Sing Dead the Dark

Sith were bad news. Anakin had personal experience, both first-hand (Dooku), second-hand (Maul), and whatever hand the whole “Sith Lord puppet master trying to destroy the galaxy” thing was supposed to be (Sidious). Hell, even the assassins – Ventress, Savage Opress – were bad news.

However, if there was one thing his history lessons had impressed on him, it was that the Sith of old were even worse news. Darth Malgus had sacked Coruscant and the Jedi Temple at the head of an army of Sith, Darth Rivan had capped his reign of terror with a colossal explosion of the Dark Side that had annihilated a significant portion of the planet he'd been on, and Emperor Vitiate had consumed all the life on Ziost, leaving the planet an empty husk. It was armed with that knowledge that Anakin Skywalker looked at where his fighter's damaged hyperdrive had brought him and went through all the swear words of Huttese.

The plan had been simple: turn up in Felucian space in force, clear out any droid ships, drop infantry on the ground, win the battle. Anakin and Plo Koon had led a company of fighters to travel alongside the battlecruisers so they'd have a slightly larger spread of attack points right from the start and no vulnerable moment while they deployed fighters. Yularen, Coburn, and Ahsoka had been left to coordinate the battlecruisers, much to Ahsoka's annoyance.

Of course, Anakin had no idea how their plan was going, since the one vulture droid in that region of space had gotten off a lucky shot on his hyperdrive ring. Now he'd zoomed past Florrum and through the Stygian Caldera and had somehow coupled to the Nache Bhelfia hyperlane.

He wasn't quite sure which direction he was traversing the hyperlane. Given the huge red warning markers associated with each and every planet, he wasn't really interested in zipping to realspace at any of them, but if he was going towards Korriban he might be able to switch to the Daragon Trail and go somewhere where the Force didn't want to eat him from the inside out.

The hypermap updated to show that he was going towards Rhelg. “E chu ta,” Anakin groaned. “Well, may the Force be with me and all that.”

R2-D2 beeped in a huff. «Only with you?»

“May the Force be with you as well, buddy,” Anakin sighed. “Hey, do you know how much juice we have? The Nache Bhelfia is a loop, maybe we could go around and hit the Daragon Trail that way.”

R2-D2 whistled. «Insufficient fuel.» He projected the possible endpoints of their journey onto the fighter's screen. The shortest way out would be to switch to the Kamat Aegit at Khar Delba and the Kamat Krote at Jaguada, but they didn't have enough fuel to ride the Kamat Krote to Korriban. If they had good fuel economy, they might make it to Dromund Kaas, seat of the Sith Empire.

Anakin sighed. “Okay, let's not do that.” The reasonable options were Rhelg, Khar Delba, Jaguada, and Krayiss Two. “Rhelg's up next and the closest search target. Let's try to exit there, and again at Khar Delba if that doesn't work.”

«Dwoo.»

“Don't you ‘Dwoo’ me, Artoo.” Anakin rolled his eyes. “Come on. Let's try to do repairs after landing.”

Rhelg crept closer on the display. They were leaking fuel somewhere – no way they'd make it to Jaguada or Krayiss Two – and the Force whispered warnings about malfunctions in hyperspace turning them into hyper-paste.

At exactly the right moment, Anakin and R2-D2 pressed the controls to bring the fighter back to realspace. Anakin heard a horrible ripping noise and had to reach out with the Force to stop the fighter from disintegrating.

Stars – real stars – bloomed before them, as did the dark brown mass of a planet Anakin hoped had a breathable atmosphere. “Do your thing, Artoo, I'm landing this,” he yelled over the sudden racket of the fighter pieces clacking against each other and the intermittent hiss of atmosphere escaping through the cracks.

An aethersprite was not meant to be landed with its hyperdrive ring still attached, but it wasn't the first time in the war Anakin had done so. The other time his ship had been more intact, and he hadn't needed to keep his hyperdrive ring intact, and-

Passion.

-and he hadn't had a Sith planet whispering in his head. Anyway. He could do this. Proven.

Through victory our chains are broken. Are yours?

“Oh go kriff yourselves,” Anakin muttered and started mentally singing The Master's Exhortation from one of the initiate/junior padawan musicals.

The Sith voices weren't dissuaded. Yes, yes. Feed your annoyance, turn it into hate, turn it into passion. Through passion you gain strength.

Time to bring out the big guns. “Why don't you open your mind?” Anakin sang out loud. “The Force is waiting to bathe you in its light / Be by your side in every fight / Trust that everything will be all right / If you follow the path sublime.”

«The organic has gone insane,» R2-D2 sighed. «Woe is poor Artoo, stuck with an insane organic in a crashing spacecraft.»

“Oh shut up,” Anakin grumbled, before launching into another rendition of the refrain, which was the only bit he remembered anyway.

R2-D2 dwoo'd him and went back to repairing the thrusters on the fly. Anakin ignored the muttering about unreliable organic brains.

They hit atmosphere hard. The hyperdrive ring hadn't been meant for atmospheric flight, especially not descent, so drag forces buffeted them side to side like cloth in the wind. It took all Anakin's considerable skill to keep them level. He tugged at the Force and the yoke and felt the plasma buffet the fighter from below, tried to tell it to disperse before it could fuse together the ship and the hyperdrive ring, and entered a complicated push-pull with gravity, drag, and the inevitability that was a collision with ground.

Somewhere on the surface, Sith ruins lurked. Anakin surrendered himself into the Force and felt for the pattern of darkness. A shadow straight ahead, but they'd overshoot that. Some to the left. Ocean to the right. But there at the end of a narrow peninsula were circuits, metal, rock with lightning running through its veins.

There, Anakin told the Force.

The Force – fabric of its influence worn threadbare here in the den of darkness – hummed. The aethersprite's trajectory adjusted as they danced through the dawn clouds.

R2-D2 warbled in panic, the Sith whispered about his impending doom, and Anakin found his peace in the eye of the storm. The Force was with him, and he was one with the Force. The fighter settled into its path with a sigh and descended softly towards the land.

This close, Anakin could feel-sense the splash of the waves beneath the fighter and the approaching shore. He exhaled, slowed the ship, and set it gently down on a sandy patch. The hyperdrive ring sank in and the ship only creaked a bit when the landing struts hit the ground.

«The organic is not completely useless after all,» R2-D2 admitted. «Maybe poor R2-D2 will not rust to his death on an unknown planet.»

Anakin rolled his eyes and spent five minutes opening the jammed seatbelt buckle – which he always used, thank you Obi-Wan, maybe you could consider using one too – before turning his attention to the outside world. The sun rose over the ocean, and brought the wrath of the winds with it. Rain pattered at the fighter's cockpit window. Pretty, though the atmospheric conditions didn't necessarily bode well for millennia-old components' survival.

«Has your organic processing unit rusted yet?»

“Yeah, yeah, I'm coming,” Anakin said and popped the hatch.

He was hit by a vaguely salty smell. Now, he wouldn't have considered himself a connoisseur of large bodies of water before the war, but almost two years of schlepping from planet to planet in search of Seppies had given him an excellent ability to distinguish between various forms of mud, plus some knowledge of seas and lakes and other potential sources of drinking water. The local waters smelled less salty and more brackish, which bade well for Anakin not dying of thirst. Not that he particularly wanted to source his drinks from next to an industrial dumping ground on a Sith planet, but it wasn't like he had much choice.

You do not belong here.

Speaking of Sith planets. Had he been Obi-Wan Kenobi, he'd have made some witty quip, but as he was only Anakin Skywalker, terrible at talking, he rolled his eyes and hopped out of the fighter.

Half an hour of diagnostic later, Anakin and R2-D2 had gone over the fighter twice. It was nowhere near as bad as Anakin had feared: the plating was cracked or at the verge of shearing apart in several places, and the hyperdrive ring was thoroughly jammed, but the only actual problem that needed components to repair was where the vulture droid's shot had hit the hyperdrive control module casing and shorted out half of it.

“What are the nearest friendly worlds?” Anakin asked as he looked at the damage. He didn't think he could fix it fully, but the fuel situation was less dire than he'd thought – the control wires had been frayed by the various stresses.

«Calculating,» R2-D2 said. «Nearby habitable worlds include Florrum, Zygerria, and Serenno.»

Anakin groaned. “Next time, let's crash on Naboo.”

«R2-D2 will plot a course back to Felucia.»

“Thanks, buddy.”

R2-D2 beeped smugly and went to do repairs on the other side of the ship. Anakin stretched out, grabbed a sample kit – might as well add to the databanks while he was here – and scooped up some water and soil for analysis. He left the analyzer running as he walked inland.

Things started crunching beneath his boots within a few paces. An old and well-used dump, then, crumbling beneath the weight of millennia.

The galaxy had been mostly mapped since the early days of the Old Republic, with only a few new hyperlane discoveries and incremental improvements in hyperdrive speeds. As a result, all technologies had been long since standardized, with most items built out of prefab components. While the Delta-7B Aethersprite-class light interceptor was an expensive work of art and thus not wholly made from standard prefabs, the chips and switches inside were the same. Anakin was thus reasonably confident he could find something to repair his ship with as he started brushing aside the topmost layers.

His thought processes ground to a halt as he uncovered a plate of metal with the Republic cog painted on. On a Sith world, quarantined for a millennium. What?

He frantically dug through the rest of the pile as if he could uncover whomever had been bringing Republic ships here just by digging. The odd Republic cog stared at him, half-eroded off metal plating or embossed on a fusebox like a maker's mark, the Force giving him a double vision of tall towers beneath thunderstorms with the Republic cog in white on red banners, and people with crisp Coruscanti accents in unfamiliar uniforms before the same banners inside Star Destroyers of odd yet familiar shape. A black-clad figure on the bridge ignited a red lightsaber and plunged it into a cowering bridge officer.

Was this a warning? The visions felt more like postcognition than the dreams he'd had before his mother's death.

Then Anakin realized that this was a Sith planet, and tech had been modular even back then, so it would be no surprise if they'd stolen Republic tech from the time of the Old Republic and dumped some of it here. The visions were likely corrupted by the dark side.

Reassured despite the ghostly Sith hissing in his ear, Anakin continued rummaging through the scrap piles, this time with an eye for what he actually needed. Most items were corroded through, but there were enough partially-intact wires and circuits present Anakin was confident in his ability to hotfix the hyperdrive ring.

Peace is a lie.

“Ya tuta rah kata / Sa ree stella cheeka,” Anakin sang under his breath. He didn't know if singing made the Sith shut up or simply distracted him enough to ignore them, but he'd take it.

Kayfoundo Naweea had been his favorite of the Huttese cantina songs on Tatooine and thus the only one he remembered well enough to sing in whole. Aptly, he dug out the last thing he needed just when he was getting to the lines about it being time for good-bye.

He triumphantly sang “Tee-tocky che me jewz ku / An myo waba un che u / Sa da tah ba du bsha ya!” as he walked back to the fighter.

«Why is the organic auditioning for musical theater?» R2-D2 asked. «Also, brave R2-D2 has fixed the frayed wiring. The fuel gauge is now better than those inferior factory droids could make it.»

“Good job, Artoo. Let's see if we can get the hyperdrive controls working.”

R2-D2 rolled over to the pile of components, beeped, and went to fix the hyperdrive with Anakin's ill-gotten gains. Anakin sighed at being upstaged by his droid and turned to the main ship.

The hull plating had sheared apart in multiple places. He should probably be glad he hadn't suffocated in the vacuum of space.

When you realize you are nothing, the darkness shall welcome you.

Anakin sighed heavily and knelt to poke at the fighter's exposed guts. For each rip, he'd make sure there wasn't any damage to the innards, then ignite his lightsaber.

His lightsaber was his life – and also his welding torch. Maneuvering it in the cramped spaces to melt the metal without stabbing himself or his fighter was beyond awkward, but once the warped edges started to liquefy the metal around them was soft enough to be malleable with the Force. Anakin brought the edges together over the holes, held them put for a while, and let them cool in place. The microstructure would be different and weaker, but it should hold long enough to get them somewhere.

Gaze upon the pinnacle of evolution! Weep for what you can never become!

“How's it going, Artoo?” he asked as his final spot-fix was cooling. As long as he had something to do, he was fine, but-

That lump in your throat? It's fear. Think on what will happen next. First, the pupils dilate, muscles tighten, hysteria replaces rationality, and then the mind shatters.

«R2-D2 is almost done. The organic appears to need maintenance.»

Anakin choked out something he wanted to be a laugh. “Just, just keep talking, buddy? I'm a Jedi and this is a Sith planet. It hates me with gusto.”

Intruders. Pawns. Insects.

«The organic is hearing things?»

“Yeah.”

«The intrepid R2-D2 will keep the organic sane!» R2-D2 declared and started cataloguing every little repair he did.

A blunt instrument, striking blindly out of fear.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Anakin muttered under his breath, hoping the first meditation mantra Obi-Wan had taught him would drive away the dark.

You are mine. Servants. Slaves. Weapons. And you will obey...

Anger sparked in Anakin – he was no-one's slave! – and ruined what liberation he'd found. “There is no emotion, there is only peace,” he tried, hoping that meditation mantra would leave him better off.

Peace is a lie, the voices whispered. Peace is a lie, they repeated.

By the twentieth repetition, Anakin lost count. Several repetitions more, and he snapped. “Do you even believe in anything, Sith, or is everything a lie to you?”

I believe in the democratization of fear.

“...okay, forget that I asked.”

«Does the organic want to sing? R2-D2 can temporarily stop snarking about it.»

“Yeah,” Anakin sighed. “I ... think that'd be best.” Meditation mantras didn't seem to be doing the trick. Maybe the Sith had figured out how to get through the traditional, standard Jedi meditation mantras. Anakin attempted a cocky smirk. “Any requests from my extensive repertoire?”

Sanity is a prison. Let madness release you.

«Dwoo.»

Anakin rolled his eyes. “I'll take that as a ‘no’, then.”

Your thoughts are confused; a temporary condition, for which I have an anodyne.

You seem to want to die. I...can...assist you.

Better start singing, then. A memory he thought he'd forgotten bubbled to the top of his mind, and he found himself singing something he'd heard way back on Tatooine. “The recruiter said the pay was good / You read the terms, thought you understood / You'd have long days / Spent on your feet / But your family would have food to eat,” he sang, unconfident in his recollection of the lyrics.

As a child, he'd thought it was a moderately unfortunate story; with the benefit of age, he saw it was a warning to all the freepeople to read the fine print of any contracts lest they sell themselves into slavery. He'd found it evocative, once. Now, he thought he was mashing stanzas into one another and forgetting the lyrics.

“And one year turns into five and ten / And you'll never see your home again / Your past was bright / Now your days are grim / For you sold your freedom on a whim!”

