Chapter Text
Anakin Skywalker died like any soldier.
The 501st was leading what must have been the fiftieth campaign to retake Christophsis, cursed planet that it was, and Rex would happily make passionate love to a rancor if it meant he’d never have to see another crystal tower in his life. He ducked behind a giant shard as blaster fire screamed over the battlefield and used his newfound cover to off three B-1s in quick succession. The fourth was in his sights when it went down wailing from a shot from above, struck with such force that its cheaply constructed head popped off its cheaply constructed body.
“You’ll get ‘em next time, Rex!” Anakin called encouragingly, hopping down from a catwalk.
Rex telegraphed a full body eye roll at his general and returned to shooting. Out of the corner of his HUD, Anakin rebounded blast after blast, giving himself an opening to charge forward and overzealously scrap the B-2s pinning down a squad of shinies. Rex was pretty sure the backflip was unnecessary.
“Don’t patronize me, sir,” he said flatly, nailing the droid in Anakin’s blind spot.
“Wouldn’t dream of it!” The Jedi had the gall to wave before diving back into the fray.
The ground rumbled, and Rex whipped around in time to see a distant tower implode, followed by another. Ahsoka’s strike team had clearly given up on stealth. “Why am I not surprised.”
The first sign that something was very, very wrong was the silence. Anakin’s quips were so incessant that Rex’s brain delivered one for him complete with an imaginary smirk: “Whose brilliant idea was it to put Hardcase on Ahsoka’s team?”
Rex refocused on his own battlefield to line up his next shot and then he was sprinting out from cover, damn the consequences, because Anakin was crumpling backwards in slow motion, tunic smoking, and his ears were ringing as he screamed “Medic! Medic! General down! Secure the Commander!”
The pounding in his skull blurred his vision and Rex’s body moved on instinct, shooting and body-checking droids to get to his general and oh Force they were stepping on him. Whatever self-control Rex had left shattered in the firm plant of his feet bracketing Anakin’s torso. He fired bolt after bolt into the swarm, not daring to look down and hoping against hope that Anakin had slipped into some kind of Force-osik healing trance.
But Captain Rex rarely had the luxury of hope, and he knew the stillness of death too well.
Ahsoka knew the pain of loss too well, but no one spoke of the white-hot misery of absence.
It was so much worse.
He was just gone, training bond severed in one clean stroke. Its burnt stump flapped around the space newly vacated by Anakin’s constant pulses of feeling, his unwavering support and pride, his fierce protectiveness that was gradually melting into confidence in his apprentice. Ahsoka never knew about the walls she erected to keep his flood of emotions at bay until they collapsed with nothing left to counter. He was so large in the Force, glowing and magnetic like a neutron star, and now he was gone.
Ahsoka dropped to her knees among the wreckage. For one agonizing heartbeat the Force was simply blank, like it, too, floundered without its favorite son. The scream building in Ahsoka’s throat crested and she howled at the sky, the Force rushing back in a tidal wave of too much, too fast, too soon. It fed her the ratcheting anxieties of the clones, the abject terror of the trapped civilians, even the sudden dread of the Separatist commander on the other side of the planet. They would eat her alive if she hesitated, hollow her out like the new void in her heart, but she shoved them up out of her throat and into her unbroken wail. It was a Togruta mourner’s keen, one typically layered in a cathartic chorus, but Ahsoka’s was the only voice offered up to the sky.
She was too busy screaming to notice that the cacophony of battle had gone silent.
Torrent Company picked themselves up from their newly mandated faceplants, guns raised to track whatever tank had the balls to drop an EMP on an active war zone. Tup, the newest on their hand-picked crew, lowered his rifle and almost took his bucket off to gaze in wonder. The battle droids firing not two seconds earlier were blown apart, reduced to a plain of sparking wires as far as their HUDs could see. Hardcase experimentally zoomed in. No hostiles left standing.
No crater, either. The strike team had somehow retained all their limbs, and Hardcase’s quick survey showed no symptoms of major head trauma nor the electric burns from a typical EMP.
“Hell yeah!” he crowed, pumping his Z-6 over his head like a maniac. His ears were ringing, but who cared? “I’m gonna kiss whichever techie developed that fucker!”
