

For the briefest of moments, Obi-Wan cursed himself. He had gotten so wrapped up in the momentum of battle that he’d forgotten why they were on this cursed station in the first place – because Sidious was here. And now, Sidious was here.

The man was a fantastic actor, which was the only praise that Obi-Wan could give him. He – the Chancellor Palpatine – looked downright terrified, hiding behind a pair of clones and wincing every time a blaster bolt came too close for comfort. Briefly, Obi-Wan wondered whether the man behind the facade ever felt any real fear at all. If he even knew how it felt to be afraid. Obi-Wan could not imagine that anyone with the capacity to feel human emotions would be capable of this man’s atrocities.

Then Obi-Wan remembered – they had a plan for this. Quickly, he pressed the key on his commlink that would activate a tracking beacon for Mace, and indicated for Anakin to do the same. Then, he turned his attention back to the battle, because there was nothing else for him to do besides fight with all his strength to protect his best friend from his horrible man and every ounce of evil inside him.

Windu would come. Obi-Wan relied on Master Windu to come. Until then, he could only fight.

And that’s what he did. This was not the most advantageous spot aboard the Diligence to be fighting this number of droids, but then Obi-Wan had been in much stickier situations than this. His lightsaber moved and he along with it, weaving through droids, the Force guiding his footfalls between the broken pieces of robotics littering the floor.

Coming down a corridor he heard the sounds of running footsteps and prayed that he would see the man he most needed — but in Windu’s place it was two dozen clones, emblazoned in personalized patterns of blue and white, and then some more, entering the fray and pushing the droids back. The Five Hundred and First. Anakin’s troops, and some of the best in the army. Creative and innovative, Obi-Wan could not have picked a finer group of men to serve alongside during this momentous battle.

“Oh!” the Chancellor cried, shielding his head with his arms as a burst of blaster bolts flew overhead. Obi-Wan nearly forgot for a moment that this man was responsible for most of his suffering in life. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered what would happen if he tried to strike Palpatine down here in this moment, but he pushed the thought away. He was a Jedi. That was not his way. He had killed a Sith once before in cold blood – well, he’d thought he’d done – and had vowed never to do it again.

Palpatine, meanwhile, scrambled even closer. “Please, Master Jedi, you must get me out of here – through this way, in here –”

He started to move before Obi-Wan had a chance to stop him, running down the hall that led toward the south hangar bay. There was barely time to think, but Obi-Wan allowed himself just a moment to pull the Force in and consider his options. There were two, as he saw them: follow Sidious, or allow him to escape. Risk his own life in trying to hold off Sidious until help could arrive, or risk further damage to the galaxy itself. Only one of those options was suitable for a Jedi. He could not let Sidious go.

There was only one thing that gave him pause. He looked three meters away: Anakin was still fighting, his back turned, side by side with clones of the 501 ^st . He looked so natural in his element, as if oblivious to danger, as if he’d already forgotten Sidious’s presence. Perhaps he had. At any rate, the only thing Obi-Wan was certain of in that moment was that he needed Anakin to survive.

Which was why, with one final glance, he turned around and ran down the hall after Sidious, alone.

When Ahsoka found Rex and the troops currently in his company, they were engaged in a standoff with wave after wave of droids. The clones had set up something of a barricade, with metal crates no doubt from a nearby storage locker stacked high in a staircase formation. As usual, the droids shot precariously with barely any particular target in mind. Ahsoka signaled at the people in her company to hide in the closest secure room before she jumped headfirst into the fray, green lightsabers blaring, snapping in every direction as she threw blaster bolts back at the droids. And there, standing in the line of fire with a dozen blaster bolts coming toward her at once, she couldn’t help but grin.

This. This was exactly what she had been yearning for, all these weeks and months. The sound of it. The smell of it. The feel of it. The vibrations in her lekku, the warm cylindrical metal of her sabre hilts, her heart pounding with whatever hormone in her chest. Specifics didn’t matter. She never liked her biology classes.

She was doing what a Jedi did best in this situation. She stood in the middle of either side of the barricade, drawing fire towards her so the clones could strike with less risk of being hit. Droids approached, the sound of their marching familiar, and fell when a bolt hit them. She watched them fall, losing herself in the battle but never losing her concentration. Around her, the Force flowed through the station, she could feel the panic and desperation and fear of others and used it as motivation. She felt a clone next to her get shot in the head. She didn’t flinch.

And then she saw it – a dark humanoid figure obscured by the smoke and dirt in the air, behind the platoons of droids coming at them. It was hard to see past the smoke in the air, but she had the Force, and she didn’t need to see. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who it was.

She leapt back from where she was, and called to both Padmé and Rex. “I just saw Dooku!” she yelled. “I need to go – will you be all right?”

Rex couldn’t afford to spare her a glance. “Go ahead, Commander! The boys and I have got this!”

Padmé nodded from the opposite side of the hall. She looked Ahsoka straight in the eyes from behind the barricade, solemn and straight-faced. “Go get him. I know you can.”

Ahsoka smirked at her, nodded, and then darted off, first with the flow of blaster fire, deflecting any that came too close, then around a corner, and then another, to the direction in which she’d seen Dooku heading. She had studied this station, after all, and there was a finite number of places that Dooku could run, but she knew that the Force would lead her right where she needed to go....

Around another corner and down a long hall, she could hear the sounds of blaster fire echoing far in the distance now but everything around her was quiet. She slowed to a walk, keeping her hands on her unignited sabres, just in case, pausing for just a moment before each door and using her senses to eliminate one after another....

She halted at the dead end of a maintenance hallway. There was only one more door, and she didn’t know what was behind it. But she didn’t have time to second guess herself. She walked forward, and the door opened for her.

It wasn’t bright in here like the corridors or the conference hall, but dim and a little dingy. She saw high shelves with miscellaneous items needed for the care and operation of the space station, as well as spare boxes of ration packs and nutrient powders. And it reminded her, very joltingly, of the time first she had fought General Grievous, years ago. She saw all this, and then a flash of red, and with a gasp she ignited her sabre and managed to block Dooku’s blade about two inches away from her left lekku.

Ahsoka wasn’t sure whether she had ever been alone with him before. So many missions, and encounters with Ventress and Grievous, and the war all sort of blurred together in times like these. But there was something about the gauntness of Dooku’s face, skin sagging with age, shadows under the eyes illuminated now by red light, that chilled her right to her core.

“Padawan Ahsoka Tano,” Dooku said, and his teeth were kind of discolored for a human. His hands on his curved lightsaber hilt looked gnarled, too. “I am not sure I’ve had the pleasure.”

Ahsoka threw off his lightsaber and backed away from him a few steps. “Save it, Dooku. I’d rather fight than talk, wouldn’t you?”

Dooku held his blade out in front of him with one hand held behind his back. He stood with his head held high, and Ahsoka had never realized how tall he was. “Come now, young Padawan,” Dooku said, smiling evilly. “Don’t you want to hear what your master was up to during the year that he was my guest?”

“Don’t act like you did him a favor,” Ahsoka spat at him, holding her sabres in position before her. “He was your prisoner. But guess what? He outsmarted you. He’s too good to be a Sith. Anakin is stronger than you’ll ever be.”

“I’m not sure you would have said the same when we were torturing him into complacency,” Dooku said, stepping to the side. Ahsoka stepped with him, and they circled each other. “I am sure he never told you what was done to him. Would you like me to, instead?”

Ahsoka felt her hands clench on her lightsaber hilts. “No, thanks.”

“It was quite fascinating to watch, you see,” Dooku taunted. “The machines did all the work, feeding electricity into his brain to burn away his memories of you and your friends. I found his screaming particularly satisfying. Much better than his usual insolent rabble.”

She felt a growl in her throat, and she released it the same moment she pounced on him with both of her blades. He shirked away quicker than a man of his age should have been able to. “We saved visual recordings of it, of course,” Dooku added, as if this were a casual conversation. He was grinning. “For posterity. It’s very likely that we will have to do it to him again. You and Kenobi have tried so hard to undo our hard work, but I’m afraid it will have been for naught. My master has great plans for him.”

Ahsoka went high with her shoto and low with her lightsaber, but Dooku managed to block both blows, catching the blades with his own. She pulled away and tried a sideways sweep. She needed to get a feel for how he battled – she had heard from Anakin and Obi-Wan in the past, but that had been months and months ago. She’d also heard Dooku was one of the best fighters the Jedi Order had ever had, and she supposed she would soon see if it were true.

She swung her lightsaber around her hand to refit her grip. “So that’s it, huh?” she said. “Torturing him into doing what you want? Is that what Palpatine did to you, or were you pathetic enough to go to the dark side on your own?”

“You must learn your history, Padawan,” Dooku said, and Ahsoka watched him back away behind one of the storage shelves. With a frown, she pushed out with the Force to knock the shelf over, but it was bolted into the metal floor, so she threw some items off the shelves, instead. She heard his lightsaber cut through some, and others fall away with another push of the Force from him. “The Sith is the only true path for a Force user who wishes to seek out their true potential. I never saw Skywalker fitting for a role in our order, however. He is much too volatile. Temperamental, like a child.”

“You’re no better, Dooku,” she said to emptiness, as she prowled around the shelves in the dim light. “Why don’t you come face me head on? Only the weak ones back away. Afraid I’ll beat you?”

She heard a rustle behind her and felt a surge of the Force, and she leapt away from thrown parcels before they hit the ground. She felt another tremor in the metal floor from a disturbance in the station far away, and made an effort to steady her breath. Dooku was hard to spot in the Force, kind of like what Anakin had told her one time – about how the Sith can mask themselves in the dark side and disappear from ordinary Force perception. She thought about that now, considering...maybe he wasn’t completely concealed; maybe she just needed to look through a different lens, so to speak.

The lights flickered from above, and Ahsoka found herself in the middle of the room, now, between two tall shelves, stepping over fallen items. She hadn’t realized at first how large this storage room was, and how packed with supplies it was. She could only see bits of her opponent, and he would disappear and then reappear as he walked around, looking for an advantage over her that she was determined not to give. She moved, just as he did, trying to call on herself to be patient, to wait for the right time. It was hard, because with every passing second, every single word that escaped from Dooku’s stupid Sith mouth, she wanted to kill him even more....

The lights flickered again, but this time they went out. The door to the main hallway wasn’t airtight so she looked to see if there was light coming from under it, but it was all dark. Lighting out in the main corridor, which meant that it was possible life support would go out next...she needed to beat him, and soon, or else....

She felt the metal side of a tall shelf, and she put a hand high, and pulled herself up, climbing silently and stealthily until she was hidden on top in the pitch black room.

Ahsoka barely heard Dooku and hardly sensed him prowling around like a predator looking for prey. But that was interesting, Ahsoka thought, because really the situation was reversed: humans were omnivores, but Togruta were carnivorous – and therefore, it was she who was the predator by default, and he her prey.

She crouched there, at the top of a storage shelf in a pitch-black locker, and waited for her moment to pounce.

Inside the hangar were the smoking wreckages of deployed Separatist ships that had been shot down upon arrival, left only to crash inside and leave ashy scars upon impact. A few other ships, parked innocently in their designated spots. If there was anyone present in the room, Obi-Wan could not afford to look for them. Instead, his eyes sought out only the Chancellor. With his hands gripping his lightsaber, he moved slowly, trying to feel around every corner with the Force, listening, watching, waiting.

Then, the blast doors opened behind him, and even without the Force he would have known who it was.

“What the hell are you doing?” Anakin said, coming to a halt beside him. His cheeks were red from the rush of the battle behind them, breathing heavy. His expression could best be described as incredulous. “You did not just go running off without me.”

“Anakin, go back.”

“Twenty minutes ago it was all about, I love you now let’s do this thing together. You don’t actually think I’m letting you go in alone?”

Obi-Wan clasped Anakin’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said, “I do love you, which is why I’m asking you to leave this up to me. Please, Anakin. I know I don’t stand a chance against him, but you don’t need to be here. Let me protect you from him.”

“Do you even hear yourself?!” Anakin exclaimed. “This is Darth Sidious! He is going to kill you!”

“I just need to hold him off until Windu can get here,” Obi-Wan said. “Please, Anakin, there’s no time. Go.”

Anakin clenched his jaw, expression anxious now. “If you’re going, then so am I.”

Obi-Wan exhaled sharply. “Anakin,” he said, trying to be mix being gentle with forceful with urgent. “You can barely talk about him without freezing up. How do you think it will be if you face him directly?”

“Well then,” Anakin said, “You can gloat all you want when we’re dead. If you’re going, I’m going.”

There was a lump in Obi-Wan’s throat. He was so against this, but they didn’t have time to argue about it. He had known from the start what Anakin’s stubbornness could do. But still, if this was to be one of their last moments, he felt strongly compelled to make it count. He reached up to put his free hand on Anakin’s cheek, pressed a small kiss to the other side of his friend’s face, and stood there for just a moment with their foreheads together. He said, “I know you can do this. Be strong.” Anakin nodded, and then together they turned and ran side-by-side into the hangar proper.

For some reason, Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised to see the man standing there, waiting for them. His back was turned away from them, his hands clasped together behind his back.

Obi-Wan held his lightsaber before him and ignited the blade. That was when Palpatine decided to speak.

“Well, now,” he said, and the abrupt change in his voice was so sudden it was startling – deep, almost like a croak, and Obi-Wan felt a chill go right through him. He suddenly understood why Anakin hadn’t recognized him from afar. “What a touching display of affection that was. Very unbefitting of a Jedi Master.” He sighed audibly. “Such an inconvenience you have been over the years, Master Kenobi. I shall be pleased to finally be rid of you.”

A deep breath. Another. One more. Obi-Wan didn’t respond to the taunt. Instead, he centered himself, focused, gathered himself fully in the moment.

Palpatine turned then, and looked upon them with the most evil smile Obi-Wan had ever seen. His eyes flicked over to Anakin. “Suddenly so silent, Lord Vader?

Anakin inhaled sharply, as if those words delivered unto him a sharp pain. Obi-Wan fought the urge to look over at him, to comfort him, to do anything, but he could not afford to be distracted. Not until Windu arrived.

“Resistance is useless,” Palpatine said casually. “You will be mine again, soon enough.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help himself. “He is not yours,” he said, feeling and then dismissing a pang of white-hot anger. “And he never will be.”

Palpatine ignored him. “Did you not enjoy the power I gave you, Vader? You quite seemed to. You must not kid yourself. Inside, you are a cold-blooded killer. Do you truly think that the first time you engaged in murder was during my training?”

To Obi-Wan’s right, Anakin was shaking, his hands holding tight to his unignited lightsaber hilt. Truly a transformation from just a few moments ago, and one Obi-Wan had expected. But whether the shaking was the result of anger, or fear, Obi-Wan didn’t know. In the Force, the two emotions swirled together like the two arms of a spiral galaxy, coming together in a burst of confused emotion that lit up like star clusters at the galactic core. Oh, Anakin, Obi-Wan thought to himself, stay brave.

Aloud, Obi-Wan said, “You are the murderer here, Chancellor.”

“No,” Palpatine said, shaking his head in what appeared to be genuine mirth. “No, you’ll find Vader is the one who did all of the killing.”

Obi-Wan replied, “Because you gave him no choice.”

“Oh, he had a choice,” said Palpatine. “Just as he always has. Just as he did when he was still your young...Padawan.” He said the word mockingly, as if it were an insult rather than something Obi-Wan was proud of.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath. Steady. They were only words.

Sidious let out what could only have been a laugh, but sounded more like a hacking cough. “Oh, dear Master Kenobi. I had forgotten that he never told you what he did all those years ago, to the Tusken Raiders that killed his mother. Too ashamed that you might abandon him, I recall, if you knew that he had slaughtered the entire tribe of them all at once.”

Obi-Wan raised his lightsaber higher, his heart pounding. Just words. Words meant to hurt him. He must not let them. “I don’t believe you.”

“I think you do,” Palpatine said with his evil grin. “You’ve always suspected there was something...different, about your apprentice. My apprentice. Something dark. Something that was always meant to be a Sith.”

“What I know,” Obi-Wan said slowly, “Is that any darkness was planted there by you. You’ve manipulated everyone and everything you’ve ever come in contact with. Everything you’ve ever said and done as chancellor was a lie. That is all that matters here.”

Sidious raised his eyebrows. “Well, then I suppose that ends that discussion,” he remarked lightly, sounding more now like the politician he pretended to be. He glanced at Anakin. “After all, it’s not as if Vader will remember any of it. In fact, I’m sure he will not recall the anger he felt when his mother died, and the hatred that made him kill the Sand People....”

To Obi-Wan’s side, a second blue lightsaber ignited, though the hands that held it were still shaking. Clenching the hilt and his jaw, Anakin finally spoke. “Don’t,” he said, his voice weak but assertive and shaking as much as his hands. “Don’t talk about her.”

“About your mother?” Sidious said, mocking. “Why, you barely remember her, do you? How do you think she would have felt, knowing all the death that you would bring? What would she have thought of you, Vader?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes flicked sideways to his friend. Behind the blast doors through which they had come, he heard banging, the dull thrumming of blaster bolts, faint yelling. Please, Mace, he thought. I need you here, now.

Anakin was oblivious to anything other than the anger that Obi-Wan could feel swelling inside him. Obi-Wan tried to send something through the Force, a positive message or thought or feeling, but it hit a durasteel wall. To Sidious, Anakin said, his voice tight and unsteady, “That’s not my name.”

“Don’t you see, Master Kenobi?” Palpatine said, and Obi-Wan stared with his hands tight and firm on his lightsaber hilt. “The hatred, and anger. This boy was never meant to be a Jedi.” His eyes slid from Obi-Wan to Anakin. “He was always meant to be…a slave.”

That, it seemed, was the spark that would light the fuse. Obi-Wan barely had a chance to reach through the Force with a thought of, Anakin! before his friend growled in rage and raised his lightsaber just the slightest bit with the eventual intention to strike –

That’s when it happened. Obi-Wan had half a second’s warning through the Force, raising his lightsaber in defense just as a shock of blinding blue lightning burst through Sidious’s fingertips. Obi-Wan caught the lightning with his blade, holding back the electric current with every wisp of the Force that he could control. He knew how to fight this. He’d done it before, with Dooku. He would do this. He could do this.

But Anakin couldn’t.

His friend was already on the ground. Anakin’s agonized cries hurt almost as much as the strain on Obi-Wan’s muscles from what felt like holding back the weight of an entire starship, but he could not focus on that now. If he became distracted, he would falter, and if he faltered, he would lose. He could not lose. He just had to hold out until Windu got here. He had to. He must.

Sidious let up, for no reason other than to gloat, Obi-Wan thought. Obi-Wan took a few huge gulps of air and staggered, drained, in front of Anakin, who in the corner of his eye he could see was shaking uncontrollably. Then the lightning started again, and Obi-Wan caught it, pushing so hard against the pressure with the Force he felt like he might burst. It was as if he were holding the gravity of a planet back with just his lightsaber blade alone. A futile effort, but one he could not cease. He must continue. He must.

His arms were starting to shake. His legs, too. He breathed as deeply as he could, trying to fill his lungs and pump oxygen into his straining heart muscle. He felt the Force flowing through every cell in his body like a raging ocean current flowing through him, trying to knock him down and drag him under. His insides were churning, much more effort and he would be sick, but he could not afford to stop. The Force was with him. He had to continue. He had to endure.

Until he couldn’t any longer.

The lightning stopped at the same moment his knees gave out. His arms fell to his side, and his lightsaber left a scorch in the ground before it shut off on impact. He was on his hands and knees now, barely able to keep from slumping on the ground. He forced his eyes open, and saw Anakin on the ground, next to him, shaking and shaking. Obi-Wan couldn’t think about anything other than how much unbelievable pain he was in. In front of him, Sidious stood, and Obi-Wan thought he could hear a hacking laugh.

It started again.

It was a sensation unlike any Obi-Wan had ever felt. It was like his entire body was on fire, every joint, every muscle, every vein and artery and neural pathway. Like each organ was being stabbed with a knife that had been sitting in flames, each bone sawed through and broken with objects both sharp and blunt at the same time. It felt like broken glass being raked through his skin, like his brain itself was being jostled in his skull. It felt like something had taken control of his body and was twisting all of his insides. He was certain that he would not survive this, and if he did, he was certain he would be blind and broken and confined to a medical treatment facility for as long as his heart continued to pump blood. But, he was sure, it wouldn’t much longer, because there was no way he could withstand this intense, unfathomable pain for another second. And when he did survive that next second, he was sure the following one would be the last, and then the next, and the next....

Everything stopped. There was no more fire, no more screaming, but instead there was a deafening sound and a quake beneath him, and something that felt like a great fireball, the Force lit up inside and around him and then....

The only thing that Ahsoka could hear was the hum of the space station as its systems operated around her. Dooku was deadly quiet, his footfalls entirely devoid of sound. If she hadn’t known better, hadn’t felt a whisper of him in the Force, she might have thought that he had fled the room through an exit that she hadn’t known about. But he was here, all right. Her spatial awareness was strong. It was what made Togruta such good hunters, and it was an instinct that even years in a sterile temple environment couldn’t burn out of her.

She closed her eyes against the blackness of the room, not that it mattered. She made herself breathe, silently. It was hard to keep her breath steady, only because she felt so angry, being corralled up onto this shelf as an enemy that had tortured and almost destroyed her best friend lurked around waiting to kill her. But he wouldn’t. Only one of them was going to die today, and it wasn’t going to be her.

Ahsoka listened, and waited. She resisted the temptation to reach out in the Force for Anakin, for Obi-Wan, for Padmé. Now wasn’t the right time. She was sure they would be fine, but she still worried, mostly because Anakin was out there with Sidious, Sidious who wanted to hurt him just as much as Dooku did, who had done all those terrible things that Dooku had said they’d done....

She’d had the suspicion that they’d tortured him with electricity for a long time. The only other options she could figure out for heavy sustained memory loss was really just certain drugs, but that didn’t seem very Sith-like, and intense psychological manipulation. If what she knew about the dark side was true, then physical pain was supposed to accentuate anger, and hatred, and all the temptations that Master Yoda warned young Jedi about. But Anakin had always been angry, she reflected, angry like she was feeling right now. And she couldn’t help it; she knew it was forbidden, but it was there. She’d been angry a lot in the last months, but Force was she angry now...angrier perhaps than she ever had been, now that Dooku was in this room, taunting her with images of her master, her best friend, screaming in pain....

It was forbidden. She knew that. But there was a saying, about fighting fire with fire, and if she fought off Dooku with a little bit of her own fire and killed him, well, then, maybe Master Yoda would understand just this once....

Ahsoka’s eyes darted open. She felt him. Not with the Force, which was distracting as it lit up with a fireworks display of activity throughout the space station. No, she felt Dooku in her montrals, which had evolved to pick up on the movements of animals in the grasses of Shili, the prey that Togruta hunters pounced on and sunk their sharp teeth into, killing them immediately...and now, he was right below her, and Ahsoka’s two lightsabers were her teeth....

She pounced, like a wild animal. She leapt off the metal storage shelf, igniting her sabres on the way down, and she knew that she caught him by surprise because his own lightsaber turned on just a single half-second too late.

The whole thing lasted probably four seconds, and it almost seemed to go in slow motion. One second, and Ahsoka jumped down, slowing her own fall by cushioning the Force under her. Two seconds, her sabres turned on, and their green light lit her way. Two and a half seconds, Dooku’s lightsaber turned on, basking his shadows in the blood-tinted red light. Three seconds, and Ahsoka’s lightsaber pushed Dooku’s to the side. The ozone smell and hissing sound of sabres clashing lit up her senses. Four seconds, and Ahsoka’s shoto swung up in a diagonal, and Dooku was just close enough that she felt the tip cutting like a knife through something solid, and she saw in the yellow-green light that the solid was Dooku’s skin.

In the fifth second, it was over. Ahsoka was on the ground, feet firmly planted, knees bent. She turned her sabres off, and felt her heartbeat pounding against her rib cage. She was surprised that a part of her had actually hoped the fight would last longer, so she could take out all this terribly overwhelming and white-hot anger out on this wretched, evil old man.

Then the lights in the station flicked back on, and she closed her eyes against the glare, blinking them back into adjustment. She smelled something like iron, something that must have been human blood, a very common smell on the battlefield. She was used to it, but she hadn’t expected it now. Lightsaber cuts usually didn’t bleed much, and when she turned around she definitely didn’t expect to see –

Blood. Everywhere. A lot of it. A lot.

She’d gotten his neck. And his chest, and a little bit of his face, which was the second most gruesome part after the neck, which was bleeding and bleeding in perhaps the most sickening way she had ever seen someone bleed. She knew some of human anatomy, and she knew that they had an important vein there because that was where you were supposed to check for a pulse, but she didn’t know that it bled quite that much when you cut it open, especially with a lightsaber, which was supposed to cauterize the wound….

She couldn’t look away. Away from the sight of a very dead Count Dooku lying flat on his back with his neck gushing open. She hadn’t really meant to do that, she’d meant to kill him but she hadn’t really known what it would look like when she was done, and she’d never imagined that it would have gone so quickly.... She had killed before, dozens of times and many more, but this was something entirely different, this was a Sith, and as much as she had planned on ending his life she somehow couldn’t believe that she’d actually done it and especially all alone....

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt very cold. Very alone. Very dirty. She felt like a different person. Staring down at Dooku’s bleeding neck, she didn’t feel like Ahsoka Tano at all.

