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Chapter Text

For a brief moment, the entire universe seemed to scream and collapse in on itself. Then it shuddered and Padmé Naberrie Amidala Skywalker found herself flung into the familiar void of space once more.

Unfortunately, her point of arrival seemed to be the middle of an active space battle over an unfamiliar red planet. She had to dodge multiple volleys of blasts coming from all directions, but as she swerved, it became easier to see the Star Destroyer. After her experiences in the future, seeing the massive battle cruiser didn’t bring the same comfort it would have even a week ago.

“H-Type Nubian yacht.” The familiar voice of a clone crackled to life on her comms from a secured GAR frequency. “Identify yourself.”

“This is Senator Amidala of the Chommell sector,” she replied, opening the channels so that she could respond and send a secured code to confirm her identity while racking her brain for a good excuse. “I think my ship’s navicomputer must have been sabotaged.”

“We’re redirecting fighters to get you into the nearest hangar, milady. Stay calm and follow their lead.” Two smaller ships peeled off from shooting at their targets and moved to flank her.

“Senator, I’m CT-3480, this is CT-6524, we’re going to get you out of here,” the one on her right said.

“Thank you, but is it alright if I ask what you call yourselves, rather than your numbers?”

“I’m Drifter,” the one on the left answered. “Incoming on our right, Brick, move now.”

Drifter and Brick. Padmé committed their names to memory as she followed them in between the blasts and ships towards the open hangar. “You can fly like General Skywalker,” Brick observed with amusement in his voice. She couldn’t help a smile of her own.

“Is he here?” She didn’t remember a Drifter or Brick in the 501st.

“No, ma’am, we’re the 187th. General Windu’s battalion.”

Right. She’d forgotten Windu had a battalion. After the destruction of the Endurance, he’d been on fewer and fewer missions off Coruscant. “Well, General Skywalker and I have been on our fair share of missions together, he does have a way of rubbing off on you.”

“No arguments there,” Drifter chuckled as she made it through the shields of the hangar bay. “Alright from here, ma’am.”

“Yes, thank you both. Good luck out there.”

While the two fighters altered their course back towards the battle, several mechanics started moving towards her ship. She took a moment to recenter herself, rubbing at her stomach. “At least it wasn’t a crash this time,” she mumbled. It was most likely her imagination, but she thought she felt a small pulse of warmth through her body. Real or not, it was a reminder that she wasn’t alone. That she had something very important to fight for. “I know. We’re back. We’re going to be alright.”

She sounded more confident than she felt. The events of the past few days had made her question everything about the galaxy she lived in, the people she thought she knew, her marriage, and even herself. The only certainty she had at this point was that she needed to make things right. For her children.

With one final deep breath, she stood, and made her way out of the ship. The acting commanding officer saluted her and introduced himself, but she barely registered what he was saying. The journey through the halls of the ship was a quiet one, partially because she was being reminded of a similar path she had taken recently, under very different circumstances. Moments like this made it all too easy to see how one could transform into the other, and she hated that she was only seeing it now.

The commander brought her into one of the staterooms, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She didn’t doubt that she was also being watched closely via the security cameras, and that her ship was being searched as well. It was the logical course of action, especially given the lie she’d chosen to tell.

As she waited, Padmé considered the options in front of her. She had wanted Anakin to be the first person she talked to about what she’d seen, but that was already not an option. And it was vital to get the Jedi focused on the real threat as quickly as possible. Palpatine already had too much power and influence, they needed all the time they had.

At last, the doors opened, and Mace Windu stepped through, still wearing his armor. She stood, bowing her head in greeting. “General Windu.”

“Senator Amidala.” He gave her a brief nod of his own. “We were able to confirm that there was no sabotage on your ship.”

“I know,” she admitted. “But I didn’t think my actual explanation was one that should be shared over comms in the middle of a battle.”

One of his eyebrows went up skeptically as he took a seat in one of the chairs. “It must be quite a story then. I’m intrigued.”

Padmé moved to sit opposite him, folding her hands in her lap. “It’s a story I think needs to be told in person and under more secure circumstances. I don’t want to run the risk of this information falling into the wrong hands.” They watched each other in a moment of silence, Windu undoubtedly using the Force to discern what he could from her. She remained impassive and unflinching as his dark, discerning eyes flickered over her.

“I can’t escort you back to Coruscant at this time, Senator,” he said slowly.

“I’m not asking you to do that, General. My plan was to return to Naboo.” His second brow rose to join his first, skepticism clearly growing.

“Does that mean this information is not urgent?”

“No, that’s not what it means at all. But like I said, this is something that needs to be discussed in person. I thought that it would be in our best interest to have me get my affairs in order on Naboo while you summon as many members of the Council as you can for a meeting not on Coruscant.” She lowered her voice and leaned in toward him. “Covertly enough that the Senate and the Chancellor will not take notice.”

Mace adjusted his own position so that he was leaning back, his fingers tented in front of his face. “Senator,” he said slowly. “The way you’re talking right now, vague as it is, could very easily be construed as treason. You’re a very strong-minded woman, so I can’t force you to tell me anything, or take it from your thoughts, but I know there’s more to this than you are telling me.”

“The information I’ve found suggests that my normal colleagues may have already been compromised,” she explained, her tone growing even more hushed as she chose her words very carefully. “In such a way that even the office of the Chancellor is not immune. But the Jedi have never let me down yet, Master Windu. I know you do have the best interests of the Republic and the Galaxy at heart. So I am asking you to trust me in this moment. Please.”

A shadow passed over Windu’s face. “You’re certain there’s nothing else you can tell me now? No further detail I can bring to the Council when I propose this meeting?”

“I wish there was.”

Windu let out a long sigh, rubbing at his forehead. “I’ll do what I can. But I suggest you finish whatever business you have on Naboo as quickly as possible and then confirm the rendezvous point.”

“You have my word,” she agreed readily, extending a hand to shake. As he took it, she saw a shudder run through his body, and his gaze traveled over her with a new determination.

“Absolutely certain?” he prompted again, and Padmé felt a new nervousness. What had just changed? “I’ll send a trooper to let you know when it’s safe for you to depart, Senator. I hope we will be seeing each other very soon.”

It almost sounded like a warning.

Rex barely had time to remove his helmet and wipe the sweat off his brow before he heard the telltale beeping on the comms link. And right when the Generals were in a meeting together. He never quite knew how to talk to Senator Amidala when it was just the two of them, but even so, if he didn’t take the call, General Skywalker would never let him hear the end of it.

So he ducked into one of the empty barracks and opened the connection. Much to his relief, the Senator had not taken it for granted that the General would answer, and was fully clothed in the display of the holodisc. She appeared to be in her ship, traveling down a hyperspace lane. But he could see the flash of disappointment on her face that he wasn’t who she really wanted to talk to, even if she was too polite to say it.

“Sorry, Senator, the General isn’t here right now.”

“I’d guessed as much.” She smiled at him kindly, but formally. “Are you alright, Captain? What about the rest of the 501st?”

“We’re holding as strong as we can, ma’am.” He managed to return the smile, despite his exhaustion. She had always been consistent in showing her concern for him and his brothers, but it still never failed to surprise him when she did it. “The Generals are debriefing now, should I take any kind of message?”

“Yes, please. And make sure it’s exactly as I say it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Tell him that he needs to come home. Varykino. It’s urgent.”

Rex would have expected ‘home’ to mean Coruscant, but she’d specified a location on Naboo, if he had recognized the name correctly. The latest reports from across the galaxy had shown that Naboo was under no imminent threat, so what urgency was there? “I can get the message to him, but I can’t guarantee how fast he’ll be here, ma’am, especially if General Kenobi has questions.”

“It would technically be the truth to say that this is a Senate-sanctioned mission, but if that doesn’t work, Anakin will figure something out. He usually does.”

Unfortunately, Rex knew exactly how true that was. And how much collateral damage there could be as a result. “Anything else, Senator?”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t think it’ll come to it, but if it’s the only way, tell him that he can also bring General Kenobi with him. And, Rex?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Thank you. For doing this. And for being a friend when he’s needed one.”

“Just doing my duty, ma’am.” The expression on her face shifted slightly, becoming tinged with sadness. It felt personal in a way that made Rex decide he wouldn’t mention it to the General, and that he should let the Senator have her privacy. “I should go now, before anyone notices I’m missing.”

“Of course. Good luck.” The transmission ended, and Rex took a moment for himself. Looking around the empty barracks, he breathed deeply. Quiet like this was so rare now, and it wasn’t at all what he had been created for. But the longer the war dragged on, the more he found himself desperate for it. Speaking with the Senator, he’d felt a new kind of kinship, one he couldn’t quite explain.

Hopefully, the General would know what to make of all this better than Rex did.

It was surreal, sitting at a table with the five women who had been with her longer than anyone, and realizing that the most recent time she’d been with all of them had been decades in the future. Seeing them without the weariness of time, grief, and war in their bodies was at once gratifying and heartbreaking.

“I’ve missed you all,” she admitted softly.

Eirtaé’s eyebrows creased as she leaned forward, chin resting on her folded hands. “I spoke with you and Jar Jar last week, Padmé.”

“I heard you had a visit with the Queen earlier today, does this have something to do with that?” Saché asked, leaning against Yané as she rubbed exhaustion from her eyes. “Should we be preparing for another attack from the Separatists?”

“What I don’t understand is why we’re at your parents’ house and not Varykino,” Rabé said, fiddling with some kind of slicer’s tool in her hands.

“I saw them this afternoon while they were visiting Sola. I asked them to let me have the house for us to meet tonight,” Padmé explained, finally bringing herself to look into the unflinching gaze of Sabé. “What I’m about to tell you is not officially sanctioned by the Queen, or by the Senate, or the Chancellor.” A round of sharp inhales cut her off briefly, and she watched every spine grow straighter. They weren’t simply young women or friends anymore, they were Naboo. They were brave.

“I’m working with the Jedi to decide what happens next, so I can’t give you all the details just yet. They don’t know that I’m telling you anything. But we were all there when this started. You have a right to help see it finished.”

“Then this started with the Occupation?” Yané asked as she wrapped an arm around her wife, hugging Saché close.

“To some degree. You all remember how Qui-Gon Jinn died? And the Sith who killed him?” They nodded silently, the heavy memory of Maul’s burning yellow eyes and menacing aura weighing on all of them. “He answered to someone. A Master. The same person that Dooku now answers to. A person who has been working behind the scenes for decades now to bring the galaxy to this point.“

Her friends exchanged wary glances. “This sounds like some kind of Holonet conspiracy theory,” Saché offered timidly. The others nodded in agreement.

“That’s why I need you,” Padmé explained. “I know you and Yané can’t leave Naboo that easily, but I was hoping that you,” she looked to Rabé and Eirtaé, “would be willing to come to Coruscant with me and try to find the proof I don’t have yet. I’ll be working with the Jedi Council on this mission as well, but there are avenues I won’t be able to explore. Ones you could explore.”

“I’m definitely in,” Eirtaé said, cracking her knuckles. “I was due for a sabbatical anyway, and this sounds intriguing.”

“Given that I’ve been talking with the Galaxies Opera House about a concert or two, I can make an excuse to be there as well,” agreed Rabé, pulling out her datapad to review something. “That would also get us housing outside your apartment, so there wouldn't be questions about you suddenly having more handmaidens."

“And we can look into what might have been left behind here on Naboo,” added Yané. “We should all be the ones to finish it.”

There was a brief ripple of agreement that died as every eye around the table went to Sabé, who had sat silently throughout the conversation, her arms folded as she stared at Padmé.

“I know you won’t ask me,” she said, almost inaudible. “You’ll keep your word to the letter, even if it’s not to the spirit.”

“Sabé—”

“And you know I’ll offer. Because I could never refuse you.” For a moment in Padmé’s mind, her former decoy aged twenty five years, because even when Padmé hadn’t been there to ask, Sabé had answered the call. The others exchanged glances, taking in the implications of Sabé’s words, and the distance between two people they’d always known to be intimately close. “I won’t be Amidala. I won’t go to the Senate, or the Temple. But if there’s something else,” she trailed off, twisting her hands in uncharacteristic anxiety. “You’re chasing the architect of the Occupation. I want justice for that as much as anyone else on Naboo.”

“I understand.” What else was there to say? Sabé was right, Padmé had crossed a line in asking her to be here, and yet, they all knew that if she hadn’t, Sabé would have resented the exclusion.

“You could stay here and help on our end,” Yané suggested. “We have a thorough network of contacts that might know something. If that would make things easier.”

“But I’ve done more work in Coruscant. I can handle it one more time.”

“One last time,” Padmé corrected softly. “No matter how this turns out, I know in my heart that this is the end of Amidala.”

“What?” Chaos erupted around the table in a cacophony of voices, panicked questions and fearful accusations and wild speculations mingling together until Padmé slammed her hands on the table. The silence was immediate, but the tension still hummed in the air as she spoke.

“There is already a target on my back. There has been for twelve years. If I do nothing with what I’ve learned, then all I’m doing is giving my enemies another shot at me. But if I use it, I might finally have a chance to put an end not only to this war, but to my political career. To be able to leave Amidala in the past with a clear conscience and let myself be Padmé. That is what I am asking all of you to help me achieve. Please.”

Silence settled around the table as everyone took in the new information. And then, there was a ripple of nods, reaffirming their consent. It didn’t matter how much time passed, they could all fall back into their old patterns of communication within a heartbeat. “Is this something where my contacts in Coruscant are going to be useful?” Sabé asked, her tone all business now as her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t sound like this runs through the lower levels.”

“No,” Padmé agreed slowly, and then a new idea formed, one that might give Sabé a small amount of comfort at the increased distance it involved. “But there is something else you can do that’s probably better served by those contacts. Do you think you could find someone?”

“It’s definitely possible. Who did you want me to find?”

Anakin Skywalker wished that Naboo was giving him the peace it normally provided. There had been so many times, although not nearly as many as he would have liked, where looking out at the lush green mountains and sparkling blue waters of the lake country in the painted sunset let him feel truly at ease. Of course, all of those times had also been with his wife. Since receiving her message from Rex, he had been on edge, wondering what Padmé could possibly want to tell him. What was so urgent that he’d needed to come to Naboo as soon as possible, with the war still raging? Why not give Rex more details?

“Ani.”

All thoughts evaporated from his mind as he heard her voice. Turning away from the view of the sunset, he saw that she was already running across the terrace, the gauzy skirts of her pale purple gown fluttering as she moved. She practically crashed into his embrace, reaching up to clutch his hair between her fingers as she kissed him hungrily.

“Whoa,” he managed to gasp out briefly. Trying to push her off him ran counter to every instinct in his body but he still attempted to do it, moving his hands to gently grip her upper arms. One of the advantages of being taller than her was that it was easier to put some distance between them. “I’m not complaining, but you’re not usually this enthusiastic.”

“I just,” she paused, a flush spreading across her cheeks as she pushed her hair back from her face, “I have so much to tell you, everything’s changed, but you’re here and I didn’t realize how much I missed you and I needed,” Her eyes flickered towards the door of the villa, and she broke off, the flush deepening as panic set in.

“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Obi-Wan Kenobi said dryly, leaning against the wall with his arms folded in a mix of disappointment and annoyance. Anakin fought the urge to hang his head in shame as Padmé’s face went all the way to scarlet. “You did invite both of us,” the older Jedi continued. “I would have thought that meant you were expecting both of us.”

Padmé opened her mouth, but nothing came out other than squeaks and cracks of her voice as she looked desperately at Anakin. “You didn’t give me a chance to mention he was here,” he mumbled.

