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Chapter Text

The Son had meant to show him - a much younger him, of course, a him who still thought he was a Jedi - a possible future so horrifying that he'd just turn his back on his master and his padawan. That much was clear. Just as clearly, he had no idea how the delicate strands of past and present were woven together. Nor how to look at the myriad possible futures without in turn touching them.

"I have done such terrible things," he said.

"Yes," said the Son. "But it doesn't have to be that way. The choice is still yours to make."

"It always is," he said. "The future is always in motion."

"Yes! Join me, and together we shall destroy this Emperor you see in your visions; and we shall end war, corruption, and suffering throughout the galaxy!"

" . . . I will, anyway," he said, and called - Luke's lightsaber, really. He'd built it, but he now knew it was for Luke and always had been. Still, it would do in a pinch. The Son hadn't been expecting it; he had just enough time to look surprised before he started looking dead.

"Right," he said to himself as he got on the speeder. "Right. Okay. I can do this."

He ran into the Kenobi on the way back to the shuttle. Kenobi had, of course, been following him into yet another lava pit.

"Are you alright, Anakin?"

"No," he said. "But the Son is dead; it's safe to leave now."

"And you need another trip to medical, is that it?"

"A trip to medical sounds good, actually."

That gave Kenobi pause. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I just said I'm not," he said.

"Can I help?" asked Kenobi.

"Not really," he said. "I - desperately - need to meditate."

"And now you're scaring me," said Kenobi. "What happened?"

"A lifetime," he said. "I need to get to Coruscant. I suspect it's already too late to rescue all of me, but every minute we wait means more that won't be coming back. I - get me home? Please?"

"We're going to have a long talk about this later," said Kenobi.

"Sure," he said.

The Father was waiting for them outside the ship. He took one look at Anakin and said, "No. He didn't."

"He did, I'm afraid. I don't think it's reversible. Although mechanistically, even if it were, I doubt it would . . . un-bud us, or whatever it was that just happened."

"No; you're right, it wouldn't," said the Father. Carefully, he added, "What are you going to do, now?"

"Do? The same thing I've always done: protect. This time without killing."

"You must balance the Force," said the Father.

"Why?" he asked; demanded, really. "Give me one good, logical reason why I shouldn't just let that knowledge die with me."

The sighed, and raised a hand, first two fingers outstretched, glowing a little at the tips, and pressed them to his forehead. It felt - well, honestly, it felt as though he were a datapad, receiving a large download. The math alone was going to take months. The meaning, however, was clear immediately. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. Okay. Protect, and balance the Force."

The Father closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, some of the ethereal green had left them. "You have my blessing. In both of your endeavours."

"Great," said Kenobi. "At least someone is happy. When do I get to find out what happened?"

"After we get to Coruscant," he said. "Which will happen soonest if we're on the shuttle. Father . . . keep your vigil, and I'll keep mine. I hope our paths never cross again."

"I, also. Farewell," he said, and faded into the mists of Mortis.

"Well, that was bracing," said Kenobi. " - what?"

"You're alive."

Kenobi looked nonplussed. "Was I ever not alive?"

"In this time, and this place?" He looked to Ahsoka.

" . . . it's been longer for you than it has for us, hasn't it?"

"You," he said, "have no idea."

As soon as they were onboard, he went and sat on the single bunk, full lotus, and . . . let the Force have him. It went on for a while: depending on how you looked at it, the one day had now lasted almost twenty-five years. For most of it he'd been willfully blinding himself to one part of the Force or another. Letting it pour through him now was rather like standing underneath the Falls of Theed on Naboo, but it was good. Necessary.

Once the universe had abated enough that he could have his own thoughts again, he did. Fact: he knew who the Sith master was. Fact: he was going to annihilate said Sith master, for everything he'd ever done to Anakin and everything he'd yet to do. Fact: This probably made him a hypocrite in the worst way, except Fact: he'd never really been much a Jedi. Fact: Here and now, Padme was alive.

Fact: He was going to do everything in his power to make this continue to be the case.

Fact: He hoped he wouldn't have to fight the Jedi, but

Fact: He probably would.

Fact: He had gotten very, very good at killing Jedi.

He nodded to himself, and opened his eyes. Almost immediately, R2-D2 started beeping, which summoned Obi-wan and Ahsoka. Blearily, he sat up, and gratefully took the cup that was offered to him. Hot choco, not kaff, which was interesting. "How long was I out?"

"It's the fifth day," said Ahsoka. "You were glowing for the first four."

"That happens," he said. "Are we inbound to Coruscant?"

"Yes," said Kenobi. "None of us knew what was happening, and we thought getting you to the healers was probably best. Are we going to get an explanation?"

"About what happened to me?" he asked. "I'm not sure there's any explanation that would do it justice, and anyway it's going to take a full Council to hear this report."

"Summarize," ordered Kenobi.

"The Anakin Skywalker who walked into the Well on Mortis is - the Son was attempting to show him visions of the future. He managed to pull me out of the future. I'm pretty sure he just swapped us into one another's bodies, but since I was dying at the time," he said, and then looked away. "I'm sorry."

"Right; then who are you?" asked Kenobi.

"The Anakin Skywalker from moments before my death," he said. "I'm forty-six. I'm, um, not going to be able to tell you a lot, though. The paradoxes involved are universe-endingly bad."

There was a pause.

"You're right," said Kenobi. "That's going to take a full Council."

"But you're - okay," said Ahsoka. Begged, really.

"No, Ahsoka. I'm not. It's possible I never will be again."

"Even though you can make the future better?"

"Even then," he said. "It will be better for you; for me, it already happened."

"Oh," said Kenobi, and, "How bad?"

"Bad," he said, and left it at that. "I desperately need a 'fresher. And some clean clothes. And then maybe some solidish food. Passet, if we have any."

"You hate passet," said Kenobi.

"And I need easily-digestible calories," he said. "I suppose ration bars would work, too, but I don't want to subject my stomach to those just yet."

Kenobi made a face. "No. All right. You go take the 'fresher; I'll have some passet for you when you get out."

"I'll have some passet for you," said Ahsoka.

It wasn't that simple. The shower was good, hot hot water pouring over skin that wasn't screaming in pain about it. Three of his limbs were much more organic than he was used to; the fourth - he hadn't invented the synthskin-neural interface until later, so of course he didn't have it now - but the amount of feedback really was shit. He just stood there for a long time, feeling all the ways that bits of him didn't hurt, and then got to washing. It took a while for the water to stop coming off of him mud-colored.

After, he stared at his face in the mirror. It was reasonably aesthetically pleasing, except . . . he called the Dark up, just for a moment, watching it fill his eyes until they were glowing sickly Sith yellow. Then he blinked it back, let it go, let the blue fade in. "Shit," he said aloud; and he thought for the first time about whether or not Padme would even like him anymore, given what he was about to do.

It didn't matter, of course.

Ahsoka had managed to make the kind of passet that came out of packets, instant just-add-boiling-water. He always thought it tasted too chemical and was over-sweetened to hide it, so not the best combination. He was very hungry, and ate it anyway.

By the time he was done, they had, if not the entire Council, then a quorum together on the comms. He put the holoproj on the table. "Masters."

"Skywalker," said Windu. "What the kriff have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Trouble," he said. "What has Master Kenobi told you?"

"You're claiming to be some future version of yourself," said Windu. "Which, as you know, is quite frankly impossible."

"Impossible doesn't really apply to Mortis," he said. "And I'm not going to bother trying to prove any of it. Either you believe me or you don't; and, anyway, actions matter more."

That shut him up. Yoda said, "Perhaps believe him we should. Young Skywalker you are not."

"Thanks," he said crisply.

That gave all of them pause, he could see. The person he'd been either two weeks or twenty-four years ago would have been offended; but that person had been a self-conflicted idiot.

Master Koon managed to put himself back together fastest. "We will need a full report."

"I can give you a full report about what happened on Mortis. I can't give you a full report about - everything that happened in the twenty-four years between now and then. At least, not until I've made sure most of them are never going to happen. Once they stop being paradoxes, it should be safe enough."

The councillors looked at one another. Nu said, "You're sure there is danger?"

"No. I haven't studied temporal physics. But the possibility is there, and my past will keep, so I refuse to take the risk."

There wasn't anything to say to that. Windu said, "Then what can you tell us?"

"Mm. I can tell you what the 'aggression' chips in the clones don't do: prevent aggression. You need to get a really good slicer to take a look at all the commands on those things, probably within the next forty-eight hours.

"I can tell you who the Sith Master is, but I'm not going to. It's not really believable until you're in the room with them and they stop playing nice. As soon as we get to Coruscant, I'm going after them. You, Yoda, and you, Windu, are invited to come along: to my personal knowledge, the two of you were the only people to ever face them in single combat and survive. Everyone else is disqualified on grounds of not good enough.

"I can tell you that whatever else happens, after this I'm leaving the Jedi Order. It is killing me, slowly, like a cancer. I won't survive if I keep trying to be someone I am not. You were absolutely right about not training me, but not for the right reason.

"And I can tell you that you need to take a seriously long, hard look at the difference between a clone trooper and a slave, which is, at present, none. Then you need to live up to the best ideals of the Republic and the Order and let them go. Jedi are supposed to free slaves, not make them."

"Certainly not our Anakin Skywalker," said Koon.

He looked at them, unimpressed. "Assuming I survive taking out the Sith Master - I want to make it clear, just before the swap I did it, but took four separate lethal hits in the process - I'm going to need therapy. Lots of therapy. All the therapy. It was just one bad thing after another, for twenty-four years. Like I told Ahsoka, I'm not okay."

"Anakin . . . " said Kenobi, next to him.

"And you promise you'll tell us everything? After?"

"If I'm alive to tell it, yes."

"Then I guess I have to get on a ship to Coruscant," said Windu.

"Oh for - yes, do that. I'll see you in . . . "

"A hundred and seven hours," said Kenobi.

"Right, that. Aggression chips, don't forget."

"We will not," said Yoda. "Go; Master Kenobi to you wishes to speak. Speak you should."

"Yeah. Skywalker out." He turned to Kenobi.

Kenobi raised an eyebrow.

"Leaving the order?!" demanded Ahsoka.

"Yeah."

"But - why?"

"I get a completely undeserved second chance," he said. "I get to fix all my mistakes. Staying with the Order - long past the point it should have been obvious to even the most casual of observers that I am not a Jedi - is one of the big ones."

"Not a Jedi," said Kenobi, finally speaking.

"No. Sorry."

"So then . . . what are you?" asked Ahsoka.

"Whatever I want to be." He shrugged. "But I can't be not attached, incredibly attached, this time around. Not knowing exactly how close I am to losing - everybody, really. I am holding on, as hard as I can. Therefore: not a Jedi."

Kenobi said, "Because attachment was never your problem before."

He flashed a grin. "Oh, of course not."

"You're not even remotely believable."

"Was I trying to be?"

There was a long, long moment; and then he and Kenobi simultaneously broke out laughing. Ahsoka looked between the two of them, and said, "Right. Masters. Have either of you given any thought to me?"

"I did, yeah," he said. "You can stay with the Order, and be assigned to a new master; or you can stay with me, and I'll keep training you. Or you can go do something else. Whichever you choose."

"Training me . . . to do what?"

"Feel the Force? Use the Force? It's not like Jedi have a monopoly on it."

"Uh-huh," said Ahsoka, and turned to Kenobi. "Would you - "

"Yes," said Kenobi.

He rolled his eyes. "Duh, Snips."

"Oh. I'm - let me think about it?"

He nodded; it was a big decision. "In the meantime, how about some 'saber practise? I'm used to being a little bigger and a lot heavier, and I need to get used to the muscles I have now."

"You get bigger?" asked Ahsoka.

"I get body armor. Which is a fantastic idea. Kenobi, where is the armory on this boat?"

The armor felt weird, too little weight in all the wrong places even as his body protested the extra kilos. He strapped it on anyway, and then him and Ahsoka and Kenobi went and took over a cargo hold for a while.

"How are you doing that?" demanded Kenobi, bent with his hands on his thighs and panting.

"I had a lot of time with training droids and not much else to do," he replied. "Eventually it got to the point that murderer mode was too easy, so I started building my own."

"And that still wasn't enough to beat this Sith Master?" asked Kenobi.

"It - I - in single combat, without complications, probably. There were complications. I won in the end; leave it at that."

"Yeah, and took four lethal hits - " said Ahsoka.

"It was worth it. If it weren't, I'd be fucking off for parts unknown, instead of heading straight to Coruscant so I can do it all over again. Are you ready yet?"

"Are we just going to train ourselves into exhaustion for the next four days?"

"Uh, yeah? I have to get used to this armor and having most of my own limbs and my old lightsaber, and we only have four days."

"Great," said Kenobi. "You grew up into a madman."

"I learned from the best," he said.

But Kenobi wasn't actually complaining about the necessity of the nonstop training. Ahsoka winced and went down and came back up swinging. He was having a more difficult time: he had to remember to pull his blows, to not go for the kill strike every time. Ahsoka didn't notice him doing it. Kenobi didn't notice him doing it every time, but he noticed often enough. At the end of the second day, he found himself dragged aside.

"Anakin. What the hell happened? I - you were never this brutal."

"Brutality was the only way to survive," he said simply. "So I learned."

"Can you unlearn it?"

"I have no idea," he said. "Once this is settled, I plan to try."

"And if you can't?"

"If I can't, I put down the lightsaber." He looked at Kenobi. "It's a weapon, not my life. I know that now. Besides, I'm plenty deadly enough on my own."

"Even against - Grievous, say?"

"Oh, Grievous," he said. "Easy. I'd give him a seizure."

"What."

"He's not Force-sensitive; he couldn't shield. Seizures are just moving ions. And then he falls over and dies, because even if most of him isn't organic, his brain is."

" . . . you're right," said Kenobi, staring at him. "You're amazingly deadly, with or without a lightsaber. You realize that the kind of control you're talking about requires you to be able to move single atoms around?"

"Yeah, but," he said, and shrugged. "It's not hard. Once I seriously sat down to learn it, it didn't take more than a few months."

"Why did you need to learn how to give someone a seizure?"

"You have it the wrong way around. I was learning how to defibrillate. If you use it on a brain instead of on a heart - "

"You give a seizure," said Kenobi. " - there's no chance any of this will work on the Sith Master, is there?"

"Where do you think I got the idea?"

"Thought not."

"Don't worry. With Windu and Yoda fighting together, I won't really have to get in close enough to be in danger. I think.

"I know you meant that to be reassuring, but it wasn't."

He ducked his head. "Sorry."

"You actually are," said Kenobi. "Don't be. We're all doing everything we can to make sure you win, but we know it's dangerous. You shouldn't apologize for not giving us false hope."

He couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up out of him, and given that it was the first time he'd felt like laughing in years, probably, he didn't try. "Kriffing Force I missed you." He laughed again, helplessly. He'd long ago come to terms with the fact that he was never going to get Kenobi's Coruscanti accent out of his head. Even though it was Kenobi who'd put him in the suit. Sitting here, next to the man, and without the baggage of years and love and endless, aching betrayals between them, was nothing less than a miracle.

"Are you - no. Of course not, the answer is still no. How are you not falling apart?"

"I'll fall apart when the job is done," he said.

Kenobi nodded. "I'll join you."

"Great." He snickered. "Therapy for everyone."

"I don't think that's far from the truth."

"I know; gladiator humor. I'm going to catch some sleep. You should do the same."

"In a little while," said Kenobi. "Sleep well, padawan."

"Likewise."

The next morning, Windu commed. He looked at the councillor. Windu looked at him. "Which order was it?"

"Sixty-six," he said. Windu winced. He continued, "And then I went insane."

"I don't think I can blame you for that," said Windu. "Nu and her entire team are working flat-out to prevent them from activating, even when the order is given. Do you happen to know how to activate order one-fifty?"

"No," he said, "and even if I did I wouldn't tell you. That's not an acceptable outcome."

"If it's a choice between the Jedi Order and - "

"The very Sith action of one point eight million murders without trial?" he asked, and let that sink in a moment before saying, "Anyway, the point is moot. I know there is a way to make more, because order one-fifty-six was to hunt me down and kill me, but I don't know it."

"You had a very interesting life, didn't you, Skywalker?"

"It's not over yet," he said.

"Uh-huh," said Windu. "Next question: why are these chips in our clones?"

"Because the whole war is a long con," he said. "For fun and profit."

Windu blinked in shock. "Fun and profit?"

"Sith," he said, by way of explanation.

Windu levelled a glare at him. "We're going to have to debrief you in person, aren't we?"

"And it will take weeks, if not months."

"Only you, Skywalker."

He shrugged. "I can, for once, honestly say that the weirdness was not my doing."

"Only you."

He chuckled. "Yeah, well. Comes with the territory. Anything else that isn't my fault and that I didn't do to chew me out over today?"

"Brat," said Windu. Disturbingly, it sounded almost fond.

"Yeah."

"Get back to training."

"Yes, sir. Skywalker out."

He was really, really just over training by the time they got to Coruscant, which was unfortunate because he had training with Windu and Yoda in the morning, and then fighting and hopefully killing Palpatine in the afternoon.

The first thing he did on arrival, though, the very first, even before going to his room and unpacking or checking in with the Council or even just checking in, was to go to the creche. It was late evening, and the younger younglings were already sleeping. The older ones were playing or reading or just sitting in the common areas enjoying each other's company. At least, until they noticed him; and then they crowded around and demanded tales of his exploits.

He told one story about flying and one story about fighting droidekas, and then gratefully handed them off the their clan keepers for bed.

"Regrets in you I sense, young Skywalker." He blinked, and realized that Yoda had been standing there for probably close to half an hour.

" . . . yeah."

"Even to the younglings, the order extended?"

"No." He sighed. "The other option would have been - the Master would have loved to have gotten his hands on four thousand impressionable Force-sensitive younglings. As the backbone of the new Sith Order."

"Oh," said Yoda, ears drooping to show he understood exactly what hadn't just been said.

"So I had to come in and remember why I am throwing myself on this saber."

"An odd way to think."

"Maybe for you. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. Even if I was actively insane at the time, it doesn't change the fact that I did them. Depending on how tomorrow goes, I'll either be too dead to care, or . . . "

"Wise, you have grown."

"All it took was losing everything I ever loved." He snickered; it was his kind of morbidly amusing.

"Ah," said Yoda. "Attachment."

"Yeah, but if it kills me either way, I choose the way that lets me happy in the meantime."

"Very wise," said Yoda. "Even if a Jedi you cannot be."

He shrugged. "It's not for everyone. I wish . . . well, you did tell me that, when I was ten; I just wasn't in a place to listen."

"Younglings," said Yoda. "Come. To bed with us. A big day tomorrow we both have."

Half the Temple showed up to watch the three of them in the morning. He looked up at the galleries of spectators, and called, "This is not an exhibition match!"

"Sure it isn't," said Windu, hanging up his cloak and stretching out. "We're going to start two-on-one against you; you . . . fight as much like our actual opponent as you can."

"Oh gods," he said.

But he attempted to do it anyway, given that he'd only very rarely gotten Palpatine to smack him around a salle. Sidious' personal style was mostly speed and deflection and always, always going for the killing strike first. So a lot like his was, these days; he hadn't really been lying to Kenobi about where he'd learned.

They started slow, and sped up gradually. The two of them were old friends, and knew how to work with each other: Yoda penned him into confrontations with Windu, who smashed at his defences. He'd never have been able to survive in head-on attacks, but the deflections allowed him to just barely never be where Windu's saber was. He himself didn't attack unless an opportunity presented itself - an overreach, one of the two of them a bit outside of where the other could guard, or, once, simply bashing Yoda with the Force. None of them connected, but he had the feeling that if he pulled a little on the other Force, they would.

By the time they called a halt, forty minutes later, he and Windu were both dripping sweat, and even Yoda was looking frayed around the edges. They went and sat at the side of the salle and sipped water and did breathing exercises until they stopped panting.

"Okay," he said, when he could talk again. "That was - now imagine that, but faster, and without telegraphing as badly as I do, and with a whole bunch of illusions and subtle little tricks to get you to overreach, all while someone keeps hitting you with Darkness."

"I must have used vapaad," said Windu. "Against an actual Sith."

"Whatever works," he said.

"How did you survive?" Yoda asked him.

"The first few times we fought, they weren't trying to kill me. And then I spent a lot of time with training droids on murderer mode."

"Why were they not trying to kill you?" asked Windu.

"Because apparently killing a Sith apprentice qualifies you for the position, and I did."

"Oh. The debrief is just going to be twenty-four years of atrocities, isn't it?"

"Yes. Can we - you two know how to work together, and that's really great. But can we try the other ways? I need to learn how not to get in your way, and vice versa."

"Yes," said Yoda.

Not getting in Windu's way was easy, even after he switched over to vapaad. Not getting in Yoda's way . . .

"Look," he said, eventually. "Just bounce off me."

"Undignified, it is."

"Do you want to be dignified, or do you want to win?"

"For you, I meant."

"I want to win," he said.

"Very well," said Yoda, and after that it took the two of them about ninety seconds to get Windu down.

"I think we're as ready as we're going to be," said Windu, after they brought him down a second time.

"Agreed. We should break for showers and a light lunch, and then head out."

But there was news for them at lunch: Nu and her team had figured out how to write new contingency orders, written one cancelling order sixty-six, and were distributing it. All of the clones on Coruscant were safe.

"Great," he said. "Now explain to me why you didn't kill all of the orders."

"Some of those are good id - "

"No, Nu, they're not. You've never seen what it does to a person, to be forced to obey a contingency order; I have. Write an order to kill the chips, and start distributing it. Now. I want the GAR clear by tomorrow."

Nu stared at him, eyes wide, grandmotherly face white in shock. "You can't - "

"As he says, Master Nu, you should do," said Yoda.

"I - yes, grand master, right away." She bowed, and left.

As soon as she had, Windu said, "And you still don't have any emotional control."

"Yes, I do. This is just worth being angry over. 'Some of them are good ideas!' What about the rights of clones, as sapients in the Galactic Republic, to bodily autonomy and their own thoughts and making their own decisions? Never mind the sheer number of them who kissed their blasters in the year after - " He caught their expressions. "Atrocities."

"The more of your past I hear, the less I like," said Yoda.

"And we haven't even come close to the worst things," he said, humorlessly.

After lunch, they took one of the smaller aircars. "Where are we going?"

"The Senate dome," he said.

"So my padawan the truth told there, at least," said Yoda.

"Yeah - oh. Do you mind if I take a few minutes to see Chancellor Palpatine? We're probably not going to have time after, and . . . " He regretted. Force, did he regret. They both picked up on it, and both came to entirely the wrong conclusion.

"Of course," said Yoda kindly.

"Only a few minutes," said Windu, clearly irritated by the delay, but no less compassionate.

"And Senator Amidala?"

"Don't push it," said Windu.

He chuckled softly, and brought the aircar in for a landing.

They were immediately shown in to see Palpatine, despite what he was sure was a busy schedule. Jedi, after all, had certain privileges. Palpatine motioned for them to sit, but he shook his head. "We're just here for a few minutes," he explained, "and the masters didn't mind stopping by to see you."

"At least it isn't bad news from the front," said Palpatine. "I can take a moment; it seems like all I ever do anymore is read disheartening reports. Tell me, what have you been up to? Last I heard you'd gotten into trouble on Mandalore."

"Ages ago," he said. He'd actually forgotten about Mandalore. "Since then I went to Dathomir, and then got hijacked by a series of incredibly persistent visions."

"Oh?"

"Chancellor Palpatine," he said, "Under the the Constitution of the Galactic Republic, Section Three, Subsection Twelve, and under the authority vested in me by the Jedi Order as a Knight of the Republic, I'm placing you under arrest."

Palpatine's smile froze. " . . . Anakin?" He could feel Sidious prodding, trying to get a read; he let the probes catch on the fact that he was angry, blazingly so. "My boy?"

"Are you resisting arrest?"

"Arrest? On what charges?"

"Conspiracy to cause war," he said. "Conspiracy to undermine the Galactic Republic; corruption; deliberately ignoring the Constitution of the Galactic Republic while holding public office; enslaving sapient beings; obstruction of the peace process; carrying concealed weapons - " got you, he thought, as Palpatine turned to appeal for help from Windu and Yoda, - "and, lest I forget, being a murderous lying Sith bastard. Darth Sidious."

He saw the moment Palpatine got it, and felt it as well. "Ah." He looked to Yoda and Windu. "And you brought backup. I have to say, I honestly never expected you, of all people, to figure it out - "

"Are you resisting arrest?"

Palpatine smiled again, one of his public grandfatherly ones. "If it means so much to you, Jedi, then yes. I'm resisting arrest." He triggered the hidden catch in his robes, and was suddenly holding the hilt of a lightsaber. "And for a follow-up . . . well. You know I can't let you leave this room alive." The lightsaber blazed to life, red like love, or fresh blood.

Behind him, he heard Windu and Yoda power their 'sabers up. He took Luke's out, as well. "I think you'll find that somewhat more difficult than you expect."

And powered up.

Later, security footage would show that the fight lasted less than three and a half minutes. At the time, it seemed to go on forever, Windu leading the attack and Yoda keeping Sidious pinned and he, himself, mostly staying just out of reach except for when he was covering one of them. Sooner or later, he knew, he was also going to have to drop the act; and he'd had less than ten days of training and half-truths to convince two Jedi grand masters not to kill him. It was going to have to be enough, because Sidious was already pulling power for his first, devastating strike -

He reached out, tugged at it, blew away Sidious' fragile control with the deep roiling wellspring of his anger. He did it the mean way, too, the way that could catch the unwary with mindburn or even permanent brain damage. Sidious was far too canny, and let it go the moment he felt an unfamiliar Dark presence against his own. But it worked to prevent the attack.

There was a beat of perfect stillness in the heart of the battle. "Well, well," said Sidious.

"Surprise," he said, and attacked.

Yoda and Windu weren't as much help. They were still fighting Sidious, and working together, but they weren't working together with him anymore. At least they weren't actively attacking him. He breathed it out, and focused his attention mostly on Sidious and a little on what his more-or-less allies were doing. With two fronts now, the Sith lord was failing, slowly but inexorably: sooner or later, someone would pin him, and then it would be all over but the decapitation.

Sidious knew it, too, and kept trying to pull enough power for a lightning strike. He, despite the growing pressure behind his eyes that meant they were not merely glowing yellow but blazing bright orange, grimly continued to rip the Dark away. He channelled it back into his muscles and nerves and reflexes. It was barely enough to keep up the furious pace, and he had no idea how the ancient Yoda was doing it.

The break, when it came, came fast. Sidious pulled, fast and deep, and even though he caught some of it he didn't catch enough. He had enough time to shout a warning before Windu was taking the full force of Sith lightning to the chest. It wasn't nearly enough, and in a human of Windu's years . . . "No!"

Sidious looked at him, smiled one of his terrifying true smiles - and took his attention off Yoda just long enough. A green lightsaber sprouted from his chest. Sidious looked down, surprised; the lightsaber cut up and to the left, burning through his heart before emerging from his shoulder. The body crumpled, but by that time he was already moving, kneeling down and ripping Windu's robes aside.

Yoda's lightsaber appeared under his chin. "Halt."

He swallowed. "Yoda - "

"Excuses I do not wish to hear."

"Okay - "

"Sith you are."

"Was. Yoda - "

"To the Dark side, you have fallen."

"Later, Yoda. Right now I need to restart his heart."

" - what?"

"I am shit with Force lightning, but this I can do."

There was an endless, breathless moment before Yoda's blade vanished. "Know what you are doing, I hope you do."

"Sure. I've had practice." He didn't say that most of it had been on himself.

It was almost laughably easy, anyway, once he got enough Force into Windu to feel his heart. He just pushed and tugged once, twice - and Windu's heart restarted. He followed it up with a wave of healing energy, as Light as he could get given his current state of mind. That didn't work so well, but it worked enough that Windu stopped wheezing dangerously. He was just so relieved and couldn't stop smiling: whatever else happened, now, the Empire wouldn't. He sat back.

"Okay," he said.

"Anakin Skywalker, Knight of the Jedi Order," said Yoda. "Under arrest I place you."

"Yeah," he said, and tossed over Luke's lightsaber. "Here."

If Yoda was surprised, he didn't show it. "And many more questions I now have."

"I did promise a debriefing."

"Use the light side, I felt you. Yet use the dark side also you did. Such a thing impossible is. So taught I was."

"And here," he said, tossing over the handcuffs he'd brought, on the off chance that Palpatine was going to surrender. About as likely as a chunk of ice in the fusion core of a star, but he believed in preparing for every contingency.

"Hmmph," said Yoda, but set about cuffing him.

Windu was sitting up by the time by the time Yoda was done reciting the list of things he wasn't allowed to do while under arrest and all about the few rights he did have.

"Oh, hey," he said. "Go back to that one about visitors."

"Close family and approved visitors only."

"Great. Send someone to go get Padme, please. Even if she all she wants is to punch me, I - she has that right."

"Does she?" asked Windu.

"She's my wife," he said. "So: yes. She does. For however long it is before she divorces me, anyway."

" . . . right," said Windu. "We can, but the blast doors are on automatic lockout. They won't open for another twenty-three minutes."

"And Kenobi. He deserves to punch me too. And Ahsoka!"

"What the kriffing Sith hells is wrong with you, Skywalker?"

"I might," he said, "possibly, be a little bit giddy. We won."

"We won," agreed Windu.

"And no one has killed me yet, so. We're really very nearly in best-case scenario territory."

"Your best case scenario involves being arrested. Only you, Skywalker."

He couldn't help it; he broke out laughing.

Chapter Text

By the time the blast doors did finally open, Padmé and Kenobi and Ahsoka and, as it turned out, half the Council were out there waiting for them. And a medic. That was good.

"I do not need a medic!" said Mace.

"You had a heart attack," he shot back. "Of course you need a medic."

"Right he is, old friend," said Yoda. "A medic you shall have."

Windu sighed, but didn't offer any more protest.

Padmé, meanwhile, stalked to a stop in front of him. "Anakin."

He swallowed. "Padmé."

"Were you, at any point, going to tell me about - any of this?"

"It's been ten days," he said. "And I was in hyperspace for most of it. I wasn't going to tell you over an unsecured comm. I did ask Windu if we could stop by and visit you first."

She looked over to where Windu was being fussed over. Windu looked back, then sighed. "He did."

"Right. Okay," she said.

"Also," he said, "I'd like to state for the public record that Padmé Naberrie Amidala is the love of my life and effective retroactively to the first battle of Geonesis, my name is actually Anakin Naberrie."

" - oh," gasped Padmé.

"What, really?" asked Fitso.

"Well, finally," said Ahsoka.

"Why are you wearing handcuffs?" asked Padmé.

"I might be a little bit arrested."

She narrowed her eyes, even as she took his hands in her own. "Why? It's not because you killed Palpatine - "

"Sidious."

"What?"

"Darth Sidious. The Sith Master. If you look at it as a long con to make everyone want stability more than they want liberty, the war makes sense."

Padmé took a deep, calming breath. "And the Jedi confronted him about it as soon as you found out. Of course. And then Master Yoda arrested you."

"I'm not a Jedi anymore either." It was probably better to do this all at once, instead of one person at a time, so he reached. Pulled, just a little, just enough to turn his eyes yellow. There was a gasp from the assembled crowd as he looked around, and then let it go. "That's why."

"When did that happen?"

"Depends on how you look at it. Either ten days ago, a year from now, or twenty-three years ago. I have had," he added, at her expression, "a very weird time."

"Clearly. Are you going to start wars in an attempt to take over the galaxy?"

"What would I even do with a galaxy?"

"Are you going to help stop this one?"

"If I'm allowed, yes, of course."

"Right." She nodded to the councillors. "I think he can be released on bail. I'll take responsibility as his next-of-kin."

"Apologies, senator," said Tiin. "But the bylaws for this situation clearly state that there is to be . . . no . . . bail . . . "

Padmé kept staring for a moment longer, and then said, "If he really wanted to leave, do you think you could hold him? Anakin Skywalker? The Hero With No Fear?"

After a moment, Kenobi said, "She's not wrong. You utter ass."

"I learned from the best," he said. "Padmé, I have to go to the Temple to officially leave the Order anyway. And there are other things. A breakdown I want to wait until I'm in medical to have. A debrief that's going to take, at a conservative estimate, weeks. All the therapy. At some point, getting around to balancing the Force. The Temple is a good choice. I am tired of fighting," he finished, and let every single one of his years in the suit into those words.

"Oh," said Padmé. "Well. Then I'm coming with you."

"Thank you." He looked around. "Who is driving us back?"

"I am," said Kenobi.

"Joy," he said.

Kenobi did, at least, wait until they were in the aircar before shouting at him. He just waited until the rant wound down - mostly about how he could have Fallen, and how disappointing that was, and, anyway, what was he thinking - and then said, "Are you done yet?"

"Were you listening to me at all?"

He smiled. "I love you too, Kenobi."

That turned Kenobi into an indignant, sputtering mess. Padmé chuckled and ducked in and kissed him lips and eyelids and forehead before settling back. "Did you set out to do that, or was it just a convenient side effect?"

"Some of column A, some of column B . . . I love you, Padmé. I don't. I didn't tell you that nearly enough."

Padmé smiled. "I always thought that Hero With No Fear was a misnomer. You were frightened, all the time, and usually of the stupidest things. You seem to be over it now, though."

"Not over it, just." He stopped, and sighed. "You realise that I'm forty-six now? I know you, but you can't know me."

"Am I still the love of your life?"

"Always," he replied instantly. "But maybe I'm not yours. I did a lot of things that are probably, individually, enough to get the Jedi to find the deepest pit the have and then throw away the key. I did them, and kept doing them, for decades. I'm not a nice person, Padmé."

She looked at him, expression unreadable, until she said, "Shmi."

"Yeah," he said, acknowledging the point. "But once a month, every month, for twenty-three years?"

She took a deep breath. "Why didn't you stop?"

"War crimes, at first. Then the war was over, and the only way out would have been fighting Sidious. I was nowhere near skilled enough to fight Sidious. And then . . . because it was just easier, I suppose, not to make the attempt."

"But you did in the end," said Kenobi.

"Eventually. I'm not really a very good person, either."

"Yes you are," said Kenobi and Padmé simultaneously.

"You don't know what I've done - "

"So far," said Padmé, "what you've done was save the Galactic Republic - and don't think we weren't paying attention to the part where you tried to arrest him, and only fought back when he attacked - save Master Windu's life, and surrender."

"Also the part where you rightfully called the entire Council out on the issue of the clone troopers' autonomy, more than once," said Kenobi.

"In this time," he said, darkly.

"This is the time that matters," said Padmé.

"I," he said. Swallowed. "I think you should attend the debriefing."

"The one that's going to take weeks."

"Yes."

"And if I decide that I don't really like you when you're done?"

"Then we get a divorce. I can't - I won't force you to be married to me if you don't love me."

"No," said Padmé. "You feel that way; I don't need to listen to you flagellate yourself, again, about your inability to change the past. Kenobi can tell me anything he thinks I need to know. I can ask that of you, Master Kenobi?"

"Of course," said Kenobi.

He blinked. "It's not just a matter of degree, Padmé. It was evil. I was evil."

"And now you're not," she said. "Is this an argument you actually want to win?"

"No, but - "

"Then stop talking about it," said Padmé. "Tell me about where you're going to take me for our first public date."

"While I'm still confined to the Temple?"

"If nothing else, the Temple has one of the largest media libraries in this sector. We can catch up on all those 'Hero With No Fear' action flicks!"

"I'd almost forgotten about those," he said. "With the crazy accents and the ridiculous hair."

"Your hair is ridiculous," said Padmé. Kenobi laughed.

"And the inaccurate portrayals of the Force," he added. "New powers as the plot demands!"

"So you'll go do some paperwork," said Padmé. "We'll watch one. And in the morning, you can worry about the Jedi Council."

"In the morning, I'll go to medical," he corrected. "Um. If there's anything you need, I don't know, compacted or melted or ripped apart atom-by-atom, this is a good time to tell me. It helps if I can destroy something I won't feel bad about when I wake up."

"What is it exactly that you're going to do?" asked Kenobi.

"Stop being in control," he said.

The paperwork for leaving the Jedi Order turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. He did it while The Hero With No Fear and the Rescue of Ryloth played in the background. The hair really was ridiculous.

Once he was done with the forms and had sent them off for approval and put the powered-down tablet on a side table, Padmé went from curling up into him to kissing him insistently.

"Padmé . . . "

"You did a stupid, heroic, incredibly brave thing today," she said, and kissed him again. "I love you."

"I love you too. That's why I don't want this to be something you regret," he said, just holding her. Force, the scent of her hair.

"I won't. Idiot."

"Okay," he said, and then stood up, lifting her bodily. "Bed."

Much, much later, she rolled over and said, "Do I want to know how long it's been for you?"

"A bit over twenty-three years," he said absently. Beside him, Padmé froze.

"I - you didn't. You should have. Found someone," she said.

"Mm? Oh, no. That wasn't - it was physically impossible. I was injured badly enough to require - more of me was artificial than wasn't. That's one of the things I lost. The ability, and the desire."

"Oh." But she wriggled closer to him, curled into his body until every possible inch of skin was pressed to his, uncomfortably warm and wonderful and perfect. He closed his eyes, and remembered Mustafar, and for the first time in possibly ever, let it go.

He woke up twice the next day. The first time, Padmé was trying to leave and he instinctively curled his arm around her until she said, "No, Anakin, I really do have to go. The Senate needs to vote on a new Supreme Chancellor."

"Bail Organa," he said, reluctantly allowing her up without opening his eyes.

She laughed a little, and said, "Go back to sleep."

The second time, he'd missed the morning entirely and R2-D2, having apparently decided that enough was enough, was playing taps next to his ear.

"I'm up, I'm up!" he protested.

R2-D2 chased him into the shower. He came out feeling much better, almost normal, and with great dignity said, "I am going to go to medical. I might be a few days. Don't destroy my rooms while I'm gone."

He spent a little while talking to a junior doctor who didn't know what azumenizol was, and then quite a lot more time talking to a senior doctor who did know but refused to administer it. They went back and forth on it until he pointed out at volume that he was probably going to spend a large fraction of the next few days welded to the dark side, and he'd really like to still be alive at the end. To that end, he rattled off a list of the ways the drug and the dark side interacted, most of which were beneficial even though on its own azumenizol was just a bundle of harmful side effects.

The doctor blinked, and blinked again, and said, "It almost sounds like it was developed for that exact purpose, doesn't it?"

"Possibly," he allowed. "Will you prescribe it now?"

"No. Now," said the doctor, pulling up a chair, "you're going to tell me exactly how to treat you."

It took half an hour just to get the medicines and doses and schedule out on plast. It took another hour after that before he and Doctor Bren worked out a mutually acceptable regiment. Then she showed him the Force-shielded room that had the pile of old droid parts someone apparently wanted turned into ingots of metal, and put an IV drip in his arm.

"How long is this going to take?" she asked, as he settled himself comfortably onto the mattress on the floor.

"I have no idea. Probably not more than a few days?"

"And if it's longer?"

"Then it's longer," he said, and closed his eyes.

And let the Dark have him.

He opened his eyes to find that he was on a gurney, in one of the dispersonal longer-term care rooms in medical. Windu was sitting in the visitor's chair, reading from a datapad and looking tired. He only watched a few moments before Windu looked up.

Windu froze. Then he said, "Skywalker."

"Naberrie," he said. Attempted to say, because the word stuck in his throat and made him cough, and then had to sit up a cough some more. The tickle just kept moving and grasping and preventing him from catching his breath while he coughed up what felt like half a lung.

Windu helpfully handed him a glass of water. He took it, greatful, and downed it in a few huge gulps. Windu refilled it, and he drank again, more slowly.

"My name," he said, "is Naberrie. Not Skywalker."

Windu stared at him and snorted. "Clearly still you, though."

"Was that in question?"

"Yes," said Windu bluntly. "I'm giving you some leeway because your droid and Dr. Bren both said you didn't think it would take more than a few days, and your sense of time is probably skewed from doing that. It has been forty-one days."

"What?"

"And when someone parks themselves in medical and turns themselves into a Dark Force storm, wondering who or what is going to come out of it is a perfectly reasonable response. We have had teams of padawans on shielding you. Yoda, myself, and Senator Amidala have been taking turns keeping watch."

"Oh." Yoda and Windu, of course, because they were the two who could definitely defeat him. Padmé because - "She's okay?"

"Tired. She takes the night shift, usually, because she doesn't have to be conscious. The Senate . . . well, they want answers. We told them what we could, and everyone's slicers have been busy tracking down Sidious' corruption - it goes back decades - but even so. The Jedi killed the Supreme Chancellor. A lot of people are worried."

"Yeah, I bet," he said. "And going and demonstrating the dark side for them would read as a threat, even if it were just illusions."

"Just - "

"It's most of what Sidious was doing. Sleight of hand and misdirection made believable by judicious application of Force suggestion and illusion. On a galactic scale."

"Uh-huh. And what do you want, Sky - Naberrie?"

"The same thing I've always wanted: to live in freedom and peace with the people I love." The Dark was answering a call he hadn't consciously made, and he let it up into his eyes. "Of course, I need to rebalance the Force, but that's a duty that I'm just not allowed to ignore."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why? The prophecy states that we get a Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force. It doesn't bother explaining."

"Oh." He smiled, the Dark receding now that he wasn't thinking about Padmé and all the things he'd done, once, in a failed attempt to keep her safe. "I . . . asked that, actually. I have an answer, but I'd prefer not to say until I have the proof. Right now it'll sound like the deranged railings of a madman."

Windu just looked at him.

"There is a lot of math, and it's complex enough that I don't understand it. That's the next thing, learning enough quantum math to parse this out, and be able to prove in a simple way why ignoring or destroying the dark side is a good way to get everyone in the galaxy very dead. Later. Right now, I need a 'fresher, clean clothes, and food, in that order."

"Refresher through the door," said Mace, gesturing. "Clothes in the bag. Why are all of your clothes black?"

"Hides stains well."

"I'll call someone, we'll have food for you by the time you're out."

"Thanks," he said, wincing a little as he pulled out the IV.

He took a short shower, dressed, and was back out in twenty minutes, tops. As promised, food had arrived. It was porridge, but rice, not passet. Also, so had Kenobi. He paused.

"You unmitigated asshole," said Kenobi. "'Oh, I'm just going to meditate for a few days,' and three weeks later we were all tearing our hair out trying to find purely physical ways to keep you alive because none of us knew what the Force storm was going to do if we tried real healing, and you were still only halfway done."

"In my defence," he said, "I didn't know it was going to take that long."

"And you couldn't, I don't know, stop in the middle? Take breaks?"

"Uh," he said, and considered his sense of the Force. Both of his senses of the Force. "No. That was important, and since I spent probably closer to three decades avoiding that particular meditation, the Force wasn't going to let me stop until I was done."

"Three decades."

"A bit less," he said. "I don't feel nearly bad enough for six weeks unconscious."

"No, of course not. You went into it physically healthy and you'd already worked out calorie loading and energy burn mitigation and sleep cycling - "

"So," he interrupted. "What's the problem?"

"The problem was that none of us were sure it was permanent! That could have been Mortis backlashing, and undoing - whatever it did - and then there'd be the other Anakin Skywalker dumped right into your mess!"

"Um," he said. "Oh."

"Yeah," said Kenobi.

"Okay. That's a reasonable point. I don't think forcing me at that age to deal with my issues would have been bad, exactly, but I get what you mean. I apologize. I didn't mean to worry you."

It was a long moment before Kenobi said, "Accepted."

He nodded. "Stay while I eat? You can tell me what's been going on."

Kenobi was really only able to tell him about what had been going on with the war, which was: not much. The slicers had figured out Dooku within the first week, and that meant that the Separatist leadership was aware that the whole war was a long two-man con. They'd stepped back to consider whether they even wanted to keep fighting. For a large number of Separatist worlds, the answer was to sue for a ceasefire pending more news. A few had even begun negotiating peace treaties outright.

"Good," he said. "I'm glad. We'll still have to deal with Dooku eventually. I . . . hope I don't mean that euphemistically."

"You mean that," said Padmé, from the door.

He looked up, then bounded up to go kiss her. She kissed back, briefly, and then shoved him away. "Eat your food. Not killing Dooku. Explain."

"It depends on how Sith he is," he answered, uncomfortable, taking a few steps back so he could sit down. "If he's at the power-for-the-sake-of-having-power stage, then there's nothing to be done. But I know Sidious' methods; there's a decent chance he promised - things the Dark side can do, actually, and then never taught Dooku much of anything. Just enough to string him along. If that happened, I might be able to . . . do something. I don't know." He looked up at Padmé. "If nothing else, he did have some reasonable points about how useless the Senate is at dealing with crises."

Padmé blinked. Then she said, "What would be better?"

"More devolved powers," he said. "Local sector senates, which are responsible for maintaining trade and for issues arising in their sectors. They'd be able to be smaller, which means faster responses. And also responses that work for the people living there, instead of trying to impose one solution on the entire galaxy." He picked up the spoon, and started eating.

"Not one person giving the orders?" asked Padmé.

"I - said that, didn't I? 'Someone wise.'" He shook his head. "That was stupid."

"As long as we're clear," said Padmé. "You realize you're talking about restructuring the entire galactic government?"

"Yes. Not me." He ate a bit, chewing thoroughly. "Come on, tell me. What's been going on?"

"Bail Organa isn't the Chancellor, because the Senate is deadlocked in voting for a new chancellor."

"Case in kriffing point," he said, rolling his eyes.

"It's not like it was thirteen years ago, when there was only one strong candidate. There are lots of smaller, weaker ones. And a lot of the better options are worried about whether the Jedi are going to kill them if they step out of line."

"They have seen the security footage, right? They know that the reason Sidious had to be killed was because he was a murderous lying Sith bastard?"

"And pulling the strings behind the war, yes," said Padmé while he took another spoonful. "But that doesn't mean the Jedi should have the right to be judge and jury and executioner, either."

"I know! I tried to arrest him! Or does self-defense no longer apply?"

Padmé nodded. "It's just a lot to take in. You're especially worrying. Grand Master Yoda arrested you, and then suddenly you were comatose and there had to be a round-the-clock watch - "

"Pretty sure there didn't."

" - okay, point, but did we know that?"

"I already apologized for that. I really didn't think I was going to knock myself out for six weeks." He chewed thoughtfully, and asked, "Is anyone actually disputing that I had to kill Sidious? Or is it more speculation about what I did that made Yoda arrest me?"

Padmé said, "Some of column A, much more of column B."

"I touched the Dark side. I used the Dark side, even if I was using it against Sidious. Yoda arrested me because the Jedi Order has a hard time with the difference between Dark and evil, much less the very subtle difference between evil and Sith."

"What, a matter of degree?" asked Kenobi sarcastically.

"No," he said, patiently. "All humans are mammals. Not all mammals are humans."

"Are you suggesting that there are Sith who aren't evil?"

"I'm suggesting that blaming everything that is wrong with the Republic on one Sith is extremely irresponsible and short-sighted at best." He paused, ate some more, and then added, "So what has the Senate been doing, if not actually choosing a new Supreme Chancellor?"

"Negotiating peace," said Padmé. "There are forty or fifty subcommittees running around right now trying to write peace treaties. Some are doing better than others. A lot of Separatists want to claim what you just said - it was all the Sith, and they bear no responsibilities. Most of the Republic isn't buying it.

"Then there are all the Senators who have been called home, to, to answer for not noticing the Supreme Chancellor was a Sith. It's not like any of us did, but . . . probably a lot of elections forthcoming. Of course, we need those Senators now, and not having them is hurting us even more."

"You never agreed with Palpatine's policies."

"I thought they were foolish and shortsighted and were going to end up prolonging the war."

He chuckled a little. "One of the those three things is true."

Padmé gave him an unimpressed look. "And I have to go back soon, because I'm on one of the committees negotiating a peace treaty."

"That's fine," he said. "I'm going to have a long talk with Dr. Bren, and then probably go do some physical therapy, and then if there's enough time start looking for someone to do the other kind of therapy."

"And the Council wants to see you," said Kenobi.

"Good for them," he said. "Do they want to see me more than they want me to check my shit?"

"Almost certainly not," said Kenobi after a short pause.

"Work out a schedule." He scraped the last porridge up with his spoon. "We can start this absolute mountain of bantha fodder tomorrow, assuming I'm still sane in the morning. Round-the-clock watch, really. And what could Padmé have done, if I were insane?"

"Talked you down," said Kenobi.

He sighed. "You tried that once before, too. It didn't work. I like to think I'm better now, but . . . I don't want to ever have to find out. If I go crazy enough I'm willing to hurt Padmé, I want you to kill me. No questions asked."

"Anakin - " began Kenobi.

"I know exactly what I'm capable of. I'm the only one who does. If I say kill me the moment I cross that line, I mean it."

"Okay," said Padmé. "I will. I promise."

"Thank you," he said, and stood up to give Padmé a kiss before she had to go.

Once she had, Kenobi said, "You are the worst Sith."

"Thank you. I'm going to find Dr. Bren."

"Find me?" said Dr. Bren.

"Well, that was easy," he said, looking at the older woman. "I hear I have someone to thank for keeping me alive the last six weeks."

"Yes," said Bren, "yourself. Exactly how many times did you nearly die doing something as ordinary as meditating before you came up with that regimen?"

"Meditation? None."

"Skywalker."

"Naberrie."

Bren sighed. Kenobi said, "I'll leave you to it."

He waited until Kenobi's footsteps had faded before opening his mouth again. "I. In my history, the one I defeated with Sidious, I. His favorite method of teaching me was by hitting me with lightning until I did - whatever it was - perfectly. And then a few more times for good measure. Dr. Bren, I was dependent on, among other things, a pacemaker. When that cut out, I had to make my heart beat by Force. That regimen was developed because I needed to be able to keep meditating through six hours of surgery."

"You've been conscious the whole time?"

He shrugged. "Orphedriparam blurs the line. I felt awake, but wasn't aware of my own body. I didn't feel asleep, but in terms of brainwaves, I was. I think of it as, mm, stepping out of myself and into the Force."

"The Dark side."

"There's only one Force, doctor."

She pursed her lips, but didn't press him. "So what are the side effects?"

"My metabolism is going to be all over the place until my circadian kicks back in. Sudden spikes in blood pressure aren't uncommon, but I can usually step those down with biofeedback. How much food I want to eat, and how much I keep down, is kind of random. I'm half-expecting the porridge to come back up. Dizzy spells. Really bad headaches as I come off the DIPA, and I know that morpha works for those but then I get addicted to morpha. I'm probably going to spend a decent amount of time in the next few days in a dark room with a cool cloth over my eyes."

"But nothing life threatening."

"No. There was always a chance I'd . . . have to meditate for long enough to make a sub-hyperspace jaunt to a different system, so I picked things that wouldn't murder my liver in the long term. I'll be done clearing them in the next four hours."

Bren nodded. "I'm tempted to let you out of medical, but . . . "

"Unknown patient, unknown cocktail. I'd like to go play around with the ropes in PT, though. If that's all right."

