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The war drags to a close with the Republic dragging the Separatists down… and yet…
On the final day, Dooku made his move. To kidnap the Chancellor, and take the Senate. Maul help off Obi-Wan, and Ventress and Ahsoka were flirting more than fighting, and Anakin just… stood there, across from Dooku and Bail.
“One hour left,” Dooku said. “Will you fight, or will you accept a deal in which we both get out on top.”
It’s not even a question… Anakin shuts off his Saber, and, soon, so does everyone else.
And they wait.
An hour later, though no one yet knows it, the war is unofficially over.
The Galaxy watches in confusion as Dooku simply… withdraws. And then he calls for peace.
They have no understanding, but the war drains even many rich worlds, and everyone is ready for the change. Perhaps it was another shady deal, conspiracy theorists are perhaps the closest to the truth, but nobody cares because the war is over and everyone feels like they’ve won.
Planets forcefully occupied by either side are slowly cleared out.
Dealings with people from one side to the other begin.
The planets who had semi-seceded from the Republic during war time returned. Or perhaps they left.
Slowly, surely, the Galaxy finds a new order.
Anakin spins Padme around, smiling. To think that, just a year ago, he’d been so lost, and now… he’s ended the war.
Or at least fixed the mistakes he’d actually made.
“It’s over,” he says,and he wants to kiss her, but part of his deal as a Jedi is to remain acting like a traditional one in public. And This was already a bit outside of that. “Angel, the war is over.”
Padme smiles.
“I know, Ani,” she says. “And… I have something to tell you.”
“Happy, are you?”
Tyrannus turns in surprise to see his former Jedi Master.
“Does it matter?” he asks. “It is better than the alternative. Besides, my former Master, I am a Sith.”
Yoda just hmms.
“Failed many times have I,” he says. “With you. And young Skywalker. Hurt, he was, but rise above it, he did. Give me many questions he has.”
Tyrannus sighs.
“I do… regret what I did to Skywalker,” he says. “It served its purpose, but, seeing clearly, now, I was… undisciplined, and very cruel.”
“Natural that is, for a Sith.”
Tyrannus just shakes his head.
“Not always,” he says. “I have uncovered a holocron of one… Darth Krakja. She is a pre-Bane Sith, with excellent insights.”
Yoda just hmms again.
“And tell them to me, you will?” he asks. If Tyrannus were less refine, he would describe the smile crossing his face as a grin.
“She would like to apologize to you, actually,” he says. “For failing a Jedi named… Ej-Loo.”
Tyrannus, of course, already knew the story. He’d uncovered it in secret, as a Padawan. Hard to imagine Yoda of all people with a secret lover, yet here they are.
“…More, tell me. Know now I must.”
“So what is the Sith’s future now, brother?” Savage asks, and Maul… he can’t honestly say. He was raised a weapon, so the war had been almost easy, but this…
Tyrannus doesn’t get the choice. Maul needs his power to much to give an inch to him, yet…
“The Old Sith holocrons,” he says at last. “All living Sith only know what Sidious wanted. To learn of the past is key.”
Savage nods.
“Smart,” he says. “And then?”
“I… I don’t know.”
The Clone Rights Bill is passed a month after the war ends.
(The clones are freed and given compensation in land or credits and many of them join secret families. Others settle the empty Outer Rim planets the Senate had offered them. Some, many, join planetary or peace time militaries. All of them are happy and confused.)
Luke and Leia Amidala are born seven months after that.
(Anakin has no nightmares, this time, not of this. Instead, all he dreams of is hope. Dreams of hold his children close and caring for them deeply. Perhaps one of them even becomes a Jedi.
This time, Anakin Skywalker’s Happy Moments don’t begin his downfall.)
Four months later, Ahsoka is Knighted.
Anakin is gently cradling Leia in his arms, waiting for Ahsoka to finish the trials. In his mind, the nineteen year old is ready, but he still worries as he watches the trials.
Ahsoka emerges tall and proud.
And promptly rushes, laughing, into Ventress’ arms. Not Anakin’s favorite choice for the girl he views as a sister and daughter, but the Sith is a good woman now, for a Sith, and she hadn’t made any advances towards Ahsoka while his soon-to-be-former Padawan was just that, and therefore, by Jedi laws, a minor.
Obi-Wan coughs, to get her attention.
Ahsoka jumps five feet in the air and her montrails go almost black.
“Right,” she says, bowing onto her knees, and Anakin sets Leia down, next to her sleeping twin, in the double hover chair he’d brought them in.
The ceremony takes very little time, and Anakin finds himself snipping the beads hanging from her headdress right off.
“Rise, Knight Tano,” Windu says, and Anakin smiles as she does, handing the beads he had cut back to Ahsoka.
“I know that it’s traditional to give your beads to your Master,” he says, “but I didn’t. I gave them to Padme. Would you like to start a new tradition?”
Ahsoka smiles.
Three years later, Ahsoka and Ventress marry.