“I will give you two the courtesy of five minutes to get your story in order. And then I expect to see you inside. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Master,” Anakin said immediately, his instincts snapping back not only to his life as a Padawan, but to earlier, worse days, when that word had held even more power over him. A flash of anger coiled in his chest, but then he felt Padmé’s hand wrapping around his fingers and squeezing tight in reassurance. Obi-Wan’s eyes followed the gesture before he let out a heavy sigh, rubbed at his brow, and disappeared into the villa.

“I’m sorry, I should have considered the possibility he was here,” Padmé whispered. Anakin noticed she wasn’t letting go of his hand. If anything, her grip had gotten tighter.

“Padmé, I can try to convince him it’s not what he thinks,” he offered, cupping her cheek with his mechno-hand. “I’ll do what I can to protect you from the—”

“No.” She cut him off firmly. “No, Ani, we need to stop hiding. That was why I told Rex it was alright if you brought Obi-Wan.”

Anakin stared at her in disbelief. For two years now, secrecy had been as vital a component of their marriage as love was. There had been countless times when he’d imagined them having this conversation, but he definitely hadn’t imagined that Padmé would be the one to broach the subject. She’d always held firm that it wasn’t something that could be considered before the war was over. “What changed?” It was all he could think to ask.

Padmé bit her lip, looking down at their still-clasped hands. “So much. And I’ll explain as much of it as I can to you and Obi-Wan before we have to tell more people.”

“More people?”

“Ani.” She moved their hands so they were resting on her abdomen. “We’re not going to be able to hide it for much longer anyway.”

He stared at her, taking in what she was saying when he felt it. A new bit of brightness in the Force, pulsing beneath their joined fingers. “Oh. Oh,” he realized. And then he wrapped his arm around her waist, spinning her around as he kissed her fiercely. She giggled against his lips and the sound washed over his heart in a wave of warmth.

She was pregnant. They were going to be parents.

“Alright,” he exhaled, finally putting her back down as reality began to set in. “So we go in there, I tell Obi-Wan I’m leaving the Order, we’ll start planning for how we tell your family. How long have you known? You’re not showing very much, it has to be early, doesn’t it?”

“Slow down,” Padmé chided. “Yes, it is still early, but things are much more complicated than you just leaving the Order.”

“More complicated? I don’t understand how anything could be simpler. I’m not going to miss being there for our family.” At those words, her face darkened, and the warmth in his chest began turning to ice. “What? What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“Will you let me tell you while we’re explaining to Obi-Wan?”

“Do you not trust me enough to tell me now?” he asked, unwilling to hide the hurt in his voice.

“Ani, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like, Padmé?”

“Complicated!” She broke away from him. “I do trust you. If I didn’t, I would have already told Mace Windu about us. You have no idea what the last few days have been like for me, Anakin, and what I need right now is for you to trust me.” He was about to ask when he hadn’t trusted her but the accusation flashing in her dark eyes made him reconsider. Whatever had happened to her, he suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“If that’s really what you need,” he conceded, “then I’ll do it. But I hope that, whatever else might happen, you know that you and this baby are the most important thing in the galaxy to me. And that I’d do anything for you.”

He’d expected her to smile. But instead, her features grew severe and shadowed. “I know,” she whispered. “That’s what we have to talk about. Come on. It’s a very long story I need to tell you and Obi-Wan.”

Chapter Text

“Of all the irresponsible stunts! I can understand this from Anakin, but you, Padmé! Really!”

Seated on the couch next to Anakin, Padmé bit down a small laugh. Obi-Wan had been ranting at them for a solid ten minutes and somewhere around the fourth minute, it had gone from feeling like the expected scolding to being a comedic spectacle. She knew she shouldn’t be laughing, they were talking about a serious issue after all, and they were probably going to have to face similar reactions from the other Jedi, but Obi-Wan’s face was red enough to blend with his beard.

Next to her, Anakin had pulled down his glove and started fidgeting with the settings on his mechno-arm.

“A tryst would be one thing, but marriage?” Obi-Wan continued. “You both knew full well that what you were doing was completely out of line!”

“You would have done it for Satine,” Anakin grumbled under his breath, and Obi-Wan whirled on him.

“I heard that!”

“And I heard what you said to her on the Coronet!”

“Stop it, both of you!” Padmé interrupted, unwilling to let this argument spiral further into something that couldn’t be taken back. Whatever logic he might have had in making that argument, she didn’t know, but it was obvious that Anakin had crossed the line in bringing up Satine. “There is nothing we can do to change the past, and opening old wounds will do nothing for our future.”

“I don’t know what kind of future you think there is before you now,” Obi-Wan retorted bluntly, turning his gaze back on her. “You can’t expect me to keep this from the Council, and once the Council learns of it, there will undoubtedly be investigations into both of you, and your conduct.”

“If it comes to that, we will deal with it, but it’s not the priority. I’m not talking in abstract terms.” She took a long breath, bracing herself for their reaction to her next words. “A few days ago, my ship passed through some kind of pathway that brought me over twenty years into the future, and then eventually returned me to our present time. And the future I saw cannot be allowed to play out.”

Anakin’s brows crinkled. Obi-Wan went silent and lowered himself onto the couch facing opposite Padmé and Anakin. Neither Jedi spoke, but their silence was just as telling.

“You don’t believe me,” she sighed.

“It’s not exactly a story that’s easily believed, Angel,” Anakin said, clearly speaking very carefully so as not to sound condescending. “What makes you so sure that’s what happened?”

“For one thing, I met both of you,” she replied, her entire body clenching as she felt the need to defend herself.

“And your older self too, I suppose,” Obi-Wan said dryly, without the same concern for tone that Anakin had shown. Padmé’s jaw clenched in annoyance, her eyes moving to Anakin. If she went for the harshest truths first, it might convince Obi-Wan, but it would devastate her husband.

“No. Not my older self. But Yoda as well. And several of my former handmaidens, and Jar Jar Binks. The passage of time isn’t exactly something that can be faked to that level, amongst so many people, and that’s before I get to everything else I saw.” Neither of them were speaking now, but Anakin had adjusted his position so that he was facing her more directly. It also meant that there was a little more distance between them, and she hated it. At least when she reached for his hand, he took it without missing a beat.

“I witnessed a galaxy still at war.”

“Twenty years and the Separatists haven’t run out of metal?” Anakin interrupted, unable to suppress the jab, and Obi-Wan sighed in exasperation. Padmé just shook her head before continuing.

“Not the war we’re fighting now, at least not in the same sense. The Separatists were gone. But so was the Republic.”

“If both of them are gone, who won this war?”

“Palpatine.” The name felt bitter on her tongue. “It seems he’s been orchestrating all of this, at least since the Trade Federation’s blockade when we all met. Probably even longer. All to weaken the Republic, consolidate his own power, eradicate the Jedi, and make an Empire solely under his control.”

Whatever answer Obi-Wan had been expecting her to give to his question, it wasn’t that. He looked thoughtful more than anything else.

Anakin’s reaction, however, was closer to what she’d been expecting. He let go of her hand, and stood, pacing the length of the room. No, not pacing, stalking. Every muscle in his body was coiled, tensed in defense. “How can you believe that?” he demanded. “He’s been a friend and mentor to both of us for years, he’s been in Coruscant for even longer, how could the Jedi not have sensed someone as evil as what you’re saying? No. No, it can’t…”

“But it might,” Obi-Wan offered quietly, placing a hand on Anakin’s still-exposed mechno-arm. “When he held me on Geonosis, before the two of you arrived, Dooku told me that the Republic and the Senate were both already under the control of a Sith Lord. Darth—”

“Sidious?” Padmé asked the name at the same time Obi-Wan spoke it and his grim expression deepened.

“I didn’t believe him at the time. I assumed it was a lie to bring me over to his side. Especially after he showed his own allegiance to the Dark Side. I did share what he’d told me with Master Yoda and Master Windu, but we all agreed it was a deception.”

“And it might still be one! This could all be some elaborate trick Dooku thought up to turn us against each other!” protested Anakin. “You were right not to believe it then, and we shouldn’t believe it now.” He jerked his arm away from Obi-Wan and stormed out of the room.

Left behind, and all too familiar with Anakin’s moods, Padmé exchanged a look with her husband’s former teacher.

“There’s more you haven’t said,” Obi-Wan guessed.

“He’s having a hard enough time accepting the idea of a betrayal like this from Palpatine. I can’t imagine how he’ll react when I tell him the rest.”

“Would it help to tell me first?”

“I don’t know, Obi-Wan, I truly don’t know. I think on some level, he already realizes that it’s true, but that doesn’t lessen the betrayal he’s feeling now. Or how he would react if I did tell you first about the rest. There’s no doubt in my mind that the truth has to come out, but I don’t know if I have the strength to choose to be the person who breaks his heart. ”

“Then you think whatever you have to tell him will end your marriage?”

“He’d never choose that,” she whispered hollowly, her arms curling around her stomach. Obi-Wan noticed the movement and sighed.

“I suppose I should offer congratulations?”

“Maybe later.”

“Why did you do it? Why marry him, why create a life built on a lie, and burden yourselves with this kind of secret?”

“Because I love him.” A statement that both destroyed her and made her anew. And yet, it really was that simple, when it came down to the purest part of herself. “I love him and the difficulty of living a life in the shadows with him was more bearable than the thought of living without him. He’s wanted to leave the Order so many times, he even offered it today when I told him. I’ve been the one who’s insisted that we need to wait until the war is over every time he’s brought it up.”

“I hate it when he’s right.”

“What?”

“His allusion to the Coronet. If Satine had asked it of me, I would have left the Order. There was a time when I would have done anything for her without hesitation. And it’s obvious Anakin will do the same for you.”

Yet another reminder of why that was a problem. Padmé bit her lip so hard, she felt the skin break. She couldn’t do this yet. She couldn’t face Anakin and tell him the worst of it, of what his willingness to do anything for her would cost their family.

“I need to contact the Organas on Alderaan so that we can have a place to meet with the members of the Council Mace will be bringing,” she said aloud, changing the subject.

“Take as much time as you need.” For the first time since learning of Anakin and Padmé’s marriage, his face softened, and even if he didn’t smile, there was tenderness in his expression now. “He trusts you, and so do I.”

Obi-Wan stepped outside, breathing in the sweet air of Naboo’s lake country and wishing he could enjoy it. This planet would never truly give him a sense of peace, not when it was the place where his life had been changed irrevocably, but it was beautiful.

Although the beauty was currently being somewhat marred by the wave of troubled emotions roiling off his former Padawan. Anakin stood between two vine-wrapped pillars, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out across the water. It was clear he was trying to meditate and doing rather badly at it.

“Would you like help?” Obi-Wan offered, trying to keep his voice light and conversational. Anakin turned to look at him, revealing a pair of eyes surrounded by the swollen redness of someone who had been failing to hold back tears. “Anakin…”

“We both know you can’t help.”

“I know I was harsh, more than I needed to be, and I am sorry for it, so please, let me try.”

Anakin sniffed, trying to look more amused than he was. “Now who’s the bad student? I’d have thought you’d know all Master Yoda’s teachings by heart.”

Do, or do not. There is no try. Obi-Wan cracked a weak smile of his own. “I suppose that’s why the teacher takes responsibility for the failings of the pupil.”

“If you’d had the choice, you wouldn’t have been my teacher.”

There was no denial Obi-Wan could make for that. “No,” he agreed. “I wasn’t ready to be a teacher when I took you on as my Padawan. I’d only just stopped being one myself, and then Qui-Gon…” he trailed off.

“I know.”

“You’re going to be a wonderful father.” Anakin’s expression turned inscrutable, and Obi-Wan suddenly felt nervous. Had Padmé not told her husband about her pregnancy? That didn’t seem likely, but if this was how Anakin was finding out, then several more apologies would be owed. But instead, Anakin just let out a long sigh that twisted his face into a grimace.

“No, I’m not,” he said, the last thing Obi-Wan had been expecting. The younger man’s shoulders hunched forward as he brought his arms around his own chest. “I already failed Ahsoka. And you heard what Padmé said in there. Haven’t you already figured it out?” Obi-Wan frowned, unsure of what Anakin meant. There wasn’t much more to the revelation of the Chancellor being a Sith Lord. Taking it as truth made several events in their past much clearer, but it was obvious that wasn’t what Anakin meant.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to enlighten me.”

“Come on, you didn’t see how she’s clearly holding back? That there was something she didn’t want to tell me?”

“It could be that she wanted to do it privately.”

“If that were true, she’d have told me before we came inside to talk to you,” Anakin retorted bitterly. “But I still figured it out. If she met you and me, but not herself in the future, if she’s not mentioning the baby,” he paused, clearing his throat and swallowing, “that must mean they’re gone. I don’t know when it happened, but it must have.”

It was bizarre to watch a man mourn for a wife who was still living and a child that hadn’t been born yet, but the anguish in every fiber of Anakin’s being was tangible. It was in his voice, his eyes, his body, and Obi-Wan could only stand there, at a loss for words. He had never been skilled at offering Anakin comfort in the best of circumstances, and this was far from that.

“It’s one possible future,” he said finally. “But it’s not the only one. Nothing is set in stone until it actually happens.”

“But it did happen!” argued Anakin. “It could still happen. And what if it has nothing to do with,” he choked off for a moment, “with what she’s saying, and I still lose them?”

Much as Obi-Wan knew that Padmé was withholding information, the explanation Anakin was offering for her reluctance seemed too simple, too straightforward for the conflict he’d felt radiating off the senator. He placed a hand gingerly on the back of Anakin’s shoulder and let it rest there. “You won’t lose them,” he said, even though it was a promise he had no way of knowing if he’d be able to keep. “And the worst thing you can do right now is jumping to the worst possible conclusions instead of talking to her directly. There have been more than enough secrets and half-truths at this point, and I have heard that communication is the key to a long-lasting marriage.”

“Heard it from where?” Anakin laughed, just a little, before growing serious again. “I’m leaving the Order.”

“I had a feeling you would be.”

“Maybe you’ll have better luck with your next Padawan.”

“If they’re anything like their father, I doubt it.” The words surprised him even as he said them, and his emotions were reflected back on Anakin’s face. “Assuming you and Padmé allow them to become a part of the Order, I mean. I suspect she’ll have very strong arguments against it, but—”

“You’d want to train my child?”

“It would be the second great honor of my life. The first, in spite of all the challenges, has been training you and calling you my friend.”

A small amount of weight seemed to lift from Anakin’s frame as he straightened his back and smiled, putting his own fingers over Obi-Wan’s hand that was still resting on his shoulder. Neither of them said another word, simply standing and watching the last rays of sunlight disappear behind the mountains.

Padmé was asleep when Anakin made it to their bedroom. That wasn’t exactly surprising, she’d seemed exhausted, but it was out of character for her to be sleeping on top of the covers, without having changed into a nightgown. She was curled around a pillow, a datapad still in hand. “Oh, Angel,” he sighed, sitting next to her and brushing a few brown curls from her face. “What am I going to do with you?”

Her thick lashes flickered open to gaze up at him. “Ani?” she mumbled. “Sorry.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile. “Did you at least finish what you were doing?”

“Bail and Breha are happy to host, we’re leaving for Alderaan in the morning,” she nodded, rubbing at her eyes as she sat up. “But I had to let Master Windu know. And Eirtaé and Rabé. They’ll be coming with us too.”

Anakin shifted a little at the mention of her handmaidens. At least she hadn’t mentioned the one he was fairly certain would be furious about all of this. “We’re going to be getting a lot of questions. More even than Obi-Wan gave us.”

“Probably,” she agreed.

