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Chapter Text

"The mighty Jabba bids you welcome, Grand Inquisitor."

The voice of TC-70, translator droid to Jabba Desilijic Tiure, Kadijic Lord of Tatooine, sounded clear through the halls of the Hutt's palace amid the echoes of his master's booming chuckle as the pale, yellow-eyed alien that had introduced himself as the Grand Inquisitor, Master of the Inquisitorius of the Galactic Empire bowed his head before the slug's raised dais in a show of respect as false and as manufactured as Jabba's show of welcome. Animosity was thick in the air, so tangible that each and every one of Jabba's slaves could sense it like the crack of a whip across their backs. This too was known to Anakin Skywalker, in the way that things had always been known to him—inexplicably, instinctively, no matter how much another being may try to hide the truth of their feelings—as he knelt on the hard stone at the tip of his master's tail, held down by by the rough grip of two Gamorean guards on his shoulders. He paid it little mind—he doubted he could make the slug any angrier with him, and soon, his opinion would no longer matter. Instead, he tried to focus purely on sensation. Of the pain in his head from the blow he had been struck when he'd tried to run the night before. The taste of the dry, dusty cloth that had been forced into his mouth, and the burn of the rough robes that had been twined tight around his wrists, rubbed raw and bleeding from attempts to escape. Anything not to have to think about the Inquisitor. About why the Inquisitor was here. About what was going to happen next.

"The great Jabba wishes to ask how you found your journey from the Core," TC-70 said courteously. "He expresses concern over whether you faced any complications on your way here."

That, Anakin thought, a little woozily as the wound on his temple throbbed painfully, was a pretty way of translating Jabba's words, which were something closer towards "this Imperial scum had better have a good reason for making me wait" than any true concern towards his guest. But this was a man that, for once, Jabba could neither afford to deride nor intimidate. The Empire's power was reaching ever further into the Outer Rim—ever since it had risen from the ashes of the Republic several years ago, when Anakin was fourteen. Now it had turned its attention to Tatooine, and the continued non-interference with Hutt rule on the planet had a price.

That price, it seemed, was Anakin.

"No complications, Lord Jabba," the Inquisitor replied with a sharp smile, a glint in his eye that said he knew that the Hutt's word had been nowhere near as polite as the droid had made them appear. "But the work of the Empire rests for no one. I am not hear to exchange pleasantries. Shall we get down to business?"

Anakin felt the slug's anger in the back of his mind, but it didn't show on his face. Instead, he let out one of his rumbling, full-bodied laughs, and waved a small, stubby arm towards the place where Anakin was held restrained in a gesture that was almost a shrug.

"If you think I have any intention of allowing you to overstay your welcome, you are a fool as all Outlanders are," he sneered. "Take the little shag and get off my planet."

"Glorious Jabba," TC-70 translated, ever obsequious, "invites you to inspect your purchase."

The Inquisitor's yellow eyes turned slowly towards Anakin, like an anooba that had caught the scent of blood in the air. An overpowering sense of wrongness, of danger shot through him, worse than any he had ever felt before, and he reeled back, tugging against the grip of the two Gamorean guards that held him in place. Two pairs of hands clamped down on him with bruising force, and he was hauled roughly to his feet. The cry of protest that escaped his lips was muffled by the gag, and his bound hands flew up to his chest, desperately trying to shield himself as he was dragged in front of the Inquisitor and held there in an unrelenting grasp. He never stopped struggling—anything to get out of the reach of this man that felt dark and dangerous and whose strange eyes were fixed on him with an unwavering intensity that he could neither understand nor explain—but after the beating he had received last night, and the meal he had been denied that morning, he felt as weak as a newly hatched bonegnawer chick. Small and helpless, fallen from the nest. No one to protect him from the cruel mercies of the desert. Defeated, he slumped in the guards' grip, head lolling down to the floor.

"Look at me, boy," the Inquisitor hissed.

No. Anakin felt the command reverberate in his head, but he refused to obey it. He screwed his eyes shut and held himself stock still, head bowed.

"I said look at me."

The only warning he had was a sense of a strange malevolence filling the air before his head was caught in an intangible yet vice-like grip, like an invisible hand wrenching his chin up to stare into the man's face. Startled and alarmed, his eyes shot open wide, crying out beneath the gag. What—? What was—?

He froze, suddenly choking on a terror so absolute that it stole what little of his voice the cloth forced into his mouth had left him as the malevolence he had sensed surged to supercritical. It whirled around him, stinging raw at the edges of his mind like grit against exposed skin in a sandstorm. Then, it was pushing against his barriers, pushing deep into his head. Even further, into the depths of his heart, where his most precious secrets were kept, scrutinising relentlessly until the hall of the Hutt's palace seemed to melt away in shadows. He had to get away, had to get this man away from him, but he didn't know— He didn't know how—

Consumed by panic, he felt something in him push back. Push and push and push, burning out the darkness like the blazing heat of Tatooine's binary suns. Faintly, like a distant echo across the horizon of the Dune Sea, he heard a shocked yell and an angry roar. The darkness retreated, and he was dragged back into reality by the remorseless tug of a Gamorean fist in his hair. Another fist, he saw as his vision cleared, was poised to strike a blow across his face, but it was held back by the same invisible grip Anakin had been caught in not moments before.

"No." The Grand Inquisitor's voice cut through the tension in the air like a vibroblade. A gesture of one long-fingered hand, and the guard's arm dropped sharply to his side. "No, this is fascinating. Fascinating. Yes, he shall do very nicely indeed."

Even confused and disorientated as he was, not sure what had just been done to him, nor what he had done in turn, it did nothing to stop the wave of horrified nausea that threatened to overcome him at those words. The fear that had been festering in him ever since he had been hauled before Jabba's throne and informed that he had been sold to the karking Emperor of the Galaxy in exchange for the Hutt's undisturbed sovereignty on Tatooine had reached a fever pitch that was on the verge of burning him from the inside out—and anyone else who happened to be in range along with him. He had spent all his life being passed from master to master—from Gardulla, who had seen no use for him except as winnings to throw into a betting pool, to Watto, who had valued his talents but hadn't had the strength to keep him, and finally to Jabba, the champion podracer who had defeated Sebulba another addition to his collection of costly slaves that he surrounded himself with in lieu of rich jewels and lavish furnishings. But this master, this master who wanted him for reasons that were a mystery to him—reasons that he wasn't sure he would have understood even if he were told, who wanted him so much that he was prepared to part with a considerable sum of money and potential territory, however insignificant, on the Outer Rim in order to acquire him... At least he had known why Jabba had torn him away from his mother after he'd won the Boonta Eve Classic. This master, poised to tear him from his homeworld, was an unknown, and one that terrified him beyond anyone or anything he had ever encountered on Tatooine.

"What happened here?" Anakin flinched as he felt the fingertips of the Inquisitor's black-gloved hand brush lightly across his injured temple. He didn't want the man touching him. He didn't want him touching him. But the guard still held him by the hair and he couldn't—

"The boy is defiant," came Jabba's voice from behind him. Ha, defiant. The slug had always called him defiant. Maybe defiant enough that the Emperor wouldn't even want him and—"He tried to run. My guards were forced to subdue him."

The sound of TC-70 dutifully repeating the slug's words in that officious tone of his lit a spark in Anakin's chest that turned his fear into a blazing inferno. Rage and terror, remembered from the previous night, from his flight across the desert under a binary sunset, guided by the whispers on the wind thathad led him through the worst of Tatooine's dangers ever since he was a child. Those whispers had been so insistent that he must not under any circumstances fall into his new master's hands that in his desperation to get away, he hadn't even cared that his transmitter chip was still in. He had known, instinctively, that Jabba wouldn't detonate it—not when he still needed him alive. But those whispers had failed him. The guards had caught up to him, knocked him unconscious when he'd tried to fight back, and dragged him, bound, back to the Hutt's palace to be thrown into a cell to await the arrival of the Emperor's representative the next day. The whispers hadn't saved him, just as they had never freed him from a single one of his masters. They had left him to his fate, and he could see no way out of it.

"Is that so?"

The Inquisitor's finger trailed down from his temple to his cheek. Again, Anakin tried—futilely—to jerk away. He would have bared his teeth if he could, but instead he made do with a hot glare and a faint growl behind the gag. Anger wasn't safe for a slave, but he doubted he would ever be safe again now, and anger made him feel far less small than fear.

"Such fury...," the Inquisitor murmured, with a soft chuckle that set Anakin's teeth on edge. He made no move to withdraw his hand from his cheek. "The Emperor will be most pleased."

Your Emperor can choke, Anakin snarled in his head, but he could fast feel himself spiralling back into terror. The Emperor, who had sent this man to fetch him, who would surely rule over his slaves as ruthlessly he ruled over the Galaxy. He wouldn't let him take him. He couldn't— But he was bound, injured, helpless, and the Inquisitor had already proven that he didn't need to lay a finger on him to restrain him.

There was nothing he could do.

"I wonder," Jabba scoffed derisively; though Anakin couldn't see his face, he could easily picture the expression that was on it - bulbous eyes narrowed to slits, "how your Emperor keeps control of the Galaxy if he finds disobedience so appealing in a slave."

Once again, TC-70's translation rang throughout the room. The Inquisitor smiled, sharp and cruel.

"Not disobedience, Lord Jabba."

His smile widened and his eyes, fixed on Anakin, glinted with a promise that chilled him to his core.

"Besides, disobedience can be curbed. Some traits, however... They are more valuable than you could possibly imagine, and I'm afraid those cannot be taught."

Chapter Text

The bright lights of the medcenter on Polis Massa were harsh and white, casting its sleeping patient in pale shades so stark that, if not for the tentative grip Padmé had on his hand, she might have mistaken him for a ghost. The Sith assassin Darth Vader, so feared amongst the Republic and the Separatists alike, looked so very young and fragile swaddled in blankets and bandages and surrounded by beeping machines. Cheekbones too sharp, eyes shadowed, and skin a waxy white, he looked far too ill and tired for a man who couldn't possibly be any older than twenty-one. His blond hair, drying in a halo of soft fluffy curls about his head and still smelling faintly of bacta from his time in the tank, made him look almost...innocent. Angelic even.

The rest of him told a very different story.

The flight from the Separatist world that had been intended as her grave to the remote medical facility on Polis Massa had practically torn her nerves—even hardy as they'd always been—to shreds. It had turned out that she had perhaps been a little too optimistic when she had suggested flying Vader's ship back to his location in the canyon she had been forced to leave him in. She had, however, found both a speeder bike and a med-droid inside to bring back to him. By the time they had reached him, he had barely been conscious, slumped in front of the rocky wall she had propped him up against with the promise she would be back soon, his face white and his lips bloodless. Between her and the droid, they had wasted no time in loading his limp form onto the bike, getting him back to the ship's little medbay and flying offworld, setting a course for Polis Massa. But through it all, she had been afraid. Afraid, as she spoke to him quietly all the way through hyperspace, trying to keep him awake when all he wanted to do was slip into sleep and the danger of never waking up again. Afraid that he would not make it to the medcenter. That he would die because he had risked his life to protect her.

She had been afraid even after they had landed on Polis Massa, and he was rushed away into surgery. She had been afraid right up until the point that the droids had come out to inform her that he was stable, and that they were putting him in bacta for a time to accelerate his healing. But her relief had not lasted for long. The droids had had a long list of other...concerns that their programming told them it was their duty to report.

Not least of which was the map of scars across his skin that she had been informed were most likely caused by injuries sustained through some form of electrocution. Some as new as to have been inflicted not more than a few weeks ago. Others years old.

Years old and he was barely even an adult.

Who did this to you?, she had thought, her eyes tracing the wicked patterns along his back and chest—along his shoulders and arm, running down to where the metal of his black and gold prosthetic met with flesh—as he hung suspended in the bacta tank. The freshest of them had already started to heal along with the wound in his shoulder, but the older ones had been carved into his skin long ago. He had looked too thin, too brittle—even though she knew well the wiry strength he possessed—amidst the eerie blue-green glow of the liquid. Was it your master? Sidious? Is that what the Sith do to their apprentices? Make them hurt, make them suffer, until they rule them absolutely by fear? But you defied him. You defied him to save me. Why risk that for my sake?

She couldn't help the niggling sensation in the back of her mind that there was something about all of this that she was missing, some crucial piece of information she had heard or seen but had managed to slip through her fingers. That she wasn't asking quite the right questions. But there was only one question that was rattling around in her head right at that moment, and all of the others would just have to wait.

Who was Sidious?

It was one of the several reasons that had stayed her hand from attempting to contact anybody in the Republic before her unlikely saviour had woken back up. She knew—definitely now—that the mysterious Darth Sidious was Vader's master. He had referred to him as such to her guard during her rescue, and even if he hadn't, the fact that the man hadn't at all questioned that the young Sith must have been carrying out Sidious' orders would have been clue enough. She also knew from that incident that the name was enough to induce terror even in his so-called allies. And she knew from the Jedi that he was suspected to have infiltrated the highest levels of the Republic's government, and had some sort of influence in the Senate. How powerful exactly that influence was, she didn't know—she hoped it wasn't insurmountable; she needed to believe it wasn't insurmountable, that the Sith hadn't corrupted everything she was fighting for, everything she had dedicated her life to—

But no matter how great or how slight it was, it was there. Which meant that, logically, Sidious must be a politician himself or—more likely—someone in a significant politician's circle. And that in turn meant that, no matter how desperately she wanted to, she couldn't fully guarantee Vader's safety in the Republic.

And so here she sat, by his bedside, his limp flesh hand held gently in her own, and her mind racing through possibilities as she waited for him to wake. If she were to bring him to the Republic, if she could persuade him to plead for asylum before the Senate or—no, the Jedi, there must be a way to keep him safe from Sidious. He must know who his master was—if he exchanged that information for protection, then they could root out the man and his associates before he had the chance to strike back at his apprentice, and surely that, along with his rescue of her, would count for something amongst them. Yes, the Senate took a dim view of Separatist operators, and the Jedi an even dimmer one of the Sith, but if he were to help them take down their greatest enemy in the Republic, that would have to be enough—

Her train of thought was cut off sharply as she felt a slight movement under her touch. Vader was waking up.

"Vader," Padmé called, watching as he shifted about on the bed, his brow scrunched up in a sleep-softened frown as he was dragged back in the waking world. "Vader."