“Ah, a singer,” a man's voice came from not too far away. “How pretty.”

Anakin jumped to his feet, lightsaber at the ready. “Stay away!”

“No, I don't think I will.” The man – an old man, back bent with age and skin wizened by the winds – walked closer with a Force-borne surety to his steps. His shell might be frail, but something about him trembled with powers unknown.

“Who are you and why are you on Rhelg?” Anakin asked, trying to circle the man away from the aethersprite while remaining between them.

The man smiled like a politician sneering at an inferior's aide. “You discern but a fraction of reality. Beyond these stars exist other galaxies, other worlds, other beings. I will experience or ignore them as I wish. I will spend eternity becoming everything: a farmer, an artist, a simple man. When the last living thing in the universe finally dies, I will enjoy peace and wait for the cycle to begin again.”

What the kriff? “You're a Sith.”

The man laughed. “Oh, no. The Sith were ... flawed. I have become something much greater.”

“Who are you?” Anakin demanded. Something- “Who were you?”

“Ah. A much better question,” the man said approvingly, and Anakin hated the part of him that lit up with the praise. “I have born many names. Tenebrae. Vitiate. Valkorion.”

Vitiate. Anakin ignited his lightsaber. “You killed everyone on Ziost.”

“A Jedi.” Vitiate smiled. “Your kind has not stopped me before. What do you hope to accomplish now?”

“I'll save the galaxy from you,” Anakin declared and launched himself at Vitiate.

Vitiate chuckled and threw up a hand. Anakin's lightsaber bounced off it. What?

He struck again. Again, Vitiate blocked his lightsaber with his palm.

The lightsaber might be his greatest talent, but even Anakin could see this wasn't working. He twirled his lightsaber in his hand and paced.

Think. Why was Vitiate here? For the fighter, no doubt. Anakin must not let him reach the Republic – or the Separatists, for that matter. He could block Anakin's lightsaber with his bare hand.

A solution presented itself to Anakin. He angled himself suitably against Vitiate and went on the attack.

Vitiate raised his palm again, a smug expression on his face. “Do you really think repetition will change your fate? I have the will of stars and the patience of stone.”

Obi-Wan would've had a cool and witty comeback, but Anakin was Anakin and had never uttered a witty quip in his life. He had the Force instead.

He pushed Vitiate with all his not inconsiderable power. Vitiate's flesh vessel flew out to the open ocean, through the wind somewhere the ocean currents would not return him to shore.

Anakin panted. It couldn't have been that simple, but – maybe there'd be enough time to launch without Vitiate hitching a ride.

Now, only death remains.

«Organic? Repairs are done.»

You could become so much more.

Anakin sighed with relief. “Let's get off this rock.”

«Behind you!»

Anakin whirled around to see Vitiate climbing out of the sea. Unthinking, he raised his lightsaber and struck.

It went straight through Vitiate's chest. Vitiate blinked, surprised, and stumbled back as Anakin turned off the lightsaber. His corpse fell into the shallow water with a splat.

Then it exploded in a wash of light-sucking black.

Anakin came to on a pile of junk. He groaned and went through his body – nothing seemed to be broken, and his spine was probably fine – before rolling to his side. No nausea, so if there was a concussion, it was hopefully mild.

«Organic! Stop scaring poor R2-D2!»

“Sorry, buddy.” He sighed. “Is the fighter...”

«Repairs are still complete and no further damage has been sustained in the 15 minutes you were unconscious. Valiant R2-D2 has protected the precious aethersprite. Get up, organic, so we can make our glorious escape, all thanks to R2-D2's impeccable repairs!»

Anakin laughed. “Okay, let's go.”

He stumbled to his feet and was immediately hit by vertigo. His ears rang and his hands shook. He'd lost his gloves at some point.

Wait, no, his right hand was not flesh. Was he hallucinating? Was he going insane?

I prefer the term ‘differently rational’.

Great, now the Sith were sassing him. Ugh. Never had he been more grateful for a functioning hyperdrive.

He shook his head and his vision cleared, revealing two gloved hands, one of which was metal. Some sort of Sith corruption thing, then.

Anakin and R2-D2 got into their seats on the aethersprite and launched. The fighter shuddered, but the Force whispered no warnings and all the indicators were green. Anakin angled it out of the atmosphere.

The Force will set us free, the Sith whispered as a parting gift.

«Poor R2-D2's hyperspace coordinate input is broken,» R2-D2 complained. «The organic will have to do this.»

“Don't worry, I remember Felucia's coordinates by heart,” Anakin reassured the droid. He'd gone over them often enough in planning the assault.

Of course, the question was, what if the invasion had failed? Anakin didn't think they had that much fuel left, but some of the nearby systems had been prepped as staging areas for the second wave; he might be able to make it to one of them.

He punched in a completely different set of coordinates and sent the ship to hyper. He stared at the coordinates – it wasn't a one-off error in digit, or the coordinates to anywhere he recognized – and swore.

«Organic?»

“I ... think I'm malfunctioning.” Anakin hurriedly called up the starmap and saw there was nothing but void at the destination. “Uh, do you know where we're going?”

R2-D2 started a long and expletive-filled rant on the fallibility of organics and how Anakin should get his head checked and maybe replaced. Anakin listened with half an ear and was reduced to hoping they'd have enough fuel to make it to Zygerria of all places.

Their destination was closer than Felucia would've been. The hyperdrive soon sighed and sputtered them back into normal space.

“What the kriff is that?” Anakin said when they were greeted by a planet.

«It is a planet, organic.»

A planet unknown to the Republic or the Jedi. For a moment, Anakin entertained the thought that the Force had brought him here to give them a means to defeat Dooku, but then the planet's presence hit him in the face.

The planet was a gray, lifeless lump, hanging in the void. The Force whimpered with pain, twisted, bent until it had been broken and unable to knit itself together. The cruel chill of despair clung to the world. Anakin reached out with the Force, tried to find anyone, anything alive, and retched at the echoes of terror and pain that were all that greeted him.

«Organic?!»

“Something horrible happened here, Artoo.” This wasn't Ziost – they were at the wrong end of the Descri Wris, and technically out of Sith space proper – but Anakin didn't know what else it could be.

«Terrible things have happened everywhere,» R2-D2 said. «What makes this any different?»

“It's – something terrible has happened to the Force here.” Anakin took a deep breath, reminded himself that he was a Jedi Knight, he could deal with this, and thought. “Not just a regular Sith ritual, Rhelg was nowhere near this bad. Something worse.”

He poked at the navicomputer again. The nearest worlds were Malachor, Vaynai, Troiken, and Almania. Malachor had been shattered and reforged by some Force weapon, but Anakin knew this world was not Malachor.

«Organic.»

“Why can't you spell out the name?” he told the Force. “It'd be easier to search in the databanks.”

«Organic! Pay attention! We are crashing!»

“No we're- What?” The ship was on an intercept vector. Anakin had not put it there. He tugged at the controls to no avail. “Oh for kriff's sake.”

«The rustbucket is not responding to R2-D2's attempts at salvation!»

“Yeah, it's not responding to me either, buddy.”

They hit atmosphere. With a fully functional ship or on any other planet, Anakin might've stood a chance, but with a patch-repair job and a planet where the Force twisted in pain, there was little Anakin could do.

«Dwoo!»

“I know. I'm sorry.” Anakin tried to take some comfort in the fact that Padmé, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka were safe as winds tossed the ship to and fro. “We had a good run together.”

«Dwoo!!»

“The planet is – I don't think I can land this here. I don't know what'll happen, but if you can, bring my lightsaber back to Obi-Wan.”

The air was grey and full of dust. The ground was a desaturated brown-gray to match. The Force cried with old pain.

«Organic. Dwoo.»

“Sorry,” Anakin said as the ground came up to meet them.

A cold tendril of Dark crept up Anakin's spine and swallowed him whole. He couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, hands clawing at his throat as his eyes stared at the dashboard unseeing-

«Organic!» R2-D2 trilled and zapped him.

The sensation fell away as abruptly as it had risen. Anakin was left panting as the Force ran nails over his nerves.

He realized they weren't dead and the ground was not rushing to meet them. “Thanks, Artoo,” he weakly said.

«Valiant R2-D2 did not do anything, it was all the organic.» R2-D2 swiveled in place. «How badly has the organic malfunctioned?»

“I'm ... not sure,” Anakin admitted. He tried to start the fighter engine. Nothing happened. “I'll take a look to see if we can fix this.”

The ground was dusty beneath his feet. He couldn't say he blamed R2-D2 for wanting to stay in the astromech slot and poke at things from there. But Anakin, well, he'd never been one for second-guessing himself or contemplation. He was a man of action. He hopped out of the aethersprite and reached out with the Force to see if it wanted to bring him anywhere.

He collapsed to his knees. The Force was hurting, a mass of scar tissue, but beneath it was a void. He could feel the hunger as a cold clawing that would devour him, mind and spirit. Annihilate every trace of his existence.

«Organic?»

“The Force is ... something terrible happened here, and the Force has yet to recover.” Anakin swallowed bile. “Let's see if we can get out of here.”

«Valiant R2-D2 wishes to rejoin the Republic forces as well.»

Anakin took a deep breath and very carefully did not reach out to the Force. He rolled to check under the aethersprite, but everything looked to be holding. No new tears, and everything had worked well enough before landing. Whatever it was, it was Force interference, not mechanical failure.

They'd escaped Rhelg. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

“Artoo? I think I'm going to walk around a bit, try and see if there's anything nearby,” Anakin said as he squirmed from beneath the fighter.

«Intrepid R2-D2 will stay with the ship and conserve his fuel supplies.»

“Makes sense. Keep the ship safe, okay?”

R2-D2 trilled an affirmative. A small part of Anakin's heart was eased, even if the thought of being left here alone once R2-D2's fuel ran out made him hyperventilate.

Actually, R2-D2 would probably last longer than he would, Anakin mused as he made his way down a gray slope limned by sheer cliffs. The R2 series astromechs could run on hyperfuel, so assuming he didn't go rocket boosting around all willy-nilly, he'd last for years. Anakin Skywalker, meanwhile, knew exactly how long a human would last without water in a desert. He might have a small water bottle and this nameless planet might be cooler than Tatooine, but his life expectancy was still measured in weeks at best. And the Force would not save him.

Sparse stars speckled the black sky covered with a haze of brown-gray dust clouds. Anakin could not place the constellations. The air felt thin over the dusty rock. It was as if color had been leeched out of the world along with life.

“Nathema. Where it all started,” a deep male voice said.

Anakin whirled around, lightsaber instantly in his hand. It was a translucent old man, gray-haired and clad in some sort of white armor with ludicrous metal shoulder pads. There was something about him... “Vitiate?” Anakin hazarded.

“That is a title I was granted,” Vitiate said with a smug sort of cheer.

“What are you doing here?!” Anakin demanded. He squinted at the translucency. “Are you haunting me?”

Vitiate laughed. “How astute, my friend. But no, I am not dead.”

“Great,” Anakin groaned. Obi-Wan had killed a Sith when he was just a padawan, and here was Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and he couldn't even manage to do that properly.

“I have brought you here because you have a destiny to fulfill,” Vitiate continued. “The Republic, the Jedi – they were all holding you back.”

“If you expect me to resurrect you, you're out of luck.” Anakin considered taking another swing with his lightsaber. Did plasma even work against undead Sith?

“This is not about me. It is about you.” Vitiate paused. “Chosen One.”

Anakin rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, it's not like anyone believes that nonsense.”

“Oh? Is it not the reason the Jedi accepted you? The sole reason Qui-Gon Jinn bought your freedom?”

“How do you know his name?” Anakin lit his lightsaber without conscious input.

“You demand a simple answer, refusing to look for it within.”

Great, this was even worse than talking to Obi-Wan about topics he was particularly evasive about. “Actually, I don't care. I'm going to defeat you, and then I'm going to go back to the war and defeat Dooku.”

“Dooku? Hm. Beware the snake who believes himself a dragon.”

“Time to become one with the Force, Vitiate.”

Anakin launched himself at Vitiate's spectral form, lightsaber first, ready to slice him in two-

He fell straight through Vitiate onto the ground.

“But, but how-”

“There is no death; there is only the Force – and I am its master.”

“Don't quote Jedi philosophy at me,” Anakin snapped, but stowed his lightsaber. Was exorcising dead Sith Lords something they taught in Master classes? If he got the comm working, he could contact Master Yoda. He'd know how to fix this.

“The Jedi are ignorant and foolish. Their philosophy is fit only for plunder.”

“Honestly, I'd rather be haunted by General Grievous at this point. Do you ever shut up?”

“I do not suffer fools gladly.” Vitiate pushed out with the Force, and Anakin saw black.

The lighting and scenery were unchanged when Anakin opened his eyes, though Vitiate's spectral form was gone and Anakin felt a large headache coming on where he'd hit the cliff face back first. He added “concussed” to his mental status tracker and carefully clambered to his feet.

He'd wanted to talk to Yoda. He needed a comm channel for that, which meant trekking back to the aethersprite.

An untold amount of limping later – he'd hit more than his head – he was greeted by a fighter that was in exactly the same shape as he'd left it in. «Organic, where were you?» R2-D2 demanded.

“I, uh, think I'm being haunted by a Sith Lord?” Anakin winced as he lifted himself to the cockpit. “Do we have comm capabilities? I need to reach Master Yoda.”

«All systems are offline.»

Anakin sighed. “I guess we'll have to repair that, then.”

The comms system would at least not drain much power and it was possible that Anakin had simply missed a snapped wire back on Rhelg, as he'd been more concerned with getting the hyperdrive working. R2-D2 had dumped the extra material from Rhelg in the small spare parts compartment. They could use that.

His head swam. He groaned.

«Organic?»

“I think I have a concussion.”

«More damage to the organic's mental faculties. Noble R2-D2 shall finish this repair on his own! The organic should engage repair routines.»

“I can't get a healing trance here, the Force is all wrong.”

«The organic can sleep.»

“But-”

«The organic can sleep, or the organic can be zapped by caring R2-D2.»

“Who needs Sith Lords when you have an astromech to electrocute you?” Anakin sighed as he gently lowered himself into the cockpit. “Good luck, Artoo.”

«Luck is unnecessary.»

Anakin smiled and arranged the emergency thermal blanket into something approaching a pillow. The Force might be a mess here, but the sounds of mechanical tinkering had always been the best way to soothe him to sleep.

When Anakin woke up, the lighting was unchanged. The planet must be tidally locked, then, as there was enough light to see by.

«R2-D2 must admit ... luck might have been necessary,» R2-D2 beeped in chagrin.

“You didn't get it fixed.”

«The system is fixed. It simply does not work.»