“So it’s probably best that I know everything now, so that I’m better prepared for those questions.” Padmé’s face fell immediately, and her hands curled around her stomach protectively. Anakin frowned and slowly pulled his hand away from her face. “I don’t want to fight about this. But we both know you didn’t tell me and Obi-Wan everything. And I think I’ve already guessed why.”

Her brown eyes grew wide with a flash of panic. “You do?”

“Palpatine.” It was still difficult to imagine someone he’d considered a friend as the mysterious enemy they’d been fighting for the last two years. “He killed you, didn’t he? And the baby? That’s why the future—”

“I met them.” She cut him off, smiling wistfully. “And they are incredible, for all the burdens they’ve had to bear.”

“Them?” he echoed, and her smile turned wry.

“I’ve had the big surprise spoiled already, let me preserve it for you. Please?”

“Alright.” He wished the news that she’d met their future child was more of a relief to him, but that had been only half of his concerns. “But what about your future self?” Once again, her mouth dropped into a thin line as she tried to avert her gaze. “No, don’t do that, you can’t do that, Padmé. I deserve the truth, you know I do.”

“It’ll change everything.”

He’d been about to press her for the name of the person who would be her killer in the future. But hearing her so quiet and timid erased all instincts from his mind besides offering her reassurance. “Not how I feel about you,” he promised, moving closer so he could pull her into his arms and let her head rest against his chest. “Not our love, not our family. Whatever it is, Padmé, I’ll keep you safe. But I can’t do that if you don’t tell me.”

She didn’t respond, but she also didn’t pull away from him so he let his embrace tighten a little and tried to piece together what could be so terrible that she would be so afraid to tell him. She’d already revealed directly that the Chancellor was a Sith Lord and implicitly confirmed that whatever the future held, she wouldn’t live to see it. What could be worse than that?

The Chancellor was a Sith Lord.

And Padmé wouldn’t live to see the future.

Putting those two thoughts next to each other felt like two gears locking into place. He opened his mouth to ask if it was Palpatine who killed her, but stopped. That was too straightforward an explanation for her to be keeping it from him.

Maybe Palpatine would try to kill him, or the baby, and Padmé would give her life to keep them safe?

No, again, too simple. Then again, simplicity didn’t seem to be a priority for Palpatine. If the belief Qui-Gon had held before he died was true, Anakin was the natural enemy of the Sith, more than a normal Jedi. A Sith Lord would be better off killing Anakin, but instead, Palpatine had befriended him. There were even times when he’d been more of a friend to Anakin than anyone in the Order…

It hit him then, with hideous force and clarity. Why destroy an enemy if you could make them trust you? Make them loyal to you. “I wouldn’t,” he blurted in a panic, and felt Padmé shift in his arms to look up at him, so he turned his head down to meet her gaze.

He tried to say it again, and failed miserably. It still seemed impossible. But the haunted, sorrowful look in her eyes confirmed it. In the future she’d seen, he did.

“Even if you were told it was the only way to save your family?” Her voice cracked and a tear slipped down her cheek. He could feel one forming in his own eye because both of them knew the truth.

He was capable of it. They’d been in this very building years ago when he made the choice to go to Tatooine, driven by love and fear for his mother. Padmé had been there when he’d returned in a storm of failure and horror.

For his wife, for their unborn child, if he believed he would lose them? He’d set the galaxy ablaze to keep them safe without thinking twice.

Suddenly, it was his turn to collapse against her in sobs, unable to stop. Padmé cradled him close, not making a sound. Her fingers rested gently in his hair and her breathing stayed steady while his staggered.

“I’m sorry,” he managed finally, his voice muffled against the fabric of her dress. “Padmé, I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

She didn’t say she forgave him. And he didn’t want her to. How could anyone forgive a betrayal that deep, even someone as gracious and kind as Padmé? Force, how had he ever thought he deserved her? “Is it too late?” His voice sounded so small, so frightened.

“No. No, It hasn’t happened yet,” she whispered fiercely, pressing a kiss to his hairline. “And it never has to. We can still stop it, Ani.”

“Then I need to know everything,” he said hoarsely. “No matter how much it hurts, Padmé. I need to.”

“Yes,” she agreed softly. “I know you do. But none of it is going to be easy to hear, Ani.”

“I’m not afraid.” It was a blatant lie, but as he said it, cradled in her arms, feeling her warmth and the tiny pulse of the life they had created, he believed it, just a little. “I have you.”

Chapter Text

The journey from Naboo to Alderaan had been far more disorienting than Obi-Wan had expected. Despite the fact that one of them was flying the ship, Padmé and two of her former handmaidens had been huddled together around the pilot’s chairs for the entire voyage thus far, speaking in conspiratorially hushed tones that might as well have been another language. It was a shame none of them had the necessary strength in the Force, they would have been terrifyingly effective Jedi. As it was, he felt supremely out of place, especially since he did not have his fellow Jedi with him.

“Excuse me,” he said, clearing his throat. All three of them looked over at him with similarly sharp eyes. “Senator, do you know where I can find General Skywalker? He’s been rather withdrawn during this voyage.”

“I think he’s down in the cabins, meditating,” Padmé answered distractedly before turning back to her conversation.

Anakin hated meditation. Obi-Wan really should have tried to find him sooner.

His search through the cabins ended up a dead end, so he started working his way through the ship. When he did find his wayward former Padawan, it was in the cargo hold, where Anakin stood with his saber out and a training remote in front of him. He was running through lightsaber forms as if his life depended on it, moving with a speed that was almost alarming. “Would you prefer a sparring partner?” Obi-Wan offered from the doorway, trying to keep his tone light. Anakin looked at him with a stony expression and red-rimmed eyes. “Or perhaps something else?”

“Is everything alright up there? Does Padmé need me?”

“She didn’t send me for you, no.”

“That’s not what I asked, is she alright?”

“She’s fine.” The offered reassurance did little to change Anakin’s demeanor. He went back into his forms. “Anakin. I want to talk to you. Before we have to go before the Council.”

“I’m not stopping you from talking.” He spun his saber, blocking three blasts from the training remote.

“You might look at me.” Anakin ignored him and switched from Djem So to Makashi. Dooku’s preferred form. It was as good a way as any to broach the subject. “Ever since we spoke with Padmé, I’ve been thinking back to that day on Geonosis, when Dooku told me. If I could have prevented this future had I agreed to join him that day.”

Anakin scowled bitterly. “He didn’t tell you because he wanted the Council to know. And even if you had joined him, which we both know you would never do, it wouldn’t have changed anything except maybe killed one of you sooner.”

“One of us?” Obi-Wan repeated, seizing on the opening Anakin had given him. “Sooner?”

Anakin turned the training remote off, followed by his saber and turned to look at Obi-Wan. “Please,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t want to tell you. It’ll only make it feel closer to being real.”

“I can’t help if I don’t know what’s happening, Anakin, and I,” his throat closed up, and suddenly, it was unexpectedly difficult to speak or even draw breath. “I should have done more to protect you. To be what you needed. And I can’t change my failures in our past but I want to try to do better, Anakin. For you.”

“For Qui-Gon,” corrected Anakin, his bitterness audible. “I’m the last mission from your Master and you don’t want to face the proof that you let him down.”

“No.” Obi-Wan stopped as the tightness in his throat constricted further and expanded to his chest. There was truth in Anakin’s words. For all that Obi-Wan had been twenty-five when he was knighted and made a Master, he had still been a child in his own way. He had not been ready for the responsibility of a Padawan, especially not one like Anakin, and the eyes of the Council had been on both of them. So, Obi-Wan had done his best to be their ideal Jedi. Not Qui-Gon’s. And it should have been clear to him much sooner just how much that was never what Anakin had needed. “No, any failure I’ve made against him is because of the ones I’ve made against you. And despite everything, you’re far more like him than I could ever hope to be.”

“Don’t say that. He would never do what I’ve done… what I can do.” The emotion drained out of Anakin’s voice as he turned away, shrinking into himself. “He would never Fall.”

It had to have been his imagination, given that they were inside a ship in the middle of hyperspace, but Obi-Wan could have sworn he heard thunder rumbling in the distance and felt the wind picking up as Anakin spoke the words. Still, it seemed a large stretch of the imagination at best. He opened his mouth to voice that very thought, to reassure Anakin that such a thing was impossible, but the pressure around them both made him rethink his words. “You’re a good man, Anakin,” he said instead, and it was clear how weak a response it was as he heard his own words.

Anakin scoffed, but did not look back.“What does that prove? I thought Palpatine was a good man. Dooku was Yoda’s apprentice, Qui-Gon’s master. For a long time, everyone thought he was a good man. On the Coronet, I wasn’t afraid to murder someone to save the lives of everyone else, while you hesitated. That’s what a good man would do, and it’s not what I did. It’s not even the worst I’m capable of. Padmé is the only person who knows that. Now more than ever.”

“She doesn’t have to be. Anakin, please.” He looked at the hardened young man he’d raised from a lonely young boy, and felt a deep ache that went so far beyond duty. He might have tried to be the perfect Jedi. But he’d broken the Code just as much as Anakin had, and he needed to admit that, for both their sakes. “If you truly believe me a good man, then you must understand that I cannot stand idly by and watch my best friend, my brother, continue to carry this burden alone. Not anymore and not ever again.”

At that moment, Obi-Wan decided to take a leap of faith and make a show of trust. With a deep breath, he opened himself up in the Force to his friend. All barriers down, no secrets shielded, everything exposed for Anakin to see if he chose.

Anakin’s lightsaber clattered to the ground and Obi-Wan suddenly found himself in a crushing hug as his body was shaken by the force of both Anakin’s weeping and his presence in the Force. Tendrils of grief, desperation, guilt, and rage mingled with currents of love, hope, courage, and determination. Fragmented memories drifted in and out of focus, and tempted though he was, Obi-Wan did not try to grasp at them. Instead, he focused on the young man he was holding now very tightly. “You won’t Fall,” he whispered as a distorted piece of Anakin’s conversation with Padmé from the night before passed by. “Because just like her, I will be there to catch you. I promise.”

The sight of Alderaan as they dropped out of hyperspace made Padmé’s heart catch slightly. Knowing what had become of it in another life, seeing the planet now brought both relief and dread. It was still there, still peaceful and thriving. But it wasn’t out of danger yet. Nothing was.

“We’ve heard from Master Windu.” Obi-Wan brought her out of her thoughts. “He’s already landed, along with Master Yoda, Shaak Ti, Plo Koon, and Kit Fisto.”

Despite the fact that this was what she had asked him to do, Padmé felt her body growing tense. “That’s a lot of Jedi to have away from their posts while a war is still being fought.”

“Apparently, it was Master Yoda’s choice.”

Thinking back to her last encounter with the diminutive old Jedi, Padmé wasn’t surprised. Five prominent Jedi Masters all going to the same place at once could get more attention than she wanted. Particularly from Palpatine. She should have thought of that to begin with. What if all she’d done was accelerate what was already in motion?

Her vision began to blur and her breath suddenly felt very heavy. There was too much at risk. The galaxy was unknowingly counting on her and she was already failing. There were so many ways this could go wrong.

Then she felt Anakin’s hand wrapping around hers and squeezing tightly. There was some small measure of comfort in feeling he shared her nervousness, and she turned to look up at him with a shaky smile.

He kissed her. Publicly and without hesitation. And it wasn’t a quick, chaste kiss either, but one that lingered and seared, with one hand cradling the back of her head while the other wrapped around her waist. The kind of kiss that prompted a few uncomfortable coughs from their captive audience.

“Anakin, please, show a little restraint,” Obi-Wan mumbled.

“That was me being restrained,” Anakin replied with a cheeky smile as his eyes stayed fixed on Padmé, who was well aware of just how flustered she had to look at the moment. “I just wanted to help my wife relax a bit.”

“Ani,” she gasped as Eirtaé and Rabé giggled like teenagers.

“Did it work?” His grin got wider.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” she huffed, disentangling herself from his arms. It had sent a thrill through her body to so openly display their love, but she did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right, even a little. She looked pleadingly at Obi-Wan for some support, who cleared his throat.

“Well-intentioned though the gesture may be, Anakin, we should be preparing for our arrival with a bit more solemnity.”

“Think of it as me getting it out of my system before the Council members start in on me.”

Padmé had barely seen her husband during their journey, and spoken to him even less. That night in Varykino, he’d listened to her very quietly and attentively, only asking the occasional question for clarity. But when the whole story had been told, she’d seen him pull back into himself, creating a barrier between him and the world. He hadn’t emerged from it since then.

Given the weight of everything she had told him, that reaction wasn’t unwarranted, but it also wasn’t what she’d expected. She was used to seeing him plunge headfirst into every emotion, feeling as deeply and earnestly as possible, unwilling to conceal to conceal his truth. Now? He was being too confident. Too dashing. Too calm. And that frightened her far more than the wildest storm of his anger.

“Getting a signal from the Palace,” Rabé interrupted. “We’re clear to land. Sabé will meet us there with her guest, and take us to the meeting.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan both frowned, but Padmé smiled, innocently adjusting the japor snippet around her neck. Then she kissed Anakin softly on the cheek for good measure. “We’ll get through this. We’re not alone anymore.”

Within the most private corners of her mind, she thought of Luke and Leia, resting beneath her heart. Her words were just as much for them as for their father.

As the ship descended to the docking bay, she kept her eyes on Anakin, watching his expression change from determination to shock as his eyes landed on Sabé and the guest in question. He bolted for the exit ramp, jumping out before it had fully opened, while Obi-Wan stood frozen, his mouth agape at the sight before him. Apparently unprepared for just how quickly her former Master would try to hug her, Ahsoka Tano was nonetheless gazing straight ahead as she returned the tight embrace Anakin had initiated. The young Togruta looked older than she had the last time Padmé saw her. Not just in the expected ways that came with the passage of time, like the growth of her montrals and lekku, but in the weariness of her features. Her face had grown a little thinner and sharper, and her eyes were shadowed and saddened.

Obi-Wan stayed back, looking at Padmé. “You knew about this?”

“Ahsoka may not be part of the Order anymore, but she is part of our family, mine and Anakin's. She has a right to be here. A right to justice.” Padmé spoke with what she hoped was enough confidence to hide her guilt. She should have reached out to Ahsoka as soon as the teenager had left the Jedi. That failure was just as much hers as it had been the Order’s. “Now come on, we don’t want them to think we’re hiding from them.”

With a small grunt, the older Jedi followed her out of the ship and into the hangar.

“My lady.” Sabé inclined her head, not going all the way to a bow. Padmé chose to return the nod by moving in and clasping her former decoy by the arm.

“Thank you for finding her. And for being here.” She only got a shrug in reply, but Sabé’s eyes were just a shade softer than they had been during their last meeting. Padmé chose to count that as progress.

“Good to see you again, Senator,” Ahsoka said, her voice both muffled and slightly strangled by Anakin’s efforts to keep her close. “Um. Skyguy. Please.”

“Sorry.” Anakin finally released his grip and stepped back. “I just… it’s been so long. I missed you and I’m so sorry, for everything, I never should have let you go on your own, you were a kid, you were my—”

“It was my choice,” Ahsoka said before Padmé had a chance to interrupt. Her voice was far too hard and weary for a seventeen year old, but there was still compassion in it. “And I don’t think there’s any point in reliving the past. I know you cared about me. I know you both wanted to help. What I don’t know is why we’re all here now. There weren’t exactly a lot of details given when this one found me in the lower levels.” She jabbed an elbow lightly at Sabé, who shrugged.

Anakin flinched at the mention of Coruscant’s slums and Padmé gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “The lack of information was my doing, not his, Ahsoka. But you’re here because you’re one of the people that I think deserves to know about what’s coming.”

“Hmm. Sounds ominous.”