The young Sith groaned quietly in protest at the sound of her voice. His hand slipped from her loose grasp and travelled up to his face to rub at his still closed eyes. It was an oddly endearing sight, seeing him do something as normal and as simple as struggle to wake himself up after a long sleep. But nothing about this was normal—or simple—and she would do well to remember that.

"Wha...?" Voice hoarse and faint, Vader trailed off as his eyes finally peeled open, taking in his surroundings with no small degree of confusion. "Where...?"

Padmé ruthlessly suppressed the urge to gasp. She'd forgotten, briefly, that his eyes were yellow—the only thing, save perhaps for the prosthetic that was currently resting across his stomach, that would have set him apart from any other twenty-something (if, indeed, he had even reached twenty yet) human man had she passed him on the street. The droids had been vaguely concerned about it, she remembered, but they hadn't found any medical reason behind it. Perhaps—she thought back to the Zabrak assassin that had killed Qui-Gon Jinn on Naboo—it was something to do with the Dark Side.

"We're on Polis Massa, remember?," she said once she had stamped down her instinctive reaction. She had told him where they were going back on the ship, assuring him over and over that it would be safe even though he had seemed too out of it to take anything much in beyond the sound of her voice. "I had to get you somewhere nearby that wasn't controlled by the Separatists. It's too remote to be of any interest to them."

Vader blinked at her, still not quite lucid enough to properly guard his expression. She could see the moment he registered exactly who it was that was sitting at her bedside, his eyes widening as his gaze settled on her face. Then, without warning, he shot bolt upright, swaying slightly at the sudden movement so that he was forced to catch himself with both his arms. He winced at the sudden tug on his tender shoulder.

"Don't get up."

Padmé's hand flew to his chest before she could think better of it, attempting to push him back down onto the bed. He let out a startled flinch at the contact, and for one horrid moment, she thought she had accidentally pressed on his healing injury. But her hand was on his sternum, not his shoulder—not brushing against flesh and skin still knitting back together. And yet he had recoiled as if she had burnt him. She drew her hand back sharply.

"I'm sorry" she whispered.

Vader turned away from her. A long pause, and then he nodded stiffly.

"You're not fully healed yet" she said, still apologetic. I'm not going to hurt you. I know someone has, but I promise you, I won't.

"I've had worse" Vader replied. He made no move to lie down, even though his left arm was shaking with the effort of propping himself up.

Yes, Padmé thought, trying to keep the corners of her mouth from turning downwards unhappily. I know you have. But I'm not letting you suffer on my watch.

She reached out to push him back down again, slowly this time. He tracked her movements like a wary loth wolf, an impression that was in no way diminished by the strange yellow of his eyes. This time, he didn't flinch under her touch, though he did hold himself uncomfortably stiff as he let her guide him back down to the pillows. His eyes darted briefly up to her face as she drew back before they flicked down to the IV in the crook of his arm. He frowned.

"The med-droids said that you needed it," Padmé said, in answer to the unspoken question on his face. "They were concerned about your weight."

Secretly, she thought it would have been both quicker and easier to list the things which they hadn't been concerned about. Her heart sank down to what felt like as yet unrecorded depths as she remembered the attending droid informing her that, not only was he currently underweight for a man of his height, but that he showed signs of malnutrition dating back to his formative years consistent with periods of starvation as a child and teenager. Vader, however, barely even reacted to the news that he had been deemed malnourished enough to be pumped full of nutrients intravenously. His attention had turned—fully this time—to their surroundings, suddenly agitated.

"How long have we been here?"

"A little over a day," Padmé replied. "They had to put you in a bacta tank."

Vader hissed through his teeth, his mechno hand untangling from its grip on the sheets to the fast-healing wound on his shoulder.

"They didn't need to do that," he muttered. "A few patches would have been enough—"

"Vader!," Padmé cried incredulously, before she could stop herself. Really, she shouldn't have been surprised, given how baffled he'd been by her own clumsy field care—concerned about her ruining her cloak of all things rather than the heavily bleeding blaster wound that had caused him to collapse to the ground in front of her. She got the impression—more so than ever now that she had seen his scars—that he was not at all used to receiving or accepting care, but if he wouldn't treat his injuries with the proper gravity they warranted, then she was more than happy to do so in his place. "You had a hole through your shoulder. You were barely conscious when we landed. A few patches would not have been enough—"

"We can't stay here," Vader interrupted her, cutting across what was fast becoming—not that she would have admitted it out loud—an impassioned tirade. His breathing, she noticed suddenly, was starting to speed up. "He-he'll have heard— He'll know what I've done—"

"Ssh, ssh," Padmé murmured, her need to make him understand subsumed by worry in the face of his burgeoning panic. She didn't need to ask who this "he" was. His master. Sidious, the man whom she was sure must be responsible for both the pattern of scars on his skin and his unfamiliarity with any sort of simple kindness alike. She wanted to reach out to comfort him, but she didn't know how he would react to her touch. "We're safe. Nobody knows we're here. I promise you we're safe—"

Vader shook his head, his eyes closed tight shut. Both his hands had moved to clutch tightly at the blankets about his chest, the knuckles of his flesh hand white with tension. His entire frame shook as his breaths came sharp and fast. Too fast.

"He'll know—," he gasped out. "He'll find us. He always—"

"He won't find us," Padmé soothed, trying to keep her voice as calm and as gentle as possible. She hoped—oh by the Force, she hoped—that time would not make her a liar. "We're safe here. Please, Vader, I need you to breathe."

The young man's breaths were coming in short, sharp bursts, laboured and painful. He shook his head again, though in response to what exactly, she didn't know. She needed to get through to him, calm him, ease him out of the panic that had caught him in its durasteel grip. But how? With anyone else, she might have taken their hand, tried to get them to breathe with her, but Vader was clearly not accustomed to touch not meant to hurt. What if it just made it worse for him—?

Another sharp gasp was enough to cut through her reservations like a knife. She had to do something. She couldn't just sit here dithering in indecision while he suffered.

"It's alright," she murmured. The tips of her fingers brushed ever so lightly against the back of his hand, enough to alert him to her intentions without—she hoped—adding to his distress. "It's alright, Vader. We're safe. You're safe. I won't hurt you."

When he didn't recoil from her touch, she began to drag her thumb slowly back and forth across his white knuckles, trying to give him something to focus on, to ground him in something other than his fear. After a few long moments, she felt the tiniest bit of tension leave his rigid form as, painstakingly, eyes still closed tight shut, his breathing began to slow.

"That's it," Padmé sighed in relief. "In and out."

Finally, his breathing evened out and he flopped down onto the mattress in exhaustion, his entire form shaking faintly from the adrenaline that had been coursing through his system not moments before. His yellow eyes opened slowly, and for a moment, Padmé could read naked distress on his too-young face. Then his gaze flickered down to where her hand was still resting over his, and his expression shuttered, like a pair of heavy blast doors slamming shut behind his eyes. Jaw clenched, he turned his head away.

"Nobody knows we're here," Padmé repeated, now that he was calm enough to properly take in what she was saying to him. "I made sure the droids would keep it off the record, and I haven't made contact with anyone in the Republic yet."

Her heart hurt seeing him retreat into himself, even though—or perhaps because—she understood it. He'd been vulnerable. He felt vulnerable. Ever since he had been wounded protecting her, he had been relying on her goodwill not to take advantage of that vulnerability. And now, he was surely steeling himself for consequences that she suspected he had been taught, over the years, to instinctively expect.

But despite that, he hadn't yet withdrawn his hand from hers.

"Why?," he said hoarsely, his brows drawn together in a deep furrow. He sounded drained, his tone flat, too tired even for confusion. "You fulfilled your promise to me when you brought us here safely. You could be back in the Republic by now."

Padmé's thoughts flashed back to the canyon they had fled into to escape their Separatist pursuers, of his collapse and her attempts at aid. Of him asking her something much the same as he bled out on the ground in front of her. Why not just run? Why not just leave him and save herself? This question didn't quite offend her like those had—after all, leaving a wounded man in safe hands with medical care was not quite the same as abandoning him in the dust to die. But she was still sure it wouldn't have been right. She owed him her life, and she hadn't been about to repay him by leaving him to wake up alone with nobody but droids for company and the knowledge that he had nowhere to go now that he had betrayed both the Separatists and his thrice-cursed master.

And besides, with everything she had seen since her rescue from her cell, she suspected there was far more to him than just what his reputation across the Galaxy painted him to be. The young man underneath that terrifying mask deserved at least the option of a second chance.

"I wasn't going to make that decision without consulting you first," she said. "We're in this together now. We need to figure out what we're going to do together."

And I'll repeat that to you for as long as you need to hear it.

"Do?" Vader asked.

His voice had flattened out even further, so fatigued, so resigned. As if he had given in before he had even begun. So soft and quiet compared to the deep boom of his mask's vocoder, she could barely comprehend that he was the same man that had struck such terror into her captors, that had fought so ferociously through pain and blood loss and overwhelming odds to get her to safety.

But even if he'd been drained of all his own fire, she had more than enough for the both of them.

"Separatist space isn't safe for you now. For either of us." Her lips drew together in a thin, determined line. "And I'm not leaving you until I know that you're somewhere safe out of their reach. Out of Sidious' reach."

Vader's flinch at the name was an answer to all her unspoken questions. He shrank in on himself, and suddenly, for a man who was over six feet in height, he looked very small. Without warning, Padmé was struck by just how true her words were. That she would do it if he refused to come back to the Republic with her. Would stay with him no matter what, no matter how far from home it took her, because she wanted to give him the same protection he had given her.

"Then I guess you'll have to get used to being glued to my side, because there's nowhere in the Galaxy that's beyond my master's reach," he said. She thought he might have intended the words to come out harsh and sharp, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him. "He's more powerful than you can possibly imagine, and he's not the kind to forgive and forget. I've betrayed him and he'll stop at nothing to hunt me down. Stay with me and you'll have an even bigger target on your head than he's already put there."

I'm not going to leave you alone, Padmé wanted to scream, feeling frustrated tears threatening to well up in her eyes despite her efforts to remain calm. Why can't you understand that? I'm not afraid. I won't abandon you. Not when you're in danger because of me.

"If there's nowhere in the Galaxy that's out of his reach," she retorted, not sharply, but pointedly, "then going back to the Republic won't be any safer for me than staying with you."

Vader's jaw clenched tight at her words, but he said nothing. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed thickly. Padmé fought back a sigh, pushing away the last remainders of her frustration as best she could. Gently, she tightened her grip on his hand, still resting beneath her own, in what she hoped was a reassuring pressure.

"Who is he, Vader?," she whispered, finally giving voice to the question that had been plaguing her ever since she had seen his scars, ever since he had heard him speak his name on the Separatist base. "Who is he, if he's that powerful?"

Who is this man that can make someone as strong as you afraid?

"Senator." Vader's lips twisted into a bitter smile, and in it she could sense the echoes of a terrible truth that she could not yet see. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Chapter Text

"Anakin Skywalker."

The voice of Moff Wilhuff Tarkin crackled with static as it was played through the holoprojector Anakin had cradled in his hand, his glitching image another flicker of light against the deep blue of hyperspace beyond the viewport of the ship that he had...borrowed without permission from the hangar of the new rebel base that they had set up less than a week past. By now, the message was as familiar to him as those blue lights outside; he had played and replayed it so many times. Every inflection of that smug voice, every minute change in expression on that gaunt face. But no matter the pain it caused him, he couldn't stop himself from watching it over and over, as if this time it would be...it would be—

He didn't know what it would be.

"The Emperor demands your presence," Tarkin continued. Anakin had to fight the urge to clench his durasteel hand into a fist, to crush the holoprojector into dust, as he had once on Kiros when confronted with the presence of the Zygerrian slaver on the planet. "For too long, you have evaded capture. I'm afraid that ends today."

The image jumped and stuttered as two small figures were pulled into the frame. A sob caught in Anakin's throat. Luke and Leia, their small wrists trapped in Force suppressing cuffs. Luke's eyes were full of tears, Leia's full of fury. But no matter how fierce her glare, he could tell she was terrified. They were both terrified.

"You have three standard days to come to the Mustafar system," Tarkin said, thin lips twisting into a small, cruelly satisfied smile. "Alone, unarmed. If you wish your children to remain unharmed, you will comply. Fail to do so in any regard, and you shall never see them again."

Beside him, the tears in Luke's eyes began to spill out onto his round cheeks as he frantically shook his head. Some of Leia's fear began to melt through her mask of anger, dark eyes widening in alarm as she opened her mouth to scream.

"No, Daddy, no! Don't—"

A snarl from Tarkin and the recording cut off. With a sharp clatter, the holoprojector fell to the floor as Anakin bent over with a wounded cry, burying his face in his hands.

It was his fault. All his fault. When their last base was attacked, his thoughts had only been to get them out, get them away to safety. Bail had had them go with Antilles to the rendezvous point, but Anakin had chosen to stay, to fight, to hold back the troopers long enough to allow them to escape. But in the end, it had done nothing to protect them. Luke and Leia had never arrived there. Antilles had been killed, and his children had been taken. Taken because he hadn't been there to protect them. Because he always made the wrong choice, failed the people he loved most. His mother, Padmé, and now...

And now, Luke and Leia—his precious children that he couldn't lose, not like he had lost their mother—were in the hands of the Empire, and there was only one thing he could do to save them.

One thing which the rest of the Rebel Alliance had deemed unacceptable. Most of them had been sympathetic, of course. Bail had been very kind and understanding after they had received the transmission, even as he had rushed to put himself between Anakin and the door to stop his mad dash to the hangar, no thoughts in his head beyond the need to get to his children, couldn't let them get hurt no matter what the cost. "Anakin," he'd pleaded with him, large hands pressing down on his shoulders to hold him back, and for one horrible moment it had struck him that, despite his size, it would have been so easy to just...swat him aside—this man who dared stand between him and the only option he had of keeping his children safe— "Anakin, please. I know you want to protect Luke and Leia, but giving yourself up to the Empire isn't the answer. That won't help anyone, least of all them." Obi-Wan had tried too, but he hadn't been any help. "You are the Chosen One, Anakin," he'd said. "We cannot risk you falling into the hands of the Sith. We will get your children back, but you mustn't allow your fear for them to cloud your judgement."