Figured. Anakin rubbed his hand over his face and tried to think. The ship had been just fine coming into Felucia. Getting hit had broken some stuff that they had fixed, but then they'd gone to a vastly different set of coordinates than intended, so the problem was either Rhelg or Nathema.

Or Vitiate.

If he couldn't get the comm system working, he couldn't contact Master Yoda for help and was all alone with his problems. His mouth tasted like something had died in it, he had a headache, and there were floaters running around his eyes.

He could at least fix one of those problems, he thought as he dug out the emergency rations and dug in. His stomach growled appreciatively once it saw that food existed.

Nine years as a slave had utterly obliterated his natural hunger and thirst cues. Puberty had somewhat helped, but the Kenobi/Skywalker household had always cooked on a timer. Anakin didn't know what Obi-Wan had done to eliminate his own hunger cues, but the first few months of partnership had been in hindsight dire, with Anakin only barely drinking or eating and Obi-Wan only barely eating and not realizing he needed to tell his padawan to drink more. Then Obi-Wan's friends had staged an intervention and they'd mostly managed after that. At least Ahsoka could be counted on to demand latemeal.

Thus reminded, Anakin took a long sip of water. He ran through a checklist for bodily functions and took another sip before corking the bottle and stretching out.

«Does the organic know what to do?» R2-D2 asked.

“Let me do my stretches first,” Anakin said. Getting the blood flowing usually helped.

The land was flat enough. Anakin parked himself five paces from the aethersprite and ran through first a basic calisthenics routine, then the basic Shii-Cho and Soresu katas at half speed. He decided against doing the Djem So one lest he start sweating and lose water he couldn't afford.

Besides, the Soresu routine had reminded him that he had a means of communication available to him that did not rely on technology: the Force. It would not transmit words or images, and legibility depended on mental and physical distance, but he could probably get Ahsoka to realize something was wrong, and if Obi-Wan was deployed close enough, he might get the heebie-jeebies as well. Anakin wasn't close with that many Jedi, but he thought that if, say, Quinlan Vos was on an undercover mission to Zygerria, he might be reminded of Anakin's existence and might be able to tell the Council something was up.

He sat down cross-legged and carefully unfurled himself in the Force. Nathema screamed at him, but that was all right; let that be his message – it was unique enough Master Plo or Obi-Wan would know to look through the archives.

The hard part was knowing how much to transmit. Anakin had done the standard master-padawan bonding exercises with Ahsoka, meditating together and playing hide and seek with only the Force to lead each to the other, so he knew her presence in the Force almost as well as he knew his own, but he hadn't ever practiced interstellar communication and definitely didn't want to bowl her over in the middle of combat with the strength of his agony.

Anakin took a deep breath and poked at the Force. It hissed and twisted, unformed scar tissue over the gaping maw of a wound, wrong in a viscerally horrifying way. It wanted to eat him up and spit him out as an inadequate bandage. The Force was pain.

Carefully, he held the sensation in his mind and accepted it, and thought of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The exasperated fondness, annoyance, and love; the memory of badgering Obi-Wan to let him cut off the mullet since Obi-Wan had cut off his braid and it would only be fair; their last deployment together; the memory of little Anakin, nine years old, curling up in his Master's arms and finally falling asleep despite the terrifying thunderstorm.

With the mental-emotional connection built, Anakin reached over the bridge and opened up to the Force, exposing Obi-Wan to the sensation of the Force on Nathema. He breathed through the pain and counted slowly to ten before gently closing the connection.

One down, more to go. Anakin repeated the process for Ahsoka, gathering up his memories to twang on the fiber of Force that connected him to her over the rest of the universe. Let Nathema in. Breathe. Close the connection.

He had to take a break before he could continue lest Nathema eat him whole. Deep breaths. His water supply weighed heavily on his mind.

Anakin gathered his memories, his mental connections, and reached out to Master Plo, whom he knew to be nearby. Then Quinlan Vos. Master Yoda. Aayla Secura. Mace Windu. Master Che. The assistant healer who'd helped set up his arm. Ki-Adi-Mundi. Shaak Ti. A generalized plea to the Council. Obi-Wan again.

He quit when the Force started ripping at him. No responses, but that might be just due to Anakin not detecting them.

«Organic?»

“I sent out a distress signal with the Force.” Anakin climbed to his feet. “Let's hope someone received it.”

«The organic should eat some more.»

No jabs about the organic being useful for something after all? R2-D2 must be beside himself with worry. “Sure.”

Anakin let himself be herded to the aethersprite and chewed on a ration bar. He hoped someone had heard him and could send someone to investigate. It'd take fourteen hours, give or take, for a ship to reach Nathema from Coruscant. Add some hours for deployment and research and it'd be a day. At least he had R2-D2 for company.

“So this is the rung on the ladder of your ascent,” Vitiate said. “A mechanical servant.” He shook his head. “Yet what else do you have? A naïve acolyte. A dismissive master. A hypocritical senator.”

Had he not been a child of Tatooine, Anakin would have spilled all his water as he jumped into the air. “Stay away from me!”

“Useful, when you did not know yourself. But now you are complete.”

“Cooperation is good, actually,” Anakin snapped. “That's the entire Jedi philosophy! The Force connects us all together so we should embrace the connections and life and not kill people.”

“What becomes of soldiers without their leader? Warriors who lose their cause?”

Anakin tried to calm himself and not touch the dark. “Are you insulting my men?” he hissed.

Vitiate looked at him condescendingly. “Each day they drift further out of reach. Without a center to hold – without us – the galaxy and all within it spiral into chaos.”

Was this guy trying to win the Most Infuriating Sith of All Time award or something? Anakin rolled his eyes. “Seems to have done well without you for the past three millennia or so.” He watched Vitiate pace and readied himself. “Besides, there's no ‘us’.” Anakin triumphantly ignited his lightsaber straight through Vitiate's chest.

“This changes nothing,” Vitiate said, looking at the blue plasma piercing his armor with disdain more suited to a caf stain. “You will never be rid of me, Anakin Skywalker.” He dissolved into the air in an intentional manner.

Anakin's hand shook. He turned off his lightsaber and tried not to hyperventilate.

«The organic is seeing things!»  R2-D2 said. «The organic should drink more water?»

“No, this is ... this is different,” Anakin said. He would not trust his shaking hands with the precious water left. “I, I said I think I'm being haunted? By that Sith Lord I killed on Rhelg.”

«Sith are bad news.» R2-D2 circled in place, unusually pensive. «Can R2-D2 help the organic with this matter?»

Anakin lowered his forehead to the metal of the fighter. It was pleasantly cool against his skin. “I don't think I know how to fix this, buddy.”

«Determined R2-D2 will bring the organic to the Jedi Temple for diagnostics.» Had R2-D2 been a human, he'd have been nodding decisively to himself. As it was, he was blinking his signal light.

“Thank you.”

Anakin breathed. There is no emotion, there is only peace.

Nathema was getting to him.

Anakin went over the aethersprite twice, nervously fussing over every subsystem and doing repairs better than the patch job on Rhelg. When he ran out of things to tinker with there, he did open-hand and lightsaber katas until sweat started to prick at his skin.

“How long has it been?” he asked as he left the last dregs of his canteen undrunk.

«It has been sixteen hours since the organic woke.»

The space battle above Felucia would've been over by the time Anakin landed. The land battle, on the other hand, would take longer. “I'll go to sleep. Wake me up if anyone comes.”

«Noble R2-D2 will keep watch.»

Anakin curled into the fighter's cockpit seat and ignored his parched throat. Maybe he could leave this world soon. Maybe.

No-one came overnight. Nathema's sky was as it always was, stars pricking through dusty haze. None of them moved. No moons, no ships, no satellites. The planet was alone in the void.

“You are almost out of water,” Vitiate said.

“Kriff off.” Anakin ate dully and rolled onto the ground. His head was woozy. “Could you scan for water, Artoo?”

«Scanning.» R2-D2 spun around as he buzzed. «Readings indicate potential groundwater two kilometers down the ridge. Does the organic want Artoo to investigate?»

Anakin considered – they'd have to split up. He didn't want to leave the fighter unguarded even if it was highly unlikely Separatists would jump out to steal the data from its drives. “I'll go,” he eventually said. “I'd just get restless over here.”

«The organic must promise to return soon!»

“I promise, buddy.” Anakin smiled sadly. No doubt R2-D2 would be going just as stir-crazy, even if he had more patience than his pet human.

He set off in the opposite direction to yesterday. The ground sloped downhill and the trail doubled over on itself as it meandered down the dusty ground. Anakin passed the remnants of a riverbed now carrying naught but dust.

It was not Tatooine, had neither the burning brightness of day nor the clear skies of night, but something of Nathema brought memories to Anakin's mind. Or perhaps it was just the thirst.

“Your name is Anakin,” his mother had said. “Do you recall what it means?”

“It's the scorpion who crossed the Dune Sea in search of water and found it!” he'd replied, five years old and still willing to believe that one could make the galaxy a better place.

The language of the desert, his mother had said, but all it could have been was a mishmash slave creole, spoken in murmured snatches when something had to be said but no slave-owner was allowed to hear. Anakin knew two words and three phrases. For all he knew, his mother had made it up with a few friends.

And yet he walked across the dust sea of Nathema in search of water. The desert called his name. He had left Tatooine, but try as he might, Tatooine would not leave him. Not by day-

-his mother, dying in his arms, something horrible growing within him until all he saw was red and blue as he cut down-

-and definitely not by night. He took a deep breath and tried to distract himself with star charts.

“Such power,” Vitiate said. His hazy blue presence walked beside Anakin. “Imagine what you could do with it.”

Terrible things. “Whatever it is, I'm not doing it.” He already had.

“Are you sure?” Vitiate smiled, oily and smug, and Anakin wanted nothing more than to punch his face in. “Your will is weak, and there is a great darkness inside you. Or what would you call your massacre of the Tusken Raiders?”

“You will find that I can out-stubborn a gundark and I will stop you,” Anakin snapped.

“Jedi and Sith have all tried to stop me before. Belsavis. Voss. Corellia. Dromund Kaas. They subverted my plans, but my ascent was inevitable. Ziost was the only success I needed to bring my plans to fruition.”

“So you have been stopped.” But a lightsaber to a spectral form didn't do it. What did?

Vitiate scoffed. “My life spans millennia. Legions have risen to test me. My ascendance is inevitable. A day, a year, a millennium—it matters not. I hold the patience of stone and the will of stars. Your striving is insignificant.”

“Not to me,” Anakin snapped and walked faster as if that would shed the specter haunting him.

“A fool,” Vitiate murmured behind him. When Anakin turned to look, he was gone.

Anakin did not for a moment think he was free. A chill ran down his spine despite the temperature.

His head was fuzzy and his reflexes felt slowed, even if he knew it must be mostly illusory. He hadn't sweat that much overnight. Or had years off Tatooine, luxuriating in unlimited water, made him weak?

The footpath turned to the left, opening up to a plateau. He saw a stone building, weathered and yellow-brown but still intact. He took a breath and extended his senses despite the pain.

Darkness. Silence. Death. Deep waters that slept for millennia.

That must be the water source R2-D2 had found. Anakin had brought his own and the spare canteen and the water purification kit. Hopefully it'd kill any deadly Sith bacteria there were.

He reached the door. It was solid, and without using the Force he couldn't shift it.

Anakin knew the Force meant pain here, but there was water on the other side and he was thirsty and had hit his head too many times recently for anyone to consider him capable of rational decisionmaking. He thought of the shape of the block and lightly touched the Force so it could aid him.

“Ah!” Anakin yelled as the Force screamed in his ears.

“You will never open those doors alone,” Vitiate said. “Let me help you.”

Knowing Sith, his plan for helping probably involved child sacrifice or something. “Never.” Anakin made a show of dusting off his clothes – if only he were Obi-Wan or had Obi-Wan's poise – and tried again, drawing more on the Force.

His vision whited out with pain. During a brief moment of lucidity, he noticed that he was lying on the ground and the door still hadn't moved. Darkness took him.

It was dark when Anakin woke up, half-remembered concerns about brain damage floating somewhere in the back of his mind. Nice of Master Che to turn off the lights and the beeping. He reached out to the Force to see if anyone was waiting-

-and jolted up when Nathema sank its needles in. Kriff.

He was inside some sort of building. There was a door behind him, cracked open, showing Anakin a landscape he already knew. Inside, the walls were covered with murals of a red-skinned humanoid species doing what was probably Dark Side stuff. There was a smaller door, closed, in one of the corners. The center of the square chamber was taken up by a stone structure, a squat cylinder with a foldable lid.

Anakin tried the lid. It moved out of the way and exposed a dark surface.

Well, he'd been searching for a well, hadn't he? He attached the water purification filter to his empty water bottle and immersed it. The water was cool and still. Eerily so; the Force told him nothing lived there. Even Coruscant's tap water, sterilized to high heavens though it may be, contained some harmless microorganisms.

He filled the other container. The door had been closed when he'd fallen unconscious, but now it was open, so someone must've opened it. He did not think Nathema was that helpful.

“What did you do?” he asked Vitiate.

“I could not let you die,” Vitiate replied, spectral apparition looking down at a kneeling Anakin from the other side of the well.

“Why's a Sith so interested in keeping a Jedi alive?”

“You are no mere Jedi. You are destined for something greater.”

Anakin rolled his eyes. “No, I'm just a Jedi. Please don't tell me you believe in that Chosen One bantha poodoo.”

“Just a Jedi?” Vitiate stared at him unnervingly. “Would the Tusken Raiders call you that as they fell to your blade? It felt good to subject them to your will, did it not?”

“Shut up!” Anakin yelled and drew his lightsaber.

“But it's true.” Vitiate started circling around the well. “The seeds of greatness have been sowed within you. Stop resisting your destiny.”

Anakin retreated, as if keeping the bulk of the well between them would save him. “What did you do?”

“What I offered to do for you.”

“Why the kriff are you haunting me? Were you bored on Rhelg? Couldn't you have just stay there?”

“Haunting you?” Vitiate scoffed. “I am doing no such thing.”

“How else would you-” Anakin's blood froze. No. He couldn't be. “You're possessing me,” he whispered. He could barely hear his voice over the hammering of his heart and pounding of blood in his ears.

Vitiate stood still. “Ah,” he said, “close, but not quite. I am – attached to you, yes. My fate is your fate.”

A dark lord of the Sith, the Sith Emperor, who'd consumed all the life forces on two planets, had made his home in Anakin's mind. Wherever Anakin went, so would Vitiate. Returning home would condemn everyone Anakin had ever loved.

He swallowed. “No.”

“No?” Vitiate raised a brow. “Child, our victory is inevitable. Do not resist.”

