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The Emperor’s Perplexity
Three in the morning.
Palpatine could not remember when he had woken. In the darkness, he shifted his taut shoulders with a quiet effort, trying to ease the throbbing ache at the base of his skull and relax enough to settle into a new sleeping position. Only then did he let his eyes flutter open, adjusting to the dimness. A sliver of silvery light slipped through a gap in the curtains not far away, painting a streak across the ceiling, and it caught his gaze.
He stared at that shaft of light, unblinking, his mind adrift.
The dream he had just woken from unspooled in his mind. In it, he was still Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, seated with effortless grace behind the desk of his old office, the afternoon sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and spilling gold across the carpet.
A soft, cautious knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
The door creaked open just a crack, and a head peeked through. Pale blue eyes held a flicker of awkwardness, and beneath it, an excitement he could not quite hide. The young man bowed his head slightly, addressing him with quiet politeness. “Chancellor. I’m back.”
“Anakin… my boy.” He waved a casual hand, beckoning him in.
The young man stepped forward obediently, then pulled a small figurine of the Moon Goddess from the folds of his worn Jedi robes. He remembered it—he had mentioned the Naboo legend to the boy once, never thinking he would hold onto the words, let alone bring this back for him.
“You spoke of it to me once,” he said. “I wanted to give it to you, for your birthday. I know it’s trivial, next to all the lavish pieces in your collection. But you won’t hold that against me, will you?”
He glanced down at the tiny figurine, then lifted his gaze to meet the young man’s eyes. There was something in that look he had seen a hundred times before. Was it hope? Or nervousness? He could not tell.
“Oh, my boy. It could not be more perfect. I love it. And I am deeply grateful for the thought. Thank you.”
It had been an age since a dream like this had visited him. So long that Palpatine himself could scarcely recall when the boy had given him that gift. He had never cared for birthdays. To him, the date of his birth was nothing more than another tool to curry favor, a triviality not worth a second thought. Once, that man had marked the day as if it were the most sacred in the galaxy. Now, the Emperor’s birthday was a mandatory holiday, a date every child in the Empire was forced to memorize. It was almost funny.
He rolled over, facing the wall to his left, and forced his eyes shut, willing himself to stop dwelling on the past.
Nearly half a standard hour slipped by. The tightness at the base of Palpatine’s skull would not fade. He kept his eyes closed, focusing on steadying his breath, trying to sink his consciousness back into the quiet chaos of sleep. But the ghosts of his past would not be silenced, their whispers winding through his mind:
Plagueis, in his arrogance, muttering that he was nothing but a tool. Cosinga, in his hubris, scorning the blood that ran through his veins. Shurna, his own mother, in her frailty, fearing his very birth and disowning him as her son.
He had killed every last one of them. Every soul that had ever dared to doubt him. He was the Emperor. The one who had outlived them all, who had won.
Still their voices droned on in his head, like a swarm of insects he could never quite crush. Decades had passed, and they had never once fallen silent.
He could not understand why there was a hollow place inside him, a hunger that nothing could ever sate.
And then his mind drifted back to that night.
The seventeen-year-old boy had stood before him, fresh back from a mission, dust still clinging to his robes. The young Jedi had asked a question he should never have spoken, had heard truths he was never meant to know. And then he had said it: “Whoever you are. Whatever you’ve done. I trust you.”
The words had barely left his mouth when a faint smile tugged at the young man’s lips. To Palpatine, it was a strange, disarming thing—equal parts the clumsiness of youth, and a softness that threatened to unravel him.
Before he could react, the young Jedi had laid a hand on his shoulder, unbidden, his voice steady and sincere as he went on:
“I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have said that.”
He had realized his misstep almost at once, pulling his hand back from Palpatine’s shoulder and stepping away. His voice cracked slightly, thick with unbidden emotion, as he added:
“I just… I just needed you to know. You’re not alone.”
The tightness at the base of Palpatine’s skull eased, just a little. His breath went shallow, the half-waking haze of the moment refusing to let him slip into sleep. At last, he was forced to open his eyes again, a quiet sigh escaping his throat.
He thought: A failing body and a heart frozen in darkness meant nothing. It was that boy’s clumsy, unshakable trust that had split a tiny fissure in his very soul, letting in a sliver of light he had never known existed. That single, fragile light was the only thing that had ever made him pause, and wonder who he really was.
Four more ticks of the clock echoed through the silent room. The dreams had been light that night, but the waking was heavy.
He shifted his body again, with a quiet effort. The silvery streak on the ceiling had faded, replaced by the first pale glow of dawn. All of Coruscant would soon wake to a new morning, but he could not bring himself to rise. A bone-deep weariness clung to him, seeping into every line of his face. What would they see, tomorrow? All the eyes that waited for him to fall.
His thoughts drifted again, settling three months after the Jedi Purge. An awards ceremony in the throne room. The Inquisitors stood in rigid formation, waiting for him to bestow their new titles. He had just lifted his hand to speak, when a sharp, desperate cry cut through the air:
“Master! Look out!”
It was Vader’s voice, his mechanical vocoder warbling with unmasked urgency.
In the next heartbeat, he was slammed back against the padded throne, a heavy weight pinning him down, covering him completely. Cold metal pressed against his throat, his chest; a durasteel arm locked around his waist, its grip so tight it threatened to bite into bone. He could feel the rise and fall of the chest beneath the armor, the sharp, frantic whine of the respirator echoing in his ears, so close it felt as if it were merging with his own breath.
An instant later, an explosion roared behind him. The blast wave ripped at Vader’s cape, sending the fabric snapping around his black helmet. Palpatine, shielded in his hold, was unharmed. His first instinct was to snap at his apprentice, to push him away—but Vader did not move an inch. The arm around his waist only tightened, as if he feared that if he let go, the Emperor would vanish entirely.
As Emperor, as Vader’s Master, he should have raged at the insubordination. But he only lay there, frozen, letting himself feel that suffocating, all-encompassing closeness.
When the danger passed, the throne room erupted into chaos: the Inquisitors shouting, the Royal Guard’s boots thundering across the floor, rubble raining down from the stone columns, smoke filling the air. Still Vader did not move. He held him for a handful of heartbeats that stretched into an eternity. Only when the Royal Guard drew near did he slowly rise, the joints of his armor hissing softly as he released his hold on the Emperor. He stepped back into the shadows at the side of the throne, once again the silent, obedient blade of the Empire.
His thoughts snapped back to the present, to his quiet bedroom. His right hand drifted unbidden to the other side of the bed. It was cold. Empty. His aged knuckles curled slightly against the cool sheets.
No weight of armor. No whine of a respirator. No unyielding grip of a durasteel arm. Only cold, empty nothingness.
He held the entire galaxy in the palm of his hand. And yet, he could never answer the one question that gnawed at his heart.
How was it that the man who was no longer there, the man who was not at his side, had not only become a part of him—but had become him.