Obi-Wan didn't understand. He was hardly about to forget that he was the karking Chosen One when it was the very reason Palpatine had targeted his children—the man who had befriended him and manipulated him for thirteen years in order to shackle his power to him, who had taken Luke and Leia for the same end. As if he could possibly have forgotten what it was he wanted from him, when the memories of it still haunted his nightmares. His cajoling in the blood red office in the Senate Dome morphing into snarling threats as the Jedi Temple burnt around them, and then Padmé—oh Padmé—her life force slipping through his fingers like sand and there was nothing he could do—

But none of that mattered. Not now. Not when it was his children's lives on the line. He wouldn't risk defying him this time. He couldn't.

They'd tried. They'd tried to find a way to free Luke and Leia without giving into the Empire's ultimatum. But what could they do? They had no idea where Tarkin was keeping them, and if he caught the slightest wind that Anakin had not come alone to Mustafar, Force knew what would happen. He couldn't risk that. Though he was no longer naive enough to expect Tarkin to simply let them go if he caved to the demands (he steadfastly ignored the small part of him that always felt that if he had taken up Palpatine's offer, if he hadn't angered him with his refusal, that he might have let—he might have let Padmé—), perhaps he could find a way to escape afterwards. He would find his children and then they would all get away. But he couldn't let Luke and Leia suffer because of him. Couldn't let them be killed or-or spirited away and twisted by the Sith into something terrible because their father had refused to act.

He wouldn't make the wrong choice this time.

He hoped that nobody back at the base had noticed he was missing yet. He had left well past dark, slipping past the people on the night watch and away with ease. As far as Obi-Wan and Bail and everyone else were concerned, he was holed up in his room, not sleeping, not eating, and torturing himself over and over with that kriffing recording. With luck that he wasn't strictly supposed to believe in, they wouldn't go trying to talk to him too soon. If they found out he was gone, if they figured out where he was going and decided to go after him, Tarkin could take that as an attempt to breach the terms of the Empire's ultimatum, and what would happen to Luke and Leia then?

He was brought sharply out of his spiralling thoughts as his ship's console beeped at him. Blinking, he raised his head from his hands. The ship was coming out of hyperspace. Oh Force. Oh Force. He felt sick, deep in his stomach. His hands shook. For a moment, overwhelming fear seized him. The fear he had felt in the Council Chambers of the Jedi Temple all those years ago as he stared into the vicious yellow eyes of a man he had thought was his friend. Fear of everything he could do to him, and worse, to everybody he cared about. He could barely breathe. But he couldn't let himself get trapped in that fear. He had to do this. He had to—

The blue lights dissipated as the ship reverted to realspace, revealing the fiery image of Mustafar on the other side of the viewport before him. Anakin's hands trembled violently as he grasped the ship's controls—so hard that they creaked alarmingly under his mechanical fingers. For Luke and Leia. For Luke and Leia. He could do it for Luke and Leia—

He angled the ship towards the planet, and started the descent down towards the surface.

When he had come here to save the Force sensitive children kidnapped by Cad Bane during the Clone War, he had decided that, if there was a planet in the Galaxy that rivalled Tatooine in awfulness, it was Mustafar. The roaring boom of constant eruptions reverberated as fiercely in the Force as it did in his ears as he manoeuvred the ship to land on the platform adjacent to a shielded facility similar to the one he remembered from the last time he had been to the planet. Reaching out with the his Force senses, he searched for Luke and Leia and found...nothing. He swallowed. He hadn't really expected them to be here—too much of a risk that he would simply kill Tarkin, take them and go. Instead, what he sensed were echoes of fear and death, and a familiar presence that he had hoped never to cross paths with again.

Tarkin was waiting for him.

"General Skywalker." After so many times watching the holorecording over and over again, it was odd hearing his that crisp, clipped voice without static or interference. Anakin levelled the man with the fiercest glower he could muster as he stepped out of the ship. "Good evening."

"Tarkin" Anakin snarled through gritted teeth. It was all he could force out without succumbing to the urge to lash out, to let the terrible power within him that the Emperor so coveted reach out and destroy his servant in the blink of an eye. He would deserve it. Would deserve it for taking his children, for daring to threaten them— But his children were the very reason he couldn't do it. He couldn't risk them. With a great effort, he bridled in his rage.

Tarkin smiled—that thin, pallid twist of the lips that he recognised from the twilight days of the Republic. The burning red light of the lava glinting in his steely eyes made him think of the first time they'd met. Lola Sayu. The Citadel mission. Ahsoka had saved his life then. Briefly, Anakin wondered if it would have been better for all of them if the man had died there and then.

"I knew that you would come." The Force sent a flare of warning through him, and he suddenly became aware of the clanking of plastisteel armour as, at a wordless order from the man in front of him, stormtroopers surrounded him, blasters pointed at his back. "The Emperor has predicted your every move."

Tarkin's tone was unbearably smug. Despite Anakin's silence, despite his rage, the smile never left the man's face. The shadows in the deep hollows of his cheeks and eyes made him look even more gaunt than usual. Like a grinning skull, here to taunt him with his fate.

"And now... Now, there is no escape. For you or your children.”

Chapter Text

Curled up in the pitch darkness of the cell that his master had thrown him into three days past, Darth Vader, second apprentice to the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, wrestled down the urge to moan in pain as he wrapped his arms tight around his midriff in a futile attempt to soothe the gnawing ache deep in his stomach. It had been three days since he had been given even so much as half an old ration bar to eat. Three days since he had seen the slightest sliver of light or spoken to another being, organic or droid. Three days that he was only able to count because of the small ration of water he was given through a hatch in the wall what he presumed was each morning—enough to keep him alive but nowhere near what was needed to relieve the the dryness in his mouth, nor the unrelenting headache that was pounding behind his eyes and wrapping around his skull like a vice. He felt sick and dizzy, and he had to fight the instinct to cry. It would do him no good—it would only waste water.

Another groan threatened to escape him as a particularly severe pang of hunger laced through his abdomen. The familiar tang of blood filled his mouth as he bit down hard on his lip to suppress it. His master could well be monitoring him, and any display of weakness would do little to convince him to put an end to his punishment. He wondered how long the man intended to keep him here this time, without food, with barely any water. Surely...surely it wouldn't be much longer. It wouldn't— It couldn't— But his transgression—

Oh Force, his transgression had been really bad this time.

He hadn't meant to disobey. He hadn't. He hadn't defied his master in years—not after the first few times he had balked at being brought...fodder to feed his growing power in the Dark Side, as Lord Sidious liked to call it. But those had been criminals and scum and slavers, people whom nobody would miss and could best serve the Galaxy by perishing on his blade. The trembling padawan that had been dumped at his feet, barely able to hold the lightsaber she had been thrown straight as his master prowled around them, hissing at him to prove his mettle against the Jedi and strike her down—well, that had been...different. He had fought her, of course, and won easily, but when it came to strike the final blow, something had stayed his hand. The look in her eyes, perhaps, wide and terrified and full of tears. Or the fact that she must have been much the same age as he was—fifteen or sixteen, he thought? Whatever it was, it had frozen him stock still above her, his saber pointed towards her throat, and no amount of cajoling, taunting or threats from his master could make him draw back and deal the blow.

It had done no good in the end. Lord Sidious had killed her in his place, and his rage afterwards had been terrible.

It had only been after he'd taken out the worst of his fury on his wayward apprentice that he had grabbed him by the hair, aching, hardly able to stand, and dragged him down to the small prison cell that he had first kept him in after he'd been stolen from Qui-Gon Jinn's custody on Naboo. The pain was tolerable—he had become accustomed to his master's cold but violent temper by now—but the cell... The cell always wore him down.

It was not necessarily the hunger and the thirst. Hunger and thirst were common even amongst the masters on Tatooine (with the notable exception of the Hutts), and amongst the planet's slaves even more so. Such things were well known to him, deep in his bones. But then, it had always been tempered by the loving embrace of his mother and the warm presence of his friends. Now, he had nothing like that. Only Tyranus, who loathed and resented him as an unnecessary waste of time and effort, and Sidious, whose touches brought pain more than comfort, and only offered him scraps of kindness as a reward for good behaviour. Here, in the dark, he only had misery and isolation and an ache in his gut that paled in comparison to the ache in his chest that was the absence of Shmi Skywalker. Like a hole that had been punched right through his heart.

Vader swallowed dryly as he tried, without success, to ease the soreness of his throat. He could feel a sudden surge of resentment growing within him, familiar and dangerous. It wasn't fair. Lord Sidious was as much Tyranus' master as he was his, but he never treated him this way. He didn't lock him up and starve him of both sustenance and sentient company. He let him see and speak to other people, didn't punish him for not bowing down like a slave to his owner in every aspect of his life. Yes, he was a lot younger than Tyranus—not yet even a man, the snobbish Count had a habit of sneering within his earshot—but both of them had become Sidious' apprentices at much the same time. He had been a Sith just as long as Dooku, and their shared master didn't even want the man as a permanent apprentice. So why was it him who was treated like—

His anger was well on the way to turning into a raging inferno by the time he managed to stamp it back down again. He mustn't think of such things. If he ever wanted to get out of this cell, he mustn't think of such things.

He had no way of knowing how much time passed before he heard the pneumatic hiss of his cell door being activated—it could have been minutes, hours. The sound was almost deafening after so long of silence, and the light which flooded into the cell from the other side of the door fairly blinded him. He blinked, dazed, stretching out his senses to identify who it was that was entering the cell. His mind brushed up against a horribly familiar presence, vast and cold and empty like a dark chasm in the Force. His master.

Still barely able to see, he scrambled to his knees, head bowed and properly subservient as he fought to keep himself from shaking. He could hear the hiss of soft robes dragging against the floor—the only warning he had before his chin was caught in a punishing grip, and his head was wrenched upwards to meet his master's gaze. Blinking away the spots in his vision, he stared up into what little he could see of Lord Sidious' face, shrouded in shadows, expression hard and cold with displeasure.

"Well, my apprentice," he croaked, his eyes gleaming like a hungry anooba's under the shadow of his hood. "Have you learnt your lesson yet?"

"Master..." Vader's throat was so parched that his voice was almost as dry and cracked as Lord Sidious'. He trembled under the man's gaze, trying to shrink in on himself and hating how pathetic he felt. "Master, please—"

Sidious' lips twisted into a wicked smile, teeth flashing dangerously.

"'Please'?," he taunted. "'Please' what, Vader? Do you believe you have paid sufficient penance for your transgression?"

Vader shut his eyes tight, forcing down the tears that were threatening to well up beneath his lids. He mustn't show weakness in front of his master. It would only make him angry.

Of course, disobedience made him angry too, and Vader had already shown him defiance beyond the limited patience with him the man possessed.

"I will accept your judgement, master" he said, because what else could he say when anything but complete subservience would mean further punishment? He wished his master would let go of his chin, so he could bow his head and hide from those piercing eyed behind a curtain of hair. But Sidious did not let him go, held firm and forced him to stare up into his twisted face, without reprieve. His gaze seemed to burrow into his skull like a laser, and Vader was sure that, without even bothering to call upon the Force, he could see past the lie he had so clumsily pasted over the truth of his feelings, even as he tried to bury them so deep down that no one—not even himself— would sense them. The man's smile turned grim and cold.

"Will you now?," he sneered. "How generous of you. And if I choose to keep you here until I deem you adequately punished? Will you accept it then?"

Vader trembled. He would do it, he knew. Lord Sidious was not in the habit of making idle threats.

"Master...," he whimpered hoarsely. "Master, please. Please forgive me. I-I'll obey. I've learnt my lesson. Please—”

Sidious smirked.

"Forgive you?"

The hand that had been holding his chin in a vice-like grip moved to slide up to his cheek in a gesture that, if not for his cruel words and the hard gleam in his yellow eyes, might have felt gentle, almost affectionate. Even as a worm of disgust—at himself as much as Sidious—twisted violently in his gut, Vader couldn't help but lean into the touch, desperate for even the tiniest scraps after so long in isolation. He wanted to shut his eyes—anything to pretend that he were somewhere else, with someone else—but he didn't dare. Not when one wrong move could turn the man back to icy fury at any moment.

"Perhaps I will forgive you." Sidious' fingers trailed down his cheek one last time before he drew back and suddenly, with only the slightest of warnings in the Force, struck him such a hard blow across the face that he toppled hard onto the floor. Vader let out a soft, startled little cry as pain jarred through his shoulder, his mechno hand shooting up to clutch at his burning cheek. "Once I believe you are properly contrite."

There was a whisper of robes above him and then something dropped down to the ground in front of his face. He blinked, dazed, at first not quite taking in what he was seeing. A ration bar. Oh Force, a ration bar. He scrambled to grab it, to snatch it up before his master took it away and—

But Sidious was already out in the corridor, and the door was closing behind him.

"Master!," Vader cried. His voice came out as a thin scream as he dashed to the already sealing door. He collided with it hard as he was caged once again in darkness. "Master—!"

For a moment, fear and anger and frustration welled up inside him to the point of explosion, and he let out a broken yell, slamming his metal hand into the durasteel of the door over and over. But it was not long before the exhaustion and sickness from his hunger overcame him and he sank down to the ground in a heap of dark robes and trembling misery. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair—

But... But at least he had food now, he thought as he clutched the ration bar possessively to his chest. His master had given him food. Did that mean he was on his way towards forgiving him? Would he let him out soon? How soon? At least...at least, even if it was a few more days, he would have something to stave off the hunger. He could make it last. He could make it last until his master decided to let him out. Yes.

All he needed to do was obey—truly obey—and then Lord Sidious would show him mercy.

Chapter Text

Coruscant, Anakin thought, seemed so much louder now that he had lost his sight. The sound of roaring speeders and honking horns that persisted unrelentingly through night and day, the thrum and press of a trillion people going about their business that had once so intimidated and overwhelmed him when he had first landed on the great city planet after a life on backwater Tatooine deafening in his mind as well as his ears. He couldn't help but feel like that little boy once again as he whizzed through the lanes of traffic, allowing Artoo to drive the Temple's borrowed speeder in...well, what he supposed was the direction of the Senate Apartment Complex. Everything was so intense now, too intense. The wind that whipped at his hair as they drove seemed not breathlessly invigorating as it once had, but biting, violent and cold. Noises came and went leaving behind only the faintest impression of where they had been. And the Force, oh kriffing hells, the Force was loud. It echoed with a trillion different thoughts, a trillion different feelings and desires, and no matter how well he shielded, he could not quite quiet his senses enough to keep them at bay.

