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“You’re attached.”
“You’re just now noticing?”
Master Windu eyes him for a few long moments, and then joins him on the ground. Anakin can’t help but smirk. There’s something gratifying about having respect from the man, in this life.
“The other members of the council are concerned.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I am, but for other reasons,” Windu says.
Anakin doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t even respond for a long minute. He just looks out over the Room of a Thousand Fountains, spread out below them like hundreds of jungles pieced together in a jigsaw of flora. It’s been his favorite room in the Temple since he was a child, and it’s always overwhelming in the best of ways.
“Most of them have accepted that you adopted them because of Mandalorian customs, and that you stayed where you were due to the will of the Force,” Windu continues. “But they are… uncomfortable with how blatantly your attachments show.”
“Mandalorians are loud and refuse shame. It rubbed off.”
“You said you would kill for these children.”
“I’m their father. That’s kind of expected.”
Windu’s expression is tired. A little tired of stress, but mostly tired of Anakin’s shit. “You know what I’m trying to get at.”
“Do I?” he muses.
“Skywalker.”
“No, I’m serious.” Anakin levels him with a look. “I need you to spell this out. I’ve had a million slightly-contradicting lectures on this topic, and I’ve been told pretty clearly that I misinterpreted a solid half of them. If you want a constructive conversation, you can’t be vague. I’m thirty-three years old and a father of two, Master Windu, so yes, I’m attached. What you mean by that word is going to change where this conversation goes.”
It’s gratifying to see the Master actually think it over.
“Ylliben’s tattoos have been causing the most recent stir,” Windu finally says. “They nearly all relate to family, whether new or old, and the symbolism is concerning to those who are already upset about the Mandalorian upbringing. They worry that he’ll remain too tied to people he grew up with, and unable to maintain neutrality in future diplomatic ventures, or at risk of a Fall if one of the people he’s seen fit to memorialize is injured or killed. The assume a similar state of mind may be applicable to your daughter and yourself, especially given the off-color jokes about how possessive your children are about each other.”
“So people are worried about the emotional immaturity,” Anakin summarizes. He offers a wan, unimpressed grin. “They do realize Ben’s fourteen, right? Nobody’s emotionally stable at fourteen. The hormones are out of whack.”
“I’m aware,” Windu grinds out. “And I’m aware that your histories, of war and all such things, make your ties much stronger, but you can see why the Council worries, especially those who are wary of the memories your children carry but won’t explain. I’m the only one you’ve told, Skywalker.”
“Plo and Depa know.”
“Plo and Depa aren’t on the Council.”
“Yet.”
“Skywalker.”
He relents. “It’s not about Mandalore, Master Windu. It’s about Tatooine.”
Windu lets that sit for a few moments, and then sighs. “I don’t know enough about Tatooine to parse that.”
“Shmi and I are former slaves,” Anakin says, as bluntly as he can. “I was freed at nine, she at eleven, and for all that we are free, we’re not freeborn. We were born slaves, and raised slaves, and we were freed too late to forget that life. The way we think is always going to be affected by the way we grew up. That applies to all sentients, more or less, but it’s… the slave mentality is completely at odds with Jedi teachings, because Jedi teachings can only be taught in a safe environment.”
Windu nods slowly, and says, “That does make sense, but it’s… forgive me, but that’s why we don’t normally take children older than four.”
“From the perspective of teaching cultural values, that makes sense,” Anakin allows. “Teaching a Jedi child that’s cared for with communal resources that they do not need material things to be happy is fine; trying to convince a slave child of the same, someone who grew up being told they do not deserve material things, and that their owner can take anything at any time, including family? I lived that life, trying to adjust to ascetic Jedi values that coincided poorly with slave survival. I know exactly how poorly that transition can go when the person caring for the child doesn’t know how to handle the points of conflict.”
They sit in the slight wind of the room, near silent, as Windu digests this.
“Do you regret joining the Jedi?” the man finally asks.
Anakin shakes his head. “My Jedi master, bless him, cared more for me than anyone could have expected. He tried very hard, but he wasn’t ready to handle a kid like me. In hindsight, I know that. He needed grief counseling, and I needed therapy, and neither of us was getting it. I don’t… I don’t believe anyone in the Temple would have known how to handle a kid like me, but he was particularly unprepared for a child at all.”
Windu nods slowly. “But you don’t regret it.”
“I was meant to be a Jedi,” Anakin says, as firmly as he can without getting unnecessarily petty about it. “My struggles with the Code aside, I was meant to be here. But the Temple doesn’t have any resources for children who come older, and I think… I think you do need that.”
“You just outlined why a child can’t follow the Code if they come from a different enough background,” Windu says.
Anakin shakes his head. “No, that’s not—I think a kid like me can learn to be a Jedi, if a little unconventional, if they’re taught correctly. The desperation to cling to anyone and anything you have can be unlearned. It takes time and effort, but it’s possible. Soka and Ben are good at balancing Tatooine care with Jedi control. If you talk to Ben, you get an entire philosophical breakdown about it, but I’m more concerned with the child psychology, because that’s what could have broken me.”
Windu frowns. “You’re building up to something.”