More than you know. Padmé nodded and reached out to take Ahsoka by the hand, offering a small reassuring squeeze. “It’s certainly not going to be a pleasant story to hear. But there are quite a few other people who need to hear it as well.”

Ahsoka turned her blue eyes to look at Anakin. “Do you already know?” He nodded silently. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that I want to make sure you’re prepared for it,” was his grim response. Ahsoka sucked in a breath through her teeth

“Begging your pardon, Senator,” Sabé interjected, giving a brief nod to the others before turning back to Padmé, “but our host and the other guests are all waiting for you. Perhaps this conversation is better continued with them as well?”

“Of course.” No matter how much she dreaded it, the time had come. “Lead the way.”

Anakin thought he might vomit. The initial joy at seeing Ahsoka again had turned into another layer of guilt and anxiety as they now sat in the secluded meeting chamber Queen Breha had provided. While the Queen had elected not to join them, her husband was sitting at the head of the table with the five members of the Jedi Council on one side and Anakin on the other.

When they’d entered the room, he’d moved quickly to sit between Padmé and Ahsoka, to draw strength from one and lend it to the other. Obi-Wan was on Ahsoka’s left, next to Senator Organa, and Padmé’s handmaidens were flanking their Queen. The one thing everyone had in common was their gaze being trained directly on Anakin’s wife.

For her part, Padmé had never seemed more distant, not even in the calls when they’d had a galaxy between them. “What I tell you here today is going to be dangerous,” she said quietly. “And must stay between those in this room at this moment. I won’t hold it against anyone who doesn’t want to take that risk and chooses to leave now.”

No one moved. The only person who even made a sound was Yoda, who shifted in his seat to look at Padmé more closely and hummed in thought. Anakin had always been wary of that particular display, and Padmé seemed put off by it as well, given how her shoulders hunched up and then lowered very slowly. Her face slipped into the impassive mask she wore in political meetings.

“I won’t presume expertise in the Force, especially when several venerated masters of the Jedi Order sit across from me,” she began diplomatically, “but recently, I experienced something I can only put in those terms.”

“Flatter us, do you?” Yoda asked with a glimmer in his eyes. “Your unease, I sense, Senator Amidala. Wound our pride, you will not. Speak.”

“Is there any documentation of the Force being used as a conduit for traveling in time, Master Yoda?” Her reply was a little playful, but the question was clearly genuine. “Over twenty years into the future, specifically?”

A ripple of whispers ran through the room, but Anakin kept focus on Padmé rather than try to decipher them.

“Just because something has not been documented does not mean it is not possible,” Kit Fisto offered above the murmurs. “As Master Kenobi demonstrated with the existence of Kamino. And foresight is a well documented skill. What you’re describing is not beyond credibility, Senator.”

“Though it is very specific,” Windu cut in, his dark eyes narrowing. “This is what you didn’t want to share with me originally?”

“I can give you the full story, or I can cut to the heart of the matter,” Padmé answered. “There are many details that are immaterial to the greater issue at hand, which is the identity of the Sith Lord who not only orchestrated the Trade Federation’s blockade and occupation of Naboo, but is also responsible for the war we find ourselves currently fighting. The Master of both Maul and Dooku. Darth Sidious.”

Anakin’s jaw clenched. It didn’t matter that he’d had time to grapple with everything she was saying. It still hurt. Deeply. He’d trusted the man. Practically regarded him as a grandfather. All the while, he’d been nothing more than a pawn. A means to greater power.

“You know who it is?” Plo Koon prompted. Padmé pursed her lips, her gaze shifting to her three former handmaidens and Bail Organa.

“Politically speaking, who gained the most from the occupation?” She posed the question with vague neutrality. Before anyone could answer, she looked back at the Jedi. “And who has been accruing power in steadily increasing amounts over the last two years?”

Eirtaé swore in what Anakin was fairly certain was Gungan. Bail looked stricken, and Ahsoka sucked in a breath that sounded more like a hiss.

“Senator,” Windu’s expression grew somehow even more severe. “That’s a dangerous accusation.”

“Treasonous, I know,” Padmé agreed. “And any one of you here could arrest me right now for posing these questions and the inherent implications of them.” She paused, tilting her head as if inviting them to do so.

“Do you have any kind of evidence that we could use to support this?” Shaak Ti asked, her tone serenely diplomatic.

“If I did have tangible evidence, it would hardly be admissible in a court of law, there’d be no means of proving its validity any more than my words can be verified. But I trust the integrity of the courts as little as I now trust the Chancellor.”

“No arguments there,” Ahsoka muttered, staring at the wall with a withering glare Anakin knew she’d rather be pointing at the Council. “I may just be a citizen, but I certainly can believe it. What I don’t really understand is what’s left. You’re saying he engineered a means to become Chancellor and he’s gathering more power because of the war, but it’s not like there’s more he can do after that. The war can’t go on forever, right?”

“Most of the safeguards meant to prevent someone from even getting this far have been eroded,” Bail spoke up before Padmé could answer. “And there has been a growing number of people in the Senate concerned that, even if the war did end, it would have to fall to the Jedi to remove him from office, if he didn’t step down willingly.”

“Aware of this, we were not,” Yoda remarked gravely. “Prominent in the Senate, this discontent has not been.”

“Because he’s either already swayed them to his side, or else has them too afraid to speak out against him,” Padmé pointed out with a gesture to Bail. “Senator Organa and I have worked closely for years, but we’ve never shared our concerns openly with one another until now. I implore you, Master Yoda, all of you, to hear me and know that I am telling the truth. The only faction in the Galaxy that he sees as any threat to his power now is the Jedi Order, and he will not allow that threat to remain. Not when he’s so close to getting what he wants.”

Anakin clenched his jaw so tightly he thought the bone might shatter. Maybe she’d hoped that he wouldn’t notice how careful she was being to give as little detail as possible, but ever since she’d told him, the details were all he could think of.

“That’s not all there is,” he blurted out, and everyone’s head snapped towards him. “You can’t go back on your word. All of it needs to be said, and if you can’t say it, then I will.”

“Skywalker,” Windu said, his tone one of warning and disapproval that only made Anakin tense further.

“No, he’s right,” Padmé said, raising her hand. “I suppose it’s old habits dying harder than I expected.” She bit her lip, clearly hesitating despite Anakin’s warning. So there wasn’t really any choice but to make good on what he’d promised.

“He plans on using me to do it,” he said bluntly. “No one here needs to deny it, I’ve never truly fit into the Order like I should have. But Palpatine was always there to offer me his support and friendship. To let me trust him.”

A ripple of discomfort ran across the room, but Ahsoka was the only one to speak. “So you haven’t done it yet. That means you won’t have to do it, there’s no grounds to expel you from the Order—”

Anakin couldn’t stop himself from laughing and hugging her. “Oh, Snips, I’ve done plenty to get expelled from the Order already. Starting with marrying Senator Amidala.”

The ripple turned into a full wave as everyone seemed to speak at once. Anakin closed his eyes, letting it all wash over him, unsurprised by how similar most of the questions were to the ones Obi-Wan had asked when he’d found out.

“Since the beginning of the war. Because we were in love. No, we didn’t think we could keep this up forever, the plan was always for me to leave the Order once the war was over,” he ticked off the answer to each expected question on his fingers, “so you don’t have to worry about expelling me. I’ll go on my own. I probably should have a long time ago.”

“Did you know about this?” Windu asked Obi-Wan sharply.

Anakin’s former master raised his hands in defensive placation. “I knew they were close, but I was only made aware of the full extent of that closeness in the last week.”

Yoda cleared his throat and Anakin suddenly realized that the little grandmaster was the only person who hadn’t spoken during the commotion. “Only the outline of this story do I see,” the old Jedi hummed in contemplation. “But guess, I will. Know of your marriage, this Sidious does? Threats against the Senator, he will make?”

“I don’t think it’s a question that he wants me dead, one way or another,” Padmé said, attempting to reclaim her hold on the room’s focus. “After all, he won’t want his apprentice’s loyalties divided. But I don’t think how it happens is of as much consequence—”

“Padmé.” Anakin’s voice cracked as he interrupted her. “All of it.”

And before she could hesitate again or try to argue with him, he started to tell the whole story, both what he’d lived through and what Padmé had told him of their future.

The dreams he’d experienced leading up to his mother’s death.

The horrors he committed against the Tuskens in the aftermath.

Every moment in the war where he’d failed to live up to the expectations that weighed on him.

The Temple.

The younglings.

Killing his wife.

Nearly doing the same to their unborn child.

Twenty years of a new and crueler war.

Killing his best friend.

Alderaan.

The more he told, the harder it became to look anyone in the eye. He felt Ahsoka and Padmé both try to take his hands, but he clenched his fists, blocking them off. He didn’t deserve their comfort, not when his every failure had been laid bare. With every word, he felt both heavier and smaller, as if the weight of his faults would crush him into nothingness. And maybe that would be for the best.

“And I know,” he whispered. “I know I’m still capable of it.”

That was the worst of it. That even knowing what being Darth Vader meant, all it would cost him, an ember smoldered within the deepest part of his soul, whispering that he could still have that kind of power. That he could use it better now that he knew Palpatine’s plan. That it could be worth it if it meant he actually succeeded in keeping his family safe.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, as if that could somehow drown out the voice in his head. Despite how every muscle in his body felt like it would give way, he forced himself to stand.“So I’m resigning from the Order, effective immediately,” he finished, removing his lightsaber from his hip and passing it to Obi-Wan without making eye contact. Then he turned and walked out of the room, ignoring the chaos erupting in his wake.

Chapter Text

Ahsoka wished she could be laughing. It wasn’t like Anakin had really ever been subtle about his feelings for Senator Amidala. She’d thought the Council had to have been willfully oblivious to that particular attachment.

But everything else that had come with that confession kept her from enjoying it. Everyone still in the room was talking at once, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The only ones not talking were Obi-Wan, who sat staring at the lightsaber Anakin had left behind, and Padmé, who was on her feet and heading after her husband. Ahsoka went to follow her, but Obi-Wan grabbed Padmé by the wrist. 

“You’re going to talk to him?”

Something flashed in the Senator’s dark eyes as she glanced over at Ahsoka. “Go on without me, please. Find him.”

“I’m on it.” As Ahsoka slipped through the doors, she heard Padmé taking a very deep breath. 

“After everything he just said, what are you expecting me to do? Tell him to come back to the Order? How is that—”

Her voice faded away with distance and while it was oh so tempting to go back and hear just how far Padmé was willing to take Obi-Wan and the Order to task, Ahsoka knew that there was something more important. The same reason she and Padmé had both stood up in the first place. This wasn’t a moment where Anakin should be alone. 

She let the Force draw her towards his presence as her way of navigating the palace corridors. It was both comforting and unsettling how familiar he still felt, even after so long since they last saw each other. There was a greater weight to him now, a darkness, much as she hated to admit it, but he was still her Skyguy, still the same man who’d become more like a brother than a teacher. Finally, she found him on a terrace overlooking the mountains, standing so still he could have been frozen in carbonite. 

“You know,” she said loudly as she approached, “I wanted to be really mad that I didn’t get invited to the wedding, but then I remembered you did it before I was your student. So I guess you have an excuse.” She slid over to stand next to him, leaving a few inches of space between them for his comfort.  

Anakin sighed, shaking his head. “Did she send you out here to bring me back in there?”

“No. I think she’s currently lecturing everyone else on why she won’t bring you back in there. I just figured we could commiserate over our mutual status as failed Jedi while everyone else is losing their minds.” She hoped he would take it as the joke she meant it to be. Remembering her expulsion from the Order and everything that surrounded it was still painful, but compared to what Anakin had described, it seemed so small and petty.

“Only one of us is a failed Jedi,” he replied sullenly. “The Order failed you, and you saw it. You had the strength to walk away.”

“Don’t talk like that.” She immediately tried to put a hand on his shoulder but he swatted it away. 

“I know you mean well, Snips, but don’t try to make me feel better about this.”

“I know, but—”

“Do you?” His voice cracked as he turned to look at her with eyes red from crying. “Do you know what it feels like to learn that you’re not only capable of hurting the person who matters most to you, but that you will destroy everything they care about when you do it?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I want to help you. Tell me how I help.”

“You can’t.”

“Anakin Skywalker, you didn’t give up on me, how can you ask me to give up on you?”

“You were innocent! I’m not!”

“You can’t hold yourself responsible for things you haven’t done yet! You never have to do them if you don’t want to!”

“What I want has never mattered!” He was practically roaring at her now. “I’ve always had to be whatever everyone else wanted, and maybe I want is to not be the Chosen One, to not be a Jedi, to not be anything—”

“Ani!” The voice of Senator Amidala cut through just as a sharp wind came down from the mountains, blasting them all with cold air. The senator’s curls whipped behind her like a cape in the wind as she moved toward her husband. All the anger immediately drained out of Anakin’s face and he began to crumple against the terrace railing. Both Ahsoka and Padmé immediately rushed to catch him, although Ahsoka felt like she was intruding on a private moment. When she tried to back away though, Anakin’s hand snaked out and latched around her fingers. 

“I don’t want any of it,” he mumbled. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“We know, Ani,” Padmé said immediately.

Ahsoka swallowed. “Sometimes, it can be good to get something you didn’t ask for. Remember when you didn’t ask for a Padawan, but I showed up anyway?”

Her gamble paid off. Anakin let out a little snort of amusement. “You’re not exactly on the same level, Snips.” But the mirth was draining out of his voice almost as quickly as it had come in. “Obi-Wan—”

“Don’t worry about Obi-Wan,” Padmé interrupted. “It’s not your job to make him understand. He has to do that himself.”

Anakin gave a brief, shaky nod and pulled away from her, moving just far enough along the balcony’s edge that he was still clasping his wife’s hand as he stood and stared off into the distance. Padmé didn’t seem to mind, turning her gaze to Ahsoka. “Whatever is decided today, this offer is one that stands for as long as I live, Ahsoka. You have a place in our family and in our home. I should have made that clear the moment you were unjustly expelled from the Order.”

“They were keeping me in a cell at the time, remember?” Ahsoka replied wryly to mask her own sense of guilt. The truth was, if the offer had been made the day she walked away, she probably would have refused it anyway. She was still having trouble believing that she’d even agreed to come here. But that also ranked pretty low on the list of unbelievable things she currently had to deal with. “I’ll think about it. I want to see this whole Palpatine thing dealt with first, though.”

“Absolutely not,” Anakin said immediately, suddenly sounding much more like the Master Skywalker she remembered. “You are not getting anywhere near him. It’s too dangerous.”

“You don’t get to make that decision for me!” she shot back. “We’re not Jedi anymore! And even if we were, you still couldn’t! This is my fight too!”

“It’s my fight,” he insisted, his voice cracking. “Padmé and the baby are already in danger because of me, I won’t let you put yourself at risk too.”

“Excuse me,” a new voice cut through and they all turned to see Sabé standing there. Padmé started to move towards her former decoy, but Anakin’s hand wrapped around her arm, his fingers white as he squeezed. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Senator, I just thought that you should know the Jedi have retreated to discuss everything in private. Senator Organa said he was going to help Queen Breha handle a few matters of state before we reconvene. And I’d like a moment to speak with your husband, if you don’t mind.”

“What?” All three of them spoke in the same tone of confusion.

“Just for a moment,” Sabé continued. “Perhaps you could take the opportunity to brief Eirtaé and Rabé on our next steps? Maybe include young Mistress Tano as well?”

“Surely anything you can say to Anakin, you can say to me,” Padmé argued gently, her brow furrowing deeper.

“No, this needs to be solely between me and him.”

Ahsoka decided to intervene before things could get more heated, carefully prying Anakin’s fingers from his wife’s arm. “I’ll look after her, Skyguy, I promise. You’ll be together in a few minutes, just like Sabé said.” 