The Force had been loud in the Temple too. It had been loud when he had awoken in a soft bed to utter darkness and the memory of a too-close explosion and a blinding white flash followed by a searing hot pain before his world had turned black. It had been loud when Vokara Che had said to him in the softest tones that she didn't know yet whether his loss of sight would be temporary or permanent, but that she was holding out hope for the former. Her sadness and worry in the Force had practically screamed at him, even though in reality he knew that it was probably little more than a whisper. It was bright too. Bright specks of life dotted everywhere around him—younglings and padawans, knights and masters. With the unrelenting darkness of his vision, it reminded him a little of the long nights on Tatooine when the planet's three moons were hidden, and all that there was to light the vast expanse of land below were the hundreds of tiny, far off stars that he had once dreamed of visiting. When he was very small, he had been afraid of those nights, and his mother had held him to his chest and told him not to be scared, for that very darkness served to shroud them from the sight of their masters, and he had always felt a little better once the suns came up the next day.

But his mother was dead, and this darkness no longer held the promise of a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Chancellor had visited him in the Halls of Healing whilst he was there recovering from the other injuries he had received from the explosion. Which was not entirely proper and clearly reeked of attachment to Master Yoda, who had been radiating resigned disapproval as he led the old man to his bedside with a clipped announcement of “come to see you, His Excellency has, young Skywalker”, and had promptly left without another word. Palpatine had felt...strange in the Force—like an emptiness, a cavity, or a deep crack in a rock where something particularly foul and slimy lived. Which was, of course, ridiculous. Chancellor Palpatine was one of the kindest people he knew—always looking out for him, always ready to lend a sympathetic ear no matter how trivial his concerns—and hardly deserved to be treated like some monster out to get him just because Anakin was worrying about the loss of his sight and was likely misinterpreting the sensations he felt in the Force because of it. What was even more ridiculous was that, when the man reached out to give him one of his customary gentle pats on the shoulder, he had had to violently suppress the urge to rear back in alarm as a sudden sense of danger shot through him with all the burning power of a blaster bolt. It was nonsensical, but he had, out of nowhere, felt very much like what he imagined sitting prey feels as a hunting hawk-bat swoops in for the kill.

“It saddens me to see you in this state, my boy,” the old man had said, giving him one, two, three pats on the shoulder before withdrawing his hand. “Does Master Che believe it will be permanent?”

“She says that it's too early to say, sir,” Anakin had replied, wetting his lips with his tongue as he fought down the irrational urge to bolt. “But she's trying. It's not— I'll be able to see again.”

“That's the spirit, Anakin. And I'm sure it behoves the Jedi to make sure you are fully healed. They wouldn't want to lose their best General, after all. Who would fight their war for them then?”

The last part, Anakin thought, had been intended to be as light and bolstering as the rest of his words, but there had been something in his tone, something that hinted at a private quarrel that had not entirely been meant for his ears. There were growing tensions between the Chancellor and the Jedi Council, he knew—ones that had been worsening with each day that the war dragged on—but still... But still... It didn't seem right somehow, like his feelings in the Force didn't quite match the ones he was trying to express, nor even the ones he was trying to disguise for his young friend's benefit. All in all, it had been a strange and confusing visit, and by the time Palpatine had returned to the Senate Dome, he had been left feeling muddled and drained.

He hadn't, however, had time to ponder over the oddness surrounding his benign old mentor's odd Force signature that, really, he must have been imagining, for the Chancellor's words, though meant kindly, had done little but bring one of his primary fears that had been plaguing him since he had woken up in the Halls of Healing to the forefront of his mind. He knew, logically, that this was not Tatooine, that he would not be considered less valuable for having sustained permanent...damages—the Jedi had healed him after he had lost his arm, after all, given him a prosthetic that meant he could still fight—but...well, he wasn't good at much about being a Jedi, but he was good at war, and an arm was one thing, but his sight— He couldn't deny that the Council had only accepted him into the Order because of his usefulness—his destiny to destroy the Sith, and because he had proven himself by taking out the droid command centre when the Trade Federation attacked Naboo. And that wasn't even taking into account what would happen to his men if he couldn't fight, what would happen to Ahsoka—

Except—he still forgot sometimes, and each time he remembered again it was like a shard of ice through his heart—Ahsoka had been gone for over a month now. Well, there was one silver lining, at least. His padawan...former padawan wouldn't have to face the consequences of this. She wouldn't even have to know, considering the last time they had spoken had been on the steps of the Jedi Temple the day she'd left.

Anakin scowled at the memory, running a hand over his face. He didn't want to think of that now. It was too big, too overwhelming, too— Artoo beeped at him, and he suddenly realised that the sting of the wind that had been whipping at his face as they sped to their destination had faded away to a light breeze, the roaring in his ears replaced by a distant hum of traffic that, however far away, still sounded far too loud. The speeder must have stopped. Swallowing thickly, he reached out with the Force, trying to wade through the jumble of a trillion different feelings from a trillion different people reverberating around him at once, and felt the brush of a familiar, warm presence against his mind.

Padmé.

He heard a whir and a noise like a spring uncoiling that he recognised as the sound of Artoo launching himself out of the speeder and onto the landing platform of Padmé's apartment (it must be Padmé's apartment; he could feel her here, a bright—brighter than usual—presence in a mire of darkness). Another whirring sound, motorised treads trundling closer. It stopped, somewhere below him, to his right. An enquiring whistle.

<Unit: Anakin-Skywalker. Query: Need assistance?>

Anakin shook his head. Artoo had helped him through the hangar bay back when he was leaving the Temple, whizzing underneath his hand and, before he had even had the chance to ask him what he was doing, let alone protest, had started leading him carefully to his speeder past the many obstacles scattered in his way, claw arm tangled in the voluminous sleeve of his Jedi robe. Though he had not liked it, Anakin had had to admit that it had been necessary. As familiar as the hangar bay was to him, ships, people and engineering tools alike had a habit of moving around and ending up in places where they were least expected in ways that walls and tables generally didn't. Strictly speaking, he should have been able to do it anyway—Jedi didn't actually need to see to sense things—but it turned out that total blindness was not like deflecting training bolts with an opaque visor over your eyes. Not when you couldn't just finish the exercise and let your sight come flooding back to you the moment you were done.

But then, nothing about his padawan days had truly trained him for the consequences of this war.

"I'm alright, Artoo" he said, because that was what he always said, and it was what he was determined to be. This wasn't a crowded hangar with obstacle after obstacle to overcome. This was Padmé's apartment. He knew it well—or at least, as well as one could when they were trying to conduct a secret marriage and a vicious war at the same time. But even if he hadn't been there as often as he would have liked (everyday, every night, he would be with her if he could, but he couldn't until the war was over and he knew that everyone he loved would be safe), he knew it well enough to have a good idea of where everything was. It would be alright. He could do this.

<Negative> Artoo beeped at him, but he ignored the little droid's protest. He could get out of a speeder and walk the length of a kriffing room. He just needed to figure out— If Artoo was there, based off the vague direction in which his beeps and whistles were coming from, and the edge of the speeder—he felt along it tentatively—was there... He hoisted himself up, swinging over the side of the speeder, searching cautiously in the darkness—too dark, too dark, like he was trapped in a pitch black cave with a bottomless chasm yawning beneath him—for solid ground with one foot. He found it and, with no small amount of relief, planted the other one alongside it. He did not let go of the speeder.

"See?," he said, trying to force down the tremor in his voice. "I'm fine."

He could do it. He could. All he had to do was let go, turn around, and start walking. He should be able to do it, shouldn't have any problem with peeling his hands away from where they had glued themselves to the lifeline that kept him from floundering in the dark. He was a Jedi, he mustn't let himself be ruled by his fear like this. He had faced worse and prevailed. He could— He should—

But the darkness and the noise was threatening to swallow him whole. He was drowning beneath the weight of it, beneath all the worries and fears of Coruscant tangling with his own. The shadow of the war that was coming closer to them with each day that passed. The shadow that had consumed him, the blow that the war had already struck him after so long fighting. His grip tightened on the edge of the speeder, refusing to let go.

<Negative> Artoo beeped at him again. Anakin heard him trundle forward. Felt the whisper of fabric against his leg as he brushed lightly against the edge of his outer robe, coming to a stop beside him. <Statement: I calculate that your processors are malfunctioning. You are full of bantha poodoo>

Anakin sputtered, startled almost into an entirely inappropriate laugh. Strangely, he felt the edge of panic that he was teetering fall away, just a little.

"There's nothing wrong with my processors," he groused. With an effort, he finally managed to unstick himself from the side of the speeder. As he pushed himself away, he was abruptly overcome by a sensation of being surrounded on all sides by a dizzyingly sharp drop, even though he knew there was solid ground beneath him. He froze. "It's my photoreceptors that are the problem," he muttered under his breath, though he knew Artoo's sensors would pick his words up no matter how quietly he spoke.

And unlike you, I can't just go to a mechanic and get them fixed when they don't work, he thought bitterly. Artoo let out a sympathetic little "woo", his claw arm extending out to snag in his sleeve as he had in the Temple.

<Statement> he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. <Unit: Anakin-Skywalker. Need assistance>

"Artoo..."

But there wasn't anything he could say. No argument to contradict him. No matter what he wanted, the fear of that absolute darkness was starting to eat away at his heart, gluing his feet to the ground. He wanted to deny it, to release it into the Force as all good Jedi should. But he had never been a good Jedi, and he doubted that he was going to find some as yet undiscovered well of calm within himself just because he had lost his sight—especially because he had lost his sight. But even if he couldn't trust himself anymore, he could trust Artoo. Had always trusted him, and he had never yet let him down. Slowly, he searched for the little astromech with the tips of his fingers, letting his palm rest flat on top of his dome. Drawing in several deep breaths, he grounded himself in the feel of little motors whirring and buzzing underneath his hand. With a painstaking effort, he started to filter the storm of conflicting sensations in the Force from his mind. He was calm. He was calm. He could do this.

And if he kept telling himself that often enough, he might just believe it.

The first steps he took were faltering, uncertain, even with Artoo to guide him. The further he went into the apartment, the less his sense of the Force was consumed by the people of Coruscant and more by his sense of her. She was so bright—felt brighter than normal, even though he knew that was just his impressions in the Force compensating for the loss of his sight. Bright enough, as realisation flared throughout her signature, jumbled in amongst so many other feelings that he couldn't hope to entangle them all, that he was almost dazed for a moment with the force of it. Blinking rapidly despite the fact that he knew it would no more clear his Force senses than it would return his sight to him, Anakin focused on the feel of her, the flurry of movement as she moved from somewhere—he thought—ahead and to the right of him, getting closer and closer. Faintly, he began to hear light, dainty footsteps coming towards him from what he presumed was the entrance to the landing platform from the rest of the apartment. He froze, aware all of a sudden that he was trembling, though with what emotion he didn't know.

"Ani..."

Padmé's voice was soft and gentle, but he could sense an urgency in her, a need to see that he was alright, that he wasn't—

"Angel" he whispered through his suddenly constricting throat, his breath caught as surely as if there were a hand squeezing about his neck.

“Ani!” He felt her Force presence dash towards him like a lantern in the dark, all worry and sadness and an overwhelming sense of love. “Ani, oh Ani. I heard what happened. Are you alright? Are you—?”

“I'm alright,” Anakin interrupted her. If he had let her continue, he might well have broken down in tears there and then under the pure force of the fierce, concerned affection that she was pouring into his mind. “It's— I'm alright.”

If you say that enough times, remarked a small, snide voice in the back of his mind which bore a faint resemblance to Obi-Wan at his most scathing, you'll get stuck, like a broken holorecording. It'll be the only thing you'll be able to say. It wasn't as if anybody believed him when he said it anyway, and Padmé was certainly no exception. He felt her sadness and worry spike sharply in the Force at his words. With barely a flutter of warning, her hands were in his hair, fingers running along his scalp in motions just a little too far on the side of frantic to be called gentle. It was a familiar feeling—she did it whenever he came back to her from a particularly gruelling campaign, wanting, needing to know that he was there with her, safe and sound and in one piece—but without his sight, the sudden intensity of it made him gasp aloud.

“Anakin...” Her hands withdrew from him abruptly, apologetically, misinterpreting the sound as a desire for her to stop. He ached at the loss, leaning towards her unusually bright Force presence like a flower seeking the light of the sun.

That was exactly what she was—a sun that had opened up her arms to him and folded him into the warmth of her embrace.

"Padmé" he pleaded.

He wished he could ask for more, but he could not find the words. He did not need to. A flash of realisation in the Force, and then her fingers were back, twining in his hair. He relaxed ever so slightly into her touch. For the first time since he had woken up to absolute darkness in the Halls of Healing, he almost felt safe.

"Can we go inside?," he asked. "It's cold out here."

He was always cold on Coruscant, even though he had become less aware of it the more time passed since he had left Tatooine. Now, he felt chilled to the bones, deep in his heart. He wanted the warmth of her embrace to chase it away, wanted the security of their home, away from the unwelcome eyes of the Jedi, the Senate, the whole damned planet. But he didn't need to explain any of this to her. He could feel that she understood.

He heard Artoo trundle away in search of Threepio as Padmé slipped her arm through his own and began to guide him inside with care. He held onto her with both hands, trying not to cling too hard, lest his mechanical grip hurt her. Together, they made their way through the apartment—fumbling occasionally round an odd-shaped piece of furniture or over a tricky step—until they reached a set of stairs and a small corridor that he recognised vaguely as leading to their bedroom. Sure enough, the stairs successfully—if awkwardly—traversed, she felt her lead him down to her large, comfortable bed, encouraging him to sit down. He fairly collapsed down onto the mattress, relieved to have reached his destination without the risk of any unseen obstacles to worry about. Safe. He was safe here.