“I think the Jedi need programs for children found older who can’t become full Jedi,” Anakin asserts. “Even those who cannot reconcile what they absorbed growing up with the Code and Jedi tradition… they, we, need guidance. The Council tried to reject me for being too old, and now that I’m grown I understand why, but… Master Windu, what do you think would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my Master to fight for me, and had been turned away?”
“We’d have looked into placing you back with your mother and, upon finding out that she was still enslaved, secured her freedom,” Master Windu says. “Qui-Gon Jinn had taken responsibility for you, and thus you were a ward of the Temple until such a time as you were safe again. It would have been cruel to keep you from your mother if we were not to raise you a Jedi, and crueler still to allow you to return to slavery.”
“And you think I’d have been safe with her?” Anakin asks. He keeps it even and controlled, because he needs Master Windu to understand this. “You think that would have ended well?”
“You don’t?”
“Ventress,” Anakin says. “Maul. Aurra Sing, even.”
Windu considers that. He looks across the grand, green room of the garden, and at length, he speaks. “You think you’d have been found and corrupted by a Sith.”
“I’d already helped Naboo win a battle. I was a powerful child with no support system in this respect, and eager to please,” Anakin says. “Ventress and Maul both got twisted into Sith Apprentices. Aurra Sing was just a bounty hunter, but… even if the Jedi had never found me, and the Sith remained unaware, do you think I’d have ended up better than Sing? Or would the pressures of slavery have led to my Fall anyway, eventually slaughtering my owner, the Hutts, the entire system of Tatooine’s hells?”
Windu rubs a hand over his forehead. “I understand what you’re getting at.”
“It’s not just me,” Anakin says, as carefully as he can. He doesn’t want to push too hard, but it’s... it's important. “Even without the Sith, there are plenty of Force-Sensitive children in terrible situations that are liable to Fall just because of how power is wielded by those at the bottom. Refusing to take on students who are already at risk… the Jedi are meant to monitor Force users to prevent Sith and other dark-aligned people from harming the galaxy. It’s one of our primary duties. If the Jedi are allowing darksiders to rise just because of an age limit…”
“I get it,” Windu says, just a little aggressive. “I understand. Give me a minute.”
Anakin tries to wait. He’s older now, he can do that. He can be patient.
He tries to convince himself that it’s true.
“You have a point,” Master Windu finally allows. “And with the knowledge that the Sith are out there, still, it’s a more salient point than most would think. The EduCorps already has a subdivision for teaching meditative techniques to low-level force users who need to learn shielding but aren’t sensitive enough to be Jedi, or are just too old, but I see your point about encouraging a program for powerful Force-Sensitives that aren’t discovered early enough to integrate into the community in full.”
“And a more comprehensive Search pattern for the Outer Rim?” Anakin suggests. He shrugs at the look he gets. “What? You’ve seen my midicount. I was on Tatooine for almost a decade, and the only reason anyone found me was that Qui-Gon had to crash a ship in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure the Force led him to me, given all the coincidences, but that’s still a solid nine years that nobody did, despite how I apparently ‘shine like the sun’ or whatever.”
“Humble.” Windu drawls.
“The last time I took a midichlorian test on a portable counter, it literally broke the device. That’s not arrogance, that’s just absurd.”
Windu looks exhausted by the comment. Anakin can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it.
“What about Jedha?” Anakin suggests instead. “Jedi still find the kids, but if they’re too old to be Jedi, we could coordinate with one of the temples at Jedha to see about having them raised, or at least taught, in the traditions of the Whills? They’re a little less orthodox, aren’t they?”
“In some respects,” Master Windu says. “More constrained in others, but… it’s a possibility. More importantly, most of the overlooked children, yourself included, are from parts of the Outer Rim that aren’t part of the Republic, Skywalker.”
Anakin shrugs. “And many of them would have been happy to be found and collected by a Jedi, even if they couldn’t become Jedi. Not the Dathomiri, since they’ve got their own thing going on, but… from what I know about Ventress, she actually did have a Jedi Master before the situation on Rattatak became… what’s the word… untenable? He died and she was left alone, and she’d been a slave already and it just… did not end well for her. But that was a planet overrun by pirates and warlords, and would have been approved as a place the Jedi could help without it being a weird colonialism thing… if the Senate weren’t made up of cheapskates, at least.”
“Skywalker.”
“My name isn’t actually a reprimand, you know.”
“You’re not supposed to just say that,” Windu groans, running a hand over his face. “The Senate’s choice in funding is not optimal, but insulting them in that way, even in private—”
“They’re assholes,” Anakin says, and doesn’t let his humor show. “Except my late wife, but she’s not part of the Senate in this time, so I feel no shame in accusing the entire shitshow of being cheapskates.”
Windu looks about ready to push him off the ledge.
“You’re never allowed to go on diplomatic missions, are you?” Windu mutters.
“Unless it’s to Mandalore,” Anakin clarifies. “Also, never send me to Tatooine. Ever. Please. I kriffing hate that planet.”
“I’m going to assume you have plans to kill a Hutt if we ever send you to—”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” Windu sighs. “I’ll discuss this with the Council, see how they feel about reaching out to Jedha for your suggestion regarding the Whills.”
“And you’ll tell them not to worry about my kids?”
“Skywalker, they are never going to stop worrying about your family,” Windu tells him.
“That’s fair.”