"That's fine," said Bren. "And - you're human standard. Do I have your permission to begin using this regimen for other patients?"

"Other patients who are in meditation that you can't pull them out of and that are endangering their lives?" Bren nodded. "Sure. If it helps, absolutely."

"Good. I'm ordering a complete blood panel for you as well. We'll see how the next few days go, but I think you're going to be fine."

"I know I am," he said. "Physically."

He was lying on his bed the next day, eyes closed and covered by a damp cloth, when Windu arrived. "Windu," he said.

"Naberrie. Your doctor said you are not leaving medical for another four days at least."

"Make it six. I can't handle more than half an hour on the ropes at a time. I won't be well enough to stagger up to my rooms before then."

"And the debrief?"

"Has the Council convened?"

"To hear your story? No. We have better things to be doing."

"I agree," he said, to Windu's palpable confusion. "Why are you here?"

"Because I need to go rejoin the war yesterday and I can't if I'm stuck here babysitting you!"

"Oh," he said. "Of course."

"And we need you back out on the front as soon as is manageable as well."

He thought about Padmé and took the cloth off his eyes. "Really."

Windu blew out a breath. "I don't like it either, but - do you have any idea of the effect that the Hero With No Fear going into a coma for six weeks had on morale?"

It had been so long since he'd been a positive influence on the morale of anything that the thought hadn't even occurred. "What if I don't want to go?"

"What."

"Since I'm not pretending to be a Jedi anymore. The Council has no authority over me."

"You're going to sit there with your eyes like that and say - "

"The truth," he cut in. "If I were still a Sith, then yes, absolutely, you'd be duty-sworn to imprison me at the least. But I'm not, so you're not, and as far as I know it's not illegal to use the Force and not be a Jedi. Or to use the Dark, as long as I'm not Sith. You have no case against me, and you have no authority over me, and I don't want to go back to war."

"If you're not a Sith."

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "You know the main difference between Sith and what I am now? It's not the light side and the dark side, though a lot of people on both sides would argue differently. It's philosophical. The Jedi see attachments as untenable pain waiting to happen, and seek not to form them. The Sith see attachments as unbearable weaknesses, and require that you hunt down and kill them. I see attachments as the only things that make life worth living. I don't think you're the kind of man who will lie and say this has not always been the case, with me.

"I'm willing to drag this entire debacle into the Senate on live holo," he added. "I'm perfectly fine with vomiting ancient Jedi secrets out onto the 'Net. I don't want to have to fight the Council on this, but if I do," he shrugged. "I'm not going back to the front, end of discussion. I'm staying here, except for when I'll be at five hundred Republica with Padmé, and that's the best you're going to get if you want to keep an eye on me. Take it or leave it."

"You told off Master Windu?" asked Ahsoka.

"Yeah," he said, still a little shocked at how quickly Windu had folded. "It was easy."

"Easy!" That was Kenobi.

"Well, aside from that I've been told in no uncertain terms that I have to make a speech about why I collapsed and why I'm not going back to the front." He'd made a lot of speeches as Vader. He knew how they went.

"You're awful at speeches," said Padmé. "Anakin."

"You can write it," he said.

"But you're just - not going back?" objected Ahsoka.

"Great," said Kenobi, holding up his hands. "He's gone insane. Well. More insane."

Ahsoka giggled.

"No," said Padmé. "I think he's gone saner than I've ever known him. He'll be fine. As long as he has us, he will be."

"That was always true, though," he said, unutterably grateful for how clever she was and always had been.

"That's attachment," said Ahsoka.

He smiled, back on solid ground. He knew the answer to this. "Yes, but I'm not a Jedi; I get to be as attached as I want. You don't have to reciprocate, either of you."

"Anakin - "

"Don't say it, Kenobi," he said. "I know."

He couldn't feel it, but he knew anyway that Kenobi was surprised. This wasn't something they talked about, ever.

Surprised, and a little worried. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"I have every intention of being as alright as I can. Padmé, can you stay a little bit?"

"I wouldn't have come if I couldn't." She stepped in, tugged him down so he could kiss his forehead. "You absurd man."

"Your absurd man, though."

Padmé laughed; Kenobi rolled his eyes, and left.

Ahsoka said, "You probably figured this out already, but I . . . I'm staying."

He nodded. "That's fine. Kenobi chose you already?"

"Like you said, Skyguy: duh. We're shipping out tonight too."

"Take care of him out there, Snips."

"Will do. Padmé, take care of Skyguy."

"Of course I will, Ahsoka."

Once they were alone, he said, "I'm . . . not really up to a lot of physical activity."

"You're here and you're awake and you're not contagious," said Padmé, and tugged his head down for some serious kissing.

The next week or so passed in a series of time in PT and time resting, and his muscles slowly regaining tone even as his body worked itself out. He spent hardly any time at all vomiting, which was nice, but mostly it was because food in general was nauseating. That was not so nice. Padmé was busy in the Senate, but she came as often as she could. It was never often enough, but of the two of them, her work was more important by far.

All he was doing was working through the list of Temple therapists. There were surprisingly few, he thought, until he considered that even needing one was tantamount to a Jedi admitting failure; and then he went and punched something until the anger wasn't quite so hot. But it meant that even after talking to all of them, he still hadn't felt the spark of connection that meant he'd found someone appropriate. He put in a request for more outside therapists. Then he annoyed the medical secretaries by asking after it constantly until they booted him from medical.

He went briefly to his rooms to make sure R2-D2 was alright. The astromech was fine, although very shouty. He apologized again for the length of his meditation, and spent some time cleaning the already perfectly immaculate droid as an apology.

Then he went to the creche.

He really had meant only to observe, but the moment Yoda noticed him, he called a halt. "Younglings, come," he said, clapping his hands. "A visitor we have."

"Yoda, what."

"To test a theory I wish," said Yoda. "Be calm. Hurt them you will not."

"How do you know?"

"Because blind, I am not."

He stared at Yoda, who looked back with the kind of thousand-meter stare that had won Geonosis. "Really?"

Yoda gestured at the younglings with his cane.

"Okay," he said, sitting down and looking at them. He didn't know any of them by name, but he wasn't thinking names anyway, he was thinking faces. No, no, no, no - yes: he knew that one, had last seen it a year older and burnt by blaster fire, all the light gone from xir eyes. The grief hit him a moment later, like a hammer, and he didn't even try to stop the Dark from coming. He just let it in, and let them see.

Half of them tried to hid behind the other half, but the other half were peering at him, not afraid but interested. "Does it hurt?" asked one of them.

"No. It feels, mm - like being lit from inside by a bonfire."

"Um, but," said another, "That's Sith, right? At least, it's what the stories say. Sith have yellow eyes."

"Was. I was Sith, for a long time."

"You can't stop being Sith," objected a third.

"Why not?" he asked.

That seemed to stump all of them, because they stood there watching him eat for a while before one of them, a skinny Bothan boy, said, "Because - because once you start down the Dark path, it's a part of you!"

He nodded. "This is true, but there is a difference between using the Dark and being a Sith. It's just like not everyone who uses the Light is a Jedi."

This, he could see, was a new and confusing idea. He waited some more while they processed.

Then the little wookie who was not dead said, "But isn't it evil?"

"Not inherently." At their confused looks, he asked, "Is a lightsaber evil?"

"No!" came a ragged chorus.

"But it's a weapon. Pretty much the only thing you can do with a lightsaber is - hurt someone. Doesn't that make it evil?"

"No! Because - because, um. We train to learn discipline, to feel the Force. Not to hurt people."

"If you say so," he said, making sure to sound unconvinced. "Well. The Dark side is like that. It's easy to hurt people with it, but that's not the point. The point is a different way of connecting to the Force. Some of the people who don't understand that are Sith. All they want is power."

"And you?" That was Yoda. "Power you did want."

"I wanted to be able to protect the people I love. That - the Dark side can give that, but not the way I was doing it. Of course," he added wryly, "Sidious knew that, and made sure I didn't until it was far too late."

"Ah," said Yoda. "Well, younglings? Wishing to protect people a good thing is, mm?"

"It's attachment, though," said a youngling. "Protecting some people more than others."

"And so? Left the Order, Anakin has. A Jedi he is not. Follow the Code he need not."

"Though I can tell, you're going to grow up to be a great Jedi," he said. He meant it more as encouragement, but the Dark was still with him and abruptly for a moment he could see the Jedi the Zygerrian was going to grow up to be, proud and fearless and peerless as she hunted down the last vestiges of the Zygerrian slaver culture. He blinked, and it vanished.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"I can hear the Force from both sides," he said. She seemed to accept that as an answer, but continued to stare at his eyes.

The staring was at the really desperately awkward stage when one of them said, "Did you really leave the Order?"

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a Jedi. I have never been a Jedi, and every time I said I was I was lying. Most of the time, even to myself."

"Uh. But," objected a different youngling. "How do you know?"

"I fell in love. I asked my love to marry me, and she said yes, and we did. I didn't care that I was breaking the code. That should have been a pretty big hint."

"Oooh," said the assembled younglings.

Another one, a small female zabrak, said, "But then why're you still here? I thought when people leave the Order, they leave."

"This is usually true, but the Council wants me to stay. And I wanted to stay, at least for now."

That answer was sufficient. A different youngling said, "Come play with us!"

He looked over to Yoda, who waved a hand. "Go, go. Energetic all you younglings are; perhaps wear each other out you can."

The wore him out in about twenty minutes, and then some of the more shy ones came and sat down by him while he sat there and, eventually, asked him to read them a story. He ended up spending two hours in the creche in a sort of low-grade hum of joy, and left with a promise to return the next day.

On the way out, he said, "Successful experiment?"

"Very," said Yoda. "Welcome in the creche, you are."

Speeches, he could do. He didn't like them, but he could do them. Windu did not want a speech, it turned out. Windu wanted a news conference.

"Oh fuck me," he said, looking out at the media. "Padmé."

Padmé laughed. "Don't worry. I've got this."

"If you say so," he said, and stepped out into the blinding glow of holocorders and up to the podium. "Alright, people. I have about six shocking announcements to get through and the room is only scheduled for ninety minutes." There was a rustle of laughter. "Please hold your questions until the end. There are going to be a lot of questions, and I refuse to even attempt answering them all.

He paused to take a deep breath. "I'm going in chronological order, so the first thing to cover is my wedding. Two years ago, on the way back to Naboo after the first Battle of Geonosis, I asked my wife to marry me. She agreed. Since then, despite maintaining separate official paperwork, I have been Anakin Naberrie."

"Why did you - "

"I did say hold all questions. The second thing, much more recently but also a bit more metaphysically: there are certain places in the galaxy where the Force concentrates, either naturally or artificially. The Temple here on Coruscant was built on top of one, for obvious reasons. During my last mission, which is and will remain classified, I found myself inside of one such nexus. I didn't realise until I was inside of it that it was Dark."

The murmur started up again. He ignored it. "Bypassing most of what happened in that place, I came out changed in a number of different ways. One is this," he said, and looked at where Padmé, out of sight to the media but only a few steps away, was beaming. There was a gasp from the assembled reporters as his eyes went yellow. He let it hit him, wash over him, and not affect him at all. The blue bled back into his eyes. "And another is that I could feel where to find the Sith Master that the Jedi have been searching for these last twelve years. I hid the first thing long enough to kill the second, and then surrendered myself to the Jedi Order. Mostly for medical care. That was not a sparring match.

"I thought, when I sat down to meditate, that it would be a time countable in hours. I woke up forty-one days later. In the interim, I appear to have . . . adjusted. All the tests we can do, including full-body MRI and PET scans, say that I'm totally normal in a physiological sense. We, my doctor and the Council and I, are certain something happened, but pinpointing what is proving elusive.

"Obviously, I don't want to be dangerous to anyone. I can't go back to the front lines like this, and anyway I left the Order. Without a lightsaber I'm useless, and I don't think anyone is stupid enough to believe handing me a lightsaber right now is a good idea. We're working on it."

"One final note: I get to come home. I have a home that isn't a battlefield, and even before this if I'd decided to quit, I could have. I want to ask you, the citizens of the Republic and the Senate: if we're not a slaveholding nation, why don't the clones who are fighting this war have that right?" He waited through another round of holocaps, and then said, "And now I'm open to questions. Yes, from HNL."

"Why haven't the Jedi executed you?"

"I don't know," he said. "I was fully prepared for that outcome. Ask someone on the Council. Yes, from the CNN."

"Are you a Sith?"

"No," he said. "I Fell in a cave, on an anonymous little planet in the Outer Rim. Who was there to teach me how to be a Sith? I'm Fallen, and Dark, but even like this I'm not stupid enough to join the people who killed Master Qui-gon. Yes, from the HNN."

"Is Senator Amidala aware of this?"

He glanced at her behind the curtain. He wasn't expecting her to step out and stand on her toes to kiss his cheek - a few more holocaps went off - and turn to them. "I am aware of what's happened to my husband, yes. I've been trying to support him in this difficult time. It is," she added wryly, "very hard to support a man whose response to being drowned in the Dark side is to shrug and comment about how easy it is now to defibrillate people."

"It's not easy, I just can do it," he said.

"Is that what you did to Councillor Windu?" asked someone in the crowd. "After your battle with Palpatine?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Can you also do the - the other thing? What Palpatine did?" That was someone from GN.

"I think we've decided, based on pre-Ruusan accounts of Sith in battle, that it was Force lightning," he said. "And I sort of could see how it was done, but I won't try myself. If I lost control I'd give myself a heart attack, and even if didn't lose control, it - requires a lot of hate. I don't want to hate that deeply. To be able to hate that deeply. Next! Yes, from BothaNews."

"How did you find out it was Palpatine, exactly?"

The room quieted, so as to hear the answer. "A combination of things. We - that is, the Jedi knew there had to be a Sith on Coruscant. I'm not going to explain how we got that intel, but it was pretty verifiable. While I was sitting stuck in that pit of Darkness, I thought about the Sith Lord I knew had to be here someplace. I got a vision. I don't get visions a lot, but they're usually useful. The gestalt of me in that pit with some idea of what I wanted was, I guess, the magic mix. I didn't believe it at first, honestly. I went in prepared to fight, but mostly I wanted to arrest him."

"Yes, I don't think there's anyone on the HoloNet who hasn't seen that footage," agreed the bothan wryly.

"Why did you try to arrest him?" asked a different, and more pushy, reporter.

"Because we are a Republic. People get trials, even murderous lying Sith bastards."

"So when's your trial?"

"There isn't going to be one," said Padmé. "He hasn't broken any laws. Using the Force and not being a Jedi isn't against the law."

"Neither is using the Dark side," he added. "Strongly discouraged, yes. Mostly I was arrested because I didn't feel like having a screaming argument over the corpse of the former Chancellor. The dead deserve their peace."

"Even Sith?" asked a Mon Calamari.

"Especially Sith," he said. "Hate them all you like in life. In death they should have a decent pyre, same as everyone else. Or are we animals?"

They stopped on the topic. Instead, he was asked, "What are your plans now?"

"Why do people keep asking me this?" he wondered aloud. "My plans are to protect the people I love. Also, get some therapy. In any time left over, work with the Jedi Order on how to be - whatever it is I am, now."

They asked more questions after that. Questions about Jedi Council policy, to which his response was, "Force, I don't know, go ask Shaak Ti, she's on-planet right now." Incredibly inappropriate questions about his and Padmé's relationship. "I don't," said Padmé in tones cold enough to crystallize methane, "see how that's any of your business." They asked personal questions, like how it felt to Fall; "Like the person you love most in the universe is dying because of you," he said, carefully not looking at Padmé. They asked questions about the mission, even after he said, "Classified," eight or nine times. They asked about the color of his eyes. "It happens when the Dark is close," he explained. "Controlling it is on the list." They even, to his surprised disgust, asked if Kenobi had known about Padmé. "No," he said. "Because if he had he'd have informed the Council, and the Order would have stripped my rank."

This was, he considered, as the clock wound down and the reporters began to be escorted from the building, probably not strictly true. Kenobi had almost certainly known something, and then deliberately not learned just enough to give himself plausible deniability. It wasn't a new line of thought, but it was in much better circumstances.

"So," said Padmé, sitting down next to him. "Want to do something stupid and political and fun?"

" . . . maybe?"

"Let me take you to the Dzeer for dinner tonight."

"Done." The Dzeer was an exclusive high-end restaurant, one which typically catered only to senators, very wealthy businessmen, and on rare occasion, Chancellors. It was usually booked months in advance, but he was sure that tonight the two of them would have no trouble getting a table.

She looked at him oddly. "When did you start to like politics?"

"Never," he said. "But I survived Palpatine's Imperial Court; I know how to play the game."

Dinner at the Dzeer was some kind of gastronomic heaven, and the company was excellent. They got a lot of stares, some open, some not; but no one dared approach them while they chatted and laughed their way through the meal. After, when he was mellow and drinking lazs and she was drinking after-dinner kaff, a couple of Padmé's senator acquaintances came to introduce themselves. He recognized none of them, so he said the polite thing, scrupulously neutral while behind her face Padmé got closer and closer to bursting out laughing.

By the time they got back to Padmé's, it was nearing midnight and Padmé was glowing. He helped take off her jewelry, take her hair down out of the tight braids, take off the heavy formal robes. Then he helped her take off other things, and she returned the favor, and things proceeded quite wonderfully from there.

"Mm," said Padmé eventually. "Why did we decide you should keep being a Jedi?"

"Clear sign of insanity," he mumbled, tracing nonsense patterns on the skin of her bicep, nose buried in her hair.

She laughed, a sound about as delicate as the rest of her, which was not very; and he took that with him into sleep.

Chapter Text

It took another handful of days for the other therapists to start visiting. In that time, he read a lot of papers on quantum math, got mobbed by younglings on no fewer than four occasions, broke a punching bag, slept next to Padmé every night, and kissed her so many times he lost count. Also, he wrote and erased the message to Rex enough that Padmé eventually just stole his 'pad and sent it.

"He's your friend," she said. "Of course he won't hate you."

He got back a whole damned letter:

His vision blurred, and Dark came pouring in behind his eyes. He leaned in to kiss Padmé again and then, while he was still glowing with the Dark, had R2-D2 take a picture of them and send it to Rex.

The message was almost instantaneous, accounting for ansible lag.

Fuck you, sir.

He tapped out his reply.

I Fell, Rex. I was as Dark as it gets, for twenty-three years. The Council is worried I've gone insane.

You're only twenty-two years old, Naberrie. And the Council is clearly not paying attention.

"I agree," said Padmé, reading over his shoulder, in the dangerous tone of voice that meant someone who deserved it was about to have something nasty happen to them.

"Leave it, Padmé," he said. He needed to get them used to dealing with a rational, well-reasoned, steel-spined Anakin Naberrie. That wouldn't work if she kept fighting for him.

Time travel might have been involved.

You don't look forty-five in that picture.

He rolled his eyes.

But you believe me.

But I believe you. Current plans?

I learned what being the Chosen One for balancing the Force actually means. It's going to be a lot of work for no reward other than not dying, but on the other hand it's everyone who won't die, not just me.

Still not evil, sir.

He didn't know what to say to that. Padmé did; she stole the 'pad, typed out one word, and then turned it off after sending it.

He didn't get to read what she'd written until the next morning:

Thanks.

Outside therapists finally started arriving the day after that, so he went to see if he felt rapport with any of them. He didn't, which was unexpectedly irritating. He sat down in the egg chair in the mental health lobby and said, "I really think I need someone who deals with post-traumatic stress. People whose job is it to deal the stresses of, of politicians, are not going to be able to help me."

"You're probably right," replied the medical secretary on duty. "We'll try getting someone in from Judicial, but it's a long shot."

"They're swamped?"

"They're swamped."

He bit the thumbnail on his left hand. "Damn. What about off-planet?"

"Importing a therapist just for you?"

He shrugged. "Ask the Council if that's not okay."

"No," she sighed. "Yours case has a priority marker. We'll start checking. Any planet in particular?"

"I need human psychology, obviously. Um. Not Alderaan. I did something - even a professional might have trouble with what happened to Alderaan."

"Corellia?"

"Corellia is fine."

"Corellia it is. This'll take weeks. Do you want to keep looking in the meantime?"

"No," he said. "But I think I'd better. If I find someone, we'll just send the Corellian home."

"Right. We have another two scheduled to come in tomorrow, tenth and eleventh hour."

"I'll be here."

He was, although neither of them suited. He went and hit the ropes and the weights for a while. It wasn't their fault that they were the kind of therapist common on the busy seat of the Galactic Republic. It wasn't their fault he was here. He'd chosen this, over all other possible options, and really in most respects it was working out well. It was just frustrating.

He was sitting the library, working through some math, when he looked up to see Yoda.

"Grand Master," he said.

"A briefing there is. Please join."

He raised an eyebrow, but when no explanation was forthcoming, he sighed and stood up and followed the old master.

"Naberrie?" asked Windu in apparent surprise.

"To join us, Anakin I asked. Whatever else he is, useful insights he might have."

Windu made a disgruntled noise, but didn't say anything else. He sat and let his cloak pool round him, pulled up the hood, and listened. The systems named were all out of his past, one after another, a whole line of them - "What about Seklis?"

"Seklis has called for a ceasefire," said Kenobi.

"Seklis is lying through it's collective teeth, then. The supply lines to Kenbar, Noromun, Reggath, and Vaas have to go through Seklis; it's the only appropriately-equipped planet for parsecs around that isn't also firmly Republic."

There was a pause, the sounds of tapping as people brought up local information on that quadrant. " . . . he's right," said Secura, from the bridge of whichever ship she was on.

"I recommend that you send someone to dig up the evidence, present it to the Senate, and take Seklis. The GAR has the resources to hold it; within weeks or months, Vaas and Noromun have to fall. They don't have fuel-processing plants in-system. I think Reggath will surrender; the people there are used to a much higher quality of life, and this war has just squeezed and squeezed them. Show up with a diplomatic ship full of small luxuries they haven't had in months, and they'll crumple," he added softly.

There was discussion after that, which he mostly ignored; he'd outlined the only reasonable course of action, and after a couple rounds, they saw it too. The briefing moved on.

He listened, and from it got a picture of how the war was going. Or not going, as the case might be. The Separatists had separated, and each system was now acting independently. Sometimes, planets within a system were at odds, one wanting peace while the other maintained at war. A couple of times, he felt he had something tangible enough to say it out loud.

And then Krell began to deliver a report on the campaign in the Ghost Nebula, and he sat up.
He'd somehow managed to forget about Krell. That was at least eight weeks longer than necessary he'd been wasting the lives of brothers who didn't need to die. He was still shit at slicing, but fortunately, he was back in contact with the 501st. He picked up his datapad, and began composing a message.

Krell had just about finished delivering his report when he was done. He looked up, and said, "Krell?"

"Yes?"

"What have you been doing that I can feel the Darkness around you all the way from Coruscant?"

"I've been fighting - "

"We've all been fighting. Three of us were even fighting a Sith Lord."

Krell sneered. "And you Fell."

"I didn't do it during the fight with Sidious," he said softly. "My question stands."

"You're trying to trick me!"

"No. I am asking a question. Which you have still not answered."

"I don't answer to you."

"That's true, you don't," he agreed. "But Krell? I know what you're doing."

Krell went from light brown to deep leather, the equivalent of a human going pale.

"And are you going to enlighten the rest of us, Naberrie?"

"Mm," he said. "No. Do your own IA investigations, Windu; leave the Fallen ex-Jedi out of it."

" . . . we don't have the resources for it!"

"Can you afford not to?"

"No," cut in Koon. "No, we cannot. Naberrie, why not just tell us?"

"I'm making a point," he said.

"You are a drama queen?" asked Kenobi.

He smiled a little. "That, too. I think I've sufficiently derailed this meeting for the time being. There is a briefing to finish?"

"Yes. General Tiin, your report."

The rest of the briefing went smoothly. He contributed a couple more times, nothing big. Then the meeting was winding down, and he said, "So. I had a thought," and suddenly had their attention again. "I spent a lot of time studying Sidious' methods - a lot - and one of the more common tactics he employed was to present a false dichotomy, where the choices were either he won or you lost. I've been listening, and checking for those kinds of situations, and, well - Encryption on the droids is ridiculously good, and so we've been thinking about it as a dichotomy: they win, or we fight. But I have a question: is there a reason we can't use the Force to find the encryption keys?"

They were staring at him.

"I cannot believe we didn't think of that," said Mundi.

"I can," he said. "How many - Nu excluded, of course - how many are even halfway decent at slicing? Because it's going to take more than a passing familiarity to be able to type in a random string of letters and numbers and have it be the right one. I certainly can't do it."

"But I can," said Kenobi. "As can my padawan. And Nu can - "

"With Nu, there is the issue of ansible lag."

"True," said Koon. "I have some familiarity with programming. None with slicing, but I can learn."

"We can all learn," said Ti. "We all must. Thank you, Sky - Naberrie."

Later, as he was heading back to the library, Yoda said, "A moment, Naberrie."

He paused. "Yoda?"

"Having difficulty you are, a therapist finding," said Yoda.

"Yes?"

"That training I have. Although kept up the certification, I have not."

"Oh," he said, over the very loud pounding of blood in his ears. "No, thank you. The last time we tried that arrangement it did not go well. For anyone involved."

Yoda's ear drooped. "As you say."

"Besides, it wouldn't . . . it would be a conflict of interest. You can't be the Jedi Grand Master and be my therapist. It wouldn't - the Force tells me that wouldn't work. You?"

Yoda closed his eyes for a moment. "Mm. Right you are. Still, hoped to help, I did."

"You help," he said. "You let me into the crèche."

"The laughter of younglings the best medicine is," agreed Yoda, but he seemed happier. "Visiting us today you are?"

"No, sorry. I've almost got this, and I wanted to get it done today."

"What is it that so intently you study?"

"Quantum math. The ancients knew a lot that we don't, and - whatever he was, the Father on Mortis gave it all to me. Problem is, I don't understand it, and it's incredibly important that I do."

"Mm. Write the report of Mortis, you should. Master Kenobi already did."

He blinked. "Yeah. I guess I'd forgotten about it. Okay, as soon as I have this color thing down I'll do that."

It didn't turn out to be that easy. For him, most of what had happened on Mortis was decades in the past. Even if he'd later been grateful for having been forced to channel the personifications of the Light and Dark side simultaneously, how he'd done it had eluded him. Why he'd done it was not something he'd wanted to think about most days. And then there was the Well.

Force take it.

It took him several days just to put it all down in writing, nevermind editing so that it made some kind of coherent sense. Then, because he was not following the stupid Jedi rules anymore, he asked Padmé to read it and check for errors. Padmé took the 'pad and went away.

She showed up again two hours later to hug him, and wouldn't stop hugging him until he gave up and toppled over. They didn't get off the couch until nearly dinner time.

"I don't understand how you can do those things and not - " give up. Give in.

He said, "There's you."

"I love you too," she said.

He turned that in, and forgot about it. Padmé was more important. So was finding his therapist, whom he was pretty sure wasn't already on Coruscant. Learning the math to get all the stuff in his head to make sense; he was dreaming in sinusoidal curves now, true dreams although he still didn't understand why. And, of course, his people who were still in the war.

Most of the Jedi who'd shipped out at the same time as Windu had made it to their destinations, along with the military units meant to support them. Yularen and Kenobi and Ahsoka and the 212th sent a comm that they were at Felucia and headed to negotiate with the planetary leaders. He immediately sent back a message with everything he remembered about that clusterkriff of a mission, because he reasoned that even a little bit of warning was better than none at all.

He was really surprised when, two days later, his comm pinged with an incoming message from Vos. He put it on the table.

"Vos," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Asajj Ventress wants to talk."

He sat up straighter. "Ventress? Where? When?"

"Here, now," said Ventress, just off-capcorder. "Hello, hero."

He smiled as Vos handed the capcorder over. "Hello, Ventress. What can I do for you?"

"You can get the Jedi to stop trying to kill me."

"Yeah, probably." He waited.

"You can get Dooku to stop trying to kill me."

"Possibly," he allowed. "I'd need to find him first."

"And the moment you have that information your friend here just turns on me and - "

"He'd better not. You're not Sith; therefore, you slip through the same legal loophole I did."

Ventress made a noise of disgust. "Except I'm not the hero of the Republic. I can't get away with that. What good will your righteous anger do me when I'm dead?"

" . . . what do you want, Ventress?"

"How do you survive? With the Dark eating you from the inside? How do you come out of it happy? Much less still the Republic's golden boy!"

He sat back, considering. "You," he said, "want a teacher."

"I - "

"And you came to me. I can't say I'm not flattered . . . "

"But you hate me."

"Really not," he said. "I just don't think I'm in much of a state to be teaching anyone. On the other hand, you're going to die if someone doesn't take you on."

"Yes," acknowledged Ventress.

"And the galaxy really does need every single Dark side user. At least, it does if I want to avoid rebalancing the Force the bloody way. Which I do." He sighed. "Okay."

Ventress blinked. "Okay?"

"These things will happen in this order: You get yourself to Coruscant. You tell the Jedi Council everything you know or ever suspected about Dooku's hidey-holes. I'll teach you what I can about not letting the Dark eat you alive, and hopefully that will be enough. After that, we're done. If you want anything else from me ever, you ask for it and we negotiate like adults. Got it?"

"Perfectly," said Ventress.

"Great," he said. "Then I'll see you in a few weeks. Vos - "

"I got it," said Vos. "Vos out."

"They're subpoenaing me," he said, flatly, looking at the piece of paper - paper! - that Padmé had just handed him. "Why?"

"Because you're not less terrifying for not being Sith, and they want a chance to see for themselves," said Padmé. "It'll be just like the news conference, but with more people and fewer pointed questions."

"Oh, so just a waste of my time."

"Not necessarily," said Padmé, and explained. He listened in growing awe, and then he pulled her in and hugged her tightly.

"Yes," he said. "Great. Except that you might lose your seat over it."

"So I'll lose my seat."

He smiled at her, helplessly, hopelessly, happily in love.

She smiled back, and added, "But you can't show up at the Senate to tell them that you're not evil dressed in black. Tomorrow, we're going to shopping."

He spent a long and boring day buying clothes with Padmé. They were all the kind of shop where they sat and drank small cups of tea while people brought swatches of fabric and Padmé talked cut and seam and nap and then, for maybe fifteen minutes near the end, an older person of indeterminate sex got up close and personal for the measurements. They did that a few times, and then ate lunch at a hovercart, and then after maybe the second little cup of tea in the afternoon he said, "Padmé, who is paying for all of this?"

"I am," said Padmé. "Out of my savings. I can't expense this and wouldn't want to, and you don't - you were a Jedi."

He laughed. "Yeah, okay. Remind me to draw out the synthskin interface when we get home. And also hire a patent lawyer."

"You're going back to being a mechanic now?"

"Remember the part about how much of me was artificial?" he asked. "It's okay for a hand," he flexed his right hand, "as long as the other one is still flesh. Once I lost the other, I needed better feedback and finer motor control. There wasn't a way to get it without completely redesigning the nerve-wire interface. So I did."

Padmé blinked, then smiled. "How much does it cost?"

"A few hundred cred?" he said, and shrugged. "It's a long surgery, and unfortunately painful - you need to be awake to tell the droid which neural bundle sends which signal - but it's droidwork. Not expensive. On the prosthetic side, it's just molycirc." Also not expensive, he meant. Most mid- to high-end printers could pump synthskin out at a rate of square meters per hour for as long as they had material. "A small royalty fee is still going to stack up quickly."

Padmé grinned. "So you won't be my kept man anymore?"

"I hope you'll keep me anyway."

She laughed and stood on her toes to kiss his nose. "Any other things you hadn't invented yet that might be a good idea to invent?"

"No," he said.

"Okay. I - are you going to get this? Once it's patented and in production?"

"I want better feedback, yeah. Why?"

"It's just - I like your arm," she said, catching and holding his hand. The right one, the one that was black and gold, as much art as mechanical.

"Oh. Uh. Reengineering the molycirc to work without the synthskin won't take too long, but I have a lot of other things to be doing - "

"Get the surgery," said Padmé. "The circuitry will still be there when you get around to making an arm for it."

"Yeah," he said, and then they went to go buy more clothes, or at least theoretically buy clothes. He never saw more than little hundred-square-centimeter pieces of cloth.

The first outfit arrived late the next afternoon, after a day full of quarks. He put it on, admired the clean lines and the breathability and the flexibility, and went to complain to Padmé about the color. "How is grey with gold piping going to help?"

"It compliments your eyes no matter what color they are," she said. "And you're almost certainly going to be asked to demonstrate. Most of them are in black, or at least very dark shades of other colors. Why black?"

"It's easy to keep clean," he said.

"Yes, because you are awful at treating clothes properly. Do a twirl." He did. "Nice. Very nice. We're going to have to do something about the hair. Okay, do the thing with your eyes." He looked at her. "Oh. That's . . . something. Maybe this isn't best, you look more dangerous now than you ever did holding a lightsaber."

"I am more dangerous now than I ever was holding a lightsaber," he said. "So it's accurate."

"Not the impression we want to give, though."

"Uh. Mm. I'm going to try something. Don't be afraid. I only know how to do this in one direction, and we're going for the opposite one." He went quiet. His old anger at Padmé's death had more or less evaporated. Fortunately, there was a decently good cause, so he let himself be angry at the fact that he got to come home, but his men, the best men, did not; and he wrapped the anger and menace around himself like a cloak.

Padmé gasped out an, "Oh." And then, being Padmé, "You're doing that deliberately?"

"Yeah. It's, I don't want to keep doing it, and it won't be good for meeting with the Senate. I want to project something else, but I'm not really sure how."

"How are you doing that?"

"I'm wearing my anger," he explained.

"Please stop," she said, so he did, and a bit tentatively, tried wrapping her in how he felt about her instead. She gasped again, but this time it wasn't Padmé in fear or distress: it was Padmé in wonder. After a moment, she snickered and said, "That's kind of inappropriate for a Senate hearing, though."

He laughed. "Right. What do we want?"

"Enlightened optimism?"

He shook his head. "Won't work. I have to be feeling it, and I - don't do optimism. That's one of the things I lost. I think I might be able to do pleasantly surprised pessimism. As long as there's some kind of pleasant surprise."

Padmé laughed; it was Kenobi's joke, a true pessimist is always pleasantly surprised, and later the fact that he wasn't always pleasantly surprised had been one of the few morbidly comforting thoughts keeping him alive through the later years. Here and now, it meant something, because Yoda kept trying to help him and now even Mundi and Windu seemed to cautiously like him, and standing up in front of the media hadn't actually been that bad.

"Okay," he said, trying to make a cape of the feeling. "How's that?"

" . . . much subtler, at least," said Padmé. "Why did you ever need to bludgeon someone over the head with fear?"

"It was part of the mask," he said. "If I was going to be the terrifying monster, then I should at least do it well."

"Hm," said Padmé. "Okay, well, don't do that to the Senate. We want them cooperative. It'll take a miracle for you to make them cooperative, but I hear the Force lets you manufacture those - "

He laughed and kissed her and said, "I'll figure it out."

The Senate hearing was in another two days. He went over the Temple, to the crèche, and asked Yoda if he had any advice. Yoda looked up at him and said, "Not with these. Come back in three hours."

He sat down on one of the lobby couches, and began sending comms: to Rex and the 501st, to Fox and Stone in the Coruscant guard. They went back and forth on it for a while, but the facts were the facts. When he explained what he wanted to do, live on national holo, the messages started coming back with the kind of incredulous disbelief that he was used to in people who hadn't met him. Rex was dry as old bones on Tatooine, even in writing across light-years. Fox was incredibly helpful, they all were: they knew that what he was planning could easily backfire.

His timer went off.

He blinked stupidly at it, and then stood up and packed away 'pad and went back up to the crèche. Yoda had a different group, older, initiate age. They were all old enough to know who he was and what he'd been doing the last couple of years. Perhaps a few of them were old enough to be disappointed in him for - any of the things a Jedi might be disappointed in him for. He looked at them. They stared, unabashed.

"Anakin Naberrie visiting us is," said Yoda. "A request, he made, for my advice. Time for a game of electric lightball, I think it is."

There was a collective ripple of excitement from the initiates. He agreed; Yoda rarely obliged anyone by playing, generally because he was older than he used to be, but also because it was a little unreasonable to pit a score of Initiates against him. "So that fun and fair the game will be, on your side Naberrie is."

"I am?" he asked.

"You are?" asked one of the initiates. "Really? But - aren't you not allowed to have a lightsaber?"

"It's electric lightball," he said, holding up his hands. "I can play by push-pull."

The initiate - not a familiar species, vaguely reptilian - looked back unimpressed. "You can?" Lightballs were basically spherical training lightsabers, downpowered enough that it was safe to pick them up with one's bare hands, and the point was to hit everyone on the opposing team with one. Push-pull also worked on them, but keeping up the concentration while in the middle of a running battle to tag all of the players on the other team was difficult.

At least, he remembered it as having been difficult. Since then, he'd been to war. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Easy."

The first round was a disaster even so. Yoda had the first half of the initiates down in about two minutes, the second half down in only a little bit longer, and then it was a stalemate between them. After maybe another four minutes he went over and just plucked the ball out of the air and tossed it at Yoda. Then he went to go talk to his team.

"Well, that was pretty awful," he said.

"Yeah. You were no help at all."

"I thought I did pretty well to be the last man standing, even though I wasn't even using a lightsaber."

"Didn't help us any," said a bothan girl.

"Hmm. Well, I saw at least two problems with what happened there, and neither of them was me. If fixing those two doesn't let us not lose so much, I'll admit I'm the problem."

"Okay," said an insectoid initiate. "What are they?"

"There are too many of us, and too few lightballs."

"What?"

"Twenty-one of us," he said. "We can't all keep track of each other. We keep getting in each other's way. Yoda doesn't have to keep track of anyone; he's in what my old commander in the GAR would call a target rich environment. Anyone he tags is an opponent."

He watched as comprehension lit their faces. "Who gets to play, then?" asked a twi'lek girl.

"Oh, everyone," he said. "We just make it hard for him to tag two people at once by spreading out. I think . . . how many people can any of you keep track of at once? Six? No, better make it three if we're going to be tossing more balls in. Okay, you all know triangle tiling, right?"

"Yeah . . . "

"We're going to triangularly tile the court. Pay attention to, keep track of, the three people whose tiles border yours. Make sure you work together with them, don't get in their way; if they have a lightball, don't try to knock it toward Yoda, let them do it."

"You did say more lightballs," added another person, possibly male, definitely fuzzy.

"Yeah. Yoda only has to track one. Getting control of one lightball, when everyone on the court keeps trying to hit it right at you, is easy. Keeping track of five or six, much less control of them . . . "

"I see," said one, at the same time as the insectoid said, "Ahh."

"Which not to say he's not Yoda; he'll probably still beat us. Just not because we did most of the work for him. All right, each of you pick four people who, when you spar with them, you have a long match."

"Not our friends?"

"Friends aren't as useful. You need to know how the other person is going to jink more than you need to like them." At their uncertain looks, he added, "Master Windu doesn't like me, really. We spent enough time sparring to know how the other was going to respond, and then we went and beat Darth Sidious. Knowing how to work with people who are not your friends is useful. Come on, start giving me names."

He'd learned all twenty names by the time they got the tiles worked out. The insectoid was female, chazatep, named Cheprek. The lizardish one was tkaa, Asalit. The fuzzy one hadn't picked a name yet. They were all bright and curious and at least one was wondering very loudly if they were going to see him do the Sith eyes.

The second round went much better, in that it took Yoda four full minutes to get them down. "Okay," said Asalit, rubbing his forearm. "It wasn't you. I got what happened that time. Yoda was dodging the lightballs."

"He does that, yes. What do you do to make that not a viable tactic?"

"Um," said the very sky twi'lek, Rurran'dar. "We . . . either we aim the lightball to not hit anyone else if he dodges, or we warn the person so they can take control of it when he does."

"If we're warning out loud, that's going to get distracting fast," he commented. "And Yoda can hear us through the Force, too. I know keeping track of five lightballs is a challenge, but you're Jedi Initiates. You can do it."

"You can!" objected a human girl. "Hero With No Fear!"

"I came to the crèche when I was nine years old," he said, which was something they already knew. "I didn't even know push-pull. I had to spend extra hours every day learning, and maybe Master Kenobi was a little harder on me than he'd have been one someone raised in the Temple - but only because he knew I could. And I know you can do this. Let's go again."

They went again. It took Yoda six minutes to win, but at first they did manage to nearly tag him. Yoda, in fact, bounced off him to avoid it. He could have just batted the lightball if he'd been holding a 'saber. Doing it by push-pull meant he was just a little too slow.

It heartened the initiates, though. They just lined up and went again, and lasted thirteen minutes. He wasn't the last one standing then, either; that was the fuzzy little no-name. They were ready to leap right into a fifth match, except that Yoda refused. "Our hour almost up is," he explained. "Take some time to return to the crèche, I must."

"Aww," said Cheprek.

"Stay here with Naberrie, you may," said Yoda. "Until your next lesson you must attend." He turned to look at Anakin. "Get what you needed, did you?"

He looked the the initiates. "Mm. Not quite. Come on, we'll do one last match, all of you against me."

"That's unfair!" objected Jessit-of-no-known-species.

"Just like twenty-one of us against Yoda is unfair?"

" - you're not that good."

"I'm not," he said. "There are twenty of you, and now you know how to fight in a group against one person. I don't have a lightsaber, and there are five lightballs. That just about makes it a fair fight. One round only."

The round lasted twenty minutes. It ended not because he got tagged, and not because he tagged every one of them, but because seven of them called time before they had to go to their next lesson. He looked at the twenty of them, felt the sudden quiet in the Force and thought back to the ebullient exhilaration of a few minutes prior, and smiled. "How many of you wanted to see me do the eye thing?"

Fourteen hands hands shot up. The fifteenth, that of the Rurran'dar, came up more slowly. "But it's kind of rude, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "Why?"

" . . . I don't know. I wouldn't ask to see the - your right arm, either."

"I'm ashamed of neither," he said, and pulled his sleeve up to show his right arm. Thought of Padmé taking his hand, saying she liked it. As the glow faded, he said, "They're just part of who I am, the sum of all my experiences."

"Oh!"

"Now, some of you have to go get cleaned up. I know I do. But thanks for the lesson."

"Uh. Shouldn't that be our line?"

"Well. If you want to, but I'm the one who got the lesson I needed, so . . . "

Some of them laughed a little. "Yoda."

"Yoda," he agreed, and headed for the showers.

He practised on Padmé, who didn't mind, and then on Nu, who gave him a very weird look before asking, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to improve functionality," he said. "Let me know if it works, okay?"

"It's not harmful?"

"Uh. No more than any emotion is, I guess. Less than some? They're not your emotions, they're being imposed on you; you should shed them as soon as you're out of range."

"Yes, but your range is an entire planet."

"When I want it to be," he agreed.

He spent the day on neutrinos. And on throwing all the energy he had into the teamwork-gestalt. He stopped when he developed a headache, and it turned out to be time for a late lunch anyway. While he was eating, Nu showed up and said, "It works. Whatever it was you were doing."

"Great," he said. "Now I just need some industrial painkillers, and I'll be ready for tomorrow."

The Senate Dome was huge, one or two representatives from every system and species in the Republic. Even with a lot of them recalled home, it still felt like the whole galaxy was judging him. Of course, that was what they were doing. He looked up at them, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tweaked. It was harder than he'd expected, changing the atmosphere from expectant hostility to expectant excitement, but he could hear the difference in the low murmur of chatter.

The bailiff, standing next to him in Coruscant Guard red, noticed it too. "What did you just do?"

"Walked into the room. Well. Floated. You brought me in. Are we going to get to this hearing soon, do you think?"

"Your eyes are yellow."

"They do that. Like I said, it is on the list; it's just less important than not dying of Force burn."

The bailiff snorted.

"Okay," he said, then sat down and took out his 'pad. "Poke me when we're ready to get started, otherwise I have math to do."

"Math that's more important than this Senate hearing?"

"The Force seems to think so," he said. "It thinks so very loudly."

Of course, as soon as he got settled and had pulled up the scribble program, he was poked because apparently it was time to start. He stood up, smoothed out the jacket, and bowed to the assembled Senate.

"Senators of the Galactic Republic," called Speaker Aang. "We have gathered to hear the testimony of the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, now Fallen to the Dark. As per protocol, submit questions through the electronic aggregator; most requested questions will be asked first. We begin. For the record, the witness will state his name and rank."

"I am Anakin Naberrie," he said. "As far as I am aware, I don't currently have any rank other than private citizen of the Republic."

"Very well. Citizen, you understand that it is your duty to answer each of the following questions with the truth and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

"With some exceptions," he said.

"Citizen," began Aang, warningly.

"Certain facts are above the security clearance of most senators," he said. "If those senators with said security clearance want to take me aside and question me further once we're done here, I'd be happy to answer more questions. I apologize for the necessity; when a question runs up against clearance, I'll just tell you."

"You're not off to a good start," said Aang.

"Not my fault. First question, please."

"Very well. This vision which you say you experienced, and which led you to believe that the Chancellor was the Sith Lord. What did you see, exactly?"

" . . . sure, start with the most complicated question. It was twenty-five years long, at least subjectively." He waited for the murmuring to crescendo and then die off again. "My chronometer recorded it as having taken about forty minutes. I - saw, experienced - what I firmly believe would have been the future in the absence of the vision. The Jedi Council hasn't had time to sit down and debrief me on the entire thing, so for now it's so classified it doesn't even have a clearance level. I will tell you that, in that vision, the Republic fell a little more than a year from now, and it fell from within. I stopped that from happening.."

"You stopped it," said Aang. "You killed the Supreme Chancellor!"

"I was told that a number of slicers found definitive evidence that he was, at the very least, in communication with Dooku. It is fact that when I went to arrest him, he tried to kill me. With a lightsaber he really shouldn't have had, and a lot of skill using what is a notoriously difficult weapon. That should say something."

"We are not putting the former Chancellor on trial!"

"I fully agree. My question is: am I on trial? And if so, on what charges, please?"

That set the Senate to murmuring again. It took some time for it to die down this time, and then Aang said, "You are here to answer questions only. Your case is - extremely irregular."

"This is true," he said, and waited.

Aang coughed, and then turned to his screen. "How did you hide what you are?"

He tilted his head. "What, married? It wasn't that hard. I'd been a Jedi since I was nine years old, no one expected me to defy them in that way - "

"No," cut in Aang. "Fallen."

"Ah. With difficulty. My eyes would have given me away immediately, as would any use of the Dark side - they are related but not synonymous - and I was on a ship with two perceptive Jedi and fifteen hundred perceptive clones. So," he shrugged, "I played up the fact that I was suffering from channelling too much Force at once, which I was, and requested a lot of purely physical activity while my mind healed. No one looks at me oddly when I want to spar. And I meditated more than is usual, which was because I was dealing with what I saw in the well. I didn't - I did meditate. I didn't like meditating. Doing it that often, willingly, served to convince both Master Kenobi and Padawan Tano that I needed to be among healers on Coruscant."

"Did you know you were going to collapse?"

"Not consciously," he said. "I knew I had to be on Coruscant. I thought it was just because I needed to - well, I wanted to arrest Palpatine. After, I thought I'd meditate. In medical. After talking for a couple of hours about how to treat me when I go unconscious for long periods of time. In retrospect, that probably was a hint." There was a slight ripple of laughter. He smiled up at them, easily, feeling the mood shift into amused forbearance.

"Did you then, or do you now, have any further plans to arrest members of the government?"

It was the perfect opening, handed to him on a platinum platter. "No. For one, I'm no longer a Jedi Knight, so I don't have the authority," he said; and then he grinned up at them with predatory yellow eyes. "On the other hand, you are breaking one of the fundamental oaths you took when you joined the Senate, so there definitely is ground for someone to arrest every single one of you. Commander Fox, perhaps, or any of his men."

He paused for a moment, felt the spike of fear as the senators considered that even if he wasn't present, the Dome was guarded that day as it was every day by hundreds of clone troopers. That each one had a perfectly legal right to arrest them. And that they definitely had motive to do so.

"What?" said Aang, rapidly blinking both sets of eyelids.

"On charges of, at the very least, deliberately and maliciously ignoring the Constitution, failing to uphold the Constitution while holding public office, enslaving sapient beings, and, probably, general corruption." He turned to face the Senate, the rows and rows of repulsorpods which each held four or five senators. They were all looking at him with mounting horror. "When I was a very young boy, I thought the Republic hated slavery, and was working to end it throughout the galaxy. That naivete died the day I saw Jedi Master Qui-gon Jinn free me - and do nothing about the twenty thousand other slaves on Tatooine." The ripple that went around the room was shocked: he, Anakin Naberrie, the Hero With No Fear, had been a slave? He pressed on that emotion, Forcing them to confront their prejudices. "The last two years have opened my eyes to some of the harsher realities, and one of those realities is that, representative or not, the Republic is just as much a slave empire as the Hutt syndicate. Even though the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Sapient Beings is part of the Constitution that you swore to uphold when you took office."

He continued, pitching his voice to carry. "According to that Declaration, all sapient beings have certain rights, among them life, liberty, security of person, freedom from slavery, freedom from degrading punishment, legal recognition of personhood, and freedom from discrimination based on origin. These are rights, guaranteed and protected by the Galactic Constitution. I doubt any of you would dare claim that clones aren't sapient. Therefore, forcing men to fight because if they don't they are terminated for being 'defective' is a violation of all of them.

"Ignoring or deliberately subverting them - " he stopped, looked up, found Burtoni staring at him with a shocked purple gaze and squarely met her eyes - "is not only a violation of the rights, or the Declaration, or the Constitution, or your oaths, although it is all of those. It's a violation of the law. From you, the people that the Galactic Republic has chosen to be its leaders. Is that really the kind of government you want to be?"

It took Aang a moment to collect his voice, and even then, he only croaked, "Stars - " and then turned his attention to the aggregator. "I - the Senate wishes to know what will happen to the people if the clones just decide to stop fighting?"

"Better question: why are clones fighting at all? There are very few actual troops on the Separatist side, and the droid AI isn't terribly advanced. There are much better ways to fight enemies you can reprogram than just using your men as meat shields."

"Yes, but," said Aang, "cracking the encryption - "

"Sure, if you want to do it the stupid way. We have Jedi. When cracking encryptions, there is brute force, and then there is brute Force. Sidious manipulated the entire Republic into just forgetting the Force can be used that way, but it very much can. I reminded a military briefing about it a week ago. Since then six separate battles have been won because the droids got there, assembled, and then received a properly authorised and authenticated power-down signal. The war is over, senators. All that's left now is clean-up, and the retroactive pay you owe to the clones, and the gene-fix you owe to the clones, and the honesty you owe to the Republic." It wasn't really a Force suggestion: it was a Force demand, a Force order.

Aang capitulated. "Ah - yes. I have a motion to table this hearing. Seconded. Discussion? - By what right do you, a private citizen, dare make demands of the Senate?"