A waft of Padmé's flowery perfume tickled at his nose as she leaned down to press a whispering kiss to his forehead. He went to chase after the touch, but she was already drawing away. The blinked, confused at the loss, until he felt the brush of her fingers against his calf, at the top of his boot. She pulled off one, and then the other, and then she went for his utility belt, coaxing him out of his Jedi robes and into his bed clothes. If it had been anyone else, he might have protested—or at least have been inclined to be embarrassed—but this was Padmé. His beloved wife, whom he adored with all his heart. And so he gave himself over to the calming sensations around him. The smooth silk of the dark sleep robe she had bought him when they had first married on his skin as she helped him slip it on. The reassuring dip in the mattress as she drew back and came to sit beside him on the bed. The soft whisper of her breath in his ear and he waited for her to speak.

And oh, how she wanted to speak. He could feel it in the Force. As much as he wished it weren't so, that little moment of calm was nothing but an illusion.

“Is it—?” He felt her hand come up to his face, fingertips ghosting above his right cheek, just where the tip of his scar trailed past his eye. It tingled under her touch. “Do you know if...do you know if you'll get your sight back?”

“Master Che says she hopes it will be temporary, but it's too early to say,” Anakin replied. Anybody else, and he might have wished his voice hadn't sounded quite so small and afraid, but Padmé who had seen the worst and the best of him and everything in-between, and had stuck beside him for all of it. “I'm grounded on Coruscant until we know for sure. Obi-Wan's taken over my campaigns until...”

His voice trailed off, as if his words had dried up like a puddle of water beneath the suns of Tatooine. Until what? Until he was healed? Until they confirmed his sight was permanently gone?The whispering in his head hissed at him that he had piled a whole new burden on his already overwrought master, that this latest in a long line of injuries had left Obi-Wan and his men on their own amid the most violent battles of the war to be harmed or killed because Anakin wasn't there by their side and may never be by their side again—

Before his thoughts could spiral any further, he was hit by an odd flare of jumbled emotions from Padmé. Worry for him. Relief that he was here with her, and not out fighting in the Outer Rim where he could be hurt even worse than he had already been. Concern for Obi-Wan, who was still out there. And above it all, that fierce determination that he had always loved her for—determination that everything would be alright and damn the Galaxy if it had anything to say to the contrary.

“It will be temporary,” she insisted, squeezing both of his hands in hers. He could easily imagine the expression on her face, resolute as it was loving, soft as it was strong. Would he ever see her face again, or would he have to rely on his memories of her features for the rest of his life? “I'm sure. It will get better. But if it doesn't...even if it doesn't, it won't change things. It won't stop you. We'll make sure that it doesn't.”

Despite the slight falter in her voice, so resolute was she that , for a moment, he could almost have believed her words. But this time, no matter how bright her presence was, it wasn't quite enough to burn away the dark thoughts in his mind as it had the blackness in his vision. Throat bobbing convulsively as he swallowed, Anakin shook his head.

“Won't it?,” he said. He forced himself to keep his voice flat, toneless, for if he had allowed the maelstrom of emotion in his chest to seep into his words, he wouldn't have been able to speak them at all. It sounded wrong to his ears, like one of those karking tactical droids the Separatists used. “If it is... We haven't talked at the Temple about what will happen if it is permanent yet but...how can I fight? If I can't see— I'll have to relearn everything. Everything I trained for and how long will that take? My men—”

He cut himself off abruptly, feeling a sob threatening to rise in his chest at the thought of Rex and the 501^st, of the pilots he had led into battle time and again, of Obi-Wan. How could he stand by as they went to war without him, not knowing if they would ever come back, forever wondering if they would die and it would be his fault because he had stupidly got himself seriously injured on the front lines and he wasn't there—?

Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes. He clenched his jaw and refused to let them fall.

“I can't see anything,” he whispered hoarsely, a tremor breaking through his flat tone as he tried hard not to cry. He focused with all his might on the feel of her small hands in his, as if it could distract him from his fear. “I can't even see your face. What if I can't ever see you again?”

“Anakin...” He could feel the sadness in her Force presence, her need to hold him close. Her fingers were in his hair once more, combing gently through his curls. The scrape of her nails over his scalp again so very intense without his sight, he couldn't help but tremble under her touch. “The war doesn't define you. Fighting doesn't define you. But Ani, you're the strongest man I know. If it is—if it is permanent, I have every faith that you will find a way. We will find a way. Together."

She made it sound so simple. He wished it was—oh, how he wished it was, but— His tears stung painfully in his eyes, a strange echo of the burning flash that had seared his sight away. Even if he had tried, he could not have stopped the quiet, wounded little noise that escaped his throat. Padmé shushed him gently, stroking his hair in slow, soothing motions that he did his best to anchor himself in. He needed her, needed her touch, her love, the only thing that could chase away the darkness that his world had transformed into—

His wife, he could feel through the Force, was more than happy to oblige.

“And as for me...” She pulled him down so that their foreheads were pressed together. Anakin's eyes closed tight shut. If he kept them closed, he could pretend that nothing had changed, that the world would not be just as dark with them open. “Even if you can't see me, you can still hear me.” She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “You can still feel me.” Another kiss. “I'm here, Ani. I will always be here.”

Her presence was burning with love, overwhelming him with affection. She was so close—the softness of her lips, the gentleness of her touch. His breath hitched as, finally, the tears trapped behind his lids started to fall. He cried and cried and cried. Cried until he thought he would run out of tears, but they just kept coming, refusing to stop. Padmé's arms snaked around him, holding him tight against her, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck, weeping uncontrollably into her soft hair.

"Padmé," he gasped. "Padmé."

"Ssh, my love." He felt her shift slightly, the soft pressure of her lips as she pressed a kiss into his wild hair. "It's alright. Everything will be alright."

He cried until exhaustion overcame him, letting her soft reassurances wash over him like a lullaby. Perhaps she was right, he thought as sleep threatened to catch him in its grip. Perhaps, in the end, it would be alright.

"Padmé..." he whispered again. He wondered, faintly, if most of his words had left him along with his sight, for her name suddenly seemed to be the only thing that could escape his lips. Nestled in her warm embrace, surrounded by her, enveloped by her, his entire world had narrowed down to his sense of her, to the lifeline she'd thrown him that his eyes were no longer able to provide.

"Rest, Anakin," she murmured in his ear. He shivered as the soft puffs of air from her lips tickled against sensitive skin. "I will stay with you. I'll be here with you when you wake."

The truth of her words shone bright and gentle in the Force. Yes, Anakin thought as his mind quietened and he allowed himself to succumb to a darkness entirely different to the one that had taken his sight. Yes, it would be alright. As long as Padmé was by his side, it would always be alright.

Chapter Text

Across the Galaxy, the eighth Empire Day was being celebrated far and wide, but deep into the night in the Rebel base on Dantooine, the mood was far more sombre. Sequestered in her private bunk, away from the crowds mourning the anniversary of the Republic’s demise, Padmé Amidala sat weeping over an old, worn Jedi robe, mourning the anniversary of her husband’s disappearance. She had been holding the tears in all day, trying to put on a brave face for the people who depended on her—for the others in the Alliance, for her beloved Luke and Leia who should not have to bear the burden of her misery—but now that she was alone, she could no longer stop them. They came in floods, in torrents, and not even the realisation that she was staining Anakin’s cloak—the last thing she had of him, save for the japor snippet she always wore about her neck and the bright smiles of their two children, snatched during her forced flight from Coruscant all those years ago—with her crying was enough to dry them up. Anakin, oh Anakin. How she longed to have him beside her. For a sign—any single, solitary sign that he was alive, and safe.

But the years had stretched by, and that sign that she had been hoping for with all her heart had not come.

Eight years. Eight years since the Empire had risen from the corpse of the Republic, and her husband had been counted among the dead of Order 66. Eight years since Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and everyone who had known him had given up hope of him having survived the encounter with Darth Sidious that they could only presume must have occurred. But not her. She had feared it sometimes, in her darker moments, but she had never truly believed it. How could she? Anakin and she had been—were—two halves of a whole. Even with how withdrawn and...different he had become in the days leading up to his disappearance, how far he had been starting to pull away from her and all those who cared for him, she would know if he— She would feel it, even without the aid of the Force that her Jedi friends had the benefit of, deep in her bones. She would know if he had died. And besides, there was no real evidence that he had been—that he had been— No body, no witnesses. Only a few snapped Force bonds and the fact that nobody knew where he was. While that seemed to be enough to convince all the remaining Jedi she knew, it wasn’t enough for her. She wouldn't believe it. She refused to believe it.

But not believing it didn’t make the absence of him hurt any less keenly.

Padmé sniffled, a fresh wave of tears trickling down her cheeks. It always hurt this time of year, remembering everything that she had lost. It hurt everyone in the Alliance—the birth of the Empire had had so many casualties. She had been feeling it—badly—for a while now, and nothing had really made it better, save perhaps for the bright company of her children when they were at their happiest. Missions left her feeling sore and bruised in her heart as well as her body—how could they not when the institution that had ripped both her family and her life's work apart marched inexorably on no matter what they did, as if they were nothing more than annoying bugs that barely warranted swatting? The most recent one—to the Kuat Drive Yards—had been hard, their aims only half accomplished when they were discovered, she and Obi-Wan forced to fight their way through what felt like an endless sea of stormtroopers to escape. Though of course, as bad as it had been, it could have been worse. At the very least, they hadn't encountered Darth Vader.

The intelligence they had received from their informant in the Drive Yards hadn't mentioned that Darth Sidious' third and current Sith apprentice would be there for an inspection, and it was only by sheer dumb luck—or as Obi-Wan had claimed, the will of the Force—that they had just happened to miss him. Had he not been called back to Imperial Centre by the Emperor the day before they arrived on Kuat, they would surely have had him to contend with. Which was concerning, to say the least, as it either suggested that their informant was unreliable—or possibly even a double agent—or else that nobody at all knew that he had been coming to Kuat, and that he had been sent there as much on his master's whim as he had been called away again.

She didn't know why that second reason should concern her as much as the first, but it did. The thought that Palpatine could yank on his enforcer's chain and send him anywhere he wanted just because he wanted to...concerned her. Vader concerned her. Which, of course, made sense. The whole of the Rebel Alliance was concerned by Vader—and more than a little afraid of him. But underneath that healthy alarm that any enemy of the Empire would feel upon hearing the Sith Lord's name, there was a concern which did not make sense. Something about Vader made her uneasy—in a vague, nebulous way that she could not quite grasp, but didn't feel like it was connected to the reasons he unsettled other people. Perhaps it was the way he held himself so still when he appeared behind the Emperor in Galaxy-wide transmissions, as if he would not countenance so much as a twitch should his master not command it. Or perhaps it was the way he concealed himself—the robe and the mask, allowing nothing beneath to be so much as glimpsed. Somehow, Padmé had the idea that if he were to remove that mask, she would not like what she would see behind it.

She scowled at herself, balling her hands—still buried in the billowing folds of Anakin's cloak—into fists. Now wasn't the time to be thinking of Darth Vader of all people. It hadn't made her feel better, certainly hadn't made her stop crying. She bowed her head low over the robe, rubbing her thumb over the fabric in an attempt to soothe herself, and wishing he had not been gone so long that it no longer smelt like him. Oh Anakin. Anakin. Where was he? What had happened to him? What was happening to him even now that he could not find his way back to them—?

"Mommy?"

Padmé gave a sudden start at the sound of the small, trembling voice behind her. Head snapping up as she was pulled sharply out of her spiralling thoughts, she wished—not for the first time—that she had the ability to sense people in the Force, the way the Jedi did, before they could creep up on her without her noticing. She turned around, blinking rapidly to chase the tears away from her eyes. Her vision blurred and coalesced, then morphed into a mirror image of her own face—smaller and younger, but dark eyes just as full of tears as her own.

Leia.

Her daughter could act so grown up for her age sometimes that people often forgot she would only be eight years old in a few days time. To Padmé, however, stood in front of the door that connected the twins' room to hers, dressed in her nightclothes and dark hair tumbling out of her plait into wide, glistening eyes, she looked heartbreakingly young. Despite it all, though, she was clearly trying not to cry, her jaw clenched tight around what, in another child that had not grown up with the threat of the Empire looming over their head, might have been loud, wailing sobs.

"Oh, sweetheart, what's the matter?," Padmé asked, her voice quivering with the force of her own sadness as her brow crumpled into a worried frown. "Are you hurt? Do you need—?"

Leia shook his head, and all of a sudden, Padmé was struck by the horrid thought that perhaps Leia was sensing her distress, experiencing it as if it were her own— But no, Leia had been...off all evening, quiet and moody and uncommunicative in a way that was all too much like her father had been when something had been wrong but he hadn't wanted to burden her with it. She knew from experience—she had to bite down on her lip to fight back another wave of tears—with Anakin that pushing did not help, and so she had tried to give her space, trusting that she would come to her on her own when she was ready. Apparently, that time was now.

Wordlessly, she held out a hand, plastering a reassuring smile on her face that was as shaky as her voice. Leia dashed forward, clambering up onto her lap. Instinctively, Padmé reached out and began to stroke her hair, watching as her gaze flicked down to Anakin's old robe, recognition sparking in her eyes. A little hand stretched out and took a fistful of the dark fabric in its grip.

"Mommy...," she whispered, her voice somehow uncertain and determined all at once. "Is Daddy...is Daddy dead?"

Padmé's hand on her head stilled. Her whole body froze, her mind, her heart. It was as if the winter of Hoth had seeped right into her bones, turning her to living ice. She was choking, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. What could she say? Oh Force, what in the Galaxy could she say to her precious daughter who, out of nowhere, suddenly wanted to know if her daddy was dead—?

"What?" Instead of any of the comforting things that she wanted to say—should be saying—the words burst out of her without permission or intervention from her brain. "What makes you say that?"

Leia's expression turned mutinous, and Padmé felt her breath catch in her throat, the ache deep in her chest threatening to overwhelm her. Their daughter may resemble her in colouring and features, but that look was all Anakin. She had seen it on his face more times than she could possibly count— more and more as the war had gone on and he had started turning into a shadow of the man he had once been. When he had complained of the Jedi Council, in the aftermath of Obi-Wan's faked death. It was the look of someone who suspected they were being lied to, not trusted, and was masking the hurt that caused them with anger.

