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The call comes at a complete surprise. Although, to be fair, Anakin is quite sure that he never would have picked up the holo if he’d known.
“ Dooku ,” he says, trying to sound angry rather than revealing the terror that fills him at even the sight of the man who had ripped his brain to bits. Dooku merely smiles.
(the smug satisfaction in Dooku’s mind as he pulls out of his min- NO! He can't go there. Has to stay here, stay now, where Dooku can't touch him.)
“Skywalker,” he says calmly. Anakin growls.
“What do you want?” he asks. Dooku cocks his head.
“Why can’t I simply call to congratulate my Great-Grandpadawan on a job well done?” he asks, “After all, you’ve just made me the Master, and I can hunt down my Apprentice without repercussions, now.”
…What?
“I’d say that you had plenty of freedom before now,” Anakin says bitterly. After all, he doubted that Sidious had allowed Dooku to capture his future Apprentice and rip his controls out.
Dooku sighs.
“Treachery is the way of the Sith, Skywalker,” he says, “One of many things that I hope to change . Even so, I did have to remove the competition somehow . The rest was a surprise even to myself. At least your defeat of my former Master makes the possibility of a future where you defeat me a bearable concept.”
No . Anakin almost stumbles back. He’d kept it secret, the one thing…
“Anakin?” he hears Obi-Wan’s voice ask across the bond, “What’s happening? I can feel your worry, dear one, are you okay?”
His presence is like a rock, steadying Anakin in the flurries of his terror. Force blast it! It had been a month since the battle with Sidious; he’d been doing okay …
“Anakin?”
Anakin sighs.
“I’m okay, Master,” he says, “Just something unexpected. I’ll tell you later. I promise.”
He feels the imprint of a sigh as Obi-Wan’s presence leaves.
“Very well,” Obi-Wan says, “But I will hold you to your word, Anakin.”
Anakin breathes in, deeply. He can do this.
(Perhaps, in another life, he might have been able to quip, here, to point out the recent capture of Darth Maul and Savage Oppress. He wishes that he could, desperately wishes that this new future could have come about without the pain that he can still feel like an echo…
But it couldn’t, and he knows this, and…
Well, for all the good that meeting Luke had done him, it was hard to learn that there was no better option. At least the evils of this timeline are temporary.)
“So you saw?” he asks. Dooku laughs (and he tries not to shudder).
“Of course I did,” he says, “What sort of plebeian do you take me for? A Leach Bond can leave all sorts of bugs.”
A… “What?”
Dooku sighs.
“I suppose that it slipped my mind how utterly uninformed you Jedi are,” he says, “A Leach Bond is a complex Dark Side technique that allows a Sith or other Dark Side user to enter, influence, and view another Force-Sensetive’s mind. The only way to remove it without severe mental scarring is with the proper support of a mind network and a knowing and willing victim. Obviously, yours had gone very deep… of course, mine had as well, although obviously without my knowledge of it’s existence, and I thank you for killing him while I was alone.”
Oh… that made sense. That made terrible, horrible sense. All those years… what of himself was truly even his own?
(It’s Dark, the thing Dooku’s been slowly, painfully removing from his mind... No!)
No! He can’t think like that. His choices were his own, in the end, good and bad.
“So why are you calling?” he asks, and that evil smile returns to Dooku’s face.
“Why, to decide what to do with the war, of course.”
...Again, what?
“I don’t know what you mean,” Anakin says. Dooku sighs again.
“I merely wonder what you think of it, now that my former Master is gone. After all, there are many ways that this could go.”
“Still lost,” Anakin says, and Dooku… actually rolls his eyes. It was almost... comical.
(Divested of his arm by the same man twice. It was almost... comical...
Blast it! He needs to stop thinking like this.)
“Honestly, Skywalker,” he says, “We both know that the Confederacy is a front, a simple bad guy to help the rise of an empire that, now, will never be.”
Anakin hums.
“Well then,” he says sarcastically, “I guess you’ll surrender, the Confederacy will fall apart because it was never made to last, and the Republic will win, in any order.”
Which, yes, was very hopeful thinking, but there’s already been differences observed on the front. He’s hopeful.
But then Dooku nods, and then Dooku smiles.
(And, okay, he’s still irrationally terrified.)
“Perhaps,” he says, “Or perhaps not. How about… a deal.”
(Later, he’ll wonder what exactly he was thinking, but, sadly, he’d never been very good at lying to himself.
(Vader must have been, some part of him thinks. He ignores it.))
“What do you mean,” he asks, and Dooku’s horrible smile is still making it hard to think straight, but he has to try.
“If the Separatists are winning exactly one year from today, then I will call for peace, and the Republic will leave us be,” Dooku says, “However, if we fail as you predict, then I will surrender at the end of the year, and I will help re-assimilate the Confederacy into the Republic, and turn myself into the Jedi.”
Anakin… really doesn’t know what to do with this. He’s kark at politics, but he understands war. This… like it or not, and despite his earlier hopeful words, he knows that this war will only become more complex now that it wasn’t scripted.
So, maybe, this might make it easier.
“No torture,” he says at last, “no biological weapons, no attacking innocents, and no hiring bounty hunters to kill your enemies. I think that at least the President should obey his own laws… if you do that, then deal.”
Dooku nods.
“Very well,” he says, “I will speak to you again in a year… oh, would it be too much trouble for you to return the animal and my betraying former Apprentice to me? I find need of them.”
“Just... you break the deal, and you’re dead in a day.”
Not or by him. He just... he wouldn’t be able to do it.
Dooku smiles again as Anakin forces away another shudder.
“Well, of course.”
The holo goes off and Anakin just kind of… sits there. He just… what had he even been thinking ? This was...
Well, kriff.
(Obi-Wan comes home to the strangest sight. Anakin Skywalker sitting on the couch surrounded by laws and... was that the ancient Sith language on some of those documents? Anakin jumps when he notices him.
"Obi-Wan!" he says, "Your home."
Obi-Wan sighs, knowing that something big had just occurred without his knowledge once again. Blast it, they’d only just gotten back from capturing Maul and Oppress. How did Anakin even find the time to get into all of these messes?
"What's going on?" he asks. Anakin sighs, looking down.
"I kriffed up," he says, "I really, really kriffed up.")