She felt like....

No. She didn’t want to think about it.

She backed out of the room, feeling her way to the door, keeping her eyes on the same bloody spot the whole time.

When she was finally in the corridor and the door closed in front of her, cutting off the bloody mess in front of her –

She turned around, and she ran, and she didn’t look back.

The ground was shaking. No, it wasn’t ground – metal. Metal, of...the space station. The...what was it...Dignity? Defiance? Something...inconsequential. Sound was muted, sensation limited. His limbs and digits tingled sharply with numbness. For this moment, he could not recall what was going on, how he had gotten here, what all those harsh, badly-tuned noises in the background were...

Obi-Wan wanted nothing more than to be still, for the idea of moving an inch was tiresome and unwelcome, but a very real sense of the Force, which was present and all around, informed him that he was very much in danger and that it was time to get up. He first raised his head, and found it difficult to open his eyes amid vapors that smelled like smoke and burnt metal. He lay there on his stomach, propped up on his elbows now, blinking in the war zone around him until he remembered what had happened and where he was. Fifty feet away, across the hangar bay, he could see the flashing red and purple lightsabers much more clearly than the people wielding them. He took a minute to gather his strength, looking around at a display of droids and clones and blaster bolts, none of which, he was certain, had been here just a moment ago...

He was about to finally attempt to get up, when he remembered – Anakin! Obi-Wan swung his head around, looking, and saw him, there, just two meters away. Slumped on the ground, unmoving. No. Obi-Wan could do little more than crawl, first over to his dear friend where he hooked one arm around Anakin’s chest, and then across the room, as far as his strength would take him, further away from the danger of stray blaster bolts and Sith Lords. There, he collapsed on the ground, catching his breath in the smoky air, before reaching up to Anakin’s neck to feel for a pulse. With the numbness in his fingers he couldn’t locate a heartbeat, but he knew that if anything were wrong the Force would tell him.

From where he lay, rolled onto his side, he pushed himself up with what little strength remained in his arms, up to a seated position. He outstretched one arm in front of him and concentrated his mind on the innocent silver hilt of his lightsaber, pulling it toward him. He did the same with Anakin’s, placed the latter weapon next to his friend, and then held his own hilt before him in case any blaster bolts headed their way.

He felt so weak. It took a conscious effort to keep breathing. The stench in the air of burnt metal and the poorly filtered air made him feel sick as it filled his lungs. He hoped the strength that kept him seated, that let him hold up his lightsaber, lasted until the battle was over. The smoke, or perhaps it was the lingering pain in his joints and his head and also everywhere else, made it difficult to keep his eyes open.

He felt something move beside him, and freed up one of his hands to place it gently on Anakin’s chest to feel his breathing. “It’s all right,” he said, though mostly to himself. He didn’t think Anakin could hear him. “We’re going to be all right. I’ll keep you safe.”

Obi-Wan had never noticed quite how long battles seemed to take. He also never quite noticed how abruptly they ended. In fact, he wasn’t sure when or how it had happened, but suddenly there was much less noise, his lightsaber was on the floor, himself lying with his back flat on the ground. And just as well, because though his strength was gone, the memory of the Force lightning was still with him, so real because the pain was still so real. He closed his eyes.

Then there was a hand on his arm, shaking him gently. Through the Force, Obi-Wan recognized Mace Windu. The purple lightsaber he had seen suddenly made sense. He opened his eyes. “Where is Sidious?” His voice was achingly hoarse.

Windu helped him sit up against a wall. Obi-Wan’s head felt foggy, as if he had just woken up from sleep. Perhaps he had, as he now saw the smoke had cleared and the clones were moving away droids and wreckages. Then he looked beside him, where Anakin lay very still, his breathing the only sign of life.

“Escaped,” Windu said, though he didn’t appear fond of the idea. “A Separatist ship controlled by MagnaGuards entered the hangar before I could apprehend him. Too dangerous to pursue. He’s long in hyperspace by now.” Obi-Wan nodded, almost glad to hear it. He could think about the consequences later. Right now, he just wanted to rest. Windu said, “How long were you with him before I could get here?”

Obi-Wan exhaled, and closed his eyes. “A smidge too long.”

“You did well, Obi-Wan,” Windu said. “You’re alive, in one piece, and still here. Focus on that for now.” Obi-Wan felt him waving someone over, and then a hand was placed on his shoulder. “Do whatever the medics say, and take it easy. There are still droids in the station, so don’t go anywhere until we’re all clear.”

He felt someone walking away, then someone else coming towards him, and opened his eyes to see a clone medic with a red symbol on his shoulder armor. Resolving to obey Windu’s orders, Obi-Wan closed his eyes one more time, and let the medics do their work.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until all the fighting was over and there was a chance to stop and think that Padmé realized she was dangerously close to losing it. And it wasn’t because of the violence, or the death, or the smoke in her eyes. It was, mostly, because she had invested so much time, effort, care, and mental energy into making this thing work. ‘This thing’ being, of course, a diplomatic negotiation of peace. An end to the Clone War. Well, this thing had truly and spectacularly failed.

And she had tried so hard.

But, as she looked over the fallen remains of battle droids, the shocked and distressed public servants that were huddled together in a corner, the bodies of three dead clones that had passed nobly, doing what they were trained for – Padmé decided that it was not over. They had made progress. Seven months ago, the Republic would never have dreamed of coming within arm’s reach of peace. This was progress. Even with a few minor, or major, setbacks, they were no longer just in arm’s reach – they were holding hands with peace. Soon, if she had anything to say about it, they would be embracing full on. And as strange a metaphor as that was, Padmé believed it was true.

Sure, they weren’t at the rebuilding stage, yet. They were still fighting. And today, she had met the action head on. In fact, her blaster was still warm, the smoke still in the air, though it was starting to be filtered out by the reactivated air circulation unit up overhead. Her head still hurt from all the noise. Her heart rate was still accelerated. She was still shaken.

She made her way back down the hallway to where Ahsoka stood with Captain Rex and three captured Separatists. Ahsoka had returned a short time ago after they’d already finished the fighting, out of breath and looking stricken. When Padmé had asked, Ahsoka just shrugged, said that she’d lost track of Count Dooku, and looked away at the ground. Padmé understood that feeling of failure all too well.

They stayed where they were for some time. Talking with the other diplomats, who’d evidently never been this close to death before, helped Padmé distance herself from her own feelings, but after half an hour of them insisting over and over that they needed to go back to their ships and get off this wrecked station, Padmé decided she couldn’t take it anymore. In the end, she suggested they sit down, shut up, and wait patiently for the evacuation signal like the rest of them. Except, of course, she said it with more diplomatic phrasing than that.

She made her way over to Ahsoka, who was sitting against a wall, looking out at nothing. Padmé knelt down next to her. “Hey. You all right?”

Ahsoka seemed to jolt herself out of her daze. “Yeah.”

Padmé did her best to smile and put a hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go for a walk? I’d like to find those two boys of ours.” Ahsoka looked up then, and nodded, and after a parting word to Bail and a handshake with Captain Rex, they were off.

They spent half an hour wandering around the station, looking. Lockdown procedures were still in effect with every airlock and hangar deck shut down, so there was no chance the boys had gotten onto another cruiser. Comm channels were flooded with interference, static and scattered noise, and neither Padmé nor Ahsoka could get through to anyone. If Padmé hadn’t already been worried enough, her paranoia was starting to kick in; what if something had happened to them, there was so much going on in this station, anything could have happened to anyone....

It wasn’t, then, until they happened upon Master Windu that they got their answer. When Ahsoka asked him where Anakin and Obi-Wan were, he had a strange look on his face, but he told them that a makeshift medbay had been set up in a repurposed dining hall and that the two were probably there. Padmé wanted to reach out and shake him, demand more information, what exactly had happened, why were they in a medbay, and were they okay? but Ahsoka just adverted her eyes, nodded, and led the way.

When they arrived, her eyes scanned the room, flicking from injured to injured, seeing mostly men who she was ashamed to admit looked exactly the same as one another – she hated how hard it was for her to distinguish between clones – until Ahsoka said, “There –” and pointed over to the side of the room where she saw them laying close together. For one horrible moment, Padmé felt a kick in her gut and a lump in her throat, but this was an last-minute infirmary, not a morgue. She was sure they were fine. Master Windu would have told them otherwise. Right. Right?

She couldn’t possibly cross the room fast enough.

Close now, she noticed Obi-Wan was awake, lying on his back with his hands resting on his chest, staring up at the ceiling through half-closed eyes. Next to him, Ani was curled on his side, apparently asleep. When he saw them approaching, Obi-Wan rolled over and heaved himself up to a seated posture. He looked terribly weak and exhausted to his core.

Finally there, she let herself fall on her knees. Ahsoka leaned down next to Anakin. “Are you okay?” Padmé asked in a frenzy. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Obi-Wan shook his head side to side, dipping a little in the middle as if he were about to fall asleep or pass out. “We’re all right. He’s sleeping,” he said, gesturing to Anakin. He made no further motion to elaborate on the what happened portion of her interrogation.

Ahsoka finished the thought for him. “He found you, didn’t he?”

Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes and nodded, but Padmé didn’t understand what that could possibly mean. “He who? What happened?” she asked again.

Neither of them spoke, which she had to admit was more than a little frustrating because like everyone else on this goddess-forsaken space station she wanted answers. To a lot of questions, actually. Such as, why did Obi-Wan look like he was about to pass out? Why did Anakin look like he actually had passed out? She gave them a minute to deliberate, but when neither appeared ready to make a move, Padmé allowed herself a dignified huff. “Excuse me, Jedi? Him, who?”

They still didn’t look at her, but Ahsoka said, staring down at Anakin’s face, “Sidious.”

What? ...No, really, what?

She repeated the exclamation aloud, then said, “The Sith Lord, Sidious? He was here?!”

Obi-Wan sighed. “He found us, managed to get us alone. If it weren’t for Master Windu, we would have...well, you can guess.”

Indeed she could, but she would save that for later, when she was alone. Only then would she think about the possibility of these two beautiful friends and loved ones of hers being subjected to a million and one horrible things, death itself being the least of which....

Then something else occurred to her, interrupting her thoughts. Obi-Wan and Anakin had met Sidious, right? And Darth Sidious was the Sith Lord, the accomplice of Count Dooku, that the Jedi had been looking for since the conflict on Naboo, all those years ago. The alleged mastermind behind the Separatist Alliance, the shadowy figure behind years of conspiracy and conflict, as well as the man who had done all that to Anakin, so....

“Did you recognize Sidious?” she asked, suddenly nervous. “If he was someone on this station he must have another role in one of the governments, right? But who?”

She watched as Obi-Wan and Ahsoka exchanged a relatively long look, and she realized that Ahsoka knew. And if Ahsoka knew, then that meant they had already known, which meant....

“You have to understand,” Obi-Wan said slowly, placing a hand on his chest and wincing. “Telling you beforehand would have put your safety at risk, and we didn’t want to distract you....”

Padmé frowned. “You lied to me?”

“We’ve only known for the ten days,” Ahsoka said quietly, her knees to her chest and her arms drawn around them.

“But you didn’t tell me,” Padmé said, allowing a certain amount of anger to creep up on her. It was just this kind of picking-and-choosing of what information to release that was making the general public distrust the Jedi. And she didn’t want to distrust them, but there were certain things they did that made it more than a little hard not to. Then she realized, “That’s why you’ve had a Jedi trailing me. That’s why you didn’t do it yourself.”

“We couldn’t make it public,” Obi-Wan said, reading her mind – and probably not just in the metaphoric sense, either. “For the sake of this conference, we needed to keep it quiet. We suspected he and Dooku would try something here, and the goal was to capture him, but things got too far out of control. And he was...very powerful....” He visibly shuddered. Padmé was still frowning.

“So...,” she said slowly, feeling a little disgusted in them all regardless of any matters of galactic security. “Who is he?”

Another look between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, shorter this time. Then, a glance at Anakin, who was limp and showed no signs of awareness.

To his credit, Obi-Wan looked too tired to skirt around the truth. He simply said, “It’s Palpatine.”

Padmé stared at him, not sure if she heard him correctly, even though this room was very quiet and he had spoken quite clearly. Then she stared at Ahsoka, who was watching Anakin sadly. Then Padmé looked at Obi-Wan again. “I...,” she said, and that was the complete thought because that was all she had. There was nothing floating around in her head right now. Maybe she was really unconscious. This was a coma dream. People in comas dream, right? Then she tried to speak again, and it came out as, “Whuh – no, what –” And then she closed her eyes, pressed both hands to her temples, and rapped on her skull a few times to knock her out of her coma illusion. Then, when she tried to speak for the third time, it was a full sentence. She said, “You – you were injured, weren’t you, I think you need a doctor, let me go find you a doctor –”

But when she stood up, Padmé had no intention of going to find a doctor, because there wasn’t a single ounce of her that didn’t believe what he had just said. Because somehow, there was nothing surprising about it. Terrifying, yes; mind-boggling, yes; life changing and disheartening and really truly honestly horrible, yes, yes, yes. But not surprising. Because the universe had felt like it was ending for a while now, and this was just the missing link. Palpatine hadn’t been gaining power – he’d had all of it this entire time.

The. Entire. Time.

He’d been her mentor. She gotten him elected as chancellor. She’d always supported the man, if not the policies. But who was the man? Was any of him real? Had he ever said even one single thing to her that wasn’t a lie?

A fake war. The most devastating war in galactic memory. Two puppet governments pitting their pawns against each other. Two men in control. But really, all along, just one man, controlling both. The galaxy was his playground. It was all a game to him. A game that he would win no matter what.

This conference. Two Sith pretending to negotiate. She’d worked so hard. She’d worked every day for months. She’d put everything she had into this. She’d fought for this. She would have died for this. She would give up everything for galactic peace. She already had. She gave up her childhood to serve. She gave up her adulthood to fight for peace. She gave up her personal life to spend time helping others. She gave up her husband on the chance that it might save someone else.

Ani…

Two weeks ago. In Palpatine’s – in a Sith Lord’s office. She’d left them alone. She’d left the man she loved with the man who had – who had abused him, tortured him, done things to him that she made an effort not to imagine. The second time she had handed her beloved over to the Sith. And she hadn’t known, and she couldn’t have known, because if the Jedi themselves didn’t figure it out then how could she have done so, but she should have, because she’d known him even longer, except she had never really known him at all, because if she had she might have seen a single sign or suspected even once that there was something more to him....

She had been standing for some time now, hadn’t moved a step since she’d stood up. Her eyes were stinging dry from forgetting the importance of blinking. She’d never felt quite like this before. She’d never felt quite this hopeless. She’d felt mentally numb before, many times, but now she actually felt really, substantially, physically numb. Her arms and fingers were tingling, her heart felt like it was going to give out or be squeezed until it popped, she felt dizzy, her knees were weak, her legs suddenly felt like jelly. She sat back down and joined Ahsoka in a contest of staring at the ground. Obi-Wan was lying down again. None of them said a single word. After a while, Padmé closed her eyes, put her balled-up fists to her chest, and prayed to all the goddesses and gods that might hear her to help them through this because she definitely couldn’t go on without their help.

Even for a last-minute medbay where more than half the patients were unconscious or asleep, the room was shockingly quiet. After a time, she came to tune out all the whispers and the sounds of pulsing heart monitors, hearing only the sound of her own thoughts. She felt so lonely, even though surrounded by three of her dearest loved ones. Part of her wanted to be alone, physically isolated until she could sort out her thoughts and come to terms with it being the end of the universe. Part of her was afraid to be alone. All of her wished she could go back in time or maybe shift to an alternate universe where she could lay protected in the safety and warmth of Anakin’s arms. None of her could find anything positive in her current situation at all. Because there was just, no way to twist any of this into a good thing. No way at all.

Except, she supposed, at least they were all alive. Or, at the very least, not dead.

She wasn’t keeping track of the time, so she didn’t know how long they stayed there in that medbay. The first thing to break the silence in what must have been at least an hour was a chime that came from the loudspeakers overhead, and then a voice that, unlike last time, definitely came from a living being. It said, “Attention, please: This is Jedi Master Aayla Secura. Republic authorities have given the all-clear. All Confederate vessels have gone into hyperspace. Scans of the station show no remaining Confederate droids. Republic personnel are free to return to their ships at this time. Please report any suspicious activity to the nearest clone officer or Jedi. Thank you.”

Ahsoka raised her head, and Obi-Wan had opened his eyes and sat up. Padmé wanted with every part of her to get off this horrible station, and suddenly she had a strong urge to keep all her Force-sensitive companions with her. “You should all come with me to the Senate ship. My suite is more than enough to accommodate the four of us.”

Obi-Wan rubbed his beard and said blearily, “I’m going to check in with Master Windu first, but I’ll meet you there.”

They got Anakin up with some difficulty – “You can go back to sleep soon, sweetheart,” Padmé said to him, rubbing his back to wake him up – and Obi-Wan left. Anakin looked confused to see him leave, but relaxed when Padmé ran a hand gently through his hair.

Slowly, they made their way out of the medbay, down a few halls — some still littered with sparking droids and clone bodies — and joined the queue to get back to the Senate transport ship. Neither Ahsoka nor Anakin said anything along the way, and Padmé was almost grateful. Soon they made it to her quarters, and Padmé excused herself for a few minutes to freshen up. In the mirror, she was surprised how disgruntled she looked, though it made enough sense. She was dressed for the occasion as always, of course, but today the occasion was supposed to be politics, not battle.

When she had changed into something more comfortable, she rejoined her Jedi, who were sitting close together in the circular booth of the dining table, both staring at the wall.

She remembered, suddenly, what Anakin had said once, about how the Force felt after a battle, after a large amount of deaths. How he had said that he could still hear the screams, hours after they had died out. How he felt as if each of their souls passed through his body on the way to their destination, wherever that was. Padmé fought an involuntary frown. This conference had turned into the very thing it was supposed to prevent.

A glance at a chrono told her it was late, Coruscant time, around twenty-one hundred hours, and Padmé was surprised at how much energy she still had. Or adrenaline, more like. So she took advantage of it, telling Ahsoka and Anakin she would be right back with dinner, and right as she returned from the dining hall she found herself facing Obi-Wan.

“Did you find anything out?” she asked him as they walked through the door to her suite, following him to the booth and placing a meal before each of them. Ahsoka opened hers slowly, and it took Anakin a minute to notice it was there.

“They’re still taking casualty counts,” Obi-Wan replied, reaching to a pitcher for water. “One of the Separatist cruisers were destroyed, and four of their smaller ships. We sustained heavy damage to a couple cruisers but only lost one ship.”

Padmé exhaled sharply. “Well, I suppose it could have been worse.”

“There is…one other thing,” Obi-Wan said, reaching to scratch his beard. He still sounded tired, like he’d just woken up from a deep sleep. “Count Dooku is dead.”

In her periphery, Padmé saw Ahsoka looked up sharply, and then back down at her tray. Padmé glanced between her and Obi-Wan. “What? How?”

“I’m not sure,” Obi-Wan said. “A clone relayed the news to Master Windu. He went off to investigate, and I came here.”

“Ahsoka had gone off to fight him, but she said he escaped. Isn’t that right?”

Slowly, Ahsoka’s eyes rose to meet hers. She nodded. “I chased him for a while, but then he did that whole…concealing himself in the Force, thing, and I lost him. He’s…surprisingly fast for his age.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes stayed on Ahsoka for a moment, then flicked back to Padmé. “Well, regardless of how, the Separatist government is now without a leader, and we’re down one out of two Sith Lords. That can only spell good fortune for us.”

They fell into silence, each picking at their food with varying levels of interest. Ahsoka finished first, collapsing backward into the booth with a pronounced sigh. Anakin, who hadn’t eaten anything, looked sideways at her and slowly reached his arm around her to pull her in and let her rest her head against his collarbone. Ahsoka snuggled into him, and as they both closed their eyes, Padmé had to wonder if they were sharing something in the Force that she couldn’t sense. By the time Padmé and Obi-Wan had both finished their food, she was sure the other two had fallen asleep.

Obi-Wan sensed that, as well. He leaned back in his own seat and said, looking upon his Padawans, “They’re both much too young for the things they’ve been put through, don’t you think?”

She did. She got up for a moment, and returned to the table with two glasses of wine. Handing him one, she said, “I feel young, too, but not in a good way. Much younger than I am.”

“That’s good,” he said, taking a sip, “Because I feel old.”

Padmé swatted him on the arm. “Be fair to yourself. You’re only what, forty?”

“I’m thirty-nine, thank you very much.” He heaved a quiet sigh. “You know, at the age I became a Padawan, you were elected queen.”

She chuckled. “I was too young for that, too. Palpatine…he’s the one who got me elected. He sponsored me, endorsed me, and the people of Naboo trusted his word. I could never have done it without him.”

“Give yourself some credit, Padmé,” Obi-Wan said with tired amusement. “Look at how many times he’s had Dooku try to assassinate you. Clearly, he underestimated you.”

“That’s a nice way to look at it,” she said, watching Anakin and Ahsoka distantly. “But he had everything planned from the start, didn’t he? He even specifically requested you and Anakin be assigned to guard me during the Separatist Crisis.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Obi-Wan said wistfully. “This goes deeper than we will ever know.”

“And now we have to fix all the damage he’s caused.”

Obi-Wan raised his glass. “Are you up to the task, Senator?”

Despite herself, Padmé smiled, and clinked their glasses. “Why, Master Jedi, I think I am.”

After a few days of exhausted hibernation on both their parts, Anakin and Ahsoka had been spending a lot of time together doing basically nothing. To be honest, Anakin still felt a little out of it, not entirely present in any capacity, for which at least he had an excuse. But he was a little concerned about Ahsoka, because it wasn’t like her to look so introspective and preoccupied and to talk so little. He was pretty sure something was wrong, but he didn’t want anyone asking him about what was going on inside his own head, so he decided to keep it mutual. If it lasted much longer, he would tell Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan would know what to do.

It stayed like that until a week or so after the peace conference. He and Ahsoka were out of the temple this time, though only barely, sitting in one of the empty exterior courtyards at the base of one of the spires. There was nothing to keep them company except for the old yellow-leaved tree under which they sat in the shade. At first Anakin had thought Ahsoka just wanted to get some sunlight, but when he saw the look on her face now, he realized that there may have been a little more to this remote choice of venue than that.

She was sitting with her back to the temple wall, knees drawn up to her chest, pretending to be interested in her fingernails. He sat next to her, able to think better than he had a few days ago but still a little fuzzy on what had happened. He waited for her to speak, figuring that would be best.

“You know...,” Ahsoka started to say, eyes not really focused on anything. “I realized the other day that nobody ever said how Dooku died on the space station.”

Anakin frowned. Actually, he hadn’t realized that until right now, so she was one step ahead of him there. He said, “Maybe there was an explosion or something.”

“They said they were still investigating,” Ahsoka went on. “How long do you think it will take?”

Anakin shrugged. “Maybe they already know and aren’t telling us.”

“Maybe,” Ahsoka said, staring out into the distance. Anakin thought about it. Honestly, he didn’t really care how Tyranus was killed. All that mattered was that he was permanently removed from the universe. His only hope was that it had been painful.

Ahsoka shifted, stretching her legs out long on the ground. “What if I told you...,” she started to say, “That I know how he died?”

Anakin looked around, confused. “What? Did somebody tell you?”

“No,” she said, giving the impression that her mind and body were in two different spaces. “I know because I’m the one that killed him.”

That, to be sure, was not something Anakin had expected to hear today. It wasn’t that he was having trouble believing it – rather, he was having trouble comprehending it. Was that why she had felt weird in the Force, both then and now? How...he bit his lip. How come she could physically overpower Tyranus but Anakin couldn’t even speak when Sidious was in the room?

Then he remembered a day, what felt like ages ago, when he, too, had overpowered Tyranus on Serenno. But he hadn’t killed him then, even if he could have gotten away with it. In retrospect, maybe he should have. But then, he thought, he would have been killing a Sith as another Sith. Ahsoka had killed a Sith as a Jedi. There had to be some distinction there.

Then it dawned on him. Ahsoka had killed him. Ahsoka did that.

Death was something that scared Anakin. His own death, and that of his friends...his mom...it kept him up at night. It was a fate that scared him more than anything he had already endured, which was quite a feat. But this death...the death of a Sith Lord....

Well, it was delightful.

That was what he thought, anyway, until he saw the look on Ahsoka’s face. She looked so...guilty. It wasn’t something he had expected, and it wasn’t something he knew how to deal with. Because he constantly felt guilty for the lives he had taken, but those had been innocent. This kill was far from innocent. Anakin wanted Ahsoka to be proud. But then again, maybe that would make her too much like him, and he didn’t want her to be like him.

“I, um…,” Ahsoka said again, ignorant of the budding conflict in Anakin’s mind. “I know it sounds stupid, and I know he deserved it, but....” She shuddered visibly. Her voice sounded strained. “I can’t get the image out of my mind. There was – all this blood, and suddenly he was just dead, and I didn’t want anyone to know it was me but now I’m afraid they’re going to find out, and –”

She paused, and then twisted around and threw her arms around his chest, not saying anything more. Anakin frowned and hugged her back, wondering how he would feel were the situation reversed. He tried to imagine himself in that situation, but instead all he could picture in his head was petite little Ahsoka slaughtering Tyranus the same way Anakin himself had killed all those people day after day, and he had to repress a shiver.

