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Anakin hated Fox since the moment the blaster fired.
It doesn’t matter that Palpatine had lightning pouring from his hands. It doesn’t matter that Windu was on the floor, or that Fox had already taken enough electricity to stop a human heart several times over.
Fox shot him in the back of the head.
Anakin still hears it sometimes.
One sharp crack.
Then silence where Palpatine had always been.
Now Fox sits across from him in the Chief of Defense’s secured office with a sealed archive between them.
The metal reconstruction on the right side of his face catches the terminal light. His mechanical eye blinks with the organic one, both fixed on Anakin. Gold Pantoran marriage arches curve across the bridge of his nose, bright against the scars Palpatine left behind.
Anakin hates those too.
Not because there's anything wrong with them. Because Fox survived long enough to wear them openly.
Palpatine did not.
“You said this was about the Chancellor,” Anakin says.
“The former Chancellor,” Fox corrects.
Anakin’s jaw tightens.
Fox notices. Of course he does.
He doesn't apologize.
“This archive was recovered from executive storage, private Banking Clan accounts, Senate security backups, and Separatist records extracted from Echo’s implants,” Fox says. His voice implant lends every word a faint mechanical hum. “Most of it was fragmented. Hound reconstructed the timeline.”
“And you decided I needed to see it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it concerns you.”
That answer is too simple.
Nothing involving Fox is ever simple. He speaks in short sentences because he's already considered every longer version and discarded them as inefficient.
Anakin looks at the archive.
The file bears his name.
Not General Skywalker.
Not Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.
SUBJECT: SKYWALKER, ANAKIN.
The first entry is dated when he was nine.
His hand stops above the control.
Fox says nothing.
Anakin opens it.
The earliest documents look harmless.
Senate security authorizations allowing Palpatine private access to the Temple. Requests for updates on Anakin’s training. Notes concerning his “unusual background,” “attachment vulnerability,” and “potential usefulness.”
Anakin scrolls faster.
The words become colder.
Palpatine tracks his arguments with Obi-Wan. His frustration with the Council. His fear of failure. His anger whenever someone mentions slavery as though it is a philosophical concept instead of something that happened to his body.
There are reports from Naboo.
Reports from Geonosis.
Reports describing his mother’s death.
Anakin goes still.
The file records the date Palpatine learned Shmi Skywalker was taken by Tusken Raiders.
16 days before Anakin reached Tatooine.
There's no request for intervention. No warning sent to the Jedi. Only a notation.
Maternal crisis may accelerate separation from institutional authority. Direct involvement inadvisable unless subject requests assistance. Resulting grief should increase receptiveness to personalized guidance.
The letters blur.
The room creaks.
Anakin realizes he is crushing the edge of the terminal beneath his hand.
Fox reaches across the desk and switches off the holographic projector before it can overload.
“He knew,” Anakin says.
“Yes.”
“He knew she was missing.”
“The evidence indicates his office received the report.”
“He could’ve told me.”
“Yes.”
“He could’ve sent someone.”
“Yes.”
Fox’s agreement makes it worse.
Anakin shoves himself out of the chair. The Force bursts outward with him, rattling the windows and sending a stack of physical documents sliding across Fox’s desk.
Fox does not reach for a weapon.
He does not tell Anakin to calm down.
He waits.
“He let her die,” Anakin says.
Fox’s expression remains hard, but not empty. “He allowed the situation to continue because he believed your grief would make you easier to influence.”
Anakin turns away.
Coruscant glows beyond the armored windows. Traffic streams through the night, millions of lives moving as though the floor beneath Anakin has not opened.
Palpatine listened when the Jedi didn't.
Palpatine told him his anger made sense.
Palpatine never looked at him like the frightened slave child from Tatooine.
Palpatine looked at him like a project.
Anakin turns back. “You expect me to trust records your people assembled?”
“No.”
The answer catches him.
Fox reactivates the archive.
“I expect you to verify them.”
New windows open. Original timestamps. Banking Clan authentication seals. Executive access logs. Audio fragments. Handwritten notes scanned from Palpatine’s private office.