"I wouldn't, if it were just for my sake. It is not just for my sake: it is a huge and terrible and ongoing breach of justice, and if I am a citizen and you are the legitimate government, than it is my right to demand that you redress this grievance, and your duty to do so." He was pushing on them, responsibility-duty, and they were slowly but surely bending to his will.

Aang said, "And you will not fail to reappear once this matter is settled?"

"I will not. My oath on the Force."

"All in favor?" There was a rustling quiet while the senators voted, and then Aang called out the results. "Done! I have a motion to explicitly recognize that the clones currently serving as the Grand Army of the Republic are sapient beings, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof. Seconded. Discussion?"

There was rather too much discussion. Anakin felt the headache growing behind his eyes as he sat down and sipped from a bottle of water and kept pushing on the Senate to think about the clones, more than a million of them, who were fighting a war they hadn't chosen against an enemy they couldn't beat for a government which seemed to regard them as disposable. It was still hours before they got to the vote, and the vote was - close. Organa and Mothma and Tabreez and Zar and, well, pretty much everyone who in another time would have been the Delegation of Two Thousand, voted instantly in favor. Burtoni and Clovis and Pod and others, many of whom either had a financial stake in the war or spoke for planets which did, voted against. He'd been attempting to arouse the sympathy of the people in the middle.

When they were all counted, the ayes had won.

"Done," said Aang, out loud and on record; and for once and for good and for all, it was done.

Anakin had, somehow, finally, managed to free the slaves.

Chapter Text

Padmé caught him up in a hug. "You did it!"

"I did it," he said. "Although I think we'd better plan on me being arrested again shortly."

"Agreed," said Padmé. And then, "'I know how to play the game?' Really?"

"Still don't like it."

"Insane," she replied, shaking her head. "I love you." Then, more quietly, "Would you . . . actually have had everyone arrested?"

"It was a contingency plan," he said. "But it would have put me in the unenviable position of having taken over the galaxy after I'd promised my wife not to, and also, ruling a galaxy is not a responsibility I want to have. I have enough of those as it is."

Padmé laughed. "That's a relief. You'd be so bad at it."

"I know!" he agreed. "Let's leave the governing to you, and the moral uses of amoral powers to me. If there even is such a thing."

"That's a question I want to ask the Jedi Council, actually," said Padmé. "So, if you know they're going to ask you, please warn me." It was a simple request; but something about her tone was hard and queenly.

He smiled and said, "I have an awful headache. Let's stay in for dinner."

Padmé made a face. "Stay in my apartment, or stay at the Temple?"

"Is there a reason not to go to your place?" he asked.

"It is almost certainly being camped out by reporters."

" - oh. Sure, we can go to the Temple."

The apartment at the Temple was also being camped out, but by a single person. Unfortunately, that person was Yoda. He paused. "Is there any chance we can not do this now?" he asked.

"No," said Yoda, peering up at him.

"Thought not," he said, and sighed. "Then you had better come in."

Padmé, meanwhile, had palmed open the door. "Grand Master Yoda. Can I get you anything?"

"Answers I want," said Yoda, and sniffed. "Tea appreciated would be."

"Ani?"

"Something cold. Please."

Yoda hopped up onto one of the comfortable chairs. He sort of flopped onto the couch, and put his arm over his eyes. "Okay," he said. "I did not make anyone's decision for them. Well, you saw the vote, plenty of senators voted against - I wasn't making anyone's decisions, because that would be illegal as well as unethical. I did Force all of them to feel the way I do about slaves and senators and the Constitution and doing their stars-blighted jobs. You know as well as I do how long they've been slithering out of this vote. I refused to give them that option."

"Mm. And the Dark side, you used."

"Yes. You can't - using emotions to deal with the Force is the definition of the Dark side."

"Hmm." And then, unexpectedly, "But fear you did not use."

"Because having the entire Senate terrified of the one point eight million life soldiers I wanted them to free would have helped," he said. "Really. I used duty. Honor."

"Here," said Padmé, and handed Yoda mug of tea.

"Thank you, senator."

"And here," she added, joining him on the couch with a bowl of frozen yogurt. He rested his head on her shoulder gratefully.

"Fear, you can use," accused Yoda.

"Right now I can't use anything. Ask again when my entire sense of the Force isn't one big bruise."

"Important to you, this was," said Yoda. "Why?"

There was moment when the entire universe lined up, hot and and insistent and ready; and he'd probably have said something very rash if Padmé hadn't said, "You . . . really don't get it, do you?"

"If I did, ask I would not." It was almost mournful.

Just like that, the rage went away. "That's because you're good at distancing yourself from the physical," he said. "Too good, and coming from me that's saying something. Most people, not Jedi, just regular people, make no distinction between themselves and their bodies. In a very real sense, there is no difference. It's not hardware and software, Yoda. It's software that can iteratively rebuild its hardware on the fly.

"Everyone deserves clean water. Everyone deserves enough food. Everyone deserves shelter, and clothing, and medical care, and to spend their lives doing work they enjoy with people they enjoy. It doesn't matter if we're talking about a princess of Alderaan or the poorest baby born to a slave on Tatooine, all of these things are and remain true. And I dare you to say that just because we 'aren't this crude matter,' because one day we'll all be at one with the Force, it is okay to deny any one of those things to anyone now.

"Slavery is the denial of everything. It is not allowed, full stop."

Yoda said, "How bright you are," and sipped his tea. "Your actions the Council will debate."

"I'm sure," he said, dryly.

"Duty and honor only?"

"Responsibility. Maybe a little bit of regret," he allowed.

"Pff," said Yoda. "Come to the crèche tomorrow you will."

There was a short pause. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."

After Yoda left, he finished his frozen yogurt and then lay there, head on Padmé's lap, listening to the dull thud of his heartbeat. He sort of half-dozed, painlessly slipping between meditation and sleep, turned in to face Padmé's stomach while she balanced a 'pad on his head and did something. Probably something senatorial; she'd never shirked her duty, even to be with him. It was one of the skills he most wanted to learn.

He was dreaming curves again, and he was just conscious enough that it made sense to think about Padmé's curves in particular: not even the span of her hips, but the curl of her smile, the shell of her ear. The way she'd trembled when telling him that, despite all of their precautions, she was pregnant. His double-take, and checking the second time to find the swell of her belly under her growing breasts. The hollow of her throat as she mouthed the words "I love you."

He'd figured it out, eventually, in the months between Bespin and Endor. Mostly by reading autopsy reports on men he'd murdered: choking someone by Force collapsed their trachea, but didn't show any external marks. Only a very good doctor would have caught it, and Kenobi . . . wouldn't have had access to any kind of doctor, much less a good one. He wondered, occasionally, where his children had been born, and if Padmé had lived to see them or if they'd been ripped out of her corpse -

He threw that thought away, made himself contemplate sense-memory of naked, pregnant Padmé during those few last, terrible days instead. It wasn't good, exactly. He'd been coming apart at the seams and in retrospect Padmé shouldn't have been spending so much of herself on him, given their unborn baby. Even so, in bed at night she'd curled into him, as if he weren't the one tearing their world apart. As if he could be anything but awful for the child whose heartbeat was already so clear, there under the gentle curve.

He gasped awake, and suffered a weird moment of vertigo to find himself looking at Padmé's abdomen, which was flat because here and now Padmé was not gravid. "Under the curve," he said, out loud. "Write that down, please. It's important."

"All right," said Padmé, doing so. "Why? Does it have something to do with all the math?"

As soon as she said it, he knew it did. "Yes," he said, sitting up. "I need to get to work."

"You need to eat something! You missed lunch and a bowl of frozen yogurt does not count, and now it's nearly the twentieth hour."

"Um," he said, as his stomach informed him that, yes, it was empty. "Yes. I'll cook?"

"How's your headache?"

He checked. "Not as bad. I can work through it."

"But you don't have to," said Padmé. "You have no job right now other than to get well. I'll order something from the commissary - no?"

"Have you ever eaten in the commissary here?" He shook his head. "They are healthy calories. Generally they have about as much flavor as wicker furniture. Order out to Dex's instead."

"They deliver?"

"To here, they do," he said.

Padmé ordered. He turned on his 'pad - "Not to work, Padmé!" - and checked his comms.

Kenobi had written.

How in all the hells did you do that?

I could explain, but to do it yourself, you'd have to Fall.

Ahsoka had written.

Skyguy, I didn't think you'd get into politics the second I turned my back. I told Padmé to keep you safe, not throw you in with the rancors!

It needed doing.

Rex had written. One sentence, four words:

You have the army.

I don't want an army. I want you to live your own lives.

By the time he was done answering Rex, Kenobi had answered.

Make an attempt.

The opposite of empathy. Projective emotion.

Rex's message pinged while he was typing out Kenobi's, so he checked that.

Plenty of us are getting out, no worries there. Jesse, and probably that means we're going to lose Kix too. But you have us, all of us. If you need us.

There was only one reasonable response to that.

Nayc entye, Rex.

There was a pause, and then the incoming message pinged.

We know, sir. It's not about debts. You're our brother too. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Vode an.

He had to stop for few minutes while the Dark came. He wasn't lying, his headache had gone down, but that didn't mean he was ready to fill his skull with it again either. The Dark was shit for healing, he had to use the Light for that, and the Light was elusive while he was feeling like this. It wasn't an emotion he wanted to lose, either, so he just rode it out.

Force. A brother.

By the time he was able to respond, Kenobi's incoming message pinged.

What kind of emotion can force the Senate to sit down and have that vote?

He replied to Rex first.

I'm honored.

Then he sat and stared at the screen for a while before typing.

The way it felt when I realized that Sidious was either going to kill or corrupt my son, and the only thing I could do to stop it was to kill him first.

He turned off the power on the thing before Kenobi could ask any more questions, although he knew they'd be waiting for him when he turned it back on. He sat like that, just breathing. That wasn't entirely accurate; he'd been feeling more than a little bit of regret at the time. At least until he hadn't been feeling any emotions at all, because he was busy being electrocuted.

"Padmé," he said instead.

"Yes?"

"I - we agreed not to, because of the war and the, the secret, but. The war's almost over and I've given up on telling lies. Do you want to have children?"

"Yes," she replied, instantaneous. "Do you?"

"Yes. I'm just not sure if. I'm so busy, and I'm still only dubiously sane, and - "

"You'll never be less busy," said Padmé. "But otherwise I agree. Let's see this war done and dusted first; let's make sure we'll be bringing them into a world worth joining. But, Anakin Skywalker Naberrie, I absolutely want to have children with you. You'll be a great father."

"I hope so," he said, and the buzzer on the door went off.

"Coming!" called Padmé, and went to go get the food.

They ate and he showered and they went to bed, where he didn't have any dreams at all.

Yoda was as perceptive as ever: he didn't have time the next day to mope around, because he went to the crèche as commanded and was immediately surrounded by younglings. They didn't, in general, care about what he had or hadn't done; even the ones who hid behind their crèchemates and approached him obliquely got over it in one ninety-minute session. He had only met about a hundred of them so far, and Yoda seemed determined that he should meet all four thousand of them.

Today, though, it was just one boy, padawan-age. He looked at Yoda.

"This Migs Ky is," said Yoda. "Speak to him you will."

"I don't want - " began Ky, before Yoda hit him on the head with his cane.

"Politely," said Yoda, and turned to leave the room.

He looked at Ky. Ky looked mulishly back at him. "Right," he said. "Yoda wants me to talk to you. Do you know why?"

Ky glared at him.

He shrugged. "All right. In that case, I'm going to keep working - "

"Working," sneered Ky. "On what? Bending the whole galaxy under your fist?"

"Math," he said, and sighed. "Is it that I'm Fallen, or that I left the Order?"

"It's fine to leave the Order, when you find the right person or the right cause," said Ky.

He nodded. "Then it's the Dark."

"Yes! A thousand years fighting it, and then you come along and suddenly all the old rules don't apply anymore? It's okay to have a Sith wandering around in the Temple, in the crèche? And we're helping you?"

"Ah. And I suppose telling you that I'm not a Sith won't help."

"It's not a very believable lie," said Ky.

"I hope not," he said. "Given that I don't tell lies anymore. Life is so much easier when I don't have to constantly keep my stories straight." Ky snorted. "What about you? What's your story?" Why does Yoda want me to talk to you, he meant, even though he pretty much already knew.

"Me? I'm nothing special. Just another failed Initiate, about to age out of any chance of becoming a padawan, and I don't want to join the Service Corps."

"So don't," he said.

"What?"

"If you don't want to join the Service Corps, you don't have to. It's not like a Temple-trained Initiate has no other marketable skills. You can go do what you like. Get a job in industry. Go take classes at one of the universities, assuming you pass the entrance exams. Go meet your family, if you like. The Jedi Order is obligated to continue to pay for your upkeep until you reach your majority, and you don't owe them a single hour of even so much as meditation in return. If you want, you can take them for a lot in a five-year period."

Ky was staring at him, again, but not in hostility. "I want to be a knight."

"Can you make a knight chose you?"

"Uh - " said Ky, looking at him.

"In an ethical way," he added.

"No," began Ky.

He cut in. "Then whether or not you'll become a Jedi is out of your control. Have a contingency plan. Have ten contingency plans. Stop acting as though the universe owes you anything. In my experience, the universe rarely cares."

"Easy for you to say! You had a master the moment you stepped into the Temple - "

"Sure. And I had four years to complete six years' worth of coursework, plus learning to control the Force, plus learning how to use a lightsaber, plus this whole 'Chosen One' bullshit making the Council watch me like swoops. I worked hard for my knighthood."

"And then you threw it away!"

"I found the right person, and the right cause," he said.

"What, Forcing the Senate to vote the way you want them to - "

"Just because I wanted them to free the slaves, and they did, I must have been Forcing them to do it? It's impossible that they would have voted that way on their own?" He paused, and then said quietly, "Freeing slaves isn't a worthy goal in its own right?"

"I - you," said Ky. "What do you want?"

"At this exact moment," he said, "I'd like to help you not Fall. You're about two centimeters from stepping off that edge, and I think you know it."

"I'm not."

"You were seriously considering Forcing a knight to chose you," he said, softly, letting the Dark up into his eyes.

Ky looked away first. "I - why would you want to help me not Fall? Isn't that the point of Sith?"

"Once again: not a Sith," he said. "Assuming you've had the same push-pull training I did, you've also had fun jumping off the northwest tower. You know there's a difference between a plummet and a controlled fall. I'm going to need more people to join the Dark side eventually, but I want it to be a choice, not a - not something you do in pain and rage and fear. That is the Sith way to do things, but it's not my way. Clear?"

"Alumina," said Ky. Then, "But aren't I already Dark?"

"Having thoughts about things you'd never, ever do is normal," he said. "As always, actions are what counts. I can tell you that you're not. Not yet. If you keep on the way you have been . . . "

Ky frowned. "Wanting to be a Jedi?"

He shook his head. "You're angry. You were ready to attack me, although as far as I know I've never done anything to you. You were ready to attack Yoda, and I know he hasn't. You're afraid, although I can't see why; you never have to worry about being hungry or not having work that you're good at and enjoy or about the actual horrible war that is tearing our galaxy apart right now but which will be over by the time you'd be old enough to go to the front. You're in emotional pain so acute that I got it after talking to you for two minutes. Wanting to be a Jedi is fine. It's all the other stuff that's the problem."

"Don't tell me to meditate it away," replied Ky warningly. "It doesn't work."

"No, of course not. Wait, was that Yoda's advice?"

" . . . yes?"

"Kriffing hells," he said. "No. Your emotions are always valid. You own them, and then, if they aren't emotions you want to keep - and if you're a Jedi, that's all of them - if they're not emotions you want to keep, you let them go."

Ky was looking at him with a kind of awed apprehension. "How?"

"Good question," he said. "Meditation eventually, but - come on. We're going to the salle."

The salle wasn't busy that time of day, midmorning. Ky looked at his dubiously as they went through stretches. "Is this supposed to help?"

"I hope so," he said, and stood up. "Okay. Face me."

"No! You don't have a lightsaber!"

"And?"

"And I'm not stupid. The Hero With No Fear? Unarmed, sure, but - you're better than that. You fought a Sith Lord and won!"

"I've fought four Sith Lords. I lost one and nearly got my master killed, won two extremely pyrrhic victories, and only most recently stopped being stupid and started bringing friends. And I don't see any friends here."

"But - "

He sighed, stepped forward, took Ky's lightsaber, and had the blade up against the nape of his neck before Ky even considered moving. "That," he said, switching it off and handing it back, "was pathetic. Try again."

Ky got himself into a proper attack stance, which meant it took him fifteen seconds to get the boy down. "Again," he said, and took him down in twenty. "Again," and this time Ky was expecting him to go for the 'saber, so the kick to his shoulder was completely unguarded. "Again." Ky was too guarded that time, and blocked a flurry of blows and totally failed to notice the foot until it hooked his ankle and tripped him. "Again."

"Is there a point to this?" demanded Ky, panting after that round.

"Yes. Again."

It took another four defeats before Ky's control cracked and the boy attacked wildly, out of stance. He reached with the hydraulic arm, caught and twisted and, in one smooth motion, had Ky on the mats with both arms pinned to his back. "Let me guess," bit out Ky. "Again?"

"No," he said. "Now you tell me how you're feeling."

"How do you think?"

"You still have to say it."

There was a moment balanced right on the edge between Light and Dark. "Angry. Hateful Humiliated," spat out Ky. "There, are you happy now?"

"Why humiliated?"

"I don't know if you noticed, but you just beat me ten times in twenty minutes."

"Did you expect to win?"

"No!"

"So you expected to lose, and you lost. How is that humiliating?"

"You didn't have to do it so many times, where everyone can see!"

"The salles are public. Where else were we supposed to do this?" A pause. "Ky?"

" . . . so it's my fault?"

"What?"

"That I," choked out Ky. "That I feel humiliated?"

"No! Your emotions are always valid. I just want you to recognize that it's there, and yours. No one else's. Got it?"

"Yes."

"No, I mean, not do you understand, but is it yours? Does it belong to you? Do you own it? So that you can take it and do whatever you want with it?"

"Yes!"

"Then take it, and bundle it up, and give it to the Force."

Another moment of stillness, of decision, and then Ky breathed out an, "Oh."

He let Ky go, rolled off the boy and to his feet and offered a hand up. "Now," he said, "I'm happy." It wasn't entirely true. Happy was the wrong word, and also, he was not insignificantly jealous. Then again, no Jedi would ever have dared push a padawan as close to Falling as he'd just pushed Ky.

"Yeah," said Ky. "Is this what it's supposed to feel like? All the time? The Force - it sings."

"Yeah. It does," he said. "Time to meditate. Well, I say meditate, I mean go sit somewhere quietly for a while and listen to the Force. Up for it?"

"Absolutely," said Ky fervently.

He was fine, too, riding a lift up to the observation level and more or less pouring himself onto one of the benches and then dropping into a fugue so complete he wondered if the boy had ever really heard the Force before in his life. Possibly not. He'd been thirty before the Force had stopped whispering, and the Force actually had a job for him. He checked to make sure Ky hadn't really just passed out before sitting down. "That," he said, "was a shit apology."

"But a good exorcism," replied Yoda, opening one eye to look at him. "Feel better now, you do."

"I'm not entirely sure he's going to be a Jedi," he said, looking at where Ky was starting to glow softly. It wasn't obvious in the bright, sunlit atrium of the training salles, but he saw it; and so, he was certain, did Yoda.

"Entirely sure I am that a Jedi he will not be," said Yoda. "But a knight, most certainly. Most certainly."

"And that was completely intelligible," he added. "You're slipping."

"Perhaps merely wiser you are."

"Mm. No. Definitely slipping. How many more like him?"

"One or two each month, perhaps."

He took a deep breath, then let it out. "Yeah, okay. Listen, I'm going to the library. Keep an eye on him. If he stays out long enough to need medical, do not let Bren give him azumenizol. He's not Dark; it'll do more harm than good.

"I understand," said Yoda.

When he arrived in the library, he didn't immediately jump into equations; instead, he sat down and opened up his comms, and checked the six separate messages Kenobi had sent.

Your son.

Of course you had a son. I don't know why I'm surprised.

'There were complications.'

Why do I even like you?

Anakin?

Good night.

He typed his response.

Luke Skywalker. The Jedi I never was. There isn't much to mourn about amputating that future, but Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are at the top of the list.

You like me because I'm just as insane as you, but in the other direction.

He waited a few minutes, but when his comm didn't light up again he did break out his scribble program and begin reviewing all his old work, paying particular attention to equations involving integrals. None of them jumped out at him, which was disappointing; he'd hoped that was going to be his big breakthrough, the last of the concepts he needed before he could finish building the final picture. No such luck. He sighed, and then got to work on the Higgs and gravitons.

The Higgs was reasonable, or at least, the equations were well-behaved and only took him a few hours. Gravitons . . . were not. A lot more work had gone into them, because artificial gravity was all about controlling where they were and were not. He sighed, and settled into what was sure to be days worth of fiddly imaginary math.

On the third day in, he got a message that the psychiatrist from Corellia had arrived, and if he could take some time off he should go to medical to meet them. He saved his work and then did.

The therapist turned out to be a somewhat plain-looking woman, wearing the kind of sensible professional coverall that nevertheless screamed spacer. Her short-cropped hair confirmed it: this was a woman who'd seen a lot of time in freefall. He paused, just checking. She seemed kind of familiar.

"Are you going to stop staring and come say hello like a civilized person?"

"Haven't you heard?" he replied. "Heroes aren't civilized."

"Bantha fodder, Mr. People-get-trials."

He smiled, sat down in the chair opposite, and offered his hand. "Anakin Naberrie."

She took it, not thrown for an instant by his left-handedness. Her grip was firm but not ungentle; he could tell she had a lot of manual strength that she just wasn't using right now, and the fact that she wasn't turning a handshake into a pissing contest was a good sign. "Jaina Solo."

He blinked, and looked at her again. Now the familiarity made sense. Solo said, "Do I have something on my face?"

"Just the Force dicking me around again," he said.

"Oh?"

"You have a husband named Jonash who works at the Corellian shipyards, and a son named Han who . . . isn't here, but is a huge fan of Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Stop me when I get to something that isn't true. You're supposed to get an autograph no matter what happens. You, yourself, have not been having the easiest of marriages, given that you just spent eleven years in school while working part-time and raising what must be a pretty troublesome youngling. Possibly he was unplanned; he seemed like that kind of person. Part of accepting the transport to Coruscant and this interview was because you wanted a little time away, and you figured even if this is actually too good to be true, nothing bad could happen on Coruscant - please think more about that in the future, Sidious has made his lair on Coruscant for the last dozen years and plenty of bad things happen on Coruscant. If this works out, you want to bring your family here, which you can do but given cost-of-living is not something I reccomend. I might completely ruin your marriage - "

"Stop," said Solo. He did. "You got all that from one handshake?"

"No. I got that because I once spent a lot of time learning everything I could about one Han Solo, and that included his family."

There was pause. "Why?"

"He defied me, and then inexplicably kept not dying when I tried to kill him."

"He's eight!"

"I am aware. We're talking about time that . . . well, from everyone else's point of view, it's time that never happened, vision time. From my point of view, I'm forty-six years old."

"Hence the need for a psychiatrist," said Solo.

"No. There's no problem with cognitive disconnect; I just view it as a sort of time travel, discontinuous time, and that takes care of it." He hesitated, and then continued. "The problem is, and I am saying this to you in confidence as your patient, the problem is that, in that time which didn't happen and now never will, I was a Sith. For twenty-three years."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Is that," began Solo hesitantly, and stopped. Then, much more confidently, she asked, "That's something you can stop being?"

"Well I did, so." He held out his hands, as if to say, 'nothing up my sleeves,' which was such a lie. "But it was not a pleasant experience, and it left scars."

"You seem pretty functional," said Solo.

"Seem being the operative word. When I let myself off the leash just a little, I go into a six-week coma. I'm not okay, I'm just good at faking it. I'd rather not have to."

"And all those NDAs I signed?"

"You're going to have to know everything. I only want to tell it once. Therefore, you get to be a part of the single worst debrief since the Ruusan Reformation. You will have to work closely with several Jedi Councillors. I don't know which ones, yet - Windu and Kenobi, almost certainly, but others as well. Some of the things will be military secrets, things that seriously threaten the security of the Republic. Some of them are going to be Sith secrets; I plan to burn Sidious' legacy to the ground, and that means every bit of Sith lore I know, which is pretty much all of it, is going into the Jedi database. Just reading you in is going to take days. If this is something you want to do, I mean."

"Didn't the Force already decide that?"

"On my end. I won't make you do this if you don't want to."

Solo said, "I have to go back to Corellia. If nothing else, I need to formally divorce my husband and collect my son, plus all the things I want to keep. I know what you said about cost-of-living, but this offer comes with housing in the Temple, did you know? And whatever else, you can't say the education available on Coruscant won't be better for my son than the education of a spacer brat."

"He did fine for himself," he said, not sure why he felt the need to tell her. "Lieutenan in the army, freed a slave at the expense of said commission, general in the other army. Councillor Kenobi isn't on-planet right now, but I can give you an autograph and a promise of another whenever the two hundred twelfth gets back."

"Done," said Solo. "And if you have time right now, we can start getting to know each other. You know far more about me than I do about you, and gossip is . . . "

"Gossip," he said.

"Exactly," said Solo. "And even if you think of yourself as forty-six, or whatever, your brain is still twenty-two years old. Not entirely finished."

"I - huh. I hadn't actually considered that," he said. "Neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing."

Solo blinked, then nodded. "Right, you - know some of that. The arm." She motioned to his prosthetic. The neuroplasticity talk was a pretty big part of getting one, and then he'd had to spend another couple of months reading up on it when he was redesigning it to not be utter shit. Now it was only sort of shit. He had to make time for his new arm soonish.

"I know a lot more than some," he said. "I was a paraplegic for more than twenty years. I, personally, redesigned the entire prosthetic-neural interface in order to get over some of the current inadequacies. I'd probably qualify as a neurosurgeon, if I went in for that kind of thing."

Solo nodded. "Right, so. We can talk about cryptic statements like that later. What I want to know now is, how much of what you told the media and the Senate is lies?"

"Mm. None of it."

"But?"

"The media didn't request that I tell the whole truth, either. I left out a lot."

"Such as?"

"I can defibrillate people with my bare hands," he said. "If you take that thought to its logical conclusion, I should be able to stop people's hearts just as easily."

"And can you?"

"Yes."

A pause. "Have you?"

"In real time or vision time?"

"In time that you feel you've experienced."

"Yes," he said. "Regularly. Though not often and not recently. Scared yet?"

"I've known since the moment I stepped on that shuttle that I was going to be dealing with someone dangerous. If nothing else, you are still the Hero With No Fear. The media might have embellished, but broadly speaking those were all things you did. No one who could do any one of those things, much less all of them, could ever possibly be considered not dangerous. I am curious about why you're trying to frighten me, but suspect you're just checking my mettle."

"Not untrue," he said.

"Tell me another true thing that you didn't tell either the news or the Senate."

"The list that controlling my eye color is on is the 'things I figured out how to do years ago' list."

Solo chuckled. "That, I knew. You can obviously reliably get it to happen, and making it not happen was vital to your survival for a few days, and I know how difficult it is to think, 'Oh, I'll just not do it,' and then actually not do something." There was a story there, and if she wanted to share it, she'd share it. "Therefore, you must be just as capable at getting it to go away. Is it - it goes when the Light is near?"

"Something like that," he allowed.

"You still owe me a truth. A new one, this time."

"I - the first time around, when I married Padmé, and after, I loved her but I didn't actually like her that much. If that makes sense?" Heart pounding in his chest, he went on. "She was just - so put together, she knew exactly what she wanted out of life and the galaxy and demanded that she get it, and it was. I was a walking human disaster. I wanted what she had, and I thought she could give it to me. Probably she could have, but not while I was also trying to be a Jedi. Getting what you want out of life and being a Jedi are pretty much mutually exclusive."

"Hence you leaving the Order."

"The main reason, yes," he agreed.

"And now?"

"Um. I still love her, but I can also see that there are parts of her that I really admire and also hate about her. She'll go out in public to make inflammatory speeches while a bounty hunter is actively trying to kill her. She'll support me far beyond the point when she really should stop. I got a promise that she'll kill me if I ever go evil, which is good, but . . . "

"You asked your wife to kill you," said Solo flatly.

"Yes?"

"Your wife."

"I owe it to her," he said, uncomfortable. "I killed her last time; if someone needs to put me down this time, she's the one who . . . Kenobi didn't. He could have, and really should have, but he didn't. I can't trust him to do that, if it needs doing. But my wife won't hesitate, and I'll - if she's the one pointing the blaster at me - I'll hold still long enough for it to be a one-hit kill."

"You're not a hound, Naberrie."

"What?"

"You said 'put me down,' as though you're some kind of dangerous animal. I know that's not true; you're one of the most intelligent people I've ever met." Her eyes were bright, passionate. "You might need stopping. I will grant, not knowing the full extend of your abilities, that it might even require lethal force. I will never agree that you, a person, will ever need 'putting down.'"

" - oh."

"Now tell me, why did you feel like that?"

He had to think about it. Finally, he said, "Sidious used to call me his pet. It was - nothing about that relationship could be called healthy, not ever, but I suppose I came to believe it in a way. Other people called me rabid, which wasn't entirely untrue for the first few years. By the time I got over it, the expectations had been set. Therefore: a rabid animal, in need of putting down."

"Mm. But Sidious deserved a trial."

"I get what you're saying."

"But?"

"But nothing. It's a dichotomy within myself that I hadn't realized was there. I need to meditate on it. A lot."

Solo nodded. "You do that. That was - far deeper in than I thought we'd get on a first session."

"See what I mean about the Force making these decisions? They're the right ones, obviously, but I'm oblivious so the Force shouts."

Solo chuckled. "Assignment for you, before the next time I see you: ask your wife how she feels about you having killed her."

"Okay," he said. It wasn't, but Solo was the one with the degree.

It would involve first telling Padmé that he had killed her, which was not a conversation that he wanted to have, now or ever. On the other hand, he wasn't under the impression that this was meant to be a fun time, either. It was meant to be healing, but he knew from experience that healing hurt.

He stood up and saw Solo out, and then pestered the secretary for a piece of fancy stationary so he could write out an autograph for Han. She took it, and promised to be be back in ten days. He automatically decided to give her a month. They shook hands, and with absolutely zero fanfare, she left.

He went back to Padmé's, and sat on the couch. As the sun set, he thought a lot about how things had happened, and how they hadn't, and what explanation would possibly be enough to explain what he'd done.

Padmé arrived home later, turned on the lights, and jumped. "Ani! What are you doing sitting in the dark? You scared me halfway to death!"

"I - " he said, and then his throat closed.

Padmé said, "Oh no. What's wrong?" and came to sit with him on the couch.

"I. You didn't die. I killed you."

Chapter Text

Padmé froze. Then she said, "Okay. Hold on a moment."

"Why?"

"Holocomm with Master Kenobi," said Padmé, and put the little projector on the table before powering up her 'pad.

"What?"

"Ani, I love you dearly, but subtle you are not. I died. You were involved. He was involved. We were waiting for you to be ready to talk. Comms up. Hi, Master Kenobi."

"Senator Amidala. Anakin."

"Padmé," said Padmé. "Ani's ready to talk."

"He - okay. Let me just tell everyone I'm DND. Do not hang up." He stood up, and there was background noise of Kenobi telling someone he was on a comm. "Alright. So. What happened?"

"Padmé didn't die and cause me to Fall. I'm slightly precognitive in life-and-death circumstances - "

"Since when?"

"Since always? I mean, humans don't have the reflexes for pod racing; I can do it because I respond to things slightly before they happen. Anyway, Padmé was pregnant, I was getting premonitions of her dying in childbirth, Yoda told me to accept that death is natural, so I went to the next father-figure who wasn't going to give me disappointed eyes for being married."

"Palpatine," said Padmé.

"Sidious," he agreed. "With the benefit of hindsight, I - going to you next would have been better, but I didn't. Sidious told me about a few Sith tricks which . . . are pretty gross, actually. Keeping people's souls locked in their shambling, rotting corpses levels of gross. I didn't know it at the time. I thought Sidious was going for a straightforward exchange: my loyalty for Padmé's life. That was why I Fell.

"Then Order Sixty-six happened, and a whole bunch of other stuff - don't give me that look, we'll get to it eventually, but it was all awful - and then you caught up to me on Mustafar, and brought Padmé along to talk me down."

"Which didn't work," prompted Kenobi after he stopped talking.

"Which didn't work," he agreed. "I was more than a little insane at that point, and I didn't know how to control the Dark yet and also I'd just come off the murder of the remaining Separatist leadership, so I wasn't in the best place. Mentally. And there you were, in the worst possible place considering you were past your due date already, telling me every truth I didn't want to hear. I mean, this was before I quite understood why democracy is necessary, but I was - I was always stronger than Sidious, from the very beginning. I thought I could have taken him."

"Could you have?" asked Padmé.

"It doesn't matter. Even if I could have I couldn't have held his fledgeling empire. But I thought I could, and I offered you a crown and you - "

"Turned it down," said Padmé with him. "Of course I did, Ani, how could you think otherwise?"

"I wasn't thinking. I was burning up from the the inside, the Dark was eating me, and you, of all people, were refusing me, so I - choked you. With the Force. Kenobi distracted me enough that you didn't die then, and then we had an epic and stupid an ultimately pointless battle across the lava fields of Mustafar."

"And then you won?" asked Kenobi.

"No; you did," he said. "After which it would have been much better for everyone involved if you'd killed me, but you didn't. Cut off all three of my remaining limbs and left me to burn, yes. Told me a truth that completely gutted me. But not killed me."

"Force, Ani, I'm - "

"You didn't do it," he cut in, quickly. "Not the you who is here now. That Kenobi went and got Padmé to . . . I never found out the whole story there, actually. The thing is, if you choke someone with the Force, you don't leave surface bruising but you do collapse the trachea. Wherever it was, it was far enough off the beaten path that no clones were around to try to kill, ah, him, and there must have been some medical care because the twins survived being born. Just not enough medical care, because a decent doctor or a deep-tissue scanner would have picked up on the internal damage, and, by the time I was conscious again," he took a deep breath, turned to look at his wife, "you were dead."

"Oh," said Padmé. "I." She let out a harsh breath of laughter. "Is it okay that I don't know how to feel about this?"

He nodded. "It took me more than a decade, and I was the one who did it. Take as long as you need. I'll - go back to the Temple, if you want."

"No!" He blinked. "I mean. I knew you'd hurt me. 'Kill me, no questions asked, if I ever cross that line'? This is - worse than I thought. Is all." She took a shaky breath. "But you're still - you still want me?"

"I always will," he said, nodding. "It took me a while to understand that I don't get to demand reciprocity; that's where my mistake was. But I want to spend the rest of my life, whatever that is, at your side."

Padmé swallowed, then smiled thinly. "I. That's a good plan."

"I have a question," announced Kenobi. "I have lots of questions, but this one in particular: how can you not hate me?"

"I did, for a long time. Hate him, I mean. But hating him didn't make me any less wrong. And it turns out I don't stop loving people, so. Hatred just got exhausting after a while, especially once I figured out how the Dark is actually supposed to work. Then the next time we crossed blades he let me kill him. I figured that made us even." He smiled thinly. "Besides. It wasn't you. That's one possible future, a world where I go insane and evil and you learn to burn cold enough to fight me, but it's a future neither of us wants."

Kenobi made a small noise, deep in his throat. "Oh, Force, Anakin - "

"It's okay," he said.

"It's not," said Padmé.

"Well, no. But that's what Solo is for."

"Who?" asked Padmé.

"My therapist. She told me to ask you how you felt about me killing you."

"Your therapist is amazing," said Padmé. "I'll - think about it. I will have an answer, I promise. Just. Not now. Now," she added, "I want cuddles. Having emotions is exhausting."

"Don't," he said to Kenobi.

"I didn't say anything!"

"You were going to. Don't."

Kenobi sighed. "Very well. Do you . . . " his eyes flicked to Padmé, and then back to him.

Padmé said, "He'll comm you again soon. We both will."

"I'll look forward to it. Kenobi out."

"Really cuddles?" he asked.

"Really cuddles."

"That's not a normal reaction to - it's not healthy, Padmé. To want to cuddle your abusive husband."

"From my point of view," she said, "you're telling me about things that happened in a, a simulacrum. A vision. Not things that actually happened. Your reaction is pretty much textbook perfect horror. So. No, you're not, and yes. I want cuddles."

"But you know I'm forty-six. That all that stuff did happen in my past."

"I know," said Padmé. "But not in my future. Ever. You - do that thing again. With how you feel about me."

He stared, amazed, and then swaddled her in his adoration.

"Mm, yeah. Come on, Hero With No Fear. Cuddles. Sleep."

He dreamed that night, a true dream. It was a massively stupid dream, too, about some incompetent fishermen who didn't understand that a weir had to be built across a river, perpendicular to the direction of the current. He'd grown up on a desert and then Coruscant, and even he understood this concept. He spent hours splashing around in the shallows, digging up and replanting all the poles holding up the nets, and even then he didn't manage to catch any of the odd silver fishes.

He woke up frustrated, and the thought of doing any more math with imaginary numbers was seriously enough to make him want to vomit. "Ani?" asked Padmé.

"I'm making an executive decision," he said. "I'm going to get that patent before doing any more of these kriffing equations."

"You do that," said Padmé, amused. "I'm busy for the foreseeable future. It's easy enough for you to waltz in and - be morally dubious. Now we have to decide what to do with all the clones, and how all their retroactive pay is to be managed, and all about the gene-fix, and . . . it's a nightmare, quite frankly."

"Make Kamino's continued presence as a member of the Republic contingent on providing the gene-fix," he said. "Force knows they weren't in the Republic before this war for a reason, and if some of them are disgruntled by the Republic's sudden about-face with regards to the ethics of their business, then so much the better. They deserve it."

"And the clones?"

"Give them a planet."

"What?"

He shrugged. "Blue-zone, breathable atmo and unpoisonous chemistry, but maybe a little dangerous - flora or fauna or both - for civilians to ever have settled it. Then step back and watch the carnage."

Padmé laughed softly, and leant in to kiss him, just a quick press of her lips to his. "I love you, you mad genius. Go on. Prosthetics. Maybe I want to be your kept woman, for a change."

So, despite its bad beginning, the day ended up going pretty well. He wrote out most of the plans for the nerve-wire interface out on plast before he got antsy and went to go find someone to kick around a salle for a while. There weren't many knights on planet, but fortunately most of them who were had some serious physical therapy to do and were completely fine putting down the lightsaber and going to the mats with him. They kept losing, even though he was going easy on them.

But they were Jedi, so they kept getting back up.

The day after that, Padmé sent him a list. He sent out a comm to the first one. An hour later, his comm pinged.

He replied with the address of the tea house right outside the front of the Temple, the one that was situated to get all of the Jedi business and all of the tourist business, and a time. We wasn't available then, so they went back and forth before deciding on a late lunch, four days from then.

Four days would be plenty of time. He got the plans written up in draft and had the printer make the first prototypes: both the coupling and the next-gen synthskin. Then, seeing as he still had a day left, he stopped to consider the new arm.

Padmé liked the way his arm looked - and felt? - now, brass and steel and shiny black plastic, the same stuff the clones' armor was made of. Adding molycirc to it shouldn't be that difficult, but would give it a kind of iridescent sheen as light bounced around in the molecular grooves. Hopefully, that wouldn't be too unacceptable. He began sketching, freehand on plast.

We turned out to be a very tall female duro. He paused, then offered her a bow. "Traveller," he said. "It is good to see you again."

She looked surprised for a moment; then she said, "Naberrie? I thought you'd be - older."

"I get that a lot," he said. "I'm older than I look. Come on; the food here is quite good, and we're after the lunch rush so we can take all the time we want."

They took four hours, in the end. We agreed almost instantaneously that the interface was patent-worthy, and also going to cause a medical revolution, and then they got to work on filing. They drank endless cups of the sweet, herbal tea that was the shop's specialty, and he also ended up eating about his weight in pastry. They had the skeleton of a decent application together by the time his comm chimed with a message from Padmé, who was free and wanted to know where he was. We smiled and told him to see to his family; she'd comm over the application tomorrow, and they could work on it that way.

Padmé, when he got back up to their rooms, was already on the comm with Kenobi. He stared, just watching them for a moment and regretting. Force, did he regret, and that it was better now was none of his doing. Padmé noticed and looked up.

"And he's here," she said, making room in front of the capcorder. "Hi, sweetling, how was your day?"

"Pretty good," he said. "Worked on a patent. We is really good at this."

"We agreed to work with you?" said Padmé.

"Yes? You put her first on your list."

"Because she's the best; but she doesn't agree to take on new clients very often."

He shrugged. He was famous, but not for being a good mechanic. He said, "She did. She said we can file probably within the week. My documentation is good enough."

"Why are you filing a patent?" asked Kenobi.

He held up his right arm. "Because the feedback on this thing is shit, and I know how to build a better interface. And also because I thought it might be nice if I could contribute to the household finances."

Kenobi rolled his eyes. "Lovebirds."

"Yeah," he said, daring Kenobi to say anything else; the negotiator didn't. "How about you, Kenobi? How did Felucia go?"

"Oh, Felucia," said Kenobi. "That. It was a setup, like you said. When the trandoshans showed up, we cuffed them first, backtracked through their nav system, and set up a trap at their gladiator world. That wasn't a big ring - three hundred people at most - but we rescued forty-five hundred illegal gladiators."

He snorted. "Drop in the fucking bucket."

"Don't I know it," said Kenobi. "Why Chewbacca the wookie in particular?"

"I have no clue. In my past, he was very involved in taking me down. Twice. I sincerely hope that's not necessary again, but - he's a good warrior and a good person. The Force doesn't need to tell me to keep an eye out." Kenobi nodded. "And now? What's happened since?"

"Without telling you details, we're not even making landfall anymore. The Seps aren't bothering to fight if there's a Jedi. It's an information war now, and . . . well, probably what is going to happen is me and Ahsoka and a squad or two in a rapid courier, jumping around."

"Oh, is that Anakin?" asked someone in the background, and then Cody leant in behind Kenobi. "Sky - Naberrie. And, er, other Naberrie. That's gonna take some getting used to. How's things back on the home front?"

"Fine. Well, I imagine the Senate wants to skewer me at some point, but - I have plans."

"Not the entire Senate," said Padmé. "Actually there is a huge argument right now about which blue-zone worlds to offer. Some sectors don't want any of you, but more than one, especially along newer hyperroutes, are fighting to have the retiring GAR settle in their sector."

"What?" asked Cody.

"Trying to figure out what to do with all of you," said Padmé. "Anakin said give you a planet. It looks like you might get three or five, at the cost of some light local policework."

Cody looked roughly as though he'd just been hit in the face with a gobling. Kenobi said, "Three or five planets?"

"There are enough of them. Especially, um. Seedworlds."

Statistically speaking, most life-bearing worlds ought to be scumworlds: planets where local life had gotten to the bacterial stage, possibly even worked out photosynthesis, and, rarely, begun experimenting with multicellular life. The fact that a lot of worlds along known hyperroutes, even the ones that were still being discovered, were not scumworlds - and, in fact, had the same type of biochemistry - was a pretty sure sign that, at some point in the past, someone had gone along seeding those planets with life. The amount of evolutionary divergence between hyperspacially-close seedworlds suggested that it had happened between ten and twelve million years ago.

The problem: whoever had seeded those worlds had done the economically sound, ecologically irresponsible thing, and only brought along part of the ecosystem. The bacteria that maintained the biosphere were all there, and recognizably the same basic two hundred and seventeen thousand species even across seedworlds. The flora showed the same signs of common origin, albeit from a smaller panel before it had begun speciating. The fauna . . . well. Ten million years was deep time, evolutionary time, long enough for what had probably started out as small burrowing insectivorous things to have grown into a stunning array of apex predators.

End result: seedworlds were just about perfect for most Republic species, except for the local wildlife. That 'except' was a real, non-metaphorical, clawed-and-fanged killer.

Cody grinned. "They're giving us seedworlds. Us."

"Well," he said. "No one said the Senate can't occasionally manage to be practical."

"Naberries, I love you," he said.

"But keep it close," said Padmé. "I don't know if it's going to happen yet, and I'd rather not get anyone's hopes up over nothing."

"Got it, ma'am," said Cody, and stood up out the capcorder's range.

Kenobi said, "You realize the whole GAR is going to know about this within forty-eight hours?"

"I was counting on it," said Padmé. "The faction against rewarding them for their service needs a kick in the pants. I thought the expectant stares of a few hundred thousand clones might help."

Kenobi chuckled. "You are a very scary lady."

"Thank you," said Padmé. "Anyone else likely to interrupt?"

Kenobi checked. "No," he said.

"Okay," said Padmé. "I have come to some conclusions. You, Anakin, have to designate more people you trust to kill you. I - I might be able to, in a moment of danger, but doing it would break me. If Master Kenobi can't, then he can't; we'll work around it. But it can't just be me. I won't necessarily be nearby, or in any physical state to do it, much less mental. So. Who do you trust?"

"Yoda," he said promptly. "Windu. And, er. Rex. The five hundred first. Enough shots, from enough blasters, will work. I trust Ahsoka to try, but I don't trust her to win. I had that battle, and she didn't."

"Another awful thing?" asked Kenobi.

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Yes."

"Okay," said Kenobi. "Sitting down and asking these people is going to be bad, and you have to be the one do to it, but - we can conference comm. If you like."

He smiled. "No, it's - I can do it. Thanks."

"Good. That's. I mean. It's better if we're building walls against voorplings, but if they're needed, then it's better we build them now," said Padmé. "And my other thing is similar, but more likely to save lives. You have to sit down and show the Council all the ways you know to kill people, and what can be done to stop them. And treat them. If it had been common knowledge that a Force-choke requires intubation . . . "

"Or even common medical knowledge, yes," he said. "All right. For the most part they're common sense, like intubating or defibrillating, but I take you point."

"You said you're not good at Force lightning," said Padmé, carefully not accusing.

"I'm not; it's a stupid wasteful showy technique, and it requires a kind of hate I've decided not to keep anymore." He added, "I am good at ions."

"Amazingly deadly," said Kenobi.

"I did say," he said.

"We're all still catching up," said Padmé gently. "You don't act very different, except for when you do."

"Fair enough," he said, because he still had trouble remembering to say 'thank you,' and smile at the girl at the tea house. And not kill people sparring on the mats. "Any more conclusions, Padmé?"

"Not right now. Maybe later. Master Kenobi?"

"I am not looking forward to this debrief," he said, "But I knew that already. If you have any more timely warnings, please send them."

"Will do. Naberries out." He leaned forward to turn off the holoproj. As he sat back, he said, "I could comm Windu."

"Written first," suggested Padmé. "Holos out of the black are kind of rude."

He nodded, and wrote Windu a comm. Then he went and cooked. He wasn't particularly hungry, having spent the whole afternoon eating, but Padmé hadn't had dinner. It could not be said he was a very good cook: he knew how to make three things, and one of them was a hard-boiled egg. But he could follow instructions on a box well enough, and Padmé seemed to think that counted, so he made her boiled dumplings with sweet-sour sauce.

The next day, he woke up to find Windu hadn't responded to his comm, but We had forwarded the application. He worked on that most of the day instead, except for when Padmé commed him.

Next question: where is the Republic supposed to get the money to retroactively pay the clones?

Taxes? Droid scrap? I'm sorry, finance is one of the things I don't do. I can tell you that if you offer them their armor in lieu of some of the money they're owed, most of them will take the deal.

It's all right. I'll ask someone else.

He tooled around for a few minutes before realizing who she had to be asking, and immediately commed her back.

Rush Clovis is still in with the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan. Don't trust anything he says that you can't independently verify.

I remember.

Though he did come through for you in the end, so there's probably a way to get him to be a good person now too.

Thanks for the advice.

A few days after that, We agreed that the application was as good as it was going to get, and filed it. He thanked her, and internally sighed. That had been fun, even learning about the legalese involved in patent law, and now he had to get back to doing the math. Which wasn't not fun, exactly. It just gave him headaches, and he couldn't put it down and walk away permanently: not now, and probably not ever.

He really did intend that, too, except that when he powered up his 'pad he had a string of comms from Windu, and one from Rex. He opened Rex's first.

Ner vod.

And that was it, but it was enough. He promptly gave up on getting any work at all done until he'd settled his own emotions, and instead decided it was time to go occupy the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He wandered around for a while before finding an appropriate grotto tucked in behind one of the many waterfalls. There he folded himself down into full lotus, closed his eyes, and opened himself.

Fact: He loved Rex. He loved Jesse and Fives and Kix and Hardcase. He loved Echo, who was not dead because no one had needed to storm the Citadel. He loved Dogma who wouldn't be dead because he'd kill Pong Krell, and Force take the consequences, if even a finger were laid on them. The 501st were his, full stop, end of kriffing discussion.

Fact: They had a right not to be his, if they didn't want to be.

Fact: They did want to be. He was not their general anymore, and they'd adopted him anyway.

Fact: He and Padmé had been married at Varykino, with two droids for witnesses. The tradition on Naboo was to have everyone from either family who could come and stand witness. At the time, he would have had no one to stand for him.

Fact: Yoda was sitting next to him.

"What are you doing?" he said out loud.

"Learning," replied Yoda. "The Light all around us is."

"No one ever said Fallen can't still touch the Light," he answered, and then settled back down into deeper meditation.

Fact: He had no idea what it meant to have a family, never mind the vast interconnected lightning-quick network of debts and shared burdens and pranks that bound together the clones into the GAR.

Fact: Except for how absolutely he did.

Fact: No debts. Not between him and his family, however many of them there were. That applied equally to freedom, which he would've done anyway, and armor, which he knew was a part of their heritage and their identity, and homeworlds, which everyone who wanted one deserved.

Fact: Love, always.

Between one breath and the next he returned, and found that despite the depth of the grotto, his entire front side was soaked and freezing. He frowned.

"Yes they did," said Yoda, as if his last words hadn't been hours ago. "Taught for many hundreds of years, we Jedi have: once the Dark path you choose, your destiny forever will it dominate."

"And nowhere in that statement is the suggestion that the Light won't be involved," he said. "Just that the Dark dominates." He concentrated, and tugged, and ended up holding a surprisingly large ball of water, floating gently over his hand. "Of course, it has to. Vacuum is difficult to maintain, once you've broken a seal."

"Hmm," said Yoda. "Yet more vacuum in the universe there is, than matter."

"So you're made of vacuum, then?" he asked, as he began walking to one of the doors.

"Hrrm. No," allowed Yoda.

"Anyway, I'm fully willing to admit that it's a bad metaphor. That's what it felt like to me, but years later. At the time, I did believe it the way the Jedi taught it. Which is a problem, by the way. Telling younglings they can Fall but can't Rise - " he shook his head. "It's not true. It's just a question of what you want, and what you're willing to pay for it."

"The power to protect Senator Amidala," said Yoda. "Against what?"