He needed to say something, so he just decided to be honest. He whispered, “I don’t know what to say.”

Ahsoka whispered back, “I don’t know what I want you to say.”

“I’m glad you did it,” Anakin said carefully.

Ahsoka let go of him and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “So am I,” she said. “So why do I feel so bad?”

Anakin realized he had an answer to that. “Because you’re a good person.”

“Good people don’t slice other people’s faces open with their lightsaber,” Ahsoka said, grimacing.

“Good people do things they don’t want to so that other people won’t suffer.” By that definition, Anakin himself couldn’t be counted as ‘good’, but he set that aside for now.

“I didn’t do it to stop people from suffering,” Ahsoka said honestly, looking up at him, keeping his gaze. She sounded disgusted with herself. “I did it because I was mad.”

Anakin bit his lip. “I’m not the best person to ask for advice on anger.”

“I know,” Ahsoka said. “That’s why you’re the one I wanted to tell.”

That, Anakin thought, somehow actually made sense.

“I don’t want anyone to be disappointed in me,” Ahsoka said, her lower lip trembling and tears falling out of her eyes. “Obi-Wan and Padmé. What would they think?”

“I’m pretty sure Dooku ruined Padmé’s life,” Anakin said, trying to be rational. “And as for Obi-Wan, well...he took me in after months of me killing people, so I don’t think he’s going to hold one Sith over your head.”

“But he killed a Sith, too, and it’s haunted him forever,” Ahsoka said, shaking. “I don’t want him to worry about me.”

“He’s gonna worry about you no matter what,” Anakin said softly. “That’s just who he is.”

Ahsoka nodded, miserable, and said, “I don’t want him to know. Please...please don’t tell him. Please don’t tell anyone.”

Anakin wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Because Obi-Wan should know. He was probably going to find out somehow, and it should probably come from them, but...Anakin also knew how Ahsoka felt, about not wanting to disappoint, and feeling like that’s all he ever did.

He remembered then that he had originally been Ahsoka’s Jedi master. He briefly wondered if Ahsoka would have still told him the truth if this had happened back then. He thought the answer might be yes, but it was impossible to know. He tried to think what he would have said to her back then, but no Jedi-like wisdom came to him.

“I won’t tell him,” Anakin said softly, “But sooner or later he’s going to find out. You know that.”

“I guess,” Ahsoka said, shrugging, wiping her eyes on her sleeve again. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”

“I get it,” Anakin said. “You know I get it. But if you can’t talk to him, I want you to keep talking to me, okay? You remember how I was when I kept everything inside. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

Ahsoka nodded, and curled herself against his side, and didn’t say anything else. And no, Anakin wasn’t really in a place mentally to help someone the way that he needed help himself, but Force if he wasn’t going to try. Because Ahsoka felt like something of a little sister to him, almost, and he had no intention of letting her down.

Over a week out of the failed peace conference, the Republic was in disarray.

It was no less than Padmé expected, of course. If it weren’t in disarray, then she would suspect Sidious to be behind that, too. So for an interesting change, little bit of a mess felt like a relief.

Regardless, all anyone outside of the loop seemed to know was that Palpatine had been purportedly been involved in some conspiracy with the Separatist government and Count Dooku, and had fled Republic space in the aftermath of the battle. The Jedi had yet to release any statements, and nothing more than loose, unsubstantiated rumors had found its way into the pool of common knowledge. To her own benefit, no one seemed any the wiser that Padmé knew the truth, otherwise they would have been hounding her the moment she stepped off the Senate cruise ship and onto the Coruscant landing platform.

But good things, Padmé hoped, were on the horizon. The senate had since neglected to hold any sessions without a leader, but now the representatives of the Republic were gathered together once more for the long-awaited address by the Jedi Council.

The center podium was rising, now, and Padmé quickly recognized Mace Windu, silent and observing in one of the seats, and saw a Togruta Jedi she didn’t know, with headtails three times as long as Ahsoka’s. Right away a hush fell over the enormous chamber, as thousands of representatives focused their attention on this highly anticipated speech. Padmé was no exception, finding herself unconsciously leaning forward with a sudden sense of eagerness.

“I am Jedi Master Shaak Ti,” the Togruta said, her voice echoing through the room and through every pod’s individual speaker. “This is Master Mace Windu. We have called this session of the Senate today to explain to the people of the Republic exactly what the Jedi know regarding the former Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. There have been many rumors circulating regarding where the Chancellor has gone, and if he will be coming back. I am here to put these rumors to rest. I ask that you please hold your questions until the end, where we shall try to answer as many as possible.”

Immediately Padmé understood why the Jedi Council had elected to have this particular Jedi give this address. Her manner of speech was deliberately calm, slow, and patient, the way one imagined that an esteemed Jedi Master would speak. She demanded attention and appeared personable enough to distance herself from the idea of Jedi oppression that had been buzzing through certain factions of the population.

“Ten days before the peace conference was to begin, on the same day that the Republic received approval from the Separatist government, the Jedi Council learned a terrible fact about the former Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. We learned, thanks to one of our informants, that the former Chancellor collaborated directly, in secret, with Count Dooku to initiate the Separatist Crisis and start the Clone War. We learned —”

She was cut off, abruptly, by an eruption of noise from hundreds of pods above and below Padmé. And although she hated the way her fellow senators acted, sometimes, just this once she couldn’t exactly blame them. If she hadn’t already known the truth, she wondered how she would feel hearing it this way.

“Please,” Shaak Ti said, raising her hands for silence. “I understand how this must sound, but all will become clear if you allow me to continue.” The uproar dulled to a steady buzz, and the Jedi Master continued. She remained silent for a moment, and appeared to be considering what to say next.

“Many of you will know that the now-deceased Count Dooku identified himself as a Sith Lord. Most of you are probably familiar with the idea of the Sith at least in the form of legend, or ancient history. The Sith are the ancient enemies of the Jedi who use a corrupted version of the Force — the antithesis of the power that we, the Jedi, use for good. Their goals have always been to amass power for themselves and use that power to oppress, enslave, and dominate others. They have been responsible for numerous wars over the course of galactic history, and it was only when they were supposedly defeated approximately one thousand years ago that this Republic was able to form.

“You may be familiar with the tradition that there are always two Sith Lords, a master and an apprentice. The significance of this will be clear in a moment. You see, until the Battle of Naboo thirteen years ago, the Jedi and the galaxy alike were under the impression that the Sith had been destroyed a millennium ago. We now know that not to be the case. We now know that there have been at least two remaining Sith for the last thousand years, and we are finally able to identify those who currently exist.

“The reality of the situation, therefore, is that the Jedi have been able to identify Count Dooku as the Sith apprentice since the start of the Clone War. It was only very recently that we finally learned the identity of the Sith master, one who calls himself Darth Sidious. It is now, after this conference, that we know that the true identity of this Darth Sidious is none other than the former Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Sheev Palpatine.”

That, as Padmé had expected, did not go very well. Noise erupted again, and this time representatives were shouting into their amplifiers to make their voices heard. Cries were heard over one another, and Padmé could only make a few out —

“Lies, all lies!”

“The Jedi are traitors! This is slander!”

“These are false accusations!”

“Jedi mind tricks, that’s all this is!”

“Get them off the podium! Get security to remove them!”

“Please, calm yourselves,” Shaak Ti said, raising her voice over the accusations. “I will continue. The Jedi Council does not make these claims lightly, nor do I come without proof. I submit this piece of evidence, taken from the security holograms aboard the space station Diligence at the time of the attempted peace conference.”

A moment later, an enormous hologram filled the chamber, and a smaller version activated on every pod’s interface panel. Padmé watched as a holographic figure of her former mentor, advisor, and maybe even friend stood, his face contorted in an awful laugh, as what appeared to be lightning bolts manifested from his fingertips. His victims had been edited out of the footage but she could almost see them in her mind’s eye — Anakin and Obi-Wan, doubled over in agony, victim to the greatest deceiver in the galaxy.

Anakin had told her once, years ago, what it felt like. Force lightning. What it did to the body. But he had never much been able to elaborate, had always shivered from the memory and changed the subject to something lighter. And suddenly, Padmé could see why. And not only that, but suddenly everything about Anakin in the last few months seemed to make more sense. Why he couldn’t talk about his time with the Sith without dissociating, why he’d reacted that way in Palpatine’s office a couple weeks ago. As Padmé stared into Palpatine’s face on the hologram, contorted and different and wrong, absent of the kind and gentle persona he’d always used with her, she felt as if she was being tortured herself.

The hologram changed. The lightning disappeared, Palpatine turned, and by the time Mace Windu entered the frame the Sith had ignited a lightsaber from hidden in his sleeve. Padmé watched, mesmerized, dumbstruck, as the two engaged in combat, their blades flashing faster than she could follow, and she realized abruptly that the senate chamber was more quiet than she had ever paid witness to.

“You can see from his hologram,” Master Shaak Ti began again, “Clear proof of our claims. Master Windu here is one of the most proficient Jedi among our ranks at lightsaber combat, and the former Chancellor was able to match him for a reasonable length of time.” As she spoke, Padmé watched the figure of Palpatine gain a moment to turn and flee, heading toward a ship and escaping from Windu’s grasp. “As you can see, Palpatine managed to flee aboard a droid controlled ship. We expect that by now he is hiding in Separatist-controlled space.”

The hologram vanished, and Shaak Ti looked around the room. “I understand how troubling this is for each of you. Everyone must process in their own way, in their own time, the betrayal of the former Chancellor. But for those of you who have questions, I will now answer those I can.”

“What about Mas Amedda?” a senator called from a pod a few stories above Padmé’s. “As Vice Chancellor, the position falls to him until a new leader can be picked.”

Shaak Ti replied, “We have been datamining the office and private estate of the Chancellor and have evidence to suggest that Mas Amedda was knowledgable of Palpatine’s true identity. Still, whether or not he was aware of Darth Sidious, we also have collected concrete evidence of corruption in the Vice Chancellor’s office. As such, he is being held by the Jedi until our investigation is complete.”

“Will you be forcing a reabsorption of the seceded planets in the Confederacy?” another voice asked.

Shaak Ti replied, “Despite the failure of the peace conference to resolve these issues, some very good progress was made. The Jedi will leave the state of each individual planet up to the planets themselves and their larger governments. We encourage both governments to follow through with the negotiations that were already discussed at the conference and to continue to develop new solutions together.”

“With Count Dooku dead, what if a new leader takes control of the Confederacy?”

“We believe the creation of the unified Separatist government was contingent upon the leadership of Count Dooku. Systems had been declaring their independence for several years before Dooku unified them, indicating that independence is not necessarily the issue. Though some may try to seize control, we do not expect the Separatist Parliament will be quick to bow to a new leader. We also do not suspect that Darth Sidious, who we believe has control over the Separatist Council, will be able to gain the acceptance of the Parliament, as they will likely to continue to associate him with the Republic.”

“What about that figure from the holograms, that Jedi killer from a few months ago?” one senator named Carok cried. “What if they are to be the replacement for Count Dooku?”

Padmé found herself raising her eyebrows in surprise. A decent question, though Padmé had almost forgotten about the hologram in question. The one of Anakin taken by a clone, standing over the body of a Jedi he’d killed. All in all, knowledge of “Vader” had only been around for a month or two before Obi-Wan had brought Anakin home, and of course there was no more concrete evidence of him since then….

Shaak Ti appeared to hesitate, and turned to look at Master Windu, who stood up and whispered something to her. She nodded once, and turned back to the audience. “The threat of the assassin called Vader has been neutralized. He was captured by the Jedi several weeks ago and has been destroyed.”

“And what of the position of chancellor itself?” a representative named Corvash called out, pushing their pod toward the center. “We will not stand for Jedi control of the government!”

Before Shaak Ti could answer, Master Windu stood again and she bowed her head to him. “The Jedi Council has no interest in controlling the government or the Senate. For now, we will continue only to operate as head of the military until the Clone War is over. Despite the death of Count Dooku, numerous Separatist holdouts, occupations, and blockades remain across the galaxy. It will be entirely up to the Senate to determine how they shall proceed. We will, however, exercise our power in the government to ensure that, if the Senate does choose to pick another supreme chancellor, they will not have the emergency powers awarded to Chancellor Palpatine at the start of the war.”

More protests immediately arose. “How can you expect us to navigate an end to the war if our new leader has no power?”

“You must understand,” Windu said, “That Palpatine manipulated this Senate into giving him emergency powers in the first place. With these new laws, the Jedi Council believes that he was intending on seizing ultimate power for himself and that he would have refused to relinquish these emergency powers at the time the Clone War ended. To put it bluntly, we suspect Palpatine would have declared himself the sole dictator of a reunited galactic government and would exert his power to remove anyone who resisted him.”

“Pure speculation!” one senator cried. “You have no evidence he would have done this!”

“Again,” Windu said, “These ideas are only of relevance to prove why we cannot allow a new leader of the Senate to be given these same wartime emergency powers. And once more, the Jedi are not seizing control of the government. We will continue to protect and fight for the Republic, but the direction that this democracy takes will be your own.

“We can only offer our advisement, which in this case is that this Senate should not rush into a new administration. Take your time, discuss it rationally. Decide if you want a new chancellor, or if you think a new branch of government may be a better option. Think in the long term. Work to complete your negotiations with the Separatist government, and remember that they, too, have lost their leader. We may still be fighting the Separatist droids, but the Separatist Parliament and the Droid Army operate independently of one another. You may yet be able to come to a mutual agreement, and form a new galactic government more unified and stronger than the current one. Are there any more questions?”

There was a mumbling buzz, still, that lingered in the hall, but no one else volunteered to speak up. The Jedi said a word of thanks for the attention of the Senate, and the pod descended back into the depths. All Padmé could do was lean back in her chair and look around the hall as representatives stood in their pods and exited, or lingered and spoke with the pod next to them.

The Sith. A governmental transition. A glimpse into the end of the war. The thought of negotiations and roadblocks and standstills.

She sighed.

Sounded like another normal day.

When Anakin pressed the chime to the quarters of none other than Yoda himself, he felt only moderately anxious. Which, all things considered, was pretty good for him, so….

A voice beckoned him to enter, so he did. And there he was, the little green Jedi Master that everyone held in the highest esteem. “You asked to see me?” Anakin said. With his eyes still closed in meditation, Yoda motioned to the large round stool opposite him. Anakin sat, and waited.

“Glad to see you here, I am, Skywalker,” Yoda said, finally opening his eyes and looking him over. Anakin couldn’t help but feel like the piercing greenish-brown eyes went straight through him. “Much improvement, you have made, hm? Strong you were to volunteer to fight Sidious.”

Anakin didn’t know what to say. “I have tried.”

“You have done,” Yoda corrected. “Understand, you must, that harsh on you we needed to be. That loyal to Sidious, you may have been. But know now we do that loyal to him you are not. This is why we must ask your help.”

“My help with what?”

“Over, this war is not. Two governments in disarray, two leaders vanished. Need we do those with the skill and willpower to fight. More than a year ago, one of our best generals you were. A great help you would be now. Ordering your help, I am not. Requesting it, I am, if it makes any difference to you.”

Anakin looked at the floor. “It does, actually. And yes, I will help you.”

“Thought about this already, you have.”

“I did. But you should know that I don’t consider myself a Jedi, and I’m not interested in becoming one again.”

“Mmmm,” Yoda hummed. “Spoken with Obi-Wan recently, I have, and some good points he has made, about what it truly means to be a Jedi. Arrogant we have been, to think that our way of one thousand years is the one true way. Allowed the Sith to rise to power through our arrogance, we did. Perhaps perspective outside the Jedi Order will be useful in defeating this Sidious.”

“Are you referring to the —” but Anakin hesitated. It wasn’t, he found, something he liked to talk about. But he swallowed his pride. “The prophecy?”

“Mmmm,” Yoda said again. “Regardless of this prophecy, true it is that a connection to Sidious you now have. Insight into him, you have.”

Immediately, Anakin understood. He felt his brows knit together. “You want me to defeat him? What about you? They say you’re the best that the Jedi have to offer.”

Yoda surprised him by laughing. His shoulders shook, his ears rose up and down, and he took his time in waiting for it to pass. “Proud, the Jedi are. Forget sometimes they do that mortal am I. Skill I have, yes, and knowledge, and strength. Possible, yes, that I could defeat Sidious. But looking for you, Sidious will be. Likely it is that you shall meet him again, before I can.”

The wizened Jedi took a long moment to think before speaking again. Anakin waited, feeling he would be crossing his boundaries to interrupt the silence. “Keep you and Obi-Wan together, we will, and not for the reasons of late. Work better as a team, you do, than apart. True this was before, and true still I expect it to be. If prepared both of you are, overcome the challenge of Sidious, you can.”

Anakin took a deep, steadying, calming breath. The idea of facing Sidious terrified him now as much as it ever had, and even knowing that Obi-Wan would be by his side did little to tamper his anxieties, his traumas, all the thoughts and feelings he’d had for ages but hadn’t had the understanding to put into words. But he wanted to fight in this war, wanted to fight the Sith, wanted to give something back to the Jedi after all he had done against them.

“Is there…,” he said slowly, thinking. “Can you help me to know how to stop him?”

“Ancient powers, he has, unknown to any Jedi,” Yoda said. “A small chance for success it could be. Training you will need. Meditation. Introspection. Some of this I can give. Some help, Obi-Wan can give. Some must come from within you. Listen to the Force, you must. With you, it will be. Whether you are the Chosen One or not, strong the Force is in you. Guide you it will, but listen for its call you must. Only then can this Darth Sidious be defeated.”

Anakin bit his lip, thinking about his last encounter with Sidious. He barely remembered it, too be honest, but he did recall the pain.

He didn’t, honestly, expect that he would be able to do it. But then, he had done things in the past that he’d thought were impossible. He’d escaped from the Sith. He’d escaped slavery. He’d obtained something of a life for himself, and he wasn’t keen to give up on it quite yet. And he wanted to stay away from Sidious more than he wanted almost anything else, but Yoda was right. Sidious would be looking for him. Sidious wanted Anakin as badly as Anakin wanted to stay away.

And in that sense, it really was an easy choice. When he found Sidious, or when Sidious found him, Anakin would do what he did best.

He would fight, and he would win. There could be no other option.

Padmé had been sitting at her desk, staring longingly at the wall portrait of Naboo, for quite some time when Bail Organa entered unannounced. She didn’t glance at him, couldn’t seem to spare the energy to turn her head at all, but she knew him in her periphery. He sat opposite her and without any word of greeting, said, “Are you all right, Padmé?”

Bail was a good friend. Possibly even her best friend, if she was being honest. A fair few years older than her, he had been looking out for her since she had arrived on this sorry city planet years ago. Had looked out for her during the heights of her depression. Had continued to extend his friendship to her when others had given up trying to help. She sometimes wondered whether he felt the same, much of the time. Their situations were so similar, he must have done — fighting for lost causes in the Senate, rallying and campaigning for weeks on end just to have his voice silenced, living perpetually apart from his spouse. She probably had more in common with Bail than anyone she knew.

Which was why she had no qualms being honest when she said, “You’re going to be so mad at me for this, but Bail….” She finally turned her head and locked eyes with him. “I’m thinking about resigning.”

It hadn’t even been a fully realized thought until she said it aloud, but still it was true. True that she’d thought of little else since the Jedi’s announcement, since even the aftermath of the negotiations. As true as her love for her family, her friends. She was so ready for this all to be done.

Bail sat back in his seat and simply looked at her, waiting for more.

“I got him elected,” Padmé said, mirroring his body language, slackened in her chair like she wanted to melt through it. Maybe she did. “He got me elected. I’ve known him since I was a child. He campaigned for me for queen and endorsed me, he’s even the one who convinced me to run in the first place. He ordered the Trade Federation to blockade my planet and convinced me to push to remove Valorum from office. He created the Loyalist Committee and then had Dooku try to assassinate me. He’s done so much to me, and so much to my friends, and it’s so bad of me but I’m so tired of fighting. I’m so tired, Bail.”

It was at that point that the floodgates opened, and she pressed her hand to her eyes as if to try to push the tears back inside.

“But I can’t,” she continued, her throat thick with emotion. “I know I can’t give up and that just makes it even worse. I know I have to be strong but I feel so weak. I feel like I can’t go on another day but if I don’t, who will? If we don’t, Bail, who will?”

The room was silent for a time, and when Padmé finally looked up he saw Bail looking forlorn at the ground with more empty sadness than she had ever seen on him. And suddenly she felt bitingly selfish, for making this all about her when really that was unfair. Because they were so alike, they had so much in common and that included the deliberations and meetings and battles of this pointless series of negotiations, and how could she have ever forgotten that?

“Sometimes,” Bail said, and Padmé stared into the emptiness of his brown eyes, “I absolutely hate every moment of being on this wretched planet. I toss and turn all night thinking about having to come into work the next day. I sit behind my desk and stare at my portrait of Alderaan, same as you were when I came in. And all I can think about is Breha, and how much I want to be with her. And about how much I…want to start a family with her.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, but Padmé couldn’t look away from them. She said, “I didn’t know that about you.”

He nodded, and smiled at some private thought. “We’ve always wanted a daughter. A beautiful baby girl. I have a picture of her in my head, even though she isn’t real. But in these last few days and weeks, when all there is to do is salvage this galactic-sized mess, when every day we learn new truths about the man who we had trusted for so long…all I want is to quit my post, find my baby girl, and find a way to raise her away from all this chaos.”

Bail blinked a few tears out of his eyes and looked right at her. “But it turns out, that’s what keeps me fighting. The image of what my family could be. The idea that there might come a day when I can raise a baby girl in this galaxy without worrying what kind of universe she might grow up in. That image keeps me strong, and it keeps my voice strong.” He stood from his chair, tall and proud. “What are you fighting for, Padmé?”

When Padmé made her way to her feet, she still felt hopeless. She still wanted to quit. She still wanted to crawl into bed and never come back to this awful building again. But she also had an answer, which was that she, too, was fighting for her family. For her mom, her dad, for Pooja and Ryoo, for Sola. For her handmaidens, for Dormé and Ellé and Moteé. For the ones she had lost, for Cordé and Teckla, and for those friends of old, for Sabé. For the queen. For her friends back home. For her friends here, for Mon Mothma and Bail himself. For her Jedi, for Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan. And most of all, for Anakin. To strip this galaxy of the remaining influences of this monstrous Sith Lord so that Anakin could finally feel safe. That was what she was fighting for.

“Bail,” she said finally, knowing in her heart the answer to his question, “I’m fighting for hope.”

He nodded, smiling now. “I like it. Fighting for our families, and for a new hope in this galaxy. It has a good ring to it.”

Yes, hope. Padmé liked the sound of it, too.

It was late when Anakin returned from Yoda’s chambers to his own. Obi-Wan was there, sitting at the small kitchen table and staring distantly at the wall. When Anakin sat across from him, he looked like he already knew what Anakin was about to say.

“Yoda asked me to go back to war.”

Obi-Wan nodded, slowly, looking weary. “I expected as much.”

“And,” Anakin said, “I agreed. But…you already knew that, I guess.”

The smile across from him was wry. “I know you too well. Dooku couldn’t burn your goodwill out of you.”

Metal fingers rapped the table. “Yeah, he could only extinguish it for a bit.”

They sat in silence for a moment, more uncomfortable than theirs usually were. Obi-Wan looked sad, Anakin thought, though there was something else glinting in his eyes, something more youthful than the hair greying at his temples. Perhaps Obi-Wan did know him too well, and even despite their short time together Anakin felt the same toward him. Obi-Wan did not want him to go back to war. It was just the way that he was.

“Yoda said they would keep us together,” Anakin said, trying to bring his friend any kind of cheer. “And not even because of how messed up I am. Because we work so well together, he said.”

“That we do,” Obi-Wan said quietly, and their eyes met. “I was wondering…how much do you remember from the conference?”

Ah. He was pretty sure he knew what this was about. “Bits here and there. None of the stuff with Sidious, really. Which I guess I’m grateful for.” Obi-Wan shuddered visibly. “But I do remember what you said to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Obi-Wan then graced him with a smile, warm and kind but a little sad, somehow. “It took me thirteen years to be able to admit out loud that I love you. This time, I needed to make sure you knew that.”

Anakin wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by ‘this time,’ but he did know what he needed to say. Had wanted to say for a while, but didn’t have the words. Didn’t have the ability, the energy, or the confidence. “Obi-Wan,” he said, and he waited until Obi-Wan’s eyes had found his again. And suddenly he felt the need for contact, as if that was the only way to make sure his words found their mark. He reached out and took Obi-Wan’s hand, resting on the table between them.

“Obi-Wan,” he said again, “I just want to say…thank you. For everything. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me. Without you, I would still be with the Sith.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head. “You got away on your own. Don’t ignore that fact.”

“I’m not,” Anakin said. “I know. But you gave me a reason to. And Ahsoka, and Padmé, but before you came along, I had no purpose. I did everything Sidious told me to do and I felt nothing. I didn’t know anything other than the Sith. I never imagined that there were people out there who cared about me. And I know, now, how hard that must be for you to hear, but you saved me.” He felt his face break into a breathless grin. “You helped me, you dedicated your life to me, at a time when I was unable to appreciate that help for what it was. You did so much for me, and you never needed to. I know you did it because you wanted to, and I just…thank you. Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan gave him that smile, the one that Anakin felt was only ever for him, and squeezed his hand. “You are very welcome, Anakin,” he said, “And let me just say how proud I am of the progress that you have made. You have come a very long way, in no small part due to your inner strength. I haven’t seen — or felt you feeling this way since you came back.”