“Copies have been deposited with three independent courts,” Fox says. “The originals remain under Guard protection. Kenobi has access to the same authentication records, but not the personal psychological files.”
“Why not?”
“Because they're yours.”
Anakin stares at him.
Fox continues as if this is obvious. “You determine who sees them.”
No leverage.
No threat to show the Council what Anakin has done, what he feared, or how easily Palpatine guided him.
Fox could destroy him with these files.
Instead, he sealed them.
Anakin sits again, more because his knees have begun feeling unreliable than because he intends to stay.
He opens the next section.
The war begins.
Palpatine arranges meetings after difficult campaigns. He receives casualty reports before Anakin does and prepares the exact reassurances Anakin will need. He encourages distrust of the Council while presenting himself as the only authority who truly appreciates Anakin’s abilities.
There are references to Padmé, carefully coded but unmistakable.
Senator Amidala remains a stabilizing attachment and potential point of compliance. Direct interference risks rejection. Preserve unless strategic conditions require removal.
Anakin feels sick.
Fox watches him read.
“You knew about us,” Anakin says.
“Yes.”
“Everyone knew.”
“Anyone with eyes did.”
Anakin rubs one hand over his face. “Of course.”
He scrolls again.
Ahsoka’s name appears.
His stomach drops before he opens the file.
The first reports begin when she is 14.
Palpatine assesses her as impulsive, loyal, and unusually capable of influencing Anakin’s judgment. He notes that her survival improves Anakin’s battlefield performance but weakens his dependence on external authority.
The phrasing gets worse after Kadavo.
Tano’s enslavement has produced significant protective fixation in the subject. Her continued vulnerability may be used to provoke disobedience toward Jedi command.
Anakin stops breathing.
He reads it again.
Then another.
Apprentice’s growing independence presents long-term risk. Separation should be encouraged before loyalty transfers become permanent.
Another.
The Temple bombing.
Barriss.
The trial.
Palpatine knew more than he admitted. Not everything, maybe, but enough to understand that Ahsoka’s arrest was destabilizing Anakin.
Enough to take notes.
Tano’s removal has achieved greater isolation than projected. Subject displays intensified resentment toward Jedi authority and increased reliance on executive counsel. Reintegration of apprentice would reverse progress. Conviction preferable. Death acceptable if attributed to judicial process.
The terminal cracks.
This time Anakin does not notice himself moving.
The desk slams backward. The archive projector rips free and smashes against the wall. The Force catches Fox’s chair and shoves it several centimeters before magnetic locks engage.
Fox remains seated.
“He wrote that about her.”
His voice sounds wrong in Anakin’s ears.
Too quiet.
Fox’s eyes remain on him. They move together, red and gold, neither wavering.
“Yes.”
“She was 17.”
“Yes.”
“He called her removal progress.”
“Yes.”
Anakin wants Palpatine alive again.
Not forgiven.
Alive enough to kill properly.
He imagines dragging him out of the Senate chamber, forcing him to look Ahsoka in the eyes, making him explain every sentence before Anakin tears him apart.
The rage is enormous. Familiar. It fills every hollow place Palpatine spent years carving into him.
Fox rises slowly.
“Do not break the archive core,” he says. “There are backups, but Hound gets... unpleasant when evidence is damaged.”
Anakin laughs once.
It sounds closer to choking.
“That’s what you have to say?”
“No.”
Fox steps around the displaced desk.
He doesn't approach too closely. He stops outside striking distance, which means he knows exactly how badly Anakin wants to hit something.
“Palpatine’s records concerning Tano were among the most callous,” Fox says. “He considered her a mechanism for controlling you.”
“She trusted him.”
“So did you.”
Anakin’s anger snaps toward him. “Don’t.”
Fox does not flinch.
“You were nine.”
“I wasn’t nine when the war started.”
“No. By then he spent 13 years teaching you where to turn when you were afraid.”
Anakin’s prosthetic hand curls.
“I made my own choices.”
“Yes.”
The agreement hurts more than denial would have.
Fox’s voice hums softly through the damaged quiet.
