Chapter Text
The Chancellor is a Sith.
No, scratch that. He’s The Sith.
And Anakin’s half in denial, still. Even after the tour of his office and the Sith Artifacts lining the walls. Even after Palpatine had come out and told him.
Told him. Anakin. A Jedi. To his face. That he’s the Sith lord.
Right.
Part of Anakin still can’t really believe it. Can’t reconcile his kind, grandfatherly old friend with the monster that’s tearing the Republic apart. The man that apprenticed Dooku and created Maul and orchestrated the whole kriffing War. And yet—
And yet.
Anakin almost lets Master Windu get on the transport alone. Almost lets the Councilors leave, because if four Jedi Masters can’t do it, no one can, but—
—but Anakin’s the Chosen One. He’s supposed to bring balance to the Force. And he’s the Hero With No Fear. If he doesn’t step up now, if he runs away from this fight, then he might as well turn in his ‘saber.
It might’ve been better if Qui-Gon had never found him at all. Kinder. But then he never would’ve met Obi-Wan or Ahsoka or Padmé. Rex and the rest of the 501st. He can’t regret that, even if he’s about to raise his weapon against a friend. A mentor. An old man who’d loved him and listened to him and trusted him when no one else had.
He still doesn’t want to think of Chancellor Palpatine as the enemy.
But his mother had taught him well, her hands heavy on his shoulders and her lips warm on his brow when she’d sent him off into the stars for the very first, and last, time: no one can run from destiny forever.
Not even a Skywalker.
“Master Windu!” He calls, drawing up short before the man. Master Windu looks up, one hand on the door and one foot on the stair, and his Force presence is already shading towards disapproval. Anakin doesn’t have the capacity to give a kriff.
“I’m coming with you.” He says, tight and flat and ironclad. Master Windu raises a brow.
“Skywalker, no—,” he starts, stepping down from the transport and drawing Anakin off to the side. A few of the technicians throw them curious glances but leave well enough alone. “No, you’ve done enough.”
“No.” Anakin disagrees. He hasn’t. He hasn’t done nearly enough. All the things Anakin’s told him, all the missions that went sideways, he’s… he’d... He trusted Palpatine. And it had all but damned them, in the end. Anakin’s never going to be able to wash the blood off his hands, not even if he renounced his title and joined the Agricorps for the rest of his natural born life, but still… Still. He has to try. And he has to start with this. “You need me. And I—I need to see this through.”
Master Windu hesitates, eyes flicking between Anakin’s face and his hands and the transport. “Obi-Wan will kill us if anything happens to you.” He says, slow and careful like he’s still thinking things through, and his eyes go hazy and distant for an instant as he looks somewhere beyond Anakin’s left shoulder.
“Obi-Wan’s on Utapau,” he counters and he’s never been so grateful to have his master on the other side of the galaxy. “By the time he finishes up there we’ll have taken care of Palpatine. He can’t be angry if we win the war.”
Or we’ll be dead, he thinks, and it will all have been for nothing.
Anakin’s thoughts flash to Padmé. To their unborn child. To his family and his men and the billions upon billions of lives that rest on their shoulders.
They can’t possibly fail. They can’t. The horror of that future is too great.
Master Windu doesn’t say anything for a long moment, eyes slipping half-shut as the Force swirls and echoes around them. Anakin can feel it’s insistence, like a hand between his shoulder blades, and he knows he’s making the hard choice. The right choice. And he’s got to keep making it.
He wonders if Master Windu can feel it too.
“... Alright, fine.” He says finally, shoulders bowing for an instant. “But you stay out of the way. This is our fight, Skywalker, not yours.”
“I understand.” Anakin lies through his teeth. Master Windu nods shallowly, searching his face, and gestures towards the transport where the other three masters are waiting.
“After you,” he says quietly. Anakin nods and steps back up the stairs, ignores the eyes on his back and the blatant disapproval of the masters inside. The ship takes off almost immediately, humming and bucking beneath their feet, and Master Windu gestures to the empty seat at his side as he rejoins his fellow councilors. Anakin shakes his head and sends a tendril of apology into the Force. Then he steps away, presses his back against cool durasteel, and watches the bustle of the Temple hanger recede beyond the window.
It feels like stepping onto Qui-Gon’s ship. Like watching Tatooine shrink and disappear from beyond the confines of it’s gravity well.
Anakin tucks his shaking hands into his sleeves and grips his lightsaber hard enough to hurt.
He’ll fix this. He will. He’ll save Padmé and their child. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. The clones. The Jedi. The galaxy.