"Everything," he said. There was a stylized bridge, over a slow, deep pool. He dropped the ball of water down into it. A couple of fish scattered at the ripples. "I. She said, and she's right, that I can't ask only her to kill me, if the worst should happen. I don't think it's going to, but if it does - if I go crazy again, if I ever go after her or after any younglings at all - you have to kill me."

"Already my plan this was," said Yoda. "But worrying about nothing, you are."

"That's one of us who thinks so."

"To check your comms, Master Windu you reminds," said Yoda.

" . . . three hours ago," he said. "Was it worth it?"

"Learned something I did," said Yoda.

He went outside, but only to the lobby, and opened his comms.

No, I am not, Naberrie, I am neck deep in cleaning up Krell's mess.

Which I recognize is not your fault. You just knew about it, and brought it to the Council's attention.

Is there a reason you couldn't just say 'Pong Krell is a traitor?'

Fifty thousand soldiers. We need those men. The war needs those men.

Then he'd apparently given up comms for a while, or the situation on the ground had gotten interesting, because the next cluster of messages were timestamped almost six hours later.

Of course there was. You are turning into Yoda.

And what's this about you stopping some initiate from Falling? Why couldn't you do that for Krell? Does it require physical proximity?

I will try to be less suspicious of your motives in the future.

Naberrie. Answer your damned comms.

He popped open the keyboard and typed back.

Do or do not, Windu. There is no try.

He was walking back up toward his apartment when the comm pinged. He waited until he was back in his apartment to open it.

Brat. Can you tell me where on this planet he went to ground?

No. In my memories we didn't figure it out until Umbara. You're, where, on Kirket?

Damn.

Sorry I can't help.

Oh, no, wait. I do have an idea. Put some trackers on a shuttle, and upload a tracking program as well, and then just leave the shuttle - not unguarded, but accessible. To someone with four arms and dual lightstaves and his abilities. He's clever, but not very smart. He'll find the trackers. I doubt he'll find the program. We might find Dooku.

There was a pause before the message came back.

Dooku will kill him.

And he deserves a trial, I know. But we need to find Dooku, and there is a sort of poetic justice in letting the Sith do what Sith do.

Which is?

Kill each other.

The comm was quiet after that, so he typed a message back to Rex.

Ner aliit. Nayc entye.

He set about making a salad for himself as a late lunch, and had eaten most of it when he got the ping of an incoming message.

Yes, Naberrie, I know. The 501st knows. The 212th knows. The 104th knows. Every one of us who has ever met you knows. But that's not most of the GAR. It's not more than two percent of it, even if we're being generous and counting the navy of any ship you ever rode on, which probably we shouldn't. Everyone else is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A planet, Naberrie. What were you thinking?

He laughed softly at that.

I was thinking that maybe some of the GAR would like to settle down. Build a farm. Have children. That kind of thing.

Kriffing insane bastard.

All three of those things are correct.

He finished lunch and cleaned up before Rex replied.

I asked around, and most of the regimental commanders said they'd feel better if they could do something for you. Not as a price. Just. Something.

He stared at the text, feeling the Dark press hot and demanding. He didn't want anything from the clones, and anyway it would be a terrible idea with the Senate already worried about him. And yet . . . there was something he wanted. He could ask. The clones might feel up to doing it.

On a completely voluntary basis, then. Clones who want to should pay it forward. Go out into the universe and find someone else who is a slave, and make them free.

Don't just buy them, either. That gives legitimacy to the concept of slavery and creates demand. Go find the slavers and take their ships whole. Go find the slaveowners and arrest them and bring them up on trial. Do it on holo, before the entire galaxy. Track down their connections, their sponsors, everyone who knew about it and turned the other way for the sake of profit. Make sure that everyone knows: those who break this law, explicitly or implicitly, get to face those who once were slaves.

There was a pause before Rex's response came.

Why did anyone ever think you were going to have a simple request?

Not that I disagree. Not that any of our brothers will disagree.

He looked at the words while they blurred. It wasn't that he hadn't known, it was just -

He typed a little more.

Even after the trials, it won't be simple. The GAR troopers were raised to be soldiers, to work equally well with or without supervision. You already know how to live your own lives. Most slave aren't like that. You're going to have to teach them how to say no. How to fight, and how to stop fighting. How to be free. It won't be easy.

I don't think it matters much, Naberrie. It's something that we'll be happy and more than happy to do. I'll pass the word along.

Make sure everyone knows it's not a demand. If they want to stop, they should stop.

I will, but I - we're going to line up for this one. Rex out.

He stared at it for a little while. Then he got up and, seeing as he hadn't lately, went to go clean up R2-D2. The droid didn't need it but loved the attention, and burbled happily as he worked.

Then he got to work, and really did make some good progress on the interminable graviton equations. The next day went even better, and the day after that he finished. He commented to Padmé about it when he went home to the Republica that evening: both that he was pretty much done with the Standard-and-Empirically-Correct Model, and that he had no idea where to start with - the rest of it.

"What rest of it?"

"The stuff that the Father gave to me on Mortis. I have everything I need to to understand it now, I know I do, but if I try to look at it head-on it just goes skittering off. I need a handle."

"Um," said Padmé. "You could. This whole thing is supposed to be about balance between the Dark and the Light. So maybe you need to look at it with both sides of the Force at once?"

"There's a thought," he said, and after dinner, he sat down and pulled on the Force. In his right hand, he held the Dark, which coiled about him like a favored pet. In his left, the Light, burning cold. Then, carefully, trying not to look too directly, he prodded again at the information from Mortis.

He got one equation, short and surprisingly simple, which nevertheless blazed like molten brass across his brain. He gasped, and both the Light and the Dark fled. He slumped over.

"Ani? Are you okay?"

"Yes!" he said, rocking to his feet and surging forward to kiss her.

Padmé laughed and kissed back. "It worked?"

"It worked. I love you."

"I love you too," she said, and when he kept kissing her, slow and wet along her neck, " - stop that now."

He was disappointed, but did anyway. "Cuddles?"

"Cuddles."

In the morning he got to work with renewed energy, starting with electroweak interactions. They weren't going to be the simplest set of equations, but they were going to be the most easily testable. By the afternoon he had a working hypothesis, one which he knew was correct because it matched up with what he had in his head, but. He still had to test it, really properly test it, or the Council wouldn't believe his conclusions.

He went down to medical, because they had an MRI and a PET scanner, as well as an X-ray and a CT and all the other kinds of medical imaging devices and he needed the detectors. Actually testing the theory took about fifteen minutes, although it was fifteen minutes after two hours spent staring at a jar of PET dye just sitting in the machine and making it beep. Afterwards, the tech came out and said, "You'd better not have broken our PET scanner, Naberrie. Those things are expensive."

"No," he replied absently. "I didn't."

"Because it just registered about seventy hits in a five hundred picosecond window."

"That's good," he said. "That's what should have happened; it's a positive result."

"Which means?"

"Which means . . . " he trailed off, realizing the full, totally real implications, which had previously been only theoretical.

He'd once, somewhat facetiously, said the power to blow up a planet was nothing compared to the power of the Force. Based even on these preliminary results, it was true. Exactly and literally true; and it still managed to miss the destructive potential of an unbalanced Force by orders of magnitude.

"Fuck," he said.

Chapter Text

He wrote comms to all twelve Councilmembers. By that evening, he had six replies. Three were people saying they were organizing a Council meeting. One was Windu, who was also in the 'organizing a meeting' camp but wanted to update him that Krell had taken the baited shuttle and not even found all of the trackers, much less the tracking program. One was Kenobi, who wanted him and Padmé to comm again.

One was from Solo, informing him that she was back on planet and they could have their next session whenever they finished reading her in.

"Huh," he said out loud.

"Mm?" asked Padmé, from where she'd taken the holoproj and was using it to surround herself with work.

"Solo's back already. I thought it would take more time; she said she had to get a formal divorce."

"Some people are organized," said Padmé.

"I'm organized!" he protested. "We couldn't have put together the application so quickly if I hadn't written the documentation as I went."

"And yet you can't keep the dishes from overflowing."

This was true. "That's what C-3PO is for," he said.

"Mm-hm," said Padmé. "You should take her a housewarming gift. Something she needs but wouldn't have thought to get, if she's been living on Corellia."

"Or something useful if you're used to microgravity," he said. A shelving unit, perhaps. Or some kind of hanging basket. Maybe tomtatos, if she liked gardening. "Anyway, I'm going to the Temple tomorrow. Possibly for a huge argument with the Council."

"Good luck with that," said Padmé sympathetically.

In fact he didn't, because Yoda commed early to tell him that, Windu and Koon excepted, the Council could convene in another six days. It was, he decided, at best a stay of execution. Then Windu commed in four hours after that to tell him that they'd tracked the shuttle, and found wreckage and Krell's corpse, but no sign of the vessel that had done it, and definitely no Dooku.

He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, and slipped sideways into a little meditation. He'd hated Krell; anyone who could feel the Force, see that the clones were all still individuals and decide that was a defect instead of a feature, deserved hatred. But now he was dead, so he deserved his peace and a decent pyre. He gave it to the Force.

Mostly what he got done that day was gravitational math, but he did go to medical and badger them into tell him where the Solos were being housed: on the south side near the base of the ziggurat. Then he went to go see if he could do anything to help. The door opened almost immediately after he pushed the buzzer, but it wasn't Solo.

Er. Jaina Solo.

"Yeah?" asked Han, looking up at him. Then he blinked.

"I - sorry to interrupt, I was looking for Doctor Solo?"

"MOM!" shouted Han. "ANAKIN SKYWALKER IS AT THE DOOR FOR YOU!"

"Naberrie," he said. "Why is this so hard? I'm married, my name is Naberrie."

"Coming!" called Solo.

Han turned back to him and narrowed his eyes. "Did you really Fall?"

He thought about a much older Han, standing still, for Leia's sake standing still while he was tied up for the carbonite. "I really did," he said.

Solo appeared, putting a hand on Han's shoulder and standing in a kind of weird gender-flipped double-image. " - I haven't been read in yet."

"Oh, I know," he said. "I came to see if there was anything I could do to help you get settled. I know what a big transition is like."

"Ah," said Solo. "Well. You'd better come in, then."

He did. The apartment was really empty, echoing slightly as he walked in. "Er."

"I know, it's my fault really," said Solo. "All of the furniture is built in, shipboard, and somehow I didn't consider - well. We managed to get mattresses last night, but I've been busy getting Han signed up for classes - "

" - mom - "

" - and trying to figure out where the laundry machines are."

"You put the laundry down the laundry chute; we have droids for that. Usually they'll get it back to you the next evening. Are you, uh, very busy? I can show you how to order stuff from the quartermaster. It'll mostly be flat-pack, but. A table and some chairs wouldn't be amiss, I think."

"And some bedframes," agreed Solo.

"What about me?" asked Han, looking at him a little suspiciously.

"Grab your 'pad too. You should get to choose your bedroom furniture."

"'kay," said Han, and ran to get it.

It turned out that no one had explained the local Temple 'net to either of them. He helped them tie their idents into the 'net. Solo did already have civilian employee clearance, which was interesting. He said, "Check your spambox. I think you missed a comm," and, indeed, she had missed the welcome message.

Han, meanwhile, had found the youngling chatterbox, and was busily making new friends and debating the various available bedframes with them. Not going to have a problem, then. He showed Solo how to navigate to the quartermaster inventory, where she started browsing.

His comm pinged. The message was from Padmé, who wanted to know if they were at the Temple or the Republica that night. "Sorry," he said. "My wife wants me to go home. But I can come tomorrow and help put the things together, if they've arrived."

"Don't you have more important things to be doing?" asked Solo.

"Yes, but I'm avoiding them."

"Do your work," said Solo dryly. "I'll send you a comm when I have all the clearances."

He chuckled. "All right. Good evening, Solo. Han."

"Uh," said Han. "'bye."

"Good night," said Solo.

He told Padmé about it, when he was cooking dinner. "Well, good for her," said Padmé.

"I mean about Han. That child has a serious case of hero worship, and I'm - not a good role model."

"No, you weren't a good role model, in your memories. If he grows up to be the kind of person who is willing to stand up in front of the Senate and tell them all the truths they don't want to hear and demand action that they are required to take - the galaxy needs more people like that."

"Oh."

"Idiot," said Padmé fondly.

"How is that going, anyway?" he asked.

"Huge argument still," said Padmé. "They caved on the planets, and you were right about the armor, but - it's still basically a huge mess. And now it looks like the Banking Clan has been doing, er, less than legal double-dealing."

"Clovis?"

"Clovis." Padmé paused for a moment before saying, "What happened there?"

"He tried to clean up Scipio, and I - it might've worked if I hadn't spent the whole time deliberately getting in his way."

"Well, he's certainly cleaning something up now."

"But doesn't that solve your problem? Just tax the Banking Clan. Money made illegally is still taxable, right?"

"Yes, but. It's not that simple. The Banking Clan is holding the galactic credit steady. Without them, and believe me, we'd love to get rid of them, but without them the economy is going to collapse. People will lose their life savings."

"Hmm. How about - the Senate can legally split corporations, if the group is too large, right? To encourage innovation and prevent monopolies?"

"Yes," allowed Padmé.

"So. The Banking Clan has a monopoly on the Senate finances. That can't be legal."

Padmé blinked. Padmé said, "Maybe you'd be good at government after all."

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse."

Padmé laughed.

He worked from home the next day, while C-3PO puttered around and commented about how nice it was that he and Padmé were finally able to be free with each other. He didn't say anything, and gritted his teeth and did gravitation again. A bit after noon he figured out that what he was doing was writing equations that described how push-pull worked. With that in mind, he was able to speed up: he was good at push-pull.

And it was a set of experiments he wasn't going to have to do, since really every Jedi from crècheling on up learned this. The Council would believe it worked.

He worked steadily for another three days before wrapping that up. Then he sat down and reviewed. Push-pull was allowed, but not explicitly mandated. Likewise, therefore, doing other weird things with gravity was probably possible. He decided to go to the Temple and see what he could do.

What he could do, he discovered after jumping off the towers a few times and also vomiting quite a lot, was decide where his personal 'down' was, and therefore fall sideways. It took a strong inner ear and probably a lot more practice than he was ever going to put into it, but it was an interesting effect. Possibly a useful one.

It was almost like flying. Maybe he would put the time into it after all.

He could have gone to shower, but decided that he really needed to get some practice in and went to the salles instead. There, he was surprised to find a familiar face.

"Anakin - Naberrie!" The slip was almost unnoticeable, so he let it go unnoticed.

"Fisto! I didn't know you were on-planet."

"Just got back yesterday," explained Fisto. Then he gestured at an empty salle. "Care to spar?"

"I'm not supposed to have a lightsaber."

Fisto shrugged. "Then we'll do hand-to-hand. Come on; I hear you're terrifying these days. Give me a match."

"All right."

Sparring with Fisto was great. Training with PT patients who were in the Temple because of injury was good for a workout, but not for seriously keeping his reflexes in shape. Fisto, meanwhile, had the powerful muscles of an aquatic species and so he hit like a charging zukzuk. That, combined with being built for speed in water, made Fisto an appropriately challenging opponent. They went at it for about an hour, neither being able to keep the upper hand for long, before Fisto called a stop.

He flopped over gratefully, taking huge breaths. "So?"

"Pretty terrifying," said Fisto. "Glad I did that. I was not looking forward to having to ask Yoda for a spar. Will you be free again tomorrow?"

"I can be," he said.

"Please do. That was - good. I heard something about murderer mode, but I didn't believe it."

"Do you now?"

"Come on. I could use a shower." He offered a hand up.

Anakin took it, then followed him to the showers. "So what brings you to Coruscant?"

"Training with Nu. We're rotating in groups. And, well, someone thought I was ready. A slicer I am not."

He laughed. "Wouldn't it be a boring galaxy if we were all the same?"

"Yes," said Fisto. "So. Tell me about you. How is being retired treating you?"

"Pretty well, actually. I've been having fun with prosthetics, and somewhat less fun with all this stuff the Father gave me - you read that report, right?" Fisto nodded. "But I learned some new and interesting push-pull today. That was good. What?"

"Is that what all the math is for?"

"Sort of. It's complicated. I'm going to talk about it when the Council convenes, quit digging."

Fisto laughed. "All right, all right. I - you know you used to be pretty insufferable, but I kind of like you now."

He shrugged. "I don't like who I used to be much either. Have you eaten yet?"

"No. Lunch?"

"Lunch," he agreed.

They chatted through lunch. He learned a reasonable amount about Fisto, including the fact that he didn't particularly think he made a good Counsellor and would rather, when the war was definitively over, go back to merely being a Jedi master. Fisto probably learned something about him, but he didn't let it bother him.

The night, he and Padmé commed Kenobi, or at least made the attempt. It turned out that Kenobi and Ahsoka had made it to a smaller ship, only a few dozen crew total, and it was shipboard-midnight. Therefore Kenobi wasn't available. Ahsoka answered instead.

"Skyguy!" she said.

"Oh for - Snips, if Kenobi's not awake, you should be either!"

"We're taking turns," explained Ahsoka. "It's his turn to sleep. You need to comm in the morning tomorrow if you want to get him. Why are you comming now?"

"Because you're family," said Padmé, before he could even try to parse out how to explain it to people who actually were Jedi, "and we like to keep track of how our family is doing."

"Oh," said Ahsoka. "Actually, nothing much has happened lately. That's good, but also kind of worrying. The Seps just - don't give up."

"I know," he said. "We're all waiting for the sneak attack here too. Well, I am."

"The Senate is worried," said Padmé. "It's just we don't have much time to be worried about that. We're dealing with about a million other things right now, including peace treaties and the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan and the clones and the economy and - it's pretty exhausting."

"You don't have to convince me," said Ahsoka. "I know. And I do like these battles where we show up and just turn off the enemy better. No one dies. But I . . . something's off."

"I know, Snips. I feel it too."

"Well, that's great," said Ahsoka morosely. "How about you, Skyguy? Made any progress on, um. Being okay?"

"I have a therapist now," he said. "Doctor Solo, from Corellia."

"Is she any good?"

"Pretty good," said Padmé. "He'll be okay."

"Good." There was a pause. "And what's this I hear about you picking another padawan?"

He didn't bother to ask about the ridiculous speed of the Jedi rumor mill. "Yoda threw him at me! I stopped him from Falling, but that doesn't make him mine. I don't think he's going to be anyone's really."

"Not Jedi material?"

"No more than I was," he said.

"Oh," said Ahsoka.

"It's okay," said Padmé gently.

"It's not," said Ahsoka. "I - if the Council was so wrong, if you were so wrong - "

"I needed to be trained as a Jedi first," he said. "So it wasn't wrong, exactly. Just not finished."

"And now you are finished?" asked Ahsoka. "Fallen and Dark?"

"I'm complete," he said. "But not finished. Nobody is, who's alive."

"Oh, I - I think I see. Kind of. A little." She smiled. "Different, but still Skyguy."

"Exactly," said Padmé.

"That's good, then. Should I let Master Kenobi know you commed?"

"He'll know anyway," he said. "I'll send a message tomorrow, too."

"Okay. Then Tano out."

"Did you mean that?"

"Hmm?"

"About being incomplete without the Dark side?" clarified Padmé.

"I'm incomplete without either side of the Force," he said. "I've tried it both ways. It hurts, no matter what. Being in the middle hurts too, but like exercise. Only if I stop doing it for a while and then start again."

"Don't stop, then," said Padmé.

He knew his eyes were molten yellow, like the suns of Tatooine near noon, when he replied, "I hadn't been planning on it." He blinked, tried to get it to subside a little. "It would be really convenient if we spent the next couple of nights at the Temple."

"Okay," said Padmé. "I - you know, when you're not using it to scare people, that's kind of a good look on you?"

"No," he said. "Really?"

"Mm-hmm," said Padmé. "How do you feel about having your ears pierced?"

"Kind of a bad idea. That's a liability in high-gravity maneuvers."

"Jewelry in general?"

"You know what?" he said. "Show me some designs."

He sent a comm to Kenobi the next morning over breakfast. He got a return message on the way to the Temple, and he sat down in the receiving atrium to read it.

There was a pause before the next message. He imagined Kenobi's soft laughter.

I'll see you tomorrow.

With that pleasant start to the day, he was more than prepared to spend some time jumping off towers. He always lost some height, and if he'd missed the next tower it would have been a disastrous free-fall through the Coruscanti skylanes, but it was exhilarating as well. Although it did push even his pilot's stomach to the limits.

He landed on one of the lower balconies of the southwest tower, which didn't usually contain any people at all. Today was no different, so he headed inside and met up with Fisto for their spar.

After that, Fisto said, "So that - flying. Are you going to explain that?"

"I'm going to teach that," he said. "To anyone who wants to know. And it's not flying. It's just lots of controlled falling.

"Uh-huh," said Fisto. "This is going to be a very interesting meeting, isn't it?"

"I hope so," he said. "How about you? Having fun with Nu?"

"That woman is a menace."

He smiled. Fisto smiled back.

He spent the afternoon working on math, but he cheated and looked at the answer before he started. It was not simple, and it was dangerous, and he had to stop several times to meditate. The weapons this work was going to allow were worse than the Death Stars, and there was no suppressing it. Not at this point: even if he didn't do this, someone would, and someone else would try to use it. The only way out was to learn how to counter, and that meant knowing it, in all the gritty, deadly details.

Knowing, and not using.

He went back to his apartment feeling more than a little defeated and hoping that Padmé would be up for some cuddling, palmed the door open, and stopped. "What."

"Ani!" said Padmé.

"No, seriously, what."

"Hello, hero," said Ventress.

"Explain," he demanded flatly.

Ventress rolled her eyes. "I broke in here a couple of days ago. I expected you to show up sooner, but you didn't, and when someone actually did arrive, it was Senator Amidala. We've been . . . talking. Yes. I think talking is the right word."

"About?"

"Politics," said Padmé. "Families. The Force. Things. She makes really good tea."

"And other things. Some of us can cook food that doesn't come out of a box. Dinner is almost ready. Sit down, my dears. I'm here to teach some things and learn some things, and neither of those is going to happen if I attack you."

That was the most reasonable response he'd ever gotten from anyone who was Dark and also not him, so he sat down. "Have any trouble with Dooku on the way in?"

"No," said Ventress, putting a pot and a wok on the table. "He doesn't seem to be paying much attention to me. I'm not sure where is attention is - it's not on the war, and it's not on the Jedi, and I can't feel him at all through the Force. And I know you can't, either."

"Oh?"

"Because you have the power for it and, correct me if I'm wrong, darling, he'd be dead by now if you could get a lock on him." Ventress sat down.

He frowned. "You're wrong."

Padmé chuckled. "You don't know Ani very well, do you? He wants to put Dooku on trial."

"And do you want to put me on trial?" asked Ventress.

"Yes," he said. "But I don't think it would work. There isn't a prison that could hold you, for one."

"No," she agreed. "And?"

"And there need to be a lot more Dark side users than there are."

"Need to be," said Ventress. "I'll take your word for it." She spooned some rice out of the pot,, and some of the . . . curry, he was going to guess curry, out of the wok. "What are you going to do about the Jedi Council?"

"Tell them the truth," he said. "Tell them a lot of truth, much of which they won't want to hear. I've been busy for the last month coming up with the proof. They'll listen. If nothing else, I can reasonably easily glue them to the wall."

"You cannot," said Ventress.

"Well. If it makes you happier to think so," he said. He pushed the spoon over to Padmé. "And you're in luck; the Council is going to have a session tomorrow." He frowned. "Because the Force takes some kind of perverse pleasure in arranging things."

"Why is it perverse?"

"Things that I want to happen, and things that need to happen, are not always the same things. Clearly they need to hear what you have to say, because I arranged this session a week ago, but not for you. For me to talk about," he quirked his lips, "visions."

"Ah," said Ventress. "Do I get to hear about them as well?"

"You're not on the Council and you're not my therapist and you're definitely not my wife, so no," he said, and took a bite. He blinked at it.

"This is really good," agreed Padmé.

"I told you," said Ventress. "Ingredients. Not that I blame you. A busy Jedi Knight and a galactic Senator don't have much time to learn how to cook."

"Yeah, and where did you learn how to cook?"

"Rattatak," said Ventress.

"Where?"

Ventress snorted. "And that is why I hate the Republic. Rattatak is a titchy little planet of no great wealth or strategic importance in the Outer Rim. Most of the people there would like peace, or, at the very least, a functional government. Things like clean water and the guarantee that the next warlord over won't burn their crops in the fields when they invade. Decent medical care. Possibly even a way to prevent the constant weequay pirate attacks from being quite so constant. Nothing outrageous, I think you'll agree. It's on Republic maps as uninhabited, but sector command knows all about the inhabitants and the pirates. No one has ever, to my personal and very verifiable knowledge, done anything."

"Oh, I - I'm sorry," said Padmé.

"Why? It's not your fault."

"No, but I'm a senator. It's my responsibility."

Ventress' face softened. "I'm . . . glad you feel that way. Skywalker, you'd better keep this one safe."

"That was the plan," he said, and, "And my name is Naberrie."

"Of course it is," said Ventress. "My dears, you make the most adorable couple."

The was an awkward pause. "Where did you say Rattatak is?" asked Padmé.

"I didn't," said Ventress. " - you're going to do something."

"We're both going to do something," he said. "It's what we do. Come on, tell."

She told them, over dinner and then over tea that was deep, sanguine red and, as Padmé had said, very good. She told them in a voice that was flat, almost mechanical, and it did nothing to hide the emotion because the emotion was there, boiling in the Force. She told them like a military debriefing, everything she knew from ship numbers and loadouts down to the reputations of individual pirates.

"Stop," he said. "Stop. I can't - you're hurting yourself. I can feel it."

"So? You need to know."

"Not all tonight," he said. "Not if it's going to do this to you. Ventress - will talking about Dooku do the same thing to you?"

Ventress closed her eyes. "No."

"Okay. So. Stop for right now. Meditate for a bit. Tomorrow you can talk to the Council, and then if you're up to it, you can talk to Padmé and me."

"Meditate," said Ventress distastefully.

He blinked. "Yes?"

"I'm no Jedi."

"Neither am I. What's your point?"

"The Light doesn't come when I call," said Ventress.

"Oh." He stopped, then sighed. "Well, that answers that. Lie down, Ventress. I'll meditate too, and you should be able to get a good enough immersion from that."

Ventress looked hesitant, but she did lie down on the couch. He sat on the floor, relaxed into seiza, and pulled a little on the Light.

Fact: the Senate would not like him asking the GAR to go deal with pirates in the outer rim.

Fact: it was kind of their job, though.

Fact: the people of Rattatak, and whatever other worlds were under the piratical thumb deserved better.

Fact: the GAR would do this, not because he asked, but because it needed doing.

Fact: . . . he'd give Padmé a few days to get it handed down as an official order, though.

He opened his eyes to find that it had been a few hours, and Ventress was still on the couch, muscles tense and eyes moving rapidly as she watched something only she could see.

That was a problem for tomorrow. He got out a blanket, shook it, and put it over Ventress. Then he went to go wash for bed, and joined Padmé.

"Is she okay?"

"No," he said. "But in a different way than I'm not okay. I think we can help each other."

"Mm," said Padmé, and tugged his arm over her shoulder.

He had a normal and totally ridiculous dream that night, about womp rats back on Tatooine. He'd hated the things, always getting into the grain store, taking from people who had little enough, not even themselves. They weren't much good for eating, either, but he'd eaten them anyway because food was food. It dissolved anyway as he woke up, and was completely gone by the time he finished his shower.

Ventress, somewhat to his surprise, had cooked, so they both had a good breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and more of that delicious tea under their belts as they rode the lift up to the Council meeting.

"You . . . don't feel Dark at all," said Ventress.

"Should I?"

"You Fell. Flamboyantly. And yet you can hide it so well that even Sidious didn't feel it."

"And he hid it so well that the Jedi Council never noticed. What's your point?"

"I - would like to negotiate," she said, as the lift stopped.

With the exception of Yoda and Fisto and Ti, the Council was present mostly by holo. They were distinctly unimpressed with the presence of a second person. He waited until Yoda officially called order before he said, "Masters. I apologize that I'm going to have to preempt my own meeting, but the situation has changed. Some weeks ago, Asajj Ventress contacted me about the fact that she is suffering from Dark Force burn. We negotiated a ceasefire: I will teach her how to not die, and in return, she will tell us everything she knows about the Separatist forces. Last night," he added, gesturing for Ventress to lower her hood, "she arrived. Also, the Temple has a fairly serious security breach."

Ventress said, "The Temple is one big security nightmare. Masters."

There was a minor uproar. The Council shouted at him until Ventress said, "Don't blame S - Naberrie. I think he expected me to surrender myself at the front door. I got in all on my own."

"He doesn't have the authority to make that kind of bargain," said Gallia.

"Masters, you have no authority over me whatsoever," he said. "As long as I am not misusing the Force, and I'm not - "

"That's debatable," muttered Piell.

" - then you don't get to tell me who I may and may not teach. I thought you might want to know about the Separatist deployments. If you don't, that's fine; I'm still going to teach Ventress what I can. Whatever else she's done, she doesn't deserve to die because the Dark ate her from the inside." Several Council members looked uncomfortable, as though they hadn't understood that it was life and death and he was choosing life.

"And I do rather want to see what you do with Dooku," added Ventress. "Take it or leave it, darlings."

So, over the course of the next four hours, Ventress told them everything she knew about the Separatist leadership and munitions and manufactories and finances and goals. "Although," she added, "given the revelations about, mm, Sidious, I'm quite certain those goals only ever belonged to the Separatist Senate." She told them about Dooku and his staging areas and his strategies. Under the gentle but pointed questions of the Council, she told them more than she probably even thought she knew about the Separatist side of the war.

Then they were thanked and, more or less politely, told to leave the room. "I still have my original topic to talk about, Masters," he said.

"This more important is," said Yoda.

"Really it's not. It's just more immediate. When will the Council be able to meet again?"

"Tomorrow," said Yoda, and there were nods around the room.

"Great. And what about Ventress?"

"What about her?"

"Based solely on what she was able to show me last night, what I must teach Ventress is something it took me almost two years to figure out. I don't even know if that's the only thing I have to teach her. She's going to be on Coruscant during that time and will, at the very least, need visitor access to the Temple."

"Visitor access!" said Kolar. "Why? So she attack at night? Corrupt younglings in the crèche?"

"I hope not," he said. "Corrupting younglings in the crèche is my job." Which neatly took the attention off of Ventress and also reminded them that they owed him.

He ignored the next five minutes, which were arguing over the merits of visitor versus resident, before Yoda addressed Ventress directly. "And you?"

"I have somewhere else to stay," said Ventress, "And I have no interest in children. Untrusted visitor access will be fine."

"Then that is what you will have," said Yoda, and that was that. "Now go, you two. Tomorrow, Naberrie. If other urgent business suddenly appears, very suspicious I will become."

He smiled. "Ask the Force, not me. Come on, Ventress."

On the lift down, Ventress said, "How did you do that?"

"Which?"

"Tell them that plan to corrupt the younglings and have them totally ignore you?"

"Because I don't actually plan to corrupt anybody, and they know it," he said.

She blinked and looked away. "And this will take two years?"

"It took me two years," he corrected. "But I had to figure it out on my own, and I was starting from a place worse than where you are now. We don't have to do anything immediately, anyway. You need . . . a lot of meditation. Did you sleep at all last night? Real sleep?"

"No," said Ventress, still not looking at him. "That was the first time I've been able to meditate, properly meditate, in four months. There was a chance you were going to renege - "

"There wasn't," he said mildly, "but I understand your logic. We'll go back to my apartment, I'll help get you started again, and then you should be able to go to sleep at a normal hour tonight. Uh. You - do really have someplace else to stay?"

"Yes," said Ventress.

"Good. That's good."

"And when will you start teaching me?"

"Um. I. Think there's a way to hit two droidekas with one blast, but I have to ask Yoda. Day after tomorrow, probably. If you - want to stay the night, regardless of your other place, I can get you started meditating in the morning and you can get another day while the Council shouts at me."

"You don't mind?" she said. "Having a former Sith sleeping on your couch?"

He made a decision. "It would be pretty hypocritical of me," he said, "given the one sleeping in my skin every night."

There was a pause. "I see."

"Trust me, you don't."

"You must have been magnificent, though."

"In some ways," he said.

She nodded. "I'll stay the night. If there's an in-Temple grocery delivery, I'll even cook."

So it was that, for the second day in a row, he rode the lift up to the Council chamber armed with a decent breakfast. Today it was Corellian toast, which Padmé had remarked was a treat. Ventress had sniffed and said it wasn't hard, really, anyone could do it.

This time, the meeting came to order much more quickly, although now Kenobi was missing in addition to Koon. "First order of business," said Yoda. "On the matter of Ventress, to be commended you are. With the information yesterday gleaned, seventeen battles won or averted overnight have been."

" - oh." He smiled. "Thanks."

"And one fewer enemy the Jedi have." The silence stretched kind of embarrassingly before Yoda said, "And now, your mysterious findings you will reveal."

"Some of them, anyway," he said. "I'd like to thank this Council for your forbearance while I did all of this work. I'm not entirely done yet, but to get any further . . . is going to be expensive, and there is still a war to fight. So I'm going to tell you what I've been doing, and what I've found, and what I'm going to find once we have the time and credits to do the last experiments and what, exactly, the actual consequences are."

"Please get on with it," said Tiin.

He smiled. "First I had to spend a lot of time just learning the quantum math. You are familiar with protons and neutrons and electrons, of course. Are you familiar with quarks and leptons and neutrinos?"

" . . . no," admitted Tiin.

"Which is why I'm going to be simplifying a lot. As a review: in general, leptons come in six flavors: electrons, electron neutrinos, muons, muon neutrinos, tau particles, and tau neutrinos. We'll come back to neutrinos in a moment. The other three, electrons, muons, and tau particles, are listed in order of decreasing stability. Tau particles and muons release energy and become electrons on timescales of millionths of a second.

"Therefore, logically and experimentally, if you push the right amount of energy back in to an electron, you get either a muon or a tau particle. Bosons carry that energy around, coming and going. They are amazingly aggravating because, while we can and have proven that they exist, and we know mathematically what their properties must be, they have such short lives that it's like trying to catch the shadow of a star.

"New bosons pop into existence whenever a tau particle turns into a muon, or a muon turns into an electron, or whenever quarks change charge - but we're not talking about quarks yet - or whenever a neutrino crashes into its corresponding lepton. We're concerned about that last one. Neutrinos don't usually interact with other matter not because there aren't billions of them sleeting through all of us right at this very moment, but because, at a subatomic scale, matter . . . isn't. An electron neutrino has to crash directly into an electron, and it's hard to crash into a particle when that particle is actually a probability density distribution and has mass and charge but no size, no volume, to crash into. With me so far?"

"Yes," said Mundi, but impatiently.

"Right," he said. "All of this holds true right up until the Force gets involved, and then I can cause some of that neutrino sleet to crash into electrons and generate bosons of whatever type I want. The practical upshot of which is that I can now generate antimatter on demand."

Six Councillors started talking at once. Yoda had to bang his cane a couple of times to restore order. He smiled at the diminutive green master. "Thanks. I can't generate much antimatter, but it got your attention. I've only made a couple dozen anti-electrons so far, mostly because my detector was the PET scanner in medical and I needed a signal that machine can read. But, well, you know what happens to someone when you start removing pairs of electrons from the molecules which comprise them?"

The Council was staring at him in horror.

"Neither do I, but it can't be pretty." He paused, and began walking around the room. "This isn't some esoteric philosophy. This isn't theoretical math, though I wish by all the stars it were. It's real, something I've already tested, something I can actually do. Something I could teach you to do, but will not under any circumstance. This is knowledge that must never get beyond those of you on this Council, and me."

"Then why did you spend all that time figuring out how to do it?" demanded Windu.

"Because it turns out you don't need a powerful Force-sensitive to do it! You don't need anyone at all. It happens on its own, very, very occasionally; and we're lucky it happens on its own about the same amount in either direction: turning electrons into positrons, which then pair annihilate, sure, but also turning positrons generated by vacuum collisions into extra electrons. There's no net gain in the system, but there's also no net loss. On a galactic scale, we're safe."

"At least," he added, "we're safe right up until the point when the Force becomes imbalanced."

Chapter Text

The Council looked at each other, one to another. Finally, Yoda said, "When imbalanced the Force is, what happens?"

"You start getting skew in the system." He paused in his walking. "That is, you either get net generation of matter, or net generation of antimatter and thus loss of matter. The net matter generation scenario isn't that bad, really. The net matter loss scenario . . . Well, you get the idea." He resumed walking. "And unfortunately it's a chaotic bifurcation, so which way the system skews is a chit toss. Not related to if it's Light or Dark imbalance, and not predictable ahead of time."

"But electrons tiny are," said Yoda.

"Sure," he agreed. "And it would take a long time for, mm, antimatter skew to destroy the galaxy. If the electroweak force were the only force at play. It isn't," he said, pausing with a hand on the wall. "Let's talk about gravitation."

"Let's not," said Windu.

"But it's so important!" Then he took a step at the same moment as he made a personal adjustment, and continued walking. Up the wall. "I would like you, as a group, to consider what happens when gravity does not always bend toward the local center of mass: when, sometimes, it bends the other way; and, at other times bends, hmm, spinwise of wherever you are; and occasionally, doesn't bend at all." He reached the ceiling, made another adjustment, and kept going.

"We're not, at that point, talking about a few antimatter reactions, or even a few googilion. We're talking about planets and stars ceasing to be planets and stars. We're talking about black holes suddenly not being black anymore. We're talking about the galaxy flying off in pieces - and not large pieces, either - as all the constituent parts are irradiated with gamma ray bursts strong enough to sterilize entire systems." He stopped to let that sink in. "That's gravitation under the effect of an imbalanced Force. It would take only about a day for a planet the size of Coruscant to break up; and it would be breaking up into the expanding miasma of incandescent plasma that used to be the sun, so I'm certain there would be no survivors."

"The electroweak force not working is phenomenally deadly, and of least concern. Gravity not working is . . . bad. I haven't gotten far with the quark math yet, but the Father on Mortis gave me the answer there, as well." He stopped, standing on the keystone at the center of the ceiling dome. He made an adjustment and dropped, flipping midair to land on his feet. "The whole galaxy simultaneously becomes a quark bomb."

"Quark bombs are theoretical," said Fisto, but not as though he had any hope of being right.

"Quark bombs are the next experiment on my list," he responded. "But not now. I'd need to make an observation shell at least fifteen light-minutes in diameter, and I'd want it to be a dozen parsecs away from any inhabited world. Besides, with the war still not settled, we don't have the money or the resources to make the hundred and thirty thousand detectors I'll need."

He turned back to the Councillors who were holocommuting. "It might take a hundred thousand years for the imbalance to kick in and do this; on the other hand, it might take as few as a hundred. There's a bell curve. It's unlikely to happen tomorrow - but it could. If this is an unacceptable outcome in either the short or long-term, you must seriously rethink your stance on acceptable use of the Dark Side. I'm open to questions."

There was a pause. "How certain are you?"

"I can make antimatter," he pointed out. "I can play around with where my personal down is to the point that I can easily walk around on the ceiling. I'm completely certain that this is actually how the Force interacts with things that are merely particle physics. Doing the math and the experiments to prove it is really just a formality."

There was another silence, longer. Then, grudgingly, Piell said, "Balance in the Force. Explain."

"The Force is, for the purposes of particle physics and math, a change in local probability which propagates as a wave. Like all waves, it has crests and troughs. Those roughly correspond to the Light side and the Dark. You really want it to be a nice sinusoid. When it's not, when it spends more time in the positive than negative phase, then local probability starts behaving asymmetrically. On a macro scale, you'd generate regions of space where, for example, credit chits only land number side up."

"And on a micro scale, antimatter," said Kolar.

"Bosons, gravitons, gluons, light, what does it matter? Everything dies, no matter how the skew presents itself." He stopped, swallowed a couple of times around the lump in his throat, and said, "So there are two ways to rebalance the Force. Last time, I ended up doing it the bloody way: kill everyone who can touch the Force, and let it heal itself. That works, and it works quickly, but it involved murdering a lot of people." He let that hit them, let them understand what he'd done. If not, in the end, why he'd thought he'd done it.

"The other way," he continued, "is to ensure as much Force is used by way of the Dark as it is by way of the Light. Simple."

"Simple," said Yoda. "Very complicated, the simple way is."

"I once killed Master Kenobi," he said, and waited until the shock was visible on their faces before continuing. "The Force sang rightness at me while I did it. Living balance might be more complicated, but I really, really don't want to have to do it the bloody way. Not again."

"You broke," said Yoda, softly, sadly.

"I broke," he agreed.

"We must discuss," said Yoda. "In the antechamber you will wait."

He went, gratefully, and sat down, and just kind of . . . blanked, for a while. It wasn't meditation. It was remembering every Jedi he'd ever killed while the Force screamed how good it was, and mistaking it for power in the Dark. It was hating this burden that had been placed on him without his knowledge or his consent, and at the same time knowing that it was what he'd been born to do. It was that he'd never had a father, not in the 'my mother won't tell a child about rape' way, but because he literally hadn't. It was the simple fact that the Force was never going to stop dicking him around.

It was knowing that his vigil might end up being as long as that of the Father, and more lonely.

" - aberrie? Naberrie!" said Ti in alarm.

"Mwuh?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"Are you okay?" asked Ti, eyes wide. "You - weren't there."

"I'm fine," he said, and it wasn't more of a lie than it ever was. "What's happened?"

"The Council has come to a conclusion," she said gently. "Come on."

It was late morning, nearing lunch time: the sun nearing its zenith, although it wasn't that visible in a Council chamber darkened for holocomming. He could feel it, the distant fire of the nuclear atom forge at the center of the star. "Masters."

"Naberrie," said Yoda, and sighed. "In a difficult position, you us have placed. Very difficult. Two solutions only, there are. And yet - believe you entirely, this Council does not."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. You want the math?"

"Yes," said Yoda.

"Done."

Yoda didn't show emotions much, but more than a couple Councillors looked surprised. "So easily?" asked Tiin.

He gave them an unimpressed look. "We know that the First Schism occurred around twenty-four thousand, five hundred years ago. We know the Jedi Order is twenty-six thousand years old, or thereabouts, and is the remnant of some internal conflict between an even more ancient order, date of origin unknown. This isn't taught in the crèche, but it's in the library if you know where to look.

"I also know, because of some Sith holocrons - which I'm not going to attempt to go talk to right now, obviously, Moraband is an awful place - that the Jedi who went Dark and fought in the Hundred Years' War honestly believed that they were returning to the original mandate of the Jedi, which involved equal study of both Light and Dark. Whether or not that is true is debatable, and I'm sure you will ad nauseum. I have no doubts that they believed it. They believed it enough to fight a devastating war over it. And, if nothing else, you must admit the crèche stories of ancient Sith star-destroying weapons don't sound so unbelievable if quark bombs are real.

"Therefore, my theory is as follows: there was a pre-Jedi Order, and it studied both Light and Dark. That Order knew about this math, but were too cautious about the danger, and not cautious enough about backing up their data. End result: something happened, at some point, that killed all the people who knew before they had a chance to pass it on. After that happened, the Dark and the Light users polarized. Eventually, an actual war broke out. The Light won, and the Jedi Order was founded, and the Force began to become imbalanced. No one knew that this was a bad thing. Probably, no one noticed at all.

"So, yes. I want you to have the math. I want every library with databanks capable of the proper encryption to have it. I want it to be stored on carved stone tablets, left on airless moons. If I can manage it, I want it to be molecularly emplaced into the genomes of a few willing species. I want it stored in so many ways, and in so many places, that it won't ever be lost again. The galaxy can't afford to lose this. Not in the long term."

"Even though the result is quark bombs?"

"On a galactic scale," he said, "even a few planetary sterilizations by means of quark bombs is still less deadly than the Force unbalanced. Assuming your goal is to keep the largest possible number of sophonts alive."

Windu sighed. "Forward us the math. Please. And don't . . . blow anything up."

"And be patient. It took you a month, doing nothing else," said Tiin. "Even though we are more than one, we also have more burdens."

"I understand, masters. In the meantime, I can finish the quarks, and give some serious thought to the detectors. And get a patent or two. And teach Ventress. And spend time with my therapist. And spend time in the crèche, whenever Yoda asks. And maybe talk to the Senate again, I don't know, it's up to them - what I'm saying is, I have plenty to keep myself occupied."

"Er. Yes. You do," said Kolar.

He rolled his eyes. "But the first thing I'm going to do is go meditate. Unless you have any objections?"

"No," said Mundi. "Meditation is a very good thing to do. We will . . . discuss."

"Great. Have fun with that," he said, and left.

Ventress was still lying on the couch when he got back, apparently deep in meditation still. He walked past her to find something to eat. To his surprise, there was a pot of what smelled like chicken soup on the stove, simmering gently.

"Moraband," said Ventress, without moving.

"Three rules, if you want to get anything worth having off of that rock," he said. "One, be polite. Two, be efficient. Three, have a plan to annihilate everything you encounter. There is nothing on that planet that isn't trying to kill you. There really isn't much worth having, anyway."

"Sith holocrons."

"Those aren't moveable. They are old, and very delicate, and because the technique was absolute shit at the time, massive. Also, booby-trapped."

Ventress tsked dismissively. "Sith."

"Did you finish meditating, or were you just listening in on me the whole time?" he asked. "And is this soup ready to eat, or not?"

"It's ready, I just wanted to make sure it would be warm," said Ventress.

He took out a bowl and a ladle and served himself some. "And the other? Closed Council sessions are closed for a reason, you know."

"Hmm," said Ventress. "I didn't, but you were hyperventilating. That pulled me up."

"Ah."

"Why were you?"

"Just realizing some things," he said, as he sat down. "Thank you for the soup. I - well, first I have to give the Council the math, but after that I have to sit down and prod the Force to tell me about a couple of those things."

"Quark bombs," said Ventress.

"No, not that," he said.

"Your theory?"

"That, too." He took a spoonful of soup. "You wanted to renegotiate?"

Ventress sighed. "Yes. I want to know how to hide the Dark, like you do it. However you do it."

"In return for what?" he asked.

"I - what do you want?"

"From you?" he said, and thought about it. "Okay. Once you've learned this - once you can survive on you own - you go back to Dathomir, learn everything the Nightsisers there will teach you, and come back and teach it to me."

"I don't want to go back," said Ventress.

"Too bad," he said. "They won't teach me, but they have other ways of talking to the Dark that I think I'm going to have to know. Also, you should go back."

He took another spoonful of soup as Ventress sat bolt upright. "I - what did you do?"

"Mm?"

"It was like you plucked the Force. It twanged."

"I didn't do it," he said. "That's the way it feels when the Force shouts. One of the ways."

"So the Force wants me to do things now?"

"You can ignore it if you like. I, personally, have found that listening is better. In the long run."

"For whom?" asked Ventress.

He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. "You know, I never really considered that before? Me, always, or I wouldn't keep doing it, and the Force, or it wouldn't react. I didn't do follow-up beyond that, as a rule."

He ate in silence for a while, and then she said, "How often does the Force, ah, shout at you?"

He shrugged. "Variable. Sometimes I go years without it asking anything at all, sometimes it's biweekly. Lately it's been very often, but lately has been weird."

"Weird," she said. "That's one word for it. I don't think that's an equivalent bargain. I just want a little help hiding. That's not worth months, years, of study."

"Fair enough. What's your counterproposal?"

" . . . get the Republic off my back."

"I'm sorry," he said, choking on hot soup. "Why do you think I can do that?"

"Your trick in the Senate - "

"No. I Forced a vote to happen, but not the result."

"You could Force a result, though. If you wanted to."

"I couldn't," he said. "If you have a good story to tell, about the weequay pirates and your shit childhood, I could probably make them sympathetic to you; but that won't make them give you a pardon. If you want one, do something pardon-worthy."

"Mm. Help me do it, hero."

"I'm not going to help you kill Dooku," he said.

"Then help me find something else, and do that!"

He blinked. "Something else that's worthy of a pardon for all the lives you've ever taken? All the shit you've done? That's going to take years, Ventress."

"Then it's a good price," she said.

He sighed. "Help, Ventress. I'll help you figure it out, I'll help get you started. When the time comes, I'll help make sure the galaxy looks on your hard work with favor. But you have to do it yourself, or it doesn't count."

"Done," said Ventress. " - are we starting tomorrow?"

"Don't know. Depends if Yoda is free or not. I think so. Why?"

"Because I should go check on my place. Water the houseplants, feed the fish, that sort of thing."

"You don't have houseplants," he stated. "Or fish."

"I could have fish," said Ventress, something that wasn't quite a smile playing about her eyes.

"If you want to go check on your nonexistant fish, who am I to stop you? Just make sure to get your access pass before you leave."

"Hmm," she agreed, and then quieted down.

After lunch, he commed the math to the twelve Councillors, and appended messages to Windu's and Yoda's. Then he settled back on the floor, drew on the Light, and settled in to meditate this out.

Fact: He had not had a father.

Fact: His genome had been sequenced. He was, at least genetically, a perfectly normal human.

Fact: He knew he was capable of fathering children.

The inevitable conclusion was that it didn't matter to him, except inasmuch as his mother had not been raped. For that, he could only be belatedly grateful. Where the other half of his genome had come from was a mystery, and possibly one that would never be solved unless the Force felt like he needed to know. It was an interesting anomaly.

He really did want to know, though.

Fact: The Force had therefore had a more-or-less direct if unseen hand in his birth

Fact: because someone needed to do this job, and those even capable of it were few and far between.

Fact: Padmé was back.

He blinked his eyes open. "We can go back to the Republica after tonight."

"I honestly don't care where we live, as long as it is we. Did Asajj leave?"

He blinked. "She said she had to feed her fish."

"She doesn't have fish."

"That's what I said. But she is allowed to sleep in her own bed, wherever that is. There's soup we can reheat for dinner, if you like."

"Yes, please. I was thinking maybe one of us should learn, and then I thought, with what time?" She sighed. "Even if this is so much better."

"I could try programming C-3PO." He went to turn the range back on.

"Again: in what time? No, nevermind me, I'm just complaining. Hi, my darling. How was your day?"

"I talked to the Council, got shouted at by the Council, learned a few things I'd probably have been happier not knowing, and then Ventress wanted to know about Moraband."

"What's Moraband?"

"Where. It's the original homeworld of the Sith species."

"The Sith are a species?" asked Padmé.

"They were. They didn't go extinct so much as interbreed themselves out of existence. Human and near-human species in the Rim tend to have a little bit of Sith in their genome."

"Oh. And Moraband?"

"Was probably a much nicer place before a bunch of power-hungry maniacs decided to turn it into their necropolis. Seriously, don't go, don't send anyone else to go. Literally everything there is deadly or a trap or both."

Padmé chuckled. "All right, I won't. How did the Council meeting go?"

"It went," he sighed. "How was your day?"

"I told the Senate we need to do something about all these pirates. They kind of got out of hand when we had Separatists to be worried about, but the war is winding down now."

"And that took all day?"

She shrugged. "The Senate."