"I heard people talking," she said, almost belligerently, as if daring her mother to contradict her, but her tone was belied by the tears that were still shining in her eyes. "They said that Obi-Wan is sad around this time of year because it's when Daddy was killed by the Emperor. That's why he's upset, isn't it? Because Daddy was his best friend and he died and now he's sad without him—"

"Daddy disappeared, Leia," Padmé interrupted her gently. The hand on her head finally came unstuck, and she began stroking her hair again in slow, soothing motions. The little girl was fast working herself up into a crying fit, and she had to get her out of it. She couldn't afford to wallow in her own misery when her daughter needed her, no matter how much she might have wanted to. “Nobody knows what happened to him, but that doesn't mean he's dead.”

She knew that the others in the Alliance wouldn't—didn't—want her to tell her children this. Bail and Obi-Wan wanted her to accept her husband's death as fact, just as they had thought it best for Luke and Leia. “You must face this, for your own good and theirs,” Obi-Wan had told her the last time the subject had been brought up. “Don't let them be burdened by an attachment to a memory. Anakin is gone, Padmé. You know this.” In return, Padmé had longed to snap at him that his insistence that Anakin had died had not brought him any greater measure of peace than hers that he was alive, but that would have been cruel of her, and so she had held her tongue. Still, cruel though it may have been, it wasn't necessarily untrue. Obi-Wan had dealt with his sadness over Anakin's loss by throwing himself into the Alliance's cause, mission after mission, but these most recent ones—as it was every year in the build-up to Empire Day—he had been different. Raw, like a still healing scab that had been picked at until it threatened to start bleeding again. Clearly, he hadn't been hiding his hurt and grief nearly so well as he had thought—or would have liked—if everyone from these “people” who had been discussing his moods to little Leia had picked up on it.

Leia...

Leia. Her beloved daughter, who was still sitting in her lap with wide, tear-filled eyes, staring up at her with an expression that was somewhere between truculent and pleading. Not wanting to be lied to, even for her own good, but still desperate to be convinced that what she had heard wasn't true. It was a burden that Padmé had never wanted her to suffer, even though she had known deep down that it would eventually become unavoidable. Of course it would, when the rest of the Alliance was so convinced that Anakin was dead. Would Luke have to face it soon too? If Leia had already come across talk like this, what would he hear, what might he have already have heard—?

But that was a problem for the future. Now, she had to be strong for Leia. Couldn't let her be crushed under the the weight of the fear that her father had died, when she was sure in her heart that it would have been a lie.

“It doesn't mean he's dead, sweetheart,” she repeated, insistent. “We don't know he's dead.”

Leia's eyes flashed.

“But you think it!,” she retorted hotly. “They all think he's dead! Obi-Wan and Bail and Ahsoka think it! You think it too—you're crying!”

Yes, she was. She could feel the wetness on her cheeks, the soreness in her eyes, despite her attempts to suppress her tears for Leia's sake. Once she had started, it seemed as if she had opened up a well inside her that would never dry up. Those tears weren't only for Anakin now, but also for her children—her darling Luke and Leia who were expected to let go of their father's memory without even having had the chance to remember him. For Obi-Wan and Ahsoka who had let go of all hope and instead were mired in their own grief. And for herself, who felt so empty and alone without her husband by her side. Staring down into Leia's big brown eyes, fierce and frightened and stubborn and sad, she was suddenly struck by the memory of brushing her hair out on the balcony of her apartment on Coruscant, telling Anakin of her plans for a nursery at Varykino, before the dreams and the plotting and everything that had gone wrong. Why, of all the things that could have happened, was this the Galaxy that their children had been born into?

But she knew the answer to that. It was all Palpatine's fault. Everything was his doing, and she would bring him to justice for all the terrible things he had wrought.

“I'm crying because I want your daddy to be here with us, as a family,” she admitted quietly. “I miss him, and that makes me sad.”

Leia's lip wobbled, the tears spilling out from her eyes and over her round cheeks. Softly, tenderly, Padmé reached out and wiped them away with her thumb.

“I don't think he's dead, Leia,” she murmured, with a small, melancholy smile. “I promise you, I wouldn't tell you that if I didn't truly believe it. I feel in my heart that he's out there somewhere, trying to get back to us.”

She felt Leia's gaze on her, searching her face—or perhaps her Force presence—for a lie. Finally, the last of her anger and argumentativeness faded from her expression, leaving in its place something fragile and vulnerable and ever so slightly hopeful.

“Really?” she whispered. If Padmé's heart had not shattered eight years ago on an outbound flight from Coruscant in the wreckage of Order 66, it would have cleaved in two there and then. Force, she looked so young, so innocent. Too innocent for this to be her life.

“Yes, my darling.” Wrapping her arms about her, she pulled her small body to her chest, tucking her head beneath her chin and holding her close. “Really.”

She felt Leia snuggle into her, the sensation of her head resting atop her heart filling her with such love that, just for a moment, it was enough to chase her sadness away. Tugging at the old Jedi robe, she wrapped it carefully around both their shoulders. Large enough to have once swamped six foot tall Anakin in billowing fabric, it swaddled the pair of them easily in something like an embrace.

“I hope he does.” Leia's voice was muffled as she pressed against her, a hint of tiredness starting to seep into it. She pulled at the hem of the cloak, nestling deep into it. Her eyes closed as sleep began to creep up on her. “I want to meet him.”

Padmé smiled tremulously, though Leia could no longer see it. I want you to meet him too, my darling, she thought. Oh Force, how I want you to meet him too. Where are you, Anakin? Where in the Galaxy are you, my love?

The sun was starting to rise over Imperial Centre, marking an end to the Empire Day celebrations that had stretched well into the night, and deep in the inner sanctum of Emperor Palpatine's palace, the Sith Lord Darth Vader was sitting at the workbench in his quarters, fixing the wheel of a mouse droid.

"There." Spitting out the screwdriver he had clasped between his teeth, the young Sith set his tools down on the bench with a soft clink. "Is that better now?"

The little droid beeped up at him, whizzing around in an experimental circle, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise. Its name was MSE-6-L407X, he had discovered when he had found it trundling rather pathetically along on one of his night-time walks through the palace that his master didn't strictly approve of but did not technically forbid. It had been suffering the consequences of a sharply-delivered and ill-deserved kick from whom he could only presume from the long ranting description he had managed to get out of the droid to be Director Krennic, presumably frustrated enough from an audience with the Emperor and Moff Tarkin that had not gone at all in his favour to take it out on passing maintenance staff. Naturally, upon coming across it, Vader had offered to help it out—and to lend a sympathetic ear to the droid's complaints about the poor quality of the organic models that populated the Imperial Palace. That he could well understand—Krennic and his ilk grated on his nerves.

<Affirmative> Having run through its series of tests, MSE-6-L407X rolled forward and nudged itself beneath his hand, beeping in gratitude. <Status: all systems at optimal functioning>

Vader smiled. It was an expression that would have shocked the "faulty organic models"—as MSE-6-L407X had termed them—that made up the Emperor's court had they known what his face looked like to associate it with him, and for good reason. Vader hardly ever smiled. He was not to pursue personal happiness, not when his life and his service was owed to his master. But he liked droids, and he liked fixing things. His master indulged him, allowed him this one little distraction to quiet his mind as long as he had not incurred any punishment, and so in the little time that he had between missions and his intensive and seemingly never ending Sith training, he took full advantage of that rare show of tolerance.

Of course, the sycophants that surrounded his master would have been just as shocked to hear that the infamous Sith Lord they scattered from like insects whenever he made an appearance in their domain helped out broken droids in his spare time as they would have been to discover that he might ever do anything so normal as smile, but what did he care about that? The only opinion that mattered to him was his master's.

"Good. That's good." He patted the little droid atop the chassis once, twice, three times. Then he picked it up and set it down on the floor at his feet. "Now go on. I'm sure you've got duties to get back to. Just try to stay out of the path of any faulty organics in future."

MSE-6-L407X beeped at him again, bumping against his booted foot in a gesture that was unmistakably affectionate before whizzing away through one of the tunnels built throughout the palace so that the mouse droids could move around as unobtrusively to guests and residents as possible. As it whirred out of sight, Vader's smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. He turned to the mess of tools and spare parts left on the bench, and began to meticulously clear them away—his master didn’t like clutter. That done, he wiped down his hands with a coarse rag, replacing the old, worn glove that he wore over his prosthetic when doing mechanical work with the one he wore for everyday use. He was starting to feel hungry, he noticed. There weren’t any windows in his quarters, but he could see from the chrono on the wall that it was early morning—the droid that brought his meals when he was staying in the palace would be here in a little under an hour.

But none of that was enough to distract him as he wanted to be distracted.

Ever since he had returned from his inspection of the Kuat Drive Yards, recalled early by his master in order to fulfil his duties in the build-up to the eighth Empire Day, there had been...something niggling at him. Something in the Force, or something mired deep in the fog of his mind, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t leave him alone. When he had tentatively brought the subject up to his master, he had told him that it must be because of the Rebel attack on the Drive Yards that had occurred after he had returned to Imperial Centre. Or rather, he had snarled it at him through bouts of Force lightning that had had him screaming and writhing on the floor at the foot of the Emperor’ throne. Lord Sidious had been displeased by the attack. Very displeased.

(It had been...a bad day. Vader was still feeling ever so slightly twitchy in the aftermath of those shocks).

As much as he tried to make himself believe it, however, there was something about his master’s explanation that didn’t feel quite right. Which was absurd. But the attack had been several days ago and that feeling hadn’t gone. It felt as if there was something important he was missing, something that he needed to know but was just out of reach, trapped on the other side of a ray shield that kept him away—no, several ray shields all stacked up one after the other, so that their flickering lights distorted and warped whatever was on the other side of them until he couldn’t make out the shape of it at all. He didn’t like that feeling. It made him doubt his master, and if there was one thing he must never do, it was that. Lord Sidious was never wrong, and to even countenance such a possibility would have severe consequences.

And yet that feeling would not let him be. It nagged and nagged at him. Nagged at him when he hadn’t been able to take it anymore and had resorted to prowling through the corridors at night to fend away his errant thoughts. Even now, it nagged at him, telling him there was something, something, something—

With a frustrated hiss, he ran his mechno hand through his hair, tugging hard on a few strands to ground himself in something other than that elusive and—he suspected with no small degree of dread—traitorous feeling. He needed to stop this, couldn’t keep—

He felt another sharp tug, not on his scalp, but on his mind, and he froze as if he had been caught in the jaws of a krayt. Then, a pneumatic hiss as the outer door to his quarters opened and a familiar presence slinked through it in search of him.

Emperor Palpatine. Darth Sidious. His master.

Even if he hadn’t been able to sense him, he would have known who it was. The only other people that ever came to visit him here were the droids, and his meal was still not due for some time yet. It was a little surprising that he should come to him so early in the day but...well, his master was the Emperor of the Galaxy. It could be reasonably expected for him to keep odd hours if the seriousness of any given situation demanded it.

One look at the thunderous expression half-concealed by the shadow of his hood told him that Lord Sidious most definitely here for one of thoseserious situations.

"Lord Vader" he croaked, his voice was as hard as durasteel.

"Master." Vader scrambled from the workbench and down onto the floor to greet him. His master had made it very clear that he was to kneel to him whenever he was in his presence, unless he had been given permission to stand. The few times he had not quite obeyed to the man's satisfaction had been punished very harshly indeed, and it was an experience he was not at all keen to repeat. "What—?"

"Quiet."

Vader's mouth clicked sharply shut. His master sounded angry. He didn't like it when his master was angry. A gnarled white hand slipped out from beneath the sleeve of his robe, and Vader fought not to flinch away. But instead of an arc of agonising blue lightning sparking from his fingertips, his master merely waved his hand in an almost negligent gesture, telling him wordlessly to rise. Vader obeyed without pause or question. Lord Sidious hated delays, and he despised hesitation in a servant.

"Do you know where this is from?"

His master reached out and placed a small holoprojector down onto the workbench. The room flooded with blue light as it activated, playing a vidfeed which—he could tell from the angle of the shot—must have come from the HUD of a stormtrooper. It was of a hangar bay—a familiar hangar bay—flooded with troopers, firing at two people fighting against them to escape. One was a Jedi, whirling and slashing and stabbing, slicing through plastisteel armour as if it were butter. He was Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the few Jedi masters to have escaped the Purge during the rise of the Empire. The other was smaller, slighter. A woman, cloaked, face concealed under the shadow of her hood.

"Yes, master," Vader said, watching the recording from his usual place three steps behind and to the right of the man's shoulder. Lord Sidious forbade him from standing at his side like an equal, and he would have taken a very dim view of him looming over him to try and get a closer look. Not that he was sure it was possible for anyone, let alone him, to loom in Sidious' presence. Yes, physically speaking, he fairly towered over his master, who was hunched and withered and had never been particularly tall to start with, but despite their difference in size, he had always felt small beside him. "It is from the Rebel attack on the Kuat Drive Yards."

He did not elaborate, nor ask questions—his master did not appreciate questions. He must trust that all would be explained in time. Instead, he focused all of his attention on to what was happening on the recording. The woman was in trouble, grappling with a trooper that had caught hold of her blaster arm, and was forcing the weapon as far away from him and his fellow soldiers as he could. His other hand came up to grasp at her cloak. She tried to stop him, but it was too late. Her hood tumbled down, revealing her face for all to see.

"Tell me, my friend," his master hissed, his yellow eyes narrowed as they fixed on the woman on the recording, tracking her movements like a hunting anooba. "Do you recognise her?"

Vader blinked. He frowned, watching the woman intently as, having been rescued from her predicament by the Jedi, she raised her slim hand blaster and struck two troopers down in quick succession. She was very beautiful, her eyes that she thought must be a dark brown burning with a fierce determination as she rushed to defend her companion's back, firing again and again into the fray. Some of her dark hair had come loose from her elaborate bun, and as he followed her movements with his eyes, he was suddenly struck by a strange sense that he had seen her like this before. On a desert world, hair in a similar disarray, white bodysuit torn and wielding a heavy duty blaster. Breathless and smiling, saying something that had him smiling back, a soft, warm glow sparking deep in his chest despite the fear and desperation and death all around them—

And then it was gone, slipping from his mind like melting snow. As if it had never been.

"No, master" he said.

Lord Sidious' eyes narrowed almost to slits as he turned around to scrutinise him. Vader held himself still as he felt the man's dark presence prodding at his mind through their bond, searching for anything that might expose his words as a lie. He made no move to shield himself under the attention, to push the man out. Vader always obeyed his master.