“Victory?” Anakin laughed. “The only thing you're getting is defeat.”

He swung his lit lightsaber at his own chest, slashing straight through his heart. It clattered out of his hands as he fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The last thing he saw before the Force took him was Vitiate's comically slack-jawed expression.

There was no death, there was only the Force. That must be why Anakin heard R2-D2 even in death.

«The organic is malfunctioning!» R2-D2 bleeped. «Gross malfunction! Organic! Stop!»

“I had to; I was being possessed by a Sith Lord. Now he can't take over the galaxy or consume all of Coruscant.” Funny how he'd still think he felt his lips and tongue moving even if he was a being of pure energy.

«The organic should have asked R2-D2 for help,» R2-D2 replied as if he'd heard Anakin despite Anakin being dead.

Then he used his electro-arm on Anakin, and Anakin sat up with a yelp. As he did, he discovered that the reason everything had been dark had not been that he was dead, but rather that he'd had his eyes closed.

«Do not do that again! R2-D2 was worried!»

“Uh... I... I should be dead?”

He hadn't missed. His robes had been cut at chest height from the left through to the centerline of his body, the edges warped with the tell-tale singe of a lightsaber. The skin beneath, on the other hand, was only slightly pink and raised, like the skin at the end of his flesh on the right, two years and several surgeries after Dooku cut off the hand.

«The organic should cease death-seeking activities immediately.» R2-D2 crowded against him and fussed over him in a droid way.

“I found water?” Anakin weakly offered as he poked at his robes.

«Then the organic should drink some. Dehydration can cause hallucinations in fallible organics!»

“Fair enough,” Anakin assented even if there was no way Vitiate was a mere hallucination. He sat against the wall and drank slowly as R2-D2 proclaimed the water safe and filled some hidden water storage compartment of his own.

His robes were a total loss. The heat-treated edges were uncomfortably scratchy, and all the dust of Nathema would get in through the cut that went through robe, under-robe, and tabard.

“You wouldn't have spotted a clothing store on the way over?” Anakin asked when he'd drunk half the water in the bottle.

«This is the only building worried R2-D2 has observed.»

There was the other door. Anakin refilled his water bottle and went to poke at the door while the water purification system did its work.

This door opened with only a light shove. The room ran the width of the building but was only about three meters deep.

One end held a desk of some sort. No datapads, just some sort of brittle flimsi with text in a writing system Anakin didn't recognize. There was a family portrait on a stand. Four of the red-skinned aliens solemnly stared at the viewer, one son dressed in black robes while the parents and other son were decked in more revealing attire.

The other end had a bed – unmade, rust-colored sheets – a bedside table, and a cabinet. The bedside table had a lightsaber on it. Anakin grimaced at how hostile it felt as he picked it up and was unsurprised that it lit up red. He set it back down, grateful that he wasn't psychometric.

The cabinet, on the other hand, was exactly what he'd been looking for. The inhabitant's wardrobe was laid out in full. Most of it seemed to be strappy things Padmé might wear to the beach, but at one end was a surprisingly well-preserved set of robes as worn by one of the sons in the family portrait.

Anakin tossed his own off and spent a moment looking at the spoils of his graverobbing. The white under-robe was plain and fastened left over right; he could see approximately half of the Jedi Temple wearing an equivalent one, and the rest would assent if one dyed it tan. The robe itself was black, in a design similar to what Anakin had seen on the one picture of young Qui-Gon Jinn he'd seen. The collar could button up to form a round collar, or be left open to show lapels. Unlike the son in the image, Anakin left the collar open to show the red reverse.

He debated putting on the rest of the ensemble, then decided to not push his luck with fit and fastened his own obi and utilibelt over the appropriated robe. The condition was suspiciously good. Perhaps something to do with the well building? Based on the watery sigils embroidered on the robe in red and where Anakin had found it, the clothes had belonged to some sort of well-keeper. Who knew what oddities of the Force had been used to protect them.

«Is the organic done?»

“I'm wearing clothes again.” Anakin looked at the rest of the set, then impulsively added one of the strappy things atop. “Let's take these with us. Maybe we can bribe Master Nu.”

«Are the straps a torture device?»

Anakin laughed. “No, no, it's some sort of clothing. Didn't you see the Nabooians in their swimwear?”

«Brave R2-D2 kept away from sand-encrusted beaches and has never seen the Senator or the Chancellor in swimwear.»

The image of Chancellor Palpatine on a beach, genially hosting some sort of event while wearing the type of extremely revealing and impractical swimwear Nabooians favored struck Anakin. He would rather it hadn't. “No, uh, I haven't seen the Chancellor in swimwear. Not that I want to.”

«How terrible. Surely the organic could enlighten R2-D2 on the fashion statements he might make?»

Anakin groaned, but let himself be baited. “Well, he has mentioned wanting the war to end...”

They continued along that vein, Anakin trying to come up with ways to convey complicated political messages with various sorts of resort swimwear. For all that Padmé was the love of his life, he didn't have a clue on how one sent sartorial messages save by getting it from a designer one supported. Obi-Wan would probably be better at it than he was.

The aethersprite was thankfully there and untampered with. Anakin knelt in the dirt and tried to use the Force to reach out to everyone he knew once again. Then he did katas until he felt tired. He curled up in the pilot's seat while R2-D2 sat watchfully on the dirt.

Anakin jerked awake when the fighter jumped into hyperspace. He stared at the blue-white lines, disoriented. “Artoo? You fixed the ship?”

Silence. “Artoo?”

“Your mechanical servant was only holding you back,” Vitiate said. “It has been left on Nathema.”

“Artoo's not an it!” Anakin roared. His vision went red. He wanted nothing more than to choke the smug look off Vitiate's face.

A blue blade of plasma, piercing a Tusken woman's chest. The woman's child screaming at the loss of his mother.

You have become what you swore to destroy.

“Do not cling to crutches. It is time for you to face your destiny.”

Anakin tried to drop the ship out of hyperspace, but the console was unresponsive. He didn't recognize the coordinates, though they were relatively nearby. Hopefully not any major population center.

He watched the tracker update the ship's location on the hyperlanes. Nache Bhelfia. Daragon Trail. Feena Run. Korphir Trace. Wetyin's Way. Yavin Bypass.

“Yavin Four,” Vitiate said as the fighter exited hyperspace. “This is where Naga Sadow slept in his sarcophagus after the defeat of the Sith, waiting for an heir to awaken him. Here Revan plotted to return me to flesh, believing that I would then be made mortal.”

The fighter made its way around the red gem of a gas giant to a verdant moon. They landed in a tropical region, silvery-trunked trees and dark grasses carving a lush jungle interspersed with streams of turquoise water and pale rock lakebeds. Anakin opened the cockpit and let the gentle mist waft in. The blue sky had a pink haze at the horizon, and the red globe of the gas giant hung huge halfway to the zenith.

It was the most beautiful planet Anakin had visited. To bring Vitiate here felt like defiling it.

“That Yavin was both a beautiful and a terrible god to the Massassi,” Vitiate said, nodding at the gas giant. “It lifted their eyes to the heavens, but made their hearts small and fearful.”

“Massassi?” Anakin asked despite himself.

“The descendants of slaves Naga Sadow brought with himself to his exile and experimented upon. They are naught but animals now. You need not concern yourself with them.”

Anakin shivered despite the warm weather. Was that what Vitiate would do to him after using him to re-embody himself?

Without conscious input, he walked through the jungle. The air was blooming with life. He hopped over a clear brook where it plummeted down a ravine to form a shining lake. There was a rainbow glimmering in the spray. Anakin thought he would very much like to bring Obi-Wan and Ahsoka here to meditate.

There was something dark gray peeking through the silver-shining trees. A few steps through verdant grass and around the red fronds of ferns, and a stone temple greeted him.

As he drew closer, trees and grasses gave way to paved stone set in circular designs. Raised platforms had been built around straight pathways, the corners cut by erosion. Braziers burned an eerie red at the edges of the path. Trees and grasses poked through gaps in the stone as if the jungle wished to reclaim the complex. The ziggurat itself was unornamented save for the two different textures of rock laid out in intentional pattern, and Anakin could feel the darkness of the building, feel the stains Naga Sadow had left on the Force here, but even it was beautiful in an unadorned way, standing against the pink horizon and blue sky in the embrace of the green-green jungle.

But he had not been brought here to sightsee. His legs were carrying him to a temple entrance, and he could feel the dark side slumbering within.

With great effort, he wrested his legs back under his own control. He stumbled to his hands and knees.

“You would run away from your destiny?” Vitiate asked, disappointed.

Anakin almost wanted to recant – would reflexively do anything to not disappoint an authority figure – but held fast to his dwindling resolve. “I would rather die than let you use me for your purposes, Sith,” he hissed.

“Then so be it.”

And Anakin-

He walked through the desert. Tatooine's suns burned his skin, but there was no shade to be had in the Dune Sea. The suns' heat roared down from above and rose from below where the baked sands returned what had been wrought upon them.

Yellow sands stretched from horizon to horizon beneath a cloudless sky. No landmarks interrupted the wind-shaped undulations.

He walked through the desert. He had no cause, no origin, no destination. Had he ever had one, the desert had swallowed it. The desert swallowed everything.

Nothing interrupted his journey. This was the Dune Sea. He would not be interrupted; the desert would consume him, piece by piece, until he sank into the sands of time like so many nameless strangers before him. The desert was a merciless god and he a sacrifice who knew not whether he'd been willing.

The suns had baked off his purpose. The winds had whipped away his name. The sands had swallowed his past.

He did not know where he was going or why, so he simply went. His legs carried him in a straight line towards a spot on the horizon featureless like all around it.

Like a mirage in the shimmering heat, the dunes rose before him as a sea. He walked through the air as it turned to water and heat as it turned to chill. The sandy bottom sank to depths his feet did not reach.

He did not know where he was going or why, so he simply swam. The cold water sapped the life from his limbs. He shivered with half his heart.

The waters were cold and bitter, still as a grave and black like tar. The sky held no stars. Sea and sky blended together in a seamless dark. He swam. His arms burned.

He had crossed the desert and found water. He knew not what to do with it.

He had no purpose or past. It would be so easy to stop.

There was no difference between swimming and treading water. The invisible horizon came no closer and went no further.

The silent depths of the sea called to him. How simple it would be to give in to the pull of the dark.

Why was he swimming? He was barely treading water, shivering and trembling. This was pointless. The bottom would hold release. The easy way out.

“The sea of bitterness has no bounds,” a man's voice echoed out. “Turn your head to see the shore.”

He turned his head. Where previously there had been nothing, there was now a mountain sticking out of the dark ocean, and he knew what he sought for lay at its top. He swam.

The mountain drew nearer. He gasped as he touched the weathered rock, cool as the ocean, and clambered to his shaking feet.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Climb the mountain, please,” the distant man replied.

He looked at the vertical slope and its lack of handholds. “I don't think I can do it,” he confessed.

“I would not ask something of you that you were not capable of doing,” the man replied.

He still didn't think he could do it, but he could try, if only for the man's sake. He set his hands against the mountainside. The rock was damp and sucked all the remaining warmth out of his flesh.

He curled his fingers and dug his feet into invisible handholds. Then he climbed.

The mountaintop was so far above he couldn't see it. Yet there was an end to the mountain, and he knew where he was going, if not why, so he climbed, hand over foot, fingers finding crevices his eyes did not see.

The depths called to him. He felt the pull of the dark.

He did not see the mountaintop, but he knew it would be above the clouds. He chose to reach for the light.

The cold damp seeped into his sinews and gnawed at his bones. Shivers sporadically tremored across his shoulders and did nothing to warm him. He climbed.

The rocks radiated hatred and rage. The storm swell of the sea of bitterness had drenched them over the eons until it was a part of the mountain's base. The emotions had leaked into the stone and now were leaking out of it.

He reached for the next handhold and flinched so hard he almost fell off the mountain. He cast about for an alternative route – anything to avoid the memory that rock carried – but there was nothing. He set his jaw and grasped.

His mother who had named him was dead, and he stood in the village of her killers. Her dying body was heavy on his arms. Rage welled in him and erupted like a volcano.

A shining blue blade erupted from his hand. He swung it through the people who had killed his mother; they did not slow the blade's path.

He cut them in half, the warriors and the wives, the adults and the children. He felt nothing but the vengeance in his heart and heard nothing but screaming in his ears. He left nothing but corpses in his wake.

“I'm a horrible person,” he said.

“We are seekers, not saints,” the man's voice replied.

“No, I-” He swallowed. “I massacred a village.”

“Oh,” the man sighed, followed by a pause that should have contained his name. “That you have erred doesn't mean you cannot do good. Come. Climb the mountain. I know you can.”

He paused, considered how easy it would be to just let go and sink into the ocean beneath-

-and thought of how the man at the mountaintop was waiting for him, thought he could make the climb, and moved past the memory of evil.

Up here, the rocks were less embittered by the waves and the damp did not suck as much vigor out of him. He climbed, lighter, as if he were shedding gravity and climbing to orbit.

The air gradually grew warmer and drier. The call of the dark continued, but grew easier to resist with distance.

Before he knew it, he was above the clouds. It was warm and sunny: neither the baking death of the desert nor the cold despair of the sea. He had crossed the desert to find water, he had crossed the ocean to find land, and now he was climbing a mountain to reach the summit.

He felt the presence of another person. The man at the mountaintop, he thought. He felt the urge to rush, to throw himself up, but to fall from these lofty heights might as well be fatal. He methodically made his way up the last few meters.

The mountaintop was flat and circular, about four meters in diameter. At the center sat a pale-skinned, copper-haired human man dressed in pale robes and an aura of serenity.

“Oh, Anakin,” he said, reaching out his arms.

Anakin Skywalker threw himself at his master and sobbed. “Obi-Wan,” he choked out, “I-”

“Shh,” Obi-Wan Kenobi shushed him. “It'll be all right.”

The landscape had changed to rolling hills and meadows. The sun shone brightly on them like a pleasant spring day. The ground was damp but not wet. Anakin and Obi-Wan were meandering aimlessly.

“How did you get here? Is it some sort of Force thing?”

Obi-Wan smiled. “I couldn't leave my padawan to face the Sith Emperor alone, now, could I?”

“So some sort of Force thing,” Anakin concluded.

A light mist rose onto the meadow they were walking on. It didn't obscure the vision, but hid the roughness of the ground, blanketing it in a soft-focus haze. It tugged at the corners of Anakin's vision like the memories tugged at his conscience.

“Master, there are things I should tell you.”

Obi-Wan's pace did not falter. “Oh?”

“I- Well. I'm. I'm married to Padmé,” Anakin blurted out. “It was just after Geonosis. It was with fake names, but, uh, yeah. I'm married. Sorry.”