Because the 501st was cursed, their comms chose that moment to reboot, and far too many things happened for Hardcase’s taste. Rex’s frantic cries of “Medic! Medic! General down! Secure the Commander!” narrated their sprint to Ahsoka’s last known position behind their lines, but Jesse hadn’t fallen into formation. That little fucker.
Hardcase mentally smacked himself when they reached the Commander because there was Jesse, kneeling beside the stricken teenager as she rocked back and forth and screeched with an agony that nearly rent his soul from his body, harmonizing with Rex’s tinny shouts. Huh. So it wasn’t his ears ringing.
Torrent circled up defensively. Hardcase did a double take mid-prowl because holy fuck was the Commander glowing? Though it was rapidly fading, the soft white radiance leaking from under the Commander’s skin made it look like she’d eaten stars for breakfast. Hardcase matched the light to the blast wave that had just won them this battle and rapidly reassessed his outlook on life.
Fives, slightly more courteous, tipped his helmet in Jesse’s direction. The ARC shook his head. Hardcase could practically hear the vow of secrecy in Torrent’s assenting nods.
Fucking Jedi osik.
Obi-Wan was perversely relieved by the Force taking a battering ram to his chest, knocking him off the tiny stool that had lulled his glutes to sleep and finally, blessedly, shutting up the king of Aleen Minor. The famed Negotiator was spending his “break” on assignment, ostensibly renewing the skittish king’s confidence in the Republic. If Aleen Minor seceded, it would put the nearby Aleen relay station at risk of a Separatist attack.
Logically, Obi-Wan knew this. It didn’t stop him from fantasizing about gnawing off his own ears. Sometimes Cody’s ears, too, though far more gently. Obi-Wan promptly refocused whenever he strayed that far. In his defense, the negotiations largely consisted of King Manuchko talking himself into and out of declaring for the Republic. Obi-Wan had barely gotten a word in since they’d sat down two weeks ago.
Mace was paying for the next Council bar crawl, even if Obi-Wan had to shake him down for it.
He was folding the king’s words into the musical pour of expensive whiskey when the Force bodychecked him off his seat. It was a classic Anakin move – but there was no Anakin anymore.
Their bond, typically pulsing with Anakin’s emotions no matter the distance, snapped like it had been hit by blasterfire and now floated loosely, swimming behind Obi-Wan’s eyes as he tried and failed to draw in a breath. Static overtook his brain and he was happy to cede it, to avoid the feverish, horrified grief he’d only felt at Qui-Gon’s death demanding his attention once more.
Obi-Wan had barely processed this new misery when another blast ripped through his body, whiting out his vision. He would gladly float in this second liminal space save for the fact that the wave of light had chased out the static and unleashed his emotions once more. That was not ideal.
The floor is cold and my face is wet, Obi-Wan thought as the hellscape of his new reality trickled back in. His slowly responding nerves informed him that he’d curled into the fetal position and the wetness was an expanding puddle of tears and nosebleed. He was also shaking, just on the edge of fully seizing. Obi-Wan thanked his nerves and tried to latch onto the chill of the slate floor.
King Manuchko hovered over him, working himself up into another panicked spiral. “The Force has sent a terrible omen! This treaty is doomed!” The distant part of Obi-Wan still able to joke wondered if the Aleena would start running in circles with his stubby arms raised.
That is not good for negotiations, his brain informed him. It then went back to recalling every action that could have saved Anakin’s life.
He needed to get off this Force-forsaken moon to find whatever was left of his boy and Ahsoka, oh, Ahsoka. She was sixteen and already leading troops alone. It was a fate Obi-Wan knew too well.
He would bring them both home even if it killed him.
Unclenching his body was a superhuman feat, to say nothing of actually standing. Gracious servants helped him back to his stool, pressing a napkin into his hand. King Manuchko moved his breakdown closer to the table.
“We’re all going to die!” the king wailed. Obi-Wan took several seconds to recall how to speak.
“Apologies for the fright, Your Majesty,” he said, dredging up The Negotiator persona. The Negotiator could close this deal like an acclaimed Councilmember. The Negotiator could release his grief into the Force and spin this to his advantage. “I fear I received a vision – as you so aptly identified – but it concerned the fate of your planet should Aleen Minor not redeclare for the Republic.” The gravity of his statement was rather muffled by the napkin pinching his nose.