He’ll save them all and nobody has to die because Anakin will do it with his own two hands.
He’s the Chosen One. He’s Obi-Wan Kenobi’s padawan.
He can do anything.
(He ignores the little voice in the back of his mind that whispers and wails and screams the closer they get to the Senate Dome. He’s good at that, too.)
If Anakin had any lingering doubts about Palpatine’s status, they've shriveled up and died by the time Master Fisto hits the floor.
The Force resounds with their deaths, the light of their very souls flickering and dying and staining the room with the echo of their surprise. Their desperation. Anakin stifles a cry of horror, of rage, and throws himself forward just in time to catch the ‘saber streaking towards Master Windu’s back. He deflects it and goes for a crippling swipe to the knee even as Master Windu spins and shouts. The words are lost beneath the hum of their ‘sabers flashing, locking, red against blue, and Palpatine’s form is shriveled and unnatural but he can still recognize the slant of his smile, the angle of his brow.
Sulfurous yellow eyes stare back at him and Anakin tastes betrayal.
“How could you?” He demands, the words practically ripped from his throat. His chest aches like an open wound. Palpatine tilts his head and smiles, jumping back to disengage.
“How could I what, my boy? You’ll have to be more specific.” He says lightly. Anakin snarls, steps forward with his ‘saber aloft, but Master Windu’s hand on his arm stops him short.
Anakin breathes in rage, breathes out grief, and doesn’t take his eyes off of the Sith Lord in the room.
“I trusted you.” He spits and it tastes like shame.
“You did,” Palpatine agrees and his face is genial even if his eyes are not. There’s a headache building in his temples, behind his eyes, but Anakin shoves it aside and tightens his grip on his lightsaber. “You don’t belong with the Jedi, Anakin. You never have.”
“I am a Jedi!” Anakin shouts before he can stop himself. It sounds weak and desperate, even to his own ears, and Palpatine’s smile widens just a touch.
“Skywalker, don’t listen to him!” Master Windu snaps, stepping up to press his shoulder against Anakin’s. It’s strangely comforting. Anakin hates it.
“Are you?” He asks gently, tipping his head toward Master Windu. “They’ve never trusted you, Anakin. They didn’t want you. But you don’t need them. You never have. And you can be so much more.”
Anakin scoffs and slides forward a step. Palpatine watches him, eyes narrowing, but doesn’t raise his blade.
“You mean a Sith?” He replies, tense and furious.
“No, my boy.” Palpatine says, spreading his arms wide. The brilliant glow of Coruscant’s night cycle deepens the shadow of his robes, settles in the lines of his face, and Anakin wonders how he never saw a monster there. “You can transcend all that. You can be a god.”
“Kriff you.” Anakin snaps. Master Windu hisses a warning as Anakin steps further away, circling towards the side, and Anakin ignores him in favor of stalking closer to the Chancellor. Palpatine shifts, holds out a hand towards Anakin, and he’s already imagining how best to relieve him of it when the man speaks again, voice soft and sibilant and nearly lost beneath the sound of speeder traffic beyond the wide window.
“You can save her, you know. You can save them both, Anakin. I can teach you.” He murmurs, eyes wide and bright beneath his hood. Anakin freezes. “I can give you the power to save your family.”
Padmé, he thinks, envisioning the lines of her face. The sweet smell of her soap and the way the light catches in her curls and the drape of her dress. The swell of her stomach and the tiny, fluttering Force presence within. Anakin’s ‘saber wavers, dips, and his chest tightens painfully.
Padmé’s going to die. Anakin’s Seen it, her face slick with sweat and utterly agonized as she thrashes and cries and begs him to save her. To save their child. And Anakin had ignored those visions, once. Had bottled them up and locked them behind his teeth at Obi-Wan’s behest and he’d buried his mother for it.
She’d died in agony. She’d died afraid. And he can’t let that happen again. He can’t. Not to her. A galaxy without Padmé Amidala isn’t one he wants to live in. Isn’t one he wants to see.
He can’t possibly bear it.
“No!” Master Windu shouts, flying forward. His lightsaber flashes towards Palpatine’s neck and Anakin screams.
He throws a hand out, entirely desperate, and the Force twists and bucks but it answers him all the same. Master Windu shouts as he’s thrown back, twisting just enough to keep his head from slamming into the wall, and Anakin hears him wheeze as the breath is knocked from his lungs.