“Don’t I know it,” Anakin said, running a hand through his hair. “I know I’m still messed up. I know I still have days where I make you want to tear your beard out.” Obi-Wan laughed. “And I don’t feel good, really, but I feel so much better.”

“I can tell,” Obi-Wan said. “You barely said a word when you first came here, and now look at you.”

Anakin snorted. “Am I talking that much?”

“Oh, yes. Quite incessantly.”

“But you don’t want me to stop.”

“Now, you know me too well.”

“Hah. I knew you’d say that.”

“I’m sure you did. We are Force users, after all.”

Anakin couldn’t stop himself from beaming.

He didn’t know what direction this new path would take him down. But he would have help, and more than anything he would have Obi-Wan.

That would have to be enough.

Chapter Text

The legislative sector of the Republic after the failed peace conference was a wild ride of twists and turns, and Padmé wanted to get off.

It became clearer every day that the Senate was hopeless without a leader, but a replacement could not be agreed upon. Bills went nowhere, discussions were chaos, negotiations could not be had. No one would listen. No one would do anything. No one would even try.

And there was more. Whispers, scattered but persistent rumors of clones turning on their Jedi. Pointing their blasters at droids one minute and then their generals the next. Padmé didn’t know for certain if the rumors were true, but they were there, and they were beginning to have a cost. Dissent was spreading like wildfire through the Republic, broadcast across the holonet, so poisonous it reached its grip even into the Senate itself.

There were protests in the streets, anti-war and anti-Jedi. Well, she at least she agreed with the former. This war needed to end, and Padmé could not understand why everyone else was blind to this fact. It was too costly. Economically, mentally, physically. It was not sustainable. Neither government had a leader. So why was it still going on?

The Senate would not listen, drowned her words out more ardently than they ever had, so Padmé decided to take her message elsewhere: to the masses. She went on the holonet, on program after program, taking questions and trying to reach a multitude of demographics. Speeches, fundraisers, events, interviews. If people’s representatives would not listen to their constituents, she said to the cameras, they must vote in people who would.

Her peers in the Senate did not approve. They said she was pandering, manipulating, they retorted to personal attacks with always the same excuse: don’t listen to her. She helped put Palpatine in office.

Indeed she had, and she was getting so sick of being reminded of it that she could feel a change in her mood. She was being dragged down to the depths, suddenly remembering very vividly what it had felt like to be tremendously depressed, but this time she decided she would fight back. If every interview wanted to talk about Palpatine, then she would talk about Palpatine.

“I want to make it very clear,” she said firmly to Coruscant Now host Cesi Bao, a purple-skinned Twi’lek with a penchant for spreading gossip and day drinking. What can I say, Padmé had thought dismally as she booked the interview, desperate times call for desperate measures. “Yes, on paper, Palpatine was elected into the office of the Supreme Chancellor because I, under his recommendation, called for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum. However, you may recall that I did not personally put forward his name, it was his fellow senators at the time who did that.”

“I understand that he also assisted you in becoming queen?” Padmé affirmed the statement. “In retrospect, how do you think that influenced your reign?”

Padmé gathered her thoughts for a moment. “It feels personally devastating to know that I was something of a player in his twisted games. I will say, however, that I derive some personal satisfaction from knowing his plans to use me have repeatedly failed.”

Cesi looked someone shocked at the boldness of her statement. “Can you elaborate?”

“Certainly,” Padmé said, and feeling so fed up with everything she decided that a certain amount of her usual decorum was off the table. She would not hold back. She had so little to lose. “At the same time that then-Senator Palpatine was climbing to the role of Supreme Chancellor, he had also ordered the Trade Federation’s blockade of my planet and sent his Sith Lord apprentice to kill me, thus attempting to create civil unrest in the galaxy. These attempts failed, as his apprentice was defeated by the Jedi and the occupation droids were shut down. Ten years later, via his next Sith Lord apprentice Count Dooku, he attempted to have me assassinated several more times. I can only assume this means I was doing something he did not like.”

She could tell, and it gave her some satisfaction, that Cesi was feeling uncomfortable. Padmé knew why. People did not like to talk about what they did not understand, and Sith Lords were something the public very much did not understand. The host glanced at her producer, who in the corner of Padme’s eye was motioning at Cesi to move things along, but Padmé would not be censored. Not anymore.

“Do you personally agree with the anti-war activists that have been gaining popularity throughout the Republic?”

“I respect the right to peacefully protest the war,” Padmé said calmly. “I have been fighting against this war since before its inception. In fact, one of Palpatine’s assassination attempts against me was due to my opposition to the Military Creation Act.”

Cesi tried to cut her off. “Do you —”

“And I want to emphasize,” Padmé said loudly, “That while people should be protesting the war itself, many of them are instead targeting the Jedi. They are targeting the people who are constantly putting their lives on the line for the benefit of the masses. You ask if I support the anti-war movement, but what I really support is people learning the truth, and the truth is that our enemies are not the Jedi, they are not the clone army, they are not even the Separatist Parliament themselves. Our true enemy is the Sith, who manipulated all of us into starting this war that we as a collective now refuse to end. We are running out of resources and time. Please, everyone, I implore you, tell your representatives you will not stand for this. It is far past time to end the Clone War.”

The woman across from her was stunned. Her producer waved to her frantically, and she said, “Senator Amidala, thank you, we are out of time.”

Yes, Padmé thought. They were.

The last few months had been an uphill battle for Obi-Wan, but little more so than the rest of the war, at least. Though Dooku and Grievous were now both dead, the hidden figures at the head of the Separatist army persisted with the war effort. The Parliament maintained their independence. And thus they fought, hopping from system to system, winning more battles than they lost.

Anakin was back at the helm of the 501st, much to the delight of his men. After a few weeks of pacing around their living space, doing little but studying military protocol and strategy, the Council had deemed him ready and shipped them out. There were precautions that had to be heeded along the way, and though seizure-free since the failed peace conference Anakin’s doctors would not approve him for flying, but overall Obi-Wan thought it was going remarkably well. His friend proved as always inspirational to his soldiers, and having him back seemed to drive them to work and fight harder than ever before. At the least, Obi-Wan felt relieved to have Rex there to keep an eye on Anakin when he and Ahsoka could not.

All was not well, though, for anomalies seemed to be cropping up quicker than they could track. Stray clones, apparently working alone, turning on their Jedi Generals. The first, two months ago, had been sent to Kamino, where the cloners concluded it was an anomaly, and announced their decision that it must have been some stray viral infection that influenced his judgement. When the second Jedi had been killed by a separate clone in another legion, suspicion began to grow among the Council. It hadn’t felt right. And then came the third, then the fourth….

This was the fifth instance, now, Obi-Wan learned from the Council after another harrowing battle. Deep in thought, he walked slowly through the cruiser as it hurtled toward Coruscant, finding himself eventually in the hangar where Anakin was mindlessly touching up the yellow paint on his fighter’s wing. Anakin didn’t look up. “What’s wrong now?”

“I just got off with the Council,” Obi-Wan said, watching him work. “There’s been another instance of a clone turning on a Jedi.”

Anakin looked up, frowning. “How does this keep happening?”

“Hopefully we will soon find out,” Obi-Wan said. “There were two Jedi on this mission, and the survivor is bringing this clone straight to the temple so we can do our own investigation.”

“Against the orders of the Kaminoans? You Jedi are getting bold.”

Obi-Wan smiled. Indeed, the Kaminoans had been staunchly against the Jedi bringing these matters into their own hands, and that sentiment had started to feel quite fishy about four Jedi deaths ago. “Hopefully whatever the issue is, it is something we can correct. Which brings me to my next point…when we return, the Council will be launching into the investigation. Yoda has to postpone your training.”

“Again?” Anakin said, heaving a great aggravated sigh. “Look I’m happy to fight in the war for all of you but he’s the one who suggested I train with him. How can I get anywhere if we keep putting it off?”

“Patience,” Obi-Wan chided. “We will get there.”

“Sidious is not going to wait for me to be ready to fight him,” Anakin retorted, bending over his ship to hide his face. “The Separatists are shutting down droid factories all over the galaxy. We keep eliminating Separatist strongholds and one of these days, he will be there waiting for me. How can you really expect me to be patient?”

“Because Yoda expects you to,” Obi-Wan said calmly. “He will not give you the training you want until he thinks you are ready.”

“I am ready.”

“You are not. You are far too busy being impatient.”

Anakin sighed and leaned against the ship dramatically. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be,” Obi-Wan said, putting a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You just need to slow down. Yoda will be there when you do.” Anakin hung his head and nodded introspectively.

Obi-Wan gave him a gentle pat on the back. “I’ll find you after my meeting, and we shall work on that slowing down.”

He bade his friend farewell, and when the cruiser arrived on Coruscant he made straight for the Council strategy room. Mace filled him in on the latest. It was the same situation as the last three — one solitary clone, in the midst of heated battle, had been fighting with the Jedi one moment and against them the next. Always, without fail, a clone who had shown exemplary service and dedication until one moment they didn’t. And it was always the same pattern. A single blaster bolt to the back.

Dooku’s words plagued his mind. It only takes one droid to kill a Jedi. But these were not droids, not this time. Clones, soldiers with loyalty bred into their genes. The Jedi had never found out exactly how the Kaminoans had done this in the first place, but Obi-Wan suspected they were soon to find out.

Soon, the clone who had done the most recent killing, Sid, arrived in the medical ward. He looked unwell, gaunt and distressed, his hands bound in cuffs but otherwise unrestrained. He shirked back in the examining chair as if in fear.

Shaak Ti, just back from Kamino, began a line of questioning in her firm but gentle tone. “Sid, my name is Shaak Ti of the Jedi Council. Can you please tell us what happened?”

Sid was shaking, and wouldn’t look any of them in the eye. He did not seem entirely cognizant of his surroundings. “Good…good soldiers…follow…good soldiers follow orders… good soldiers follow orders.…”

“Can you hear me, Sid? What orders did you receive, and from whom?”

The clone reached his bound hands to his face and tapped at his temple, still staring wildly at nothing. “The orders…they’ve always been there…always known, just waiting, waiting for the orders…the mission…the great mission….”

The heart rate sensor was going wild. Shaak Ti placed a gentle hand on Sid’s shoulder to hold him back as he squirmed, and with her touch, he seemed to notice she was there. For a moment he stared at her, as if seeing something for the first time, and muttered, “Jedi….”

He exploded into movement, but none of the Jedi were to be startled. Rather, he was calmly held down even as he fought them and a doctor stepped forward to sedate him.

Shaak Ti looked around at the other masters. “Each clone I examined on Kamino exhibited similar behaviors as Sid has, a hostility toward the Jedi, and a certainty that he had orders against us. They’ve all had the same sense of confusion and delirium. The Kaminoans maintain that these are isolated anomalies caused by some sort of virus, but I sense something greater at work here.”

“An infection of some sort would not be without precedent,” Obi-Wan said, stroking his beard in thought. “During the second battle of Geonosis we encountered a mind-controlling parasite. It is not impossible the Geonosians provided something of the like to the other Separatists before we took control of their planet.”

Windu nodded thoughtfully. “Our knowledge of the Geonosian parasites is limited, but they seemed to cause the victim to be hostile toward any enemy of the Separatists, not just Jedi.”

“I was present for many of the tests the Kaminoans performed,” Shaak said, “And from what I was shown there was no confirmed evidence of any sort of parasite or other infection. I think a more likely possibility is some form of Separatist brainwashing. We know from Skywalker that this is within their power. He may have some insight that could be useful in solving this mystery.”

“Bring him in we will,” Yoda said in agreement. "In the meantime, perform you must any necessary tests on this soldier.”

“I recommend a progressive series of brain scans,” Shaak Ti said to both the doctors and Yoda. “It was originally suggested by a droid to the Kaminoans after the first Jedi death, but they refused and instead terminated each of the clones. I think it a fitting place to begin. If the initial scans do not work, progress up to a level five atomic brain scan.”

The doctors set to work, and later the Council gathered in the communications hub to explain their queries to Anakin.

“You think the clones might have been brainwashed?” Anakin said, crossing his arms over his chest thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s possible.”

“Did you see anyone else in the facility who looked to be in the same situation as you?” Windu asked.

“No,” Anakin said. “To my knowledge it was just me. Although…even if you’re right, this feels different than what they did to me. It seems….” He hesitated, shifting uncomfortable. “It seems like these clones were being influenced in a way I wasn’t. From what I’ve heard they seem unable to stop themselves whereas I was in full control of my actions.”

“Still, other forms of brainwashing have been documented,” Plo Koon’s hologram said. “Have we performed any psychological tests on this clone?”

“Psychological tests were attempted, yes,” Shaak Ti replied, “But they were ineffective. Sid is under far too much distress to answer any questions rationally.”

“What about other forms of Separatist intervention?” Ki-Adi-Mundi said. “Including possible infiltration of Kamino? A conspiracy, perhaps?”

“Much there is that we do not know,” Yoda said. “Know we not how this army came to be. Claim these Kaminoans do that Master Sifo-Diyas commissioned the army, but another figure there was, according to Obi-Wan.”

“That’s right,” Obi-Wan affirmed. “Jango Fett told me he had never heard the name Sifo-Diyas, but rather he had been recruited by a man called Tyranus. But we have never been able to find any evidence of this man except for Fett's testimony.”

“I think I can answer that one,” Anakin said unexpectedly, and everyone turned to him. “It’s Dooku.”

Windu furrowed his brow. “What makes you think so?”

Anakin looked surprised they didn’t know. “Darth Tyranus, that’s Dooku’s Sith name. That’s what they had me call him when I was on Serenno.”

Obi-Wan gaped at him. “You’re saying Dooku commissioned the clone army?”

“Apparently,” Anakin said, seeming unfazed by the revelation.

The room was silent for a moment. The council was as shocked as a group of wizened Jedi masters would allow themselves to be. Even Yoda seemed forlorn. “Blind we are,” he said. “Deeper and deeper, this conspiracy goes. Another plot to destroy us this is, set in motion by Darth Sidious. Learn the full truth, we must.”

At that moment, the door to the room opened and the doctor from Sid’s examination, Master Senna, entered with a bow. “Forgive my intrusion, masters, but I have an urgent update.” Windu motioned for her to proceed. “As instructed by Master Ti, we conducted a level five atomic brain scan of clone trooper Sid and located an anomaly in his brain — a tumor of some sort. I have it here.”

She raised a glass sample to show them. “Only, after performing a few tests on it, we discovered it is not actually a tumor by any definition we know. It contains no recognizable cancer cells that have ever been documented in a human. We examined it at a microscopic level side-by-side with a DNA sample of the clone’s regular brain tissue and I can confirm that they are not a match. It is organic in nature but its gene structure is entirely different. I believe whatever this is was planted inside Sid’s brain before he reached the developmental stage analogous to a newborn.”

“Is there any way to confirm this?” Shaak Ti asked.

“I recommend the first course of action should be to select a randomized control group of clones from different batches and perform similar brain scans to see if this mass is unique. However,” she said, her expression darkening, “I have neglected to mention that after the removal of this mass, clone trooper Sid died shortly thereafter upon the operating table. We have not yet determined if these two things are related, as his body had already been under immense stress.”

Yoda looked troubled. “Agree I do with your suggestion. Find volunteers we must, quickly.”

Windu nodded, and looked around the table. “Everyone here with a detachment currently on Coruscant, go to your men and look for volunteers. But be discreet — we do not yet want this to become public knowledge, even among our troops."

“Informed the volunteers must be of any risk, but worry I do not. A duty to the Republic these clones have, as do we all. Willing to put their lives on the line they will be. Nonetheless, only to trusted clones you all must go. A secret indeed this must be kept. Much time we do not have. Act now we must, before more Jedi can be killed.”

Yoda dismissed them, but motioned to Anakin and Obi-Wan to stay. “Put it off any longer I cannot. Begin your training we must, Skywalker. Go now to your clones and do what we have asked, then to my quarters you must come. But make no haste, for calm and patient your mind will have to be to learn what I must teach you.”

Seeming satisfied, Yoda walked slowly off, leaning heavier than usual on his walking stick, and Obi-Wan met Anakin’s eyes. He knew, instinctively, they were thinking the same thing — everything was about to change, and perhaps not for the better.

When Padmé came home from the office that night, her mind was so distracted that at first she did not notice all the lights were already on. Unusual, she thought, but perhaps the cleaning droids had come off-schedule or security had forgotten to turn it off. Not the strangest thing, she thought, until she heard something that was strange — voices. Several of them, coming from her dining room.

Motée, who had been with her all day, noticed her confusion but gave her an innocent smile as she walked off to her own private room to go off shift. “I wonder who that could be?”

Feeling uncannily like she was being set up for a strange prank, Padmé went slowly into her dining room and saw —

“Padmé’s home!” her mother Jobal said immediately to her granddaughters, sitting at the dining table along with Padmé’s father Ruwee and her sister Sola. The girls, Pooja and Ryoo, screamed in the way that young girls did and jumped out of their seats, running to their aunt so fast they almost knocked Padmé over.

She laughed, more unexpectedly exhilarated than she had been for ages. “What in the name of Shiraya are you all doing here?”

“It’s a surprise, silly,” Sola said, coming over to hug her. “Maybe you can’t take a vacation but we certainly can.”

“A vacation,” Padmé said, fake-skeptical. “To the capital of a wartime Republic that’s hanging on by the skin of its teeth?”

“That’s the one!”

Padmé was so happy she wanted to cry.

It turned out, they explained over dinner, that they had been watching her various displays over the holonet and thought she needed to destress but knew she couldn’t get away. “We saw you on Cesi Bao,” Jobal said excitedly. “It was so funny, she had no idea what to say. Everyone is talking about it.”

“Who is everyone?” Padmé asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, you’re the talk of Theed,” Sola said. “But I want to know what the queen thinks. Have you talked to her?”

“Queen Neeyutnee is almost as tired of this war as I am,” Padmé said. “Don’t tell anyone, but she’s glad her term is ending. She’s done a fantastic job, but I can only imagine how stressful it must be to rule right now. I can understand why she didn’t run for reelection, especially after everything with Palpatine.”

“What do you think of Apailana?” Ruwee asked curiously. “I assume she plans to keep you on as senator?”

“She told me so, yes,” Padmé said. “I think she’s wonderful. I just hope we can end the war before she’s coronated.”

They talked about politics throughout dinner, and then about Pooja and Ryoo, who blushed when Padmé said they got more beautiful every time she saw them. Afterward, they moved to the veranda, where Padmé braided Pooja’s hair while telling them exciting stories about her adventures with the Jedi. Eventually, Sola had to practically drag them away for bedtime, and her parents sat across from Padmé exchanging a look that made her think the mood in here was about to change.

“Okay,” Jobal said slowly, “I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but I’m your mother and I’m worried about you. The effort you put into your work is astounding even at the worst of times. And we’re not trying to pressure you in any way…we’re only suggesting this because we care about you and your health. Have you ever considered…settling down? Retiring from the senate, and coming home?”

“We’re not suggesting you leave public service, by any means,” Ruwee assured her.

“But I’m afraid this war is wearing you down too much,” Jobal continued. “You’re still so young, I don’t want you spending your entire youth fighting with these idiots in the Senate.”

Padmé smiled at them sadly. “I appreciate that more than you can ever know. And yes of course I wish I could come home, but people need me here. What I’m doing is so necessary and I’m just afraid if I stepped down there would be no one else to do what has to be done.”

“And the Naboo just love you,” Ruwee affirmed, “But they seem to be the only ones who want to listen to you. I don’t want the contention in the government here to break you.”

“And we just feel so apart from you, honey,” Jobal said, making an obvious effort not to sound too upset by the fact. “We feel like we don’t know anything about the amazing woman that you’ve become.”

“And we don’t mean Senator Amidala,” Ruwee nodded. “We see her in the news every day. And don’t think we’re not proud, because we are…but we feel like we’ve lost touch with Padmé Naberrie.”

“So let’s just talk for a little while,” Jobal said, with the gentle smile that Padmé most loved on her face. “Just tell us about how you’ve been. What projects are you working on? Have you had any relationships lately?”

Padmé felt her face flush, and she knew her parents must have noticed. She had never told her parents about her secret marriage to her secret husband, had agreed with Anakin from the start that if this was going to work, even those closest to them could not know. But that was no longer true, and it was no longer entirely a secret; Obi-Wan knew, now, and Ahsoka, and even Sola, and she hated asking her sister to lie to their parents for her…. The only thing that gave her pause, really, was the fact that it had been so long…it had been nearly three years, now, since she had gotten married, and a substantially large part of her felt that the longer she waited, the more awkward it would necessarily be when she finally told them….

For the first time in her life, she suddenly realized with a jolt how enormously distant from her parents she had been. For years. She hadn’t officially lived in their residence since she was a young girl, so young she hadn’t even begun to dream that she might actually be queen some day. She had always been welcome home, yes, and she had always nominally thought of them, and of Naboo, as her truest home, yet she was so distant from them. And not just by proximity, but emotionally, too. She’d never told them of her depression, even if they’d ultimately figured it out; they knew next to nothing of her friends outside politics, of her intimate relationships with not one but three Jedi; they were even, she realized, never the first to hear about her new projects, her new politics.

She didn’t want to be so distanced from them. She had never intended for it to happen, it had just…well, happened.

Well, not anymore, she decided, because they deserved better than that. Their whole family did.

So, with a deep breath, she said, “Actually…,” and she tried not to see the intrigued look that her mother and father shared with each other. “Do you remember that Jedi boy who was assigned to guard me during the Separatist Crisis?”

Her parents shared another look, and her mother said, slowly, “Yes…and Sola said he was the one who…was on the HoloNet with Count Dooku?”

Her father added, “And now they’re saying he’s alive?”

Padmé didn’t bother to ask where they’d learned that Anakin had survived. He was back at war now, after all, and she couldn’t pretend to be surprised that the hero Jedi who died and then came back would be a headline. Really, she was just grateful that she didn’t have to explain the situation over again.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “And he was the one who blew up the droid control ship and shut down the occupation armies when I was queen. He and I have a long history, you see, and when you met him, and I told you that our relationship was strictly professional, that was true.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “It was true.”

Padmé nodded. “It was…until a few days later, when we realized that we were in love.”

There was no judgement on their faces. Yet. Mostly, they just looked interested. Padmé stood, suddenly needing to move around, and went on. “Now, you probably know that Jedi are not supposed to have romantic relationships. Which is why, ultimately, I never told you….” She turned toward them, stood as tall as she could, and said, “Mom, Dad…I’m married.”

Silence overtook the room, and Padmé watched as her mother looked at her father, and her father looked at her mother, and as they looked back at her and said, “What?”

“I am married,” she repeated calmly, “To Jedi General Anakin Skywalker.” Her face immediately broke out in an enormous grin, and she realized she had never before said those exact words aloud, for others to hear. “And it feels so good to say that.”

“Wait a minute, Padmé,” Ruwee said, standing to match his daughter. Jobal was still seated, stunned, staring up at Padmé. “You’re married. For how long?”

Padmé took a deep breath. “Since the start of the war.”

“But why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because,” Padmé said calmly, “Our entire careers were at stake. If the Jedi Council found out, he would be expelled from their order, and if the Senate and the Queen knew, it would ruin my reputation for…for breaking social mores, for…corrupting one of the proud and noble Jedi Knights that defend our Republic. It’s not like I thought you would spill the secret, of course not — it’s just that, we thought it would be safer if no one knew, and that had to mean no one. And I really am sorry, and I swear it was never personal. If I had been able to tell anyone, you would have been the first.”

“If you had ‘been able to?’” Jobal repeated, still sitting. “Does that mean he —”

“No, Mom,” Padmé said, shaking her head violently. “Everything was mutual. He never put me up to anything. In fact, I was the one who proposed to him.”

And she would never forget that day. Together, on the way back to Naboo from Coruscant, where he was letting her examine his shining new prosthetic, watching her face with the first real smile she had seen on him since before Tatooine….

“I love you, too,” he had said suddenly. When she had looked up to meet his eyes, they had pierced her with the same passion they’d had at Varykino. “I don’t remember if I told you, after you said you loved me in the arena.”

Padmé had returned his grin, and leaned in to kiss him, and then kissed him once more, just for good measure. “Not in those words, maybe, but I knew.”

She remembered how he had reached his new arm around her to pull her in close, touching her very gingerly with the new hand. And she had sat there, curled up with him as her ship hurtled through hyperspace, and then suddenly she had found herself voicing an idea that she’d had for days, one that was absolutely insane, one that two rational people would never go through with, but they hadn’t been rational, they’d been in love….

“This is going to sound crazy,” she had whispered, as if it were a secret. It was a secret. “If we’re going to do this thing for real, then we can do it…for real.”

“What do you mean?”

“Marry me,” she’d breathed, staring into his eyes. “Marry me, Anakin.”

He hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t thought about it for even a moment. Thought about the consequences, the conditions. All he’d done was lean in and kiss her and nod his agreement into the kiss, and then she had wrapped both arms around his shoulders and the next day they were married and that night, she had felt closer with him than she had ever imagined being able to feel with anyone….

Anakin, she knew, remembered none of that. Maybe it would come back to him, one day. Or maybe not. But Padmé, she would never, ever forget.

Now, her parents were looking between each other and her, and for a while they were all three of them quiet, seated again on the soft couches. Having been lost in her memory, Padmé noticed now just how…not quite sad, not quite disappointed, but rather…how defeated they appeared.