“Ah.”

“And...” Anakin swallowed. “Before that, before Geonosis – you remember I was having dreams about my mother? They were actually visions. She was taken by Tusken Raiders and tortured. She died in my arms,” Anakin said, then pressed out, “I killed them all. Even the children. I- I Fell. I'm sorry.”

Obi-Wan was silent. He stared at Anakin with the same unreadable expression he'd had before the revelations.

“You're not Obi-Wan,” Anakin realized.

“Indeed I am not.” “Obi-Wan” turned his head to look forwards. “You do not know how Obi-Wan would react, so I do not react.”

“Are you telling me I made you up inside my head?”

Obi-Wan smiled ruefully. “Well, considering what else is inside your head nowadays, I'm not that bad, am I?”

Anakin snorted. “No. You're not.”

The mist at the meadow's edge resolved into a door. Anakin knew exactly what – or who – was behind it.

“Master?”

“Hm?”

“How do I defeat a Sith Lord and stop him from possessing anyone or gobbling up planets to fuel his immortality rituals?”

They stopped at the door. Obi-Wan smiled. “You will defeat him by doing what you do best.” Then he started fading into the mists dancing above the meadow.

“Wait!” Anakin grabbed at the last vestiges of his master's form. His hand ran through air.

He sighed. “Really, Obi-Wan? What I do best? What am I going to do, challenge Darth Vitiate, Emperor of the Sith, to a pod race?” He rubbed his face. “You're even less clear than Master Yoda. You raised me! You know that all I know is how to use a lightsaber and be annoying!”

And lightsabers did not work. Anakin had tried that repeatedly. And it wasn't like he could defeat a Sith Lord through the sheer strength of being a colossal pain in the ass.

Unless...

The door swung open. Anakin took a deep breath and stepped through.

He landed on a rocky island that hung suspended above a glowing layer of clouds. The sky was dark and studded with stars.

“Ah,” Vitiate said. “You are more resilient than I expected.”

Had he been Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin would've traded a few barbs with the Sith Lord; as he was not, he thought here goes nothing and opened his mouth to sing. “You're a party girl going through the core worlds / This was all set from when our eyes met / I would follow you to the galaxy's ends / Just like you wanted, dancing undaunted.”

Vitiate's eyes started twitching. “What is this idiocy?”

Anakin continued singing. Party Girl had been a list-topper when he was fifteen, a particularly catchy earworm with simplistic lyrics about finding a girl and dancing with her that had brought even the great Obi-Wan Kenobi to his knees, asking for Anakin to put on something else for a change.

“Silence, fool!” Vitiate snarled. The starry sky clouded over and flashed white with lightning. Thunder cracked directly overhead. Rain fell like the wrath of the heavens.

“We met on the floor of a Daradan club / We danced through the night, we jumped and we bumped.” Okay, maybe it was actually about sex. Whatever. Still an earworm. “Then you told me that you had to go / Your heart beat for change, but I should follow!”

This was followed by another repetition of the refrain. Vitiate screamed wordlessly and sent lightning down on Anakin's head.

But Anakin was not a terrified nine-year-old experiencing his first thunderstorm. He remembered being that young, terrified, and climbing into Obi-Wan's bed to feel safe.

The warm arms of his sleepy master had chased off the fear. Now, the memory chased off the lightning.

“Your pathetic squirming cannot stop me!” Vitiate snarled. “Legions have risen to test me! My ascendance is inevitable!”

Anakin smiled and launched into the final verse. The song was highly repetitive and easy to sing on infinite repeat, which was exactly what he would be doing, if only to see the expression on Vitiate's face.

Vitiate himself had said to beware the snake who believed himself a dragon. No doubt Vitiate thought he was a mighty dragon, but all he was was a snake.

By the third repetition of Party Girl, Vitiate had been reduced to wordless screams. By the fifth, the rain had stopped and the clouds begun to part. Anakin's voice wasn't even growing hoarse yet. Must be all the practice bellowing orders on the battlefield.

“You are nothing but an insignificant mote of filth!” Vitiate screamed after Anakin sang “Your heart beat for change, but I should follow!” for the eleventh time.

“You're a party girl going through the core worlds / This was all set from when our eyes met / I would follow you to the galaxy's ends / Just like you wanted, dancing undaunted.”

Halfway through the eleventh repetition, with an earth-splitting scream, the clouds parted. Anakin was ripped away.

He fell to his knees. His lightsaber was in his hands, lit, and the stone beneath him was the same color and texture as that of the Yavin temple.

“Is that all you have, Vitiate?” a man's voice hissed. “Bane was right. You Sith of old are all obsolete.”

Anakin rose to his feet. The man before him was a bit shorter than him, human, and dressed in a black robe with a hood that hid his face. He had two red lightsabers in his hands so that onlookers could be clued into the fact that he was a Sith Lord even if they somehow missed the Darkness roiling off him. There was something familiar about him; perhaps he'd visited Dooku shortly before Anakin or Obi-Wan had been captured and left half-traces of his presence in the Force.

“Are they?” Anakin asked in his best Vitiate impression. He felt it might be better for this Sith – Darth Sidious, based on the intel Obi-Wan had shared – to think he was facing Vitiate still.

“You cannot subvert my ascent!” Sidious yelled, because all Sith everywhere were all the same.

Then he launched at Anakin with his lightsabers out, and okay, this was terrifying. Sidious was a master swordsman, better even than Dooku, and Anakin was reduced to drawing on all of Obi-Wan's Soresu lessons to even survive the onslaught. There was no way he would win this duel with lightsaber alone.

But weren't all Sith the same on the inside? Anakin would just win this by being supremely annoying.

“Nothing to say?” Sidious mocked him.

Anakin grinned. “You're a party girl going through the core worlds,” he started singing. He sort of wanted to do the dance from the music video, but that would bode badly for his remaining flesh limbs.

Sidious screamed and renewed his assault. Anakin hated to admit it, but his singing performance suffered greatly with how heavily he was panting.

The Force was definitely with him, he thought as he barely dodged a strike that would've decapitated him. Then, because he was Obi-Wan Kenobi's padawan and really should act like it, he winked saucily at Sidious when he got to the lyric about dancing through the night.

It seemed Sidious was not a fan, though, as he hissed something insulting about Anakin's taste in music and continued trying to murder him. Eh, whatever. People were always trying to kill him.

On the seventh repetition of the song, Sidious was beside himself with rage and his swordsmanship had suffered. His attacks were more erratic and wider.

After one particularly vicious one, there was a gap in his defense. Anakin drove his lightsaber through Sidious's heart.

“Who are you?” Sidious demanded with a snarl.

“Anakin Skywalker.” He turned his lightsaber off. “Jedi Knight.”

Sidious collapsed to the ground. “No. No! Impossible!”

Before he could rant more about how he'd been killed by a mere Jedi or something, however, the Force pulled even the last shreds of his consciousness from his physical body. The darkness within him snapped loose and threw Anakin hard against a stone wall before dissipating harmlessly into the Cosmic Force.

Anakin's head swam and he really should go get his brain checked, but when poking the back of his skull, he found no blood or other concerning sensations. The Force was singing with joy. He touched it, asked it to heal him, and walked to the Sith's corpse.

Anger and hatred lingered in the Force around the body. The Sith had fallen face down on the stone floor, arms and legs splayed. Smoke wafted up from the lightsaber wound.

Anakin kicked at the Sith's shoulder to roll him over. The corpse flopped to its back in the manner of fresh corpses everywhere, giving Anakin a look at the face as the hood fell back.

“No,” he whispered.

He was sitting down. When had he sat down? He felt light-headed. Perhaps it was for the best he was sitting down.

“It's the kriffing Chancellor!” he yelled to no-one in particular. Certainly the braziers did not care for the civilian identity of the Sith Master, save perhaps for laughing at the irony of the Jedi taking orders from him.

It couldn't be the Chancellor. It couldn't. Palpatine had been his friend, the kindly father figure who'd paid attention to Anakin the boy rather than trying to kick him into the Jedi mold. He'd always been kind, and okay, the war had started on his watch, but that was on Dooku, right?

He'd always had the Republic's best interests at heart. He'd shown Anakin so many things, taken Anakin on so many trips Obi-Wan would never have let him go on, taken Anakin into his confidence about how pushing change through the Senate was so hard and things had to change.

But he never did any of the things he promised even when he received the emergency powers, a voice that sounded a lot like Obi-Wan's said.

So it was the Chancellor. The Force told him it was the truth.

Oh Force, Anakin had spent so much time with a Sith Lord and no-one had noticed. No wonder he'd been such a bad Jedi. The Jedi had been right to reject him. Obi-Wan deserved a better padawan. He should just stay on Yavin forever, it'd be better for everyone else. He'd die here alone and no-one would even know that the Chancellor was a Sith Lord.

Wait – the Chancellor might have a working comm on him, and had surely come on a ship. Unless he could teleport with Sith powers. But the ship might have hostiles.

Anakin fumbled at Palpatine's wrists and pockets until he found an otherwise standard-issue civilian comm retrofitted with a hardware signal toggle. He snapped that back on and entered Obi-Wan's holofrequency.

No answer. Was the temple somehow blocking transmissions? He cautiously walked out to the courtyard.

“This is a military channel.” Obi-Wan's voice came without an accompanying holo. “How did you get the number?”

“I memorized it for eventualities like this one!” Anakin said and immediately choked up. Obi-Wan was there, he could come save Anakin from this nightmare, everything would be fine. “Master?”

Immediately, Obi-Wan's voice softened and his image clicked on. “Anakin.” He lifted a hand as if to place it on his shoulder, then aborted the movement. “Where are you? Mace found Artoo on some forgotten world and- I saw your robes.”

Now Obi-Wan was crying, too, and Anakin was heading back towards a panic attack. “I'm on Yavin Four!” he said. “I, I was possessed by a Sith Lord but I think he's gone now, and I fought the Sith Master and won, and Obi-Wan, it was the Chancellor, and I killed him but I didn't know it was-”

Obi Wan had been growing steadily paler, but at the final revelation, he turned white as a sheet. “It was the Chancellor?” Anakin thought he, too, might be having a panic attack.

They were saved from their emotional feedback loop by the sound of a door opening. “Obi-Wan?” Mace Windu's voice said out of the comm pickup.

“The Chancellor was a Sith Lord,” Obi-Wan said and rose from his chair to grab Mace Windu's robes, bringing a blue-tinged holo of him to Anakin's end. “The Chancellor.”

Anakin would have thought that Mace Windu would've kept his cool and gently disentangled himself from Obi-Wan or something, but instead he froze. “The Chancellor?”

“I'm on Yavin Four!” Anakin interrupted the forthcoming panic attack.

At that, Windu turned to the holo projecting from Obi-Wan's comm and looked ... relieved? “Anakin. It's good to see you. We were all worried.”

“Uh. Great?” He stared at the holo. Think, Skywalker. What relevant information are you forgetting? “I came in my fighter, but I don't know if there's enough fuel here for liftoff or to get anywhere. Flight computer's completely unwiped. I'm not sure how the Chancellor got here or whether he came alone.”

“We're only an hour away by hyperspace,” Windu replied while awkwardly patting Obi-Wan's shoulder. “See you soon.”

“Skywalker out.”

He cut the connection and collapsed to the ground. Okay. Rescue was coming, someone could check whether Vitiate was gone, and R2-D2 was fine. He just needed to not get eaten by the wildlife before Obi-Wan came to fuss over him.

Master Windu was surprisingly glad to see Anakin as well, considering their mutual antipathy. Except hadn't it been the Chancellor, who was a Sith Lord, remarking on how Windu didn't like poor underappreciated Anakin? What if he'd been lying? No, he was Darth Sidious, he probably had been lying and making sure Anakin didn't have any close friends who'd notice a shift in personality caused by Sidious taking over Anakin's body in some quest for eternal youth or something. Weren't Sith all obsessed with immortality anyway? The Chancellor had definitely been interested in Anakin from a young age. Had that all just been him observing his target until said target was an adult ready to move into?

Breathe, an echo of Obi-Wan Kenobi said.

Anakin took a deep breath. Okay. He just had to wait until Obi-Wan arrived and then have his nervous breakdown in good company. He could do this.

Emotion, he thought on the inhale. On the exhale, yet peace.

He stuck to that phrase of the meditation mantra in the hopes that it would help. Controlling his breathing seemed to.

This time, the memory of killing the Sand People came not with the vivid emotions and immediacy it usually had, but with a distance, as if Anakin were watching a holo of the actions. He considered ignoring it, burying it where no-one could see, but had that not made the problem worse? Anakin ignoring the matter had only left him twisted in guilt. He was better than that, and he knew it.

A different memory. “I'm better than this,” he'd told Padmé. She'd only pet his hair.

He was a mass murderer groomed to be the flesh vessel of a democracy-destroying Dark Lord of the Sith. She deserved better.

Sidious's comm weighed heavy in his hand. He took a deep breath and dialed Padmé's frequency.

His heart hammered in his throat as he waited for her to pick up. She'd answer and he couldn't help but spill everything at her first question-

“Unfortunately, Senator Amidala is currently unavailable,” Padmé's recorded voice came from the comm. “Please leave a message after the beep.”

The answering system beeped. Anakin stared at it.

“This is Knight Skywalker,” he said, sounding less than sane. He swallowed. “Padmé. I'm sorry. I can't do this. You deserve someone so much better, who won't – do things I've done. I, I release you from all obligations to me. We're broken up now. Divorced. It's for your own good.”

The answering system animation kept playing, interlocking circles shrinking and growing as they rotated about each other. “Farewell. Skywalker out.” He cut the call.

He had not expected for it to feel like relief. Relief like when he lanced a boil, or relief like the battle was over. He had not realized this was a war.

When he'd been lost inside his mind, hope had worn the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He tried to grasp the thready end of the thought and failed.

His heart still hammered. He took a deep breath and sat down.

Emotion, yet peace.

The corpses of the Sand People fell to the sand before him. He was better than this. He was better than this, and yet he'd still done it, and were Obi-Wan or Ahsoka to die in his arms in the midst of their killers, he might still snap.

A storm buffeted him within. Where was the eye that would let him find stillness?

Emotion, he thought. Then, yet peace.

Emotion, the birds echoed, yet peace.

All the nature of Yavin whispered the rest of the mantra to him. Green leaves rustled in the wind. Ignorance, yet knowledge. The jungle cats called, marking the bounds of their territory. Passion, yet serenity. Insects chirped paeans for fresh greenery. Chaos, yet harmony. The clear rivers burbled beneath the rainbows in their mists. Death, yet the Force.

Emotion, yet peace, Yavin told him.