"That," Sidious snarled, his presence retreating from Vader's mind as he turned back to the still playing holorecording, eyes flashing dangerously, "is Padmé Amidala."

Vader blinked. The name struck a chord within him. Which...well, of course it did. His master had told him about Queen turned Senator Amidala of Naboo, the young woman he had mentored through her political career in the days of the Republic. The same woman who had betrayed him by siding with the Jedi in their failed coup at the birth of the Empire by helping to found the traitorous Rebellion within the heart of the Senate itself. He understood why his master was so angry now, having been so abruptly confronted with the face of someone whom he had given nothing but friendship and support, and had returned the favour by stabbing him in the back. But what he didn't understand...Well, what he didn't understand was...

"Amidala?," he asked with a frown. "I thought she was declared dead."

His master had told him so. His distinctly remembered it, when he had asked what had become of the traitors that had tried to overthrow him. Lord Sidious had said that she had died for her treason, but not before she could sow the seeds of her dissent into the very foundations of the Empire itself—and that was why he, Vader, must be vigilant in rooting every last trace of it out lest all they had ever worked towards be destroyed. He had listened attentively, even as his heart had ached in his chest to the point of agony, for reasons he had not and still did not understand. He knew that was what his master had told him. So how was she here, now, alive?

"She was presumed so," Sidious spat out, his eyes still fixed on the recording, "based on the information we had after the Jedi's coup. Clearly that information was...misleading."

Misleading? Vader frowned. His master had never struck him as the kind of man who could be misled. But perhaps if the evidence had been convincing enough... He focused all the more intently on the woman in the recording, his eyes narrowed. She had turned her attention to the trooper whose HUD the recording had come from, her gaze directed right at the camera. For one long moment, it was as if their eyes had locked despite the long stretch of space and the few days that stood between them, as if she were staring past all the shields he had built up around his mind right to some hidden place within him that not even he could see. His breath hitched, unable to tear himself away from that blue-tinged stare, blurring strangely as his eyes began to sting with the force of it. It seemed almost to go on forever, before she raised her blaster right in front of her and, steely determination glinting in her eyes, fired. A flash of light and the recording went sideways, abruptly shorting out. Vader shook himself, the spell broken.

The recording ended, there was a long silence.

“I'm sure you understand how this displeases me, Vader,” Lord Sidious eventually spoke, once it had dragged out to the point of becoming unbearable. “Of all the betrayals I have suffered, hers was by far the most painful. But perhaps you are already moved by my plight.”

Without warning, Vader felt an immense, invisible pressure clamp down on him, pushing and pushing until he had no choice but to go with it. He forced back a cry as he crumpled to the floor, knees jarring painfully against the ground below him. The pressure didn't let up, keeping him kneeling at Sidious' feet as he whirled round in a rage to face him. One gnarled hand shot out with the speed and precision of a striking serpent, grasping at his chin and forcing his head painfully far back, so that he could do nothing but stare up into those furious yellow eyes. Throat tightening, Vader felt himself begin to panic. No, no, no. He hadn't done anything to be punished— What had he done to make his master angry? He didn't—

“Unless,” Lord Sidious hissed venomously, “you have some other reason to shed tears over this traitor, apprentice.”

...What?

He wasn't crying. Of course he wasn't. Why would he cry over this Rebel who had betrayed the man to whom he owed his absolute loyalty? Besides, he hardly ever cried. His master didn't like it. But his cheeks did feel warm and wet, and his eyes were blurring and stinging. He could feel them now—the tears that were still trickling from the corners of his eyes, into his hair now rather than down his cheeks because of the uncomfortable angle he was being held at. What was happening? Why—? Why was he—?

“Master...,” he whimpered, caught in the grip of a shame and fear so intense that he could hardly speak. “I...I don't— I don't understand—”

Sidious' eyes flashed.

“Don't you?,” he sneered. His nails bit into Vader's skin as his grip tightened. “Then perhaps I should have you...meditate on the subject. In your cell.”

No, no, no. Nonononono. He hated the cell. Too small, so that he couldn't even stretch his arms out to their full extent without hitting a wall. Too dark, pitch black without the slightest hint of light to see by when the door was sealed shut. Too quiet, with no noise from outside ever finding its way in, and only the sound of his own panicked breathing to occupy him. It was his master's favourite punishment for him, outside of the Force lightning. Leave him there for long enough to stew in the darkness and the silence and the sensation of gnawing hunger in his gut and walls coming in too close, too close, and he would learn his lesson for life. He would never repeat his transgression again.

Then, sometimes, his master was kind to him afterwards.

“Please, master, please...” he begged. He hadn't meant to transgress. He would take whatever punishment that was given to him—confinement to his quarters, being denied meals, anything, just not the cell—

“Silence!”

Sidious gave him a sharp shake, before his hand retreated and he suddenly drew back. Vader's head fell forward, a curtain of hair falling into his eyes. The invisible pressure remained, like an ice cold hand on the back of his neck keeping him bowed in supplication.

“The Empire will hunt her down, and she will die,” his master croaked. Instead of anger, there was now a note of glee in his voice. Vader felt his treacherous heart clench inexplicably at the proclamation, a few more tears slipping from his equally treacherous eyes. “When the time comes, you shall kill her for me.”

Even as something deep within him—something faint and far away and unreachable—screamed and howled at the words, Vader said the only thing he could say.

“Yes, master.”

Appeased, Lord Sidious' lips twisted into a smile. He reached out and—Vader forced himself not to flinch—rested his hand on top of his mess of blond curls.

“Be careful of these Rebels, Lord Vader,” he said. “They are cunning and deceitful, and if they were to ever learn of your...deficiencies, they wouldn't hesitate to use them to twist your mind against me.”

Vader swallowed. It was an old warning—a much repeated warning. That if his enemies were ever to discover how little memory he had of his own life, how many years upon years he was missing, they would surely take it as an opportunity to fill his head with lies. Another hot wave of shame washed over him at the thought. He would never doubt his master, but perhaps if this were how he reacted to seeing a simple holorecording of a Rebel woman he didn't even know...perhaps Lord Sidious was right to be concerned—

“I understand, master” he whispered, hollowly.

Sidious snorted.

“So you say,” he mused. “You have always been too trusting, too ready to attach yourself to those who would do you harm.”

One final pat on the head, and he pulled away. Reaching out to the holoprojector, he started to play the recording again. Vader frowned, confused, then started violently as he felt the invisible grip that had been holding him by the nape of his neck transfer to his head, forcing him to turn and watch.

“Whatever sympathy you may feel for these people,” Lord Sidious said, “you must destroy it.”

For a moment, he saw the face of Padmé Amidala once again, revealed as her hood tumbled down and she grappled with the trooper that had attacked her. Then, his master stretched out a skeletal white hand and curled it into a fist. The holoprojector cracked in several places at once, then crumbled into dust. Amidala's face disappeared in a shower of sparks.

Vader stared for one long moment at the place she had been, tears still dripping down his face. He felt empty inside.

“Yes, master” he said once again, and meant it. He always meant it. Vader lived to obey his master, and no holorecordings of strangers or inexplicable displays of emotion would change that.

(It was a long time after Sidious left that his tears finally dried up).

Chapter Text

When Anakin came to to the sensation of being suspended in the air and the flickering of blue light in the edges of his vision, he knew before he had even truly registered that he was awake that he was trapped in a containment field. It was becoming an increasingly common occurrence as the war dragged on—capture, interrogation and...worse. He certainly hurt enough to make him think that that “worse” had already happened—he suspected that being hit headlong by a speeder would have given him fewer aches and pains—but he didn't remember... What did he remember? His head throbbed, so badly that he could barely think straight, but he tried to rifle through his recent memory for what had happened nonetheless—

No, that was it. He remembered. Yes, he remembered.

He had been on the Resolute and there had been—a bomb? Yes, someone—Force knew who but they would need to find out soon, if there was a dangerous traitor within their ranks—had planted a bomb, and they had discovered it too late. Mustering all the power in the Force and all the strength of will at his disposal, he had caught the explosion as it detonated, just long enough for as many people as possible to evacuate safely. Ahsoka. Rex and the 501^st. Yularen. But he hadn't been able to hold it off indefinitely, and as his control over the blast had slipped, it had been all he could do to summon what little strength he had left to shield himself from its fiery wrath as it tore its way through the bridge. The last thing he remembered was being flung backwards with the Force of it, chunks of durasteel tumbling down to half bury him beneath their weight and then—

And then...

And then blackness. Blackness until he woke up here. He remembered nothing of his capture. So where was he and why? Who had him?

Despite the dizziness that blurred his vision and threatened to overwhelm him at any moment, Anakin made a concerted effort to take in his surroundings, hoping to find some clue that would answer his questions. He was in a small, nondescript cell, rather grimy and shabby so most likely not the Separatists. Other sensations were starting to filter across to him too. The slight chill that came from his outer robes having been taken away, stripped down to his tunic so he had nowhere to conceal any weapons or other nasty surprises that his captors would not appreciate. The cool press of bacta patches against his skin in the places where he had not quite been able to prevent the explosion from wounding him. A hard, cold pressure like a durasteel fist about his neck, and the complete lack of sensation from the Force that accompanied it.

A Force-suppressing collar.

He let out a furious shout at the realisation, flooded all of a sudden with fear and anger and all the emotions a good Jedi Knight was not supposed to feel. Somebody had collared him. Somebody had taken the Force from him. He would make them pay, make them— He struggled wildly against the bonds that kept him shackled in the containment field, but it was no use, and with his body still feeling the consequences of both holding back the explosion and being hit by it, his energy was too depleted to keep it up for long. He went lax in his restraints, chin sinking to his chest, and waited for something to happen.

He didn't know how long it was until something did happen—it could have been seconds, minutes, hours—but some indeterminate amount of time later, the door to his cell opened. Lifting his head to look up at the newcomer, Anakin saw that it was a human man, tattooed and scarred and roughly—he guessed—the same age as Obi-Wan. He didn't recognise him, but he resembled just about every other lowlife scattered across the Galaxy—a pirate, or perhaps a bounty hunter—both in physical appearance and in the look he had fixed Anakin with that made his skin crawl.

“Awake, Jedi?”

Obviously, Anakin thought with a snarl, though given the way his head was spinning and his body aching, he would very much like not to be. He would also very much like for this man to leave him alone—or better yet, release him from his bonds and send him safely back to Coruscant—but he somehow doubted he'd be getting his wishes on any of those counts.

“Go to Hell” he growled, baring his teeth at the man in a way he hoped looked more intimidating than he felt. From the way the—pirate?; bounty hunter?—smirked at him, he suspected not.

“Ah, so the rumours are true then,” his unwelcome companion said, that smirk widening in the manner of someone who knew they held all the power—for the time being—and was therefore untouchable no matter what they said or did. “You do have fire.”

I'll show you fire, you karking piece of—

“Who are you?,” he bit out. “What do you want with me?”

The man scoffed.

“Ah, no names, I think.”

He moved to circle around him, his eyes glinting in the blue light of the containment field. Even as he felt his head swim at the movement, Anakin tracked him until he disappeared behind him, outside of his field of vision.

“Quite a bit of luck for us.” Anakin could no longer see him, but he could feel him at his back. Feel his gaze on the back of his neck like hot needles pricking at his skin. He fought back the urge to squirm in discomfort. He was a Jedi, and a General in the Grand Army of the Republic. He wouldn't allow this scum the satisfaction of seeing him unsettled. “Here we were, expecting to find a few bits of nice Republic tech to strip down and sell on and instead, what did we stumble upon but a live Jedi?”

The presence behind him retreated as the man prowled back around in front of him. His smirk had transformed into a wide grin that made Anakin sure that, had he been able to access the Force, he would have felt the dark glee in his eyes as surely as he could the collar about his neck.

“And General Skywalker at that,” he said slyly. Without warning, one hand shot out to grasp Anakin's chin. A startled cry falling from his lips, he tried to jerk away, shake him off, but the fingers only bit harder into his flesh as his head was forced to one side and then the other, as if he were an expensive purchase to be inspected. “What is it they're calling you on the Holonet now? Ah yes—the Hero With No Fear.”

“Get your hands off me, you scum!” He struggled hard, though he could only pull back so far with his bonds holding him tightly in place, and the pain all over his body fast tiring him out. He hated that moniker almost as much as he hated the man's grip—it was nothing but a lie, yet another expectation on his shoulders that he failed to meet. An expectation that the look in the man's eye, the grasp that would surely leave bruises behind, were showing to be far more beyond him than any Holonet reporter from whose lips the name fell would ever suspect. They took him right back to Tatooine, to Watto, when he had discovered his talent for mechanics, or in the podracing arena. It was that same look—the look of someone who had just been handed a ticket to riches and had no intention of allowing it to slip through their fingers. “Let me go!”

The man chuckled nastily.

“And why should I?” He leaned in close, so that they were nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball. Anakin tried to recoil, but the hand on his face held him firm. “What will you do if I don't?”

Anakin snarled wordlessly at him. It was the only thing he could do. Anything he might have said, any threat he might try to make would have rung too hollow. There wasn't anything he could do to stop this man—not restrained as he was, with no way of accessing the Force. A surge of distinctly un-Jedi-like hate rushed through him like a battery overcharging, and his trapped hands balled into fists as be shook with helpless rage.

“You, General, are quite the prize,” the man hissed softly. He squeezed Anakin's jaw one last time, before he let his hand drop, and the young Jedi's head along with it. “And one who comes with quite the price tag. Tell me, who do you think will pay more for you—the Republic or the Separatists?”

Anakin stamped down the urge to flinch. He was not shocked by the question—he had suspected something like this ever since he had seen that monetary, Watto-like look in the man's eye. It was what any smart vagabond would do if they happened to come across an injured or helpless Jedi Knight—ransom them to the highest bidder. The lack of surprise, however, did nothing to quell the revulsion he felt at those words. It reminded him too much of the days when he had had a price that he—and every master on Tatooine—could count and quantify exactly in relation to his value. He couldn't do that anymore. He had no idea what his worth was in Republic credits as he had when it had been counted in peggats, but this man clearly expected it to be nothing less than a small fortune. Would the Republic really dole that sort of money out just for one person? Or would they decide they could do without their supposed poster boy if it meant sparing their credits? And the Separatists? What would happen if they decided to pay more—?