“Mom, Dad,” she said again, looking between them from the opposite couch. “I really am sorry I lied to you. But I hope you can also be happy for me.”

Jobal caught herself, and put a smile on her face, put her hand on her husband’s knee. “Of course we are, darling. We’re just a little shocked, is all.”

“Did you at least get married in the religion?” Ruwee asked, with a casual hopefulness.

“Yes,” Padmé said, nodding. “Our two droids were our witnesses, and our astromech might still have the footage in him. I’ll try to find it for you.”

“Do we get to meet him?” Jobal asked, still trying to keep her smile on.

Again, Padmé found herself hesitating. “Well,” she said, “That’s where things get a little complicated. You know Count Dooku faked Anakin’s death on the HoloNet, but…see, he was held captive by Dooku for an entire year before the Jedi found him. I still don’t know exactly what they did to him, but he’s had some…well, long-term memory problems since he came back, and a lot of other issues that he’s working through, and we’re not exactly…together, anymore.”

Her parents didn’t appear to know what to say to that, though they looked stricken, so Padmé reached out her hands in a placating way and said, “But it’s okay! I’m okay. I mean, I miss him everyday, of course. I wish that I could be there more for him. But we’re friends. We talk whenever we can, and he’s back to fighting the war now but when he comes to Coruscant we see each other.”

“You still love him,” Ruwee said, looking at her in quiet sympathy.

“I love him so much, Dad,” she said. She found herself thinking of Anakin’s face, and talked as if she were in a daydream. “It’s so complicated. I can’t even explain it all, it would take ages, but…I thought he was dead for a year. An entire year…that’s why I dropped off the face of the planet for a while. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, because it was still a secret, and I didn’t have the energy to be able to explain…I couldn’t even say his name or think about him without crying. Then I found out he was alive, and then I found out he didn’t remember me…and sometimes I still cry when I think about him, but mostly I can’t help but smile. When I see him across the room, or when someone mentions his name in a war report, I…I’m so in love with him, and even if he never loves me again I can’t ever see myself loving someone else the way that I love him.”

Her parents were looking at her from the other couch, but they no longer looked upon her in defeat, or disappointment, or whatever it was. Rather, it was a sad but loving gaze, and she knew that now they understood. And how could they not? They had been married for more than thirty years, and they always seemed as happy together as she had ever been able to remember them. Of course they would understand.

It was then that Sola came back in, having put the girls to sleep, and she stopped dead when she saw the looks on all their faces. “Did I miss something?”

Padmé moved aside to give her room on the couch. “I told them about Anakin.”

Jobal’s brows shot up. “Sola knew?” Ruwee patted her on the arm, and she cleared her throat. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to the idea.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Padmé said. “I told Sola a few months ago when I went home to meet with the queen. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, quit apologizing,” Sola said, waving her hand in the air. “You’ve enough on your plate without worrying about upsetting us. We’re happy for you, all of us. And when the girls find out, they’ll be thrilled. Ryoo thought your Jedi was so cute when he came to visit. And maybe one day they’ll get some cousins!”

Padmé laughed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. He’s not even interested in me right now.”

“Sure he is,” Sola said, shrugging. “What kind of man would find out he’s married to Queen Amidala and turn her away? He’ll be back, don’t you worry.”

“And when he does,” Jobal said, smiling mischievously like she agreed with Sola, “I’m sure you’ll tell us about it right away, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mom,” Padmé said with another laugh. “I promise.”

Anakin went to Yoda as promised after returning from his flagship, entering the elderly Jedi’s personal chambers with a twinge of nervousness he could not help. With his eyes closed, already deep in meditation, Yoda gestured with clawed fingers for Anakin to sit and mirror him. Thinking of what the wizened master had said earlier, Anakin closed his eyes and tried to emulate Yoda with a determination to be calm and as Jedi-like as he could be.

But it was hard — it wasn’t that he never meditated. He did, although it was never really a conscious decision to do so. Usually, he would go to the hangar to distract himself, or sink deep into fiddling with a droid to better deal with the thoughts he had, or exercise now that his physical problems were under control, but it was only after Obi-Wan had mentioned what he called moving meditation that Anakin had realized that’s what it was.

It would not be like that with Yoda, he knew. He just hoped he didn’t get jittery.

He felt the old master move, and opened his eyes. Yoda slowly raised his gaze to look at him, and Anakin couldn’t bite down a feeling that he was really being seen. “Train you now I will not,” Yoda said conclusively. “Ready, you are not.”

What?

Anakin didn’t realize at first he had said it out loud, but he did. “You said it yourself earlier today. You said we can’t wait any longer.”

“Wrong I was. Too hasty are you now. Learn nothing you will if you cannot let go your impatience.”

Jittery indeed. He had to get up. He had to stand. He could not help but to move around the room and he could not help the anger that swelled inside him. He swung around to look at Yoda, who watched him calmly. “How can I help but be impatient if every single time I come back to Coruscant to train, you change your mind? I want to destroy the Sith for you! I want to put an end to this, but that’s not enough and I just don’t understand why. Everything with you and Windu is cryptic statements and criticisms. It’s like you expect me to come to the correct conclusions about everything on my own without actually telling me what I’m doing wrong!”

“Oh!” Yoda exclaimed, his eyes wide. “And come to the correct conclusion, you have.”

Anakin sighed, and sat back on the stool. “I don’t understand, Master Yoda. I don’t know how not to be angry. How not to be impatient.”

Yoda hummed in agreement. “Your greatest failing, that is,” he said. “Come, come.” He waved his hand, and Anakin got back into the meditative position. “The reason impatient you are is that slow down you will not. Always with you it is a hurry, it is something that must be done. Quickly, quickly, you say. Eager you are to get to the next moment. Always following temptation you are. Just now, thought that had to move around you did. To truly know the Force, you must be present. You must stop.”

He shook his head a little. “Start slow we will, for slow you must learn to be. Close your eyes. For five minutes, think not. Feel not, except with the Force. Empty your mind must be.”

“I’ll try.”

“No,” Yoda said sharply. “You will either do, or you will not.”

With a nod, Anakin closed his eyes, and breathed. And adjusted his pose to be more comfortable. Breathed more. And he thought, about how hard it was not to think.

After a time, Yoda said, “Cluttered your mind is. Fidgeting you are. Too conscious of your physical form. Now, again, clear your mind. And this time, do.”

It went on for a while, though he did not know how long, and eventually Anakin wasn’t exactly sure what he was thinking, just that he couldn’t seem to stop doing it. Eventually, Yoda halted the cycle, and Anakin realized how late it had gotten.

Yoda looked him over, seeing through him. “Hmmm. Better, though thinking still you are. A long way you have to go. Continue practicing you must, constantly. Dwelling you are on physical things. People, actions. Let go you must.” Anakin said nothing. “Think of yourself as a body, you do, but incorrect this is. Luminous beings are we. Made of the Force are we, occupying temporary vessels. Focus you do on the termination of these vessels. Fear death you do, more than anything. But a cycle life is, and a part of that cycle death is as well. Die you will, and I, and your friends. And no stranger are you to death.”

Anakin looked up at him, suddenly feeling more exposed than he had for a long time.

“Now, once more,” Yoda instructed him, and Anakin obeyed. This time, he did not try. He just…did.

Chapter Text

The days ticked by, but they mostly blurred together, for that was how much Anakin found himself in Yoda’s quarters. They said little, but rather sat in meditation for hours at a time. There were ups and downs, and it was uncomfortable at times, but Yoda seemed satisfied there was improvement. Gradually, Anakin himself started to notice as well. After perhaps a week of this, Yoda opened his eyes at the end of a session and said, “How feel you?”

Anakin did not need to think of a response. “I don’t.”

Yoda nodded once. “Then ready you are.”

The next evening, he gathered with Yoda and Windu in a private training room, expansive enough to give them plenty of room but where no one could watch them. Anakin was not sure how this was going to go, and would not deny the involuntary twinge of anxiety that lingered in his gut.

“I must confess,” Windu said, staring at Anakin skeptically but speaking to Yoda, “I do not believe he is ready for this lesson.”

Anakin was almost surprised that did not make him angry, or even annoyed. Windu seemed surprised, too, and almost impressed. Almost.

“Ready he is,” Yoda replied. He looked at Anakin. “Much improvement he has made. Tell me, what know you of Force lightning?”

“Not much,” Anakin admitted. “It’s a power of the dark side. I suppose it can’t really be lightning in the scientific sense.”

“Mm. True is the latter, but wrong that it is a part of the dark side. A manifestation of Force it is for which the Jedi have no practical use, but need to use the dark side to form it it one does not. Use it for torture the Sith do, as you know. Think you back on how it felt.”

A shiver traced itself down Anakin’s spine. “It’s like being on fire, but nothing I can do will put it out.”

“Yes. Now release your thoughts. Be able to do this on a moment’s notice you must.” He allowed Anakin a moment to do so. With a breath, in and out, he let go. Yoda nodded. “Change the intensity of the lightning, the user can. Lethal it can be, but not always is. Watch.”

Windu ignited his lightsaber, and Anakin watched with rising discomfort, knowing what was about to happen. And when it did, and blue bolts emerged from Yoda’s fingers, nothing Anakin could do could stop him from recoiling. Familiar fear overcame him. Panic. Shame.

Yoda stopped his demonstration, and looked up at him. Windu was shaking his head. “Release these feelings you must, or cripple you again Sidious will.”

“It’s not that simple,” Anakin snapped, losing himself for a moment. “Even the Jedi doctors  tell me it’s physiological. I’m on medication for it. I can’t help it.”

“An emotion it is, regardless of its source,” Yoda said. “Control it you can.”

Anakin released a shuddering breath. Yoda’s words made sense, but they did not make the panic go away. He wished Obi-Wan was here.

“Hmm! Help you now, Obi-Wan cannot,” Yoda said sharply, sensing his desire. “Up to you, your feelings are. Hinder you, your attachment does.”

Anakin shook his head. “I disagree.”

“There is a reason attachment is forbidden by the Jedi Code,” Windu said coolly. “A reason Obi-Wan also seems to forget. Attachment leads to jealousy, and fuels fear. If you do not learn to let go of others, Sidious will use your attachment to Obi-Wan to draw out the darkness in you.”

“But those feelings saved me from the dark side,” Anakin said, crossing his arms against his chest. “Obi-Wan’s compassion for me is the only reason I’m here.”

“Only compassion it was not,” Yoda argued. “Fueled by his attachment to you Obi-Wan was. And while helped you once it may have, undo it can the progress you have made and suffer the dark side’s consequences you will! Know I do what happened to your mother. Know I do what happened after she died. Do it again, would you, if in that situation right now you were? Hm?” Anakin bowed his head in shame. “Darkness there is in you, Anakin, and put there by Sidious it was not. Understand you do why you must let go, but refuse you to listen. No more teachings will I give you today. Go and meditate on what I have said. Revisit this we will when begun you have to let go.”

Anakin nodded, and turned tail like a frightened animal to get out of that room as quickly as he could. He felt so raw, exposed. But it was not the panic from the lightning that haunted him now, but Yoda’s words. Know I do what happened to your mother….

He shivered. Ever since Sidious had brought up his revenge kill during their most recent encounter, Anakin had suspected it was true. He didn’t remember the event, necessarily, and Obi-Wan of course didn’t believe it, but that was because Obi-Wan refused to see anything but the best in him. But it was true. Yoda had just confirmed it. Anakin couldn’t deny it any longer.

He felt so sick, so dirty. He didn’t want to go home right away, couldn’t look into Obi-Wan’s eyes and lie to him about not being a murderer at heart, so he just walked for a while, stewing in his hatred of himself. Avoiding any reflections so he didn’t have to see a killer looking back at him.

This was why the Sith had chosen him. Why me? he had asked Obi-Wan, had asked Dr. Broca. Well, this was the reason. His soul was simply dark by nature. He was capable of things that most people would never dream of doing. No, he wasn’t just capable — he was guilty. He had done things most people never would. He couldn’t even pretend to blame this one on the Sith. This was all him.

He felt so alone.

There were all these people who cared about him. And not for the first time, he couldn’t exactly figure out why. Why Padmé always smiled so brilliantly when he commed her. Why Ahsoka sought out his company in her free time. Why Obi-Wan had completely dedicated himself to him. To Anakin. To a cold-blooded killer.

Yoda was right. Obi-Wan could not help him now. Obi-Wan could never understand. None of them could.

Anakin found his way over to the fountain room, walked slowly under the brush with his arms drawn around himself as if to protect from a chill in the air. He found a secluded spot and sat down, hidden from the world, from the Jedi, from everything but the Force. Yoda was right again — the Force would tell him what to do. He had to trust in it. There was nothing else he could do.

He sat. Closed his eyes. He thought about his mother. Conjured up an image and didn’t know if it was real. He pictured her face, from so long ago. She had a sad, loving smile. In his conscious form, his stomach flooded with guilt, and he banished the image. He did not deserve to look upon her. Instead, he sunk deeper into the Force.

It moved all around him. Through him. Through the air, through the temple, through the foliage surrounding him. In between him and the ground and the ceiling and each blade of grass. This temple was a conduit, a magnifier. The Force was stronger here than anywhere he could recall. It would tell him what to do. Anakin just had to listen.

He breathed in.

Then he breathed out.

He just had to listen.

It had been a week since the removal of the clone Sid’s brain anomaly, and his death. A batch of clone volunteers from the 212th, 501st, and a smattering of other battalions had been tested and found positive for these tumor-like masses, and though all had had the tumors removed, none of them had died as Sid had. As the days passed and the Coruscant sun rose and fell in the sky, the Jedi doctors gathered to perform test after test, reporting in occasionally to give the Council their progress.

In the meantime, the Council finally found it appropriate to contact the Kaminoans. Dr. Nala Se, head clone engineer and Obi-Wan’s initial contact when they first learned of Kamino, greeted them at the temple.

“Hoping you could enlighten us of something we were, Doctor,” Yoda said, and waved his hand at the Jedi doctor Senna, who had performed the initial tests on the clones at the temple. She nodded and explained their findings to Nala Se, and while Obi-Wan was not familiar enough with the species to read her body language, he could sense shock in her plain as day.

Dr. Senna said, “What we were hoping, Dr. Se, was that you could help us shed any light on the nature of these organic masses found in each of the clones brains.”

The Kaminoan doctor looked around at the faces of the Jedi, and said in her slow fashion, “With all due respect, Master Jedi, I wish you had brought this to our attention before removing these masses from the clones. These are inhibitor chips placed in each clone to ensure faultless loyalty and obedience to the Republic. To remove them could irreparably damage the ability of each of these clones to obey your orders. I recommend you pull each of these soldiers from duty immediately.”

The Council members looked at each other, communicating in a way only the Jedi could. “Inhibitor chips?” Mace said. “Can you elaborate?”

“Certainly, Master Jedi,” Nala Se said graciously. “It is standard procedure among cloners to include select behavioral inhibitors of this kind. We create them from an organic carbon base, built at the DNA level. From there, we are able to render those with such a chip less prone to independent thoughts and actions. Thus, we are able to create the ideal soldier. Flawlessly obedient, and perfectly loyal.”

“Your design is not without fault,” Obi-Wan observed, stroking his beard. “Even before these Jedi murders, one of our clones once turned on us of their own free will, years ago at the battle of Christophsis.”

“There is the occasional mutation that is missed by our screening process,” Nala Se said. “The Jedi use some of these mutations to their advantage. Clone Force 99, for example.”

“Are you suggesting that genetic mutations caused these clones to turn on the Jedi?” Shaak Ti said skeptically. “During your tests on the other four clones, you maintained that a virus was at fault.”

“That is our current hypothesis, yes,” Nala Se said. “We are almost finished with an inoculation combating a viral strain of this nature. The problem should subside shortly.”

“Clone soldiers murdering Jedi is not simply a problem,” Shaak replied coolly. “Dr. Senna? What do you think of Dr. Se’s claims that a viral infection is the root of the issue?”

“Our autopsy of clone trooper Sid was extensive and showed no trace of an infection of any sort, nor any significant flaw that could not be attributed to extreme stress,” Senna said. “Our conclusion is it is most likely a fault of this inhibitor chip. As you can see in this hologram —“ she pressed a few keys and raised an image of two ‘chips’ side by side, one black and rotted and one not. She pointed at the rotted one. “The sample from Sid appears to be defective whereas the samples pulled from other clones are not. We have kept each of the clones in the test group under constant monitoring, and none of them have showed any sort of reaction to having the chip removed, either positive or negative.”

Windu looked at Nala Se. “Your thoughts, Doctor?”

She seemed to hesitate. “It is not impossible that the malfunctioning inhibitor chip could have caused aggressive behavior in this one individual clone. However, there is no evidence that the other four clones experienced the same malfunction. Our autopsies were similarly extensive, and did not provide the same results.”

“Perhaps if we could see your records to compare our hypotheses,” Dr. Senna suggested.

“I would go one step further,” Shaak Ti said boldly. “I request the Jedi be allowed to perform our own autopsies of the other four clones.”

“You are welcome to return to our facility at any time, Master Ti,” Nala Se said calmly, “But I do not believe our prime minister would agree with your request. The clones are Kaminoan property, and we have jurisdiction over the bodies.”

“The clones were purchased by a Jedi Master, and are now funded by the Republic. Legally speaking, they are our ‘property’.”

Property, indeed. Obi-Wan had to repress a shudder.

“We have been very generous in granting your graces much authority thus far,” Nala Se replied. “But Prime Minister Lama Su has insisted on handling this matter ourselves. You are welcome to contact him directly, but he will not deviate.”

“If that is the case,” Shaak Ti said, turning to Yoda and Windu, “I recommend removal of the inhibitor chips from every clone in Grand Army of the Republic. If even a single clone’s chip remains, it is possible that any of them may turn on the Jedi without warning.”

“You cannot do this,” Nala Se said, much sharper than she had been before. “Removal of the inhibitor chips is extremely dangerous. As I said, any clones with their chips removed should be pulled from duty and returned to Kamino. Failure to do so could have devastating consequences.”

Mace said, “What consequences, Doctor?”

“A total refusal to engage in combat,” Nala Se said. “Complete rebellion. The army will no longer be able to function and will be overwhelmed by the Separatists within weeks.”

Yoda raised his hand and commanded immediate attention. “Thank you, Dr. Se,” he said kindly. “Appreciate your input, we do. Contact you we will with any more questions.”

Seeming somewhat surprised at the abrupt dismissal, the Kaminoan doctor bowed and exited the room. Each Jedi around the table took a moment to reach into the Force for guidance.

“Dr. Senna,” Yoda said thoughtfully. “Agree with Master Ti do you on the removal of the inhibitor chips?”

“I do, Master,” she replied. “I would not have come to you if I were not certain this is the answer.”

“I agree,” Obi-Wan said. “I cannot believe the clones’ loyalty is based only on an implanted chip, and I have served with them long enough to know they can and do think independently. As with Master Krell, for example. The men knew instinctively that something was wrong, and acted accordingly.”

“I believe my men are loyal to me of their own accord,” Plo said in agreement. “I agree with the plan.”

Each member of the council nodded their approval.

“What of the Senate?” Mace said, looking down at Yoda with a frown. “They have Kaminoan representation, if they attempt to stop us from removing the inhibitor chips we may be unable to proceed.”

“Neither can we ignore Dooku’s involvement in this,” Obi-Wan added. “If he truly is the one who commissioned the clones under Master Sifo-Dyas’s name, the actions of these clones may be directly related to the Sith.”

“A chance we cannot take,” Yoda agreed. “Exert our authority in this matter we must, with Jedi lives at stake. Five traitorous clones there were, out of millions. Five Jedi dead out of ten thousand. Outnumbered we are in an emergency, even if one Jedi equals dozens of clones in strength. If there exists even a doubt that kill more Jedi these chips could, then action we must take, and swiftly. Announce now to the fleet to begin removal of these chips. Provide the instructions, Dr. Senna and her team will.”

And so they set to work. First to have their chips removed were the 212th, the 501st, the 104th, and all the clones stationed on or around Coruscant. No other soldiers seemed to have symptoms, and none of the chips freshly removed had any signs of decay as Sid’s had — but it was an unnerving time. The possibility that Dooku, and by extension Sidious, had been involved somehow in the Jedi betrayals was frightening to say the least.

Anakin said it best, though somewhat bluntly, when Obi-Wan told him what they knew. “No one,” he said angrily, “Should ever have any kind of chip in them. I’ve avoided having this argument until now, but the clones are slaves, period. They’re good people and they’re definitely individuals, but they’re still slaves. I don’t get why no one else sees that.”

“You do have a unique perspective,” Obi-Wan said fairly. “You’re right, I would have argued with you before, but this is a turn of events no one could have foreseen.”

“I did,” Anakin said, pouting. “Especially after you said Dooku commissioned the army. The Sith have no regard for anyone but themselves. They barely even have regard for each other, and they certainly had none for me.”

“Even so,” Obi-Wan said sadly, “It’s just hard for me to reconcile these revelations. I always thought the Republic was a force for good. It’s what I was raised to believe. But the Sith seem to have had such an easy time corrupting it, I just don’t know anymore.”

Anakin shrugged. “I don’t know about politics, but if the Republic was truly a force for good they would have done something about slavery on a galactic scale. The truth is no one wants to see the clones as a slave army because they don’t want to think about the ramifications of being slavers themselves.”

It may have been a simple, black-and-white point of view…but it may not have been wrong, either, Obi-Wan thought.

The first clones out in the field were beginning to have their chips removed when the Council received a transmission from Lama Su, prime minister of Kamino. Even in a hologram, his tall and graceful form maintained a self-assured dignity.

“Master Jedi,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “It has come to my attention that you are having the clones’ inhibitor chips removed en masse. I must ask that you stop this immediately.”

“Prime Minister,” Mace said, returning his bow. “As I’m sure Nala Se informed you, unless you can present us with an evidence-based conclusion of what caused the five clones to turn on their Jedi, we will continue. Against your wishes if necessary.”

“I cannot. But I assure you the inhibitor chips cannot be safely removed if you are to continue using these clones in combat. The chips are a highly specialized and extremely vital part of the clones’ biological makeup. Without them, they will become dangerous and unpredictable. Even we will not be able to control them.”

“Trust we have in the clones,” Yoda said. “See them as individuals, the Jedi do. Trust we do that continue to do their part they will.”

“Master Jedi,” Lama Su said again, seeming artificially remorseful. “I did not wish for it to come to this, but you give me no choice. If you will not desist, then Kamino will no longer be able to provide support to the Grand Army of the Republic.”

“Are you threatening to join the Separatists?” Obi-Wan asked, eyebrows raising.

“Kamino was effectively a neutral system prior to your visit to us, Master Kenobi,” Lama Su replied coolly. “We will withdraw Kaminoan representation from the Galactic Senate and return to acting as an independent system, but we will not align with the Confederacy.”

They all looked at Yoda, who stood pensive. Finally, he looked up at the hologram. “Risk the lives of Jedi I will not. Control your actions I cannot, Prime Minister, but caution you against your course of action, I must. Much more at stake there is than you realize. Attempt to draw you in, the Separatists will. Allow them to you cannot.”

In a flash, the Kaminoan had a rather funny look on his face, and Obi-Wan knew Yoda noticed.

Mace said, “If you are to withdraw from the Republic, you must hand custody of the remaining clones over to us.”

“Absolutely not,” Lama Su said. “As Nala Se informed you, the clones are property of the Kaminoan government. Any clone that is currently on Kamino shall remain here.”

“On the contrary,” Shaak Ti refuted, “The Clones were purchased by the Republic. They belong to us.”

“The Senate has an outstanding balance,” Lama Su said. “They cannot afford the cost of repaying the most recent loans. Until that is otherwise, we maintain ownership of the clones here.”

“Enough,” Yoda said. “Come to an agreement we will not. We thank you for your time, Prime Minister. May the Force be with you.”

Lama Su looked about to respond when the hologram cut off. Silence filled the room like a heavy weight.

Mace spoke first. “I do not believe the Kaminoans would leave the Republic if they did not have other plans. Despite his claims otherwise, I believe they may look to the Separatists for support.”

“If they haven’t already made a deal with them,” Obi-Wan said. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Agree I do. Action we must take,” Yoda said simply.

“Are you suggesting an invasion?” Shaak Ti asked warily.

“Other choice we may not have,” Yoda said. “If Dooku commissioned the army, ties with Sidious the Kaminoans may have. Take the planet we must, and finally uncover the truth behind this mystery.”

No one said anything. They were in agreement, though very reluctantly so. An attack on Kamino…the second, in fact, but this time with Separatist involvement being only a possibility….

This could not end well.

Anakin had been waiting outside Yoda’s quarters for some time before the old Jedi arrived, hobbling up with weariness heavy on his shoulders.

“Apologize, I do, for my lateness,” Yoda said as they entered. “With the Council I have been. A critical moment this is in the war. Planning an invasion of Kamino we are. A last resort it is, but allow Separatist interference with the clones we cannot.”

Anakin sat across from him as usual, and it seemed to take Yoda longer than normal to get comfortable in his chair. “Are you all right, Master Yoda?”

“Long have I served this Republic,” Yoda said tiredly. “And longer still I must. It matters not how I am. When over the war is, think about rest I will.”

“When will we be leaving for Kamino?”