Her former master clenched his jaw for a moment, then let it release. “Okay. Just for a few minutes.” Leaning in, he gave Padmé a long, lingering kiss, long enough that Ahsoka had to fight to roll her eyes. Apparently, the one benefit of them keeping their marriage secret was avoiding moments like this.

Once Ahsoka and Padmé were gone, Anakin felt the temperature drop significantly, and he knew it had nothing to do with Alderaan’s bracing mountain air, and everything to do with the sharp brown eyes boring into him like a lightsaber.

“So how do we protect her now?”

He blinked at her in surprise. “What?”

“How do we protect her?” Sabé repeated, drawing out her words slowly as if she thought Anakin were an idiot. She probably did think that. “You must have been thinking about it, you’re her husband.” She made husband sound like a curse.

”Of course I’ve thought about it!” Anakin folded his arms defensively. “But we’re talking about Padmé! I could take her to the most remote corner of the galaxy, and she’d still find a way to come back here and try to save everyone!”

“And what if you ended it?”

Her question was like a blade of ice through his heart. “What?”

“If Palpatine’s after you and that’s what’s putting her in danger, then leave her,” Sabé urged. “Let her go, she has a home and a family on Naboo to keep her safe, and then she can’t be used against you!”

“She’s not just in danger because of me, Palpatine is always going to view her as a threat!” Anakin felt an anger writhing in his chest like a Krayt dragon. “Leaving her wouldn’t change that even if I could do it. And I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Don’t you dare—”

“If everything you said in there is true, Skywalker, then you staying could be what kills her! Am I supposed to stand by and let that happen?”

His eyes drifted down to the small chromium blaster at her hip. A model very similar to the one Padmé had used at the battle of Theed, sleek and lightweight. “Why not just shoot me then?” he challenged. “That’d be the quickest way to solve the problem, right? I can’t hurt her if I’m dead. There’s no way for Palpatine to get me if I’m dead.” His voice lowered. “Why not do it, Sabé? She’d forgive you. She’s somehow been able to forgive me for worse.”

The former handmaiden’s fingers twitched, drifting towards the holster. Anakin held her gaze, not even letting himself blink. He watched her jaw clench, her muscles coil, her eyes dart over his face as she considered his challenge. 

“How far will you go to protect her from me?”

“You would kill me before I tried.”

“That’s not the Jedi way.”

“And you’re no longer a Jedi.”

He shrugged. She was right. It was still a little surreal, this new retirement. And he hadn’t exactly been adhering to that tenet of the Code while he had been a Jedi. But it was so easy to be casual about this with Sabé, because some small part of him realized that at her core, she was probably the only person who could truly understand how far he’d go for his wife.

“This is a trick…”

“No, it’s not. And you know it.” Reaching down, he pressed her fingers around the hilt and pulled the blaster upward, placing the muzzle at his chest. It would be so easy for her to pull the trigger “Because if our places were reversed, you’d ask me to do this for you. To keep her safe.”

“Stop it.”

“Do it.”

“Damn you!” She shoved him away with her free hand, using a surprising  amount of strength for such a small woman. He actually stumbled backwards, grabbing onto the stone edge of the balcony to steady himself. “Damn you, Anakin Skywalker. And damn me too.” In the fading light of the setting sun, he saw a tear glistening on her cheek. And the only reason his face didn’t match hers was because he’d shed too many tears already. 

He let her leave, finally getting the solitude he’d come out here to find. Though it wasn’t helping as much as he’d hoped. Just like on the ship, the roar of his thoughts was too loud.

Damned by love. It sounded like the title of a trashy holodrama, but it was accurate enough for the sorry state of his life.

If he sought out Obi-Wan now, would his former master still show him the same grace he had only a day ago? He could only imagine what the other Jedi were saying. That this was exactly why they’d told Qui-Gon that Anakin could not be a Jedi. That Anakin would still face consequences for breaking the Code. That everything, the last twelve years of his life, had been completely wasted.

Maybe he could run, like Sabé had suggested. Go down to the royal hangar, pick a ship to steal and find that one desolate corner of the galaxy where no one could follow. Or maybe Palpatine would follow, determined to claim his prize. 

Because that’s what he was, what he’d always been. A prize, property, an asset to be used as a Master saw fit.

Except for her. Padmé had never tried to use him like that, never demanded anything of him that he didn’t already want to give her. She had always offered him her love and belief without any condition or expectation, saving him time and again.

And in return, he’d damned her. That knowledge coiled around his heart and squeezed it tight until he could barely breathe. Until he wanted to stop breathing, because to some length, he hadn’t been bluffing in his request to Sabé. If he could be certain that it would be the best chance of keeping Padmé safe, he’d give up his own life in a heartbeat, and maybe that would be the fate he deserved, for everything he’d done and was capable of doing. 

But he knew it wasn’t the best chance. He’d seen it enough times during his life. Maul, Ventress, Grievous, Dooku, Savage… all of them easily discarded by Palpatine at one point or another, when they weren’t useful to him anymore. No, not Palpatine, he had to stop thinking of him as Palpatine, and remember Sidious. Darth Sidious, the Sith who would call himself Anakin’s Master, given the chance.

“No,” he whispered aloud, offering a promise to the Force. To his mother. “Not for me, not for any Skywalker. None of us will ever answer to a Master again.”

He would cling to that vow, with every fiber of his being. His family was his Order and his Code from now on.

Sabé stood outside the doors of the audience chamber where she’d sat not an hour before, bracing herself against the wall with both hands. Her stomach was roiling with anxiety from the conversation with Anakin as she tried to grapple with her utter failure.

She had approached him with the intent to call his bluff, and he had turned it back on her without missing a beat. How had she let him do that so easily? Worse still, she knew in her core that he believed it all. That he would have accepted death at her hands if it meant Padmé would be safe, and that Padmé would be able to forgive Sabé for such a thing. 

But it wasn’t true because Sabé was not Anakin. 

She swallowed, trying to convince herself that this was for the best. That being Anakin wasn’t what she wanted, or what was needed in this moment. That she’d worked too hard over the last two years to find something close to herself. 

Destiny had other ideas.

“We seem to be caught in a very similar trap at the moment.” She glanced over her shoulder to see Obi-Wan Kenobi standing just behind her. It had been half a lifetime since she’d last seen him, but he seemed to have aged twice as much as she had in that time. For a man who hadn’t yet reached forty, he looked old. Though she wouldn’t say so to his face, and she hoped he couldn’t read it in her thoughts.

“Trap?” she repeated.

“We both want nothing more than to save those two from themselves, and we know that they won’t let us.”

“For completely different reasons, Master Jedi. And I’m still calculating what options I have,” she muttered. “You haven’t given up either, I hope?”

“Is it giving up to know that you must allow the wounded loth-cat come to you of its own accord?” His counter was dry, his smile not reaching his eyes. “But that is a trap, in its own way. Paralyzed by the choices of another.”

“And thinking of all the better choices that could have been made,” she agreed, reaching under the folds of her dress to grasp the stone amulet Padmé had given her when they were girls.

“Their choices, or your own as well?” She didn’t answer, only gave him a raised eyebrow and a dry smile of her own. “Would it help to have an escort in going to speak with her?” He offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully.

“Always coming to our rescue, I see.”

His smile grew a touch more genuine as he pushed open the door and they stepped back in. Padmé and the others looked up with identical guarded expressions. “I’m not here to reopen old debates.”

“It was never a debate, he’s made his decision.”

“I know. But I want to know what your decision is. I’m sure the two of you have talked about what comes next.”

“We were discussing that now.”

 “Sabé, I know you didn’t want to be coming back to 500 Republica, but maybe you could stay with Ahsoka?” Rabé chimed in unprompted. “We’ve been trying to convince her that she should head for Naboo, but she won’t listen.”

“Because it’s a stupid idea,” Ahsoka muttered. “I want to help. If we’re all going to let Senator Amidala stay involved with this when she’s pregnant, then there shouldn't be any issue with me being in on it.”

“Oh, I’m still going to try and talk her out of that,” Sabé said, shooting her former Queen a very disapproving look. Padmé met her gaze without flinching, and held it even as she spoke to Ahsoka.

“I appreciate how much you all care about my safety, but this is a matter of practicality. I’m the only person privy to the details needed for this plan, and if I start acting out of the ordinary, then it will only give away the game. You showing up suddenly at my home or the Temple, on the other hand, would be out of the ordinary. And you cannot exactly pass for one of my handmaidens.”

“We could make something up!”

“No, Rabé’s right with the idea, though not the destination,” Sabé said. “It’d be useful for me to have a partner who can handle herself as I work in the shadows on Coruscant.”

“The Order—” Obi-Wan started to speak but Ahsoka shot him an icy glare. 

“I’m not going back there. That’d be even more suspicious than if I started living with Senator Amidala. At least she actually believed and defended me when I was accused of murder.”

“I truly want to—”

“Trying to explain or make excuses is not what needs to be done right now,” Padmé interrupted him, rising from her seat. “Rabé, Eirtaé, I think it might be a good idea for you to show Ahsoka what we have in our arsenal. Nothing there is going to be on the level of a lightsaber, but she should have at least one weapon besides the Force to rely on. And I think, General Kenobi,” she paused, looking Obi-Wan up and down, “that you and the other members of the Order should take longer to consider the next course of action.”

The unspoken meaning was clear enough. Everyone else filtered out of the room until only a former Queen and her Shadow remained. 

“Sabé.”

Oh, but that voice wasn’t a Queen, or a Senator, or even a handmaiden. That was Padmé’s real voice, softer and higher, but with that little undeniable weight that she always carried. 

 “Sabé, I will beg you if I have to. Do not endanger Ahsoka’s life or your own in whatever you’re planning.”

“What else can I do? She’s one of us. You’re one of us. You don’t get to decide for us anymore than we get to decide for you. And you were the one who chose to tell us about what was happening. You wanted our help.”

“Wanting your help doesn’t mean I want you actively putting yourself in more danger than you have to!”

Sabé felt a fist clench around her heart. “Don’t do that,” she choked out. “Don’t play the martyr. Not with me. It’s beneath you.”

“That’s not what I’m doing!”

“Isn’t it? The entire foundation of our relationship is built on me putting myself in danger so that you will be safe! And I have done it more times than I can count, I will keep doing it until the threat is over for good!” Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as her voice cracked. “There’s no part of me I won’t give up for you. Tell me all you want not to destroy myself for your sake, but that’s the one order I can’t obey. Not if it means you live. Not if it means you’re happy.”

“Do you somehow think your destruction will make me happy?” Padmé asked in disbelief.

Of course not. It wasn’t in her nature to be happy with things like that, regardless of the circumstances. Even now, when it was so painfully clear that there were enemies coming for her, enemies that needed to be destroyed in order to be stopped, something in Padmé would mourn that destruction, if only for the failures she thought it represented on her part.

Thinking like that seemed like madness to Sabé. But so did the words that slipped from her lips as a reply. “I think you’d heal far more easily from losing me than the galaxy would from losing you.”

Padmé’s lips pursed, and her eyes lowered. 

“I’m sorry.”

She’d been expecting a lecture. Or an argument. An outright reprimand. Not an apology. Sabé stood dumbfounded as Padmé crossed to her and pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m so, so sorry. For bringing you into all of this, for making you bear so many of my burdens, for not trusting you in the ways that mattered, for taking your life down this path—”

“I followed you into it willingly enough,” Sabé protested while making no attempt to disentangle from the embrace. “You’re not that pregnant yet, there’s no need to get all weepy.” She felt Padmé’s whole body shake in something that could just as easily have been a laugh as it was a sob.

“Because you know so much about pregnancy?”

“You’d be surprised what you can learn in the back alleys of Tatooine.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it when this is all over.” Padmé pulled back, pressing her forehead against Sabé’s. “Please. I want to do better. I want us to have a chance to be friends the way ordinary people are.”

“We’ve done some unbelievable things in our lifetime, but I don’t think we could ever be ordinary. It’s not what we were made to be.”

Padmé was smiling now, and Sabé felt her own lips begin to creep upward to mirror the expression. “When have we ever let that stop us?”

“Am I intruding?”

Padmé looked up from the datapad she’d been staring at idly. Sabé had gone off to find the rest of their faction, but Padmé had stayed behind, in anticipation of everyone reconvening in this audience chamber. Bail was merely first to arrive.

“I think I’m the one intruding more than you, this is your home, after all,” she pointed out. He chuckled, taking the seat directly across from hers.

“I wanted to discuss something with you in private. Two things, actually.”

“Two?” she echoed, furrowing her brow. She could guess easily enough what one of the topics was, but the other eluded her.

“At a few points during his,” Bail paused, searching for the right word, “account of things, Anakin mentioned a Princess of Alderaan.”

Padmé fought down a wince. When she’d told Anakin as much of the story as she could without revealing any specifics about the twins, she’d referred to Luke with the nebulous term of ‘our child,’ but Leia… She’d called Leia by her title, without thinking about the consequences that might come from sharing the story. And now Bail had heard it, so it was too late for her to retract it.

“Yes, he did.”

“I’d like to know more about her if I can. My daughter.”

“Bail, I’m not sure how wise that is.” Even if things went as well for them as it possibly could, Sidious defeated, the Republic preserved, peace achieved, she would still technically be denying Bail and Breha the child they had faithfully loved and protected.  “The course of future events has already been changed, I can’t even be sure you would adopt the same baby that you originally did.”

In fact, I’m trying very hard to ensure that you won’t. I’m so sorry.

“Please. Anything.”

‘Anything’ could be interpreted very loosely. It was a coward’s loophole, but he was looking at her with such earnest hope that she knew it would feel worse for her to keep holding back. “You raised her well. She was… guarded, but after such a loss, I could hardly blame her for that. And in spite of that, she was still kind. Compassionate. Dedicated.”

Bail smiled brightly and another stab of guilt ran through her. Yes, he and Breha could very easily adopt another little girl. And she had no doubt that they would raise that child with the same love and devotion they’d shown Leia. But it didn’t do anything to soothe the feeling that she was stealing from them, irrational though she knew it was. Leia was her daughter! She had no reason to feel any shame for keeping her own child!

But in another life, Leia was Bail’s child too.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“Do our children not get along?”

“No, no, they were very close!” she rushed to assure him. Closer than you might imagine. “I’m just… not very comfortable talking about this. It feels like I’m building your expectations up for something that may not turn out the way you hope.”

“I see it more as setting an expectation for me and Breha to meet the standards of this other version of us.”

“That doesn’t seem any less impractical to me,” she confessed, hoping her words weren’t as harsh to his ears as they were to hers. “I know now who my child would grow up to be if fate took its original course. If I died. And that person… I am so proud of them. I love them so much. But now I’m back here, and they are haunting my every thought, because that version of them is gone. And I have no way of knowing if I can ever match the standards of the people who raised them in that other life. If I’m capable of raising a child half as astonishing as the one I met.”

“I think every parent faces some form of that fear,” Bail pointed out gently. “Force knows Breha and I have thought about it countless times. Questioning if we’ll be up to the task. But hearing you talk about her, knowing we were able to raise a young woman of character, even in such a terrible situation, it gives me hope that the future we’re making now can only be better.”

His confidence was more infectious than Padmé wanted to admit. So rather than continue struggling against the weight of her future expectations, she turned her mind elsewhere. “Then the second thing you wanted to talk about? I assume it’s more immediate.”

He nodded. “I wanted to discuss what steps we take next in the Senate. I understand that it wouldn’t be prudent to make the truth of the Chancellor’s identity common knowledge, but surely it would be a good idea to bring in Mon and a few others to establish some kind of coalition.”