He blew out a breath. "Well. You can tell me about it over dinner."

The next morning, he was woken far too early by his comm, which was chirping high-priority override.

"Mmrph?" asked Padmé.

"Shh, go back to sleep, I'll get it," he said, and went into the living room to take it.

"Finally!" said someone who sounded clonelike when he picked up. "Naberrie. Please come to the salles and get your padawan."

"My what now?"

"Ventress."

"One, she's not my padawan, it's a business transaction. Two, why? Is she hurting anyone?"

"Well, no, she's just doing katas. But she's inside the Temple."

"So? She has a visitor pass."

"She didn't check in to the Temple."

"Once again, so? We knew there was a security hole. Just give her a droid on murderer mode to keep her occupied. And don't wake me up for this shit again."

"But - "

"Naberrie out," he said, and ended the comm.

But he was awake, and not getting back to sleep, so he sighed and got dressed and checked his comms and made instant toaster treats for breakfast. They were not as good as eggs prepared whichever way by Ventress.

After breakfast, he went to go find where Ventress was facing two droids. They were both on torturer mode, which was a decent measure of her current skill with a 'saber. She was holding her own, and had gathered a crowd. He joined them, and waited patiently. She just kept up sparring for a while and then seemed to notice he was there, because she quickly disarmed one of them and decapitated the other and rode the lift up to meet him.

"Morning, hero."

"Morning, Ventress. New transaction: I show you how to hide the Dark, you show the security people here where the holes are."

"It's all hole, dear. I could just march an army in here, if I wanted."

"And if you had an army," he said very carefully avoiding the memory of the time he had.

She smirked. "I'll leave the Temple transponder on. If they can't figure it out based on how and where I show up . . . "

"Done. Go take a shower, and then we're heading to the crèche."

"Why?" asked Ventress distastefully.

"Because you need to learn some basics," he said.

Later, she looked at the room full of children, most of whom came only up to her thigh, and said, "Really?"

"Yes," he said, looking around.

Yoda dropped, and landed on his head. "Hello, younglings."

"Hello, Master Yoda," he said. "So I see you went right for the gravitics. Having fun?"

"Tremendous fun," agreed Yoda. He was struck by a sudden vision, of Yoda riding on Luke's shoulders in exactly the way Yoda was riding his now. There was no context, nothing to indicate where they were or why, but the truth of it rang through him like a bell: somehow, impossibly, that had happened. He blinked. Yoda was still talking, "Ventress. Seeing you well good is. Come. An opportunity to learn there is."

"For whom?" he asked. "And where to?"

"Music study room three," said Yoda.

Music study room three contained a number comfortable chairs, a range of stringed instruments, and one initiate. She - he thought it was a she, despite the lack of secondary sexual characteristics - took one look at them and said, "Oh."

"Yes," said Yoda.

"But I don't need - "

"About what you need nothing I said," said Yoda. "Ventress needs."

The girl blinked. "She does?"

"Yes," said Ventress, neutrally.

"Asked for help Ventress has. We Jedi must help, or Jedi we are not. Of you immediately I thought. Will you help?"

"I - if I can?" said the girl.

"Meant to be a question, that was?"

"I'll help," said the girl, now more certain.

"Then leave you to it I do,' said Yoda, and walked out of the room.

"What," said Ventress.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Kanta Oph," said the girl. She pronounced her personal name as three syllables, Ka-n-ta. "Call me Kanta."

"Okay," he said. "Ventress needs someone to help her with crèchling meditation. Just feeling the Force, and talking to it. I've never had that problem, so I would be useless."

"Oh," said Kanta, and sat up straighter. "That's - I can do that. Um."

"Yes?" asked Ventress.

"Is it - I. Have questions. Not personal ones!" she added, at Ventress' look. "Just. Um."

"Oh, about the Dark," said Ventress. "Fair enough. What do you want to know?"

"I," said Kanta. "Want to ask Naberrie, actually."

He smiled. "Sure. After meditation."

"Okay," said Kanta, and motioned to Ventress to sit on a couch, and then began taking Ventress through the most basic of breathing exercises. It was clear almost from the first that Ventress already knew them, and was also annoyed by being asked to do something so simple.

He said, just as she drew a breath to object, "I did say, Ventress. Basics."

Ventress shut her mouth, and shut up, and kept breathing.

After a while, Kanta finished those and began talking Ventress through the plant projection. Ventress also knew this one, but was not good at it. A line of frustration began growing between her eyes, getting deeper and deeper as the projection slipped away, always just out of her reach. Finally, just before she would have sliced up something with her 'saber, he broke it.

"I think that's as far as we're going to get today."

"I - yes," said Kanta, looking at Ventress' ugly snarl. "Okay." And she talked Ventress back up out of it.

"Now I need to actually meditate again," complained Ventress, almost as soon as Kanta stopped talking.

"Lie back down," he said, and pulled the Light. Then he paused. "I'm going to do something different," he said, and instead of opening himself to it, attempted to wrap Ventress in the Light.

Ventress said, "Oh, ugh. Less like floss candy, more like a lightsaber."

"Um," he said, but pushed, trying to get the ungentle aspect of the Light, the fire that burned.

So of course Ventress relaxed almost immediately into true meditation. He turned to Kanta. "Questions?"

"I have more now. You're Dark. How are you doing that?"

"It is possible for someone to be Dark," he said. "And it's possible for someone to be Light. And clearly it's possible for someone to be totally untrained, and be neither. There's a fourth option, as well."

Kanta said, "Oh. I - so you're simultaneously Fallen and not Fallen."

"I think of it as an inadequacy of the language," he said. "According to the Jedi, anyone who uses the Dark is Fallen."

"It explains a lot," said Kanta. "You can't be evil, if you can still touch the Light."

"That's not how it works," he replied immediately. "You can use the Light to do evil. Force knows I have. You can use the Dark to do things that aren't evil. I've done that, too. It's a completely different axis."

"Then what's the difference?"

"Emotions and calm," he said. "Ventress is good at emotions, but not the right ones, and she's bad at calm, but in a way that - can be good. If that makes sense."

"Not really," said Kanta. "But it's true. I can feel it's true. And you'll both be back, so I can think about it in the meantime."

He nodded.

"Chaos and harmony."

"Same thing," he said.

Kanta breathed out. "Okay. I - okay. Thank you. I have to go teach a different class soon - "

"You're a little young, aren't you?"

"I'm probably going to join the EduCorps," said Kanta, looking at him. "If I don't find something better."

"Do you think you won't?"

"I think I will, actually," said Kanta. "Anyway - see you later, Naberrie. Er. Ventress."

He blinked, totally mystified, and then, seeing as Ventress was probably not going to be mobile for at least another hour, took out his 'pad and started working on quarks. Then he stopped working on quarks, because he'd just gotten two comms, one right after the other.

The first had been forwarded through Padmé's office, but it was not from We.

He looked at it, frowning. Then, finally, he typed back and sent a single sentence.

I don't deal with slavers.

The second comm was from Solo, telling him she'd finished being read in, although she hadn't even come close to reading all the classified material for which she now had appropriate clearance. He asked if she were ready to meet that afternoon, and she was.

Almost exactly ninety minutes after she went down, Ventress sighed and sat up and seemed surprised he was still there. She said, "Keeping watch on me?"

"Keeping watch over you," which, he could tell surprised her even more.

She said, "It doesn't count if you outsource the actual teaching."

"Yes it does. Kanta might or might not have taught you otherwise, but she had questions for me."

Ventress blinked owlishly. "Is this really necessary?"

"You tell me. You're the one who can't do a plant projection."

Ventress looked chagrined. "I'll be back tomorrow. Be awake when I arrive."

"I refuse. I'm going to the Republica tonight and sleeping in. Since someone thought it was hilarious to break into the Temple even though she has a visitor pass, and someone else panicked and woke me up."

"Ah."

"Show up at a normal hour, and so will I. Don't try to do anything else in the meantime. You'll just hurt yourself, flailing around."

"All right, hero. See you then."

After lunch, he went to go see Solo. She had a nice office, facing onto one of the interior gardens. He said so, and asked whether the furniture had arrived or not.

"It did," said Solo. "And I got it put together, too, so it doesn't take a genius after all. How have you been?"

"Busy," he said, and sat down on the chair Solo wasn't occupying.

"Yes, I heard. Ventress?"

"Not less a war criminal than I am," he said. "But she asked for help, and I know what it's like to be eaten by the Dark. I couldn't not help."

"There are a lot of people who would argue she doesn't deserve to live."

"Even if they're right - and I feel that, at the very least, there ought to be a trial - "

" - because people get trials - "

" - that is a terrible way to die," he finished. "Also, I know Ventress won't stay in one place long enough to have a trial, but she's decided to earn herself a pardon. I think she can do more, and for more people, if she isn't dead or sitting in prison."

"Does the same apply to you?"

He sighed. "I did think about it. Do I, or at least did I, deserve a trial."

"And . . . ?"

"If it's a law, then it applies to everyone equally. That's what law is. Even if I don't feel like I deserve a second chance."

"I'm not sure that has anything to do with it," said Solo.

"What?"

"Deserving."

"Well that's true. The universe just does not care."

"Then think of it another way, maybe. Not what you did to deserve anything, but what you will do to be worthy of it?"

He blinked. He said, "I hadn't considered that."

Solo nodded. "I don't know about how you think, but I - you were right. The clones were slaves, by any reasonable measure. You didn't just tell people about it, you did something. That's worthy. And whatever it is you're doing now, with the Council, isn't that worthy too?"

"It's necessary. I'm not sure if that's the same as worthy."

"Things can't be both?" asked Solo.

"I - yes. They can. I don't know if this is."

"You seem to have trouble judging in general."

"Broken moral compass," he said, holding up his arms and smiling. "I have, um."

"Yes?"

"I was going to say I have other people for that," he said, "but I'm not sure if that's true. No one else made the decision to go after Sidious. No one else made the decision to free the slaves. The thing is. Those aren't choices I made, either. Not. It was inevitable. Water goes downhill, opposite charges attract, and Anakin Naberrie does those things."

There was a pause. He asked, "Solo?"

"A decision made at an unconscious level is still a decision," said Solo.

He stared. That was pretty much everything it had taken him the first five years to get over, articulated in one short sentence.

Solo continued, "And I - don't know you very well yet, which is - weird. It feels like I've known you for years, but I don't know even simple details about you. Like, if you had to answer - how often do you sit down and, ah, consider the things you do? On a conscious level?"

He thought about it. "Not a whole lot."

Solo nodded. "Then that's an ongoing assignment for you. Whenever you go to do something - especially something not part of your routine - say out loud why you're doing it. It doesn't take that much time to make a habit of it, and it's a kind of mindfulness I think you might need more of. Your own reasons for doing things will surprise you, I think."

"Okay," he said.

"And now I want you to say out loud why you went after Palpatine."

"Sidious," he corrected. "Palpatine was a mask. Sidious was a person."

"Sidious, then."

He frowned. "More than one reason, okay?"

"The most important one, then."

"Okay," he said, and thought about it. Finally, he said, "I think because he - it's not just that he lied to me, okay? He did that, but not just that. He lied constantly for twenty-six years, and when I called him out on it, he said something like, 'Only a fool believes what he's told; you should only trust what you can verify.' And I did, because that was what he'd done: he made it so that assuming people were lying and not trusting anyone were survival traits. Not just for me, either, for his entire kriffing empire. People who trusted other people without also having decent blackmail on them died. That's what I wanted to prevent, more than the revived Sith Empire, more than the Death Stars, more even than Order Sixty-Six. I wanted the future to be one in which people can still trust one another without taking their lives into their hands."

"Not because you hated him?"

"Well I did, and that's also part of it, but I - gave that hatred up after he died. You asked for the most important reason."

"And you're sure that's it? Not what he did to you?"

"No."

"But you still have a lot of anger there."

"Yes."

Solo nodded. "I'd be astonished if you didn't, and given what I understand from this vision-past of yours, I think you're coping very well."

"It helps that I - that all the people I love aren't dead. That all the mistakes I made haven't been made yet." He frowned, then added, "Most."

"Most?"

"I, um. So there was - I did go get revenge, once. For my mother. I could have just stopped with the people who'd tortured her to death. Fuck, it would have made more sense at the time to wonder why a people who are known, amongst other things, for their efficiency and deadly brutality would choose to pick this one woman and torture her to death. She wasn't even a threat, and in retrospect the whole thing stinks. But at the time I was not okay and I was not thinking, and I killed everyone."

"So?"

"There was a tent full of children," he said. "That's the thing I regret most. Not - not believing my visions, following them earlier. Not killing everyone who might've had the answers. Killing the children. That's a mistake I don't get fix. Everything else, but not that."

"Oh," said Solo. And then, "You don't make a habit of killing children, I hope?"

"Uh. Does doing it once more, on a massive scale, and then not doing it again count as better or worse?"

Solo closed her eyes. "I can't answer that for you, Naberrie."

"Yeah," he said. "But. Thanks. That's not a question I'd ever have asked myself, either." He sighed, and then said, "Something about you and meditation on my failures. My many, many failures."

"Heh. Have fun with that."

"I will. I - any other assignments?"

"No, but I do want to know what your wife said."

"She said I need to pick more people who can reliably kill me," he said. "Eventually. First she said she wanted to cuddle. I'm not - that's not a normal reaction, right? To being told how you died, by the person who killed you?"

"I have no idea," said Solo. "I don't think anyone has any idea. It's not like this is a precedented situation. You regret it; you're working hard to make sure it never happens again. You are talking. Did you do that, er, then?"

"Not nearly enough," he said.

"So maybe, if you're worried, you should ask. With words."

"Solo. I am actually older than you."

"In some ways," agreed Solo. "But you've never been a parent, I can tell. It's an education all on its own."

"I - suppose I wasn't," he allowed. "There were children, but I didn't know about them until they were twenty and their own people."

"How did - no, nevermind. That's going to be in the debrief, right?"

"Yes," he said.

Solo nodded. "Use your words, Naberrie. That's what adults do."

He laughed. "Okay. Pay attention to why I'm doing things, and use my words. I can do that. Are - I'm going to be back here tomorrow. Should we meet again then?"

"If that is helpful for you," said Solo.

"Um. I feel like - not until I have some time to sit down and think about worthiness?"

"Then I'll stay and read through all this stuff I have clearance for, and - pick up some other patients, maybe. Comm me when you're ready. If I don't hear from you in the next few days, I'll come looking."

He smiled. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

He got back to the Republica before Padmé, and looked at the various boxes of instant food in their pantry. "Semi-homemade," he said to himself. "Salad, boiled eggs, chopped meat, vegetables. I can do this."

And began making dinner.

Chapter Text

His days settled into a routine: Temple in the morning so Ventress could spend time learning how to do stuff the crèchlings knew, followed by meditating away her anger, followed often by a spar, followed by Ventress fucking off for parts unknown. He ate lunch and then worked on one of his projects, or talked to Solo, or visited the crèche.

"What, again?" he asked, but followed Yoda. The old master seemed to have decided that he had to interact with younglings no less than once every few days.

Today, it was a group of nine-to-ten years, and they were in a lightball court. "Um," he said.

"Much more interesting in six frames lightball is," said Yoda. "Promised to teach, you did."

"Okay, yeah," he said. "Just. I'm not sure how to even begin teaching this."

"How push-pull does one teach?"

"I have no idea," he said, looking at the expectant faces. "How about you?"

"Um," said one of them. "What?"

"I'm teaching a new kind of push-pull. I don't know how to teach push-pull at all. I didn't so much learn it as learn how to stop doing it. I think there are still holes in the walls from when I was flinging the softballs around." The softballs were soft; getting them to move fast enough to put holes in anything was, as Kenobi had said at the time, impressive.

"Oh."

"Fun you all will have. Certain am I," said Yoda, and walked out of the room.

"I know this should be teachable in a way that doesn't involve actually explaining what's going on," he said. Crèchlings learned push-pull, and they certainly didn't know complex gravitics. This was just . . . more of that. "So I suppose we should start with regular push-pull." He walked over to the rack and picked up a lightball. "No lightsabers, and no moving: this game is only to get you used to thinking in terms of push-pull."

"But we know how to use push-pull!"

"On your own," he said. "Not in teams, and I think the teamwork is going to be important. Alright, count off, ten to a team, and then we'll get you spaced out."

The first game went really hideously. The children kept forgetting that they weren't allowed to leave their box. They did remember not to use their lightsabers, but the time delay caused by reaching for their 'sabers before remembering that it was disallowed meant that about half of them got tagged out with shots that they ought to have caught. None of them were happy after that, and neither was he.

"So let us use our 'sabers," whined one, human male.

"No," he said, frowning. "That's not the point of this exercise. Team huddles on strategy; we'll go again in five minutes." He, meanwhile, pulled on the Dark. As one, the younglings took a step back. "What?"

"You're - the Dark," began a togruta male.

"Yeah. I'm trying to help," he said. "Go on, then."

The second game was better, in a way. It was less interesting visually since at any given time half a dozen of them were vying for control of the ball, and as a result the ball tended to lurch around wobbily as various people added push to it. But he was right about the teamwork, because he could see as it began to click and twos and threes figured out how to push together. It was definitely not about the pull. That game also took much longer, since once the people who didn't get it were tagged out, the ones who did hit a stalemate pretty fast. He called time after five more minutes, then told all the people who'd gone out to line up for a third game; everyone who'd gotten it, he called over to sit by him.

"I don't understand," said a girl, either furred or feathered with some kind of iridescent sheen. "What is the point of this?"

"Yoda started walking around on the ceiling," he said.

"Yes?"

"I'm figuring out how to teach you the same thing."

All of the were suddenly much more attentive. One of them asked, "And this helps?"

"It's about push," he said. "You can only pull toward you, but you're learning how to push in specific directions instead of just out. That's important." He shook his head. "I think. I really don't know how to teach, much less teach a brand-new skill."

"But you're teaching - Ventress." That one was the kolar-vi, one of a very few species of mobile plant. Or sapient plants in the mobile phase.

"Right now mostly Ventress is learning the same stuff as year four clans." Kanta was amazingly patient. Also kept asking really odd questions. Not even personal, just odd. "Sith don't teach basic important skills like meditating, and - I don't need to know how to teach that. It's well-known enough that I only have to be in the room."

"To keep the Dark in?"

"No; she does that well enough on her own, when she can be bothered. To - make sure she bothers." On the court, the remaining students seemed to have worked out group push, because the ball was just hovering there. "Time!" he called. "Come, sit, join us. We're thinking of why I had to have you do that."

"You don't know?"

"I just jumped off the Temple towers, and figured it out on the way down," he explained.

"Flying?"

"Falling sideways," he said. "It's not flying. I just decide that down isn't toward the planet."

"You can do that?" squeaked someone.

"Yeah, sure," he said. " - but don't do it yourself unless there's something soft to land on when you get it wrong."

"You jumped off a tower," accused the shiny one.

"I did controlled fall training."

"So have we! We do it in year seven and nine and during Initiate practice."

"Uh - that's true," he said. "But I don't think the masters would be happy with me if they found out I told you to practice jumping off tall buildings. And anyway, you haven't done fall training in rotating reference frames. I know you haven't; you need a pretty big station before you can get enough fall distance inside a rotating frame." A thought occurred. "I bet this would be much easier if I were trying to do it in a rotating reference, though. I think I just figured out how to teach it."

"So this was all pointless?"

"No." He pulled the lightball over. "Watch. I'm not going to push it, exactly - " He didn't, either. He gave it a push to get it moving, and a direction which was down, and then kept on changing the second. The lightball fell through a toroidal path, over and over again. "This is something you can probably do now, if you play around and practice a bit."

"Oooh," said a tiny male of indeterminate species, and pulled at the ball. Since he was still affecting gravity on the sphere, it ended falling up in a descending helix.

"I want to try!" said another girl, and pulled.

"Stop!" he said. "There is a whole rack. Get a new lightball to practice on your own, don't steal someone else's!"

There was a brief scramble as they all went for the rack simultaneously, and then settled down into trying to duplicate what he'd done. They could all reliably get the things to come and go. Getting them to fall around a point required providing gravity in two directions at once. Out loud, he said, "It might be easier to try making it do a ring around you, at least to start." They already knew how to get things to fall toward them.

In fact, none of them were able to manage orbits alone. A couple of them paired up and managed to get something like an orbit going, but one of the partners had to run madly around the other to keep the vector right. Inevitably, it lasted only a few seconds. He could sort of see where it was going to result in a class with an unprecedented ability to manipulate things from across the room.

That, on second thought, might not be the best idea; but it was too late now. They were going to practice, alone and together, with him or without. Eventually, one of them would make the leap between push-pull of an object and push-pull of oneself, after which there would be no stopping any of them.

None of them had gotten it by the time the chimes for the sixteenth hour rang, and he excused himself to go home. The Republica wasn't busy at that time, and he had a resident pass anyway, but people who recognized him in the halls and gave him funny looks. It would probably pass, as his antics faded from the public perception. Probably.

He checked his comms. The one he'd sent to Kenobi had bounced, followed by a generic 'off-comms for classified purposes' message. It was a bit disappointing, honestly. He wanted know what his old master thought about the math; but there was still the war, after all.

He had another few waiting, though. One was from We, who wanted to update him on the progress of his patent through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of Republic. Actually it was good news, his application had been received and was being fast-tracked. He forwarded her the missive he'd received from Kamino, and his response.

He made a fist with his right hand, flexed his fingers. He could do that; he couldn't, for example, reliably pick up an egg.

(Padmé had laughed out loud at his look of nonplussed confusion, so he couldn't regret it, wasted eggs or no.)

The second comm was from Cody, and weirder:

He was smiling as he typed in the answer.

The third had been forwarded through several GAR nodes, and most recently by Rex. He frowned, then tapped open the comm.

You did good, Naberrie. Even if you did it late. - Slick

That simple statement tore his breath away, brought the Dark slamming into him. It was one thing for his family to tell him he was recovering, or even his therapist. But from someone who had been an enemy, who had once actively tried to kill him -

He swallowed a couple of times, and then typed out a return message.

I think I can manage a pardon for deserters. I don't think I can swing one for you. You got brothers killed.

Then he got up and made soup, because it was a forgiving dish for a beginner to learn.

He was not expecting a response, which was why when it came in the next day, he stared blankly at it for two solid minutes before opening it.

He frowned, because Burtoni seriously needed a lesson in ethics. All of Kamino did. He was starting to suspect it wasn't because they didn't understand the concepts, but because culturally it wasn't allowable to think of someone who wasn't Kaminoan as a true person. If so, they definitely needed remedial courses, and not just in ethics.

Not his job. He sighed, but told Padmé about it later.

She was very, very quiet for much too long a moment. Then she said, "Yes."

"And how is that thing with the pirates going?"

"It would be going better if we could show some progress with the peace negotiations."

"Not going well?" he asked; he'd thought they had been going well.

"A lot of planets want financial concessions."

"You're doing it the wrong way, you know," he said. "All carrot and no stick never works."

"What's the stick?"

"Simple," he said. "There are a limited number of resources the Senate can assign. Priority goes to those systems which are both already firmly Republic and have a demonstrable need."

"So you think those people don't deserve - "

"Oh course, not, Padmé; but the worlds in question aren't stupid, they know what taxes are for. Remind them that aid, even in the form of reduced or entirely absent taxes, is need-based; and there are other worlds than need it more."

Padmé was quiet; and then she said, "You got harder."

"I had to," he said, and was utterly surprised to suddenly find himself being hugged.

"Don't be too hard," she said. "On anybody." And kept hugging him.

Cody also replied.

There was only one answer to that.

He brought it up with Solo when he next saw her, entirely by accident.

"Have you thought about we talked about before?" she began.

"Worthiness? Yes. I - what I am doing, with the Council, it is necessary, but not worthy. Lives are being saved by it, but not improved. The Dark isn't inherently improving."

"And the Light is?" asked Solo. He knew she was sitting in on crèche lessons. It helped her learn about the Force, and it helped socialize the younglings with adults who couldn't do the things they could.

"No," he said. "Not inherently. It's perfectly possible to go numb and stop being a person and be very good at using the Light. It's much more likely to foster a certain kind of person, of course, but so is the Dark."

"The Dark doesn't foster evil, though."

"No; just strong emotion. But an easy strong emotion is hate, so . . . " He shrugged. "People with no interest in controlling their hate and who hate very easily, even total strangers. It links up with neuroplasticity in interesting ways."

"I bet," said Solo dryly.

He chuckled. "Exactly. It was much harder for me to turn away, and I kept delaying, for years, until it became apparent that my choice was to change or die. That was before I understood that any strong emotion works. As soon as I did, I switched over to anger."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why? Naberrie, anger isn't generally considered a positive emotion."

"No, but," he paused, working out how to articulate it. "Hate is almost never useful. Anger can be, though."

"In what ways?"

"I was, and remain, angry at the Galactic Senate for daring to tacitly condone slavery in the Republic. No matter what they called it. I can use anger, in a way I can't generally use hate."

"Righteous anger," said Solo.

"I suppose," he said uncomfortably. "It's just that - calling the Senate out on that? That was worthy. It was not about number of deaths prevented, but quality of lives lived."

"Hmm," said Solo. "So does that mean - here's a hypothetical. There's a Force-sensitive, trained the Jedi way, and it's . . . not right. Making them numb, you put it. If you help them Fall, and it helps, is that worthy?"

"Yes," he said. "Of course."

"Even if the Jedi Council would call your actions," she hesitated, "misguided?"

"Well, I would hope that isn't true, but even if it is - it's possible to keep someone's vegetative body alive for years, with the right equipment; but I don't think you'll find anyone willing to argue that you should, once you find a way to heal them and wake them up again."

"And you would be willing to fight the Council on this?"

"If that is what is took, yes."

"Hmm," she said. "And - again, just a hypothetical - what if there were, I don't know, a situation in which the thing that you want to do help and the thing someone wants to do are two different things?"

"Do both."

"If they're mutually exclusive?"

He hesitated. "Is there clear evidence that one is going to lead to a better outcome than the other?"

"No; it's ambiguous."

"Then what they want. Obviously. The placebo effect is real."

"And if there is evidence, you go with the path that makes leads to a better outcome." He nodded. "Then I can't really fault how you've decided to define worth. Don't impose that on others, though. People get to decide their own morals. You know this."

"I know," he said.

They sat in companionable silence for a while before Solo said, "Have you thought about the other question?"

"What?"

"How you define worthiness?"

"Oh." He said, "Not really thought, so much. I . . . have apparently decided to free the slaves."

"Which slaves?" asked Solo.

"All of them," he said. "The thing is - it's not just a question of, um, ownership. I mean, it is, but not only. You can take a slave and dig out the explosive and give them a deed to themself, but it won't make them the kind of person who isn't always afraid; and, in the galaxy as it is, looking over their shoulders all the time is a sensible idea." He stopped talking, then started again. "I'm looking at changing the entire galactic culture, aren't I? Not just so that slavery is recognized to be unethical and illegal, but so that it's an acknowledged duty of everyone to actively fight it."

"It certainly doesn't seem like an easy job," she said. "Especially given whatever it is you're doing with the Council. Necessary, you said."

"Well, no," he said. "But if it were easy, it'd already have been done."

Solo nodded. "And you're ready to take it on. Just like that."

"Not only me, obviously. Now that I know what needs to be done, I can pass that along to the people who know how it can be done." He nodded, happy to have that settled. "I can tell Diamond."

"Who is Diamond?" asked Solo.

"The brother who's been elected to be in charge of the anti-slavery campaign."

"The - what? What?"

"The brothers asked me what I wanted," he explained. "I said 'nothing,' which is true, but - brothers. They asked again, and I told them to go drag the slavers out of the shadows. And, well. Brothers have always been much more organized than anyone gave them credit for, so they're organizing. Diamond wanted my comms address. I haven't actually talked to him yet."

"You just - told the, ah, the retiring clones to go back to war? And they are?"

"No. I did say, any of them who don't want to, shouldn't." He meant it, too. "It's a cultural thing. Those who were once slaves hate slavery."

"Mm. What are you going to do to - the slavers, the flesh-dealers, everyone involved?"

"Put them on trial," he said. "On live holo. Before the galaxy. Have them pay for their crimes with their ill-gotten wealth, true, but mostly with their reputations." He smiled, or at least, bared his teeth. "Take from them everything they ever dared take from another person, including their freedom; but legally, and with full approval of the courts."

"I," said Solo. "Your eyes are glowing."

"Yeah," he said. "Righteous anger, like you said."

"And a certain kind of vindictiveness. The Jedi Council would never approve of this."

"No, but the Jedi Council also wouldn't approve of a Jedi who decided to keep justice instead of just the peace. Fortunately, they don't get a say: I left the Order."

Solo was quiet for a long time, and then she said, "Tell me, Naberrie. Do you think of yourself as a good man?"

"No," he answered. Of course not; not with what he'd done.

Solo nodded. "I want you to think about what makes a person good. And on that topic, how has actualization of your motives been going?"

He groaned. "I didn't. I totally forgot."

"Forgot, or didn't want to?"

"Forgot. I don't really do passive-aggressive."

Solo chuckled. "That's a point. If you're having trouble, set yourself a timer to go off every hour or two, and then say out loud what you did in that time and why you did it."

He nodded. "Yes, I - hold on, let me do that now." He took out his 'pad to set the alarm.

Solo waited until he had, and said, "And - I'm not going to ask about what you've been doing, but are you satisfied with the work you have completed?"

"I'm - not unsatisfied," he said. "I'm almost done with the math. It will be nice not to have that hanging over my head. Of course, it also means I might have some free time again."

"Does that bother you?" asked Solo.

"Not bother, exactly. I'm just sure what I'm going to do with it. I - my time has never been entirely my own before."

"What are all the things you want to do, but never seem to have the time for?" asked Solo.

"That's . . . a good question. I've already done the important ones: tell the entire Republic how much I love my wife, tell the Council to go fuck off. Get this patent, but it is already in review. Do some social engineering, but that's going to take more than me alone. Finish teaching Ventress, but she needs to be able to meditate on her own before I can even try pushing her through - anyway, I can't, yet." He frowned.

"Put some thought into it. What do you enjoy doing?"

"I will," he said. "Thank you, Solo."

"You're very welcome, Naberrie."

Diamond sent his comm by the next day. It was terse almost to the point of brusqueness:

Naberrie. Talk to me about teaching people who were slaves not to be slaves.

He sat there, thinking about it and staring off for a while, and then his timer went off. He startled, and then composed his thoughts. "I am thinking about all the therapy I didn't get as a child, and how badly the Order messed up on that, and how it can be done better in the future. I want to help my brothers and sisters."

Diamond. Psych doctors, lots of them. Mostly, slaves need to learn that it is okay to say no; that they are within their rights to refuse anyone anything. And that asking for what they need is okay, should be done whenever they need something. I don't know, harmless situations where they can get practice doing either or both of those things? I'm not really the best person to ask here, but vode an.

His comm pinged only a few minutes later, and he picked it up eagerly.

It was not Diamond. It was Mace Windu, with a request for a holocomm. He signalled back an affirmative, and then went to go dig up the projector.

"Master Windu," he said politely, once he'd got it all set up. "What can I do for you?"

"Naberrie," said Windu. "And I think it's more what I can do for you. You had a request?"

"Yes. Although I think you would do it anyway, I - Padmé said, and I agree with her, that she can't be the only person standing between me and the galaxy if I should go insane again."

"More insane, you mean," said Windu.

"Windu. I already asked Yoda, and Rex is comms-silent right now. I know you're capable. The question is if you're willing."

There was a pause. "Are you seriously asking me to kill you?"

"Well not now, obviously," he said. "If and only if I decide it's somehow okay to assault Padmé, or I go after children. Those are clear signs that I've lost it, and someone should take me out with extreme prejudice."

"You are asking me to kill you," repeated Windu flatly.

"Problem?"

Windu pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why didn't you ask Kenobi?"

"Wouldn't work."

"Because you're better than him with a 'saber now?" asked Windu.

He shrugged. "That, too. Yes or no, Windu. I need an answer."

"Yes with caveats," said Windu. "You and I need to spend a lot of time sparring together. I'm pretty sure I could beat you, with vapaad; I'm not sure I could do it without Falling."

"You beat Sidious without Falling," he pointed out.

"One: heart attack. Two: there were three of - "

"No, I meant - before," he said.

"Oh," said Windu, taken aback. "Really?"

"In single combat," he said. It was an impressive achievement, after all.

"I don't even want to think about what that must've been like. Without you there, doing - whatever it was you were doing, to keep him from using lightning."

"Stealing the Dark," he supplied helpfully. "More or less. I wasn't fast enough at the end there."

"I'm not dead," said Windu bluntly. "You did fine."

"So?"

Windu sighed. "I'm going to insist on the sparring anyway. Using vapaad against the Dark side is something I want to be able to avoid as much as possible."

"Do I get to learn vapaad?" he asked, faux-innocent. "It's not like it can do me any harm."

Windu snorted. "I don't think the galaxy will survive if you know vapaad," which was as nice a refusal as he was capable of giving.

"Considering I don't use a 'saber at all these days - " he began.

"Any reason why you haven't made one yet?" asked Windu. "I know you're not allowed to have one, but you and I both know that would mean jack shit if you actually decided you wanted one."

"Then obviously the reason I haven't made one is because I don't want one," he said, smiling slightly.

"You're not fooling anybody," said Windu. "Antimatter."

"Yes, but that at least is difficult," he said. "I probably couldn't kill someone that way. Not at the rate I can make antimatter, when stacked against the sheer number of electrons inside a person."

"So you're saying you're less dangerous."

"I'm saying I'd like to be," he answered, completely honest since Windu wasn't going to believe him anyway. "Hence the hedging against egregious insanity. Among other things."

"Uh-huh," said Windu. "Sure. Since I have you on the comm: I do have some questions about parts of this . . . math."

He rolled his eyes, but picked up his 'pad so they could be looking at the same thing. "Shoot," he said, and then spent the next hour and a half talking Windu through some of the more esoteric convolutions involved in Forcing ordinary matter to become antimatter.

Just less than an hour in, his timer went off again. "What?" asked Windu.

"Assignment from my therapist," he explained. "I am teaching Windu about antimatter, so that he, along with the rest of the Council, will give up on their recklessly unbalanced approach to the Force."

"And if we don't?" asked Windu.

"Then I suppose you get to see what quark bombs look like in practice," he said, and tapped his stylus on the 'pad. "Come on. We were at the sine."

After they were done, or at least to the point Windu could finish on his own, the older master said, "You said you weren't going to teach anyone how to do this."

"I'm not," he said. "The theory is fine; that, along with the fact that it works this way in practice, is all you need to know. Doing involves a lot of fine-detail control that most people just don't have."

"How did you get it?"

"Practice," he said. "Like with any other skill."

"You don't just sit down and practice."

"I didn't used to," he agreed. "Stop poking. It will all be in the debrief, but. Atrocities. I don't want to think about them right now."

Windu sighed. "The war is winding down. You should think about what you're going to say, and how you're going to say it."

"The truth," he said. "Bluntly. Thanks, Windu."

There was a slight pause, as though Windu were weighing responses. "You're welcome. Windu out."

While he'd been talking to Windu, Diamond had returned his comm.

Thanks. I'll have more questions later. Vode an.

He looked at it, and then keyed in a search for information about Diamond. It turned out he was retiring from being a marshall commander, so obviously the kind of person who was good at getting stuff done. He also had about eight hundred commendations on record, and only a few disciplinary marks, which meant that Diamond was good at not getting caught.

His kind of brother.

He went back to the math for the next couple of days. The thing was, he was getting near the end of it, and the results, while pretty horrifying in the abstract, weren't going to be testable without a new kind of platform. It would have to be filled with upper-end detectors, the kind that would not just see gamma- and X-rays but right down through low-energy IR and microwaves and radios. Also, if could manage it, neutrino and other particulate detection would be nice. All of which implied a certain amount of durability, since they'd have to be floating around in space for years at a time waiting for particles to arrive, and a certain amount of swarmthink, since they'd have to be able to hold position with regards to all the other detectors in a sphere light-minutes across. And they had to be cheap; even a single-layer shell would require tens of thousands of them, and two shells would mean over a quarter of a million.

He was thinking about printing on a truly massive scale when Padmé got home, kicked off her shoes, and flopped onto the couch. He frowned, put down the 'pad, and began running his fingers through her hair instead. "Bad day?"

"Terrible."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Padmé sighed. "No."

"Okay - "

"The Senate suspended me," said Padmé.

"Oh."

"Yes."

"But that's crazy! You're one of the only senators who's actually been making suggestions instead of throwing blame! You're helping on this peace treaty, you're getting the issues of the brothers resolved, you're - "

"Mm. Harder," she said, so he stopped just scratching her head and began on a full scalp massage instead. "Ani, that's the problem. I'm making most of the rest of the Senate look bad, just by doing my actual job. And there's you."

"I - " He stopped. He couldn't say he hadn't done anything; he had.

"Yes," said Padmé wryly. "Can you just - how do you feel right now?"

Just then he was shocked, worried for her, happy to be able to do something as simple as give her a scalp massage, irritated at the Senate and its clear insanity, and beginning to think about the implications of not having someone to suggest all the things to the Senate that needed doing. He wasn't sure that was exactly what Padmé wanted to be feeling, but it was her choice, not his, so he bundled it up and shared it with her.

She sighed, and said, "It might be a good thing."

"How is you not being allowed to do your job - a job you love, a job you're good at - a good thing?"

"Not - forever," she said. "I'll do the same thing you did, demand either they drop it or provide actual charges. But for a little while, maybe. I am tired."

He was still wrapped around her mind, so he felt the way she meant it. It wasn't in a flesh-and-bone sense, but in the deeper mind-and-soul sense. She'd been working nonstop for years, against an enemy that was people being venal little shits to each other. The last couple of months had been particularly difficult, even though Sidious was gone, because his legacy wasn't. And then there was him.

"Oh," he said. "Padmé, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We knew going in it might cost me my seat; but it was still worth it. You know it was."

"It was," he agreed. "Padmé."

She sighed, turned on her side so she was looking at his stomach. "You are - kind of exhausting, Ani. Trying to guess your reactions when you continue to refuse to react like a normal person."

"I - yes," he said. "Because I'm not a healthy person. Not inside."

"And then you say things like that, while giving me a scalp massage!"

"Would saying things like that while not giving you a scalp massage be better?" Silence. "Padmé?"

She sobbed. It was quiet, and he probably wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been right next to her and also still a little pressed against her soul, but. She was miserable, which registered to him as sort of bruised yellow and the taste of brackish water, and he knew he'd done it but didn't know how, or how to stop it. "Padmé?" he asked again, half-panicked.

She shook her head and brought her arms up around him, just tucked in like that, nose against his stomach. It came to him very clearly that she didn't want anything else, just then, but that he hold her. He did, and the sobs came louder, more forcefully. He didn't know what to do, so all he could do was to keep holding her and running his fingers through her hair and, also, project his love and support.

This last did not have the intended effect. When he'd been little, he hadn't even been able to conceive of enough water for a swimming pool to be a thing, and he'd hyperventilated a bit at the waste upon seeing one for the first time. This was during his first swimming lesson, which was not the best combination. It felt exactly like that now, too, swimming in something that was simply, completely, totally incomprehensible. "Shh," he tried. "I'm here."

That worked better. Padmé was crying harder, but she also didn't feel so dark and heavy, so he went on like that, holding her close and telling her meaningless lies that became true as he said them. "It's okay," he said, "You're okay."

Some time later, Padmé stopped crying. She didn't move, but it felt like she'd somehow cried away most of the unhappy bruised feeling. He hugged her again, and asked, "Do you want me to get you some water?"

"I don't want you to leave," said Padmé; whispered, really.

"I can do both," he said.

"Oh." She turned her head, enough so that he could see her face, all blotchy red, and her eyes. "Yes."

It wasn't even particularly hard, although he was aware his idea of hard and other people's idea of hard weren't the same order of magnitude. The glasses were in a cabinet, upside-down to keep dust out. He opened the cabinet, lifted one gently and turned it midair, held it under the tap while turning it on. Once it was filled he turned off the tap and brought it sailing gently forward.

Padmé had to disengage and sit upright to drink. She sat next to him, pressed to him, warm and worn, while she savored each sip. Then, quietly, she said, "So I'm . . . not okay."

"I got that," he said, tone carefully neutral. "Is it - can I ask why?"

"I - do the thing."

"We really need to come up with a better name," he said, but did it. At that moment, he felt mostly relieved that Padmé wasn't miserable, even if it were only because she was too tired to feel much of anything.

"That's why," said Padmé. "Ani, I love you, I do, but - not the way you love me. I. There's this poem, on Naboo. It's very romantic, but I always thought it was a little bit a lie. 'How do I love you, my darling?'" she asked; with a jolt he realized she was quoting. "'There are no words, but these: the way plants love the sun, the way lightning loves the earth, the way deserts love the rain.' I didn't think a real person could feel that way. And then you started projecting."

"Is it a bad thing?" he asked.

"Not." She stopped, and sipped again, and took a deep breath. "I feel like it's uneven. Selfish. To have that from you, when I can't reciprocate."

"No," he said. "It's. Not everyone is the same. I can love specific people, but not causes; it's one of the reasons I was never really a Jedi. You can love abstracts, ideas. It's not uneven. Love isn't a transaction, Padmé. It just is."

The was a pause, and then his timer went off. He sighed, and picked up the pad to tap it off. "I am talking to my wife about our relationship, because relationships don't work without words."

Padmé made a dry wracking sound. He pulled back, immediately concerned, and then realized it was Padmé laughing through a partly-swollen throat. "Well that's just - You grew up. And I didn't get to see it."

"You can see it now," he said, because the other option was telling her about all the ways he was still irrevocably broken, and she didn't want to hear it. "Love me the way you can; that's all I ever wanted."

"Ever?" she asked, but her tone was lighter, teasing. "Since you were nine?"

"I don't think that's how I would have put it, when I was nine," he said.

"That's not a 'no.'"

"Mm," he said, and leaned over so he could kiss her forehead. "And you want enough of a break that we can - put us together. Before you put the galaxy together."

"I - yes. That's a good way to put it," said Padmé. "Ugh. Is it weird that I miss you, even though you're right here?"

"It's not weird," he said. She was still catching up with all the ways he'd changed - grown up - while she was dead. It was natural to want to know more of the person he'd become. "But I'm still not going to go back to doing things the reckless way every time."

Padmé smiled. "So only some of the time, then."

He chuckled. "Are you hungry?"

She paused, seemed to consider, and then said, "I could eat, but I really - let's watch a holo."

He blinked. "Okay?"

"We do need to talk more, but not right now," she said. "The Hero With No Fear and the Murderers of Mandalore?"

He wrinkled his nose. "Really? It butchers Mando'a culture."

"That is not why anyone watches Hero With No Fear flicks," said Padmé.

"I'm surprised we're not watching them in order - no. Padmé, no!"

They ended up watching the first two holos, while Padmé ate frozen yogurt and he ate food with actual nutritive value. At least, Padmé watched holos; he mostly watched her, until she poked him in the shoulder and told him to, "Stop being creepy." Then they moved to the bed and played Rescue of Ryloth, although Padmé dozed off within the first half hour and he wasn't that far behind her. He woke, briefly, when the lights and the noise stopped; but all was well, so he rolled over, curled himself around his love, and went back to sleep.

Chapter Text

Padmé chose to accompany him to the Temple next day, with a bag big enough to suggest she planned on staying for a while. He met up with Ventress for sparring before lessons; he'd found it helped if she went into it in certain state of mind, and fighting put her into that state quickly. Also, it kept him in shape, which was good. Fitso had joined them a couple of times before finishing with Nu, but now it was just them.

Ventress seemed surprised to see Padmé, though she recovered quickly and offered a jaunty salute. Padmé smiled and waved a little, and went to go sit down in the observation area. They did get an audience most days now, so she wasn't alone. He could only count it as a good thing.

Then he spent some time focusing only on Ventress. She was nowhere near his level, even if his level was falling from not having a lightsaber and very skilled opponents. Challenging her without overwhelming her took a different kind of concentration. He was not good at it, but gradually getting better. Ventress either didn't notice or didn't mind, and kept getting into the salle with him. It helped that he was unarmed. He'd probably have accidentally killed her if he'd had a lightsaber.

After showering, it was supposed to be time for meditation. Padmé had different ideas, and talked to Ventress as they walked to the Music Room Three, and while they sat down. Padmé was good at meditation, in her own way: the meditation of perfect aim, of hitting the same spot on a target ten times with a blaster whining in her hand.

Ventress said, "And this is better?"

"For a person like you?" said Padmé. "I think it's the only way. You almost had it in the salle, and now you're nearly tense enough to grind grain. The sit-quietly-and-feel meditation isn't for you." He heard the echo of another statement, about how surprising it was to her that it was for him, now.

"Well," said Ventress, tilting her head. "What do you think, Master?"

"One: never call me that again. Teacher if you want to be formal, or Anakin, since that's my name; but I refuse to be anyone else's master. Two: it's not a bad idea. We should ask Kanta."

"She's not - " said Ventress.

"I know," he said. "But she probably does know which techniques to point us at, if nothing else."

"Oh," said Ventress. "Yes."

So they asked Kanta. Well, Padmé asked Kanta. The girl sat there for a moment and then said, "I cannot believe I didn't think of that. Yes, there are some exercises - let's go grab some staves, I can show you - "

She showed all three of them. Padmé got it immediately, following Kanta through the steps. He and Ventress kept falling into lightsaber stances, and Kanta wouldn't let them stop until they could do the first of the stave exercises all the way through three times perfectly. It was a weird strain, the motions deliberately slow in muscles trained for fast responses, and just complex enough to require constant concentration. It was frustrating to him and Ventress both. Padmé, by contrast, was moving smoothly through it on her own and just as clearly meditating, although not in the Force-assisted way.

"Well," said Ventress, planting the staff in the ground and leaning on it casually. "I'm impressed."

"What?"

"How did you manage to get her to agree to marry you?"

"Mutual attraction," said Padmé, without looking at them or, indeed, opening her eyes.

Ventress chuckled. "Yes, but - I've seen the holos. He wasn't that pretty."

"I don't love him for his looks," said Padmé. "You like him now too."

"I am standing right here," he said.

"Yes," said Ventress. "It's nice that you grew up, I agree. I just don't see why anyone liked you as a child."

"I was a cute kid," he said. "Is this - better, for you?"

"Right now it's infuriating," said Ventress. "But it will work. I can feel it."

He nodded. He could feel it too, in the way she almost didn't need to meditate despite it being afternoon, hours longer than was usual for her. "Then we'll do it this way."

Ventress didn't say anything, but stood up, got back into stance, and started going through it again.

His timer went off.

"Shut that up," said Ventress.

"Sorry, assignment," he said. "I am learning how to do moving meditation with Ventress, because this will work better than sitting down and reaching for the Light." He reset the damn thing. It was annoying, but also, it was working.

Padmé stopped them not too much after that anyway, because she was hungry. Ventress finished her run-through, then stood up. "Fine," she said. "I'll cook."

"You don't have to," said Padmé.

"I know," said Ventress, and stayed, and cooked. Lunch was fish, pan-fried with herbs and spices, and mashed tubers, and broiled vegetables. Mashed tubers, it turned out, were easy. He ate a surprisingly large amount, considering how hungry he hadn't thought he was, and then got up to help wash the dishes.

"Really?" asked Ventress.

"You should meditate a little," he said instead of answering the question.

Ventress sighed, but went to go sit on the couch. He pulled on the Light and threw it at her like a blast. She didn't need to meditate for very long, perhaps fifteen minutes.

While she was out, Padmé said, "Is she - getting better?"

"Slowly," he said. "Very slowly. It's mostly my fault; I'm not a good teacher."

"There are books on pedagogy," said Padmé.

"That's a point," he said, and sighed. One more thing. But it was also going to be useful for more than just saving Ventress' life, so he said, "Thanks."

"Mm. What are we doing in the afternoon?"

"I - you don't have to follow me," he said.

"I want to know," said Padmé.

He shrugged. "I was going to check my comms, and then maybe go to the crèche."

"All right," said Padmé.

His comms were minimal. Tiin and Kolar had both pinged him with a list of math questions, probably because they now knew he'd answer. He did his best, anyway. We had sent a notice telling him that she was getting requests of exactly the sort Kamino had made, and what did he want to do with them?

Ventress stopped meditating shortly thereafter, and stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he said. "Good afternoon!"

He and Padmé went to the crèche. He was almost expecting Yoda to drop on his head, but the old master walked to them slowly. "Good to see you, it is, Senator Amidala. Come. Younglings we must attend."

It was the youngest group yet, only year three or whatever the developmental equivalent of their species was. Mostly it meant a lot of noise as the children ran around and played with each other, and then getting messy when it was time for fingerpainting. By the time they headed back to his apartment, they were both exhausted and messy and in need of another shower, but Padmé was smiling and so he was too.

"I think I owe you an apology," said Padmé, as they walked.

"Oh?"

"It's not just you who doesn't know how to treat clothes; it's the entire Jedi Order." She looked down at her paint-smeared shirt. "It's probably unsalvageable."

"I don't know," he said. "Let me take a look at it."

"Look?" asked Padmé.

But he was already taking a deeper look, two levels at once. The fabric was all long-chain molecules; the dye was tiny in comparison, and also suspended in water. He grabbed at both, and tugged. A fine mist of colored spray hit his hand, but it had left behind a clean patch on Padmé's blouse. "There," he said with satisfaction.

"Oh," said Padmé, looking at it. "So you do dry-cleaning now, too?"

"I supose?" he said, and chuckled. "But I don't think I can get oils out of things. Water and water-solubles only. Oils don't have any charge."

"You're manipulating based on charge?" asked Padmé, sounding surprised.

He shrugged. "Ions aren't always single atoms."

"And you're good at ions," said Padmé.

He kept pulling bits of paint, so when they got back, Padmé's clothes were mostly clean and his hand was very colorful. Padmé laughed, and began stripping down. "Come on," she said. "Shower."

Really what she wanted was for him to get the paint out of her hair. He was happy enough to do it, and Padmé leaned into the touch, and didn't burst into tears when he shampooed her hair. Then he repeated the process on himself, which was much easier because all he had to do was make everything that wasn't him fall away. Padmé laughed as the shower tiles went rainbow-splattered, and then hugged him, pressed all up along his back.

"Do the thing," she said into his shoulderblade.

He did. At that moment he was feeling happy, the happy of having been with younglings and now being with Padmé: not sexual, just intimate.

"Mm," said Padmé. "Can you - do it in reverse? Feel what I'm feeling?"

"Uh. Yes? But that's just regular empathy, plenty of Jedi can do it - "

"I'm asking you," said Padmé. "How do I feel right now?"

Padmé was happy on the surface, except happy wasn't exactly the word. Padmé was amused and unexpectedly joyful. Deep down, underneath, she was profoundly worried: the Senate, the Republic. In the middle, on a level between the two . . .

"Oh," he said.

"All right?" she asked. As though it could ever be insufficient.

"Yes," he said. "I - you want cuddles?"