He winces, just a bit, but he doesn’t have time to feel guilty. He leaps forward to catch Palpatine’s ‘saber with his own as the Korun master struggles back to his feet.
“Stop!” He snarls, shoving back against Palpatine’s blade. The man doesn’t move an inch. Anakin redoubles his efforts. “I said stop! It’s over. You’ve lost. But you don’t have to die.”
“I haven’t lost.” Palpatine murmurs, dark and insistent. “But you will. You’ll lose everything if you stay with the Jedi, Anakin. Your wife. Your child. Your master. Your apprentice. The Jedi will take them all from you. They’ll make you choose.”
Anakin’s hands are shaking. His knees throb. Jedi don’t get married. They don’t have children. And Anakin can already tell his child is Force sensitive. Monumentally so. Anyone with so much as a hint of sensitivity would know, once they were born. The Jedi—The Jedi will—!
“But you don’t have to choose, my boy. You can have it all. You just have to reach out and take it.” Palpatine says. Like it’s easy. Like it’s a fact. Like Anakin could keep his family and his title and his ‘saber. Like he could just… Like he could make his dreams a reality if he simply wanted it enough. If he took his hand.
A shout is all the warning he gets before Anakin is thrown back and Master Windu takes his place, ‘saber flashing as he strikes and parries against Palpatine’s blade. The Chancellor snarls, wordless, and his own sword is a red blur against the backdrop of the half-dark sky.
He can have it all. He doesn’t have to choose. Palpatine will save Padmé. Will save their child. And Anakin can keep Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and his men. He won’t have to hide. He won’t have to lie. He can just live.
It’s all he’s ever wanted. All he’s ever dreamed. And he needs Palpatine to make it a reality.
Only— only Anakin’s heard that before. The thought draws him up short, his steps halting on the carpet and the bodies on the floor by the door even as the room fills with the clashing buzz of ‘sabers and the smell of plasma burned flesh.
In his haziest memories there had been a man on Tatooine who’d taken a liking to his mother. Who’d promised her everything they were ever hungry for: gold and comfort and freedom, most of all. And his mother had refused, again and again, right up until he’d leveraged Anakin’s freedom against her. Until he’d dangled her dearest wish in front of her face in exchange for her hand.
She’d left him with their neighbors for the night. She’d come back with bruises and blood on her tunic and grief in her eyes.
He never came back again. Their shackles remained unbroken. The desert taught Anakin of greed.
Palpatine doesn’t have that man’s dark hair or the packets of spice in his pockets. He doesn’t flip credits across his knuckles and he doesn’t reek of spotchka. But he has the same dark eyes. The same smile. And Anakin, in a moment of clarity, recognizes the cruelty in his gaze.
The Force whirls around him, through him, sharp and insistent, and Anakin closes his eyes and breathes it in. Follows the thread of its will to his ‘saber, still clenched tight in his hand, and he knows how this ends, now.
He knows.
“I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” Anakin breathes and it feels like a revelation. Like coming home. Anakin’s a child of the Force. The child of prophecy. The Force will not forsake him now.
Not now.
Master Windu stiffens, twists, and maybe he senses the shift in the Force or maybe it’s something in Anakin himself. Whatever the reason, Master Windu flicks a glance toward him, a question on his lips, and it’s a mistake. Palpatine’s face lights up with vicious glee and his ‘saber flashes and takes off Master Windu’s hands at the wrist. The man falls with an agonized scream and Anakin stifles a cry. He won’t make it in time. Not alone.
But Anakin’s never really been alone. He’d just forgotten.
“There is no emotion, there is peace.” Anakin mutters as he reaches out and the Force moves with him, bolsters him, as he knocks Palpatine back a step. Just enough to throw him off balance and slide between the man lying prone on the ground and the Sith. He scores a hit on Palpatine's wrist, on his side, and the man hisses furiously.
“You dare defy me?” He snarls, like Master Windu isn’t writhing in agony on the floor behind them, and Anakin dodges the blade aimed at his head, parries the next thrust, and sweeps low on his next strike. It forces Palpatine to jump back, further into the room and away from Master Windu, which is the whole point, and Anakin blinks stinging sweat from his eyes and twists to avoid a jab that would’ve seared straight through his kidney.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge, he thinks, and draws on long-buried memories of Obi-Wan’s preferred Soresu katas to block the next strike aimed at his head. Anakin ducks and the heat coming off the blade passes close enough to burn. He grunts and kicks out, lands a glancing blow to Palpatine’s right knee as he goes. The man curses but doesn’t buckle.
Pity.