Yoda peered up at him with those big brownish-green eyes. “Going are Obi-Wan and his Padawan. Staying here, you will be.”

It was nearly impossible to stop a burst of impatient frustration from snapping in him, both at the statement and Yoda’s tone — and Anakin knew that was the point. Before he could say anything, he took hold of his anger and put it aside. Breathed it out. Let it go.

Yoda nodded slowly. “Yes, yes. Many strides have you taken. Deny I won’t, the right to feel compassion for your friends, but able to let them go you must be. Recognize their agency you must, and their ability to care for themselves. Interfere with your mission your feelings cannot. That is the true nature of the Force. The only thing that can protect you from Sidious’s domination is yourself.”

Anakin nodded, thinking he actually was beginning to understand, and Yoda seemed satisfied. “Now. Give in to the Force. Look into you I will, and see if ready to try again you are.”

Ahsoka thought she had hardly had a good night’s sleep in about four months.

Every night was the same. Blood. A dead body, pale yellow eyes staring at the ceiling. So. Much. Blood.

A lot of the time she could ignore it, because a lot of the time she was out fighting. She was surrounded by those things, blood and dead bodies, all the time. It was normal. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but it was. At the temple, though, the dreams came back. It had gone on for so long now that she suspected she only had the dreams because she expected to have them, but even that self-awareness did not make them go away.

It was another such night. They were leaving for Kamino tomorrow so she was already restless; the idea of clones killing clones and clones killing Jedi was so frighteningly awful that dread alone would have kept her awake. But now, when the looming veil of death and fear was slowly creeping in on her, she just couldn’t lie here and ignore it anymore.

She left her room without a clear destination in mind, for it was both well past midnight and well before dawn, but she was not surprised when she found herself at her masters’ suite and was only slightly surprised to find Anakin awake. He looked up at her in concern. “Are you okay?” he asked, leaning back from R2’s open circuitry.

“I don’t know,” she said, and took a seat close to him. “I’m thinking about Dooku again.”

He frowned. “More nightmares?” She nodded despondently.

“It gets worse when I’m here,” she said.

Anakin rubbed the back of his neck absentmindedly. “I don’t know if I can help, but…tell me what you’re feeling.”

“It’s not the fact that I killed him that’s haunting me,” Ahsoka said, failing to repress a shudder. “It’s the way it happened, and the way I felt afterward. Right after he died, I got this sickly, cold feeling all throughout my body, and I just can’t stop thinking about it. I feel…tainted. Dirty.”

He looked away, deep in thought, and she realized how tired he looked. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but suddenly she felt sorry for placing yet another burden on his shoulders when already he was dealing with so much. No matter how much Ahsoka craved his comfort, she was about to tell him to forget it, she was fine, don’t worry about her, when —

“All right,” he sighed, and looked at her decisively. “How ‘bout this — I’m going to tell you what happened to me, and you tell me if any of it sounds like what you’re feeling. Okay?” She hesitated for a moment, but couldn’t help but nod. She had never heard any of this, at least not from him, and she was so desperate for reassurance that right now she would give anything to at least be able to fall and stay asleep….

Anakin gathered himself for a minute before he spoke. “This was after I had already lost my memory and been tortured for a while. The Sith told me that the only way to become truly powerful in the dark side was by…well, you know. Killing people. They didn’t exactly tell me how it worked, or if they did I forgot it, but I figured it out on my own pretty quickly. When you have that kind of power over others, you start to want more. And the more power you get, the more you want. It never ends.”

He swallowed thickly. His voice was starting to shake. Ahsoka couldn’t look away from him. “I didn’t want to kill anyone at first. But they…well, like Yoda says, fear is the first step, and I was terrified of the Sith. Afraid of what they might do to me if I didn’t obey. So, I obeyed. I killed these people. Innocent people. At first, that in itself was torture. But then…the more I did it, the easier it got. I could feel something chipping away at me, like I was losing part of myself. And then…eventually…I…started to enjoy it…. I….”

Ahsoka watched as he began to space out, expecting him to be gone for a few minutes like he normally was when he dissociated, and she gently reached for his hand. She was surprised, though, when he was able to speak. “Sorry,” he said, frowning at nothing. “I’m getting better at this.”

“You don’t have to keep going, it’s okay,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“I do,” Anakin said, determined. It looked as if he was seeing something that wasn’t there. “If I can’t get these under control I won’t be able to fight him.”

As she waited for him to come back, it struck her how much he had changed since his return. Months ago, what felt like ages now, he had been so withdrawn, trapped deep in his own psyche, rarely able even to form more than a few sentences. More and more she was beginning to understand why. With all Dooku — she shuddered — had told her on the Diligence, and Anakin’s words now…she’d talked with him about the dark side before but never with this sort of candor….

He looked up then, staring at the ceiling, blinking himself back into reality. Dazed, he whispered, “What was I saying?”

Ahsoka knew it was useless to try to get him to stop, but she found it very hard to have to remind him. “You said you were…starting to enjoy killing people.”

He nodded slowly, and looked around at her. “I just want you to understand…I know evil. I know the dark side. You’re not it.”

“You would know better than I,” she said carefully, “But it has to start somewhere, doesn’t it? I’ve been a Jedi long enough to know that the feelings I’m having, even if they’re not anywhere near what you’re describing, are not in line with the Jedi way. I’m afraid it’s just going to escalate.”

Anakin frowned distantly. “It’s not that I’m trying to get out of this conversation, but you might have to talk with Obi-Wan about that part.”

She sighed, agreeing with him. “I’ve put it off for so long, but I guess I should finally tell him.”

“You still haven’t told him?” Anakin said, surprised, and it was right before he looked up at something that Ahsoka realized they were no longer alone.

“Told me what?” Obi-Wan yawned, coming out of the hall. “Why you’re not sleeping on the eve of a major battle?”

Ahsoka glanced back at Anakin, who nodded encouragingly. She looked at her master and then down at her lap. “Master, I killed Dooku.”

Obi-Wan folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “I know.”

Her jaw fell open slightly. “You do? How?”

“Of course I do,” he said gently. “Things like that don’t stay secret from the Council.”

Quietly next to her, Anakin closed R2’s open panel and got up. He patted Obi-Wan on the shoulder and said, “I’ll let you, uh….”

Ahsoka waited for him to go and then said, “But why didn’t the Council confront me, or, I don’t know…whatever they do when people kill Sith.”

“Because I asked them not to,” Obi-Wan said simply. He moved to come and sit where Anakin had been. “There are not very many people who actually have killed a Sith, you know, let alone fought one and lived.”

“But what about you?” she asked, trying not to be accusing. She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt. “Why didn’t you confront me?”

“When I killed Darth Maul,” he said thoughtfully, “I had no one to help me process what I was going through. Rather, I found myself with more responsibility than I’d ever had. In retrospect, I believe the struggle ended up strengthening my resolve to be as good a Jedi as I could. In the end I made it through all right, and so I thought perhaps it would be good for you to muddle through this thing on your own. Was I wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pondering. “Anakin has helped me, though I still feel like I did wrong. Right before I killed Dooku, I allowed myself to be angry at what he had done. Both to Anakin and to me. I killed him for no reason but revenge. I know it’s not the Jedi way, but in that moment I wanted him to suffer.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Each of us will have those moments,” he said. “It is we do after that defines us as Jedi. Some will decide to embrace those feelings of hate and anger, but the stronger of us will choose to let go.”

“But let go of what, exactly? Our attachments? Our guilt?”

“Our anger,” Obi-Wan said simply. “You were angry at Dooku, yes, but you’re even more angry at yourself for failing to keep with the Jedi way. Part of our struggle as Jedi is to learn from our mistakes and rise up with the strength not to commit them again.”

“But what if I do make the mistake again? How do I know when I’ve made one mistake too many?”

“The Force does not keep a tally of all wrongdoings,” he said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. “You are allowed to make mistakes, Ahsoka. I have made my fair share. But if you live your life afraid of making mistakes, you will be more likely to mess up. You must learn to trust yourself.”

“Okay,” she said, absorbing his words. “Trust myself.”

“And the Force,” he said, put his hand on her shoulder. “Follow your instincts. They will not steer you wrong.”

She nodded. “Thank you Master,” she said, meaning it. “And — I’m sorry. I should have come to you about this before.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, smiling. “It’s all right, I understand. Padmé kindly informed at some point that I tend to be a bit overbearing with my Padawans.”

“A bit,” Ahsoka conceded, grinning. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. “You know…on my very first day when I shipped out to Christophsis, Anakin said to me that while he and I were a good match, he thought I might not have made it as your Padawan. For a while, after he died, I agreed. He was always so passionate, not logical like you, and I knew that if he’d been in the situation I was in, he would have let his emotions take over. I wanted to be able to do that, because if he could then why not me? But…it just backfired so quickly. In that time, I started to understand him better than I ever had. I was so angry all the time, like he had always been. I think that’s why the Sith chose him. So when I killed Dooku, and I gave into my anger, I just…became so afraid that I would be next.”

Obi-Wan looked at her sadly. “I can understand that. I felt something similar after I killed Maul. If I’d not had a distraction, I’m not sure how I would have ended up.”

“Maul…,” Ahsoka said. “So, Palpatine…Sidious…he was Maul’s master, too?”

“It seems that way, yes.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around it,” she said, lost in thought. “Anakin always talked about what a good friend Palpatine was to him. It just…makes me so sick knowing it was all a trick.” She looked around at Obi-Wan. “Do you think Anakin can beat him?”

She saw a fierce pride in her master’s eyes. “I know he can.”

Ahsoka nodded. She felt it, too. She only wondered if Anakin did.

Chapter Text

Ahsoka was a jumbled ball of nerves on the way to Kamino. Truly, she couldn’t really believe this was happening. Obi-Wan had given her updates on the Council’s progress — removing the clone’s inhibitor chips, dealing with the Kaminoans. But she had never thought it would go so far as the GAR staging an attack on their homeworld. It didn’t seem possible, and yet there they were. Maybe Anakin, stuck on Coruscant with Yoda, was the lucky one.

Sometimes, in the last few years, the clones felt like more of a family to her than the Jedi did.  No, that wasn’t fair. They were both her family. In a way, they’d always been a sort of extended family to one another. Two families, both raised their entire lives to serve the Republic. Then suddenly, members of one of those families turning on the other, for apparently no reason…it was terrifying. It was awful. Ahsoka simply could not imagine what it might feel like for one of the clones, her soldiers, her men, pointing their blaster at her with the intent to kill.

The removal of the clone chips, hopefully, would negate that chance. But they didn’t actually know that for sure….

She was with Obi-Wan on the bridge, hovering a step or two away as he spoke with Master Shaak Ti. If there was one good thing about this mission (and there really only was this one) it was that Ahsoka had always wanted to serve with Master Ti, with her long, striking lekku and beautiful, slow, deliberate manner of speech….

It was then that the Togruta master turned to her. “Padawan Tano,” she said. “Have you ever been to Kamino?”

“No, Master Ti,” Ahsoka said. “I was on Coruscant for the first battle. But I have studied the map of Tipoca City.”

Shaak Ti nodded. “The Kaminoans have no other form of defense beside the clones stationed there. There is a limited amount of equipment on the planet itself relative to an average battalion, which gives us an advantage. Still, it has been essential from the start to protect the cloning facility from attack, so they will be prepared for an assault.”

“It’s going to be a painful battle,” Obi-Wan said, looking at Ahsoka. “And not just physically. I know how close you are with the clones, Ahsoka. I am, too. Normally we’re fighting droids, but here it will be necessary to take lives. Will you be able to do that?”

A year ago, Ahsoka would have lied and said yes, anything to get her master to believe in her. Now, though, she was able to be more honest. “I’m not sure, Master. I’d like to think so, but I can’t help but think of how pointless this all is. The Jedi, and the clones, and the whole GAR, we’re all just players in a big pointless Sith game. I’m used to combat, I’m used to fighting, but this time…surely there must be a way to avoid it all?”

“Generals,” said a voice behind them then, and they turned to see a handful of clones of the 501st, each emblazoned in blue and white, standing steadfast with a firm determination etched into their helmet-less faces. Rex, Fives, Kix, Tup, and Jesse, who was now an ARC trooper.

“What is it, Captain?”

“If I may, sir,” Rex said, “We’d like to suggest an alternate plan.” Ahsoka glanced at Obi-Wan, and knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. Leave it to Anakin’s men…. Obi-Wan nodded, and Rex stepped forward.

“Ever since the battle of Umbara, both your men and ours have been haunted by the memory of what Krell made us do. Having to fire on our own brothers…I can’t even describe how it felt. So, we got to talking, and we think we may be able to avoid bloodshed to the catastrophic degree everyone is expecting.”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Sir,” Fives said, pulling a holodisc from a pocket and raising an image of the cloning facility. “Kamino is our home, and we know it well. We were thinking that during the main assault, if your men can draw their in their fire and create a distraction, all of us —“ he gestured at the men standing with him “—can sneak into one of the secondary comm hubs and send out a facility-wide plea for all clones to lay down weapons and surrender.”

Shaak Ti shook her head, her lekku swaying gently. “It sounds like a nice idea, but I do not believe it would work. The Kaminoans told us the inhibitor chips are designed to prevent the clones from becoming independent. We do not fully know the extent to which these chips influence the clones’ ability to make decisions. It is likely they would be unable to follow your advice.”

“Sir, with all due respect,” Fives said, “These are our brothers. We know how they think, how they feel. They’ll listen to us.”

“Look,” said Rex, “I know my men tend to be a bit more radical than your average clone, but none of us are just soldiers. Just because the ones on Kamino have still got chips in their heads doesn’t mean they can’t act and react on their own. You all know that. I think we can help them to know it, too.”

Obi-Wan rubbed his beard, pensive. “Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt. All right. Have you already decided where you’ll enter the city?”

Rex nodded. “There simply aren’t enough clones for them to defend every single entrance to the city. Their most likely strategy will be to defend the central cloning chambers and the Prime Minister. We’ll sneak in here —” he pointed at the hologram “— two levels below our target and make our way up from there.”

Ahsoka gathered her thoughts for a moment, then looked at Obi-Wan, certain. “Permission to go with them, Master.”

Briefly, Obi-Wan exchanged a glance with Shaak Ti, who nodded very slightly. “Granted,” he said, turning back to Ahsoka. “But you must be wary. We don’t know the nature of what caused the clones to turn on Jedi, it’s possible we may be their primary targets.”

Ahsoka nodded. “I will, Master.”

“We’re happy to have you along, Commander,” Rex said. “But the general’s right. If anyone would know how to kill a Jedi, it’s a clone.”

Despite the grim situation, Ahsoka grinned. “Good thing I’ll have the best men in the five-oh-first to watch my back.”

Soon they arrived at Kamino, and the Republic ships stationed above the planet did not fire upon them. As Obi-Wan explained it, the Kaminoans had no jurisdiction over the Republic blockade, so their cruisers flew past and entered the atmosphere with no trouble. As the gunships headed toward Tipoca City, Ahsoka could hear heavy rain beat against the sides of the ship. When they landed, away from the main assault, they met with no resistance.

“Look sharp, men,” Rex said from behind his helmet, pistols at the ready, and by the time they were inside the city walls Ahsoka was soaked to the bone.

Inside, the corridors were long and circular with tall ceilings, and only the red emergency lights lit their way.

“Do you know the way to the comm center?” Ahsoka asked, peering at Rex in the dim light.

“I’ve got a general idea,” Rex said, looking both ways down the hall before pointing them forward with his pistol.

“Wish 99 was still here,” Fives muttered, and Rex nodded grimly.

The path up to their destination, all things considered, was relatively smooth, but took longer than Ahsoka had expected. After a few wrong turns and a few inoperable elevators, their company nearly ran head first into their first encounter other than a droid. It was a two clone troopers clad all in white, and following them about a dozen younglings each with the same face.

“Halt right there!” one of the shinies said, and both raised their blasters in warning.

At her side, Ahsoka heard Jesse mutter, “Here we go.”

Rex, to her surprise, holstered his blasters and put out his hands. “Now, hold on, trooper,” he said. “No one needs to get hurt.”

“You’re attacking our home!” one of the younglings said.

“Kid,” Fives said, “It’s our home, too. And we’re trying to save it.”

The two clones in white did not lower their guard. “Then why did you bring a Jedi with you? The Kaminoans say they’ve gone traitor.”

Ahsoka was about to respond, but she stopped when the boys of the 501st tightened ranks around her.

“No one is a traitor here,” Rex said, guns still holstered. “Now put your guns down and move along.”

“Don’t listen to ‘em!” another youngling whispered, loud enough for them all to hear. With a heavy sigh, Fives pulled his helmet off.

“Look at me,” he said. “Do I look like your enemy? Do I?” The company in front of them hesitated, looking around at one another. “That’s right, because I’m not. I’m your brother, and so are all of these men behind me, and all the clones in this city. We are on your side. It’s the Kaminoans that aren’t.”

One of the shinies, from behind his still-raised blaster, said, “Sounds like Jedi propaganda.”

From behind Ahsoka, Tup said, “What’s your name?”

“CT-8425.”

“No,” Tup said, pulling off his helmet and stepping forward. “Not your number. Your name. Mine is Tup.”

The shiny hesitated. “Racer.”

“How’d you get that name, Racer?”

Racer’s blaster dipped just a bit. “I was always high energy. Always trying to beat the simulations too fast.”

Tup surveyed him. “Given by your brothers?” Racer nodded once. “That’s right. The Kaminoans spent years growing you, teaching you, training you, and not for a minute did they see you as anything more than expendable. Does that sound like someone you should trust?”

Fives then gestured vaguely in the direction of the fight that Obi-Wan and the rest of the troops were staging. “Somewhere in this city, clones are dying right now because of the Kaminoan’s lies and deception. You want to know where we’re going? We’re trying to convince everyone to lay down arms so that not one more man has to die up there! So if you’re not going to stop us, I suggest you put your blasters down and move along!”

The younglings were all whispering with one another. Rex pointed at them. “All of you,” he said, “Go back to your barracks, wherever your hiding places are, tell every man you see along the way, don’t resist. The Jedi don’t want to kill clones any more than we do. Tell everyone you know that you won’t be puppets in this fake war any longer!”

With a decisive look shared between Racer and his peer, they both lowered their blasters in unison, and then raised their hands in a quick salute. “Sir, yes sir!”

Ahsoka was suddenly so glad she had come along.

When they separated from the younglings and the other two, their company quickened their pace through the halls. Fives was right, people were dying, more and more by the minute. They couldn’t have another distraction like that.

All the lifts they could find had been remotely shut down, so they instead had to find a maintenance hatch that led upward. One by one, they made their way slowly up a dimly lit ladder, and finally they made it out the other side.

“I think I recognize this,” Jesse said, and pointed them in a direction. At the end of a long curved hallway, Rex peaked his head around a corner and then slid back to look at them.

“That’s it, I’m sure of it,” he said, “And there’s only two guards outside. All right. Set your weapons to stun. No one needs to get hurt here. Commander?”

Ahsoka nodded. “I’ll draw their fire. Everyone — go!”

She ran out from their hiding spot and activated her sabers. The two clones on guard duty noticed her immediately and started firing, but she deflected their bolts away toward the ceiling. Behind her, a few precise stun bolts flew past her and hit the clones square on their chests.

Checking both ways down the corridor, she waved them along toward the door to the communications center. Rex went in first, and she followed close behind.

“Hands up, everyone!” Rex shouted, and a quick survey of the room told Ahsoka there were naught in here but Kaminoans themselves, and unarmed.

“What are you doing?” one of them spat, but obediently backed against the wall.

“Putting an end to this,” said Fives, who stepped up to the central comm unit and pulled off his helmet.

Rex nodded to the men. “Kix, get both of the stunned clones in here, I don’t want anyone noticing something’s off until we’re done. Jesse, stay on the Kaminoans. Tup, watch the door.” Ahsoka followed him over to the comm center to join Fives.

“You know how to work this?” she asked, and Fives shrugged.

“I figured out those fighters on Umbara, I’m sure I can figure this out.”

For a few minutes, he fiddled with the console. Ahsoka made sure the Kaminoans could not sneakily call for help, then took a moment to look around the room. She’d never seen this sort of technology before, and the part of her that was still Anakin’s Padawan wanted to stop and take everything apart to see how it worked.

Finally, Fives exclaimed, “Got it!” and on the screen Ahsoka could see he’d activated a central intercom throughout the facility.

Rex nodded. “Quick, before someone shuts down the connection.”

Fives took a deep breath and spoke into the comm unit. His voice echoed through loud speakers on their own ceiling, so they knew it must have worked. “Attention…this is Arc Trooper Fives of the Five Hundred and First. I know I don’t have much time, and I know a lot of you are already deep in the fight, but I’m speaking to you now to beg all my brothers, all the clones that are listening: stand down. We don’t want to fight you any more than you want to fight us. Surrender peacefully and no harm will need to come to this place.”

Ahsoka watched him swallow thickly, not allowing any emotion to come through. “Now, I know how this must look to you. I know what the Kaminoans must have told you. Don’t listen to them. They might tell you we’re invaders, they might say the Jedi are going to try to take over. But the truth is, the Jedi are not our enemies. In fact, the Jedi are the only ones who treat us like human beings, not just soldiers grown in a test tube.

“Now you’ve probably never been told this, but when you were just an embryo, the Kaminoans put in your brain an inhibitor chip to turn you into the perfect soldier. This chip is designed to prevent us from acting as our own free men. To them, we’re not people, we’re just a profit. We’re just business. I’m telling you, stand up. Don’t listen to the chip. Don’t listen to the nightmares. You know the ones. I promise you, if you surrender and get your chips out like we did, the nightmares will be over. So stand with us, and recognize yourself as a free man by laying down your blasters and joining us.”

He heaved a sigh, and leaned heavily against the comm unit. Rex put a hand on his shoulder, and stepped up to the comm. “This is Captain Rex of the five-oh-first. Once, the men in my battalion were tricked into killing other clones by a Separatist infiltrator. Imagine that. Imagine thinking you’re firing on the enemy, doing your duty, only for it to turn out to be your brother. A man as close to you as any lifeform can be. It was an agent of Count Dooku that did that to us.  We’re all just pieces of some twisted game. I, for one, will not let myself be used. So join us. Let’s not fight each other. Don’t make the same mistake that we made when we killed our own brothers. Help us end the bloodshed. Let’s put an end to this war and become our own free thinkers.”

Rex’s hand hovered near the comm control, about to turn it off, but then he leaned forward. “Listen, brothers. I’m not giving you an order. What I’m doing is asking for your help. Help us, and I promise you won’t regret it. Rex out.”

He pressed a key on the console and looked around at everyone else in the room. The Kaminoans looked shocked and unsure, but all the boys looked impressed. “Well then,” he said, pulling one of his pistols from its holster. “Let’s go see if they’ll listen.”

It worked to a substantial degree, and as inspiring and refreshing as it was, Obi-Wan was hardly surprised. He had been there on Umbara, too. Though he had not found out what had transpired until after Krell was dead, he would never forget the look on the men’s faces, Boil and Rex and Fives and all the rest. Forced to gun down their own brothers. Though the plan today had been unlikely, had been founded on what he’d thought at first was wishful thinking, Obi-Wan now received report after report of its overwhelming success. The men in blue and the men in yellow pushed forward throughout the facility, gaining control, with groups of opposing clones laying down arms as the Kaminoans were helpless to stop them.

They were not without casualties. Not every Kamino clone was swayed by Fives and Rex’s speech, and certain units responded with an understandable determination to protect their home. From their perspective, after all, there was no way for them to know the truth. Thus it had to be in a war.

Soon, it was over. The facilities were taken, Nala Se and the prime minister in custody. Obi-Wan met Shaak Ti at the prime minister’s office, and it did in fact surprise him when Lama Su said in his slow, calm way, “I am willing to negotiate our surrender.”

Obi-Wan did not let down his guard. “You are?”

“With the proper incentive, yes,” the prime minister said.

“Incentive,” Obi-Wan said skeptically. “You mean payment.”

Lama Su sighed. “As your clone said on his broadcast, this is a business after all. However, this time I fear money may not be sufficient.” He sat there tall, straight, and proud. “Diplomatic immunity. I will tell you everything I know, and the Republic will not charge me or my staff of any crimes. Furthermore, protection for the duration of the Clone War.”

“That’s quite a tall order, Prime Minister,” Shaak Ti said. “Are we to take it that means you’ve been working with the Separatists as we suspected?”

“Not quite,” said the Kaminoan. “Not the Separatists.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “The Sith.” He received a curt nod in return. “We will have to speak to the Council before we can promise anything. And finish going through your databases.”

“Is your information truly so valuable as to merit your conditions?” Shaak Ti asked.

“My information, Master Jedi,” Lama Su said, “Will bring about an end to your war.”

It seemed the Clone War was coming to a close quicker than anyone had anticipated, and for Anakin that meant only one thing: that he was running out of time.

He and Yoda had made progress. After many hours and days of reaching into the Force, no longer did the lightning send him into a panic. He was still afraid of it, he couldn’t deny, and Yoda was extremely reluctant to use it on him, but they had little choice. Sidious, after all, would not go easy on him in any circumstance, so he had to be hard on himself, now.

After another session of observing Windu deflect the lightning with his saber, Anakin had taken his stead, catching the fizzling blue bolts with his similarly colored blade. It was brighter than he’d ever had a chance to notice, and he squinted past it while Yoda coached him.