“I understand your position,” she said slowly, folding her hands nervously in her lap.

“But you don’t agree.”

“Not readily, no,” she admitted, shaking her head. “We both know that some of them are already drawing their own conclusions that are close enough to the surface level truth. I don’t doubt he’s already keeping an eye on all of us, to deal with once he’s finished off the Jedi.”

“All the more reason we need to be prepared for this. The danger exists regardless of the action we take.”

“The danger from him, maybe, but it’s not just him we have to think about. You’re talking about building a coalition that can extend beyond our usual circle. If we make even one wrong move, then it’s over.”

Bail gave her a look that was almost startlingly paternal in its disapproval. “I have never known you to be a woman who lets fear paralyze her,” he scolded. “You have always let it drive you into action in the past.”

“I am not paralyzed,” she protested. “But those actions are part of what have brought us to this point!”

“Be that as it may, these are not actions you can make on your own, Padmé!” Bail’s voice rose as he stood, staring her down in a blaze of determination. “Even if I did not witness it firsthand as you did, I know what is at stake. I know how much we stand to lose. The very ground we stand on now, for one.”

His words made her cringe with guilt. How selfish and arrogant of her to get so wrapped up in her personal stakes while speaking to a man whose entire planet would be facing obliteration if they failed. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, avoiding his gaze.

“We don’t need to waste time on that. I don’t know how much longer we have before the Jedi return, but I’d like us to be prepared when they do. Can you agree to that?”

It wasn’t even a question. “Of course I can.”

“Good.” Bail lowered himself back into his seat. “Because I think I may have just figured out a compromise.”

“I’m listening.”

“If it’s too dangerous for us to take steps towards uniting our allies, maybe there are ways we can divide his.”

Padmé nodded slowly, then felt her eyes widening as a realization struck her. “Kamino,” she whispered in almost feral delight.

“What?”

“We should start with Kamino.”

Bail looked at her skeptically. “I can hardly think of a system more firmly under his thumb than the one supplying the army.”

“But that’s just it, they won’t be!” Padmé fought the urge to clap excitedly. “The troopers who served the Empire, they’re not clones.”

“Definitively? Or just not clones of Jango Fett? It’s not like Burtoni has been hiding the limited amount of donated material remaining from the late donor,” Bail pointed out gently. “Maybe the troopers you encountered were clones of someone else.”

She shook her head emphatically. “All of them had different voices. And they weren’t called clones, just stormtroopers. But I don’t even need to be right about whether it happened in that future for this to work, Bail, the idea might be enough to cause fear. Think about it from Burtoni’s perspective for a moment.”

“Not exactly an easy task, that woman is vile,” he muttered as he rubbed his hands together in thought. Padmé watched his brow crinkle as he began to consider it. “If they ran out of Fett’s donations, and a suitable replacement donor could not be found, then there’d be no new orders being placed. Their political value and power would be eradicated almost immediately.”

“Value to Palpatine,” she agreed. “But cloning is still the basis of their economy. So if he stops buying, wouldn’t they have to find new clientele?”

“And he wouldn’t want anyone else to have access to that kind of a resource.” Bail’s eyes lit up as he grasped her implications. “Fear and greed do tend to go hand in hand.”

“I can get Eirtaé to start circulating the rumors through her contacts in the various whisper networks. I assume you have some you can work on your end as well.”

“A fair few,” he nodded in agreement. “Any ideas of how to target his other allies?”

“Not yet, so we’d better get started.”

Chapter Text

He should have been paying attention to what the members of the Council were saying. He should have been contributing to the discussion of what they were meant to do now, in the face of everything that Anakin had revealed.

Even a day ago, Obi-Wan would have fallen in line without hesitation. But after the thorough chastising from Padmé, and the look in Anakin’s eyes as he’d turned away, his certainty had crumbled to ash. Even his brief conversation with Sabé had felt like a farce. A hopeless attempt to pretend he actually knew what he was doing.

“Master Kenobi.” Plo Koon’s voice cut through his miasma of frustration. “Any insight you have would certainly help us determine the proper course of action, you know Anakin best.”

“I think today should have demonstrated that knowing Anakin best does not mean I truly know him,” Obi-Wan pointed out, painfully aware of how sullen and dejected he sounded. He swallowed, calling on his memories of Qui-Gon. What would his old Master have said? A small sense of warmth stirred briefly in his chest. “As Senator Amidala has reminded us, we have all been severely negligent in our treatment of Anakin. I don’t think any of us have the right to ask anything of him at this point.”

“Whether or not we have that right, we have to do something,” Windu countered gravely. “The Sith Lord is not going to stand idly by while we wait for Anakin to make a choice.”

“He has made his choice,” Shaak Ti corrected. “Master Kenobi is right. Disrespecting Anakin’s wishes will not endear us further to him. But you are also right, we cannot ignore the present threat. We have been saying as much for the better part of an hour and yet we are no closer to an actual plan.”

Silence fell across the room. From his seat, Yoda hummed in thought, his head bobbing slightly. “Truth on all sides, there is. Found, a solution must be. Lose Skywalker, we cannot.”

“Is he not already lost?” Kit Fisto asked. “He has left the Order. What more is there to be said?”

“Leaving the Order is not the same as joining the Sith,” Obi-Wan said, as much to himself as to the others. Anakin was not going to fall, he wasn’t, he wasn’t.“I truly believe he does not want to go down that path. But he is also clearly relying on Senator Amidala as his anchor for that, and Sidious will certainly continue his attempts to exploit that. So there is still a risk, though not in the way there was in this… alternative future.”

Another round of exchanged looks rippled across the room. He could tell easily enough what the others were thinking. Whether Padmé could be persuaded to advocate on their behalf, despite the fact that she’d already lectured them once on why she wouldn’t do that.

“The best thing that we can do for both of them is make sure they are in a position where they can be protected. By the Order,” Windu insisted, and for once, his steady, strong voice sounded soft, uncertain. “We are working in their interests as well as our own, there has to be something we can do to make them understand that.”

Qui-Gon would know what to do.

But Qui-Gon wasn’t here. Obi-Wan was. And he was useless.

“The Order as it exists is not able to offer the kind of protection they need,” he admitted softly. The others looked over at him, alarm on every face except Yoda’s. The wizened old master met his gaze and held it serenely, not a trace of distress or disturbance on his face. “Nor the protection this galaxy needs.”

“And what is needed?” Yoda prompted.

“Change.”

For such a small word, it landed with the full weight of a meteor.

“We have already changed,” Kit Fisto observed aloud. “I do not think that the Jedi we were even three years ago would recognize what we have become now.”

“No,” agreed Obi-Wan, “but I don’t know that trying to go back to what we were will be the solution either. I’m not sure it’s even possible. But for now, at least, we cannot focus on Anakin.”

“Then where do we focus, Master Kenobi?” Windu pressed urgently and Obi-Wan realized: he was afraid. Deeply and undeniably afraid, in the way that Jedi were never meant to be.

“On helping the Order survive so that it will be able to change,” Plo Koon suggested solemnly. “I would say that our first priority must be preparing for this moment when the clones will apparently turn against us.”

“Then I should return to Kamino. I will investigate as much as I can without drawing suspicion,” Shaak Ti nodded in concurrence. “The Kaminoans may have insights into this plot they have not shared. And it will be better if I leave as soon as possible. Staggering our returns to our respective destinations should help to alleviate suspicion.”

“You think we’re being watched that closely?” Kit asked.

“Best not to leave anything to chance,” the Togruta replied with more serenity than Obi-Wan suspected she actually felt at the moment. “

“I will not leave just yet, but when I do, I will certainly be updating our evacuation protocols in the Temple,” Kit offered. “There are places in there that I believe we could secure against intrusion, additional ways to protect as many of our Order as we can. Especially the younglings.”

“I suppose that’s a start,” Mace conceded. “But I still do not like the idea of waiting for him to make the next move. Especially with Skywalker’s decision.”

“Storm the Senate, should we?” Yoda prompted. “Lying in wait, we may be, but unprepared, we will not be. Complacent, we will not be.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we—” A single glance from Yoda and Mace’s objection stopped short. “You are right, of course, Grand Master. I apologize.”

“Then I think I will take my leave now,” Plo Koon announced. “I don’t look forward to it, but perhaps there will be something within the minds of my troops that I will be able to glean.”

“None of us like this situation,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Whatever else might be true, we have come to trust the clones, and built a rapport with them. The idea of them turning on us is unsettling, to say the least.” Painful, at most. He had built more than a rapport with Cody, he could truly call it a friendship. And he knew that Anakin had a similar bond with Rex, possibly an even deeper one.

“But not entirely unprecedented.” Shaak Ti whispered in grim realization. “Trooper CT-5385,” she caught the slip and corrected herself. “Tup. The death of Master Tiplar on Ringo Vinda. We thought it was Separatist sabotage, and the Kaminoans told us that he died of a virus shortly afterwards. His fellow trooper… Fives. He tried to investigate afterwards, and ended up dead as well.”

“After he was framed as a would-be assassin of Palpatine. And Anakin was sent to hunt him down,” Obi-Wan recalled. Blast it all, was there any part of Anakin’s life that did not bear Palpatine’s influence? How could it be so glaringly obvious now, and yet Obi-Wan had missed it for years? The air in the room suddenly felt oppressively heavy. “Please, excuse me, I need a moment,” he mumbled, rising from his seat and hurrying to the door.

He needed to find Anakin. To apologize properly, to make sure he knew that Obi-Wan understood, that things would be different, but that he would keep his word, and help Anakin face this.

But Anakin was in the wind, his presence in the Force imperceptible. Obi-Wan had nothing but his own thoughts for company.

What good was apologizing going to do? It wouldn’t undo the past twelve years of Anakin’s life, nor do anything to protect him from Sidious. The whole effort was a laughable farce, just like Obi-Wan himself.

Suddenly, he was very aware of just how frantic his breathing was. And it was impossible to think of any of the techniques that he had studied over the years to calm and focus his mind. Obi-Wan stumbled in a daze along the halls, seeking something that could ground him and finding nothing. This sensation of losing control of his own body… he hated it.

A hand landed on his shoulder stopped his forward momentum. “Breathe in. One. Two. Three.” Anakin’s voice came from beside him, unexpectedly confident and gentle. “Slowly now.”

In. One. Two. Three.

He felt Anakin guiding him to lean back against a wall. “Good, now hold it. One. Two. Three. And release. One. Two. Three.”

Anakin coached him through the cycle once, twice, three times before Obi-Wan felt steady enough to actually look his former student in the eye.

“I didn’t teach you that.”

“No,” he agreed with a sad smile. “Learned it from my mother. When I was a kid, staying calm and quiet could be…crucial.”

The implication hung in the air, and Obi-Wan cringed, remembering everything that had happened on Zygerria. How Qui-Gon had found Anakin in the first place. “Ah.”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t waste time thinking about every single thing that’s gone wrong in our lives and how much of the blame you think you should be taking for it. It won’t help. Believe me, it’s half the conversations I’ve been having with Padmé. And Ahsoka. And myself. I think I might be going crazy anyway, but we don’t need to speed up the process.”

“No, I suppose not.” Obi-Wan leaned back against the wall, rubbing at his forehead with one hand. Anakin watched him intently.

“Someday, I hope to see you do that for something that’s not because of me.”

“It’s not because of you, it’s about….” Obi-Wan trailed off. It was about Sidious, which meant that in some way, it was about Anakin. “You’re much calmer about all of this than I was expecting you to be,” he admitted instead.

“I’m good at lying.”

“I thought I was better about recognizing when you were lying.”

For a long moment, the two of them stood in silence, side by side, listening to the winds of Alderaan blowing past them. “Were you looking for me?” Obi-Wan asked finally, hopefully.

“Grabbed a speeder,” Anakin admitted with a shake of his head. “Took it from the hangar and did a quick circuit around the mountain to clear my mind. I was on my way back to check on Padmé and the baby. Why? Were you looking for me?”

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Not exactly.”

“You’ve gotten worse about lying.”

What a pair we make, then. “Alright, I was. But it wasn’t for the right reasons.”

Anakin undid the buckles of his glove and started fiddling with the wires on his mechno-arm. “What kind of reasons were they?”

“Apologizing.”

The silence that served as Anakin’s response felt heavy enough to crush him into dust.

“Then I realized that I was acting to alleviate my own guilt, not to actually offer you what you need.”

“Which is completely different from what you’re doing right now.” The sarcasm-laden accusation hit him with the blunt force of a charging Wookiee. “Mast— Obi-Wan,” Anakin corrected himself. “I think you need to consider this a lesson in the art of patience. Rushing someone to forgive you only makes it less likely that they will.”

Then what else is there left to be said between us? How are we meant to move forward with something like this hanging over us? Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to voice the thoughts forming in his head as a response.

“The members of the Council who came here were trying to convince me to bring you back into the Order,” he offered instead as a warning.

“You don’t agree with them?”

“As someone who cares about you? No, I don’t agree with them. Though I’m ashamed to admit it took your wife rebuking me publicly to remind me of that.”

Anakin laughed ruefully. “I truly don’t know what I did to be loved by someone like her.” Then his face grew a little more grim. “What’s the other part of you saying?”

“As a Jedi tasked with protecting the galaxy, I feel honor-bound to advise you on the best course of action to protect yourself, your family and the galaxy.”

“And you think those two are in conflict with each other?”

“I worry that you’ll be that much more exposed and vulnerable to Palpatine’s schemes once you leave the Order,” Obi-Wan answered earnestly. “You can’t tell me you haven’t had the same thoughts.”

“My thoughts have been more focused on how I kill the bastard,” Anakin admitted. “Even considered grabbing a shuttle and heading to Coruscant to do that now. Just march up to his office in the Senate and drive my lightsaber into the space where his heart should be. Maybe even cut him into pieces, just to make sure there’s no chance he can come back.”

“What’s stopped you?” Obi-Wan didn’t bother to hide his relief.

“Knowing that I’d probably be killed almost immediately after. Or sentenced to life in prison. I wouldn’t mind that part so much except for the fact that then Padmé would kill me. Honestly, she might try to find some way to kill me in the first scenario too.”

Both of them managed a laugh at that. “I’d almost like to see her try. I’m sure the method would be very creative.”

“It wouldn’t have to be, since I wouldn’t put up a fight.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” They stood in silence for another few moments.

“So, it’s safer if I don’t leave the Order because it’s less suspicious?” Anakin asked. “That’s what the Council thinks? What you think? That Padmé, the baby, and I, we’ll all be safer if Sidious doesn’t know that things have changed?”

Sighing heavily, Obi-Wan nodded. “But the choice is still yours.”

“I don’t know how to make it.”

“Then I hope it will help for you to know that whatever course of action you decide, you’ll do it with my support.”

Anakin’s blue eyes peered at him with all the intensity of a lightsaber. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Without hesitation.” Things weren’t settled between them. They both knew that. But it felt like a start. And Obi-Wan was willing to put in the work to see it through.

As everyone trickled back into the audience chamber, seeing her husband enter at the same time as Obi-Wan gave Padmé a small flash of hope in her stomach. Although it might have also been more to do with her pregnancy. Every little flutter and twitch from any part of her body she now immediately associated with her pregnancy in some way.

Anakin crossed to take the seat next to her, grabbing her hand tightly in his. “It’s alright,” she whispered softly as she pressed their foreheads together. “We’ll be alright.”

“You will be,” he agreed and she frowned, opening her mouth to question exactly what he was planning but the doors closed before she could say a word. And with the full contingent reassembled, she had to take the lead once more.

“I hope the recess was productive for everyone else?” she asked in as neutral a tone as she could manage.