Despite his promises to himself that he would show nothing of his fear, something of it must have shown on his face, for the man before him seemed all of a sudden to be altogether too smug. His teeth gleamed as he offered Anakin another sharp-edged smile, deadly as a vibroblade.

“Or perhaps another buyer,” he mused, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. “What price do you think one of the Hutts would pay to get their hands on a Jedi Knight?”

Anakin felt his blood turn to ice. The memories of Watto dissolved and faded into an older, darker remembrance, from so long ago that he could not recall anything save flashes of impressions and emotions, and disjointed yet vivid snapshots that lingered indelibly in his mind from the earliest of ages. He had been too young as a slave of the venal Gardulla to remember it well, but what he did remember would stay with him forever, a deep scar as permanent as the lash marks on his back. He wondered, throat tightening as he felt the edges of panic coming upon him, if this man had seen those scars when they'd applied the bacta patches. Had he seen them and made the connection and known exactly what to say to get under his skin?

Well, whatever it had been, it was certainly working. The Hutts had never feared repercussions from the Republic, and the fact that they were nominal allies now after the incident with Jabba's son would not change that, considering those very negotiations had made them fully aware of how much the Republic's war effort relied upon their space lanes. They could do whatever they liked. They would get away with it, and he would be back to being trapped and chained in darkness and fear and degradation as if he had never escaped Tatooine—

“I suppose,” the man said, his detestably smug voice cutting through the storm of Anakin's rising panic, “you had better hope that the Republic offers a better one.”

Yes. Yes, that was all he could hope. Until he found a way to get himself out of this latest in a long line of predicaments—and he would, he had to; he pushed thoughts of Gardulla's palace away, he wouldn't, mustn't think of it—his only hope was that the Republic was not only prepared to buy him back, but also to offer a higher price than anyone else this despicable man might see fit to contact. Would they? The thought Palpatine might, and Padmé if it were her choice to make, but surely that decision would go to the Senate, and he knew exactly how much they could be relied on. What would happen if they didn't—? He didn't want to think about it. He wouldn't think of it.

But not thinking of it didn't do anything to soothe the panic that was threatening to overcome him. It never had. He'd never been very good at not thinking of unpleasant things.

“Nothing to say?,” the man mocked, his eyebrows raised in expectation. Anakin bit hard on his tongue to keep down the incoherent scream that was threatening to bubble up in his chest. It was just another pain to add to the long list of aches throughout his body as the taste of copper filled his mouth. “Well, I have heard that it's Kenobi who's the talker. Not to worry. I'd rather you hold your tongue for this part anyway.”

“Wha-MMPH!” Anakin's confused question was cut off abruptly as the man grabbed his chin once again and forced a wad of fabric roughly into his mouth. He yelled in outrage, the sound muffled as he tried to pull away. But it was too late. The man was already tying the cloth behind his head, keeping him from spitting it back out.

“Just to make sure you stay quiet.”

He patted him once on the cheek, ignoring the enraged cry he made around the gag, then retreated a few steps away. Out of his pocket, he pulled a small holorecorder. Setting it in front of them and activating it, he turned back to Anakin with a twisted, hard-edged grin that had a shiver crawling its way down his spine.

“Look sharp, Skywalker,” he said. “You're about to make me a very rich man.”

Chapter Text

The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was burning, and the thick plumes of smoke rising in tall columns high into the air were enough to conceal from any observer the flash of blue and red lightsabers clashing on the roof. Stumbling backwards from the bind as he was caught in the path of a strong Force push, Anakin Skywalker retreated as far as he could from the man in front of him until he reached the edge of the Temple roof. He had been retreating ever since Chancellor Palpatine—Darth Sidious—had come for him. Retreated through halls scored with blaster fire, retreated as the Sith's saber slipped past his guard and sliced painfully across the muscle of his upper arm. Now, he could retreat no further. He was trapped.

“Come, my boy,” Palpatine said, his yellow eyes glinting in the light of the fire and his blood red lightsaber alike. Sidious, Anakin reminded himself. He was Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord who had orchestrated the Clone War, not the kindly Chancellor Palpatine who had looked after him ever since he had arrived on Coruscant as a wide-eyed boy fresh from the dust and misery of Tatooine. That man had been nothing but a lie, and no matter how much the part of him that was still loyal to that mask wanted to, he must not allow himself to forget that. “Do not be foolish. There is nowhere to run.”

He was right. Anakin hated that he was right. Keeping the Sith Lord firmly in his field of vision, he risked a slight glance over the edge of the roof down to the ground below. It was a high drop—though not one that was insurmountable to a Jedi—but even if he were to land safely, all that would achieve would be to put himself right in the middle of a veritable swarm of troopers. There was no escape.

“It need not be this way, Anakin,” Palpatine continued, in the same gentle voice he had always used with him—the same voice he had used even as he told him that he was a Sith Lord, and that he wanted him as his apprentice. It made it so much harder to remember that this was not the face of his friend, even though that face had twisted and melted into something unrecognisable in the few hours between him leaving the man's office and him coming to the Temple to hunt him down. Even as his arm ached from where the Sith Lord's saber had slashed it, even with the evidence of the terrible thing he had done burning all around them. He sounded so reasonable when he spoke like that, like an adult reminding a child of something they ought to already understand, and for some reason that Anakin could not comprehend, he felt powerless in the face of it. “You will always have a place at my side, as my confidant, my right hand, my apprentice. Join me and—”

“No...” The first protest came out as a whimper, faint and feeble. Then a little stronger, but choked and panicked. “No! Get out of my head, get out—!”

He wished the man would threaten him, snarl and spit at him, or sneer in cool, superior tones like the other Darksiders he had faced before had. Those, he knew what to do with, but this... He hated that there was something in him—something which had always glowed under the praise and acceptance the Chancellor had so readily given him—that still lit up at those words, that pulled upon him to trust him as he had always done, no matter what had happened between them. But he couldn't trust him—he knew that—and besides, those words were a threat, of sorts. He may always have a place at Palpatine's side, but he had carved it out regardless of what Anakin thought on the matter, and expected it to be filled irrespective of any resistance he might put up. A willing apprentice would be more convenient, but something in those cold yellow eyes told the part of himself that didn't already half belong to Palpatine that Darth Sidious was not in the habit of taking no for an answer.

He had to remember that.

“My boy, if only you could see reason,” Palpatine sighed. He sounded worn and sad and disappointed, everything that was designed to make Anakin squirm in discomfort and shame. How could he hurt the man who had taken care of him and kept every one of his secrets and—no, it was a lie, a lie, a LIE— “The Jedi were traitors, and now they are dead traitors. What is to be gained from continuing to count yourself among their number? How will that help your wife and child?”

Padmé. Oh Padmé. Padmé and the baby. The mere thought of the awful vision that had been plaguing both his sleeping and his waking hours was almost enough to send him crashing to his knees before the only hope of salvation he had right there and then. Familiar panic—panic that had been eating away at him like duracrete worms at the abandoned ruins in the Works, ever since he had had that first dream—started to rise up within him, but another memory stayed his hand. After—Force, he didn't even know how long it was—of pacing up and down throughout the Council Chamber after he had reported back to Master Windu, waiting for something to happen and not knowing whether he should try and stop it or help it along or just let it be, he hadn't been able to take it any longer. He had needed to hear her voice, to know she was alright, and so, without really thinking about what he was doing, he had commed her. What he had intended to say, he still didn't know, but the moment he had heard her soft, enquiring "Ani?" crackling through the commlink, he had broken down in tears, the fear and exhaustion of the past week finally catching up on him as he shattered into a thousand jagged shards. He had confessed everything to her, from the dreams that kept coming until he could neither eat nor sleep for terror of them, to the story about Darth Plagueis the Wise that Palpatine had told him at the Mon Calamari ballet, to what he had said to him just that day—that he was the Sith Lord they had been looking for and the only one who knew how to save her and that in return for teaching him that power, he wanted Anakin to become the latest in his long line of apprentices—

"Anakin, oh Anakin, please, you can't," Padmé had cut across his frantic tirade, her voice full of a fear as keen and as desperate as his own. "You mustn't! Don't sell your soul for me. I couldn't bear it. I wouldn't survive it. I would die, it would kill me to know you had lost yourself for my sake."

Her words, so raw and pleading and terrified, had stopped his wild panic in its track in a way that no lecture on the dangers of attachment or useless advice about letting go ever could. The fear he had sensed in her—for despite the distance between them, with him in the Temple and her far away across the horizon in her apartment, he had felt her bright presence as if it had been standing right next to him, the light of the child she was carrying mingling with her own to transform them both into a glimmering beacon amidst the noise and chaos of Coruscant—alone might have been enough to give him pause, but there was something else that had ground the storm of his mind to an abrupt halt. She had meant it metaphorically, of course, but there was a prickle in the back of his mind that made him wonder if it might be true in the literal sense as well. The dreams of his mother had been a warning to act before it was too late, and so he had presumed that the ones about Padmé were the same, but what if these dreams were a different warning entirely? What if the path towards Palpatine and the Dark Side would inevitably end with her death, somehow, and that was what the Force was trying to tell him? He hadn't—still didn't know either way, but if there was the slightest chance that such actions could bring about the awful fate he had seen for her, he could never go down that road.

After that, Padmé had had a confession of her own for him. She had told him of the Delegation of the 2000, and the secret meetings she had been having with senators whom she did not dare name over a comm channel. Of their concerns about Palpatine's actions and their fears of what was turning the Republic into. They had all sworn not to tell anybody, she had said, not even their families, but she saw now that such secrecy was only making the situation worse. Now that they knew Palpatine was Sidious, the only way they could possibly defeat him was by pulling their weight together, because divided, he would have already won.

"I'm afraid, Ani," she had whispered, choked with tears. She had been afraid. He had felt it—her fear for the Republic, for their baby, for him. "I'm so afraid. Please come to me. I can't do this alone. I need you with me, my love."

He had not been able to deny her. She had told him, her Force presence sparking with sudden relief, that she needed to speak with someone—another senator that she had been meeting with, someone that she trusted—about this new information, but that she would be waiting for him when he arrived. And so, his gut squirming uncomfortably at the not quite rational feeling that he was betraying a confidence by sharing the terrible truth the Chancellor had told him, he had rushed towards the hangar, ready to fly off to the Senatorial Apartments as quickly as he could.

Then, before he had known what was happening, he had felt Masters Windu, Fisto, Tiin and Kolar pass violently into the Force, and his own troopers had marched on the Temple, heavily-armed and mowing down any and all Jedi in their path.

"You-you killed—" he protested falteringly, his throat tightening as the truth of what Palpatine had done screamed and howled at him in the Force with the awful weight of Jedi upon Jedi dying, not just in the Temple, but across the Galaxy. Cut down without discrimination, regardless of rank or-or age or anything save for the fact that Darth Sidious had decided he wanted them dead. That was true. That was real. He had felt it, seen it, as his men mercilessly slaughtered every Jedi they came across—his friends who felt so wrong in the Force, like they were a collective mind rather than the individuals he knew they were. That was not a lie, and however much it pained him, he had to hold onto that.

Obi-Wan could well be dead, he thought with a barely repressed sob. Ahsoka too. If they were...if they were, it would be this man who had killed them.

"I killed traitors," Palpatine corrected him, and as he said the word for a third time, Anakin heard something of the horrible croak that had crept into his voice when he had ordered him to kill Dooku, and when he had praised his anger in his office earlier that day. It set his teeth on edge, setting off all the instincts in his mind that warned of danger from a deadly predator. And that was what Sidious was. A predator who had pursued his quarry relentlessly to this very point and had no intention of letting go. "Enemies of the Republic."

Then, his expression softened, and Anakin once again found himself in danger of being subsumed by that part of him that wanted so badly to trust. It shouldn't be this easy. It was wrong. He knew it was wrong, but—

But...

"I don't want to hurt you, son," Palpatine said, and this time, his voice had turned gentle, coaxing. "Put down the saber and come inside, and we can talk about this sensibly."

"No." Anakin shook his head. "You—"

But he couldn't say anything more. He could barely breathe from the maelstrom of different emotions roiling within him, let alone speak. He had to get away. If he was away, then this man—this Sith Lord who had pretended to be his friend—could not get under his chin, couldn't mess with his head. Couldn't do whatever else he planned to do to him should he continue to refuse to oblige him. But it seemed he had not managed to hide his thoughts as well as he would have liked, for Palpatine's expression suddenly darkened, and he felt something immense and powerful and so cold it was almost slimy in the Force wrap around him, ready to grab hold of him the moment he tried to run.

"Come inside," he hissed, a hard, dangerous note to his voice that told him his patience had finally run out, "my apprentice."

No, no, I'm not your apprentice!, Anakin thought in panic. He had to get away, had to— Something flared in the Force, some warning or nudge of anticipation like a small spark amid the cacophony of death and suffering that it had become. A small light down below, moving fast in his direction. A speeder. Oh Force, a speeder. If he could break away and get down to it, he could either get the driver to help him get away from the Temple, or if they were not friendly, simply steal it and—

Anakin acted before even he truly know what he was doing, and in hindsight, he suspected that had been the only thing that had allowed him to break free of Sidious' grip. Gathering all of his own power to him, he shoved the man backwards with a mighty Force push, feeling the threatening grasp retreat as he was catapulted away with a yell of shock and anger. Then, without allowing him even a second to recover, he turned and leapt over the edge of the roof as fast as he could.

He both heard and felt the scream of fury that Sidious let out above him, but it was soon drowned out by the roaring of the wind in his ears. He could see the speeder now, plummeting down to it as it zipped below him. Reaching out to the Force, he slowed his descent to pad out his landing, but the combination of the horror it was overflowing with and the exhaustion that he had been suffering under for so many days made him a little clumsier than usual. He landed just a little too hard, feeling a quick spark of startlement followed by a wave of relief from a Force presence that was vaguely familiar but he couldn't quite—

Steadying himself on the back of the speeder, he looked up through a curtain of hair to see—with no small amount of surprise—Senator Bail Organa staring back at him. For all that he looked severely dishevelled compared to his usual immaculate appearance, the first flash of shock Anakin had felt from him had faded away to reveal a calm acceptance that might well have suggested that he considered having a Jedi Knight drop down on top of him from the sky to be an event barely worth even the effort of a raised eyebrow.

"Master Skywalker," he greeted, offering him a grim smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Your wife informed me you needed a ride?”