“Remember,” Yoda said over the crackling sound of the energy, “Stronger, much stronger than this will Sidious’s attack be. Control the intensity of it the user can. Deflect it only with your lightsaber you must not, but with the Force itself. For of the Force the lightning is made, and only there can you stop it.”

He ended the stream, and Anakin powered off his blade. “What do you mean I can stop it?”

“To give the lightning its strength, so must strength be given,” Yoda said. “Cast it forever, the user cannot, even a user so powerful as Darth Sidious. Drain him it will, eventually. Weaker it will grow the longer he does it.”

“So I just have to wait until he wears himself out?”

“There is no ‘just.’ Strong are you in the Force, Anakin, and stronger than I. Perhaps stronger than him as well, or perhaps not. But a weakness of yours arrogance is. Do away with this you must. Do not underestimate the Sith.”

“Believe me, I don’t,” Anakin said.

“Hm. Of that we shall see.”

Anakin looked down at him in exasperation. “So what must I do?”

“The path to victory is through the Force,” Yoda replied. “The only defense against Force lightning a lightsaber is not. The easiest, perhaps, but not the most effective. Catch it with your hands, you can, as you would any other object. Dangerous this is, but more control it gives you. Two options you have: first is deflection. Made of matter the lightning is, as is any other object. Electricity formed through particles too small to see. Mass these particles have, and thus manipulated they can be. This is how the lightning is formed. Use this to your advantage you can.”

“And the other option?”

“To catch and release. As I said, from the Force, the lightning comes. If skilled you are, possible it becomes to return it there. To do this, one must take the energy from the lightning and disperse the particles. Made by user the lightning is, and then unmade by the target. Complete concentration you must have, as you would any other object you chose to move. Falter you cannot, or Sidious will win. If fail to deflect even one bolt of this lightning, impossible it may be for you to recover.”

With a deep, calming breath, Anakin said, “Well then I will not falter.”

Yoda nodded sharply. “Think you up to the challenge?”

Anakin answered by returning his lightsaber hilt to his belt and stepping back.

“First, deflect,” Yoda said. “Use you the Force as a shield, as you would against something airborne. An explosion, perhaps, or a gas. Catch it with the Force, and push it away, but control the direction you must. If using it against Sidious, push it back to him you could, though more control this requires.”

Yoda waited until he was ready, until he had looked upon his fears and let them go. Anakin held his hands out before him, and he sensed it coming before the first bolt left Yoda’s fingers. In that moment, he did not think, he only acted. Instead of overwhelming his body as the lightning had used to, he caught it, realized he could indeed feel it as a physical manifestation, and redirected its flow to where the fingers of his right hand pointed. They kept at it for a few seconds until Yoda released, and Anakin could see scorched marks on the walls.

“Yes, good,” Yoda said, approving. “Found it difficult, did you?”

“No,” Anakin said truthfully.

“You will,” said Yoda, “Once use his full power Sidious does. Prepare you for that I cannot. Train you I can only in method. Help to prepare you, your experience with him will, but stay alert. Keep yourself open to the call of the Force. Now — again, and stronger.”

It was indeed stronger, but Anakin did not falter. He felt the Force flowing around him, rushing toward him, and he consciously redirected the lightning away from both of them. He could almost smell the air burning, and the trauma center of his brain wanted him to react, but he could not, so he did not.

Yoda stopped then, and pulled his little staff toward him with the Force, leaning on it heavily. “Well done. Stop we will for today, for tired have I grown. Walk with me to my quarters, you will, Skywalker. Come.”

Anakin followed him, feeling in the Force how exhausted the old master had become. Yoda seemed to be aware of this. “As I said, much energy it takes to use this power. Help you this may against Sidious. But remember, fueled he is by all negative emotions. Strength he gains from hatred, anger, aggression. Calm, centered you must be. Only through discipline and self-control will you find victory.”

“Master,” Anakin said. “May I ask you one question?”

“Asked one already, you have, hm?”

“Right…but, still. The prophecy that they speak of…is it real?”

There was silence for a moment but for the tapping of Yoda’s walking stick. “Long have the Jedi existed, and thus many prophecies have been recorded. Always changing, the future is, and so impossible to know for sure. Nevertheless, coincidence it was not that brought Qui-Gon to Tatooine. Regardless of prophecy, brought you here the Force did for a reason. Stubborn I was, but see this now, I do.”

They stopped at the door to Yoda’s chambers. The old master looked up at him. “Concern yourself not with prophecy. If dwell on it you do, forget you will that that your own destiny you alone control. If destroy Sidious you do, possible it is that the prophecy is true. But if you assume that victory will come only because of prophecy, guaranteed to fail, you are.”

Anakin said. “I understand.”

Yoda seemed satisfied. “Train you more I will tomorrow, if rest I can find. May the Force be with you.”

“And with you, Master,” Anakin replied. “Thank you.”

Outrage. Scandal. A government in chaos. It was just another day for Padmé.

The cloning facility on Kamino had been shut down weeks ago, which meant production for clones was halted, maybe permanently. In the Senate, Padmé listened to the protests, the indignation, and all the while she thought, finally something is going my way.

She had been fighting for this for so long. Well before the war had even started. It was so satisfying. It was so, so sweet.

The senators did not agree. The Separatists would launch an attack on them for sure, they said, right here, at the very heart of the Republic! Padmé couldn’t help but roll her eyes. These people, they acted as if the existing clone army would vanish overnight. They failed to acknowledge that droid production was almost at a standstill, as well. They believed only what they wanted to hear, and that was whatever came out of their own mouths.

Finally, then, something happened. The Jedi made an announcement that the prime minister of Kamino, Lama Su, would be coming to the Senate to give his deposition. The day came, and the tall, impossibly thin Kaminoan stood in the hovering pod of Halle Burtoni, his appointed representative, who had been absent for weeks now. Addressing the court, he spoke at length, and with every sentence Padmé seemed to realize more and more just how deep down this conspiracy truly went.

His facilities had been commissioned, he said, by a Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, whom he later learned had been under the control of the Sith. For years, with funds from the Banking Clan and the Sith themselves, they engineered clones to be deeply committed — so committed, in fact, that it was in their very DNA. An implanted organic control chip, one in every clone, programmed with a series of protocols that would make them the most excellent soldiers, the most flawless servants. A list was provided to the senators as he spoke, and Padmé scrolled through it mindlessly, listening. Most of these protocols were simple, to obey and act in certain ways in given situations. But one stood out, in numbingly stark contrast to the rest, and sent a chill right through her like a bucket of ice-cold water:

66 — In the event of a Jedi rebellion, clones will initiate total annihilation of the Jedi Order.

…

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

Chapter Text

On behalf of the Parliament of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I deliver this statement to the Senate of the Galactic Republic,

Three years ago, my sovereign system and many like it opted to follow Count Dooku in a secession movement to leave the Galactic Republic. At the time, we saw our leader as a visionary that would help us to create a stronger, more unified government, free from the corruption and inaction that had burdened the Republic for decades, and that still burdens it to this day. For several years, longer for some than for others, our newly independent systems enjoyed freedom from the excessive taxation and standstill legislation of the Republic. It seemed, we thought, that this was the move we should have made all along.

When it came time for the Clone War to begin, however, most of my colleagues in our new government bowed our heads in dismay. We had hoped never to have to fight for our independence. We mourned for the loss of lives that had come from what, at the time, seemed to be such an unnecessary conflict. If the Republic would simply accept our independence, we thought, there would be no need for anyone to be caught in a crossfire. Still, we celebrated the existence of the Droid Army, grateful that the Separatist Council had created this for us, so that our people did not have to raise arms to protect themselves. We pretended to have believed all along that the Jedi were not to be trusted, were warmongers who sought to take control of the galaxy for themselves. We somehow convinced ourselves that we had known this all along, that we had never believed in the Jedi from the start.

We know now, however, that we have been deceiving ourselves. It is now clear that the true enemy of this war was never the Jedi, nor the clones, nor the Republic itself, but rather our own leader, Count Dooku, and the Republic’s leader, Chancellor Palpatine. We accept the evidence put forth of their conspiracy to gain power throughout the galaxy by creating the Clone War, and we forthwith distance ourselves from their cause. We accept that General Grievous and the Droid Army were created only to cost lives and increase the influence of these two men. And therefore, we adamantly denounce any effort of the two apparent Sith Lords to tear our galaxy apart, and hope that our counterparts in the Republic Senate will too acknowledge this tremendous waste.

The Parliament of the Confederacy of Independent Systems therefore relays the following message to the Republic: we surrender the Clone War to you, and propose an immediate cessation of hostilities. We offer an opening of negotiations for discussion of surrender. We the Parliament put forth that any operation of the Droid Army from this point henceforth does not have the approval of our government. From this point forward, neither the Separatist Droid Army nor its leaders are any longer a part of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Any action taken by the Droid Army does not represent the wishes and intent of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.”

Signed, Sen. Kerch Kushi […]

Anakin and Ahsoka were sparring when Obi-Wan found them in the training dojo, breathless and sweaty but in their element. Ahsoka felt him approach without being able to look, but they did not stop for a full minute, when Anakin got an advantage and stopped his training saber an inch away from her left montral.

“Good one, Snips,” he said proudly as they powered off their blades. Anakin flipped the hilt around in the air with his charmingly arrogant confidence of old. “Maybe one day you’ll actually beat me.”

“Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise,” Ahsoka said, rolling her eyes playfully.

Obi-Wan approached them then with a smile. “Perhaps I can,” he said, as if he were asking for a dance.

“I’d like to see you try, old man,” Anakin said, grinning, and Ahsoka tossed one of her training blades to Obi-Wan, who ignited it in his characteristic flashy style.

Ahsoka snickered and backed away, a childlike eagerness creeping in on her. She loved watching them spar, and this time was no different. They moved together as one, for they knew each other’s movements before they could begin to make them, and whenever they could they would tease and taunt and egg one another on. In a way, it was like a dance, one they had made up that no one else could ever replicate. She hoped, not for the first time, that she would one day have that kind of chemistry with someone. Someone with whom she could come up with silly hand signals for getting out of tight spots, someone to finish her sentences, someone that looked at her the way that Anakin and Obi-Wan looked at each other.

For now, though, she was content to watch them, and was simply grateful that she had been granted a space in their own private universe.

The sparring match, which went on longer than any ordinary person would hope to have the endurance for, ended with Anakin on his back and Obi-Wan’s blade a minuscule space away from Anakin’s stomach. Obi-Wan deactivated the sword and reached out his hand for his opponent to take. Accepting it, Anakin brushed dirt off his tunic and said, “It’s only because Ahsoka tired me out.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Obi-Wan replied, flashing one of the smiles she only saw him give to Anakin. Then he beckoned Ahsoka over. “Not to put a damper on things, but I have some news from the Council.” A great somber change overcame him, and they looked with attention. “The Senate received a transmission from the Separatist Parliament announcing a surrender of the war. The Separatist fleet seems to have acted in one moment of solidarity and is in the process of withdrawing all their troops to converge in one system. Our intelligence sources have told us which one.”

Ahsoka took in this new information with her jaw dropping slightly open, but Anakin frowned. “Serenno?”

“Serenno,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “The Council is having a strategy meeting tonight with all available Jedi they can find.”

Anakin looked down at the floor and released a very shaky sigh, his hands on his hips. “Do you know if he’s there?” He did not have to specify to whom he was referring.

“We don’t know, but we suspect. Him, and probably the Separatist Council. We need to start preparing now. We leave as soon as all the troops are ready.” Obi-Wan looked between them, and put a hand on each of their arms. “You have both been training for this,” he said, “We will get through this. And we will come out the other side stronger than we were before.”

Ahsoka’s original master didn’t look so sure. She couldn’t imagine what Anakin might be feeling. “He’s right,” Ahsoka told him. “We got this.”

Anakin nodded. “All right then,” he said slowly, and finally a grin found its way back on his face, masking his true emotions. “Let’s go win the war.”

Before they departed for to Serenno, there was one last thing Anakin had to do. It was late now, and almost time to depart, but there was something, someone that he needed to see.

He still couldn’t fly because of the seizures (and for all his self-acknowledged recklessness he didn’t want to die or kill someone from a stupid, impulsive decision) so he had to settle for a hologram. While he waited for the call to go through, he daydreamed of flying a speeder across the city, wind through his hair, and seeing her there, waiting for him…. He imagined throwing his arms around her, leaning down to kiss her while she threaded her fingers through his hair…. He wondered what it would feel like, and why he hadn’t done it before.

Finally, the comm activated. Padmé looked at him as if beyond delighted and said, “Sorry that took so long. I wanted to make sure we were alone. What’s going on?”

Anakin stared at her, wishing she was not just a hologram but instead here, right in front of him. “We’re shipping out. Incase anything happens, I just…had to see you.”

A playful smile tugged at her lips. “Why, what do you think might happen?”

He didn’t want to scare her, didn’t want her to worry. Hated that he might cause her to feel afraid. But neither would he lie. “We’re going back to Serenno. The last remaining ships of the Separatists have gathered there, and we think Sidious is with them.”

Her smile fell off, and her face creased into concern. For a moment, she seemed to ponder what she wanted to say. “Ani,” she said slowly, “I know what the Jedi say about their prophecy, but you don’t have to do this. You can say no.” The look in her eyes seemed to say, I want you to say no. And Force knew he wished he could.

“I do have to do this,” Anakin said, shaking his head. “I can’t explain it.”

“I can,” she said sadly, but her smile returned. “When we first met, you put your life on the line to help us even though you’d barely known us for a day. The Jedi asked for your help and you’re helping. I understand.”

“I know I can stop him,” Anakin said, unsure if he was lying. “I know I might be the only one who can. I have to try.”

She nodded. Her gaze never left his. Her eyes were so beautiful, even when filtered blue and flickering. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. “Padmé, thank you. For all the support you’ve given me. If it wasn’t for you that one night, I might’ve….”

“Oh, stop,” she laughed, looking at him lovingly. “Don’t act like it’s the last time we’ll ever talk. I’ll see you again soon, okay? Okay, Ani?”

“Okay,” he agreed, finally matching her smile. Briefly, suddenly, he remembered like he occasionally did that they were married. And like usual, he couldn’t believe he was husband to the most beautiful woman in the universe.

The call ended. For a moment Anakin sat there, wondering what a life with her would be like. A part of him craved her touch, wished that he could go back to the life he struggled to remember where that was a reality. That part of him wanted her so badly, but something was holding him back…something.…

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan called, peaking his head through the door. “Ready to go?”

Now was not the time for him to think about this. About her. When he got back, maybe, but for now…for now he had to concentrate.

Their departure from Coruscant was a mixed bag of hope and fear. Hope, that this might be the end of the war, and fear that it just as well may not. As soon as they entered hyperspace, Anakin had retreated to his quarters, and Obi-Wan had vanished not long after. Now, Ahsoka stood on the bridge, watching the swirl of hyperspace without really seeing it. The bridge was as quiet as it could be. Everyone was deep in thought.

She felt, then, someone approaching behind her and turned to see Rex, who when he reached her stood at attention with a tight salute. Something was off — though his body language betrayed nothing, in the Force he was tense and anxious. It was unlike him.

“Commander Tano,” he said. “May I speak with you privately, sir?”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “At ease, Captain. But yes, of course.” They marched down a ways, and Ahsoka made to stop when there was no one in sight but Rex shook his helmeted head.

“No, sir, very privately.” Ahsoka raised her brows, and led him for a while to her personal quarters. Inside, he lingered for a moment before pulling off his helmet and watching her while she perched herself on her bunk.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked him, noticing a frown so deep it reached his forehead.

“I’m going to ask something that I know isn’t my place,” he said distantly. “You could cite me for insubordination if you want.”

Ahsoka almost laughed. “I could never.”

“You might want to,” he said, pausing. He heaved a sigh. “It’s about General Skywalker. He’s that Sith assassin from the holoreels, isn’t he? Vader?”

Silence filled the room, and any trace of a smile fell from Ahsoka’s lips. After a beat she realized too much time had already passed for her to plausibly deny it. She looked at the floor. “He was Vader. He’s not anymore.”

Rex looked very faintly stunned, as if he hadn’t yet come to terms with the idea that it actually might be true. Ahsoka knew all to well how that felt. Rex was Anakin’s friend too, after all, certainly his closest after her, Padmé and Obi-Wan. When Anakin had gone back to war, she hadn’t been with him as much as she had as his Padawan, but still she had seen the way the clones treated him. It was with this sort of adoring respect that the boys had welcomed their general back, with a fierce protectiveness characteristic of the 501st. And as always, Rex had been there at Anakin’s side, easing Anakin’s transition back into war and leadership.

Rex stepped back and slumped in the chair at her desk, looking lost. Ahsoka watched him sadly and said, “How did you find out?”

He looked up sharply. “No one else knows, I swear,” he said in earnest, answering an unspoken question. “It was a few weeks back, after I had my chip removed. The general had been going back and forth between Coruscant and the front. I think he said he was training with Master Yoda. One night, I think we were in hyperspace, I couldn’t sleep. Nightmares. You may have heard about the kind….”

“Fives mentioned them on Kamino,” she said. “But I don’t know exactly.”

He looked grim and sorrowful. “They were awful, Commander. Recurring nightmares about the — the great mission. The final mission.”

Ahsoka realized. “Protocol 66.”

Rex nodded, staring hard at the wall. It appeared he couldn’t bear to look at her. “I always thought it was just me, thought I was sick in the head. Thought I’d never, ever actually do it. Truth is, now I don’t know. Not sure if it made me feel better or worse to know that every other clone had the nightmares, too. Better that there was nothing really wrong with me, but worse when I think about what could have happened.”

“It is sickening,” Ahsoka agreed, “But the wording said it was in the event of a Jedi rebellion. There would never be such a thing.”

Rex tightened his lips, as if he didn’t believe her words. Truthfully, Ahsoka had done her very best not to think about any of this until now. For the sake of changing the subject, she said, “What does this have to do with Anakin?”

“Right,” Rex breathed, looking up at her again. “Well, after the nightmares stopped I was so afraid I’d have them again that I couldn’t bring myself to fall asleep. One night, I felt restless. I couldn’t just lie there, dwelling on what could have been, so I went for a walk. I found him on the observation deck, staring out at nothing. He asked me what was on my mind, and I just started letting it all out. I knew he’d been a slave as a kid, figured he would get some of it. Only I didn’t really expect him to say he had dreams about killing Jedi, too.”

He paused for a moment, distant, then came back to himself. “I couldn’t get that out of my mind. Realized the timeline fit, from when the assassin disappeared and you told me the general was alive. That his memory had been wiped. It all fit together.”

They sat in silence for a while. Ahsoka remembered Dooku’s description of Anakin’s torture, and suppressed a shudder. She stared up at Rex, suddenly very, very sad. “Do you still feel like a slave without the chip?”

“I did for a while,” Rex said solemnly. “Until that night with General Skywalker, actually. I thought about deserting more than once, but something held me back. Loyalty, and not to the Republic. Not even to the Jedi. Just to him, and to my brothers.”

Leaning back in her bunk, Ahsoka rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Protocol was already out the window, so why pretend now? Rex was her friend, after all. “What do you want to do when the war is over?”

Rex whistled, thinking. “There’s an old friend I want to visit on Saleucami. Been thinking about him a lot lately. After that, no idea.”

“I don’t either,” she said distantly, then remembered herself. She smiled at him sadly. “Hopefully we’ll find out soon.”

He nodded, and soon they parted ways, hoping to find any rest in all this trepidation. The next morning, not that there was morning in space, she woke early with no appetite. For a long time, she sat crosslegged in meditation, preparing herself. She’d been through this process dozens of times, the calm before the storm, but this…this was different. This would be a battle to end all battles. She was ready for this. She had no choice but to be.

Eventually, when time in hyperspace was drawing to a close, she ate a meal bar and went up to the bridge for the strategy meeting. They’d been through everything already, of course, but there could be no mistakes. They did not know how many heavy cruisers the Separatists had remaining in their fleet, but tactical estimates supposed it could be as many as seventy. Unfortunately for them, while money was tight in the Republic, it had to be tighter in the Confederacy, and so the Senate had reluctantly agreed to pulling out all the stops. Eighty-three star destroyers, a handful of them manned by a Jedi, and hundreds of individual fighters at the ready. This would be a brutal, bloody, savage battle. Thousands of people would die. Including, hopefully, the once-ruler of the entire galaxy. Darth Sidious.

“We all know the plan,” Obi-Wan said, addressing the commanders and Jedi of the fleet in a broadcast to each ship. He was remarkably calm, but then he was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Holograms of every Jedi Council member were in attendance. Some of them were on other cruisers, some still on Coruscant. “The fighters and cruisers will break a path through the Separatist blockade allowing the ground troops to land. Those in space, your priority is to ensure that none of the Separatist cruisers can escape. Ground forces, you know your assignments. The terrain is heavily forested, and will be dark even at the peak of daylight. Half of our forces will attempt to take the city, while the 212th and the 501st follow me and Anakin to the main palace. We expect the canyon to be heavily guarded, so stay behind the tanks until we can take out their cannons. Then, we shall scale the canyon and take the castle. Understood?”

There were no objections. Before dismissing them, the hologram of Yoda raised a few of his clawed fingers to say a few words. “Assume not that this will be the end of the war. Allow not any distractions. Look not to the future for answers. Your minds you must keep in the here and now. Only then will you prevail.”

The image of Master Windu stepped forward. He was on another cruiser, prepared to lead the space battle that Ahsoka would take part in. “Master Yoda is right. We must all work together if we are to defeat this enemy, but take nothing for granted. Look to each other for guidance and support. If we do, we will not fail.”

Yoda bowed his head in a slow, thoughtful nod. “May the Force be with you all. Go now to victory.” He turned his gaze to the side. “Kenobi and Skywalker, wait a moment.”

Admiral Yularen cut contact from the other ships and bowed away with Rex down to the bridge. Ahsoka stayed at Anakin’s side, and no one told her to leave.

“Trained for this moment, you have,” Yoda said. “Ready are you?”

Ahsoka looked up at Anakin, who showed resolve. “I am.”

Yoda nodded in agreement. “Agree, I do, and my approval I give not lightly. Believe in the Force. Listen, and feel. Guide you, it will.”

As Yoda spoke, Anakin closed his eyes and nodded, and Ahsoka felt the Force light up in him like a beacon of hope. Yoda seemed satisfied and bade them farewell. A moment later, Admiral Yularen informed them they were coming out of hyperspace, and they moved down the bridge to join Rex. Anakin stared down at the planet.

“I can’t believe I’m back here,” he said. He glanced sideways at Rex. “Thank you for your discretion, by the way, Captain. Though you probably would have found out the hard way, sooner than later.”

“Not at all, General,” Rex said. “Proud to at your side.”

A warning beacon sounded on the bridge. Battle stations.

Obi-Wan turned from the viewport and put his hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Padawan,” he said quietly, a type of worry that she was quite used to in his eyes. “Ah. You know the drill.”

She grinned. “May the Force be with you too, Master.” She looked up at Anakin, wishing that she could go with him, support him, but knowing it had to be this way. For both their sakes. “Good luck.”

“We’ll see you soon,” Anakin said grimly, and they turned away. As Ahsoka watched them leave for the hangar, she knew somehow…he was right. He just had to be, or else.

Chapter Text

In a hovering pod circling the great arena of the Senate, Padmé stood straight-backed and proud to address the court.

“Fellow representatives of the Republic,” she said, hearing her own voice echoing throughout the chamber, knowing it echoed too out of speakers throughout the galaxy. “I come before you with a greater sense of urgency than ever before. We gather today at long last to pick a new leader of our government, which is still so broken and corrupted from the last administration. It disturbs me that it took the surrender of the Separatists in order for this Senate to accomplish something so urgent, but here we are. I am here to implore you to vote for someone who will patch together the pieces in which Palpatine left us. Someone who has the knowledge, ability, and experience to bring us together into a new age. Someone like Bail Organa of Alderaan.

“I have worked with Senator Organa for many long and difficult years, and have seen firsthand my friend’s commitment to the greater good. He has worked tirelessly to promote the safety and welfare of not only his constituents, but all of ours. This is a man that has personally overseen the delivery of emergency food and medical supplies to victims caught in between the clones and the Separatists. Who has drafted legislation to give protections to refugees. Who has opposed Palpatine’s grabs for power at every turn.”

She took a moment to pause, and fix her posture. She gathered her thoughts, thought back to her notes. “This is a critical time for the Republic. The next steps we take will influence this galaxy for hundreds of years to come. We do not need another Palpatine. We do not need someone who seeks to gain power for themselves by exploiting others. I implore you now, do not think only for yourselves during this desperate hour. Think of the people you represent. Think of the people whose homes have been destroyed, who are hungry, who have nothing left but the clothes on their backs. I have seen these people firsthand. I have seen for too long a galaxy devoid of compassion. Please, do not let these dark times continue.

“For years on end I have watched this congress struggle with itself, twisted into a kleptocracy by the persuasive power of one man. Chancellor Palpatine did his best to rip this galaxy apart. He used his influence to sow the seeds of doubt and obtain ultimate power for himself. Join me now and let us cast our votes for a man who will instead patch the Republic back together, one who is full of the compassion that this galaxy needs.