He'd gotten from minus ten thousand percent peace to perhaps twenty percent peace when he was interrupted by an all too familiar presence. A shiver ran down his spine as a solar sailor approached from afar like a harbinger of death. Of course Dooku would want to check on what killed his master.

At least he wasn't sailing in with a full complement of MagnaGuards and General Grievous. Anakin really didn't want to fight off a droid army in this state.

Dooku's ship is here, he sent to Obi-Wan's comm.

He should hide. Best case scenario, Dooku might not find him until Obi-Wan and Mace Windu arrived.

The temple itself was too enclosed a space and an obvious target. Anakin looked around at the walkways with the raised platforms between them. Rubble, eroded corners – and the remnants of some structures on the platforms. Perfect.

He jumped up to the platform on the left and checked the structural integrity of the furthest corner. Not at immediate risk of collapse. He sat down between one of the surviving walls of a structure and some large stone container that had originally been within it. He didn't speculate on what it had contained. His vantage had sight lines to the temple door and a few points along the walk there.

Emotion, yet peace. The red-centered ferns rustled in a hint of breeze. It would be so easy to pretend nothing was wrong if not for the ice Dooku carried with his presence. Emotion, yet peace.

Anakin felt his legs cramp and silently rocked his weight in the narrow gap. A bird chittered in the trees.

Then, like an omen of a sandstorm, silence fell on the rainforest. Dooku's oily-cold-slick presence oozed onto the fabric of the Force.

Heart in his throat, Anakin swallowed. Emotion, yet peace. Existence, yet invisibility.

Dooku walked straight to the temple, silent as a ship without fuel. Anakin counted to ten before breathing slightly more easily.

Then Dooku exited the temple and homed in on Anakin's position like a missile. There was a wall behind him, he'd wedged himself in between another and a large container, the only way out was forwards into Dooku's path.

Anakin did not have any illusions about his ability to do anything about Dooku in his hiding spot. He left it just as Dooku leaped onto the platform.

Dooku froze. “Skywalker?”

“Expecting someone else?” Obi-Wan would've had something wittier to say, but Anakin was here and Obi-Wan wasn't. Yet.

Dooku stared at him and started slowly circling around him. “I must admit, I did not expect for you to be able to defeat Sidious. He was a master of the Dark Side and lightsaber combat, whereas you seem to have little talent for anything save being an annoyance.”

Anakin resisted the urge to roll his eyes or point out his aptitude for pod racing. “Didn't the Force tell you he died of annoyance?”

“Ah.” Dooku looked impressed despite himself. “Such petty talents will not save you from me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Extremely.” Dooku lit his lightsaber. The streak of blood-red plasma did not fit with the cool-toned jungle and stone around it.

Anakin lit his own lightsaber. “Aren't you going to monologue some more?”

Dooku stared at him like he would at an insect stuck to the bottom of his boot. “I suppose I should thank you for dealing with Sidious for me, but your fate remains unchanged.”

As they prowled around each other like the wildcats of the surrounding jungle, Anakin was struck by an idea. A grin spread on his face. Singing had worked on two Sith Lords; why would it not work on a third one? “You know, Count, you can surrender at any time.”

Dooku scoffed. “Why would I want-”

“You're a party girl going through the core worlds,” Anakin began singing.

“Urgh!” Dooku lunged at Anakin.

The strike was kind of shitty by Dooku's standards. “This was all set from when our eyes met,” Anakin continued, doing his best to increase the annoyance quotient.

Dooku winced and looked like he wanted nothing more than to clap his hands over his ears. Alas, he was doing his best to look like a true aristocrat who'd never do anything so crass, and was wielding a lightsaber besides.

There was something liberating about belting out an annoying earworm while clashing lightsabers, as if it was all just practice or a comedy skit, since nothing serious could happen to that background music. Anakin couldn't help but grin as he hit the second refrain and his and Dooku's blades started clashing to the beat of the song.

“I surrender!” Dooku yelled.

Silence. “Uh.” Birds sang in the distance. “Turn off your lightsaber and drop it.”

Dooku did as asked. Anakin summoned the lightsaber to his hand and hooked it on his belt. The pain and hatred dripping off it was unpleasant, but bearable as long as he wasn't holding it.

“Do you have a plan beyond this moment?” Dooku asked.

Anakin considered quoting Obi-Wan quoting Master Jinn about living in the moment, but it wouldn't have the impact if he got the words wrong and he didn't want a face full of lightning. “Obi-Wan and Master Windu are coming. Sit down with your hands behind your head and wait.”

Dooku knelt down on creaking knees and placed his hands behind his head with surprising poise. The slight wind ruffled his white hair.

He had a dignity to him, true, but mostly he looked ... old. Old and tired. The illusion of the untouchable Count, the powerful Sith, had been shattered the moment he knelt. Only the crude flesh remained.

“Skywalker?”

Anakin gripped his still-lit lightsaber tighter. “What?”

Dooku looked like he was in physical pain. “Could you sing something else?”

It took a moment for Anakin to process the request. “What?” he repeated.

“Anything that'll get that accursed song out of my head.”

Anakin laughed. Oh, this was- This was hilarious. “Sure.” He did his best to keep his mouth straight and failed.

What to sing? He considered and discarded a whole slew of popular music from his teens. “Oh slave girl, oh slave girl, your freedom will come,” he hesitantly sang. “There's a storm on its way that will kill slaver scum.”

Anakin did not count the time Dooku spent on his knees listening to him singing a Tatooine folk song with ever-accelerating tempo, but he had almost run out of song to sing when the roar of a gunship drowned him out. He reached out with the Force and felt Obi-Wan's familiar worry, Mace Windu's decisive aura, the presence of a dozen clone troopers he didn't recognize. He poked at Obi-Wan with the Force and waved the shuttle down without looking.

The Jedi, of course, hopped out of the gunship lightsabers blazing before it had come anywhere near touching down. “I see you've had a productive day, Anakin,” Obi-Wan yelled over the engines' roar.

“Want to take custody of him? I have his lightsaber.”

The moment Windu signed affirmative, Anakin switched off his lightsaber and collapsed into Obi-Wan's arms. He listened to Dooku being tied up and led to the gunship, gave directions to his fighter and Palpatine's corpse, and felt like he was on the brink of an out-of-body experience as he sobbed onto a panicked Obi-Wan's shoulder.

Then he was led to the gunship himself and some hindbrain automation must've taken over, because he stopped crying and took a hold of a strap like it was just another day on the battlefield. “Sorry for the breakdown,” he added.

Obi-Wan and Windu exchanged a look. “Under the circumstances,” Windu said, “I would be more concerned if you didn't have a breakdown.”

“Oh.” Anakin tried to fit this into his mental models of Mace Windu, the Jedi, and human behavior. The conclusion he drew was that he needed a nap. “I'm not done with the breakdown, but I think I'm going to take a nap first.”

Obi-Wan and Windu exchanged another look. “You can borrow my bed,” Obi-Wan said.

“Thanks.”

They left atmosphere in an awkward silence made more awkward by the Sith Lord's corpse hissing out darkness in the corner and the other Sith Lord collapsed unconscious where Waxer had decided to stun him for everyone's safety. Anakin didn't disagree with him.

“Artoo was worried,” Mace Windu said once they were flying mostly-silently through vacuum.

Anakin rubbed his face with his free hand. “I'll give him an oil bath.”

“No, it's-” Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “What happened to make you take your lightsaber to yourself?”

“Oh. Uh, I was being possessed by Emperor Vitiate and didn't want to bring him anywhere near civilization, so I tried to kill myself somewhere he wouldn't have another sentient to hop to.” Anakin shrugged. “I think he used the Force to keep me alive? I was unconscious for it so it's a bit unclear.”

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan let go of his strap to place both his hands on Anakin's shoulders because he was an idiot who'd never seen a single safety regulation he didn't want to break. “No matter how you feel, please don't do anything drastic. You know how you can always come talk to me.”

“I want to take a nap, Master, not commit suicide,” Anakin sighed. “Please grab a handhold before you get hurt.”

Obi-Wan did not grab a handhold and instead wrapped himself around Anakin. “I'm sorry,” he said, despondency rolling off him in waves. “I failed you, I'm sorry.”

“Um.” Anakin didn't mind the hug – Obi-Wan was free to hug him whenever – but he did not know how to deal with this. He glanced at Mace Windu beseechingly.

“I think you should let Anakin take a nap first, Obi-Wan,” Mace Windu gently said.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan said and straightened up.

Anakin was having none of it and pulled him right back into the hug. “Grab a handhold,” he said. “You can find some above yourself.”

Obi-Wan sighed but lifted one hand to grab a strap while the rest of him was wholeheartedly embracing Anakin. Anakin's sense of the Force was wound tight around him after prolonged exposure to Nathema, but unfurling slightly showed that Obi-Wan was happy about the hug and even Windu thought it was cute, so he didn't feel bad about it. He'd just steal this moment of contentment before taking a nap and then giving a mission report and confessing all his misdeeds to the Council. Then he'd take another nap when they kicked him out of the Order or threw him into jail or whatever.

“I must ask,” Mace Windu said, “how did you get Vitiate out of your head, kill Sidious, and convince Dooku to surrender within the space of a few hours at most?”

Anakin really should've been expecting that. “I sang ‘Party Girl’ at them on repeat.”

“‘You're a party girl going through the core worlds’...?” Mace Windu sang.

“Yup, that one.” Anakin would've shrugged had that not had the potential to dislodge Obi-Wan. “Turns out earworms make Sith froth with so much rage they become easy pickings.”

“I don't think I've heard it, sirs,” Waxer said. “Could you-”

“No,” Obi-Wan interjected. “Absolutely not. I do not want to hear that Force-forsaken earworm ever again, do you hear?”

Anakin laughed. “Yes, Master.”

“I guess we'll just have to look it up on the holonet, Waxer,” said a clone whose name Anakin didn't know.

“As long as I don't have to listen to it,” Obi-Wan muttered as they flew into the Negotiator's docking bays.

Anakin held on to Obi-Wan for a moment longer as they touched down. Then Windu picked up Dooku, and Anakin let go of Obi-Wan. “Have you changed the keycode to your door?”

“No, you should still have access.” Obi-Wan let his arms drop to his sides but didn't move to help Windu set up Dooku's holding cell.

«The organic is not dead!» R2-D2 chirped from the hangar.

A grin blossomed on Anakin's face as he saw his favorite droid was all right. “Hi, buddy. I'm-” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Sorry for leaving you. I'll give you an oil bath tomorrow, okay?”

«The organic is alive only due to determined R2-D2 telling organic Windu about the organic's processor malfunctions!»

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Artoo, could you escort Anakin to my quarters, please?”

«Dutiful R2-D2 will ensure the organic is not misplaced!» R2-D2 then spun in place expectantly.

“Yeah, he's doing it,” Anakin said after he remembered that Obi-Wan still didn't speak binary despite raising Anakin from the age of nine.

“I'm entrusting him to your care,” Obi-Wan told R2-D2, then left to catch up with Dooku's procession with a final squeeze of Anakin's shoulder.

Anakin was left – not alone, or even bereft of organic existence nearby, but his immediate surroundings were silent from the bustle and buzz of people. For a moment, he was back on Yavin. Then R2-D2 beeped and slowly rolled out.

Obi-Wan's door let him in as promised. Anakin stripped down to his underwear on autopilot and collapsed onto the bed. He fell asleep within moments.

The Force was calm and someone was petting his hair. “Morning,” Anakin mumbled.

“It's actually the evening,” Obi-Wan said. He withdrew his hand; Anakin grabbed it with the Force and brought it back to his head. Obi-Wan chuckled.

“Keep doing that,” Anakin said and drifted off again.

The second time he woke, Obi-Wan was still petting his hair, but Master Windu had joined them in the room. “Morning?” he hazarded, now actually something approaching awake.

“Good morning, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin rolled to his back and stretched. He didn't recall when he'd last felt this rested. All that Vitiate business had been supremely stressful, and before that he'd been consumed by prep for Felucia-

He sat up bolt upright. “Ahsoka! How is-”

“She's fine, though she shares your talent for misadventure,” Windu said. “The invasion went well despite the fact that Ahsoka got kidnapped by Trandoshans. They brought her to an island they used to hunt sentient quarry, following which she liberated herself and all the survivors on the island, including three kidnapped initiates.”

“Kriff.”

“Her conduct was exemplary,” Windu continued. “She is a credit to your teachings.”

“Is she all right?”

“She isn't hurt.” Obi-Wan squeezed Anakin's bare shoulder. “Master Plo's fussing over her at the Temple.”

Anakin sank back down on the bed and covered his face with his hands. He hadn't wanted a padawan, but he had one, and he'd gotten – close. She was his friend and his responsibility; that she'd been kidnapped by some twisted club of sentient hunters was something he'd be having nightmares about. Had Obi-Wan felt like this whenever Anakin got in trouble? He felt an urge to apologize for being a magnet for trouble.

“She's safe now,” Windu added, radiating soothing crisis-over in the Force.

“What happens now?”

“With Sidious dead and Dooku in custody, the war will likely end soon. There will be political fallout, but that is for the Council to worry about.”

“Political fallout” wouldn't even begin to cover it. With the sitting Chancellor dead and implicated in treason, the Senate would be in an uproar. All of Palpatine's friends would want to sweep it under the rug and let Mas Amedda take the reins. “I did kill the Chancellor?” he hesitantly brought up.

Obi-Wan smiled tightly. “Conveniently, he is on record as saying that should we discover this Sith Lord supporting Dooku, we should kill him at once. So technically, you were simply following his own orders.”

“Oh Force,” Anakin breathed. That was hilarious.

“Moreover, given that you were possessed by a Sith Lord, we have an excuse to keep you out of the public eye,” Windu added. “The standard procedure is examination by a specialized mind healer to ensure you're under your own control followed by a six-month precautionary probation period. You'll be confined to the Temple for the duration with regular appointments with a mind healer. As you have a padawan, this will be forwarded to the Council of Remediation and your master-padawan relationship will be temporarily suspended for the duration of the probation. Depending on the High Council and Council of First Knowledge's findings, we can add other security measures, like forbidding you contact with the outside world.”

“We understand that you'd hate it,” Obi-Wan continued, “but it would-”

“No, it's fine.” Anakin waved him off. “I don't want to answer questions from the media, and I wouldn't want Vitiate unleashed on the populace, either.”

Obi-Wan and Windu shared a surprised look. “We will take that into account,” Windu said. “Now, get dressed and we'll feed you.”

They were only a few hours out from Coruscant when Anakin started eating, so the briefing was scheduled to happen in the High Council chambers in person. He dressed in a set of Master Windu's spare robes – Obi-Wan's wouldn't fit, and the Sith wellkeeper's were going straight to Master Nu – and ate with a gusto he hadn't felt since he was nine and starvation was an omnipresent reality echoing at the back of his head. He helped load a still-unconscious Dooku into a gunship and was silent through descent.