He does reach the end of his tether, though. Palpatine’s face flushes furiously, eyes flashing with violence, and his strikes pick up speed and impossible power as the room around them darkens. Or maybe that’s just how it feels, but Anakin’s a little too busy trying to keep all of his limbs attached and accounted for to care about the semantics.
“You could have been a god!” Palpatine screams, windows shuddering with the force of his fury, and the world narrows down to the two of them. The Sith’s ‘saber sears a line of agony down his leg, across his bicep, and Anakin struggles to straighten his sword. Each strike is bone-rattling. Eye-searing. His eyes burn and his fingers ache and strain against the hilt and Anakin can’t help but think he’s made the wrong choice as Padmé’s screams echo in his ears.
But the right choice is always painful. And he’d chosen wrong, once, sinking in the sands of Tatooine with his mother’s blood staining his skin and the Force screaming in his ears, and maybe— maybe Anakin had stumbled right from the beginning.
Maybe he’d walked the path of the Sith all along, he thinks with no small measure of despair, and the thought burns and aches and steals the warmth from his very bones.
He cannot right all the wrong he has done, all the harm he has wrought at Palpatine’s behest, in his own arrogance, but…
But.
The choice he makes now matters all the same.
“There is no passion,” he wheezes, shoving Palpatine back from the window, as far from Master Windu as he can get. There’s rage in his veins. Fear. Desperation. But they won’t serve him now. Maybe they never have.
Anakin might not have lived as a Jedi, not truly, but he will die as one.
“—there is serenity.” Master Windu finishes, and Anakin catches half a glance of the man trying to lever himself back up off the floor, back pressed against the window and his face slick with sweat. He looks terribly small.
If I die here, so does he, Anakin thinks, redirecting another sizzling blow even as his muscles shake. There’s exhaustion creeping through his limbs, fogging his mind, but the Force directs his steps and cushions the blow. It’s enough to keep him on his feet.
It’s not enough to win.
“Jedi nonsense.” Palpatine shrieks and his next strike catches Anakin across the chest and steals the air from his lungs. He stumbles back with a cry, shoves his pain into the Force, and straightens just in time to watch Palpatine’s fingers spark and flare. “I’ll show you serenity.”
Move, the Force whispers, and Anakin’s on his feet and across the room before he can so much as blink. Palpatine’s laughter rises high and triumphant above the crackling hiss of the lightning streaking toward them. It nearly drowns out Master Windu’s shout, a garbled cry of Anakin, no!
For a moment, it almost sounds like Obi-Wan.
Anakin’s grateful for it even as his vision fills with glowing white static.
Master, Anakin thinks muzzily. You were right.
There is no death.
Only the Force as it flows through him. In him. It guides his hands, grounds his feet, and promises to catch him when he falls.
And fall he does.
Catching lightning is like grabbing a live wire. Like dropping inside of a superconductor. Like he’d taken a trip to Mustafar and laid down on the bank of the magma veins creeping across the planet’s surface. It’s power and wonder and horror all at once. It’s the Force murmuring in his ear step, pivot, redirect as he throws his arms out and sends 300 million volts right back at the Sith Lord. It burns so hot it sets ice in his veins, sears his skin, and Anakin’s probably screaming but he can’t feel his throat and he can’t feel his hands and he can’t feel his face and—
—and he opens his eyes to the hazy sight of Master Windu’s face as the man leans over him, eyes wide and panicked. His mouth moves but Anakin can’t hear him past the ringing in his ears.
He’s in so much pain.
Come home, something whispers, soft and sweet and enticing. It promises relief and safety and peace. An end to the agony. Come home.
He wants to. Oh, how he wants to. But the only home Anakin’s ever known is wandering the galaxy. Is buried in a shallow grave on Tatooine and holed up in a high-rise apartment and waist deep in clankers on Utapau and surrounded by loyal, loving troopers in Mandalorian space.
He can’t leave them yet.
Anakin blinks. Or maybe he sleeps. Either way when he opens his eyes the ceiling is white and the bed is soft and Anakin isn’t dying on the Chancellor’s office floor.
Well. He isn’t on the floor.
He’s still dying.
The thought hits him like a speeder. Like a promise. And he knows without knowing how he knows that it’s true. Anakin squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe through it.
There’s a hand on his brow, calloused and warm, and Anakin stifles a sob in his throat.
“Obi-Wan?” He croaks, hot and wet and desperate, and the hand smoothing his bangs back off of his forehead stills.