Manuchko’s eyes went wide, filling in the blanks The Negotiator left wide open. “We will face ruin without the Jedi?” He breathed.
“I fear so, my friend,” The Negotiator replied.
“Then I will recommit my people to the Republic.”
The Negotiator managed to condense the treaty-signing rituals into a single day. Obi-Wan wanted to rip his hair out, barely taking the edge off his grief with an inadvisable amount of meditation. Maybe gnawing off his ears was a brilliant idea after all.
The Negotiator excused himself from the celebratory banquet but it was Obi-Wan who raced back to his Venator orbiting Aleen Minor at a diplomatic distance. He didn’t bother to paste on the charade of The General when he commed Cody as soon as he took off.
“Where are Anakin and Ahsoka deployed right now?”
There was tapping against a datapad. “Christophsis, sir. We’re expected back on Coruscant after negotiations end. Should I change our flight plan?” Cody’s voice held no judgement, only poorly concealed concern. Obi-Wan stopped himself from weeping outright.
“That would be lovely, dear. How long until we arrive?”
“Eight rotations, sir. We’re on the other side of the galaxy right now.”
“Make it six.”
Seven and a half rotations later, the Negotiator orbited a newly retaken Christophsis. The 501st was already gone.
Sometimes Padmé regretted her Senate seat. She generally enjoyed being a politician, with its opportunities to meet new beings and change lives for the better. Currently, she cursed every life decision that landed her the enviable position of explaining to Orn Free Taa why deregulating the banks was a terrible idea.
Padmé could’ve sworn they’d been through this on three prior occasions.
“If deregulation will bankrupt the Republic, why can’t we just print more money?” Taa drawled innocently.
One of his aides winced, and Padmé mentally threw up her hands. Some day the Corries would indict him on those trafficking charges as Padmé watched smugly, and then she’d invite those poor aides to a delightfully boozy brunch. Today, it was time for her to go home. She’d foist Taa off on Bail tomorrow.
Padmé checked her chronometer and sighed through her nose. Anakin and Ahsoka weren’t due back from the front for weeks, and Shiraya knew how long Obi-Wan would take to wrestle King Manuchko into a written commitment. She allowed herself to envision their family dinner. The looming pile of datapads next to her had absolutely no relation to her mental retreat.
Anakin and Ahsoka would convince her to let them make dessert, even after they’d eviscerated her oven with their last attempt. They were perfectly fine cooks alone, but somehow forgot basic kitchen rules when teamed up. Padmé still got flashbacks to the time Anakin assured Ahsoka that a plastoid cutting board was the perfect baking tray for Padmé’s very expensive Shaak steaks.
Obi-Wan would show up fashionably late with tasteful appetizers, sigh as he glanced at the kitchen, and make a beeline to the liquor cabinet. The man could make a cocktail like no other, but he’d plop down with two whiskeys on the rocks, lean all the way back, and exhale like his soul was trying to evacuate his body. They’d nibble on his appetizers and challenge each other to take a drink every time they heard a crash. By the time the Organas arrived, half the bottle would be gone, with Padme and Obi-Wan pointedly not commenting on the growing haze.
Bail, saint of all saints, would stow his replacement bottle of Alderaanian rose wine and disappear to wrangle the kitchen, while Breha would join the delightfully tipsy pair and drink every time Anakin and Bail sniped at each other over politics. Another hour would see the whiskey emptied and the rose wine opened as Obi-Wan regaled them with tales of “aggressive negotiations,” only to be cut off before the climax by the emergence of the sooty kitchen crew inevitably holding some charred lump that managed to be overbaked and underbaked simultaneously.
Bail would unveil a universally satisfying takeout feast, always with a hunk of raw meat for Ahsoka, and on one memorable occasion bugs for Anakin, whom he had on good good authority would eat anything. Anakin had tried to coerce the rest of the table into eating them but was only joined by Ahsoka, who he had declared his favorite being of all time. Padmé had banned him from kissing her for the rest of the night. The rest of his lineage nudged each other conspiratorially but said nothing.