"We can watch the Geonosian General," said Padmé; before he made some comment about how Poggle had never been a general, and the movies were awful, she added, "And we can talk."

"Okay," he said.

They finished showering in a silence that ought to have been awkward, but was instead companionable. After they dried off and queued up the holo and bundled themselves in blankets, and the opening crawl was scrolling along the screen, Padmé said, "So. Do the thing, and keep doing it. You can't do this if you can see my face, and I can't do this if I can't tell how you're reacting. Okay?"

"Okay," he said. He was honestly more than a little worried; not that Padmé wanted to go, or wanted him to go, because in that case she'd have just said. Just generalized fear.

"The thing is, and please tell me if I'm wrong, but you don't . . . actually know how to have a healthy romantic relationship."

There was a pause. In the silence, his timer went off. Padmé blinked, and ther turned to muffle her laughter in his shoulder. "Well," he said. "You're not wrong. Still talking to my wife about our relationship."

"That's a good thing," said Padmé. "It took me a while to figure it out. Before you were - and now you're not making any demands of me at all, which is better, but also you're not making requests, even for things you need, and that's not better."

"I'm already getting what I need," he said. This was true: even in the worst case, Padmé was alive and was going to remain alive.

"Um," said Padmé.

"What?"

"No you're not? But I - you aren't not asking for something you know you need. That's - better. Less unhealthy. You should know that hugs are okay. I mean. Not for Jedi, but you keep saying you're not a Jedi, so. Hugs are something you can have, whenever you want. You just have to ask."

"Okay?" he said, completely baffled.

"You like cuddles," said Padmé. "Possibly more than you like sex."

This was true. Sex was wonderful - sex was the normal way to express physically everything he felt about her - but he really did enjoy curling up with her after. She kept asking for him to share what he felt anyway, without the physical intermediary, which was not the normal way to do it but had the distinct advantage of not being indecent in public. And also being about a thousand times more effective. "I. That's. Okay?"

"I just said it was," said Padmé.

"Oh. Whenever we're in public?"

"Not in the middle of a firefight," said Padmé. "But up to and including inside the Senate dome, hugging and light kissing and handholding are all encouraged."

It was becoming increasingly difficult not to kiss her. "Right now?"

"Just a little," said Padmé. "I want to watch the holo."

He kissed her, perhaps more than just a little, but less urgently than he would have if he were trying to convey his awed love with kisses alone. As it was, he didn't have to; she knew, anyway. He pulled back. "Can I - is it okay if I just tell you I'm going to do the thing, and then do it?"

Padmé smiled. "Tell me that you want to, and then if I don't refuse, go ahead."

"I love you so much," he whispered, mostly into her hair.

"I know," she said. "I love you too. Now quiet, this is the funniest scene."

He shut up and watched the holo, but mostly what he did was hold his wife and wonder how in the galaxy he was lucky enough to have married her.

He woke up because someone has set him on fire, and that was not a metaphor. He'd been set on fire, during the single worst day of his life. It hadn't even been the worst part. But he knew being set on fire, and this was it. He screamed, which woke Padmé, and threw off the blankets to check what was burning.

Nothing was. The night air was cool against his skin. It felt good, because he still felt on fire, awfully, sickeningly so. Even if he knew the sensations weren't his; even if he knew it was some kind of attack. The knowledge was helpful, inasmuch as he was able to grit his teeth against it, rummage around for where the attack was coming from, track it back even as he pulled power to retaliate. It didn't take long in any case. Whoever it was wasn't even trying to hide, not even the most rudimentary of shields, and it was pathetically easy to connect -

He managed to wrench his attack away mainly by will, and screamed again as it was forced to ground in him. It stopped his heart; he restarted it reflexively and then sat there panting in the cool predawn light.

"Ani?" asked Padmé. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Kenobi's not."

The Council was already convening by the time he got to the central spire, Councillors in various states of wakefulness comming in. They were split on whether or not to even let him in until he said, "I will break down the door if I have to."

"Don't break the door," said Kolar tiredly. "Take a seat, Naberrie. Er. Naberries?"

He turned around to find Padmé, somewhat more put-together than he was. She raised an eyebrow. He turned back. "Thank you," he said, and swept inside.

They waited until everyone but Gallia was present - Gallia was apparently active shutting down a droid taskforce - and then Fisto said, "So what happened?"

"In grave peril Master Kenobi is," said Yoda.

"Someone set him on fire," he said, bluntly.

This caused a murmur. Yoda said, "Sure, you are."

"Yes."

"Felt the scream I did, but not . . . " Yoda's ears drooped.

"He only missed his check-in six hours ago!" protested Piell.

"Six hours," he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Pray you never have to spend six hours in a torture chamber with a Sith lord. You'd better pick someone else for his Council seat; Kenobi is out for the rest of the war. When were you going to tell me about this?"

The way the Council eyed each other was answer enough.

He sighed. "Right. I'm going to need a galactic map with current fleet dispositions and temporary command of the 212th."

"But - " began Rancisis.

"Let me rephrase," he said. "You still don't have any authority over me. I am going to attempt a rescue no matter what else you do. It will be vastly more likely to succeed, not to mention easier, if I'm not acting orthogonally to the GAR. The only question you have to answer is: are you helping me, or not?"

There was a moment of silence. "Yes," said Koon. "Naberrie, please rein in the Dark a little. If I can feel it from here, you must be frightening the younglings."

He took a deep breath, and reached for the Light. It wasn't easy, it never was when he was that enraged, but Koon was right: that wasn't a helpful emotion, just then. When he was done, he said, "Map. Fleet dispositions. A rapid courier ship for when I get a fix on his location."

"Can you get a fix on his location?" asked Windu.

"Not right now," he said. "I have to - look, it's Dark and a little bit theoretically complex. Just. When he next shouts, I'll be waiting; and we'll be able to move as soon as I have."

"What makes you so sure he's going to shout again?" asked Tiin.

"I am intimately familiar with Sith torture techniques," he said grimly.

He was right, too. Kenobi didn't shout again for another three and a half days. It was not a good indicator, as he explained to the Council on the afternoon of the second day: it meant that he'd been patched up in the interim, that the torturer wanted to keep being able to do this for a while.

"At least it means that we . . . have a little more time?" suggested Koon.

He looked at the Kel Dor coldly. "No," he said. "We're already much too late."

He did tell Ventress, of course. He had to. It wouldn't be fair to just leave without, at the very least, telling her where he was going.

She looked at him with her icy blue eyes for a long, long minute and then said, "I'm coming with."

"What? No!"

She rolled her eyes. "Calm down, hero. I'm not going after Dooku. I'm going along to make sure you don't do any of the million stupidly fearless things you're likely to do without me."

"Good," said Padmé. She was sticking close. He didn't know why; it wasn't like she was in any danger anywhere in the Temple.

"I'm not into doing anything stupidly heroic anymore," he said.

Ventress blinked, and looked to Padmé. Padmé shrugged, and jerked her head at him.

"Palpatine," said Ventress.

"The Senate," added Padmé.

"I," he said. "Fine. I will grant you the Senate. But I went after Sidious with Windu and Yoda."

"And I do still need you. Teacher," said Ventress. "You need another blade, anyway."

This was true. He sighed. "Yes, all right."

"Actually, you need a first blade," said Ventress. "When are you going to get on that?"

"I'm not," he said. "I don't need one."

He didn't, even when Yoda indicated that if he were to go spend a few hours in the crafts room of the quartermaster's, the Council would look the other way. Mostly what he spent those days doing, aside from making sure Ventress got enough meditation after her hours with Kanta, was in strategy. Padmé came too, and no one dared say a thing. Probably no one who were, technically, civilians should know quite as much as they did about the GAR, but it was necessary. Besides, Separatist space had fragmented into dozens of small territories. It really wouldn't be long, even if Dooku had finally come out of his hole. He helped a little, or tried to, with the reshuffle to cover the hole the 212th would leave; but by the time he made his suggestion, the brothers had taken care of it. They'd done exactly what he would have suggested, too, with one or two minor variations.

The ship was a modified YT-1300p, because of course it was. Actually it wasn't a bad choice for a rescue mission. It had plenty of extra space, even considering they were gutting one of the bedrooms to make space for two full-sized bacta tanks. He knew how fast the things were, or at least, could be if one was willing to disable a few safeties, and how maneuverable. And this particular one was armed to the teeth with some laser cannon that had clearly seen use and, unusually, a couple of electron torpedoes. He grinned on discovering that: electrons were electrons, of course, and antimatter was antimatter. And then there was the Force.

On the third day as he was heading to the ship, he met Ventress coming the other direction with a hovercart full of green things. He stared. "What."

"A girl gets tired of eating processed food all the time," said Ventress. "And my boys win awards. Don't you," she added, to the gaudy little fish in the aquaponics tanks. "But I can't leave them alone for however long it's going to be, and anyway I'm not taking them into a Skywalker-Kenobi disaster. They'll be safe enough here. And so will my ship."

Her ship was called the Banshee, and was clearly a fast pursuit craft. If it hadn't been far too small, he'd have suggested using it as their vehicle instead. As it was, he gaped. "You live on your ship?"

Ventress shrugged. "I don't mind a small space, as long as it's mine."

"Right. You take the other bedroom."

"Done."

Ventress was more than competent with turbolasers, so he left her to it. Padmé had taken over provisioning and getting the tanks set up. He was tuning the engines. They'd replaced the hyperdrive motivator with a new class 1.3 T-19, and despite the circumstances he was excited to try it out.

He'd just closed the casing and was turning to put the tools away when the second scream hit him. This time, it wasn't Kenobi being set on fire. Intellectually, he, knew that of course it wouldn't be, torture had to be varied for it to work. There was a kind of dull background pain that suggested a beating, and a much more immediate pain that suggested someone was, deliberately and precisely, breaking every bone in Kenobi's right hand.

That was helpful to him, though. There was no way anyone could break any of the bones in his right hand; his actuators were steel. He was therefore much more able to separate the pain from himself and track it back to the source. At the same time, he turned on his comm to record.

Kenobi was surprised to sense him, along with a distinct flavor of incredulous disbelief. It probably meant Kenobi was wondering if he were a hallucination. He pulsed back love, and reached into the Force to get his vector. Once he had it, which really didn't take all that long, he pulled on the Light and wrapped Kenobi in it. The sense of Kenobi abruptly cut out as the Jedi caught on and began meditating.

Well. Good for him.

He cleaned and packed away the tools, and then cleaned himself up, and then checked went to get R2-D2 to do the back calculations and find where his vector went. He blinked - it was there, and the Force was still as subtle as a brick to the hindbrain - and went to go inform the Council.

They didn't lift until the next day, and he could tell they were only able to do that because half of medical and more than a few from the quartermaster had pulled an extensive all-nighter to get the bacta tanks set up and all the supplies loaded and stowed. He was up early to meet Ventress on the pourstone.

He blinked. "No," he said.

"Yes," said Padmé.

"Padmé, I can't protect you and protect Kenobi simultaneously - "

"I think it's a great idea," said Ventress. "I want someone to lay down proper long-range cover, to watch my back while I'm watching yours."

"But who is going to watch her back?"

"We're rendezvousing with the 212th, aren't we?" asked Padmé. "We're not assaulting Dooku in his own home with just the three of us. They can watch my back."

"No."

"Ani. How are you going to stop me from walking onto that ship?"

He blinked. She walked past him. He said, "Padmé, please."

"He's not my brother," said Padmé. "But he's my brother-in-law, and my friend, and I am not staying here. Ani - empathy, now."

He took a deep breath to avoid shouting at her, and felt around her emotionally. She was absolutely determined, do-or-die determined, to see this through; and underneath that, pervasive worry that tasted a little like him but mostly like Kenobi. "Oh," he said.

"Yes," said Padmé.

"I want to state, for the record, that I still don't think you should come."

"Noted," said Padmé, and kept going up the ramp.

He's have turned to follow her, except for the two totally unexpected people walking towards them. He said, "Ky. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I have no idea," said Migs Ky. "Master Yoda just grabbed me and told me to pack for a couple of weeks and come along."

"Yoda, what the hell is Ky doing here?"

"See the worst of the Dark side Ky must," said Yoda serenely.

"I am not taking a youngling into a fight with Dooku!"

"Passed his Initiate's Trials Ky has. Of age to be a padawan he is. Tano you took many times into fights. Some with Dooku."

"Yes, because the entire kriffing Order is clearly insane, and me right along with you," he said. "I don't do padawans anymore."

"Except Ventress," said Ky.

"Ventress is an adult, and also, if I refuse to teach her, she's going to die. Once she's done, she made it pretty clear, her plans don't involve staying."

"Oh," said Ky. "Look, if I'm not coming, can I go now?"

"Yes," he said.

"No," said Yoda. "Coming with us, you are."

He folded his arms. "Are you taking responsibility for protecting him?"

"Protect himself Ky can."

"Forgive me if I doubt that," he said. "But he's nowhere near ready to go up against Dooku."

"Few are," said Yoda. "But keep a learner from a needful lesson you will not."

"What lesson?" he shouted.

"Of the Sith," said Yoda.

He narrowed his eyes. "No."

"Teach it you will, then?"

"No!" And then, more quietly, "Not to a thirteen-year."

"Needful it is that the knowledge now he has. A truth this is."

And the thing was, Yoda was absolutely right. Ky had to be able to make an informed decision. He turned and glared at the pourstone landing area. "Any other people I don't want to bring along who are coming anyway?" No one answered. "Great. Yoda, why are you coming?"

"My padawan Dooku is."

" - oh. Yes. Of course." If anyone had a right to see this to whatever end, Yoda did. "Well. Come on, then."

There were three bedrooms, but of course one of them had been turned into a functional triage hospital. Ventress and Padmé had each picked one of the others, and he was not brave enough to try getting Ventress out of a space she'd claimed. "I think you'll have to take the crew berths, in Engineering," he said.

"No matter," said Yoda. Any of the bunks dwarfed him. And even for a person of Ky's size, the bed would be comfortable and dark enough with the privacy canopy down.

He and Padmé would probably end up in two bunks just because they wouldn't fit in one. He didn't like the thought.

Once they got everything stowed, he called everyone to the cockpit to strap in for takeoff. There were only four seats in the cockpit, which was a problem Yoda solved by gluing himself to the ceiling.

"Why is there a child?" asked Ventress.

"Ventress, Migs Ky. Ky, Ventress. Yoda brought him."

"Right," said Ventress, while he did preflight. "Why is Yoda coming?"

"Wish to I do," said Yoda.

"As long as you have our backs," said Ventress, and turned to join him in preflight. His timer went off in the middle of doing that, and Ventress gave him an irritated look while he recited his current goal, which was rescuing Kenobi, and reset it.

The launch went smoothly, at least. They made a short micro-jump in-system, to check the motivator. It screamed the way they all did before abruptly settling. He smiled, and said, "All right. We're doing this in three steps: one to the inner mid-rim to join up with the Negotiator, and then the second on board the Negotiator to get to our final destination. We'll stop in-system but outside of sensor range, and we five - along with a squad or two of volunteer troops - will make the final approach in hyperspace until we're suborbital. The new motivator can handle the calculations, although I'm not going to be turning the safeties off until just before that final jump. Any questions?"

"Can I not come?" asked Ky.

"No," said Yoda. "Educational, it will be."

"I thought so," said Ky, glumly.

"Great. The Negotiator is coming corewards to meet us. The rendezvous is in seventy-nine hours. We'll spend that time in training and meditation. We don't have room for real sparring, unfortunately, but we can at least show Ky how to defend himself. And hopefully Ventress will have a breakthrough on the way."

Ventress sniffed. Padmé laughed. He said, "Returning to hyperspace on my mark. Three, two, one . . . Mark!"

The first day went like this:

He and Ventress ran through the moving meditation using the polished wooden staves they'd brought along just for that reason. Ky and Padmé watched. Yoda sat quietly and said nothing. It wasn't like there was anything to see anyway.

"I don't get it," said Ky after a while. "What is the point of this?"

Padmé shrugged. "Something about Ventress and meditation."

"I can't do it on my own," said Ventress crisply.

"Really? But it's easy!"

"Yes, thank you for reminding me that I never learned the things that Temple crèchlings are taught," replied Ventress. "Don't talk to me again until you have something constructive to say."

Ky shut up. Padmé said, "Asajj!"

"Padmé," said Ventress back.

He was never, ever going to ask. Instead, he moved to hit Ventress over the head with his stick. "Talk later. Meditation now."

They went through the movements another couple-dozen times, and then stopped. Ventress made a late lunch, although she sniffed derisively at the quality of ingredients available.

"At least they're not ration bars," he said, and ate his.

"Much better," agreed Yoda.

"Ration bars," said Ventress.

"Thank you," said Padmé.

After lunch, they sat down to actually meditate, and Yoda and Ky sat down too. After about fifteen minutes Ky stopped and asked, "Why are you burning?"

He opened one eye. "What?"

"You keep, um. Burning - Miss Ventress - with the Light. Why?"

"When I tried doing it gently she yelled at me," he said, and closed his eye again.

"Can I try?"

He opened both eyes. "Ah?"

"I mean. Aside from doing it on someone else, it doesn't look hard. Can I?"

"We'd have to ask Ventress," he said. "Later. She does not like to be interrupted."

"Okay," said Ky. "I'm going to take a shower, then."

He settled back down with a mental sigh.

Fact: It probably wasn't unhealthy for Ky to not be meditating hours at a time. He'd had one minor issue, which they'd already worked out.

Fact: Yoda was certain of the decision Ky would eventually make. He himself was not so sure.

Fact: He didn't want that particular responsibility, ever. He was not good at it. But there was no one else; it was going to have to be him.

Fact: He really, really did not want to have to fight the Council on this; but it was now out of his hands.

Ventress poked him in the forehead. "Naberrie. Come out of there. We're cooking."

"We are?" he asked.

"Well. I'm cooking, and I can use a sous chef."

"Okay," he said. "What does a sous chef do?"

"Chop onions," said Ventress.

In fact what a sous chef did was all the boring parts of cooking: washing vegetables, peeling, chopping, keeping an eye on things so they didn't boil over, deboning, washing dishes. But it all had to be done, and it gave him a chance to watch Ventress. She was a kind of conductor, hardly moving at all while around her things popped and sizzled and steamed. "Like what you see?" she asked, without turning to look at him.

"How did you learn this?" he asked, which wasn't an answer but also kind of was.

"What are you going to tell me in return?"

"Ask something. I'll tell you if that isn't something I'm willing to answer."

Ventress nodded. "Fair. My first master taught me a little, before he was killed, but he wasn't good at it. And then people kept trying to poison me, so I stopped trusting food other people made. It took me about a week of eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to decide to learn how to cook properly. What was your name, as a Sith?"

His lips quirked into half a smile. "Very pretentious: Darth Vader."

"Palpatine, then."

"Sidious," he said. "Palpatine was only ever a mask."

"Mm. Am I right in guessing Dooku was never meant to survive?"

"You have to answer another question for that," he said.

"Done."

"I don't think never. Sidious liked having contingencies, the more the better. If he hadn't been able to turn me, probably he'd have kept Dooku. As it was, though, you're right. I murdered Dooku. That was a terrible mistake, and one I don't plan to make again. Ky wanted to know if he could try assisting you with meditation."

"That's not a question."

"It's a request, then."

"Why?"

"It's interesting to me. I think you should. At worst, it doesn't work. At best - "

"I'm not reliant on you specifically," said Ventress. "Although the Jedi in general still have a leash. How long is this going to take?"

"It's been two weeks," he said. "And you've made better progress than I did, starting out."

"Thanks," said Ventress, and seemed to mean it.

"You're welcome," he said.

Dinner was duck soldiers, breaded and pan-fried; red rice; onions and snap peas and mushrooms, stir-fried; and a sort of sweet gelatinous egg-milk thing for dessert. Ky ate two, and said, "We never eat this well in the Temple!"

"That's because the Temple kitchens have to feed ten thousand people. They can't afford to do fiddly impressive things. I hear you want to try helping me meditate."

"Uh. If that's okay?"

"We'll try tomorrow, after 'saber practice."

"Do or do not," said Yoda.

He rolled his eyes. "That is undoubtedly what will happen, Yoda. You can stop giving him pseudo-philosophical nonsense at any point."

"Nonsense it is? At me Master Windu shouted."

He sighed. "I'm sure he did."

"Why?" asked Padmé.

"I was needling him," he answered.

"There are less dangerous hobbies, Naberrie," said Ventress.

"Some points to be driven home, with an acoustic multitool if necessary," he said. "That was one of them. He didn't yell at me; he knew I was right."

"Right about what?" asked Ky.

"The appropriate attitude to take towards homesick nine-years," he said. "And anger. It doesn't have to lead to hate. It can, if you want to hate. On the other hand, it can also lead to me picking up a lightsaber and a couple of Jedi Masters and going to fight the most dangerous Sith in the galaxy." He shrugged. "It's all in the use."

"Are you going to do it again?"

"Possibly," he said. "I don't want to."

"That's a change," said Padmé.

"Yes, well. I've lived under the thumb of Sidious; I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

Later, tucked into their separate berths, Padmé said softly, "Did you mean that?"

"Mm?" he asked.

"About Dooku?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Some of the ways you changed are - not comfortable. And then some of the ways you changed are like this. I . . . like you better now. This person you've become."

"Oh," he said; but, in the dark, he was smiling.

The second day went like this:

He woke up, ate breakfast, and tried to see about fixing Ky's stances. He'd expected Ventress to help, but she said, "No; I'm going to find a mouse."

He blinked. "This is a ship, Ventress. We don't have mice."

"We have at least one," said Ventress, and left.

He and Ky did stretches, and then he walked Ky through first the simpler stances, then the complex ones. When doing it slowly, Ky was perfect. When doing it quickly -

"Stop dropping your point," he said, tapping at the boy's shoulder. "If this were a real battle, doing that drops your guard enough that I can decapitate you."

"Um," said Ky, but held his 'saber higher. "This doesn't feel right. Off-balance, somehow."

He looked at Ky's feet, which were firmly planted well wide enough to support the stance. Then he checked Ky's torsion, which was almost nonexistent. He walked around, trying to find the place where the balance was off. He found it on the second circuit. "Huh. Good catch. Raise your left elbow, mm, five centimeters."

Ky did. "Oh. That's how it's supposed to work?"

"Don't drop your point," he said.

They went on like that for perhaps a hundred and forty more minutes, and then Ventress came back. This was not the problem. The problem was that she was frog-marching someone with her, and it wasn't Padmé and it wasn't Yoda. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Our mouse?"

"Mm," agreed Ventress. "What are we going to do with him?"

"Send him home," he said.

"No!" objected Han Solo. "I want to help beat up the bad guys!"

"Too bad," he replied. "You are so very grounded, Han. I am going to go comm your mother, who must be terrified by now; and I'm going to comm the Negotiator, so they'll have a transport ready to take you back to Coruscant when we arrive. In the meantime, you are going to sit down and shut up and not talk at all."

"But - "

"No, Han. Not a word."

"Who is he?" asked Ventress.

"My therapists' son," he replied. "I really do need to go make that call. Do you want to take over with Ky?"

"No," said Ventress. "Ky. We'll do moving meditation."

"Okay?" asked Ky.

"But - " said Han again.

He let his irritation show in his eyes, and said, "No. I am hovering on the edge of being angry with you, Han. Try to avoid that. I'm not a heroic person when I'm angry."

That finally seemed to do it. Han sat down. Ventress went to go get the staves. He went to engineering and placed a call to Coruscant.

It took more than a few minutes to get Solo, and when he did she sounded exhausted. "Oh, Naberrie. I'm sorry, I'm just - "

"The good news," he said, "is that we have your son. That's also the bad news."

There was a pause. "He stowed away."

"He stowed away."

"Okay. What's the plan?"

"Put him on a shuttle when we rendezvous with the Negotiator, and send him home. You were my first comm, because I knew you had to be frantic. We've got him; he's fine, aside from being an idiot. It will be alright."

"I," said Solo. "Thank you. You can't imagine - "

"I can," he said. "You don't have to thank me. It's the only reasonable thing to do."

"Yes," agreed Solo. "Thank you, Naberrie. Solo out."

He blinked. Then he commed ahead.

Cody just stared at him for a long, long moment and said, "Only you."

"You don't get to blame this one on me," he said. "This is all the media's fault. Why did they pick me to be the hero, anyway?"

"Because you have visible feelings," said Cody.

"Oh." He couldn't argue that. "As opposed to Jedi, who go out of their way to be as robotic as possible without actually being droids, I get it. Ask around, okay? Someone has to take him home. Someone who's already injured, maybe?"

"Yes, sir," said Cody.

"Also, don't call me sir. I'm not anyone's commanding officer."

"For this mission, you are," said Cody. "I . . . is it. I mean. Can you tell how Rex is?"

"I can tell he's not dead, and that's it. Who was with them?"

"Tano, Kix, Echo, Fives - "

"Domino, got it," he said. "Tup?"

"Er. Who?"

"Um. Right. Hasn't happened here," he said. "But keep an eye out for him. He wasn't a speedy, so unless he died in the weeks between me showing up and me figuring out the code thing, he's running around somewhere."

"The hell?" asked Cody.

"I did say. if we're calling it a vision, it was, subjectively, twenty-four years long. I keep remembering things that haven't happened yet. Tup only joined the 501st in the last year of the war - this coming year, if we're mapping time-to-time."

"Ah. Tup?"

"Long hair. Crazy. Perfect fit in the 501st."

"I'll keep an eye out," promised Cody. "See you in a couple of days, yeah?"

"Yes. Naberrie out."

He went back to the common room, where Han was tied to chair and Ky and Ventress were doing . . . he didn't even know what to call it. Moving meditation, or a battle in slow motion, or both simultaneously. Instead he asked, "Why is Han tied to chair?"

"Because he wouldn't stop talking," said Ventress, without taking her eyes of Ky.

And he was gagged, he saw, now that he could see Han's front. "Ky. Ventress." He waited until they stopped. "That is not an appropriate response to someone annoying you."

"I told you he wouldn't be happy," said Ky.

"You're a horrible role model," he informed Ventress, and went to go untie the gag.

One it was untied, Han said, meekly, "Thank you. I'd like some water, please."

"Mugs over by the sink," he said, and got to work on the fact that Han was still stuck to a chair. The knots were, he was pleased to see, properly done: above and below the joint so as not to restrict blood flow, and also without any leeway. He could've gotten out of them, but Ventress probably couldn't. "Ky: I'm giving you this one pass, but in the future, when you see someone doing something wrong, you stop them. Ventress: there are better ways to get people to stop talking than tying them up and gagging them, so don't. Just. Don't."

"You have to show me one of the better ways, teacher," said Ventress.

He sighed, but it was a fair request if she honestly didn't know, and given what he knew of her life, she probably really didn't know. "Alright. As you were."

Ventress nodded,and turned back to Ky. He finished untying the knots, and Han got himself a cup of water, which he sipped slowly. "What are they doing?"

"Learning," he replied absently.

"It's boring," stated Han.

"Mm," he said. "If the only two options are 'boring,' and 'being shot at by droids with blasters,' I will take boring every single time."

Han thought about this. "Is there - not boring and also not dangerous?"

"You mean fun?"

"Yes!"

He sighed. "Not on this ship. I . . . have watched some of the stuff. I mean. Padmé likes watching Hero With No Fear holos."

"Yeah?" asked Han.

"Let me tell you," he said, "about the actual rescue of Ryloth."

Han was subdued that night at dinner. So was Ky. He looked at them both, and then to Yoda.

"Learned an important lesson, Ky has," said Yoda.

"Great," he said, softly. "So has Han." He'd spent several hours talking. It wasn't stuff the Council didn't already know, so he'd thought it had been fine. It wasn't fine: he was hoarse with repressed tears. Padmé had come in partway through, and without a word sat down next to him and started hugging. A couple of times she'd had to stop him and remind him that Han was still just a kid, and perhaps didn't need to know all the details.

"I desperately need to meditate," he added.

"You need to wash the dishes," said Ventress.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay." Well, Ventress was really the only one them who could cook. Obviously she didn't have cook and clean up.

But after dishes he sat down to meditate, and Ky sat down to get Ventress to meditate. He did it a different way, like pulling the Force through her instead of starting with bunch of it and shoving it at her. It worked, even more than his method. So he let himself settle.

Fact: The war had been shit. Ryloth had just been a different shitty part of the entire shitty war.

Fact: He'd still been trying to be a Jedi then, and he had never been good accepting emotions and then letting go. He'd gotten good at repression instead.

Fact: This was clearly not one of the things he'd cleared out, not on the Conquest, not on the Executor, not on either Death Star, and not during his inadvertent coma.

Fact: It was going to be another coma, probably, as he unpacked and worked through all the other parts of the war he hadn't dealt with. Hopefully a short one, since this time he had a goal going in.

That last thought was grimly humorous enough to kick him out of meditation. Since when had his life ever gone to plan? But at least this time he could probably give the doctors a better heads-up, and avoid the round-the-clock watch.

Later, though. He had a brother and a padawan and some brothers to rescue right now, and a Sith lord to arrest. Also, the timer was going off again.

Chapter Text

The third day went like this:

After breakfast, Ky and Ventress got out the sticks to do their slow-motion battle. He and Padmé would have joined them, but the common room was really not all that big. So it was him and Padmé and Han and Yoda watching, and him and Yoda commenting. Ky was, at least, not dropping his point. Ventress kept trying to pull movements that would have worked at full speed, but didn't this way, and looked irritated every time he called her on it.

But, and this was the important part, Ventress was getting better at packing away her emotions and getting on with it. Sooner or later, she wouldn't need help.

After a couple of hours, Ky started missing the basic footwork, so he tapped the boy out - and motioned Yoda to step in.

"Your training dummy, I am not," said Yoda.

"None of us thought that," said Ventress.

"Nevertheless. Senator Amidala, perhaps."

"Can I try?" asked Han.

"No," said Ventress.

Padmé frowned at her, but stepped forward. Actually they slid into an easy rhythm together, neither one trying very hard to win the slow-motion not-spar, adding playful little flourishes that would never have worked in a real fight. They went like that for an hour, maybe more, before his timer went off and Ventress said, "Break. I have to start cooking."

"Can I help?" offered Padmé immediately.

"No; I'll take Anakin, he's actually learning how to cook. You can start with the mouse, if you want."

"I'm not a mouse!" protested Han.

"Small and grey and hiding in the ventilation when I found you," said Ventress, and handed him her staff. "Up."

They made sandwiches, and after lunch he lined up against Han. Han was a normal eight-year, as opposed to a Jedi eight-year, which meant his attention span was awful and he couldn't hold a stance to save his life. But Ventress wanted a break, and he couldn't argue she didn't deserve one. She didn't need to meditate at all, which was progress of a sort. He couldn't tell what he was doing wrong that she wasn't taking that last step. Then again, maybe at the time he'd been stuck at this point for months, and hadn't noticed. He kind of really wanted her to get over it so they could get to the fun stuff, real emotions that weren't all hate and fear.

He was loosening up, just getting into the rhythm of it, when Kenobi's presence abruptly flicked back into existence in his mind. Oddly, given the situation, Kenobi was not screaming in distress this time. He was just curious. Ventress hit him over the head.

"Stop that," he said, and sat down heavily, stick clattering off to the side. "Kenobi's - back in contact."

"In pain?" asked Yoda.

"No," he said, frowning. Not like pain was better, but . . . "Not at all. He's trying to ask a question. And I can feel Ahsoka too." It was faint, the fading echo of a whisper, but it was definitely her.

"Answer them you should."

"Yes, thank you. It's not like I'm suddenly telepathic. I have receptive and projective empathy. Emotions are the only thing I get from this." Even as he said it, he projected love and concern at Kenobi.

"You're not?" asked Han in the background.

"None of us are," said Ventress, sounding resigned. "Where do they get these ideas?"

"Hero With No Fear holos," said Padmé.

Kenobi's response was amused assurance, followed immediately by a very brief spike of Ahsoka's exasperation. So Kenobi wasn't as fine as he wanted to seem: what else was new? Ahsoka, on the other hand, seemed to be actually fine. That was a profound relief, and also interesting in another way.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and the pushy, mostly-angry sense of Ventress joined him. He felt Kenobi's surprise first, and then realized that she was piggybacking on him the same way Ahsoka was piggybacking on Kenobi. The surprise was quickly stifled by Kenobi's particular brand of dry amusement, and a pointed interrogative that was probably directed at his sanity. Out loud he said, "Well, he's got you. Yoda?"

"Mm," said Yoda, but his dry, papery hand landed on his organic arm. There was a brief pulse of Light, and then the connection went away. Of course it had to; sustaining emotion in the face of Yoda's calm acceptance was impossible.

Ventress snorted. "That didn't work."

"Feel me I think he did," said Yoda. "Therefore the message received was."

"That we're on the way?" asked Ventress. "That's not a good thing; that knowledge can be tortured out of him now. And I wanted a longer conversation than exchanging hellos."

"I can try again right now," he pointed out.

But the connection proved impossible to reestablish. He was pretty sure it wasn't on his end; but it would look the same if it were, or if Kenobi had overextended himself, again, and was now unconscious. It was frustrating. Fortunately, he didn't have much time to worry, because Ventress tried to slam a wrecking ball into his brain. He reflexively counterattacked, which resulted in Ventress with a nosebleed, sprawled on the floor and laughing helplessly. Then it turned out Ventress didn't even know the rudiments of Force-healing and Yoda sat her down for that and hauled Ky over to keep shooting Light at her whenever she got too angry, which was always.

"Why would you even do that?" he asked, one her nose was once again not-broken.

"It shouldn't work better if we're farther apart," answer Ventress. "So I wanted to practice."

He stared at her, then blinked. He sighed. "Don't do that without warning. I'm much more likely to react with a deadly strike. We'll work on it once you can reliably read other people's emotional state."

"I'm not the most empathetic of people."

"Yes," he said. "Exactly."

"You can practice on me," said Padmé. "I mean. If you want."

"I think I will take you up on that," said Ventress. "Actually. Thank you."

But she was in no state to cook, so dinner was, rather unfortunately, reheated instant meals.

The fourth day went like this:

He woke up too early, again, because Han was up and he was twitchy. It was not that Han was impolite, or even loud: he'd been brought up with spacer etiquette, and knew to pull his berth canopy for privacy or late-night holo-watching or sleep. It was that he was incapable of sleeping with his berth canopy down, so even the slightly rumpled fabricy noise of Han getting up to use the 'fresher was enough to wake him.

He rolled over, went back to sleep, and was able to successfully doze until Padmé said, "Okay. Han's up, Master Yoda is up, Asajj is up, I'm up, time for you to get up too."

"Mmrph," he said, but sat up, blinking blearily.

Padmé said, "Are you okay?"

"I don't feel not okay," he said. "Just sore. I'd - only ever done that a few times before. I guess it was kind of a stretch."

"Oh," said Padmé. "Empathy, now."

She was concerned about him, a little sceptical of his explanation, but supportive. "The 'fresher is free. You look like you could use a shower. And then I . . . want to talk. Okay?"

"Always," he said.

He felt much better once he was clean, and squared himself before going back into their shared room. Padmé was sitting in her berth, reading from a 'pad, but sat up when he came in. "I guess I'll just go ahead and say this. I was much too young to be the Queen of Naboo. I think - I think we were maybe too young to be married."

He ignored the pang in his chest. "Not too young, exactly. There are people who get married at twenty and twenty-five and are perfectly fine. But we didn't really know each other well enough." He paused, then said, "To be really honest, we still don't."

"Empathy," she said. She was feeling a kind of bittersweet relief. "I still want you to my husband. I want you to be my husband more. We should know more about each other."

"Sure. I'm Anakin Skywalker Naberrie. My mother was killed for reasons that were probably not anti-colonial. I have no siblings genetically, a couple of brothers personally, and one point eight million brothers adoptively. And the best wife."

"One million, seven hundred ninety-six thousand," insisted Padmé. "They adopted you?"

"I think they decided, after the Senate, that I was, uh, worthy of it. I suppose that means you have the scariest family-in-law."

"I have something, all right," said Padmé dryly. "I'm Padmé Amidala Naberrie. I have one sister and one husband, who is probably actually the scariest person in the galaxy, but he's never made me feel less than perfect even though I'm not. I've made a lot of mistakes."

"Well, you're human," he said. "Are you going to fix them?"

"Yes!"

"Then it's fine," he said. "I like mechanical things best, and I'm a good pilot. You?"

"Watching cheesy holos. Shopping for clothes. I used to like pottery when I was little, but I haven't done any in, oh, more than a decade."

"Jewelry," he said. "We never talked about it."

"I did think about it, though," she said. "Gold isn't the right color. Brass, maybe."

He held up his right arm. "Like this?"

"Can you actually see the future?"

"Not like that," he said. "Subconsciously, in the moment, not years ahead. I just didn't like how inelegant the first one was, and I kind of. The color reminds me of late afternoon on Tatooine. The only thing about that planet that I miss."

"Not the only thing," said Padmé. "Didn't you have friends?"

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Yes," he admitted. "Kitster Bannai. I haven't thought of him in ages. I wonder what happened to him."

"We can find out," said Padmé. "And - if he is a slave still - "

"Then we go make an arrest, and have the sad excuse for sapient life that calls itself his master brought up on trial," he said firmly.

Padmé smiled, and laughed delightedly, and said, "Come here, you."

So they didn't get out of bed for real until afternoon, and took another shower each. Ventress rolled her eyes but didn't say anything. Han blushed and kept avoiding their eyes. Ky said, "I. Um. I'm sorry?"

"What for?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"I. Don't really have empathy, but you were - loud. Sorry."

He felt himself blushing. Beside him, Padmé said, "Yes? And what did you feel?"

"Love," whispered Ky. "Just - love."

"Then that's fine," said Padmé. "I am kind of hungry now."

"Lunch is almost done."

After lunch, Yoda started Ky on lightsaber practice. They'd downpowered the 'sabers, and we doing the stances very slowly, and also Yoda was hitting Ky with his cane and not his 'saber, but still. "You're going to need to cover more than basics," he said, and stepped back.

Yoda's cane passed through the air where his shins had been a moment ago. "You helping are not."

"I'll help when the Jedi Council decides I'm allowed to have a lightsaber again," he said, holding out his hands in protest.

"Fooling no one you are," said Yoda, and turned his attention back to Ky.

"Was I trying to?" he wondered aloud.

"I think you are," said Ventress. "And you're doing a fantastic job. Whatever the trick is, no one is going to see it coming."

"Oh." He smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, then."

Ventress winked at Padmé.

They watched Yoda and Ky until that got boring, and then his timer went off. While he was figuring out what he was doing just then, Padmé suggested a game of dejarik. Han agreed immediately, and turned out to be decent. Of course, it was a Corellian thing and a spacer thing, and Han was both, so it wasn't a terribly huge surprise when he trounced Padmé and Ventress in short order. By then Yoda was done with Ky, and the two boys sat down for a game. Ky was more a challenge for Han than both women put together.

"We're awful at that, aren't we?" said Padmé as she watched the two boys play.

"Mm," said Ventress. "I don't know why it bothers me. It's not like it has any real meaning."

He said, "Meditate on that."

Ventress rolled her eyes and said, "Come on, hero. I need someone to hold the Light for me."

Once they sat down for meditation Ky joined them; Yoda and Han and Padmé did not. Actually, it was good thing, because he kept slipping sideways into the Dark, still glowing with Padmé's continued desire to be married to him. It was lucky he didn't have any issues just then that needed dealing with, except for the big issue that they were already heading to resolve at several thousand times the speed of light. Ventress only sat still for maybe half an hour anyway, before she got up and said, "Tell me again that I'm making progress."

"You're making progress," he replied flatly.

"Thanks. You're not."

"I'm making progress in other ways," he said.

Ventress rolled her eyes, and made him chop onions. He wasn't even sure it was meant to be punishment, or that onions were delicious.

After dinner, they left Padmé and Yoda and Han to clean up, and went to the cockpit for the rendezvous. The transition from hyperspace was really as smooth as it was possible to get, and the Negotiator was waiting right where it should have been. He flicked on the comm.

"Negotiator, this is the fast courier ship Tenebrous, requesting docking clearance."

"Tenebrous, you have clearance. We've emptied out the fifth hangar for you; you're good to land."

"Thanks, Negotiator. Tenebrous out."

The docking went smoothly too. When they unsealed the locks and lowered the cargo ramp, it was to find Cody, Hack, Rail, and Skim waiting for him. He blinked, and then blinked again when the Dark came, and walked forward as fast as he could without running so he could hug Cody.

He'd known. Of course he had. But seeing the man here, alive -

"Uh," said Cody, uncertainly. "Naberrie. Body armor. Naberrie!"

"Right," he said, stepping back, smiling through his tears. "Sorry."

"Kriffing creepy," he heard someone say in the background.

"Your eyes are glowing," said Cody.

"I'm happy," he said, as Han appeared at his elbow. "Han, Commander Cody of the 212th. Cody, our little mouse."

Han sighed theatrically. "Am I going home now?"

"Yes," said Cody. "Skim's going to take you; we've got a Y-wing ready to launch."

"Cool!" said Han, as Skim stepped forward.

He watched as Han followed Skim. Cody said, "So this is you on the Dark."

"It's not like glitter, Cody," he said patiently. "It's a part of the Force, and a part of me."

"And you brought Ventress. What in the galaxy possessed you to bring Ventress?"

"Someone needs to keep his fool ass alive," explained Ventress, coming to a stop.

"Said it better, I could not," agreed Yoda. "Hello, Commander. Ready to jump we are?"

"As soon as Skim launches," said Cody, but he was looking over with new respect. He grinned; keeping Yoda and Ventress from fighting wasn't that hard. Yoda didn't want to, and so as long as Ventress was pointed at someone else . . . But he could see where it would be a surprise, to someone not expecting it.

"Right. New information," he said, "The short version: Kenobi made contact yesterday. He knows I'm coming and Ventress is coming, and possibly that Yoda is with us. Ahsoka is unharmed. I - don't know about anyone else."

"Got it," said Cody. "Are you taking quarters on the ship?"

He looked over at Padmé. "Is there a bigger bed?"

"We can shove a couple of mattresses together," said Cody. " - who's this?"

"Migs Ky," said Ky, holding out a hand.

"Someone's padawan?" asked Cody, taking it with the particular strangled tone of voice that was already tallying up people who were going to die protecting the shiny kid.

"No," said Ky. "Yoda just wouldn't let me stay home. I'm . . . going to stay on the Negotiator where it's safe. If that's all right."

"No," said Yoda.

Ky sighed. "See?"

"I see," said Cody, giving Yoda a look that the diminutive green master serenely ignored.

Behind them, the shuttle powered up and headed out through the ion shield. The blast doors closed behind it. "Ready to jump," called someone over the ships' comms. "All personnel, blue alert. We're jumping in three, two, one - "

"We have refreshments ready."

"And a longish meeting," he said. "You do realize it's very nearly night cycle for us?"

"Suck it up, Naberrie," said Padmé, walking by to greet Cody. "Commander."

"Other Naberrie," he said.

"I was Naberrie first," pointed out Padmé, and then took pity. "Amidala, please.

"Amidala, then," said Cody. "Come on. Debrief and then brief. And then sleep."

"Fantastic," said Ventress, but followed along willingly enough.

The next morning, which was actually evening by ship internal time, the five of them met in the hangar. There was plenty of room, so he was hoping to be able to make some progress on Ky. Yoda watched them go through warmups for a while before saying, "Stubborn, you are. Very stubborn."

"And your point is . . . ?"

Yoda sighed. "This particular 'saber it must be why?"

"Sentiment," he said.

"Attachment," said Yoda, and sighed. "Fine. Your 'saber, if you must have it," and flipped it over.

He pulled and caught it neatly. "Thanks," he said, and gave it a once-over. Someone had opened it enough to put a nanotracker on the inside of the casing, which was hilarious. He concentrated for long enough to make the thing die a pitiful and permanent death, and then turned the power dial all the way down before facing Ventress. "All right. Let's dance."

It was fun, actually, even if his muscles started screaming in protest only a few minutes in. That was not fair since it wasn't his fault he hadn't been able to practice lately, but the universe still did not care. He worked through it, and then, once his muscles started feeling floppy, he turned to Ky and lifted an eyebrow.

"No," said Ky, but got up, and put up with being run through basic exercises, faster and faster, until he flopped over and moaned, "Go ahead and kill me now."

"Not bad," said Ventress. "Not best, but not bad. We don't really have time to get you to being battle-ready. I think we should focus on defense."

"Agreed," he said, as Ky groaned. "But not right now. Master Yoda? You want a turn?"

"Mm. A request, I have."

"Shoot."

"Use the Dark, you will. So that countering it, I may learn."

"That's really not - " he began, and then stopped. There was a way to counter the Dark using only the Light; Luke had done it multiple times in a row, apparently without even noticing his attacks. "I don't know how to do that."

"But it can be done," said Yoda.

"Mm," he said.

"You want the Dark," said Ventress, stepping forward. "You get it."

It was good for her too, which was the only reason he allowed it. She was still angry, but she wasn't particularly angry at Yoda. He could feel the dichotomy wearing on her, and the strain of constantly being angry. She knew Yoda was going to win, and he did, and that was irritating but it didn't have the same effect on her as the same thing had on, for example, Ky. It was just exhausting, and a little bit sad.

Weirdly enough, Ky picked up on it too. Once he recovered enough, he came and sat with them to watch the match. By the end, when Ventress misstepped and Yoda disarmed her with a flurry of blows, he was frowning. "Why are you angry all the time?"

"Is there anything else to be?" she asked, pulling her 'sabers back to her hands.

"Yes!" And then, more slowly, "Like when - Master Naberrie fights you. He just has fun."

Ventress gave him a sharp look, but it was Padmé who asked, "You do?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "She's good enough to keep me from going completely dull, and I'm learning how to be a teacher besides. Also, don't call me master. I'm not."

Ky said, "You are so weird."

Padmé laughed.

Ventress said, "And you get Dark out of just having fun?"

"Using emotion to touch the Force is what the Dark is," he said, and shrugged. " - what?"

Ventress was just standing there, frozen-still. Then she started laughing. It took him a moment to catch on to it, because her laugh sounded like old, poorly-maintained machinery: harsh, and neglected. "Ventress?"

"And it didn't occur to you to tell me that, because you thought I already knew," she said, and kept laughing until she was crying with it. It was deeply disturbing.

"What?" he asked again. "What's wrong?"

Ventress closed her eyes. "Not a damned thing, hero," she said, and opened her eyes.

For the first time that he could ever remember, they were shining electrum.

He went to go talk to Cody. "Volunteers only," he said. "And they have to be people who are willing to work with Ventress and with me. She's . . . " He trailed off. He had no idea how to talk about Ventress. "Dooku tried to kill her."

"So she's friendly," said Cody. "At least for now."

"Yeah," he said, because that was accurate enough.

"And what about the kid? Ky?"

"Oh, Ky. He's fine. Well. I mean. Master Yoda is pretty convinced he's going to Fall, and wants him to be around me when he does, but other than that - " His timer went off. "Hold on, I have to do this. I am talking to Commander Cody about the strike team that's going to go rescue my brother and my former apprentice and my other brothers. Assignment from my therapist," he added, as an explanation.

"Okay. Question: are we just not killing anyone who is using the Dark anymore?"

"Uh," he said. "No. We're not."

"Do I get an explanation?"

He tilted his head. "You have a secure room?"

"That kind of secret?"

"That kind of secret," he said.

Once they were in Cody's triple-secure guaranteed-not-bugged room, he said, "So, the thing is, the Jedi are all fucking around in the, the gravity wells of stuff the Force lets you do. Once you understand it, you can start going on deep-space expeditions. I don't understand everything, but I understand enough to. Well. If I wanted to, I could, just as an example, kill everyone in the Corus system. In less than a day."

Cody was looking at him without blinking. "Does the Council know about this?"

"I told them," he said. "At volume. They'd better be taking it seriously."

"And did you also tell them how to do it?"

"In theory, but the practice requires a fair bit more insanity than most Jedi are willing to put up with."

"Kenobi?"

He laughed. "No, not Kenobi. Anyway, I'm not the same kind of insane that I used to be," he said. "To answer your question, why we don't just kill people who use the Dark anymore. All those horrible things? They will start happening on their own if there aren't enough people using the Dark to . . . diffuse it. It's like lightning earthing itself. Sort of. That is nothing like how it actually works, except on a metaphorical level."

"The hell of it is," said Cody, still staring, "that I can believe that. Let me put the word out. I can guarantee we'll get you the men you need."

"Thanks," he said.

This was probably why they acquired an audience while sparring the next day. Sparring with Ventress and Ky at the same time was kind of awful: he had to maintain two wildly different difficulty levels at the same time, and not overwhelm either one of them, and he was bad a it. It was most unfair to Ky, who kept having to disengage and circle around while he and Ventress thrashed it out. Because of this, the boy noticed and called time first.

Ventress blinked. The troopers were standing at ease, and some of them had gone to sit with Padmé and talk blasters. None of them were overtly hostile. Covertly, they were all directing glances at the three of them. He motioned a pause, and went over to one of them. "Alpha-seventeen. You're okay coming on this mission?"

"Sir," said Alpha-17. "I'll do what I have to for the General."

"Mm," he said, "No. We're not doing things that way anymore. Are you okay to come on this mission?"

There was a pause. "I. Need to talk to Ventress?"

He raised an eyebrow at Ventress, who came over. "Yes?"

"Ventress, Alpha-seventeen. You've met."

"We have?"

"You tortured me," said Alpha-17.

Ventress blinked. "Okay?"

"No!" sputtered Alpha-17. "Not okay! Torturing people is not okay!"

"I don't do it anymore," said Ventress, which was news to him. "What else do you want from me?"

"An apology would be nice," said Alpha-17. "I have permanent tissue damage."

Ventress' focus lasered in on him. "Show me."

"What?" asked Alpha-17.

But she was already way too far into his space, hand on his shoulder and eyes closed as she looked for the damage. "Ky. Come here."

"Healing?" said Ky.

"Yes."

"But you're bad at it."

"It's my responsibility," said Ventress. Ky sighed theatrically and went over to start threading Light through her. "I," said Ventress, eyes still closed. "Don't think I can fix this, actually. It's all inelastic fiber, not living tissue at all. But I can," she said, and did something else. He felt it because of the ions.

"Oh," said Alpha-17. "That's much better."

Ventress nodded, and stepped back. "I think that won't come back, but let me know if it does."

He looked around. About half the clones were looking really disturbed, and the other half were carefully not having any expressions at all. "Right, listen up," he said, not raising his voice but projecting it so that it carried, and also thinking very carefully about Padmé's silent, supporting presence. "The mission objective is to rescue High General Obi-wan Kenobi from Count Dooku. I'm not a Jedi. Ventress is not a Jedi. We're both going to be actively using the Dark. If that disturbs you, please remove yourself from this mission right now."

He waited, but none of the clones got up to leave. He nodded. "Over the next four days, we're going to be running as many mission sims as we possibly can. You all know my fabulous wife Padmé - " Padmé waved, " - and we also have Initiate Ky, who sucks at using a lightsaber. Both of them will be staying back with the group handling covering fire. Questions so far?"

"Is Yoda coming with?" asked a clone he didn't know.

"I am," replied Yoda, which caused only a small stir.

"Other points. One, someone is torturing Kenobi. Be aware going in that there's a decently high chance that he is not only going to be useless, he might require a medevac. As far as I can tell, Padawan Tano is unharmed, but that's subject to change. Two, we have almost no intel. We might get more in the next few days, but don't hold out for it. We don't even know if Dooku and Grievous are actually on-planet, though it makes our job much easier if they aren't." A small ripple went around the room. "Three, the environment is stupidly toxic, so we're all going to be training in full-seal environmental armor, no exceptions. Four, secondary mission objectives include apprehending both Dooku and Grievous. If someone can manage either one of those and takes a kill shot instead, I will find out and I will not be happy. People get trials. Are we clear?" No one said anything. "Okay. Good. Let's get started."

As it turned out, the biggest problem was finding some armor that Yoda and Ky could wear. He'd brought his, and they had clone-standard on board which sort of fit Ventress and Padmé, although it needed modification before it would seal properly on them. They even had Tano-sized armor, but Ky was not Tano-sized, and Yoda was tiny. They ended up having to fire up the printer, which took a few hours, and then a few more hours with fittings. But armor was armor, and he wasn't letting anyone not minimize their chances of taking a blast somewhere important.

They spent the entire first day just getting the troopers used to his eyes. Padmé said things like 'practicing synergistic Force-based and non-Force-based combat techniques' and 'situational awareness,' and 'lightsaber-based defense,' but really it was just getting them comfortable with the ways he and Ventress would start glowing. Plus Padmé spent some time demonstrating that if she wasn't the most accurate sniper they had, she won for a combined total of targets reduced to casualties while within the thing's rated range.

Also, it turned out, Ky was amazing with ricocheting blasts. So it was nice that there was one part of 'saber based combat at which he wasn't absolutely terrible.

The day after that he started bringing out the less weird of all the weird new things he knew how to do. Yoda helped, in that he'd been known to stick himself to things that were not the floor, and was doing it almost constantly now. The idea that someone other than Yoda had figured it out was not that odd. He was pretty sure it never occurred to them that he'd figured it out first and then explained it to the ancient troll. They took having down sometimes suddenly be in a different direction somewhat less well, but that was at least partially because of the things it did to one's inner ear. Two of them took themselves off the mission; "You need pilots if you're going to be throwing people around like that," one said as he left.

"I'm not doing any worse to you than I am to myself," he protested.

"And you're a pilot," said the clone.

"He has a point," said Ventress. Someone else snickered.

"Anyone else want off this mission?" he asked.

"Nossir!"

"Then we're continuing."

He was still not expecting it when four of them and Padmé approached him after training and outlined a brilliant maneuver that they thought they could pull off. It relied on the acrobatics of the 212th and a little gravity manipulation on his part, and would almost certainly result in rocket-propelled grenades without the rockets. He stared.

"I can't tell if that's a good thing or a very bad one," said Kait to Padmé.

"I'm trying to figure out which is more insane," he explained. "You, or the 501st."

"You, always," said Kait. "So, are we doing this?"

"We're doing this," he grinned.

It took them more than a few runs the next morning to figure it out, but then it meant they could aim grenades around corners. Combined with sticky grenades, it was going to be pretty fun.

"You're making us look bad," muttered Grok.

"Be better," replied Kait.

By the end of the day, they'd gotten that one down, and were more or less prepared for a run through as much of the facility as he remember. This was a problem, because he remembered more of it than probably existed in this time, and no matter how he tried he couldn't remember the order in which it had been built. The troops - two squads' worth, who'd elected to name themselves Panic Squad and Havoc Squad, Force help them - at least knew this, and were prepared for entire wings to be missing, and were coming in with him anyway.

That night, in bed, Padmé said, "Why brother?"

He could have pretended he didn't know what she was talking about, but he'd made it a policy not to tell lies, and never to Padmé. "He said, 'You were my brother.' When . . . after he won. Before he left."

"Oh," said Padmé, shocked and a little wounded. After a pause, she added, "We'll get him back."

He didn't object that they couldn't know that. They were going to make it true, even if the person they got back was not Jedi High General Obi-wan Kenobi anymore. "Yes."

They suited up and boarded the Tenebrous half an hour before they dropped out of hyperspace, the Negotiator cruising silently in the system's Oort Cloud. The system's sun was actually a quite pleasant golden-yellow, and the two gas giants a soothing green and banded white respectively. And then, of course, there was the other planet, the one tidally locked between its two much bigger siblings. It underwent constant squeezing as it moved in and out of the giants' gravitational dance, and in fact life was only made possible by the heat and periodic mineral flows brought to the surface by fresh eruptions.

He flicked on the Tenebrous ship's comms. "Alright, everyone. Last chance to get off this ride."

"Not you, Ky," added Yoda immediately. Ky wasn't even in the same room, but he knew the boy had rolled his eyes, just as he knew that Grok and Witch had replied in kind.

"Next stop," he added. "Mustafar."

Chapter Text

The micro-jump to Mustafar took only a blink, much less time than it took to explain to the motivator that, yes, he really did want to end the jump inside the planet's atmosphere. Then the ship lurched as it hit the atmosphere at a significant portion of the speed of light.

"Ablative shielding," said Ventress.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, most of his attention focused on not crashing, and also bringing the ship into a smooth glide over the facility. "Next time. Do you think he knows we're here yet?"

"Because atmospheric approaches at light speed are something you do on a regular basis?" asked Ventress, as the pourstone landing pad came into view.

"Probably not," he allowed, maneuvering them down. The landing lights were off, which was a good sign.

So was the fact that none of the droids were particularly alert. Between him and Yoda and Ventress, very few even got shots off before not really being droids anymore. Ky ricocheted the few blasts that did make it through. Padmé wasn't even having to fire. They moved quickly, all twelve of them, Luke's lightsaber an unfamiliar-familiar weight bouncing against his thigh. At least, they moved quickly until they hit the first time his memory failed him in a way that wasn't a blank stretch of wall where he remembered a corridor branching off.

"Which way?" asked Bitters, behind him, when he stopped.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember where the unexpected corridor would go, if it linked up to the structure he knew.

Yoda said, "Dooku to the left is."

"We're not here for him," he said. "But I think left anyway. Prisoner holding cells that way."

He was only mildly gratified when this turned out to be true, for two reasons. One, at the next turn, he felt immediately that they were getting further from Kenobi, but closer to Tano. So did Yoda from the way he frowned, although he didn't say anything. Two, someone finally caught on to the fact that they were there, and pulled the alarm.

"Sixteen minutes," said Alpha-17. "Even for clankers, that's pathetic."

"I wouldn't mind them being a little more pathetic," said Ventress.

The prisoner holding cells were arranged in a series of cul-de-sacs branching off a single main corridor. Finding the right one was no problem, but the blast doors had automatically sealed when the alarms started going off. They wouldn't stop anyone who was really determined, but even with a lightsaber they'd slow people down. He nodded to Ky to start cutting, and the brothers along with Padmé arrayed to cover him while he and Ventress took point and Yoda took the high ground.

The first two droidekas were very unpleasantly surprised by suddenly having Yoda drop behind them, but not for very long. The droids behind them didn't fare much better, and then there was a short wait while more droidekas were diverted to come fight them. The second group looked up, which was a little stupid now that Yoda had some still-functioning shields to be his cover. Ventress took advantage of the destruction to get up close and personal with a blaster turret or two; he finished it off with a lightsaber to the battery. Then Ky was through, and facing a familiar squad of brothers.

"What took you?" asked Rex.

"I thought we did pretty good," he said. "Considering. How many casualties?"

"None here," said Rex.

"You're joking," said Alpha-17.

Rex shook his head. "No lie. Whatever his game is, Dooku was . . . "

"He gave us as many bacta patches as we wanted," said Kix. "I did my best. Kenobi is still nuts."

"Yes," he said, and smiled. "Next: do you happen to know where your blasters are?"

"And my lightsabers," said one of the brothers, except it wasn't a brother at all. Ahsoka didn't really fit in full-size clone armor and it showed, but any armor was better than no armor.

"Not a damned clue," said Echo.

"Oh well. We'll picked them up off droids as we go," he said.

"Where are we going?" asked Rex.

"Well, I'd say back to the ship - "

"Not a kriffing chance," said Rex.

" - but I didn't think you'd agree. We're going to get Kenobi."

"And Dooku?"

"If the chance presents itself," he said. "Come on."

They went. Another group of droidekas met them on their way back down the corridor. They looked comically surprised at the group of them, now almost doubled in size, in the instant before Ventress engaged. He couldn't see her face through the helmet, but her fierce joy was loud enough; her eyes were certainly glowing. The droidekas went down, one-two-three-four.

Kix whistled. "Has she gotten better?"

"Not appreciably," he said.

"Not by Skywalker standards," agreed Ventress. "But those are crazy."

"Have you met him?" asked Rex.

"Children," he said. "Eyes up."

"And why are you making me do all the work, anyway?" asked Ventress, as they proceeded on down the corridor.

"You're having fun," he said. "I didn't want to interrupt."

She snorted, but it wasn't like she could actually disagree with him. "Pick up the slack, Naberrie," she said instead.

"This is so kriffing weird," said Dogma.

"Weirder for me than for you," he said. "Last I remember you were all dead."

"Later, he's going to hug you," Alpha-17 informed them.

"So weird," repeated Dogma.

He was ticking away turnings and corridors in his mind as they went. Every so often a few droidekas or a group of droids would reach them. Whoever was in charge was not particularly smart, because the better way to have done it would have been to have them group up and then all attack at once. As it was, no one was even getting winded taking out the couple-few clankers at a time, and they got closer and closer to the torture rooms, and also to Kenobi.

This was not a happy coincidence.

"Hold up," he said. The problem with droids in general was that they didn't support any more midichlorians than the average rock, and therefore as far as the Force went, didn't exist as entities. But he wasn't thinking about this like a Jedi, he was thinking about this like Darth Vader. Everything he had ever lived told him there were going to be several dozen blasters and slugthrowers and simple laser turrets waiting for them around the next corner.

"Yeah?" asked Grit.

"Some things," he said. "One: we're almost on top of Kenobi now. Two: around that corner is a door that leads right to a torture room, so be prepared for some gore. Three: also around that corner are a reasonably large number of droids - "

"Feel them you can?" asked Yoda.

He ignored the little troll. " - Four: I think it's time for a jump grenade. And no, I can't feel them. I just know how the excuse that Dooku calls tactics completely fails to work. Alright, who's jumping?"

"I am," said Padmé.

He gritted his teeth against his initial response, and his second response as well. She was the lightest person who'd practiced that maneuver, and he couldn't very well demand that someone else cover her after she'd already volunteered. "For the record," he began.

"You're not happy. Got it. Grenade."

Kait handed her a grenade, and he and Shiv cupped their hands to give her boost, and Padmé armed the grenade midair and twisted as he pulled her, and then dropped it almost gently. Kait and Shiv caught her; he applied some serious off-direction gravity to the grenade. A moment later, the explosion shook the hall, and also not a few droid parts flew past as debris.

"What the hell," stated Rex.

"I think I just came," said Hardcase.

"Move," said Yoda. "Safe it is."

He was right; none of the droids were still on their feet, and a few moments later, none of them were functional at all. All of Domino now had at least one blaster. Echo and Ahsoka had two each.

"Okay," he said. "Last chance to back out. Dooku's in there too."

"Yeah?" asked Alpha-17, hefting his blaster.

"No kill shots if we can just arrest him," he said, and opened the door.

He blinked.

"Come in, please," said Dooku. "All of you. I wouldn't want to have to repeat myself. And take off your helmets."

He took a moment to collect himself, and then stepped forward confidently. Kenobi was strapped facedown to a gurney, right arm in a cast and, to all appearances, asleep. Sedated. He waited until everyone was in the room and bare-faced before saying, "All right; you had something to say?"

"You brought your wife?"

"You. Had something. To say?"

Dooku picked a plastic oblong up off the little medical tray, and held it out so they could see. "You know what this is?"

His stomach plummeted. He knew, all right. "Who?"

"The technology has improved somewhat. It's a multitool. I can detonate half the people in this room."

"And you think this is going to make him loyal to you?" If so, it was stupid to tell all of them about it. It wasn't like Kenobi wouldn't cooperate with being captured and having the explosives removed; likewise, any of Domino.

"No," said Dooku. "I think it will make you loyal to me."

The credit chit very, very belatedly dropped, and he finally understood Dooku's plan. Such as it was. Of course he was going to give Domino all the bacta, and patch up Kenobi as soon as he'd gotten the man to scream. And it didn't matter if the people in this room knew about the detonators, because he was planning to capture them all and have more hostages. He should just reach out and snap Dooku's neck -

"And before you do anything clever," said Dooku, "be aware that it's a coded transmission, and only I know the key. I have the detonators primed now. If you do anything, I will begin setting them off. I'll disarm them once you show some loyalty."

Killing Yoda, or killing Ventress."Oh," he said. How dare this man try to make slaves of his family, much less him? He felt Dooku's surprise as his eyes went yellow, but he paid no attention. "That's. Definitely a plan." He had to keep Dooku from pressing that button. Anything else, for the next little while, was secondary. "I. Do have some questions."

Dooku nodded. "I'll answer, to a point. But then I expect you'll be ready for your first task."

He took a deep breath. "Okay. I guess the most important thing is, what are you hoping to accomplish? The war works as a long two-man con, but your man on the inside is dead. Even if you won you'd still lose. No one in the galaxy will bow, even a little, to Supreme Chancellor Dooku, much less Emperor Dooku."

There were at least ten detonators, and they had to be small and very specifically located, and were almost certainly transistor radios. He didn't know much about radios specifically, but he'd broken one recently, still had it on him. He could figure this out.

"Idiot boy," said Dooku, not making any move even when he began pacing around. "It was never about ruling. It was about reform."

"This the way to reform is not," said Yoda, which pretty much summed it up. "Slavery where once there was freedom? Padawan, better than this you are."

"I'd like to live in a world where that could be true," said Dooku. "I'm trying to make that happen. But everyone - even people like you, who should know better! - keep getting in the way!"

"And the end justifies the means?" he asked, softly. He had a handle on the radio, now. It wasn't a very complicated device, and he thought he could probably break it with huarong dao.

"Some things are necessary." Dooku didn't stop him from putting a hand on Kenobi's shoulder, enough to know the man was sedated but not in any kind of danger. Good.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Some things. Standing up in front of the Senate and calling them on their collective shit, for example. Did you ever even make an attempt to fix the system from the inside?"

There were a lot of transistors in the room, but only a handful that were inside of somebody, and they were all the single-electron silica-doped kind. He concentrated for a moment, and began moving the atoms move around. They were in crystals, which made it more difficult, but they also only had to move a few angstroms.

"Thirty. Years," snapped Dooku. "And all I have to show for it is one dead padawan and one insane one."

That was not the answer he'd been expecting. "Master Qui-gon died because Sidious needed him out of the way. Or didn't he tell you that detail?"

Dooku closed his eyes, then opened them and shook his head. "Qui-gon died because the Council continuously gave him the most difficult missions they could find!"

"That's . . . certainly one way of looking at it," he allowed. It was true, sort of. The Council gave people missions, and if they excelled, gave them more difficult missions in the same vein. Up until Naboo, Qui-gon had been one of the best troubleshooters they'd had. But even if he hadn't been murdered, he'd have had to have taken a break from fieldwork to raise the nine-year Anakin had been. "So you gave up on the Jedi, and then what? Why the war, Dooku? Why the Sith?"

It was slow going, though. It was a tiny amount of Force. Piconewtons of force, moving a few dozen atoms and ions around at time. Any more than the barest trickle, and Dooku might notice and carry out his threat. It was a risk he could not take. He had to keep him talking. Thankfully, Dooku seemed the talkative type.

"The Jedi way wasn't working! The Senate doesn't listen, to anyone. To common kriffing sense! But Senator Palpatine did. He showed me the corruption in the galactic government, and I convinced him to do something about it."

He rolled his eyes. "He let you think it was your idea."

"But it was working! The galaxy was unified, passing laws for the betterment of all - "

"Except for the millions of refugees, on both sides," he said, meeting Dooku's blue eyes with his own. "And the planets which are currently beset by pirates, because Judicial doesn't exist anymore. And the people who lost their lives' savings when the banks were deregulated. And the clones, and all the soldiers who aren't clones but died because no one knows how to fight wars anymore. More than sixty percent of the population, in total. Dooku, at what point did 'acceptable losses' start meaning more than half the population? When did 'acceptable means' start including torture? Kinapping?"

"Or," added Padmé from behind him, "the creation of three million slaves, born and raised? I'm actually really curious now."

"I," said Dooku. "There was no other way!"

There was a pause, during which he made a very interesting discovery. He could use it, he could just end it right at that exact moment -

But then he'd be Vader.

Never again.

Quietly, but with his eyes bright like glowing coals giving lie to the glacial calm of his words, he said, "There's always another way."

"Yes, I saw your trick in the Senate. The whole galaxy did. You may be assured I will have cause for you to use it again - "

"Why," he interrupted, "does everyone think I would do that? I Forced a vote, and made sure to have the eyes of the galaxy be on it at the time. That was all; that was enough. Dooku, Sidious lied. All Sidious ever did was lie."

"I know! Do you think I don't know? But it doesn't change the fact that the Republic is broken, systemically, corrupt at the core."

"And your brilliant plan is to smash the system," said Rex. "Wow. And I thought General Kenobi was insane."

"I was born a slave," he said, as he slid the last few atoms out of position. "Like every clone trooper in the GAR. If we don't think the Republic is so broken that it can't be fixed, and we don't, then you, Count Dooku, have no right to give up on it."

"Enough!" said Dooku. "I will take your criticism when it will do good, but not otherwise! Ventress, Skywalker. Kill her."

The laughter started a skirl of something warm and lilac in his stomach, and gained force as it moved outwards. He didn't even try to stop it, just let it come. He was remembering someone else saying 'kill him,' in exactly that tone of voice. That person, of course, had always had a contingency plan; Dooku was looking, at best, nonplussed, and also wasn't looking at him. Behind him, there was the slight clatter of armor as someone shrugged. He said, "No."

"What?" asked Dooku.

"No," he said, still giggling. "That's not going to work."

"Naberrie - " began Ventress.

"I won't fight for you, Dooku. And I won't fight you, either."

"Then your friends die!" Dooku pressed the button, which did absolutely fuck all. He frowned, and pressed it again, then looked up from the device, eyes narrowed.

"What did you do?"

"Really, I don't see why you thought trying use any kind of sensitive electronic device against me was going to work. Not in this universe. Incidentally, there were also four separate detonators inside of you. One of them was wired up to a vial full of dormant bacteria. The vial is still there, and it's sort of moulded in against the fourth rib on your left side. Just so you know."

"Why are you telling me this?"

He shrugged. "Sidious never played nice with his toys, but . . . death by anthrax plus a massive dose of tetrodotoxin to the heart. Nasty way to go. You're welcome."

Dooku moved fast, he'd give the old man that. Dooku was still not trying to kill him, which meant he was never going to win. He probably wouldn't win even if he were attempting murder, but he never would without that killing intent. He looked down at the red lightsaber, then looked back up. "Seriously. You weren't good enough to beat me twenty-three years ago. You definitely aren't good enough to beat me now. That's assuming you can even get me to fight, which you can't. If you want a platform? The best thing you can do for yourself, at this point, is to be arrested."

Dooku sneered. "By you? I think not," he said. "Grievous!"

Grievous dropped. He wasn't even sure where the cyborg dropped from. The room didn't have any air vents big enough for him to hide in, and the cape should have been obvious against the white ceiling. He looked up as Grievous began his posturing, and said, "Khagan Qymaen. Gu anat Kaleel shafattabossu ke?"

Grievous stopped. If he'd been capable of an expression, it probably would have been shock. As it was, his eyes widened, then narrowed again. "Gu anat Kaleesh dhurrat?"

"Not really. I can say about five things," he answered, slipping back into Basic. "And one of them is 'An Kaleesh aggadhurran.' Even so, it was a serious question. Gu anat Kaleel shafattabossu ke?"

"Kalee is dead to me."

"I am aware, khagan."

"And I am no longer Qymaen."

"Do you think I care?" he asked. "I. Much, much later, when I was reading up on all the stuff that had been done to me, your name - both of them - came up a lot in the reports. Many of the techniques used were pioneered on your mostly-dead carcass. If they hadn't been, if that medical knowledge hadn't been available, I would have died on that operating table. Well, I mean, I did anyway six or seven times, but you understand. In a way, you saved my life. " He let that sink in. Grievous might not understand mercy, but he understood debts. "I cannot spare you, for all that you've done. But I can do something."

"In return for?"

"Grievous!" called Dooku.

He ignored the old man. "Put down your blades. Loose that shell, and get a more comfortable one. Stand up under the light of the galaxy and tell them was done to your people, and how you and your izvoshra retaliated and why, when the Republic came upon your war, they found you attacking and killing Yam'rii -

"Huk!"

" - civilian younglings," he finished. "I am aware that this is one place where Kaleel morals and the broader morals of the Republic don't mesh, but at the very least, you must admit your people are outnumbered. Millions to one."

Grievous snorted. "The Republic doesn't even live up to its own morals, and it wishes to impose them on Kalee?"

He nodded, accepting the point. "They at least aim higher than childish squabbling and petty revenge, even if they do not often succeed. You must tell them about the unjustice you received at the hands of those who call themselves wise. Tell them the truth; and I'll also tell the truth about the ways you were manipulated, body and mind, to the best of my recollection. It was not a short list. You know they did mess with your brain after all? This is not a surprise to you?"

"Hhh. I know."

He said, "You won't be spared, khagan; but Kalee will be."

"I," said Grievous, but he'd stopped stalking around. "Can I trust your word?"

"I don't know. My word isn't good for all that much, really. Trust my deeds, instead." He gestured at the brothers, who had taken the hint and were pointing their blasters muzzle-down at the floor. "In this room, slaves and former slaves outnumber those who have always been free seven to one."

Grievous turned to Ventress and demanded, "And you, witch?"

"He'll keep his word, at least," said Ventress, picking invisible lint off her vambrace. "But you might be a different person on the other end."

There was a long, long, incredibly long moment; and then Grievous said, "Very well," and powered down his lightsabers.

"Thank you," he said.

"No!" cried Dooku, and attacked.

He didn't bother going for Luke's lightsaber. For more than a decade now, he hadn't used a lightsaber on anyone who wasn't either his teacher or his student. Despite the fact that Dooku had once taught him an incredibly important lesson, he was neither. So he just reached up and, with his inorganic hand, caught the blade.

Dooku's eyes widened.

He smirked; and with his organic hand, delivered a hard pinch to a particular bundle of nerves in Dooku's forearm. Dooku reflexively opened his hand, and thus dropped his lightsaber. He pulled it to his hand.

"How?" demanded Dooku.

He shrugged, and clipped the 'saber to his belt right next to Luke's. "Ions." He turned a little. "I told you I wouldn't fight you. Would someone with the authority to do it please come and arrest them now?"

"Well," said Rex, while Bitters stepped forward, "I'm impressed."

"Don't be," he said, as Grievous came forward to hand over his lightsabers. "If the Temple taught things like quantum physics and band-gap engineering instead of, I don't know, treaty law and lightsaber combat . . . Here, Ahsoka. Take your pick."

"Er," said Ahsoka. "Thanks?" But she did pick the two green blades. "Didn't he take these as trophies?"

"Yes," said Grievous, standing stiffly impassive while Grok read him rights.

"You can return them to their actual purpose," he said gently.

"Oh," said Ahsoka, but seemed less discomfited by holding dead people's weapons.

Arresting galactic threats number one and number two went pretty smoothly after that. Grievous didn't struggle, of course, and Dooku seemed to be in shock. At least, he wasn't resisting. He just kept staring, from him, to his old, liver-spotted hands, and back. Sometimes he looked at Ventress. Ventress studiously ignored him.

"That trick," said Ventress. "Does it work on droids?"

"What trick? Telling the truth?"

"The other trick. 'Sensitive electronic devices,'" said Ventress. She even did the air quotes.

"Oh. No. Droids work on a distributed neural net. I could disrupt their chips, but killing the chips of individuals only makes the aggregate a tiny bit more stupid. In planetary installations like this, there's almost certainly a dedicated server to be the main brain hub. And it's . . . difficult, with radios. To disarm you guys," he turned to look at Domino, "I looked for radio transistors which were inside of people who weren't me, and as it is I think I broke Kix's eye."

"You did," confirmed Kix.

"See? Now imagine if I just broke all the radios in a certain area. Sure, the droids would be dead stupid, but also our comms would be down."

"So it's a question of aim," said Ky.

"Pretty much," he agreed. "If I had a droid radio and some time to sit down with it, I could probably refine my aim. I didn't have that kind of time, and lightsabers work, so," he shrugged. "Come on; we should get back to the ship. We don't have a particular timeframe, but Cody will want the good news as soon as we can get it to him."

"Sure," said Rex. "And I have some questions for you."

"You and everyone else," he said. "Buckets up, vode."

Rex and Kix took charge of Kenobi's gurney. Havoc took Grievous, who went a lot more quietly than most people who ever seen him fight would believe; Panic took Dooku. He took point, along with Ventress and Ahsoka and Yoda. A few droids showed up to fight, but not many. Presumably even they were intelligent enough to realize that they'd lost, completely, and were going to last marginally longer if they didn't go after the angry people with lightsabers.

Or, he realized, as they approached the landing pad, possibly they were just massing someplace else. The pourstone was packed with them.

"Okay," he said. "First one to get to twenty kills wins. Havoc, Panic, Domino, you're playing as teams. On the count of three. One - " Ventress took off, a Force-assisted jump that landed her on one droid as she disambulated two more. "Twothreego."

Unlike the battle against Sidious, this fight seemed to take no time at all. It was joyous movement. He switched to jar'kai since he had two 'sabers, and that was a real challenge because he was not good at jar'kai. Then all the droids and droidekas were down and in pieces, and it turned out that Ahsoka had won. She and Ventress had been riffing off each other the whole time, and occasionally giving each other boosts for jumping over droidekas, and it was just. Really weird.

He looked at all the droid bits and then shoved, clearing a path for the gurney. He made sure Kenobi went first, and then Grievous, and then -

Something shoved him, powerfully, and he had time to think, Idiot, of course he's not safe, before he was off the platform and falling toward the magma. He blindly put out a hand to stop himself. By luck, it was the inorganic hand, the replaceable one. The whole motion ended up with him doing a very carefully balanced handstand on the magma while his arm melted. His skin, even protected by the the armor, began to register discomfort that would become pain, familiar, burning pain, sooner and not later.

People forgot, in general, that magma was liquid, but it was liquid rock; if you were fast and had good heat shielding, it was possible to run on it. The armor was meant more to keep heat in than keep it out, but it was decent enough even with the workout he'd given the heat sink earlier. He probably wasn't even burning. It gave him a moment to breathe. The mask had a filter, which sounded horribly like a different filter -

Luke's lightsaber bounced against his abdominal plate, the tink impossibly loud over the rushing of blood in his ears.

Calm. Quiet. Panic served no one. He had the tools to get out of this.

That was enough for him to remember how to make a personal adjustment, and then he was falling again away from the planet.

He landed back on the platform moments later with armor burnt black and the electronics mostly nonfunctional and growled, "This kriffing planet," as he stalked forward. Dooku at least had the grace to look afraid. "And you! Do you actually want to die? Because you're doing a damn good job driving me around the bend, and the very first thing I ever did, when I started Falling, was to decapitate you."

"No," said Dooku. Whispered, in fear, and he abruptly realized that he was seriously restricting, among other things, the man's ability to breathe. "Please."

He jerked himself back. "I will not kill you," he said each word bitten out. "But for being the kind of man who puts slave detonators into anyone, you don't get my help. Ever. Even if you ask. You're on your own, Dooku." He turned away.

"What," said Kix.

"I can fly," he said, because the whole explanation would have to wait. "Let's get off this rock."

He went straight to the 'fresher, and the whole room turned into a cloud of steam as he ruined the tempering on his arm. It didn't matter; he'd be replacing it anyway.

The Tenebrous was crowded with all of them on board, even once they transferred Kenobi to one of the berths and shoved the gurney back down the ramp. No one was complaining. Ventress even offered her room as a temporary brig.

"You're okay with that?"

"It occurred to me," she said, "that killing him would be the kind option."

"Ah," he said, so Dooku got tied up and strapped down in one of the berths she hadn't used, and Vacuum and Glitter and Bitters and Ventress sat in there to watch him.

Grievous, they took to engineering. Well. It was really the only room in the Tenebrous quite big enough for him, and also it had the tools to start dismantling the monstrosity he'd been forced to call his body. He left it to Jink and Witch, who were kind of into that kind of thing, and grabbed an acoustic multitool. Yoda and Ahsoka stayed in there, talking to Grievous. Surprisingly, the cyborg was talking back, if haltingly.

He stumped into the cockpit; Rex was already in the pilot's seat, Jesse in the copilot's. They went through preflight almost silently, and then launched with much less fuss than they'd had going in. He dialled on the comm with his left arm. His right was a fused lump, which he was currently removing. "Negotiator, this is the Tenebrous. Negotiator, do you read?"

"Tenebrous, this is the Negotiator. We copy loud and clear. Everything okay down there?"

"We're fine," he said. "Mission successful. We have one sedated but otherwise reasonably well-patched Jedi General, and two prisoners."

"And one very scary ex-Jedi," added Jesse.

"Transmitting coordinates now."

"Received, thanks. See you soon."

Once the comm was off, Rex said, "What are you going to have to do?"

"What?"

"For Grievous."

"Oh," he said. "That. The planet Kalee is under stiff enough embargoes right now that ten to twenty thousand children starve each year. Obviously the Separatist government was never going to enforce Republic embargoes. That's why Grievous was even in the war. But the embargoes were enacted because when the Republic mapped that part of space they found the Kaleel trying to commit genocide on the Yam'rii, and automatically assumed the worst. The Yam'rii," he added, aware of Rex's look, "were slavers, and forced the Kaleel to - they ate Kaleel eggs. Viable, developing Kaleel eggs. Eating the eggs of non-sapients was something only poor Yam'rii did."

"So basically," said Rex, "it was a complete foxtrot."

"Pretty much," he agreed.

"And you just promised to straighten it out."

"All those dead Kaleel younglings cry out for justice. And the live slaves, too, and all the Yam'rii children who died for their parents' lack of morality, and - you get the idea. The whole situation needs review. If me doing it personally saves us a firefight, then I'm willing to do it - what?"

"Nothing," said Rex. It wasn't nothing, not with a stare like that; but he let it drop.

The jump took much less than six minutes, but then they had to go through docking and transferring Dooku to an actual Force-shielded holding cell. Also getting Grievous, who was already down a leg, into the hands of cybernetics specialists. Kenobi, of course, went straight to medical, and he spared a brief moment of thanks that he wasn't conscious to protest. He told all of Domino to go with him.

"What?" asked Fives. "No!"

"I turned off the radio receivers," he said. "But you still have active little bundles of plastic explosives implanted in your vertebra. Those are usually on a timer: if they don't get the signal once every day, they'll detonate anyway. Go to medical. Please."

"You should come too," said Kix.

"I'm fine," he said. He wasn't even burnt; he'd gotten the arm off during the ride, and there was a replacement in his room. "And I'll fix your eye later," he added to Kix.

"Right," said Kix, as Domino peeled away.

He went back to his quarters to swap it on, and then took a shower. He was filthy, because Mustafar as a planet was constantly awful, and the smoke got everywhere. That thought was a little hilarious, and he began laughing, and then couldn't stop laughing in way that was painful. Not as painful as breathing through lungs that had been utterly ruined by inhaling the smoke of his own burning flesh, but painful.

Padmé's arms closed around him. "Ssh," she said. "I've got you."

He cried, and was grateful for the way the spray hid his tears. Padmé waited patiently, and helped him with washing until the water stopped coming off them grey.

Eventually he said, "Okay, I. Say it."

Padmé shook her head. "Tell me why you were crying."

"I have no idea," he said. He didn't feel like laughing either, but he offered her a weak smile. "When I - when everything happened at the end, there. I lost you on Mustafar. I fought Kenobi on Mustafar. I lost my three remaining limbs and my ability to breathe on my own on Mustafar. I burned on Mustafar. But none of that happened this time. I took everything I wanted from that place, and I didn't even have to kill anyone. I don't know why I was crying."

"Did you ever cry before?" asked Padmé. And then, at his expression, "Of course not. That's why, love."

"Oh."

"Do you feel better now?"

He checked. "I do, actually."

"You are ridiculous," said Padmé. "Empathy."

Her emotions were all jumbled together, worry overlaid by pity overlaid by heart-stopping fear overlaid with relief, all shot through with adrenaline and satisfaction. But not joy. "You're not happy?" he asked.

"I - no," said Padmé. "You were right, that's not, there's always another way. I have to believe that. But he wasn't wrong either. The Republic is broken, corrupted."

"We will drag his enemies into the light whether he wills it or not," he said.

"What?" she asked. "What was that from?"

"A play," he said. "The plot was abysmal and it was all Imperial propaganda anyway, but that one line has always stuck with me. If our enemies are big and obvious, like Sidious and Dooku, we drag them into the light. And if our enemies are less obvious, like laws that aren't quite just, or shady deals behind locked doors, we drag them into the light. And if our enemies are small and pervasive and hidden, like political graft and social injustice, we drag them into the light."

"Oh," said Padmé. "I love you."

Once they were clean, they both went down to medical. Kix and Echo already had the explosives out. Dogma was in surgery. Kenobi was awake; Rex was talking to him softly, presumably about the rescue. For no readily visible reason, Yoda was sitting on the sideboard.

" - errifying, and you should be terrified," Rex was saying as they approached. "Nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Which?" asked Padmé, clear voice wry.

Rex turned. "Ma'am. Any of it, but particularly catching lightsabers bare-handed. Sir, don't do that again."

"I won't do it again without warning, how's that?"

Rex sighed, clearly aware that this was the best he was going to get.

"Also," added Padmé, "please don't call me 'ma'am.' I'm given to understand I am at least as much your sister-in-law as I am Master Kenobi's. You can just call me Padmé."

Rex shot him a look, which he ignored.

"I'm kind of disappointed I wasn't awake to see it," said Kenobi. "You said a seizure."

He turned his attention to his (other) brother. "There was a better way."

"Yes, there was." Kenobi was looking down, playing with the sheets, fine fuzz of newly-grown hair coppery under the lights. Then he took a deep breath, and looked up.

Padmé gasped. He stomped down hard in his initial reaction, which was to reach out and start choking Dooku. It certainly explained Yoda's presence, at any rate.

"I. Sorry?"

"It's not your fault," said Kenobi. "If anything, it's - that was you, right?" He held up the arm that was in a cast. "While he was doing this?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Right. You gave me back the Light. You didn't even know I needed it and you gave it back." Kenobi's voice was rough, choked with emotion.

"If," he said, "you want to un-Fall, I will help with that."

"I know," said Kenobi. "I want to recover physically first. I don't think I'm wrong in thinking it's not something easily done."

"For a certain kind of person," he said, but took pity on Kenobi. "You don't look burnt." It was true. His skin was pink and shiny, but not burnt.

"Yes; I was dumped in a bacta tank right after. And I was only on fire for maybe fifteen seconds. I - feel like I owe you another apology. For leaving you to burn."

He rolled his eyes. "That wasn't you."

"Still. That was the least kind thing I could have done."

"Neither of us were in the mood for kindness," he said. "It's . . . I forgave him. After he died. There was never anything to forgive you for."

"Anakin," said Kenobi. It was meant to be a stern rebuke, exactly like all the other times he'd ever said his name in that tone. Instead he smiled.

"Ani," said Padmé. "You - do the thing. On him."

"You think I should?" he asked.

"Thing?" asked Yoda.

"Yeah," said Padmé. "He doesn't quite - it'll be good. For both of you."

"Okay," he said, and did the thing.

Kenobi closed his eyes and said, "That's you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." Kenobi paused. Kenobi asked, "What's your maximum range?"

"I have no idea," he said honestly.

"Rex is right; that's terrifying."

"Yeah, well, wait until you check your comms," he said, and then turned his attention to Rex and pulled the captain into a hug that started one-armed and then went two armed when Rex got close enough.

"Pay up," said Alpha-17 in the background.

"Sir?" asked Rex, uncomfortably.

"Ner vod," he replied, at a whisper. "The last time I saw you, you were dead. Excuse me for being a little emotional about it, okay?"

"The last time you saw me an hour ago?" said Rex, but relaxed into it. That was better. Rex should never be uncomfortable around him.

"Ass," he said happily, and kept hugging for a bit before stepping back.

"And how did you get Ventress to come along?" asked Rex.

"Dooku tried to kill her," he said.

There was a pause. "How did you convince her not to kill him?"

"I just told her not to."

"And she listened?"

"Ask her yourself," he said. "She's staying on the Tenebrous."

"You named your ship the Tenebrous?" That was Echo, not Rex. "Really?"

"Seemed appropriate."

"You're not even going to bother with an attempt to convince people you're not evil, are you?"

"Hey, Kenobi. Am I evil?"

"No," said Kenobi.

"Hey, Yoda. Am I evil?"

"Even a tiny bit, you are not."

"There you go," he said. "I . . . actually I did have a question. Since we're on the topic."

"Great," said Padmé, rolling her eyes.

"What?"

"Now's not the time."

"Uh. No. This is more important than mood whiplash." He squared himself, then turned back to the brothers. "The thing is, I am absolutely capable of being exactly as bad as you're all wondering about. I am capable of being worse. That's not . . . I don't want to be that person, and especially not now that I can just make the laws of physics act the way I want. I already asked Yoda and Windu, but - if I even do go evil, really evil, kills-children evil, I need someone to kill me. And, well. Five hundred simultaneous blasts should do it."

"Anakin, no," said Kenobi, sounding almost wounded.

"I wouldn't be asking if it weren't important."

"You need so much therapy," said Rex.

"I have a therapist. She is the best therapist. I also personally led the march on the Temple, once upon a time, and slaughtered my way through the crèche. I cannot trust myself to recognize when I'm evil; I have to trust other people."

"So much therapy," repeated Rex.

"There is a reason I didn't return to the front, and it has nothing to do with my ability to rip through entire battalions," he said quietly. "I'm done with killing. I'm done with fighting, at least on the battlefield. I think it's time for me to try building, instead."

"Building what?" asked Kix.

"A future worth having," he said.

Kenobi fell asleep not too long after that. Well, whether or not he'd had bacta he was still healing from a lot. Kix seemed happy about it, anyway. He went and hung out in the medical lobby while Domino cycled in and out of surgery. Once Rex was out of danger, he went to find Cody and debrief. That took a couple of hours, and partway through the adrenaline left him all at once. He was half-asleep by the end, so he went to take a nap.

He must have been more tired than he thought, because he next woke up when Padmé was climbing into bed with him. "Shh-shh, go back to sleep," she said. He checked Kenobi, who was unconscious, and Ahsoka, who was meditating, and Rex, who was . . . probably that was a party. If not he didn't really want to know. Then he checked Ventress and Ky, who were dreaming. He finished by checking Dooku, who was not apparently on the same ship, and Grievous, who was pondering his choice but unharmed as far as he could tell. And then, since nothing was wrong, he did go back to sleep, and slept straight through to morning without any dreams at all.

Chapter Text

The next couple of days were pretty quiet. Everyone who'd been on the mission slept and ate and slept again, spending their time varying degrees of horizontal. The Negotiator sped coreward as fast as its hyperdrive would go. They were taking no chances. Not with these prisoners.

Yoda demanded that he repeat his trick with a lightsaber, over and over, until the old master finally closed his eyes and said, "Both, it requires. Light and Dark together."

"I could have just told you that," he said. "If you'd asked."

"Determine for myself, I had to. A difficult balancing act it is, no?"

"I'm not sure I could have gotten Dooku to be arrested mostly quietly any other way, and I didn't want to have a battle." He closed his eyes. "The last time I had a battle with Dooku, I won. I need to be better than that. I think you understand."

"Mm. For not killing my padawan, I thank you."

He looked at the little green Jedi. "You understand, it's not going to be easy for him now."

"I know. Nevertheless, grateful I am. Only the living learn and grow can."

"Huh. I never thought of it like that."

"Still have some things to teach you, I do."

He smiled. "I'll look forward to it."

Three days in, Padmé looked up from whatever it was she was doing, and told him to, "Check your comms."

He didn't have that many, really. A couple from Diamond, some from the Council, one very thankful one from Solo, and half a dozen increasingly urgent ones from We. He opened and read the latest one:

He immediately had to go back through the messages to find out why We was suing Kamino. It turned out to be patent infringement, although technically he hadn't gotten the patent yet. There was still plenty of precedent: once a technology was filed, it had to be treated as though it had been patented until and unless the patent was denied. He wasn't quite sure why Kamino was doing this, and neither was We, but she was right. The case was open and shut.

More interesting to him was the list of firms that someone had clearly spent some time working on. He read the whole thing through twice, and then began composing and sending a couple of comms. Then once he had those done, the logical thing was to check what the other Councillors wanted. Mostly it was math help.

Mostly.

Naberrie, why the fuck would you ever actually calculate how big the kyber would have to be to blow up a star? This was followed with an attachment: his own work, laid out in neat blue, and scribbled over in purple with Windu's comments. He'd done those calculations to show that, while big, it was perfectly possible to dig up a kyber of that size. Therefore, probably, there were Sith caches somewhere which held ships that weren't just called star destroyers.

He smiled and responded.

I can make kybers that big.

He was responding to the other councillors' requests for math help when his comm pinged.

He sat back and waited for the explosion. It was not long in coming.

He waited for Windu to ping him back, but nothing happened. He finished answering the math comms, and moved on to the ones from Diamond.

He was smiling at the end of that second one.

Mission success. Thanks. Vode an.

Then he said, "Diamond says they've run out of courts in the Trilon sector. I suspect what he means is that the bureaucracy runs a lot slower than the speed at which they're capturing pirates and slavers."

"What?" asked Padmé.

"Some brothers went pirate-hunting. It's going well. They've run out of places to put captured criminals. What should they do?"

"How should I know?" asked Padmé.

"You're the Senator."

"This needs a lawyer."

"This needs a reformer," he said. "Or is right to speedy trial by jury a thing that we're not guaranteeing criminals, now?"

"Oh," said Padmé. "Yeah. Let me send some messages ahead."

"Thanks," he said.

A little while later, she sat back and sighed. "Want to go watch a holo?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Let's go to the fab shop. I need a new arm anyway. We can make some jewelry while we're there."

Padmé's smile brightened the whole world. "Yes. Let's do that."

He felt almost recovered the next day, and went to go see Kenobi again. This plan was thwarted by Kenobi not being in bed. "Kix!"

"I don't know why you expected me to be able to keep him down," said Kix, with the resigned voice he used for dealing with (him) Jedi.

He took a deep breath. "I am going to drag him back," he said calmly. "And then gravitationally glue him to the bed, if I have to."

"Great," said Kix. "You do that. First, though, is it 'later' yet? Because my eye hasn't spontaneously started working again."

"Oh," he said. "Yeah, sorry. I forgot."

"You forgot."

"Hold still," he said, reaching out to place his organic fingers around Kix's eye socket.

He closed his eyes to see better, and felt around inside a bit. He'd kind of been going extremely overboard with the transistor-breaking, with the result that he now had to fix several hundred of them. But they all worked basically the same way, and it was not like the atoms had wandered off out of the crystal. "There," he said, opening his eyes.

"Um. But it's. Still not working?"

"I missed one?"

"I don't know. I don't even know what you did to break it."

"Swapped atoms around," he said. "To break the gated P-NP junctions in the radios. I thought I'd moved them all back." He tried again to find places where the silicate felt almost, but not quite, like a transistor. "Yeah, I did. What else could it be?"

"Check the wire-nerve interface," said Kix. "It's not transistors, but there are lots of diodes there."

He had broken the diodes. He popped them back into form, one right after another. "Now?"

"Working. Thanks."

"My pleasure," he said, and pulled Kix into a hug. He'd been doing it, to each of the brothers of the 501st as they got within reach. Kix sighed but put up with it.

"That's still incredibly weird. Ask Rex. He'll know."

He just commed Rex. Shipboard, their respective vambraces could handle it. Well, once he'd exchanged the burnt-black vambrace for a shiney new one, anyway. Rex answered right away, which was gratifying, at least.

"Rex. Do you know where Kenobi is? I'd like to talk to him."

"I just got him to sleep," said Rex. "If you wake him up, vod, I swear I will punch you."

He blinked. "Just? As in, in the last three days?"

"Not quite that bad," said Rex, which meant, 'No, only the last twenty-four hours.'

"Right. Can you comm me when he wakes up?"

"Yeah," said Rex; and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, "Naberrie, can I ask a question?"

"You can always ask," he said.

"Is - the Jedi say that once you choose the Dark, you can't ever shake it. Is Kenobi going to be okay?"

"He never chose it," he replied. "Being tortured out of your right mind and then having the Light stolen every time you reach for it isn't a choice. Even if he had, the Jedi saying is a whole planet's worth of bantha shit."

"So you could, theoretically, un-Fall."

"Yeah, but I won't. This, being allowed to express and hold on to my emotions, it's comfortable to me. Much more than the Jedi line about Attachment ever was, anyway. Ner vod."

Rex closed his eyes. "Understood. And Kenobi?"

"I don't know, Rex. I'm doing my best to make sure the answer is yes, but . . . I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Comm you when he's up. Rex out."

He planned to spend the day doing basic exercises with Ventress and Ky instead. Ky kept giving him furtive glances and then looking away. He was doing the same with Ventress, so it was pretty obvious what he was thinking about. He still had to give up on getting anything useful out of the boy that day not much more than an hour in.

But he was pleased to see that Ky was not dropping point.

Ventress, being her usually contrary self, was pushing past her comfort limits, and stopping just short of the point where she'd actually do herself any damage. Of course, it made sense that she'd be good at after-mission recuperation: she'd done it often enough. So had he. It was just kind of weird, watching it in mirror-image, and from someone as hard and spare as her.

After lunch, which was commissary food because Ventress could not be induced to cook, she said, "So. We should go see Grievous."

"I thought you two didn't like each other."

"We didn't," she said, and offered no further explanation.

They went to go see Grievous anyway. He was in the brig, in a room with a couple of brothers who were medically trained and had a specialty in cybernetics. All six limbs had been replaced, but his mask was firmly in place. He was bent over a pad, talking quietly with the brothers, when they arrived. He looked up, and then froze.

"Come to gloat, witch?" he asked.

"My name," said Ventress, carefully, "is Asajj Ventress, born to the Gloaming Mist clan of Nightsisters on Dathomir; and witch is my proper title. I came to make peace."

"Peace?" asked Grievous. "With you?"

"Just so."

There was long, studious pause. "Why?"

"Because Dooku pitted us against each other, time and again, to make sure we hated each other. I won't live my life according to what that man wanted me to feel."

"There is that," said Grievous, then moved his attention. "And you, Skywalker?"

He blinked, once, slowly.

Grievous sighed, a ruined noise even through the vocoder. "Point taken, Naberrie. Why are you here?"

"I'm not a neurosurgeon," he said.

"I didn't think you were," said Grievous.

"Because I never sat any exams, or did any practicals," he continued. "There is a WALDO that I am having patented at this very moment. I don't think it will repair any of the damage done to your brain, or restore any of the memories that you lost, but I did specify a comfortable shell. If you want to try it."

"At what price?"

"None," he said. "I spent years in a shell that was at least as uncomfortable for me as that one must have been for you. Deliberately uncomfortable, I might add. Eventually I got fed up with it and began replacing it piecemeal. You never had the expertise. The cost has already been paid."

Grievous looked between the two of them, and then focused on Ky. "And you, youngling?"

Ky shrugged. "I'm just watching."

"Why?"

"So I can learn," said Ky.

"Hh. Fine. Witch, let the earth drink the blood that lies between us and put forth new stalks." The words had an odd cadence, like they were a ritual in another language he didn't know. "Naberrie - tell me more about this WALDO."

He nodded, and pulled up a chair.

That ended up taking some hours. Not very long in, Ventress left and took Ky with her. The brothers asked him to pause, so they could start taking notes. He powered his 'pad on, and began pulling up technical drawings so he could talk specs. Then they began considering ideas for how to adapt the system to Kaleel physiology, which he didn't know at all. Grievous was mostly quiet - he was a warrior of the old caste, not an engineer, and probably wasn't following more than one word in ten - but when he did say something, it was always pertinent.

It took a while, but the general eventually relaxed and asked the real question. "Naberrie. My brain. What was done?"

"There's a tumor in your hypermagdlia," he responded. "Persistent neural hyperpolarization along the mat Feneer cleft, to make you more aggressive. Neural growth along your primary dorsal crest, I don't know what anyone was hoping to accomplish with that one. Neural pruning and scrambling in more than one place, which I assume was how the memories were removed. And the whole thing is inside a skull that's the wrong shape, which - probably did make you somewhat smarter, actually, but also must give you killer headaches. Oh, and I'm pretty sure a secondary goal was to make you Force-sensitive, which I could have explained wasn't going to work, but what's left of your immune system is trying to mount a response on the midichlorians. I. Um. Can take care of that right now, actually."

"In my brain."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It is not your fault. It is . . . it was the Banking Clan, wasn't it? Not the Jedi?"

"The Banking Clan, as arranged by Dooku, for Sidious," he said. "Part of your bargain is to stand up in front of the Senate and tell the whole galaxy everything you know about the skeletons in the Banking Clan's collective closet. Since you put any number of them there, I expect you know where to go look. After which, there will be a reckoning. I watched Sidious die. Dooku gets to stand up in front of the Republic and tell them what the kriff he was thinking. And then probably spend the rest of his life in a prison someplace."

"Hh. Good. Do it."

"Are you sure?"

"No. Do it now, before I change my mind."

"Okay," he said, and reached until he found the little bundle of midichlorians that had, once, been those of Jedi Master Sifo-dyas, and . . . returned them to the Force. He opened his eyes. "Done."

"So fast?"

"It'll take a few days for your blood dialyzer to clear them," he said. "But the, the defeating the infestation, yes. Done."

"Oh." And then, "Why don't you hate me? I thought you would."

"I did," he confirmed. "A long time ago. And then I grew up."

"You're somewhat surprising."

He said, "Thanks." He was going to say more, but his comm went off. "Naberrie."

"It's Rex. He's awake, if you want to come talk."

"Right. Of course. Naberrie out. So I'm just going to go sit on Kenobi's ass until he falls back to sleep. You guys can keep working on that WALDO if you want; there's probably another patent in it someplace."

"Sure," said Wire. "You're okay, vod."

"Even if you do have the creepiest eyes," said Nerve.

He smiled, which he knew didn't make him any less threatening, and clapped him on the shoulder and said, "See you later."

Kenobi was sitting at one of the benches in the commissary, staring at a cup of tea. He did nothing to hide himself, and sat down silently. Kenobi said, "Are you also going to threaten me?"

"Would it do any good?" he asked.

Kenobi half-smiled. "Probably not."

"Then I think I'll just ask you questions instead. Why aren't you sleeping?"

"The Dark is very loud."

"Oh," he said. "Probably. Yes. Compared to the inside of a Jedi's mind, anyway. I found it comforting, but I can see where it could be . . . You can distract yourself with noise that is purely physical. Listen to music while you sleep, or something. The Janilla Cluster released their new album, I think you'd like it - "

"Anakin."

"Or not," he said lightly. "Kenobi. Tell me how to help you."

"You. Told Master Windu that you were stealing the Dark from Sidious - "

"That can cause permanent brain damage," he cut in. "If I do it wrong. I didn't care if I did it wrong, with Sidious. But if I did something to you, I don't. Kenobi. I can't."

Kenobi sighed. "I see."

"You might try taking . . . well, my drug cocktail. If you want. I designed it to deal with most of the more harmful side effects of the Dark."

Kenobi blinked. "I'd forgotten about that. It won't put me into a coma? I have a Council meeting tomorrow."

"The coma was related to the, um. Time-lag, I'm going to call it," he said."You don't have that, so it'll probably just knock you out for a few hours. Especially if given as a bolus dose."

"You think someone will give me a bolus dose?"

"On this boat?" he asked.

"Point," said Kenobi. "And you have orders to drag me back to medical, if you have to."

"Not orders, no," he said. "I'm going to anyway, once you eat something with some nutrition. You need the calories, Kenobi."

Kenobi sighed, but got up to get food more filling than a cup of tea. The brothers on duty filled his plate and, over the next hour or so, he did manage to eat most of it. This was good. He was beginning to understand that Kenobi subsisted mostly on tea and nervous energy and meditation, and he wasn't entirely sure how he'd missed it the first time around. He wasn't going to let it get any worse than this. Hopefully, he could even help it get better.

Kenobi put up no protest when he got up and followed him back to medical, or while he sat down and talked with Kix about the drug cocktail, or while he got into bed and they put the IV in and loaded up the syringe pump. Then he was incapable of protest; the drugs hit him hard, and it took him maybe six seconds to go from conscious to deeply asleep.

"How did you do that?" asked Kix, awed.

"He wanted to sleep. I helped him with the path of least resistance. Council meeting tomorrow?"

"Holoproj room nine," said Kix. "On the command decks."

"Got it," he said. "He'll probably be fine on his own; call me if he's not up by ten hundred hours tomorrow."

"Will do," said Kix.

He went and found Padmé, and they had an enjoyable evening despite the instant meals and the holo. It was, for once, not Hero With No Fear, but only because they'd run out. They watched some historical thing about the last Sith War, just before the Ruusan Reformation. Of course it got just about everything about the Sith wrong, but that was at least not because some idiot hadn't done the research.

"Can you do that?" she asked, again.

"No one can do that." He was endeavoring to answer honestly. "Force drains don't steal other people's life, or youth, or whatever. That's not how aging works, even if you have the Force."

"But the Force drain itself?"

"In theory. I never tried."

"Why not?"

"It gives, at best, a temporary boost to your ability to manipulate the Force. I never needed one."

"Oh," said Padmé. "I'm glad. That you didn't. Um. Can you do that?" She nodded at the screen.

"Pain? Yeah. That's just ions."

"Oh."

"I don't do it anymore."

"I know." The thing was, he had. He'd rationalized, at the time, that it was better than actually doing someone the physical damage that would inflict the same amount of pain. He hadn't ever particularly enjoyed it. It didn't change the fact that it was torture. "Can you do the opposite?"

It took him a moment, but when he understood, he whispered, "I want to do the thing."

"Go ahead," she said, so he did. Padmé said, "Oh," and turned her head toward him, and then they stopped talking at all for quite a while.

He woke up in the morning because Ventress panicked, and she did it very persistently. "Mmfs?" he asked, rolling over.

Padmé said, "Nnnn."

But he'd been sleeping, by that point, for almost nine hours, and his body was done with being in bed. So he dragged himself up and got into the 'fresher. After a shower, he felt much more awake, and went to go find out what was wrong with Ventress.

She was on the Tenebrous, which was a long enough hike that he was starting to feel hungry by the time he got there. He chimed in and went up the ramp and stopped. "What."

"Oh, good," said Ventress, punching the hell out of something whitish and floury. "You're here."

"Why is everything baked goods?"

"Baking helps me think. Sit down. Ky, explain."

"I, um," said Ky. "Not that I don't see where someone like that is really terrifying, and where the trap is, with the Dark side, but. I. He's really a very sad man, isn't he? Dooku?"

"Yes," he said, waiting for the explanation.

"I don't want that, but I do want to try. I think. The way you do it, and Ventress; the way that feels good."

He closed his eyes. Yoda was going to be so smug. "And this requires baking why?"

"He," said Ventress, "asked me to be his teacher.

He waited to see if this was it, and then said, "Okay?"

"I can't teach!" protested Ventress, aghast. "I don't know how to teach!"

"Well, neither do I," he pointed out. "I seem to be doing okay. Mostly okay."

"And I never wanted an apprentice!"

"That's good," he said. "The whole master/apprentice thing was stupid, and it's not going to work anyway. There are just too few users of the Dark to build ourselves up with one-to-one relationships."

"Are you building up the Dark users?" asked Ky.

"I have to," he said. "You know I'll have to teach you too, right?"

"Yeah," said Ky. "But you're. You don't understand me well enough, or you understand me too well. I can learn lightsabers from you, but not. It wouldn't work, okay? Besides, I like Ventress."

"I don't hate you," allowed Ventress. "I just don't . . . "

"Oh," he said. "Well. Then don't."

"The Force thinks I should. The Force thinks I should very loudly."

He looked at her, and then dropped his head into his hands. "What do you want me to say, Ventress? I can't make this choice for you. Do what you feel is best."

"I feel - I. Look. Can you at least give me some - what happened? After, in, in your memories?"

He took a deep breath, and let it out on a slow sigh. "I wasn't Dark; you went to Mother Talizn to learn what you needed. She got you straightened out, at least, but something happened - no, don't look at me like that, I don't know - and you left again. Became a bounty hunter, of all things, and had a . . . something with Vos."

"Who?" asked Ventress.

"Master Quinlan?" asked Ky.

"You met. He was the Jedi you cornered when you wanted to comm me," he said. Ventress looked thoughtful. "There was a whole spy ring involved, and double-agents and triple-agents, and - look. Vos Fell, you taught him. You weren't bad at it, as far as I know, but I don't know much because I wasn't really involved in that entire mess. Dooku ended it, anyway. Terminally."

Ventress' mouth pressed down into a hard line, and she slapped that dough into a bowl and then moved on to a different one. "Oh. Is it even allowed to have a student while I'm still a student myself?"

He shrugged. "I'm not making hard and fast rules. That doesn't work. In this case, yeah, sure, go ahead. My full blessing, whatever that's worth."

"Great," said Ventress. She didn't sound happy, and she didn't feel happy, but there was something else there, something small and purple and so dark that it was almost, but not quite, black. "And what about the Jedi Council, huh?"

"Oh, them," he said. "They're going to meet today anyway, probably all day. We'll just hijack the meeting."

"You," said Ky, "are so very, very weird."

"We'll go after these bake," decided Ventress.

Ventress did take pity on him when his stomach began making noise, and fed him one of the palm-sized loaves. It turned out to be like a dumpling, filled on the inside with cheese and vegetables. So he at least had a stomach full of good food when they went to go interrupt the Council. He knocked, and got no response, and knocked again.

" - who would be," Kenobi said as he opened the door. " - oh. It's Anakin."

Someone let out a sigh. Someone else said, "He might as well come in."

"Thank you, Kolar," he said. "Councillors. Is this an official meeting, or can anyone join?"

"It's official," said Windu. "But we were just talking about you."

"Ah," he said. "The Force is being unsubtle again. Should we ask Ahsoka to join us as well?"

"That might be wise," said Koon after a moment's thought.

"Hold on," said Kenobi, and fumbled around with the vambrace interface for a while. It was awkward to use with his right hand in a sling. Ventress carefully was not laughing, but he gave her a glare anyway.

"You could use the vocal interface," said Ky helpfully. "It's not like this is a secret meeting. We just asked where you were holding it and how to get here."

There was a moment of embarrassed silence, and then Kenobi laughed. "Thank you, er, Ky, was it?"

"Yes," said Ky.

He thumbed on the vocal interface and said, "Comms to Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka, are you there?"

"Yes, master," came Ahsoka's voice.

"Please come to the meeting we're having on control deck F, room two-one-nine."

"Two-one-nine on deck F, got it. See you in a bit, master."

The silence stretched for just a bit too long to be comfortable before Ky said, "So, I have a question. Since we're all here, and everything."

"Yes?" asked Yoda.

"Why aren't we - I mean. Don't Jedi usually kill people who use the Dark?"

"Jedi usually kill Sith," he said. "There has been a lot of overlap in the last, oh, seven thousand years. Being a Sith is actually illegal, so by all rights they should be arresting said Sith and putting them on trial," like I managed, he didn't say, and everyone above the age of thirteen heard anyway, "but with Sith that's generally difficult. Using the Dark, though? That's not illegal, as long as it isn't misuse of the Force."

"Oh," said Ky. And then, "So what you did with the Senate - "

"Projective empathy. I do it all the time with Padmé, too. It's a different way of communicating, but more communication is generally better. Especially with the Senate; they're already made up of such a diverse group of people, with such different modes of communicating, that more ways of talking can only help."

"Help," said Rancisis, clearly suspicious.

"Yes, help," he said. "For the umpteenth time: I Forced a vote, not a result. Because Forcing a specific result would be unethical, and I refuse to be that person."

"Huh," said Fisto. "You know, that's actually believable?"

He rolled his eyes, but was spared having to answer by Ahsoka's arrival. "Master Kenobi - oh. Hello, Master. Um. Am I in trouble?"

"No," said Kenobi. "Not at all. We were just talking about the future, and . . . "

"I'm teaching Ventress," he said. "I'm teaching Ky, at least as far as lightsabers go - "

"I'm going to die," moaned Ky.

" - and I'm going to have to teach Kenobi, too. In fact I'm going to teach a lot more than just those three: balance demands it. But I also don't want to have to fight the Jedi. You're mostly here so you can be included in the discussion of your future."

"Oh," said Ahsoka. "I."

"Yes?" prompted Kenobi.

Ahsoka took a deep breath. "I've had two masters Fall on me in four months. That's not - you know what they say. 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times - '"

"' - is enemy action,'" he finished with her. "Yes?"

"I don't think it was a coincidence," she said.

"Surely you don't think it's enemy action, girl," said Ventress.

"I think it's the Force," said Ahsoka.

"Mm," said Yoda. "Right, you may be."

"Whether or not she is," he said. "I'm not teaching anyone who feels pressured into it. Even by the Force." He turned to her. "You deserve better than the Force constantly yanking you around. And it's not a decision to be made lightly. Once you choose it - eventually, when the Light and Dark are closer to parity, giving up one or the other will be simply a deep and personal commitment and people will be able to take that step in either direction whenever they feel the need. Right now, with the two so far out of balance, the Light won't take you back and the Dark won't give you up. If you choose it." He let the Dark into his eyes, just a little, as emphasis. Not that he'd ever be willing to pay the cost of choosing Light.

She offered him a smile. "Yeah. I know. I've been meditating on it."

"Is that true?" asked Gallia.

"Is what true?" he asked, confused.

"That if the Light and the Dark are in balance, it's easy to switch."

"It's never easy," he said.

"But doable?"

"It's doable now," he said. "The cost will just, hopefully, be less steep."

"Can I," said Ahsoka, suddenly, "study the Dark without using it?"

"To a point," he said. "I think. But eventually you're going to have to make a choice."

"Eventually," she said. "When I know . . . enough."

"Well, that's one thing decided," said Kenobi. "Next question: where is this going to be happening?"

"Didn't we skip a step?" he said, mouth snapping the question off before his brain had a chance to engage.

"Mm," said Yoda.

"The math," said Nu, "is conclusive. Even though we have not had time to understand it all, what we do understand is horrifying."

"Even I can see that," said Kenobi. "And I've only had time to give it a quick glance. You did all that?"

"The Father gave me the Force-propagation equation," he said. "I mean. If you had a high-energy detector and a lot of Jedi working in tandem, you could probably work it out from first principles, but it'd take a long time." He shook his head. "Then again, he was old, and very strong, and impossible doesn't much apply to Mortis. There's no reason he couldn't have learned that experimentally, instead of starting with both the answer and the question and connecting the two up."

"An impressive achievement, if he did," said Yoda.

He shrugged. "Doesn't really matter. I still need an answer, masters. On the record."

Windu said, "Fine. Yes, we'll allow this experiment."

He blinked several times; not against the Dark, which had been there since his demonstration to Ahsoka, but against the tears. He said, "What will you do if I say I won't be doing it at the Temple?"

Windu sighed. "Give me an ulcer, why don't you?"

"Well, I wouldn't want that after I went to so much trouble with your heart," he said, smile tugging at his lips. "I was just bringing it up now, because it's an issue you're going to have to deal with eventually. Numbers parity means numbers parity; the Temple won't hold everyone; and even if it did, it still wouldn't hold such radically different viewpoints peacefully."

"Uh-huh," said Windu.

"What's your solution?" asked Koon.

"What makes you think I have one?"

"You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't have one," said Koon, which showed that the kel dor still understood him just fine.

"Oh, well. The ideal solution is to have each individual be in balance, as well as the Force as a whole. However," he held up a hand to forestall comments, "I realize that simply saying, 'Jedi policy has been wrong for thousands of years,' while true, doesn't make me very popular. If it's still a problem in, oh, three, four decades, then we'll sit down and talk solutions."

"You think a few decades will change anything?" asked Nu.

"I think it might," he said. "People will have had a chance to see what it looks like when someone uses the Dark but isn't a Sith; when someone uses the Dark, but is sane."

"You're not the best example of sanity," said Fisto, friendly but still serious.

"I wasn't talking about myself," he said.

" - oh."

"Table the matter we shall. Two decades, and not a day more," said Yoda.

"Done," he said.

"Which brings us to the next matter," said Windu, nodding at Kenobi.

"To whit: my empty Council seat."

"Oh, Jedi stuff," he said. "No, we don't get to move on yet. I have some stuff I need to say, also on the record. I am, as I said, teaching Ventress and Ky. I will not be doing the master-apprentice Banite Sith thing. I'll be teaching anyone who really wants to learn, and also anyone who, like Kenobi, needs to." He paused, and then added, "Except Dooku. He doesn't get my help, ever."

"My," said Kenobi. "I think there are some of us who weren't poisoned by the venom there. Care to try again?"

He rolled his eyes. "Also, Ventress is going to be teaching Ky about the Dark. Many teachers, many students."

"Is that a good idea?" asked Piell.

"I have no idea," he said cheerfully. "But he said he can't learn that from me, and I respect his ability to tell when he's not going to be a great student, so Ventress it is."

"If it helps any," she said, "I don't love it either. And I'd quite like an explanation about this math."

"I'll forward it to you later," he promised.

"You can't - " began Rancisis.

"Once again," he said. "It's not abuse of the Force; therefore, you have no authority. I can send my original work to whoever I damn well please. Stop trying to act as though you can tell me what to do, ever." Into the silence, he added, "And if you don't have any other concerns, I am going to go be a teacher, with my two students."

"Actually, there is," said Windu. "Ah, but perhaps in a more closed session?"

"I can take a hint," said Ventress. "Come on, Ky. Let's go find someone else with permanent tissue damage."

"Uh, why?" asked Ahsoka, leaving after them.

"Practice," said Ventress, enigmatically, just as the door shut.

"Practice?" said Kenobi.

"She is not good at healing," he said, and turned back to them. "Well?"

"As you keep pointing out," said Windu, "this council has no authority over you beyond that we have over all Force-sensitives within the Republic, and that is not much as long as you follow the rules."

"Do you think I'm not going to follow the rules?"

"Say rather, you probably won't get caught," said Kolar.

"And this is a problem when you're about to set out on a course of study directly opposed to prevailing wisdom for as long as we have records - although we do realize you might have access to older records." He shut his mouth. "It still leaves us with a problem: you're not going to be around to personally oversee the development of this, this - "

"Order," he said, not telling them about how long he'd be personally around. "We won't be Jedi, and we won't be Sith. You're right; we do need a new name."

Ti nodded. "Order, then. The Jedi Order has a continuous mandate from the Republic to protect everyone from improper use of the Force. Although it might not be improper, it behooves us to . . . "

"Keep a very close watch on us?" he asked. "But not too close, of course; anyone who gets too close is going to end up joining us."

"Yes," said Rancisis. "Exactly."

"Fortunately, a solution has presented itself," said Kenobi. "There is an empty seat on the Council."

It took him a moment to understand. "Oh, no. No. Absolutely not. I refuse."

The majority of the Council looked nonplussed. Fisto, Yoda, Windu, and Kenobi, who knew him better, looked calm. Unsurprised. "We need some handle on you," said Windu.

"You want some handle on me," he said, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn't fair. The Dark did tend to attract, and produce, a certain kind of person; and the Jedi had their duty, after all. He sighed. "Fine. But that's not the answer. 'Let's put the emotionally unstable ex-Sith in charge of the Jedi Order!' That's not going to end in disaster, or anything."

"That's what I said," said Rancisis, showing excellent good sense.

"Weekly reports," said Windu. "And mandatory therapy for you and all of your students, no exceptions. And everyone who gets involved - who is the other half of an attachment - gets a brief on all the risks involved."

Too late he realized the first proposed solution had been a feint. The thing was, given the givens, Windu's solution was not unreasonable. "You didn't have to trick me into this," he said. "Also, yes. Of course. People deserve to know the dangers going in. Padmé did."

"She did?" asked Gallia blankly.

"What, you think I wouldn't tell her about the whole Attachment thing?" he asked, and then, from their expressions, learned that, yes, they had thought exactly that. It was . . . disappointing was probably the right word. "And Kenobi was driving the aircar when I told her about how much more dangerous I am now. He can back me up on this."

"He did," said Kenobi. "Although we both didn't quite believe him. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid."

"Thanks," he said. "I'm not sure Ky needs therapy as much as he needs a healthy outlet for his anger, but it can't hurt. Ventress . . . needs it, but I don't think she'll sit still for it."

"That's your business, Mr. Head-of-the-new-Force-Order," said Windu.

"A better name, it needs," said Yoda.

"Uh," he said. "Yeah. I guess it does. I'm going to go put that to a vote. Unless someone else has any objections?"

No one did.

He left, and only once he was out of the room did he lean against a wall and allow his mask to crack. He spent a little while like that, just breathing in the Dark, until the brothers who were on guard there got unnerved enough to comment.

"Naberrie," said one. "What the fuck?"

"I don't have to start another war," he said. "This is a good thing. I can go be happy somewhere else if it bothers you."

"Uh," said the other.

"Yes," said the first. "Please."

He left.

Chapter Text

He went looking for Ky and Ventress in medical, and found Ahsoka there with them. Ahsoka was actually quite satisfactory with certain types of soft tissue damage, and apparently had been showing both of them. There was a line of clones out the door who were waiting for Ventress to fix their scarring. "Not," added the one of them who he'd stopped to ask, "that I mind the scar; but the muscle keeps pulling, and I can't stand that shit in a fight, you know?"

He knew.

He just stood there and watched for a while before Ahsoka looked up and said, "Mas - er. Naberrie."

"You can call me Anakin, you know."

"I can?"

"You're still family," he said.

"Oh," said Ahsoka.

"And you'd better stop soon, Ventress, if you don't want to overextend yourself."

"I'm fine," said Ventress. "What did the Council want to talk about?"

"Therapy. I get it, all of my students get it. No exceptions."

Ventress sighed. "And I suppose this starts when we get back to the Temple?"

"I think so."

"Do I need therapy?" asked Ky.

"You were kind of a bully," said Ahsoka. "You need something."

"Occupational therapy, maybe," he said. "I can tell, sitting in a room and talking to someone isn't going to help you get over it much. What do you enjoy doing?"

"Um," said Ky. "Don't laugh."

"Ventress breeds fish. There is not a single thing you could say that will make me laugh at you."

"Oh. I. Um. Program and play tap games." He glanced quickly over at Ventress.

"Okay?" he said. He didn't get the point of tap games. You spent hours playing them and had nothing, at the end, to show for it.

"Any that I've heard of?" asked Ahsoka.

"My most popular is Fish Town," he said.

Ahsoka shrugged. "Nope, sorry. I'll go look it up now, though."

"Don't. It's kind of - bad."

"Did you ever think of learning more serious programming?"

"With Madame Nu?" asked Ky, wrinkling his nose.

He chuckled. "Okay, point."

"But if you think I should - "

"I think you need a way to work off your anger that isn't unhealthy and also isn't rewarding. Tap games aren't going to cut it."

"No," agreed Ky. "Um. Why not rewarding?"

"Biofeedback. You'll trick your brain into liking being angry if the way you get rid of the anger is to do something that causes an endorphin cascade."

"So something useful but unfun," said Ahsoka. "I don't know. Ask the troops. They call it jankers, I think."

"What?" he said.

"Like, peeling five thousand potatoes or retuning the ansible relays," said Ahsoka.

"Possibly not the best thing to do while angry, though," he said.

"I don't know," said Ventress. "Chopping five thousand potatoes sounds just about right."

He nodded. "And one other order of business. We're not Jedi, and we're not Sith. We do, however, need a name. What are we?"

Ventress shrugged. "Make something up. Something without any previous meaning. We'll give it meaning, and make it stick."

"Yes," he said.

"Naar," said Ky. "No particular meaning, but I like the sound of it.

"Sounds fine," he said.

"Naar it is, then," said Ventress. "That's all for today," she added, and sat back.

"Will you be here again tomorrow?" asked the next clone in line.

"I hadn't been planning on it," said Ventress.

"You should," said the clone.

"Maybe," said Ventress.

But she was there the next couple of days, until the ship ran out of clones who had soft tissue scarring.

Meanwhile, he found himself regularly breaking up Jedi Council meetings to fetch Kenobi and remind him that tea didn't count as a meal, and that meditation did not count for sleep. The brothers, Cody and the 212th especially, conspired to help him with this. Therefore, despite Ventress being busy, the quality of his meals enjoyed a serious bump. Also, in the evenings, there was a Kenobi-sized dose of the pharmacological cocktail that served to get him to sleep.

"Don't you have something more important to be doing?" asked Kenobi, after he noticed the pattern. "Quark bombs, maybe?"

"I don't think there is anything more important than my family," he replied. "Did you always forget to eat all the time and I just didn't notice, or is this a new thing?"

"As I recall, you used to forget to sleep."

"I didn't forget," he said. "I thought there were other things that were more important."

"And this doesn't strike you as a little hypocritical?"

"That stopped working after I turned twenty-five, and it turns out it was never really a great idea." He rolled his eyes. "But I never forgot to give my body nourishment."

"No, you were just a bottomless pit instead."

"I was burning five thousand calories a day. It was justified."

Kenobi muffled the laugh but not his amusement, which rang loud and clear in the Force. Then he sat up straighter and said, "I have got to learn to control that."

"You really don't," he said.

"Just because you enjoy eavesdropping on other people's emotions," began Kenobi.

"No," he said. "Because some things hurt to talk about, but if your support network doesn't have to talk to know it anyway . . . "

"And you like keeping tabs on me," said Kenobi.

"And I keep tabs on all the people who are mine," he said, eyes flashing a bit before he caught the Dark and shoved it back down.

"That is both disturbing and reassuring," said Kenobi, sounding puzzled. "How did you do that?"

He shrugged. "Talent. I don't see why you even are in these meetings. Aren't you off the Council?"

Kenobi sighed. "It's not that simple."

"Sure it is. You say 'no' and then you walk out of the room."

"Yes, but the Council is - rather more blind than is healthy to the needs of the people we're supposed to serve," said Kenobi. "And I can't in good conscience turn it over to someone else."

"Because they won't be you?" After too long a silence, he went on. "Kenobi, everyone on that Council has been out there, fighting, amongst the real people. Hells, Koth is out there right now. They went into this war blind, sure, I will grant you. But everyone who is still alive is aware of how broken the Order is. I guarantee it. You can stop fighting for a while. At the very least, we've got Dooku and Grievous. The Separatists are going to be finished when that goes public, you know they will."

"Yes," agreed Kenobi. "I know."

"So you should take some time off for yourself."

"It's selfish."

"Putting your actual physiological needs above the wants of others is not selfish, Kenobi," he said, and then his timer went off. Kenobi stared blankly as he reset it. "I am bullying my brother into eating, because he is incapable of acting like an adult and taking care of himself, and I love him."

"Anakin."

He hummed, deliberately projecting his contentment at the Jedi.

"Of course this is what it takes to make you happy," said Kenobi, covering his eyes with his not-broken arm.

"Last time, I entirely failed to protect even one of the people I loved," he said. "This time, I seem to have managed all of you. Why shouldn't I be happy?"

"I just," said Kenobi. "I don't understand you at all."

"No. You wish you didn't understand me."

There was a pause.

"Kenobi?"

"The Code says - "

"Fuck the kriffing Code! One set of rules doesn't work for everyone, and especially not that set. What do you need?"

"A lot more time meditating than I've been getting, lately," said Kenobi, bone-dry.

He said, "Right. Did it even occur to you to tell the rest of the Council about it?"

Kenobi blinked.

"Do that," he urged. "I don't think even Rancisis will attempt to suggest that arguing about whatever the hell it is that they can't make their minds up about today is more important than you bleeding off the worst of it into the Force."

Kenobi did, apparently, because later that day while he was in hangar five working with Ky, all of them felt it when a huge chunk of - something - broke loose and floated off into the Force. Ventress was up and on guard, with her lightsaber ignited, before he even quite finished registering the sensation. Yoda cracked open an eye and said, "Finally."

Ventress turned her 'saber off. "That was you?"

"Master Kenobi it was."

She blinked. "Has he just not meditated in a month?"

"More or less," he said.

"Not true," said Ahsoka. "I was there. He spent forever trying to, um. Reach you?"

"But he wasn't meditating for himself," he said. "For you, and for Domino, but he was very much not confronting the Dark."

Ahsoka frowned. "I didn't think of it like that . . . "

A thought struck him. "And it didn't work until you helped, did it?"

"We thought if we could link together, we might get better range," explained Ahsoka. "And we did!"

"No, Snips. It wasn't that at all."

Ahsoka looked crestfallen.

When he was actually twenty-two, he wouldn't have gotten it. Age did have some benefits, after all. He made an invisible cloak of everything he felt about her, all the love and the grief and the protective urges even though she didn't need them, and wrapped it around her. She looked up sharply. "I told you," he said. "You're family. It didn't work until you tried it too because you're - it's impossible to whisper and shout at the same time, and Kenobi was trying to use the Dark in a pretty major way without even touching it. Whereas you weren't even a little bit conflicted about wanting to get some comfort from me just then."

"Oh," said Ahsoka, and smiled.

His comm chirped. "Naberrie."

"Rex," said Rex. "Is it - General Kenobi just started glowing. Should we be worried?"

"Probably not. If he's not done glowing by bedtime, get him into a bunk; I'll come prod him if he's not done by the time we get to Coruscant."

"Right," said Rex. "Is this like - after Mortis?"

"Broadly speaking, yes. In all the particulars, no. He has different issues than I did."

"Do you like being deliberately mysterious?" asked Rex.

"Maybe a little."

He heard Rex's soft breath of laughter. "Right, sir. Rex out."

Kenobi was not done glowing by two thousand hours. He learned this because Rex came in person to tell him so, and then stayed for dinner. Dinner was noodles in sticky sauce, courtesy of Ventress, because as she said, "I'm still not sure they don't want to kill me."

"You're joking, right?" asked Rex.

"No," said Ventress.

"Okay, one, we might not like you very much, but you did help rescue our general. Two, Naberrie would do something crazy if anyone tried to hurt you. Three, if any one of us were to try something, we wouldn't do it with poison."

Ventress tilted her head. "We've met before, haven't we?"

"Yes," said Rex.

"Where?"

"Kamino," replied Rex. "And other places."

"Oh," said Ventress. And, "No hard feelings?"

Rex raised an eyebrow. "You killed my brothers."

"We were on opposite sides of a war. And I'd been lied to; although I now believe Dooku thought he was telling me the truth."

Rex said, "They're still dead."

"I know. What do you want me to do about it?"

Which was a good question, he thought. He was staying out of it. His brothers had to decide for themselves how they were going to feel about Ventress.

"Remember them. Remember that they didn't need to die. And make better choices."

Ventress nodded. "That's the plan." She gestured at him. "I have help."

"Naberrie?"

"Him too, but I meant Padmé."

"Okay, yeah," said Rex. "Amidala is good people."

"Rex, I told you to call me Padmé," said Padmé.

"It's weird," said Rex. "You're a senator."

"I'm a citizen of the Republic," said Padmé reasonably. "And so are you. Exert your right to call people by their names, or people are going to keep treating you as - not-citizens."

"Oh," said Rex. "Yes. Thank you, Padmé." He turned back to Ventress. "And I have a different question. Why didn't you kill Dooku?"

"Dooku is really a very pathetic example of a human being," said Ventress. "I think it will hurt him more to live, and watch as we rip apart everything he ever built while at the same time succeeding in carrying out every goal he ever failed to achieve."

There was a pause. "We?"

"I dislike slavers," said Ventress.

"And stars are a little bit warm," added Ky, which got a laugh from Padmé and Ahsoka and, a moment later, from Rex.

Rex pulled him aside the next day. Literally pulled him aside, and half-dragged him into a room that was probably an engineering station, but was currently full of brothers. He relaxed when he realised he knew pretty much all of them: Panic, Havoc, Domino, and a mixed grab-bag of others from the 212th. "Okay, vod," Rex said. "Time to talk."

"Yeah, okay," he said.

"Since when," began Kix, "do you fly?"

"Really I don't," he said, walking across the room. "And it has nothing to do with the Dark. It's just stuff you can do with the Force, if you actually sit down and learn how it works instead of couching it all as semi-mystical mumbo-jumbo." He hit the wall and kept going. "I don't actually fly. I fall in controlled arcs."

"Kriff!"

"It's a skill," he said. "Same deal with the jump grenades. All push-pull turns out to be gravity manipulation. Simply picking up objects from across the room is basically the most boring thing it's possible to do with what is, essentially, a personal shaped tachyon deflector. Next question."

"Is this a skill you're planning to teach anyone else?"

"Yeah. I was, actually, and then Dooku set Kenobi on fire."

"You are aware that was a trap. I mean, fine, none of us is happy about that, but you still shouldn't just drop everything and come roaring to the rescue from across the galaxy whenever someone is captured. People are bound to notice."

"I'm sure they will," he agreed. "Given the amazing array of ways in which I can kill, maim, and otherwise incapacitate people, it's a stupid thing to try. I don't want to have to make an example of anybody, but believe me, if I do, it will only have to happen the once."

"Not reassuring," said Rex.

"Next question."

"Quark bombs," said Hardcase.

"Are way above your clearance," he said. "And, at least mathematically, something I can do. Next question."

"Antimatter bombs," said Hardcase.

"Also above your clearance, but off the record the Tenebrous is armed with electron torpedoes for a reason. Next question."

"Dooku."

"That's not a question."

"What is going to happen to him?"

"And could you stop being on the ceiling?" asked Dogma. "It's really disturbing."

He shrugged, then did a handstand before making the adjustment. He had about two feet to fall when he did. "There's going to be a trial, and then he's probably going to be sentenced to several consecutive life sentences," he said. "At the Temple, because there's really nowhere else that can even hold him."

"If he escapes?"

"Then I tell Ventress that he obviously can't be held anywhere, and stand back."

"Ventress."

"What, you haven't formed your own opinion of her?" he asked, tilting his head sardonically at Rex.

"Ventress," repeated Grok.

He sighed. "Dooku taught her, but deliberately did not teach her enough. She would have, and still will, die without regular intervention by someone who can touch the Light. I've been there. I wasn't going to let her die that way."

"And the other thing?" asked Kait.

"Which other thing?"

"The part where she's . . . "

"Um," he said, and shook his head. "Padmé did it. Ask her."

"Okay," said Jesse. "Grievous. We did go check up on what you told us, and it's true - and certain senators deserve impeaching over how it was handled - but. What did happen there? He was a feudal warlord, and then missing for seven years, and then the Separatist general and a cyborg."

"The terms of the treaty were and are extremely unfavorable to the Kaleel people as a whole. The Banking Clan offered to take on Kalee's debt, in return for Grievous' service. You're looking for the Martyr unit of the Banking Clan's collections division. At some point, Dooku wanted to punish him for something, so the whole cyborg," he gestured, "thing. You'll forgive me if I don't go into all the gory medical details."

"Um," said Kix. "Six or seven times on an operating table?"

"Yeah. I don't want to talk about that, either."

"Okay," said Rex. "Next. How did you know where to go?"

"The Force, and a whole bunch of math. R2 did the math. I did the part with the Force. It's. Very dependent on attachment, so Jedi can't do it. And I can't do it on more than a handful of people."

Domino was nodding. "Explains some stuff," said Echo. "Why Dooku went to the trouble, for one. It had to be Kenobi."

"Or Tano, but I'm really glad it wasn't Tano."

They contemplated in horror for a moment the idea of it being Ahsoka.

"Yeah," said Rex. "So. Falling and un-Falling."

"Using emotion versus inner peace to access the Force. Giving up doing it either way has an associated cost. The Jedi are just raised with the cost of not doing it the Dark way, so they don't know what they're missing." He shrugged. "I know. It's not a price I can pay, period. Kenobi can."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Dogma, "but I think you just implied you've got inner peace."

"Not like Yoda has inner peace," he said, which earned a laugh. "But sometimes."

"Where did you learn inner peace?"

"In a hyperbaric chamber," he said. It was true, even if it was not the answer to the question they had asked; but it was the answer to the question he chose to hear.

"Then," said Fives. "I mean. You don't seem evil, and Ventress is . . . and that Ky kid. We're told the Dark is evil, but."

"Oh, no. Not evil. Of course, the fact that the quicksand isn't trying to kill you doesn't mean that you're not still dying. There are just, at least as far as human psychology goes, more precautions that must be taken with the Dark. Hence the inappropriately timed suggestions about the number of simultaneous blasts it would take to kill me. And other things."

"What other things?" asked Grok.

"Therapy, for one," he said. "But more importantly . . . I choose to be attached. Part of that means that the people to whom I form attachments get a responsibility to. Keep an eye on me, I suppose. Killing me is only the last option. Noticing when I'm a little off, and talking me back to myself, that's much preferred."

"Keep you from going crazy, got it," said Rex.

"Lost cause," said Witch. "I've known him a week and even I know that."

"Point. Keep him from going the bad kind of crazy," said Rex. "Think we can manage it, brothers?"

"Between the almost-two-million of us?" asked Fives. "Piece of cake."

He smiled. "Thanks, vode. More questions?"

There was a pause before Shiv said, "Lightsabers. With your bare hands."

"That falls under the category of 'weird Force stuff.' Sorry."

"No, you're not," said Echo.

"No, I'm not," he agreed. "Please keep that footage under wraps. I want it to be the kind of rumor no one actually believes. Just in case."

"Done," said Kait and Rex simultaneously.

"Great. Glad we had this talk. Someone can be the official collator of questions, and regularly ping me with questions other brothers have. Although I reserve the right to not answer."

"One more," said Rex. "Sith."

"A thought trap. A different kind of thought trap than the Jedi code, one it took me forever to realise I was in. But, like all cults, it is reasonably easy to spot the logical fallacies from the outside. Vode an." He stepped out of the room.

Kenobi continued to glow softly until halfway into the final approach to Coruscant, and then he woke up with blue eyes. It was therefore him and Ventress and Padmé and Ky and Yoda and Kenobi and Ahsoka in the Tenebrous on the way down. Grievous and Dooku were being transferred separately, on vehicles more able to prevent escapes.

"My dear," said Ventress, without turning her head to look, "We can all feel you have something to say, but stop giving me a headache wanting to say it."

"My apologies," said Kenobi. "I don't know how to, ah, not project."

"Like this," said Ventress, and slid in around Kenobi and Forced him to occupy a space that was only as big as his physical body.

"Oh." Kenobi said, "Thank you."

Solo and smaller Solo met them on the landing pad. So did Windu. He ignored the later in favor of the former. "You got home okay. That's good."

"Yeah," said Han. "An' so did you. Didja rescue everybody?"

"Possibly," he said, and nodded to the boy's mother. "Solo."

"Naberrie," said Solo. "Thank you."

He smiled. "You're welcome."

Then he turned to Windu. "I didn't know you were on-planet."

"I wasn't," said Windu. "I'm not actually here for you, Naberrie; I'm waiting for the other ships. Though if you're free tomorrow, sparring."

"You think there will be time? I thought tomorrow was just going to be a solid block of Council session."

Windu sighed. "You're probably right. Still. If there is, sparring."

"Okay," he said.

He went back to his room, and so did Padmé, and they spent some time reacquainting themselves with the 'fresher. After, he sat and braided Padmé's hair, and they talked. Not about anything particularly important, even. The last few days hadn't been that stressful. But talking was good. He learned more about Padmé's food preferences. Naboo cuisine tended towards grain and fish, but she actually like spice and vegetables more. He therefore attempted something with spice and vegetables for dinner, which came out inedible because he'd vastly underestimated how spicy the peppers were. Padmé laughed, and they had oven pastries instead.

The next day the Council session started before he was even awake, and went literally all day. Fortunately, the Council seemed stuck on Dooku, because he never got commed to show. He sparred with Ventress, and then did moving meditation, and then they went to talk to Kanta about more advanced moving meditation. It went well, for a given value of well. Ventress was wandering around in her own cloud of Darkness, but it was the good Dark, the kind she got from enjoying herself. That afternoon, he introduced her to Solo.

Later, Padmé said, "Let's go out for dinner."

"Not the Dzeer again?"

"No. Something low-key. I just want people to know we're back; that we didn't elope to, I don't know, Kessel."

"We're already married. Wouldn't eloping be kind of redundant?"

"Gossip rags," said Padmé.

They went out to a place Padmé knew, in a greenstack far enough away from the Senate district to be reasonably priced. The food was pretty good, but it was mostly a bonus on simply being there, in public, with his wife, and not having to worry about a thing. Padmé was kind of nonplussed when they hadn't made any of the gossip rags the next day, so they did lunch at a food stand in the courtyard of the Senate Dome. That got picked up almost immediately.

"You're pregnant?" he asked, reading one of the more outlandish theories out loud.

"I could be pregnant," said Padmé.

"Well, yes." It wasn't like they'd been doing anything to stop it. "Are you?"

"No," said Padmé, laughing, and tilted her head up for a kiss.

The day after that, he and Ventress and Ky got commed only a bit after breakfast. "Finally," he said.

"Um," said Ky.

"Not getting cold feet now, are you?"

"No. I just don't know why I have to come."

"Debrief. And then, if you feel ready, we'll try the first controlled Fall in this part of the galaxy for thousands of years."

There was a brief spike of excitement through the Force as Ky processed that. "I feel ready."

"Of course you do," said Ventress.

The debrief was not all that bad, really. They'd all done it on the Negotiator, and this was just to clear up persistent questions. There weren't that many of those. He'd written all about his motivations as well as just his actions. He hadn't seen Ventress' report, but from the lack of questions he got the sense writing it had been more than a bit cathartic. Ky answered his questions readily enough. It was clear he hadn't written a very good report, but, in his defence, it was probably his first after-action ever, and also he was thirteen.

There was a short break after that, for tea and kaff. Then they got down to the real business.

"I just want to state, for the record," said Tiin, "that I think this is a bad idea."

"Noted," he said, along with Kenobi, Windu, Ventress, Yoda, and Nu. Nu then looked like she'd bitten into an unripe josta fruit. Ventress blinked, once, slowly, and when she opened her eyes they were electrum.

"The way this is going to work," he said, "is as follows. Ky, you're going to feel something - doesn't matter what, but try for happiness before going for anger - and use it to reach for the Force. I am going to be standing here pulling the Light so you don't do it the other way. I expect this to be a little trial-and-error, so don't worry if you don't get it the first time, or even the twentieth. You'll get it. Ventress is going to be, um, blocking the Dark from going anywhere else. We don't need to accidentally make another Councillor Fall."

"Seconded," said Ti, smiling to show she was only joking.

"Okay," said Ky. He was outwardly calm, and this fooled exactly nobody.

He sighed. Youth. What the hell. Then he opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay. Go," and immediately had to block Ky from pulling on the Light, the way he was trained to.

They didn't get it the first try. They didn't get it the second, or the third, or the fourteenth, and Ky was getting frustrated by the twentieth. But he was also getting more determined, his normal unfocused subadult consciousness zeroing in, refocusing every time it didn't work. The basic mistake, that of calming himself before reaching, didn't change, but it was - eroding was probably the best word. Sooner or later, he wouldn't take that moment to center himself, and then -

It wasn't really a Fall, not as the Jedi knew Falls; not as he'd experienced it. It was more like the moment in training when all the disparate parts came together for the first time, and the new maneuver worked. It didn't work expertly or well, because that's what practice was for, but the Dark slid into place with an almost palpable sense of finality.

"Oh," breathed Ky, and the growing anger evaporated in a single wave of awed wonder. "Oh, wow." When the boy opened his eyes, they were still his natural black; black except for the flecks of glimmering iridescence, blooming in his irises like distant stars, that spoke of something else.

"Welcome," he said, "to the Naar."

" . . . huh," said Windu.

"Thanks," said Ky, and took a breath, and let it go. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"Yes," said Ventress. "Go pack. We're leaving tomorrow morning."

"We are?" asked Ky.

"No you're not," said Rancisis.

Ventress looked at him. "You can't legally stop either of us. And we are; he needs practice away from this palace of calm contemplation." And in taking Ky with her, she'd be safe too. Well. Safer, anyway. "Also I need to figure out this whole student thing away from Naberrie. No offense."

"None taken," he said. "Not Dathomir, though."

"Not Dathomir," agreed Ventress.

"Okay then." He turned to address the Council. "Is there anything else we need to do, while we're here?"

"Regarding the Dark, there is not," said Yoda. "But your presence at least we still require. Discuss the announcement to the Senate we must."

"Ick," said Ventress. "Pass. Later, Naberrie. Ky, with me."

"Yeah," said Ky, and left with her.

"Media conference?" he asked.

Windu said, "You seem decent at them." By which it was probably meant that it was going to be his job until Windu noticed just how much free positive goodwill he, and by extension the tiny Naar Order, was getting from it. Or until he objected, of course.

He sighed, and said, "All right. Press brief. Let's talk."

The sea of holocorders and journalists was not less intimidating this time around, but he felt calmer. He wasn't going to have to talk about himself, so much.

A murmur rose when he was the one who stepped out from behind the curtain, though. He waited until it died down, and then stepped forward. "Afternoon. If we can just all quiet down, it might be possible to get started on time." The was a little laughter, but also almost immediate silence. "Thank you. I only have one very shocking bit of news today, but I'm going to open with an ethical question."

"Let us suppose that a new hyperroute were mapped in the expansion zone. On the other end, the Republic finds two species at war. Species A is clearly the more advanced of the two. Despite this, it is under attack by Species B, which has more ships and more colony worlds, and seems determined to completely annihilate Species A. Species A, upon decoding the first-contact packet, immediately applies for Republic help. They receive it, and in short order Judicial ships have picketed that part of space and enforced some semblance of peace.

Utter silence. He continued. "Species A claims that Species B attacked without reason and stole all of those colony worlds; and the residual terraforming suggests that they are telling the truth. Species B claims that they are in fact the victims, and were retaliating against generations-long slavery imposed by Species A. The fact that all of their more advanced technology seems to be back-engineered from Species A, and indeed, certain cultural modes, suggest that they are telling the truth. Species A sues for the return of all their colony worlds, income lost to the war, and inclusion in the Republic as a protectorate."

"The question: what should the Republic do?"

He waited, but no one spoke. "If your answer was, 'Give Species A everything they want without further investigation,' then congratulations. You have just plunged all of Species B into debt that will last for generations. You have forced several systems' worth of people onto a single planet which does not have the technology to support them, thus guaranteeing mass starvation in the first few years and persistent famine for the foreseeable future as the ecology is slowly destroyed. Also, it later turns out, given a place in the Republic to a slaver society which regularly ate the developing eggs of Species B, which is, I remind you, sapient."

"Is there a point to this?" asked someone in the audience.

"There's always a point," he said. "In this case, my point is as follows: if that were your life history - warrior against a people who took pleasure in eating your fetal children, and then practically overnight a leader who had to watch as millions of your people starved - would you be justified in hating the Republic?" Again, quiet. No one wanted to be the voice who admitted the Republic's culpability.

"I ask," he said, "because that is the life history of one Qymaen jai Sheelal, better known to the Republic as the Separatist Supreme Commander General Grievous."

Instant pandemonium. He waited it out, ignoring all of the questions and the bright, bright holocorder lights. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to do anything other than glare at them with icy blue eyes, they quieted.

He said, "If you go looking, you find that not a few of the species and peoples and planets which sided with the Separatists have similar stories to tell. Tell me, is it fair that a newly-discovered species, not yet spaceborne but, as guaranteed in first-contact protocols, sovereign on their own planet, should face orbital bombardment and virtual enslavement by the Mining Guild? Is it just that a planet whose ecology is recovering from a nuclear war and balanced on the edge of a knife-blade be invaded by uncaring outworlders, simply because the system happens to be a convenient refueling depot on the local hyperroute? Should the Banking Clan be allowed to change interest rates at will, without legal oversight? Is the Republic a myth, democracy a tissue of lies covering a mountain of dirty deals, systemic graft, and criminal corruption?

"Count Dooku of Serenno thinks so," he said, and waited for the murmurs to crescendo and die again. "I know this because he told me, personally, just before we arrested him."

The conference did not end for almost five hours.

He was on every news station that night, too, along with lots of experts in various planetary and systemic histories. The media could dig up the facts fast when they had the incentive, he had to give them that. He watched for a little while, as the history of the Yam'rii-Kaleel conflict was dissected, the senators involved called up to account; even the Jedi who'd been on the ground ripped to shreds. On other stations, similar efforts were happening with regards to other planets, Utapau and Leyak and Biina. Then Padmé turned off the holo, and said, "I know how to play the game."

"I know how to win the game," he amended.

"Yes you do," said Padmé. "The Senate is convening an emergency session, and - there have been calls for me to be reinstated." Partway through, he'd been asked if Padmé had also been on this mostly-classified mission. He had answered honestly but shortly, in one word; apparently, that one word had been enough.

"Do you want to be reinstated?"

"I think I have to," she said. "Is - are we going to be okay?"

"Did I do the right thing? Calling the Republic out?"

"Absolutely," said Padmé.

"Then we'll be fine," he said. "Go. Do your job. Drag our enemies into the light."

"Yes," said Padmé, and went to get dressed in her heavy senatorial robes. He followed her to help. He was getting good with braids, anyway. Once dressed in her armor and war paint, he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. "Ani. I love you, and I'm really glad you're my husband."

"I love you too. Victory, Padmé."

She nodded once, decisively, and turned away.

Even after she left, he was filled with the kind of nervous energy that would keep him from sleep, and therefore didn't even try. He decided to start work on his new new arm, and had just begun laying out tools when the door chimed. He sighed, but got up to go get shouted at by Windu.

It was Kenobi.

He stepped back; Kenobi followed him, and once the door had shut behind them, lunged forward into a lopsided hug so close he couldn't breathe. He reached up and, gingerly, put his arms around the smaller man, careful not to squeeze too hard with his inorganic arm. Less awkwardly, he wrapped Kenobi in love and comfort, signalling that he would help no matter what was wrong.

"I am so," whispered Kenobi into his ear, "so proud of you."

"Oh," he said, and held on until Kenobi felt like stepping back.

"You monumental pain in the ass. Bigger. Continental. Planetary."

"Were you or were you not complaining to me about how broken the Jedi Order is?"

"I didn't ask you to - to vomit that all over the galactic news cycle!"

"Oops," he deadpanned.

Kenobi managed to hold the stern face for another five seconds before he cracked up, and then they were both laughing as they staggered over to the couch. Every time they got quieter, he said, 'oops,' or Kenobi said, 'planetary,' and they were off again. It ended up taking a solid quarter of an hour, and even then they kept breaking out in chuckles. The Dark was very close, warm and welcoming; and by the end, Kenobi's eyes matched his hair.

" - what?" said Kenobi.

"Are you - your eyes," he said.

"It doesn't hurt," said Kenobi. "It does the opposite of hurt. That's what keeps tripping me. I thought the Dark would hurt, by definition."

"Depends on how you do it," he said.

"You don't even care about the power, do you?" said Kenobi. "Not as anything other than a nuisance."

"Yeah," he said, wishing someone would have articulated it like that the first time around. More power was pointless, if you couldn't use it for anything other than destruction; and with anger and hate, destruction was all there was. It had taken him years to learn how to aim it, even.

"I have been thinking about it," said Kenobi. "I talked to Yoda. The rest of the Council. Ahsoka."

"And?"

"And Ventress," he said.

"And?"

"I asked her about when she decided to change. She said, oh, something like, 'When I figured out that Naberrie would have taught me even if I hadn't had Separatist military secrets to share.' And that's. I realised I wasn't thinking when, but if. I. If you can answer, will you tell me what that other me did, that makes you so certain about what I'm going to do?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Anakin," said Kenobi in the tone of gentle reproof that meant he hadn't understood at all.

"Nothing," he repeated, looking down at at his hands. "I know for a fact that he went somewhere with some kind of medical care, because both of the twins made it. Padmé didn't, so maybe it wouldn't have been enough. I don't know, because he did nothing, rather than face the fact that I'm more comfortable in the Dark."

Kenobi didn't answer; not with words. Instead, weakly but not so weakly that he couldn't feel it was deliberate, Kenobi offered him his love.

Kenobi had done that twice before. A different Kenobi. That love had all been tinged orange and bitter with grief, and the moments had both been brief and unintentional. This, the person here with him, was offering something pure and open and free.

He looked over at the other man, incredulous.

"He abandoned you," said Kenobi, softly. "He left you to burn."

"Yes," he said.

Kenobi took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Okay. I'm . . . not like you. I've been a Jedi my whole life. I was a Jedi before I started cutting my first teeth, even. So you'll have to forgive me if I hold on too tightly, or go too far in the other direction and don't hold on tightly enough. I am damned if I am leaving you to do this, with the Dark and the Naar, on your own. You decided we are brothers, so let's be brothers - Anakin? Why are you looking at me like that? Anakin!"

"We'll carry each other," he said, arms happily wrapped around Kenobi. "That's what brothers do. And together, we will carry the Force back into balance." Silently, he let Kenobi know how grateful he was, in that moment. How joyful. "Welcome to the Naar."