“... Not quite.” A deep, unfamiliar voice says and Anakin’s eyes snap open in the dark. Or, well, semi-dark. There’s a tall man at his bedside, strange and only half-remembered in the shape of his jaw, his proud nose and the wild mop of hair curling around his shoulders. Or maybe not quite a man, if the blue, vaguely translucent sheen of his skin was any indication.
He looks like a holo. Anakin knows he’s not.
“Master Qui-Gon,” Anakin breathes, half wonder and half terror. The older man’s head dips in greeting.
It’s utterly damning.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Anakin asks tremulously, face wet. Qui-Gon hesitates.
“... Yes.” He says finally, gently, and Anakin swallows a sob. “And no.”
“No?” He repeats shakily. Qui-Gon nods.
“Well, not quite.” He amends carefully. He folds his hands into his robes and the movement is so eerily reminiscent of Obi-Wan that his eyes burn anew. “You won, Ani. You defeated the Sith Lord. In doing so you fulfilled your destiny and brought balance to the Force.”
Qui-Gon pauses. Tries for a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m so very proud of you.”
Anakin nods wordlessly. The praise might’ve warmed him, once. Might’ve bolstered him. But Anakin’s seeing dead people and a distinct lack of his living loved ones and, well.
He wants Obi-Wan. He wants his wife and his padawan. He wants to see the birth of his child.
He wants to live.
“I am proud of you.” Qui-Gon repeats, moving to catch his eyes. He looks infinitely sad, for a moment. “But you used too much of yourself. You went too deep, Ani. And the Force welcomes you home, as it does us all, but it can’t give you back.”
“Why not?” Anakin snaps, desperate and mulish and scared. “I did exactly as the Force asked me to. It’s not fair. Why can’t I stay?”
He sounds painfully young, like he’s nine years old again and leaving his mother in chains. It’s unbefitting of a Jedi. And Anakin had been so ready to die in that office but now, faced with the reality of Qui-Gon’s presence, he can’t help but think that was a mistake too. He’s not ready. He’s not.
Qui-Gon doesn’t scold him for his fear. For his anger. He just shakes his head. “None of us get to choose our time, Ani.” He says, soft and painfully kind. Anakin swallows, hard, around the lump in his throat. He wonders if Obi-Wan learned that from him, too. “But you’ve been given a gift that few others have ever received. A reprieve, of sorts.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Anakin mutters thickly, swiping a hand across his eyes. His fingers come away wet and Qui-Gon is kind enough not to mention it.
“You have a day.” He murmurs into the ensuing silence, broken only by Anakin’s soft sniffling. He fights back another bout of frustrated tears. “A day to make your peace with things.”
“That’s not enough time.” Anakin breathes, horrified. That’s not nearly enough for all he’s paid. All he’s sacrificed.
“It never is.” Qui-Gon agrees mournfully. “And yet it’s what we’re given. A day is not as short as it seems, you know. A day can be a lifetime.”
Anakin shakes his head, numb. It’s not the same. It’s not. He’ll never meet his child. He’ll leave his wife a widow. Obi-Wan will be all alone again and Ahsoka might’ve left the Order but she’s still his padawan. She’s so young.
So am I, he thinks, and loses his tenuous veneer of self-control. He keens, high and rife with grief, and curls in on himself.
It doesn’t hurt like it should. Doesn’t ache or burn or tear. Anakin sobs harder.
Strong arms wrap around his shoulders. “—ush. Hush, Ani. It’s alright. Everything is going to be fine.” Qui-Gon murmurs into his hair. Anakin jerks away and scrubs a hand down his face.
“No it’s not.” Anakin cries. “It’s not alright. I’m going to leave them alone and— and Padmé and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan are— I’m— Please—”
“I know.” Qui-Gon says, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Anakin’s temple. “I know. But we’re not leaving them alone, Ani. We’re not. We’re just walking ahead.”
Walking ahead, Anakin thinks, and it sounds like something he’s heard before. Something his men have said.
“... There is no death.” Anakin manages, tight, and thinks of the office and the Code and the power in his veins. Qui-Gon nods into his hair.
“Yes, dear one. There is no death. There is only the Force. As it has always been and will always be.”
“... Cold comfort, that.” Anakin murmurs, curling his fingers into the fabric of Qui-Gon’s robes. They feel warm and soft and real beneath his fingers. And, he supposes, they are. From a certain point of view.
Anakin’s will be the same, soon.
“Yes.” Qui-Gon whispers in the pre-dawn hush of the Halls. “Yes it is.”