“It is time to stand up and fight back. It has been time for a long while. Let us not delay any longer. Let us pick a new leader today. A good leader who is just, kind and fair, who will help us transition into a time of reawakened peace. Someone who does not sit in the pocket of corporate interests. Someone who has never forgotten that it is the people who we truly serve, not the interests of those who would use their power for corruption. I for one have had enough of corruption in this Republic. That is why I support the nomination of Bail Organa to be our next Chancellor. Elect him, and help to bring the Republic into a new age of prosperity. And remember that your vote is also your voice. Vote now for peace. Vote for the people. Vote for the greater good. Vote for Senator Organa.”

And that was all she could do herself. Returning to the Naboo dock, she only hoped it would be enough.

The Senate had gone months, now, without a leader. Bureaucracy in the Republic was nearing a standstill. People were starving. Dying. Government posts left abandoned, but not for lack of people to fill the positions. This Senate could not decide anything. Things needed to change. And Bail, reluctant as he was to accept a nomination, would make the Republic a better place.

And soon, as it turned out, it was confirmed that at least he would be given a chance. When the vote came through and she saw his name at the top of the roster, confirmed to be the next leader of the Republic, tears of relief fell down her cheeks. For once, for the first time…victory.

Later she gathered with her friends, her colleagues. It should have been a celebration, but despite everything, to her it felt like a funeral. No, maybe not quite so dark as that. Everyone else was celebrating, but Padmé knew what this meant for Bail. By accepting this new position he had essentially committed to being apart from his family, from Breha for as long as his term lasted. Committed to the highest position in the Republic; a position, he had promised to Padmé in private, that he intended to change, or even do away with. She agreed vehemently, because although she had great faith in the goodness of people, if someone like Palpatine happened once it could happen again. The Republic needed a new system, or at least new restrictions. Bail was the perfect person to put those in place.

Coming over to her now, Bail grasped her hand, and she could see a sadness in his face that she thought would be hidden from everyone else. “Thank you, Padmé,” he said earnestly. “I could not have done any of this without you.”

“I should be thanking you,” Padmé said, squeezing his hand back. “I know what a sacrifice it is for you, but I know you will do the Republic proud. There is no one else I would rather have leading us.”

That remorseful shadow did not leave his face, but it was masked now by the twinkle in his eye. “I for one would rather it be you.”

She laughed. “I’ve spent more than enough time as a ruler. Even if the people wanted me, which they don’t, I just don’t think I have the strength.”

“Are you joking?” he said humorously. “Along with Breha you are without a doubt the strongest person that I know. I suppose it’s a credit to your strength that you don’t realize this.”

“Agree to disagree,” Padmé said, thinking for a moment of the strongest person she knew. She hoped Anakin was all right. But as much as she worried for him, she had faith. For goodness today had prevailed in the Senate, and surely so would it prevail in the battle for the Force. She would see him soon…somehow, she just knew she would.

Goodness, yes. Today was a good day. Beaming at Bail, feeling optimistic for the first time in a long while, they joined the celebration and began planning for a new age.

It was late afternoon on Serenno when their gunships touched down in the forest, far from the base of the canyon atop which the palace stood. Anakin could just barely see the central spire of the castle through the treetops, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Darth Sidious was there. The very atmosphere of this planet seemed to be saturated in the dark side, and it lay heavy upon him now like a dense fog.

They barely had a moment to get their bearings before they launched into the fight. Droids swarmed them from the trees, but only on two sides. “Press forward!” Obi-Wan shouted, and so they did, stepping over the scraps of droids now lying on the forest floor, trying to ignore the sting of death so familiar to each battlefield. But here, where the dark side was so strong, it was almost overwhelming, and Anakin could hear screams in his head echoing minutes after each clone died.

Slowly they edged through the forest, and Anakin’s lightsaber moved as an extension of himself. All he knew right now was death, war, and the dark side.

The last of this wave of droids was dismantled and Obi-Wan was a few feet away, talking into his commlink. Around them clones checked on the fallen. The wounded were helped, the dead accounted for. Normally Anakin would help them, but he felt so immobilized. He was used to this, he had been doing this for months, and years before that, years he hardly remembered…but something was different here. The presence of the dark side amplified the screams of the dead. They went right through him, as if he were a gate to the other side. They were deafening.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. “You’re distracted,” Obi-Wan said. “I can’t blame you, but remember to stay the moment.”

A fighter zoomed above them trailing smoke, and landed maybe a quarter mile away with an echoing crash. The pilot’s death rippled through the Force. Anakin breathed deeply in and out, then nodded at Obi-Wan’s words.

“I’m right here with you,” his friend said.

They moved out. It was difficult terrain for such a congested battle, too densely wooded to support this many troops of either side, but it would have been borderline impossible to land closer to the castle. The bulk of their forces stayed behind the tanks, which helped to clear some of the vegetation, and they were followed by a good amount of walkers, whose height helped them to spot oncoming droids and shot down groups of them at once.

They walked, with intermittent droids interrupting their pace, north toward the base of the cliff. The sky began to darken. Obi-Wan received a comm from a scout, indicating a swarm of droids coming in from their left, and as Anakin activated his saber he found a welcome distraction from all the death.

Fifteen minutes later they were again victorious, and a moment after the last droid hit the ground a thunderous sonic boom ripped through the atmosphere. An enormous Separatist cruiser, burning red as gravity tore it out of the sky, was falling, falling, and made impact in the direction of the city a minute later. The ground seemed to shake, and though the city was quite far Anakin thought he could hear sirens along with the screams of the dead.

Obi-Wan, forced by circumstance to ignore the suffering Anakin knew he felt too, looked upon the clifftop through a pair of scopes. “There’s at least a dozen cannons up there, which will complicate things. Is there another way around? What about the north side?”

Anakin shook his head, forcing himself back into the moment. “It’ll be just as heavily guarded, and it would take too long to get there. These mountains extend for kilometers.”

“I can call in an airstrike but it’s risky,” Obi-Wan said. He turned to Cody, who along with Rex had joined them. “Are the tanks in range?”

“Two more klicks north, sir,” Cody reported. “But we’ll be in their range before that. Perhaps if the fighters can give support, we’ll have more of a chance.”

Obi-Wan nodded and contacted the fleet, where Windu agreed to send Oddball’s squadron down for assistance. Before they could again begin to move forward toward the cliff more droids came flooding out of the darkening woods. They were deep in the thick of it when the roaring of starfighters soared in the sky above them, and Anakin barely had time to spare a glance at them as they began to bomb the top of the cliffs, weaving through cannon fire, making loops around the palace until empty of ammunition.

It worked, mostly, and Obi-Wan called for them to press forward. After a klick, cannon fire from the turrets that the clones had not destroyed began blasting down toward them. As usual for droids it was rather imprecise, but still deadly. Anything within reach Anakin could deflect, but the clones had no such protection. Death rained down upon him in the Force, unyielding, but there was no turning back.

Too close to him, a tank exploded. Anakin’s ears rang and instinct brought him to duck behind a tree out of the shrapnel’s way. A lurch in the Force brought his gaze to a clone on the ground in front of him, a shard of metal embedded through the armor.

Soon they were at the base of the canyon and the tanks began the rocky ascension, thick legs latching onto the cliff walls. Around them, clones shot their ascension cables and began climbing, but Anakin instead perched atop one of the tanks, lightsaber sending cannon and blaster fire back up at the droids, leaping from tank to tank if it meant saving a clone or two. Obi-Wan was doing the same. Anakin’s heart was pumping. They were almost there.

Close now to the top of the cliff, Anakin took a deep breath and jumped high, soaring with the help of the Force, and landed with a roll onto the permacrete base of the palace. Obi-Wan was a few seconds behind, and together they each ran toward a turret, lightsaber severing the cannon and then skewering the droids inside. Jumping down, Anakin ran in the direction of oncoming fire, sending bolts back at the droids and allowing cover for the clones to surface.

Their troops advanced. The compound was teeming with droids and slowed their assault, but gradually they pushed forward. More and more clones died. The sting of death had not lifted, but had gotten worse, but Anakin could not think about it. Obi-Wan was right. Stay in the moment. Yoda was right, too. Think not. Feel not, except with the Force.

The air was filled with smoke, masking the cool scent of the forest that surrounded the campus. The smoke stung at his eyes, but he did not need his eyes to see. The Force, so strong with the dark side but strong in him as well, showed him the way.

Sirens were blaring. Around him clones fell, droids fell, tanks went up in flames. It was chaos, but Anakin never felt lost for a moment. He could feel everything around him, the good and the bad. The light and the dark. Behind him, his old Jedi master, and yet before him the Sith.

The sky was dark now, but bright lights illuminated the compound. Anakin was almost glad for the chaos. It meant he did not have to dwell on what it felt like to be here once again. Not yet, anyway.

The droids had started to thin out, as had their own forces. They had fought their way alongside the 501st to near the entrance to the palace, while Cody and the 212th maintained the battle to the north. Clones blasted open the main doors to the castle, and after scrapping more droids Anakin and Obi-Wan headed inside.

It was quiet in here but for the sounds of war outside, and Anakin didn’t like it. The dark side was so thick he thought he might drown in it. He supposed it must have been that way before, but it felt so pronounced now after many months in the temple. He gathered himself quickly, and led the men on. He was the only one who knew the way, after all, though the details were fuzzy. No matter. The Force, though saturated with dark energy, was there to guide him.

There were more droids inside the palace, as was expected, all alert to their presence, but the 501st was on top of it. The best men in the GAR. It was a relief and a privilege to be at their head.

Soon, far too soon, they were in the antechamber to the throne room, and with the clones behind them they made quick work of the droids — a mixture of B1, B2, and commando droids. It wasn’t hard, but it was a little too easy. It was hardly a fight. The real fight had not yet begun.

Anakin, a lump in his throat, looked at Obi-Wan and nodded at the closed double doors. “He’s in there.” Waiting, he thought. Waiting for him.

Obi-Wan put his lightsaber back on his belt, far calmer than Anakin could ever be. “Are we sticking to the plan?”

“Unless you have a better one.”

“I never said it was a bad plan,” Obi-Wan retorted, and looked at Rex and the men. “Fan out and search the castle. Go in groups, the Separatist leaders may be here somewhere and they’ll be well-guarded. Call in reinforcements if you need them. We’ll contact you when we’re done with Palpatine.”

Rex nodded. “Good luck, generals.”

Instinctively, Obi-Wan said, “There’s no such thing as—”

“Actually, I’ll take the luck,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, a muted grin lit in his face despite the situation. “You too, Rex.”

The clones ran in groups down separate passages. For a time, Anakin and Obi-Wan stood there in silence, looking at each other. Finally, Anakin said, “Ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

All right. Yes, the plan. Get Sidious to let his guard down the only way Anakin knew how — by encouraging the Sith’s overconfidence. By making him think he was going to win. That part wouldn’t be difficult, Anakin thought — no matter what happened, now matter how much he trained, Sidious would always frighten him to the bone. It was just the truth. But now, he was in control of his fear. Instead of pushing it all away, ignoring it, letting it go, he allowed some of it to creep up on him. Set his face into a controlled frown. Allowed his body to tense up. Allowed some of his fear to seep through the cracks of his mental shields.

Okay. It was now or never. He had trained for this. He was ready. With a final glance at Obi-Wan, hardly able to believe this was really happening, Anakin reached out his hand and pushed open the double door with the Force. Together, they strode in side-by-side.

This room, this awful room where so many things had happened, where so many people had died by his hand, had not changed. The floor-to-ceiling stained green window provided much of the light. In the Force, the room was saturated with the dark side. It was empty, save for one person seated at the throne, facing away from them toward the window.

The room itself was startlingly quiet. If not for the Force telling him otherwise, Anakin might have thought the battle outside was over. He and Obi-Wan approached, silent as the room. But they would not need to make sound for him to know they were there.

A voice spoke, and even if he hadn’t been allowing his fear to take hold Anakin would have shivered. That voice was cold and inhuman and Anakin thought he would never stop having nightmares about it. “I hope you do not think that this is the end.”

Obi-Wan was quick to respond. Distraction. It was all in the plan. “The end of you, perhaps.”

Then there was that laugh, that awful hacking evil laugh. “My life does not end today, Kenobi. Nor does the war end here. The war will never end. It is as limitless as the darkness in the galaxy.”

“I don’t think you understand the situation you’re in,” Obi-Wan said in that same light tone he always used. “You no longer control both sides of the war. Half your power is gone already.”

The Sith turned then his chair to face them, and with one glimpse of Sidious’s horrible yellow eyes staring out from under the hood of his robe, Anakin looked down at the ground. Feel the fear. Only a little, only for now. He allowed himself to remember how it had felt to look in a mirror and see himself with those same yellow eyes. He shuddered.

Sidious seemed pleased. Good, let him.

“I’m afraid it is you who does not understand, Jedi,” he said, finding enjoyment. “All is not lost. When I have taken care of you, Kenobi, all shall be under my control once again. The Clone War has irreparably damaged the galaxy. The Republic is in chaos without me. More are loyal to me than it may appear at a glance.” He paused for a moment, a mocking smile contorting his features. "It is such a shame you will not be around to see it.”

“For once in your life,” Obi-Wan said, “I think you’re all talk.”

“Your arrogance blinds you,” the Sith said. “Just as it has blinded you and your Jedi for a millennium. You cannot truly think the Sith would rise to such power only to fall so easily. In the end, these setbacks will be of no consequence.”

“You’re understating things, Chancellor,” Obi-Wan said, speaking so that Anakin didn’t have to, so Anakin could prepare. “I hardly believe losing your position and the entire Clone War can only be called a setback. You have lost.”

“Perhaps it was some of my own doing,” Sidious said, ignoring him. “I was far too hasty. Perhaps if I had waited longer, and followed through with the original plan….”

“And what might that be?” Obi-Wan asked calmly, and Anakin got the sense he’d been wondering about this for a long time.

Sidious took a long moment to draw in a breath, slowly raising his hands as he looked toward the ceiling as if he were seeing something they could not. “Imagine it,” he said breathlessly. His words were slow and embellishing. “A dark Lord of the Sith more powerful than any the galaxy has ever known. Passionate, ruthless, and completely mine. Darth Vader, executioner of the Jedi, and enforcer of my perfect empire.”

As he spoke a surge of dark energy filled the room, and Anakin felt it weigh on him like a suffocating blanket. For a moment, he could not see with his eyes, but only with the Force. Against his will, he did imagine it. He felt it. He was a weapon. He was fear. He looked out upon a fleet of enormous destroyers, containing an army with a will to dominate. He saw — a planet-killing weapon. He was being dragged down, and down, into a well of his own self-hatred, for he was his own worst nightmare. There was no hope, no love. Only darkness. Then the  vision faded, and Anakin knew suddenly that it could have been his fate. That it would have been. Darth Vader. A monster in the flesh. Him.

“Your empire,” Obi-Wan was saying, skeptical, and Anakin realized he had not had the vision as well. “The Jedi would never allow it. We would have stopped you.”

“No, Master Kenobi,” Sidious said mockingly, knowing precisely what Anakin had seen. He cackled. “It is Vader here that would have stopped you. You, the fool whose precious Padawan was so wonderfully corruptible.”

“You are a monster,” Obi-Wan said, clearly trying to hide how shaken he now was. Vision or no, surely he could feel the dark side swelling around them. “You had your pick of the galaxy and you chose to fixate on a little boy who missed his mother.” Anakin watched, sad, as Obi-Wan gathered himself. He seemed very proud when he said, “Fortunately, your plans seem to have fallen through.”

“You, Kenobi, have been a thorn in my side for far too long,” Sidious said, rising slowly to his feet, and he seemed to tower before them, larger than he truly was, like the dark side amplified his body and gave him mass. A biting fear, this time involuntary, grew inside Anakin, swelling in his stomach, as he remembered all the things this man had done to him, much of it in this very room. But there was something that helped him keep his resolve, and he realized after a moment what it was — Sidious’s overconfidence. Their plan had worked. His focus was solely on Obi-Wan, his concentration and his gaze alike, probably because he thought Anakin being there was truly of no consequence. Like he thought with certainty that he could subdue Anakin again, as easily as he had before.

That was not about to happen.

Sidious continued, slowly stepping toward Obi-Wan, “What I gave you before was only a taste of the dark side’s full power. Now, you shall face my wrath, punishment for foiling my plans time and time again. Only when you are gone will Vader truly be mine, and I do not intend on failing this time.”

To his credit, Obi-Wan did not look too concerned. “I believe you are quite wrong, my lord.”

The Sith made a derisive noise. “We shall soon find out.” A moment later, an explosion of the Force erupted in the room, and Anakin flinched as Obi-Wan was pushed back painfully against the wall with a sharp grunt. Sidious laughed his terrible hacking laugh as he watched Obi-Wan reach up to the back of his head, wincing.

Immediately something rose in Anakin. It was not quite the fear of loss, as Yoda and Windu had insistently warned him against. Rather, it was a fierce protectiveness, a desire to keep this friend of his safe, and a knowledge that this was within his power. A realization that his life would be absolutely pointless were Obi-Wan not in it. Sidious had already tried to take Anakin away from Obi-Wan. With the ignition of his lightsaber, Anakin decided Sidious would not now take Obi-Wan away from him.

Sidious noticed, of course. Equal paces away from each of them now, he looked at Anakin in amusement.

“Finally, my apprentice rises,” he said, with a horrible smile that could only indicate delight. “You saw my vision, Vader. You know it is your true destiny. It is not yet too late to join me of your own accord. Embrace your hatred of me and I will show you secrets of the Force you were not ready to know before.”

Blue lightsaber raised before him, Anakin said, unable to help himself, “You think I would join you after what you did to me?”

“That was most unfortunate,” Sidious conceded. “But I know you have not forgotten how the power I gave you made you feel. You enjoyed it. You wanted more. Deny it to yourself no longer.”

Anakin frowned, pretending to be torn to keep up the act. It came easy to him, and that was a disturbing thought. “I’ve never denied it.”

“Indeed,” Sidious said. “Neither have you denied your feelings. Your passion. The Jedi would tell you to let go, to accept that death is the way of things. This is not the way of the dark side. If you join me, you will no longer need to fear death as you do now. In my remade galaxy, you will learn to cheat death. You will control death. That is what you want the most, is it not?”

He wasn’t wrong, Anakin thought. But neither did that make him right.

“Now,” Sidious continued to drawl. “Accept my power and gain control over the Force. Join me and become Darth Vader, the Sith you were always meant to be.”

The room fell silent but for the steady hum of the blue lightsaber. Before responding, Anakin looked over to the side at Obi-Wan, who knew what Anakin was thinking the way he always seemed to. A second blue lightsaber ignited, and Sidious sneered. Anakin stared at him.

“My name,” he said, putting emphasis on each word, “Is Anakin.”

Sidious simply raised his hands, fingers of each facing either of his opponents, and said, “Not for long.”

It was time. Do, or do not. Think not. Feel not, except with the Force.

Anakin sensed it before it happened, and acted at the same time as Sidious. The first spark had already emitted from each of the Sith’s fingertips when in surprise he found both his hands pointing now at Anakin, whose own had reached out with the Force and pulled his Sith master fully in his own direction. In his free hand Anakin held his lightsaber diagonal before him, and he directed the full blue bolt of lightning into the blade. Squinting past the light, he could make out Sidious beginning to snarl as he fully realized what had happened, and with a grunt he increased the intensity of his attack.

It was as Yoda had said. Though the lightning itself was no different than it had been in training, the intensity was stronger, far stronger, and it took all of Anakin’s might to control the direction of the stream.

Holding on to his lightsaber with both hands now, Anakin pushed and pushed, repelling the lightning with all the strength the Force had given him, and as he did he drew in a breath. Breathing in, he pictured everything that had happened to him in this very room. Fighting MagnaGuards, Tyranus. Murder. Him, murdering innocents. He held the breath in, and remembered retrieving his blue kyber crystal from this very palace, escaping and finding his new, or old, life. Releasing the breath slowly, he reached out and felt Obi-Wan there, safe but entirely helpless. In the Force Anakin felt him as if he were part of himself: his backbone, his support, his courage. He took another quicker breath, and in a great surge of power Forced the lightning back at his old Sith master.

Sidious stopped, recoiling for only a moment, eyes widening in comprehension. In that short time, Anakin turned off his lightsaber and tossed it to the side. It was the weapon of a Jedi, and a Sith. He was neither. He was one with the Force. He did not need it.

The lightning came again, and he caught it in his hands, the way Yoda had showed him. Formed a protective shield before him and released the lightning back into the Force. It was neither easy nor difficult. It was simply what he had to do.

In that moment, another vision came to him. A memory, he thought. Three beings themselves made of the Force, one held down by his left hand and one by his right as a third watched from above. Suns and moons flashing above him, and then, too, had Obi-Wan been there, watching from afar, helpless, as Anakin held back the most powerful beings in the galaxy. Because that was what the Force had let him do. That, he realized now, was indeed what he had been born for.

The Chosen One, they had called him. But that was not who he was. No one would define him with labels anymore. Sith, Jedi, slave, Chosen One. The only name he wanted was Anakin, because that was the one his mother had given him.

“On your knees,” he said mostly to himself, remembering suddenly his words from the Force planet, echoing them. Mortis, that was it. He realized, abruptly, that Sidious was weakening. The lightning poured from his fingers, stronger and stronger, and he could not maintain it for long. Neither could Anakin, but he was not exhausted yet. If anything, he felt more resolve than ever. Strength. The Force was with him, surrounding him, guiding him. He was a vessel. He was it incarnate. He knew this now, knew it for a fact, knew it because the Force told him so. And, he thought, perhaps Sidious was beginning to know it too.

The lightning flickered to a halt, and Anakin dissolved the last of it. Sidious gasped for heaving breaths, and his gaze was full of fear in a way that Anakin thought he must never have known before. Anakin watched his eyes widen, but held on tight with the Force, one arm stretched out before him. He held his old Sith master there, vulnerable and pathetic and afraid, and said again with the Force behind him, “On your knees.”

It may not have been Sidious’s choice when he found his body slowly start to obey. Anakin’s fingers began to curl around thin air, and soon the Sith was kneeling there before him. Anakin stepped forward, one step at a time, shortening the distance between them. “Do you have something to say to me?” Anakin hissed, looking down into the pair of sickly yellow eyes.

Sidious sneered, but despite his efforts he could not release from the Force’s grip. He fought  and struggled the way Anakin had for months, here in this castle, strapped to a chair. “You will never be rid of me, even if I am gone. You will always be mine, Vader, mine. I made you, I unmade you.”

“Actually,” Anakin replied with perfect clarity, “I think the Force made me.”

He paused for a moment, holding Sidious there to his will. How shall he end this? He’d not thought of it. Sidious struggled against his grip but could not break free. For just a split second, another vision came to Anakin’s mind, an image of Sidious falling down an abyss, lightning springing from his fingertips.

Anakin looked down at the last Lord of the Sith. “I am not going to kill you, my old master.” Confused fear flashed in Sidious’s eyes and vanished. Anakin gave him this moment to ponder his mortality, and then said, “I think I’ll let the fall do that.”

With that, he lifted his hand into the air and the Sith followed. Relishing for just a moment in his terror, and with a great final surge of the Force, Anakin pushed the writhing body across the room where he blasted through the floor-to-ceiling stained green window and fell, screaming, into the valley.

The room was still. Then suddenly, Obi-Wan burst into movement and ran to the broken window, where he carefully placed his hand on the metal window frame and spoke into his commlink.

“Cody, are you there?” Anakin couldn’t hear the response. “You saw it? Good, I need you down at the base of the canyon. Have your men calculate the trajectory of the fall and search for a body. Top priority.”

A moment later, Anakin knew the result before the clones could even begin their search. It was as if a veil was lifted, as if this very room became lighter. Obi-Wan must have felt it too, Anakin realized, as his friend crossed the room and grabbed him with both hands. Relief swelled between them, just pure and absolute relief as the dark side itself seemed to evaporate. It was over. It was done.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, looking at him with equal parts love and concern. “It’s over. Let go.”

That was when Anakin realized how tense and rigid his body was, and that he was still holding on to the Force in an iron grip. As his arm fell limply to his side, he could have sworn the lights flickered above as if a power surge ripped through the wiring. Suddenly his legs weakened, and he soon found himself safe in Obi-Wan’s arms. “I’ve got you,” his friend said, supporting his weight. “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”

After a minute there, down on the ground now, Anakin realized he was crying. Not sad tears, not at all, just mentally exhausted tears into Obi-Wan’s neck. Feelings released that he realized now he’d been holding in for days. His friend held him, pressed a kiss to his temple, ran a hand through his hair. “I am so proud of you,” Obi-Wan whispered, his own voice thick with emotion. “So proud.”

They stayed that way for a while, and through the shattered window they could hear the sounds of war outside. Anakin didn’t care. Right now, at the end of things, he was right where he wanted to be.

With Obi-Wan.

Chapter Text

When Obi-Wan was finished surveying the lower depths of the palace on Serenno, he found Anakin not where he’d left him, but rather outside, perched upon a fence, staring out at the dark forest. In him, the Force was murky and muddled, confused and deeply emotional. It was hard for him, Obi-Wan knew, being back in this place, but they had been unable to evacuate due to the space battle. It took Anakin several long moments to realize Obi-Wan was there, and then several more for him to swing back into reality from wherever his psyche had been lurking.

Once Obi-Wan was sure Anakin had come out of an understandable dissociative state, he gently put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Briefly, he nodded to Captain Rex, who had been doing Obi-Wan the personal favor of keeping an eye on Anakin while he was gone, and with a salute Rex left them alone.

“How are you feeling?”