“Our strategy isn’t complete to the extent we were hoping, but we have a foundation,” Master Windu answered. “Those of us who are stationed in the field will return to our posts and do what reconnaissance we can. The rest of us will be returning to the Temple to adjust its defenses and extraction procedures. And we will not share what has been said today with any other members of the Order, to ensure as few opportunities for us to be compromised as possible.”

“We came to a similar conclusion,” Bail added. “The less that the Chancellor,” he pronounced the word with utter disdain for the mockery Palpatine had made of his position, “is aware of what we’re doing, the better. We will do what we can to peel his supporters away from him, reduce the amount of support he has in the Senate.”

“And to help us do this,” Padmé added, bracing herself for the reaction she knew was coming, “I'm going to start working on getting closer to him. To keep him distracted.”

“Absolutely not!” Anakin and Sabé blurted in unison as the rest of the room gawked at her. Padmé set her jaw, waiting for her husband and her shadow to get their indignation out of their systems.

“I’m not going to let you put yourself at risk like that!”

“We’ve already established that he’s targeting you and wants you dead! Why would you even suggest something that reckless?”

“You can’t shield your thoughts like a Jedi, and a blaster isn’t going to do much good against a Sith!”

“And he does know you, Padmé, he was your mentor at one point!”

“At least think of the baby’s safety!”

“But that’s just it,” she interrupted them both calmly. “You worry about me endangering myself. But I believe the safest course of action is to put myself in a position where it’s plausible that he could think I can be turned to his side, just as he’s planning to do to Anakin.”

“And I’m supposed to just let you do this?” Anakin asked indignantly.

“If he doesn’t think he needs to threaten my life in order to influence you, and instead can have me influencing you directly, I think it divides his priorities and gives me access to resources we will undoubtedly need.”

“Forget the Force-damned Republic for five kriffing seconds and listen to me!” He slammed his hands down on the table. “Everything you’re saying is based on assumptions that we can’t guarantee. You don’t know him. None of us actually know him. If you do this and it turns out you’re wrong, we lose, Padmé. And you know what losing actually means.”

She flinched not from him shouting, but from the reminder. He wasn’t wrong. A single misstep would be catastrophic, could send them down an even worse path than the one they were fighting to change. But that was true of any of the paths that lay before them. “There is no alternative,” she replied gravely.

“You could let me—”

“You wouldn’t pass anymore, Sabé,” Eirtaé interrupted. “By your own admission, you’re out of practice being Amidala, and you have just as little ability in the Force as Padmé does.”

“None of us like this,” added Rabé, “but she’s right. And if that is going to be a problem for you, then it might be better for you to go home and work with Yané and Saché on their end of things.”

Sabé and Anakin were wearing twin scowls as they slumped in their chairs.

“I think we’re all in agreement that discretion is key to our efforts,” Padmé said, reasserting her leadership of the conversation while giving Rabé and Eirtaé a muted glance of appreciation. “And to that end, I would like to see if there is any instruction I might be able to receive in shielding my thoughts from more intense intrusion.” She’d managed it with Vader in the future, but Sidious would be another matter. He didn’t have love to compromise his judgment.

“Help with this, I will,” Yoda offered before Anakin could say anything. Padmé smiled at him in gratitude. “Additional visits to reinforce, we might also arrange. Teach you as well, I will, should you wish,” the little Jedi offered Anakin. “Member of the Order or not, greater mastery of this skill, you should have.”

“I do have a question about that,” Ahsoka interjected. “What do you plan to do about the 501st? If Anakin isn’t a Jedi anymore, he can’t really be their general.”

Anakin’s jaw dropped in an expression of dumbfounded guilt. “Kriff, I forgot—”

“If the Council and you are both amenable, I can assume a temporary command under the guise of requiring reinforcements,” Obi-Wan offered immediately. “They’ve served with the 212th before, and done so without any issue between the two battalions. We can claim you are on a leave of absence for the time being. Perhaps a covert assignment of some kind.”

“Thank you,” Anakin said earnestly. “I’ll get in touch with Rex to make sure he can help you and Cody with things as much as possible. Just so no one worries.”

“I don’t think any of us are truly going to stop worrying until we’ve seen this through,” Bail predicted darkly. “But we will see it through. For the sake of the galaxy.”

It was no small thing to have everything you had previously understood to be true upended in the course of a single day. Yoda wondered how the Grand Masters of old might have managed a situation as unthinkable as this one.

He’d known something was different about Senator Amidala from the moment she had arrived on Alderaan. Her presence in the Force was stronger, brighter, but also carried sorrow and responsibility beyond anything he’d felt before.

To learn the reason for it had been another matter altogether. Now that he knew what to look for, the embers of new life were nearly impossible to ignore, even while mingling with the Senator’s own presence in the Force. She was right that shielding was needed. And there was a limited time within their journey back to the capital.

They were not returning to Coruscant on the Jedi cruiser they had used for the journey to Alderaan. Windu and Fisto had taken it, with their return planned for the evening, when there would be fewer eyes to notice Yoda’s absence. The senator’s handmaidens would return to 500 Republica in the Senator’s yacht, Ahsoka Tano hidden in their ranks until the young Togruta and one of their number could then disappear into the underworld of the lower levels, while the other two played decoy. And Yoda was aboard the Tantive IV with the Skywalkers and Senator Organa. The Viceroy was with the pilots, having yielded the stateroom for their use.

“No easy task, shielding in these circumstances,” Yoda warned the married pair.

“Anakin has taught me some of it,” Padmé offered. “And I was able to use it while in the future, to keep my thoughts hidden.”

“Different, this will be. Multiple levels of shields required. Active, yes, but also passive. Aware of Sidious you are now, even in the subconscious thoughts. Guarded, all of them must be. Even in dreams.”

“You think he can do that?” Anakin’s voice pitched up nervously. “Sense our dreams? Influence them?”

“Ani.”Padmé took her husband’s hand and squeezed gently. He settled almost immediately at the grounding touch, though only a little. “These additional layers. You can help us build them?”

“The initial foundations I will lay,” Yoda confirmed. “Then teach Anakin I will so that reinforce your shields without us, he may.”

“Couldn’t I learn how to do the reinforcements myself?” she asked. “If we’re maintaining the illusion that nothing has changed, Anakin can’t spend as much time with me.”

“It’s true,” Anakin added on. “I never stay there more than one night at a time, in case some holonet reporter catches sight of us. Same with visits to her office in the Senate. Or trips to Naboo…” he trailed off, flushing with guilt at yet another admission to his blatant flouting of the Jedi Code as Yoda stared at him, face numb with disbelief.

Disaster, my lineage.

Qui-Gon’s defiance and disregard for the traditional ways of the Jedi had been one thing. But then Dooku had Fallen. Ahsoka had walked from the Order for how deeply it had failed her. At first glance, Obi-Wan seemed the outlier, and yet the meeting on Alderaan had made it clear just how close he was to walking away as well. And then there was Anakin. The Chosen One. Equally capable of being the destroyer of the Jedi or the savior of the Galaxy.

Yoda felt closer to five thousand years old than his actual eight hundred and seventy-seven.

“Unclear,” he said slowly, “but limited, your abilities in the Force are, Senator.”

“I want to try,” she insisted. “Please. Even if it’s limited, it’s better than nothing, isn't it?”

Trying. Not the way of the Jedi. but as he and Obi-Wan had surmised on Alderaan, the ways of the Jedi needed to change. “Very well,” he sighed, adjusting his position so that his legs were folded in his seat. “Then begin with basics, we shall.”

As he let his consciousness slip into the deeper levels of the Force, he realized that the energy he’d been sensing from Amidala was not limited to the new life within her. Of course, any child of Anakin’s would have undoubtedly been strong in the Force, but Padmé herself was stronger as well. Perhaps this pregnancy was more symbiotic than the average one.

“Look within,” he coached them softly, “and consider yourself, you must. What makes you who you are. The light, you must find, that is you.”

“Luminous beings,” Anakin mumbled, and Yoda allowed himself a small smile.

“Yes,” he agreed. “And to keep the light, ever aware of it, you must be. Provide it fuel when the dark draws close.” He paused, considering the two of them, considering what he was sensing from Padmé. “Warned against attachments, the Order has. Dangerous, we have considered them. But for these circumstances, from your attachment, the light may come.” With a deep breath, he adjusted his own defenses, imaging them as a dam redirecting a river. The knowledge he had to share with them ran so much deeper than mere words could allow, and this more direct path could also serve a practical purpose. “Feel my mind, do you?”

“Yes,” breathed Padmé. Anakin remained silent, but nodded.

“Sense you as well, I do. Now, within your mind, an image you must hold. Tell me what it is, you need not. Discern it, I will, and say what it is. React to it, you will not. Not yet. For now, feel my presence, you will. To detect intrusions, you are learning.” As he spoke, he began to direct his thoughts, seeking the image in Padmé’s mind specifically. the clear outline of a small piece of wood appeared, attached to a leather cord and carved with small lines and whorls.

“Strange,” she murmured aloud. “I’m not sure how to describe it.”

“You don’t have to,” Anakin reassured her gently. “Just as long as you know how to recognize it.” Yoda began pushing deeper and he saw a frown forming on her face as she sensed the change. Immediately, the pendant disappeared behind a barrier of stay out stay out stay out.

“Do this with Sidious, you must not. Reveal your awareness of him, it will,” he chided. “A new image you must create. Around it, place a second image, you will.”

“Give her a moment.” There was a protective edge to Anakin’s voice, storm clouds gathering within his Force presence. “She’s not used to this.”

“We don’t have time for moments, Ani,” Padmé pointed out to him, her own tone soft and patient, a gentle sunbeam breaking through the clouds. “The only way I’m going to be able to get used to this is if we keep going.” As quickly as Anakin’s presence had darkened, it calmed again. It was a remarkable thing to witness firsthand, this kind of bond that the Jedi had only ever observed and understood in the abstract, both for the danger it posed and the safety it clearly offered to Anakin. As they resumed the exercise, it was with the distinct feeling that he would be learning as much from this young couple as they would be from him.

Chapter Text

Leaving the Order didn’t mean anything if he was back in the Temple, going about business as usual. If he still couldn’t see Padmé for more than a night at a time. If he couldn’t confront Sidious about everything he’d done.

Half his life. More than half a lifetime of praise, affection, trust… all of it lies. He didn’t understand how someone could be that calculating, that unfeeling. That believable.

He started fidgeting with the straps on the glove covering his mechno-arm and tried not to imagine what it would be like to have his legs that way too. To be trapped in a cybernetic prison, his breathing automated, his voice altered.

For killing your wife? Destroying everything she cared about? That would be the least of the punishments you deserved.

“Shut up,” he muttered, grabbing one of his starfighter models off the nearest shelf and holding it as tightly as he could to try and ground himself.

Ever since returning to the Temple, he’d been hiding in his room, the official story being that he was working on slicing into tactical data they’d retrieved from a captured Separatist base. He was free to move about the Temple and use its resources as needed, but there wasn’t anywhere he wanted to go. Everything that mattered to him was out of his reach, so he might as well have been a prisoner. Most of the last three days, he’d spent lying in bed, or sitting by the window, tinkering with whatever projects he’d left lying around while his thoughts grew louder and harder to ignore.

More than anything, he wanted someone to talk to. Really talk to. But Obi-Wan and Rex were both in the field with their legions. Padmé was in the Senate, working on her insane plan with Senator Organa. Ahsoka was running reconnaissance in the lower levels. The only people currently in the Temple who knew everything were Yoda, Windu, and Kit Fisto, and  of those three, Kit was probably the one he’d be the most comfortable talking to, but comfortable wasn’t the same thing as trust.

A flash of anger ran through his chest at the thought that, not too long ago, it would have been Sidious he turned to in a situation like this. He tried to force the anger back, then remembered. He wasn’t a Jedi anymore. He didn’t have to stop himself from feeling. “I’m going to stop you,” he said aloud. As if the Force could somehow carry it to the Sith Lord. “I’m going to make you pay.”

He needed to get out of his room. At least for a little while. So he forced himself to sit up and climb out of bed, and head to the fresher to clean himself up. As the water from the shower began to run down his body, he considered where else he could go in the Temple that he could stand visiting without thinking about all the destruction he could bring to this place, to these people.

The training halls definitely wouldn’t work, or the refectory. There was no guarantee of privacy anywhere, not really. Maybe he should go to the hangar, do some work on the Azure Angel…

Work.

That was it. If he didn’t want to think about the future they were trying to avoid, he needed to work on something that would actually help with this. And since all the ways that he would usually do that kind of work weren’t an option, he’d have to find a new one.

How would Obi-Wan handle this? Or Padmé? The immediate image in his head was one of them leaning back, examining the contents of a datapad. Sometimes several datapads at once, if it was Padmé preparing for a vote in the Senate, because she’d be reviewing her own talking points while also preparing ways to address any arguments from the opposition.

He’d been doing that though. What was fighting Dooku and Grievous in the field if it wasn’t addressing the opposition of the Jedi?

Distractions. Grievous wasn’t a true Sith, and Dooku… well, they’d already known well enough that Dooku was following the patterns of the Sith, given his offer to Obi-Wan. The way he’d treated Ventress and Savage Opress. Find an Apprentice before becoming the Master, while Palpatine was seeking an Apprentice he could more easily control.

Control. It always came down to control, didn’t it? Control the slaves by placing bombs in their bodies. He closed his eyes, trying to force back familiar faces he didn’t want to think of. Gardulla the Hutt. Watto. Miraj Scintel. The water suddenly felt like ice against his skin, despite the steam swirling around him. He forced himself to follow the breath work his mother had taught him. They couldn’t touch him anymore.

Control the trade routes to crush the spirits of entire planets. Nute Gunray coming after Padmé again and again. Blockades on Pantora. Preying on the starvation and suffering of Rodia. All for a few credits more.

Control the galaxy by creating a war where you won no matter what. Manufacture droids for one side. Commission clones for the other. Keep throwing them at each other while politicians argued, territories shifted hands, and people got more and more desperate to just see an end to the wanton destruction.

But the clones weren’t like battle droids, mindlessly adhering to a given set of orders. They could think for themselves, offer advice and strategy, push back against plans they didn’t agree with. Even choose to break from the Republic, like Slick turning traitor and spying for Ventress.

”Only a Jedi would ask that. It’s the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved! We do your bidding, we serve at your whim. I just wanted something more.”

If Slick had known what Anakin’s past was, would he have still said that? Did it really matter? Anakin had certainly known his own past, no matter how much he tried not to think about it. He should have seen the truth in Slick’s words, should have pressed deeper into everything, should have been objecting to the creation and use of the clones from the beginning.

But he hadn’t. None of the Jedi had. Maybe that was how Sidious had convinced the clones to turn on the Jedi, offering them hope in the same way he had always been there to offer Anakin his friendship. Maybe that was part of why Ventress had made that offer to Slick in the first place, a test of whether or not the clones could be swayed.

“It’s a start,” he mumbled to himself, shutting off the water and moving as fast as he could to get himself dried off, dressed, and headed towards the archives. All the while, his mind was racing parsecs ahead.

Christophsis seemed like a lifetime ago and, at the time, he’d been generally unconcerned with what would happen to Slick once he’d been taken into custody. That had been for Obi-Wan and Cody to deal with. And Obi-Wan and Cody were always very detailed in their debriefing reports, which always had a copy submitted to the Archives at the Temple as well as the Senate and the Security Council. “Just please don’t have been executed,” he prayed under his breath.

“What was that, Skywalker?” He glanced back over his shoulder to see Jocasta Nu eyeing him a little warily, her normally smooth white bun looking a little askew and her robes out of place. As if someone had bumped into her because they were so wrapped up in their own thoughts they hadn’t been properly aware of their surroundings. He felt a flush of embarrassment rise and turned to bow to her fully.