Ahsoka was there when they landed, fidgeting next to Master Plo's steady presence. The moment she spotted him, she launched herself over. “Master!”

“Hi Snips,” he said and twirled her around to bleed momentum. “I hear you had an adventure.”

“I'm sorry for getting captured,” she murmured when she was back on the ground.

Anakin patted her head. “Well, you're safe now, and I hear you did well out there. You even returned a bunch of initiates to safety.”

Ahsoka pressed her face into his chest and quietly said, “One of them died.”

“Oh, Ahsoka.” He kept rubbing between her montrals as he considered what to say. “As much as we might want to, we can't save everyone. I know it's hard, but instead of thinking about those who died, you should think about those who didn't. It's due to your efforts that the initiates and the other captives are safe now.”

“I know I should, but-” Ahsoka sniffled. Anakin made a soothing sound. “Does it get any easier?”

“Not necessarily,” Anakin said even if he wanted to soothe her with a lie.

Ahsoka groaned and leaned against him. “Urgh.”

He couldn't help but smile. “Exactly.” He gently pushed her up. “Now, when did you last eat?”

Her stomach growled. Her look of chagrin was adorable.

“Sounds like it's mealtime, Snips,” he said and patted her shoulder.

“Will you come?”

He hated to disappoint her, but. “I need to brief the Council on my misadventure. It'll be a while; don't be surprised if I don't turn up for latemeal. Now, go along.”

He pushed her off. With great reluctance, she turned and clomped off towards the refractory. He should get a nice large bantha steak for her tomorrow.

Except that tomorrow he'd be on probation or in a cell or kicked out, and definitely not acting as her master. He'd have to hope Obi-Wan remembered his carnivore grandpadawan's needs.

A pair of Temple Guards appeared in his vicinity. He followed them to the Council chambers' antechamber.

Poking with the Force revealed the chamber itself was empty. All the Council members on Coruscant must be busy with Dooku still. Anakin sat down on one of the meditation mats and waited under the Temple Guards' silent watch.

People came up the turbolift. Concern. Guilt. Anger. Frustration. Anakin didn't look too hard at the emotions, but the complex knot of them was loud and twisting.

The turbolift doors opened, revealing Obi-Wan, Master Plo, Windu, Yoda, and Adi Gallia. Obi-Wan looked wrecked, Windu like he needed a good five-hour sparring session to work through this bantha poodoo, and the rest wore various forms of concern. “We'll call you in in a moment,” Windu told Anakin as the Councillors entered the Council chambers.

Anakin closed his eyes and breathed. For all he'd spent his free life struggling against it, there was something remarkably freeing about leaving everything in someone else's hands. He would tell the Council what he'd done and then accept their judgement, whatever it may be.

The chamber doors swung open. Anakin entered.

“Knight Skywalker,” Mace Windu said. “Please report on everything that happened after you exited hyperspace above Felucia.”

“Yes, Masters.” Anakin bowed. “I, Master Plo, and our squadrons came out of hyperspace as planned over Felucia when the one vulture droid in the region got off a lucky shot to my hyperdrive ring. This caused a malfunction that sent me towards Sith space. I coupled with the Nache Bhelfia hyperlane going towards Rhelg.”

He went over everything that happened, doing his best not just to state what had happened but why he'd chosen the actions he had. Rhelg's part of the story was easy enough, but Nathema was hard. “After I woke up, I returned to the shuttle and attempted to comm for help, but the systems didn't work despite there being nothing wrong with them according to either me or Artoo. Then I remembered I could use the Force to reach out to people, so I sat down and did my best to send messages.”

“What did you send?” Shaak Ti asked. Her holo flickered. Kamino must be having its usual downpour.

“The Force presence of Nathema seemed unique enough, so I sent that.”

“I was on Malachor at the time,” Mace Windu said. “Nathema was certainly recognizable, if not in the Jedi Archives.”

An aborted argument over whether using the Force on Nathema helped Vitiate take over his psyche later, Anakin continued with the moment he realized Vitiate was possessing him and how he'd immediately turned his blade to himself. “I mean, it's not like I want to die, but a Jedi must be willing to sacrifice,” he said. “Besides, his expression was priceless.”

The explanation of the tomb robbery was straightforward enough, as was the arrival on Yavin 4. The whole plumbing the depths of his mind bit required a fair bit of backtracking over explanations about Tatooine naming traditions and deserts and water.

“Found your Master at the summit, you did?” Yoda asked at the relevant part. The old frog had perked up significantly at the more mystical bits.

“A vision of him,” Anakin said. “The summit transformed into a meadow and – he revealed that he wasn't Obi-Wan, but my conception of Obi-Wan, if that makes sense. Then we stopped at a door and he said I would defeat Vitiate by doing what I do best, then vanished.”

“What ... do you do best?” Obi-Wan asked in a tone bracing for something terrible.

He'd get something terrible, but not yet. “Well, I did try to ask how I was supposed to challenge Vitiate to a pod race-” Everyone laughed. Anakin hadn't been expecting that. “Then I ranted a bit about how my only talents were waving a lightsaber and being annoying, and lightsabering him obviously hadn't helped. At that point I realized I should try being annoying, stepped through the door, and sang Party Girl on repeat until Vitiate went poof and I was in control of my own body again.”

“You were inside the temple?”

“Yeah. See, Vitiate had gotten into a lightsaber duel with Sidious, so I sort of picked up from where I'd been left. Then I figured Sith were all the same, and sang Party Girl until Sidious's concentration faltered and I could stab through him.”

There was a brief discussion of Sidious's prowess with the lightsaber – excellent – before Anakin wrapped up the events of Yavin. Mace Windu showed a holo of Anakin pointing his lightsaber at a kneeling Dooku; Anakin hadn't considered it, but he did look quite snappy in the borrowed black robes.

“Thank you for your report, Knight Skywalker,” Mace Windu said. “You acted well in tough circumstances and ensured that Vitiate would not pose a threat to the Republic.” His gaze flickered for a moment as something complex went on in the Force. “The Council also owes you an apology. You have been a ward and member of the Jedi Order for twelve years, and for almost as long we've let a Sith Lord have access to you. We have failed you, and for that we are sorry.”

The Force rang with sincerity. “Oh.” Anakin opened his mouth. No words came out.

“Dism-”

“There's more,” Anakin blurted out.

“Go ahead,” a worried Mace Windu said.

Anakin told them it all. He'd meant to only tell them about the Tuskens, but now, it felt natural to tell it from the beginning: every conversation with Palpatine, the seeds of mistrust and secrecy planted in watered soil, the remarks on how Anakin was special and no-one understood him and the Jedi were holding him back – and how Anakin's failure had in the end been completely unrelated. He told the Council about the nightmares about his mother and how she'd died in his arms and he'd fallen to revenge.

Throughout, he watched the ground at Mace Windu's feet. That did not mean he couldn't feel Obi-Wan's heart break behind and to the side.

“Is that all?” Mace Windu quietly asked when Anakin fell silent.

“Yes.”

“Please wait outside, Knight Skywalker,” Mace Windu continued in the same quiet voice. “The Council has much to discuss.”

Anakin bowed deep and left the chamber with more poise than he'd had in his prior life. They hadn't asked for his lightsaber back yet, but they would.

Ahsoka was waiting in the antechamber. “What's wrong?”

The sorrow of the chambers seeped through even the emotion-stopping walls. Anakin sighed and sat down on one of the cushions.

A few moments later, Ahsoka joined him. “Is this about Palpatine?” she whispered, as if the matter was any secret if even she had heard about it on the gossip network.

At that moment, Anakin realized that his padawan thought that he was a good person, and like all padawans, had placed him on some sort of pedestal. Unlike most padawans, however, she'd have that pedestal broken. “Partly?” he hazarded. “But mostly- Look. I kriffed up. It was before I met you, and in no way your fault, but I kriffed up bad and only told the Council now.”

Ahsoka stared up at him. “What's going to happen to you?” she asked in a wobbly voice.

Anakin was not qualified to deal with wobbly voices. “I also got possessed by a Sith Lord, so, um, probation while they make sure I'm unpossessed? And a suspension of our master-padawan relationship.”

Ahsoka frowned. “But that's not fair! It's not like you decided to get possessed. Why would they put you on probation?”

“It's for your own safety, Snips,” Anakin said. “What if I were still possessed by the Sith Lord? This way the problem could be spotted in the Temple and no civilians would be harmed.”

Ahsoka sighed and the fight went out of her. “Okay. But what happened?”

“Well, first the Seps got a lucky potshot on my hyperdrive ring that sent me right over to Rhelg...” Anakin started, then told her a slightly sanitized version of his and R2-D2's adventures with Vitiate. If Obi-Wan's reaction was anything to go by, she did not need to know about the suicide attempt.

“Wait, did you really defeat three Sith Lords by singing?” Ahsoka asked.

“Nothing gives a Sith a rage aneurysm quite like an earworm,” Anakin informed her, then let himself be badgered into a Party Girl singalong that had his padawan in stitches.

The doors swung open. Anakin patted Ahsoka's head one last time and went to face his fate.

A deep hush settled over the chambers as the doors closed. Anakin waited, head bowed, and did not fidget. His heart hammered and he felt himself breathing faster, but his mind was calm.

“Knight Skywalker.” Master Windu did not sound angry, or smug, or vindicated, or like anything else Anakin would've imagined him sounding like when faced with Anakin's misdeeds. Instead, he sounded sad. “The Council has come to a judgement.

“As you have been possessed by a Sith Lord, you are to be given six months of probation with mandatory appointments with a mind healer and your masterhood of Padawan Ahsoka Tano will be suspended for the duration of the probation. Padawan Tano will be under the supervision of the Council of Remediation.

“You have also confessed to mass murder and a brush with the Dark.” Master Windu closed his eyes, and – was that regret surrounding him? “The Council debated on what the best response might be. Given that this incident has not repeated itself, you captured Dooku alive, and the ameliorating circumstances regarding your exposure to Darth Sidious, the Council has elected, with eleven votes for and one abstention, to extend your probation from six months to a full year, including the mandatory appointments with a mind healer and the suspension of your masterhood of Padawan Tano. Additionally, you will be forbidden contact with the outside world, and Padawan Tano will be given the option of ending your master-padawan relationship permanently. You will also perform community service for the duration of your probation, including to the Tusken Raiders. The details of that will be decided upon later.”

“I was the abstention,” Obi-Wan choked out. “As was traditional.”

Anakin pivoted to face him. While usually, Obi-Wan was all snark and aura of untouchability, now he looked desolate. The white in his hair and the tear tracks on his face caught the light. His back was bowed. He looked like he'd gained decades overnight.

Anakin bowed. He didn't know whether it was traditional, but- Obi-Wan had raised him. He deserved at least that piece of respect.

“That is all,” Master Windu said. “Report to the mind healers while the Council of Remediation informs Padawan Tano of your crimes.”

“I'd rather tell her myself.”

The Council was silent for a moment. “Very well,” Master Windu said. Anakin thought he detected a note of approval in his voice. “You will tell Padawan Tano yourself under the supervision of the Council of Remediation.”

“Thank you.”

Master Windu nodded. “Any questions?”

“I thought I'd be thrown out of the Order,” he quietly admitted.

“It is very hard to be thrown out of the Jedi Order,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said. “We prefer to reform our errant members.”

“And those beyond reform are almost always too dangerous to release on the general public,” Shaak Ti continued.

Anakin nodded. “One more thing,” he said. “Will Ahsoka see a mind healer? Obi-Wan too.”

“I don't think I-” Obi-Wan began before being silenced by the unimpressed looks of the rest of the Council and his former padawan.

“Padawan Tano will also be directed to a mind healer, and Master Kenobi will be highly encouraged to see one himself,” Master Windu said. Based on his tone, “highly encouraged” probably meant “dragged bodily”. Anakin didn't mind.

“I humbly accept the judgement of the Council,” Anakin said and bowed.

The mood in the chamber relaxed with the official end of the session. Master Windu rose. “I'll escort you to the Chamber of Purification.”

“I'll escort Ahsoka,” Master Plo said to no-one's surprise.

The councilmembers on holographic connections disconnected, leaving Master Yoda walking over to Obi-Wan and Adi Gallia to ... probably deal with the Senate. Anakin didn't envy her in the least.

Anakin smiled wanly at Ahsoka as they passed her in the antechamber. She made for him but was intercepted by Master Plo. “What's going on?”

“Go with Master Plo,” Anakin said; he was, for a few moments more, her official Master, he thought, so he might as well act like it.

“Is this about-” Ahsoka cut herself off and glanced at Master Plo and Master Windu, as if she were keeping his misdeeds secret from the very people to whom he'd just confessed.

“Anakin will tell you himself soon,” Master Plo said. Ahsoka's reply was cut off by the lift doors closing.

“So,” Anakin said and fidgeted awkwardly. “Out of curiosity, what are the infractions that have people thrown out of the Order?”

“Using one's status as a Jedi for personal gain, mostly,” Master Windu replied. “Various forms of financial fraud. Quite rare, and nothing I'd believe you to be interested in.”

“People do that?”

“Very rarely. I don't think we've had an incident in the time you've been in the Order.”

Anakin made a noise of acknowledgement as the turbolift came to a halt. He could feel the panic welling up inside him, but he could hold that in for a few hours more. The Council's mercy had stolen some wind from those sails and made it easier.

He drew a breath and thought of all the things he still had to do, like he had done since he'd been deemed old enough to work, and used them to drown out everything else. He didn't delude himself into thinking he wouldn't collapse once he was done, but for now, he could follow Master Windu down the halls.

Vitiate had been thoroughly scraped out, Master Vhrati reported after a few minutes of poking around Anakin's mind, and Ahsoka elected to make the suspension of their master-padawan relationship temporary. Anakin couldn't pretend to guess what was going on in her mind, but she had Master Plo, the Council of Remediation, and a mind healer looking after her, so she would hopefully be fine. He spent a day freaking out first on the floor of his room and then at a mind healer before gradually approaching functionality.

In his case, community service ended up being maintenance. There was something almost meditative in digging into the Temple's guts and fixing anything that had broken. He said as much to his therapist. Then they dug into his issues with meditation, self-esteem, and authority figures, and Anakin spent a month wanting to curl into a ball and die, but he'd fix himself, for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka's sakes if not his own.

Then Master Yoda turned up behind his door. “Good evening, Master Yoda?” Anakin said, more than a bit surprised. He'd have thought the Council would rather pretend he'd never existed.

“Time, do you have?” Master Yoda asked. “Meditate with you, I would.”

Anakin let him in. “I'm afraid I don't have any tea.”

“Necessary for meditation, is that?”

“No, Master Yoda,” Anakin sighed. “I think I have a second meditation mat here somewhere...”

As he rummaged through the pile of junk that had accumulated with the assumption that no-one would visit him for months at least, he poked at Yoda's mental state gently. Not too judgemental. Good.

“Here!” Anakin found the spare meditation mats, originally acquired for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, and presented them to Yoda with a flourish.

Yoda chose the one Ahsoka had used. “Begin, shall we?”

Anakin took his own – stashed beneath the couch – and sat cross-legged. Yoda exuded a sort of tranquil silence, so sinking down into a meditative state was easy.

His appointments had started digging at the whole legacy of slavery stuff, so he gently steered his thoughts at Tatooine and the thought patterns he'd unwittingly been taught. Then he breathed.

Accept that the past happened and cannot be changed. Accept that the past happened and is what brought you here.

He could feel Yoda probing at him. He sent a wave of acknowledgement and continued with his meditation.

Someday they'd get to grief and mourning, for both his mother and for the childhood he should have had. For now, he meditated on what he'd discussed in his sessions in the evenings and did untargeted meditations in the mornings.

The Force felt clearer now that Palpatine was gone. Anakin gladly let it guide his thoughts and basked in its light.

Eventually, he rose back to the material world. As always, he had something of a post-meditation hangover – part of the reason he'd disliked it so as a padawan – and a sense of relaxation.

“Well, you are doing,” Yoda said. “Visit, young Tano may, under supervision.”

“How is she?” The words tumbled out of his mouth with little input from his brain. “Is she doing all right? What about-”

Yoda rapped his gimer stick on the floor. “Your silence, I need, to answer your question,” he said with a fond headshake. “Hurt, young Tano was, but meditated upon the matter she has. Well, she is doing. Missed you, she has. Petitioned the Council to see you, she has.” Yoda paused for emphasis. “Repeatedly.”

Anakin covered his face with his flesh hand. “Sorry. I think she got that from me.”

Yoda snorted. “Inherited that trait, you have. Met your Master, have you? Met Qui-Gon Jinn, have you?” He leaned over. “Met me, have you?”

“...you may have a point,” Anakin admitted.

“Come visit you, with Council supervision, your young padawan shall,” Yoda declared.

“Thank you, Master Yoda.” Anakin bowed.

“More questions, do you have?”

“Yes, Master. I'd like to know about Obi-Wan and the clones and the political situation outside. Who's the Chancellor now?”

“In an uproar, the Senate was, but over, now, the war is, and happy, the senators are. Signed, a peace treaty has been, written by Senator Amidala.”

Anakin smiled. Padmé was doing well and hopefully not worrying about him. “Have they elected a new Chancellor yet?”

“Campaigning, they are.” Yoda sighed. “Fishing for Jedi endorsement, they are. Tested their midichlorian levels, we have. Sith, they are not.”

“And Dooku was Sidious's only apprentice?”

Master Yoda looked pensive. “Grooming you, we think he was, to replace Dooku. Glad, we are, that you stopped him.” He sighed and suddenly looked like all his centuries weighed down on him. “Face a war crimes tribunal, my padawan shall. Spoken to him, I have, yet ignore me, he does. Join the light, he still could. Never too late, reform is.”

“It is hard to admit fault.”

“A Jedi, he was.”

“It might be easier to get through to him after the tribunal,” Anakin suggested. “When he has nothing to point at and say, ‘I only need to last through that’.”

“And if execute him, they will?” Yoda's ears drooped.

Anakin tried to smile reassuringly. “You know how slow the Republic is to do anything.”

Yoda sighed. “Correct, you are. Listen to me then, he might.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Yoda made his excuses. Anakin only realized Yoda had dodged the question about Obi-Wan when his presence had faded from the corridor outside.

A bit under a day after Yoda came knocking, a familiar sense of anticipation built somewhere outside Anakin's door. He set down the mouse droid and flicked open the door with the Force before Ahsoka could knock.

“Mas- Anakin!” she said half a second before Anakin had his arms full of high-velocity Togruta.

“Hi Ahsoka,” he wheezed out while staggering backwards.

“Anakin,” Master Plo sedately greeted him from the door. Amusement radiated off him.

“Hello, Master Plo.” Anakin set his Togruta on her feet. “Please come in.”

Ahsoka probably wasn't here to meditate with him, so he left the meditation mats beneath the couch and pushed out the good chair for Master Plo. He really should get something to serve his padawan if she was allowed to visit.

“How are your studies?” Anakin asked Ahsoka.

She rolled her eyes. “It's fine. How are you? I haven't seen you in months and I had to complain to the Council so many times before they'd let me see you!”

A smile tugged at Anakin's lips. He gave in and patted her head. “Well, Ahsoka, I have it on good authority that you inherited that tenacity all the way from Yoda. And you'll be dealing with that with your padawans when you get them.”

“But how are you?”

“I'm – better.” He considered what to tell her and how. “Like, I knew all the Jedi philosophy but on some level didn't want it to apply to me? I've been working on that in therapy. I guess Palpatine exacerbated all the blocks, but that wouldn't have worked if I hadn't let it. Other than that, I've been repairing all the mouse droids. Did you know there's an automated maintenance facility? I've been fixing that as well, and upgrading some of the features.”

“Will they encrust Master Yoda in glitter?” Master Plo asked. “Like you did when you were eleven.”

“You what?” Ahsoka gasped.

“I was trying to hit one of my classmates, I didn't know Master Yoda would be walking through that door!” Anakin objected. He drew himself up into Obi-Wan's trademark Serene Jedi Master posture and added, “If the Council wishes to have glitter dispensers be part of the standard equipment of mouse droids, they can put in a request.”

Master Plo nodded. “It did put quite a shine on the following Council session.”

“The one where Master Yoda called Obi-Wan in and chewed him up while I scrubbed the floors?”

“Any distress of Obi-Wan's was caused purely by Mace unleashing a stream of puns he was forced not to laugh at.”

“Figures,” Anakin sighed. “Anyway, how have you been doing, Snips? Have you learned anything new?”

“I've been helping Senator Chuchi with all the bureaucracy and such related to Palpatine's demise and clone citizenship,” Ahsoka complained. “It's important, I know, but it's so boring. I don't know how anyone stands all those committees.”

“Do you at least get to complain to someone afterwards?”

“Riyo also has her complaints, and I guess there's Barriss.” Ahsoka sighed. “I don't really want to bother the men.”

“Probably for the best. How are they holding up?”

“They miss you, too.” Ahsoka looked sheepish. “Uh, they wanted holos?”

“They wanted-” Anakin sighed. Sure. Whatever. “Of me sitting on my couch?”

“You existing,” Ahsoka said. “Master Plo, could you-?”

“I can take the holos,” Master Plo agreed.

Ahsoka leaned on Anakin's shoulder and told him to pull a face. They spent a few minutes taking holos on the couch, Anakin holding up the mouse droid he was repairing, before spending the rest of the evening chatting about the latest Temple gossip and an extremely controversial take on the nature of the Force someone had anonymously posted onto the Temple network.

The evening ended long after sundown when Master Plo escorted Ahsoka out. She told him the padawans had made a musical based on his Vitiate ordeal and the premiere was in a few days; he'd completely missed this, but agreed to accompany her. Barriss was in charge of costuming, apparently.

A tenday later, Anakin was happy with his relationship with Ahsoka, who came to visit mostly with Master Plo but sometimes with other Council members, and was even okay with his relationship with most members of said Council. Watching a musical based on his own experiences had been a surreal experience, especially when it starred a female Zabrak as him, Master Tiplar as Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu as Vitiate – and R2-D2 as himself – but somehow Ki-Adi-Mundi, Ahsoka's chaperone for the day, could get him to laugh at the experience.

The one glaring exception was Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom Anakin hadn't seen since the Council had sentenced him. He wasn't allowed a comlink and didn't want to interrupt Ahsoka's visits with what was likely a bad topic, but opportunity would present itself when the Force willed it.

Opportunity presented itself four days later. Anakin was fixing a mouse droid recharge/redeploy station next to Master Windu's quarters when Master Windu returned.

“I must confess I had no idea there was a mouse droid access there,” Mace Windu said.

“There are access stations all around the Temple. Mostly even in reasonable places.” Anakin put the access panel back on. “There. Now it just needs to run diagnostics for a while.”

Behind him, Mace Windu nodded. “I noticed you in the audience last week.”

“Oh, yeah, Ahsoka wanted me to see it. Barriss did a good job with the costumes.”

“I believe this is the shortest turnaround for a play based on real circumstances.”

“Huh.” Anakin noticed Mace Windu poking at his emotional state in the Force. He poked right back, then allowed the inspection. “It did give me the chance to reflect on the whole thing, though, and see the good in what happened. For instance, I don't think I'd have been able to resist the whole seduction to the dark side thing if it had been you talking.”

Mace Windu stared at him. Anakin could imagine the question exuding from him: Are you flirting with me?

I have no kriffing idea, Anakin thought, then brought up what he'd intended to ask. “Anyway. How's Obi-Wan doing? Ahsoka's come to visit, but she hasn't spoken of him, and Yoda evaded my question.”

Mace sighed. “I'll tell you over tea.” He waved open his door and invited Anakin in.

“Not well, then.”

“No.” Mace turned on the kettle and picked out two cups from his mismatched collection, as well as a teapot that did not match anything in the apartment.

Before, Anakin would've pressed him, needed to know everything immediately. Now, he recognized the need to gather thoughts and let Mace do so.

Whatever Anakin had expected from the Master of the Order's apartment, this wasn't it. There wasn't much furniture, just a low table with meditation mats piled next to it and a higher table with one chair. Both were a dark, smooth wood with the marks of decades of wear. There were a few brush paintings of the Room of a Thousand Fountains on the walls; Anakin suspected Master Billaba had made them as a padawan.

“Take a seat.” Mace set the teapot and mugs on the low table. “It's spiced nysillim tea.”

Anakin took one of the meditation mats and sat on it while Mace poured the light blue tea. Up close, he noticed that while his cup might be dark blue with a glazing that evoked a starry sky, Mace's cup might be a shimmering purple, and the teapot white, all had cracks in them that had been repaired with gold.

The tea was fragrant and sweet. “It's good.”

Mace made a pleased noise, then set his cup on the table. “Obi-Wan blames himself.” He held up a hand pre-emptively. “We've tried talking to him, Yoda especially, but he thinks he should have raised you better and also noticed that you'd done wrong.”

“Has he seen a mind healer?”

“He has, though I suspect his sessions mainly consist of him trying to figure out how he should have done better.” Mace took a measured sip of his tea. “You must understand that while he disliked your relationship with Palpatine, he had spent a decade judging Palpatine safe enough to leave his padawan alone with. He was struck hard.”

“Huh.” Anakin went over his memories. It did make sense. “But the rest of the Council wasn't so keen?”

“Let's just say that for a while, it looked like you were trading sexual favors for material wealth.”

Anakin blinked. “I– What?” He was struck with an image of himself on his knees in the Chancellor's office and was so horrified he had to laugh.

“I am not sure if I'd have preferred that to reality.” Mace sighed. “And while there is always room for improvement, with Obi-Wan being in his current state, it's better not to tell him. Yoda's taken him off the list of Masters waiting for padawans as a precaution.”

“I don't think he'd apply for one anyway – he said I was enough headache to last a lifetime.”

“Hm.”

They finished their cups in contemplative silence. Mace poured another round. “Out of curiosity, if you were to give constructive critique to Obi-Wan, what would you say?”

“Well, apart from the whole ‘get magical Sith-detecting powers’ thing...” Anakin drummed his flesh hand's fingers on the table. “He told me at the start that relationships were built on reciprocity and then proceeded to dance out of the question every time I wanted to know more about him as a person. It's like he was allergic to personal disclosure and safety belts. Actually, he's the one who's been throwing himself out of windows, but somehow I got the reputation for being reckless just for following him, and-” Anakin's brain caught up with his mouth. “I love him, it's just-”

“-minor annoyances have a habit of piling up?”

Anakin considered it. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “I miss him.”

“Your relationship will likely be irrevocably changed, but he will come talk to you eventually. Make the most of it.”

“I'll meditate on it,” Anakin said, because he did need to do so. “If he asks, tell him I'd like to talk.”

Mace nodded. “I shall.”

Anakin's datapad chose that moment to beep. “Looks like the diagnostics are ready.” He rocked his weight. “I should-”

“Go.” Mace smiled.

“Thank you for the tea.” He bowed and returned to the mouse droids.

Obi-Wan would speak to him eventually. He didn't really have anything he needed to discuss, didn't have anything weighing on his mind save wanting to reconnect, but perhaps he should still discuss strategies with his therapist? He didn't want to ruin this through his own stupidity.

It took months for Anakin to actually see Obi-Wan. He'd gotten the occasional update from Ahsoka's chaperones – a diplomatic mission to Felucia, consulting on and lobbying for the clone rights bills in the Senate – but the man himself had not sought out Anakin and had apparently also kept his distance from Ahsoka.

However, he was still a Jedi who lived in the Temple, and Anakin was just wrapping up a fix where one architectural style joined another with a half-meter offset in floor levels and crawlspaces when he felt Obi-Wan's presence. He reached out discreetly. Yes, Obi-Wan was walking down the corridor right towards Anakin. He hurriedly finished fastening the safety covers and squirmed back to the access hatch.

He dropped down not a meter in front of Obi-Wan. “Hi, Obi-Wan! Long time no see.”

Obi-Wan jumped back with his lightsaber out. “Force, Anakin, I almost stabbed you.” He sighed and put his lightsaber back on his belt. “I hope you've been well.”

“I have.” Anakin waited for Obi-Wan to start walking and stop looking vaguely panicked. He didn't. “The therapy's been useful. And – Master? I'm sorry I didn't listen to your teachings. I'd have been better off if I had.”

“No, Anakin, I'm sorry.” Obi-Wan swallowed. “I was your teacher. I failed you.”

“You didn't.”

“I must have, for you to do such things, or hold such views without me even knowing.”

“Master, I was the one who slaughtered those Tuskens, not you.” Anakin felt Obi-Wan reel, but not yield the point. “Do you blame Master Yoda for what Dooku did?”

“That's irrelevant. Dooku was a Master, while you were just a padawan. You were my responsibility, and I should have either raised you into someone who wouldn't do such things, or kept you from committing them.”

Anakin resisted the urge to groan. He rubbed his face with his hand. “So you insist on blaming yourself. Okay.” He sighed and looked Obi-Wan in the eyes. “Master? I forgive you.”

“But I cannot forgive myself.”

Before Anakin could respond, Obi-Wan turned and left. “Master, wait!” