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Mace Windu’s headache had lasted three days by this point. It had started with the news that Qui-Gon Jinn had been slain by a Sith Lord, intensified with the realisation that Obi-Wan Kenobi was in no fit state to take on the duties of a Jedi Knight, let alone train a new Padawan, and become halfway to debilitating when he had realised that he would be taking on Qui-Gon’s latest stray as his own Padawan learner. And it had become a migraine just around the time that Anakin Skywalker, the latest addition to Mace’s lineage, had casually dropped into conversation the fact that he had in fact been born into slavery.
“You’re a slave?”
In his defence, he would usually have hidden his shock better, but Anakin considered the question as if it was perfectly normal. “Well, not any more, I guess, because Qui-Gon freed me. But before, yeah.”
Mace resisted the urge to scream. The boy seemed stable so far, a little emotional perhaps, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that nine years as a slave had been without incident. Sudden movements would need to be avoided for a while, as would raised voices. And come to think of it, Anakin would need regular meetings with a mind healer, and probably a tutor to get him up to speed with the other children, and—
The urge to scream intensified, and he shoved the feeling into the Force with more frustration than calm. They’d been so close to giving in to Obi-Wan’s petition to train the boy himself – to think of the damage it might have done, one grieving young man and one little boy in desperate need of stability—
“Didn’t you know?” Anakin voice was small, and the boy was looking down at his feet, face scrunched up in an expression of pain. “Master Windu, does this mean I can’t be a Jedi?”
Mace gathered his expression into something sympathetic, pulled his feelings in behind a Force shield that projected careful neutrality: he didn’t need to add to the boy’s confusion with his own poorly managed reactions. “Anakin, you have been accepted as my Padawan learner.” He waited for the boy to look up, for the anxious lines on his face to smooth out into understanding. “That’s not something we go back on.”
“Like an apprenticeship?” said Anakin hopefully. “I was an apprentice before, you know. Watto paid lots of money for me and my mom. He always said it was worth it because he could teach me to do what he did.”
“Well,” Mace said, then, as his migraine pulsed, “wait, your mother?”
“Qui-Gon couldn’t free her,” Anakin said, an unhappy twist to his mouth, and Force help him but if the Sith hadn’t gotten there first, he would happily have killed Qui-Gon Jinn with his own hands for that particular revelation. Well. Perhaps not, but sixteen years on the Council and he could count on one hand the number of mission reports that Master Jinn had actually filed thoroughly and on time.
…oh, and that was going to be another problem.
Mace knelt down, bringing himself level with Anakin, and pushed the pain in his head to the back of his mind. “We’ll help your mother,” he said with all the gravity he could muster. “In the meantime, I need you to understand that here in the Jedi Temple, Master is a term of respect. It doesn’t denote ownership, and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. There are other ways to address a Jedi Master – Councillor, for those of us on the Jedi Council, or just Jedi will suffice.”
Anakin nodded seriously. “Okay, Mas- Councillor Windu.”
He inclined his head in respect of Anakin’s choice. “You may also call me teacher, or Mace in private. And….” He hesitated, “You understand, Anakin, that you have a choice here? You’ve been freed, you don’t have to stay with us if it’s not what you want.”
“I do want it!” His voice was indignant, eyes flashing in challenge. “I’ve never wanted anything more. I want to help people, Councillor, I want to make the universe better. That’s what Jedi do, isn’t it?” His expressive eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.
Mace reached out slowly, carefully, and touched his arm in support. “It’s part of what we do,” he allowed. “But most of it isn’t that exciting. A lot of Jedi never go out on missions, they have roles in the archives or the crèche that are just as central to our purpose as assignments in the field.”
Anakin frowned. Never mind – there would be time to teach him this, to instill in him the value of every single Jedi who worked to further their cause of peace. “You’ll really help my mom?” he asked, going back to what was obviously most important to him.
“Could you concentrate fully on your studies knowing she wasn’t free?”
Anakin hesitated, shook his head. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to care about her,” he admitted softly.
“We all have people we care about. The question is whether caring gets in the way of doing what’s right.”
“Mom always says doing what’s right is the more important than doing what's easy.”
At least he’d had a solid start in ethics, from the sounds of it. “Okay,” Mace said, standing up slowly so as not to fall over. His migraine was receding, just a little bit. “I’m going to show you back to your room, and the Council is going to figure out a way to bring your mother to safety.” And then he’d have to figure out what classes Anakin would need to take, send him to the healers for a check-up (had he even had his boosters?), schedule in some regular therapy sessions, not to mention find a tutor to help him with the basics most Jedi were taught in the crèche…oh, and he’d need clothes, too. Plenty of them, by the looks of it.
He led Anakin back to his room and left him there with a bowl of hot stew while he gathered the Council into session. Thank the Force, he thought as he waited for the last members to file into the chamber, we didn’t leave this to Kenobi.