“Responsibility does not require pretending another person had no influence.”
“You think this excuses me?”
“No.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is that he was responsible for grooming a child.”
The word lands like a blow.
Anakin takes a step forward.
Fox holds his ground.
“I was not a child.”
“You were nine.”
“I was a Jedi.”
“You were a nine-year-old former slave separated from his mother and placed inside an institution that distrusted his emotions. Palpatine identified every vulnerability and cultivated them.”
Anakin’s vision narrows.
“You don’t know anything about it.”
Fox’s face changes.
Only slightly.
The scarred side cannot move as freely as the other, but something closes behind both eyes.
“Dred Priest began training me when I was a child,” he says.
Anakin knows the name.
Everyone does now.
Kaminoan investigation files. Dead trainers. Reconditioning authorizations. Years of abuse hidden beneath military-development language.
Fox continues before Anakin can respond.
“He taught me that pain meant failure. Obedience meant survival. If I resisted, my siblings were punished. If I complied, he told me compliance proved I wanted what he did.”
The voice implant smooths the worst damage in Fox’s throat. It cannot smooth the words.
“For years, I believed knowing how to survive him made me responsible for what happened.”
Anakin’s anger loses its footing.
Fox looks toward the broken projector.
“I've had to learn that lesson myself. A child adapting to abuse is not the architect of it.”
The room is silent except for the damaged terminal sparking against the wall.
Anakin looks at the gold arches across Fox’s nose.
At the metal covering the damage Palpatine inflicted.
At the man Anakin has hated for firing the shot Anakin now wishes he had fired himself.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asks.
“Because you'll assume I intend to use these records against you.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“You could.”
“Yes.”
Fox does not soften the answer.
“I could release evidence of your marriage, private communications, unauthorized operations, and psychological assessments. I could use your anger toward the Jedi to secure your cooperation.”
Anakin’s muscles tighten.
Fox’s expression turns cold.
“That would make me like him.”
Something in Anakin goes very still.
Fox returns to the desk and rights the archive unit. The casing is cracked, but the data core remains intact.
“The files are sealed under your authority,” he says. “Hound retains evidentiary access to Palpatine’s actions. Personal details unrelated to criminal charges remain restricted.”
“And Ahsoka?”
“Her file is hers.”
“Have you told her?”
“I informed her that evidence exists. She decides when to review it.”
Not summoned.
Not ordered.
Given a choice.
Anakin lowers himself into the chair again.
He cannot forgive Fox. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Palpatine had been a monster, but grief is not a legal argument. Hatred does not disappear merely because new evidence tells it where it should have gone.
Still, the hatred changes.
It cools. The wild edge burns away, leaving something harder and cleaner behind.
Fox could humiliate him. He chooses not to.
Fox could blame him for being manipulated. Instead, he places the blame where it belongs without erasing the things Anakin did afterward.
Cold respect settles into the space where certainty used to be.
Anakin looks down at Palpatine’s notes about Ahsoka.
“I want every record mentioning her.”
“You may review them with her permission.”
Anakin almost argues.
Then he understands.
Fox means it.
Even now, he will not turn Ahsoka into Anakin’s property simply because Palpatine once treated her as leverage.
Anakin closes the file.
“When did you know?”
“That Palpatine had manipulated you?”
“Yes.”
“Before the gala.”
“And you still let me into the room with him.”
“You were not the person I expected to lose control.”
Anakin gives him a flat look.
Fox’s organic eyebrow rises. The mechanical side of his face remains still beneath the gold marriage arches.
“That assessment was nearly incorrect,” Fox admits.
Despite everything, a laugh escapes Anakin.
It is exhausted and bitter, but real.
Fox begins gathering the fallen documents.
Anakin reaches with the Force and lifts them back onto the desk.
Neither man comments on it.
“I still hate that you killed him,” Anakin says.
Fox aligns the stack. “I know.”
“I might always hate you for it.”
“That is your right.”
Anakin studies him.
Palpatine would have turned that hatred into a chain.
Fox simply leaves it in Anakin’s hands.
For the first time, Anakin understands the difference.