They would drink until they forgot that theirs were the backs the Republic rested upon, always ending up sprawled on Padmé’s couches, still blearily murmuring as the sun crested the horizon. Bail and Breha would leave at some nebulous point before dawn like responsible adults with day jobs. Padmé would lie against Anakin’s chest, Ahsoka’s head in her lap and her bare orange feet tangled with Anakin’s. Anakin’s head would end up in Obi-Wan’s lap, his old master gently combing fingers through his hair. It would feel like they were sharing one heartbeat.
Shiraya, she missed them.
Padmé made a note to find a takeout place for next time. It was her turn to bring the main dish and she would deny any help Anakin volunteered. Somehow, he’d sneak bugs into the meal just to prove a point.
She returned to her fantasy as the banking deal slowly deteriorated. Padmé could practically taste the wine on her lips, feel the rise and fall of Anakin’s chest.
Obi-Wan barely composed himself enough to comm two days later, leaving Padmé a widow in everything but name.
Sheev Palpatine had never heard of Skywalker’s Law: when everything is going according to plan, something will hurl out of left field to absolutely fuck your shit up. With all of the Sith’s meticulous plans, it was a wonder he’d yet to encounter it. Of course, there was no longer a Skywalker to embody Skywalker’s Law. Therein lay Palpatine’s Hutt-sized karmic problem.
For efficiency purposes, the Chancellor was alternating between holocalls with the obnoxious Trade Federation and the obnoxiously earnest Loyalist Committee, pulling his hood up and down respectively. He’d simply revert to audio only when the other party was speaking, which had the added benefit of showing his underlings exactly how much he cared about their causes. Nute Gunray was rambling about profit margins – Dooku would convince the Separatist cabinet to order more droids – and Mon Mothma was earnestly seeking approval for her new aid bill – it was destined to fail even without Palpatine pulling the strings. It was gratifying to see each government tip towards the total anarchy that only an Emperor could rule, but Palpatine barely needed to put effort in any more. The Senate was voting down relief bills on their own! He didn’t even need to stage another assassination.
Palpatine was not growing complacent. Sith did not grow complacent when their centuries-old plan nears fruition. Boredom, on the other hand, was perfectly acceptable fuel for the Dark Side. It slowly grated on one’s nerves, festering into annoyance, which grew into anger, etc. The Line of Bane would remember Darth Sidious as the man who discovered the deepest well of Dark energy yet: bureaucracy.
Mon Mothma was stressing about civilian casualties with those stupidly honest eyes, absolutely unbefitting for a politician, when the galaxy shifted on its axis. The Force retreated, like the ocean before a tsunami, then flooded back in with such a disgustingly Light wave that Palpatine’s ears popped. He slumped a bit, glad to be sitting, and frantically rewove his web of Darkness around Coruscant. It was the night cycle, so with his luck the Jedi would all be asleep for his little slip-up.
Mon Mothma looked at him oddly. Nute Gunray was still droning in the background, now preaching on overhead costs.
“Are you all right, Chancellor?” The Chandrilan senator asked. “You went pale.”
“I’m perfectly fine, my dear, just an old man whose long nights are catching up to him.” He managed his most grandfatherly expression even as the Force badgered him from all sides. “I think it’s best to revisit your proposal in the light of day.”
Mon Mothma’s squint didn’t disappear as she bowed and hung up. Palpatine lunged for the other holoprojector and crushed it. Nute Gunray winked out, leaving him with blessed silence. The Force swooped and tumbled, shrieking and singing, more scattered and even than Palpatine had felt in fourteen years. He grabbed for his bond with Anakin, sure the boy had undergone some disgustingly healthy emotional growth, only to come up with empty air.
The Force swirled around him then branched off, abandoning the newly deceased fulcrum Palpatine had slowly groomed to tip the galaxy into darkness. For the first time in his life Palpatine hurled his desk across the room with a roar. All that power at his fingertips! Gone! Probably bestowed upon some Outer Rim hick who would take ages to track down. Palpatine itched to execute Order 66 just to make himself feel better. How could a god among men fall in battle like some common meat droid?
Palpatine turned his attention to his chair. It swiveled smugly.
Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and Dark Lord of the Sith, hurled his chair out the window.
“FUCK!”