“I’m sorry, Madame Jocasta,” he said guiltily. “I should have been more careful.”

“Well, no true harm was done,” the Librarian said, her voice serene, the hint of a smile on her lips, but her eyes sharp and focused on him, “but I am curious now as to your urgency. Perhaps I can be of assistance?”

“I think I know what I need to find, I just don’t know where to find it. I’m looking for military reports. Specifically the ones from the Battle of Christophsis. Actually,” he realized aloud, “I think it’s probably more accurate to say prisoner records. Maybe both, just to be safe?”

Blue eyes scrutinized him for what was probably only a few seconds, but felt like an eternity. Then Jocasta nodded and gestured for him to follow her. “This is in connection with your counterintelligence investigations?”

“Yes.” The not-really-a-lie held easily enough as he fell in step behind her. “I know it’s been a long time, but my instincts are telling me that there’s something I need from that. Some of the information that was compromised at the time might be connected to the work I’m doing now.”

“I see.”

As they turned the corner and approached a new shelf of records, another thought occurred. “Are there records of the Republic’s contracts with Kamino here as well? Or anything about the original deal made by Master Sifo-Dyas? I know there wasn’t one from our end when O— Master Kenobi,” he caught himself, “found out about it initially, but did they give us anything after they joined the Republic?”

Her brow furrowed for a moment. “I’ll have to go and see. Its security clearance was reclassified recently, which meant it had to be relocated within our Archives.”

“Reclassified?” echoed Anakin. “Who ordered that?”

“The Chancellor, following the events on Ringo Vinda and assassination attempt on his life. You should still have clearance, though, given your rank as a General.”

Of course it was him. “I appreciate your help, Madame Jocasta,” Anakin said, nodding earnestly in spite of the anger roiling inside his chest. “If you can find the records, I’d be grateful to see them, but I’m definitely going to start with what we have here. Thank you.” She returned his nod with one of her own before retracing their path.

Anakin started pulling datapads from the shelf, checking their contents. Manifests from the supply ships… Records of the injured and dead… Surveillance reports… Prisoner logs. He allowed himself a smile at finding what he was looking for, stepping back to clear the way for anyone passing by as he started searching the contents for Slick’s name and number. But the smile began to slip from his face as he read the report. And then the updates.

» Sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for treason, following completion of sector campaign.

» Sentence commuted following assessment from Kaminoan medical team.  CLASSIFIED — TOP SECRET — CLEARANCE REQUIRED. Prisoner relocated to Tipoca City for further evaluation.

» Findings inconclusive. Prisoner experienced cardiac event during examination. Placed in medical stasis.

Well, wasn’t that just kriffing convenient? Every clone he could think of who had shown any kind of strange or defiant behavior, anyone who had gone against the expectations of their duty, was dead or otherwise unavailable. He pulled out his commlink, adjusting the frequency as he weighed the options of calling directly versus transmitting a message. Shaak Ti would probably have her own comms with her, but there was no guarantee she’d be able to answer and he didn’t want to compromise whatever work she was doing at the moment.

He settled for a short message.

» Possible lead identified. Need to investigate further onsite. Details to follow once you reply with meeting time. Skywalker.

As the message began transmitting, he considered whether it would be a good idea for him to approach one of the other members of the Council with his findings. Then he bit down a laugh. Who would have guessed that leaving the Order would be all he needed to start acting like the perfect Jedi?

Padmé shifted in her seat, running a finger of the carved edges of the japor snippet beneath the folds of her dress. She’d started making adjustments to her wardrobe with Rabé and Eirtaé’s help. They’d initially talked about it in relation to her pregnancy, and how best to conceal it. The shift couldn’t be too abrupt, or it would run the risk of making things too obvious. Then Rabé had suggested they might incorporate a second influence in the change in her style: giving indications of her loyalties based on color and fabric. They would start moving into fabrics that were heavier and more structured, ones that could cloak her figure as it changed, and those materials would also be well-suited to the deep, rich tones that had long been favored by the Chancellor.

It was easy enough to get started on that, with a dress of dark green that was hugging her still relatively slender form, accented with a layer of puffed silk over her forearms and a matching cape, her hair pinned back in a conservative style that was nonetheless reminiscent of the way she’d worn it while she was Queen of Naboo, with  a few subtle gold pins embedded into it. Signaling a level of nostalgia for a simpler time.

Clothes were so much easier to deal with than actual politics. Especially at this moment, listening as Mas Amedda droned on, reading through a bill that could easily be summed up as “shall we spend more credits commissioning more clones to continue fighting this endless war?”

Of all the parts of the plan, this was the one she was least comfortable with, probably because it was a part of the plan only she truly knew about. As she’d been settling back into 500 Republica’s penthouse, it had struck her that Bail didn’t have the same level of defenses and preparation she was learning to maintain from Yoda and Anakin’s guidance. While it was likely that Palpatine had already written Bail off as not being a true threat, the less her friend knew, the less anyone knew about what she was doing, the better their chances of keeping the ruse going.

Moreover, if she wanted to make this believable, she would have to start taking actions that would be seen by more than just her peers in the Senate. They’d be reported across the galaxy, back to Naboo, to her family, to Queen Apailana. And she wouldn’t be able to explain easily. There was a very real possibility that the Queen would ask her to resign.

When she’d initially told her friends that she’d wanted to stop being Amidala, she’d naïvely imagined a gradual process where she would still be able to help facilitate the transition away from Palpatine’s regime, back into the Republic she’d believed in all her life. Now, she was realizing just how much this would need to be political suicide for her to pull this off. Even if they were completely successful, it was very likely that no one would ever trust her again.

Shame flushed through her. What worth did a personal reputation have against the fate of the galaxy?

Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to vote yes, and so she chose to abstain instead, submitting the vote before she could change her mind, sucking her breath through her gritted teeth. Shiraya, give me strength.

It was a mild relief to watch the final breakdown of the votes and see that hers wouldn’t have made a difference. Ostensibly. But the number of votes in abstention besides her own still made her stomach churn. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the idea that people were abstaining because they didn’t want to side with the Chancellor, but didn’t want to go against him, or that they wanted to side with him, but were choosing not to so they could keep playing both sides for their own gain.

“Milady?” Jar Jar’s voice brought her out of her thoughts and back to reality. “Yousa feeling okee-day?” She smiled at him weakly, and then an idea occurred to her.

“Jar Jar, if I put together a message for the Queen and the Bosses, could you bring it back to Naboo, please? As soon as possible.” It would be easier to work if she didn’t have to worry about him accidentally finding out about something. She was very fond of the Gungan, but she was fully aware that he was not the kind of person you entrusted with sensitive information. And if Naboo could be informed, then there would be fewer confrontations, fewer opportunities for someone to put themselves in danger as they tried to understand what she was doing.

“Couldn’t yousa just be calling them?” he asked, following her as she rose from her seat and began to exit the pod. “Fancy holos in the office would send faster message than meesa going back home.”

“I’d rather not have anything intercepted or misrepresented. Call it old nerves from the occupation,” she said, glancing back to look at Eirtaé. “Would you go with him to make sure he arrives safely?”

“If you believe that will be helpful, my lady,” Eirtaé replied with an impressively neutral expression.

“I trust the two of you to communicate to the people at home that I am taking the actions my conscience dictates to be in the galaxy’s best interests.”

“An abstention?” Padmé winced at the icy voice of Mon Mothma, moving towards her with an almost deadly precision, Bail close behind. She turned to face her colleagues resolutely, standing firm as Mon stormed directly up to her. “You cannot be serious!”

“My mind has not changed on how unsustainable our current course of action is,” Padmé answered, noticing other members of the Senate slowing to watch the conversation out of the corner of her eye. “But none of the alternatives being proposed are viable either. There needs to be a reevaluation of our strategies.”

“Then you discuss that sort of thing with us beforehand!”

“Senator Mothma, please,” Bail said softly, placing a hand on the Chandrilan’s arm to pull her back. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable discussion to be had about this in a more private setting.”

“Don’t tell me you agree with her!”

“I don’t.” Bail’s voice was very firm. “But I also do not believe that arguing the point in the halls befits our position. Senator Amidala, perhaps a meeting tomorrow, after the morning session adjourns? In my office.”

“I’ll review my schedule and reply to you,” Padmé confirmed, keenly aware of how sharply Mon’s eyes remained fixed on her, searching her face for some kind of clue. “Please excuse me. I have some work to attend to.”

Mon opened her mouth, clearly about to say something furious in response, but Bail ushered her away. As she made her way towards her office, Padmé was well aware of the rippling whispers traveling ahead of her. It wouldn’t take long for the Chancellor to hear of the argument. She assumed he was already well aware of her vote. So for now, she would, unfortunately, have to wait for him to make the next move.

Mace had never in his life imagined that this would be how he would be planning the ultimate defeat of the Sith. Standing outside the bedroom door of a man half his age, completely unsure of how to even knock on the door.

He wasn’t a complete fool. He knew that Anakin had been avoiding him. And he knew why. It would be generous to say that he’d had a strained relationship with the younger man over the last decade. It had been challenging enough being in the Order alongside Qui-Gon Jinn and his penchant for the subversive, they had at least both grown up understanding what was expected of them.

With Anakin, it was infinitely more complicated. He had grown up in a different world, one far more punishing and unforgiving than the one cultivated within the Temple. A world like that required the kind of defiance and passion that burned brightly within Anakin Skywalker, but those ways were not easily unlearned. And the Jedi Order certainly wasn’t the place to unlearn them.

But after Qui-Gon’s death, with the threat of the Sith looming, leaving the boy behind wasn’t an option either. It might have been better, he admitted to himself, if a more experienced Master had taken charge of Anakin’s training. But Obi-Wan had insisted, had promised Qui-Gon, none of them could truly find it in their hearts to refuse a request made out of loyalty and devotion.

But they had watched. Hovered at the edge of things, ever ready to intercede if the need arose. Offered their guidance where they could. There had even been moments when Mace had truly believed that Anakin had been on the path to being the kind of Jedi that they’d expected him to be, but even those moments came with a wariness of his potential, of what it meant for him to be the Chosen One.

And all the while, Sidious had been watching too.

Mace shuddered as he recalled a thousand small moments in a new light.

How easily Anakin had taken to Vaapad, even at the age of nine, to a point that had been unnerving, enough so that Mace had never truly been comfortable with the idea of him learning more of the saber form.

Every moment when the Chancellor had exerted some amount of his power to pull Anakin into his orbit, claiming affection while unsubtly making threats to the Order’s position within the Republic.

And how often the Council, the entire Order, really, but especially Mace himself, had failed to meet those moments as they should have. Failed to protect, or even see the reality of the situation. To see Anakin.

In trying to imagine how the younger man saw him, Mace could hear a roar of his own words piling on top of each other, the sum total of a decade’s worth of interactions, all with their meanings radically altered. Reservation twisted into coldness. Restraint intensified to disdain. Frustration warped to seem like hatred.

Force, he might as well have handed the boy over to Sidious on a platter. And there was no apology that could possibly encompass such neglect.

He started to turn away. It wasn’t the right time for a conversation like this. But he’d barely taken a step before he heard the door sliding open.

“Master Windu?” He froze, feeling the blue eyes on his back. “What is it? Was there news from Obi-Wan in the field?”

“No,” he answered, slowly turning back to look at Anakin. The former Jedi was in a state of disarray, with his hair wild, the outer layers of his robes abandoned and the inner layer fastened incorrectly, and a frenzied spark in his eyes. “General Kenobi confirmed that he, the 501st, and the 212th were fine in his last transmission.”

“Something in the Senate?” Anakin’s voice pitched up with the unspoken question about his wife.

“We did hear some report that there was a confrontation of some kind between Senators Mothma and Amidala over a budget vote, but nothing beyond that.”

Anakin took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he settled himself. When he looked back at Mace, his expression had turned cold and impassive. “Are you here to convince me to change my mind?”

“No.”

A moment of silence stretched out between the two of them, neither man moving or even blinking. Then Anakin stepped backwards. “Actually, you may be able to help me with this. How would you describe your relationship with the 187th?”

“My… what?” Of all the things Mace had expected, it was not that.

“The 187th,” Anakin repeated. “Your clone battalion? How much time do you spend with them outside of battle? Would you consider them friends?”

As Mace stepped inside the room, he was greeted by the sight of active datapads strewn across every surface, lists of battalions and field reports scrolling by. A few of them had frozen images of battles and news coverage about votes in the Senate connected to the clones. He’d heard about Anakin’s visit to the Archives this morning, how had it turned into this in a few hours? “I suppose,” he said slowly, “we are friendly enough, though I don’t spend much time with them, given the responsibilities I have here at the Temple.”

“Right, of course,” Anakin agreed distractedly. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know them better. Padmé had nothing but compliments for the ones she met when you found her. And you may still be able to help, do you have clearance for information that’s been classified as Top Secret?”

“What?” Mace blinked at the abrupt change in topic, punctuated by Anakin shoving a datapad into his hands without warning. “Slow down and help me understand what you need from me.” He looked down at the datapad, scanning over the report on the clone sergeant called Slick, the one who had been colluding with Asajj Ventress during the battle of Christophsis.

Anakin froze in the midst of his frenzied movements, staring at him blankly for a moment. “I thought it might be possible that he,” he didn’t have to specify who, “did the same thing to the clones as he did to me. Offer them something they wanted, something they didn’t feel the Jedi could give them.” Mace shifted slightly at the underlying aspersion, but Anakin didn’t seem to notice, too involved in presenting his explanation.

“I’m trying to figure out if maybe Ventress getting involved with Slick was a test of whether or not it could be done. I already sent a message to Shaak Ti asking for her help, since I don’t have the clearance for the full report, but I haven’t heard back from her yet. So I’m looking over everything else I can in relation to the clones. The original commission order from Sifo-Dyas, their production, their training. There are some protocols I wanted to look at, but when Madame Jocasta found them, she told me that they were filed under an even higher clearance than Top Secret. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” Mace agreed warily, entering his clearance codes on the datapad to unlock the report.

“Well, apparently, you need to be on the ‘Republic Security Council’ or the ‘Defense Staff’ to read those protocols. It doesn’t make sense to me why there would be a need for both a Security Council and a Defense Staff,” Anakin continued, resuming the organization of his research with annoyance audible in his voice. “I haven’t found any list of their membership But I don’t think there are any Jedi on either of them.”

“There aren’t.” The confirmation hung in the air like a weight choking both of them. Military protocols that the Jedi, the ones leading the military efforts, weren’t privy to was a glaringly bad sign. “Is there anyone else you’ve asked about this? Obi-Wan, or Master Yoda?”

“I didn’t want to bring anything forward until I knew as much as possible. I can’t get this wrong, I can’t risk—“

“Anakin.” Mace interrupted firmly, reaching out to put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and steady him. “Slow down, take a breath, and listen to me. You do not have to do this alone. It is not your sole responsibility, and you don’t have to prove yourself. Not to me, not to the rest of the Council, not to anyone. And I am sorry that so much of your life has been shaped by that belief. I am sorry that for how much I am responsible for it.”

Anakin’s eyes met his. Clear and blue, without a trace of the malignant red-tinged yellow known to be a mark of the Dark Side, wide in bewilderment as he heard words he had probably never expected Mace to say to him. But there was more beneath that confusion. Of course there was. But Mace couldn’t decipher it, Anakin’s shields were impressively complex, more than they had been a few days earlier. He opened his mouth and then closed it, shock becoming concentration as he looked down and away.

“You are not alone in this, Anakin,” Mace repeated. “And we will stop him. All of us.”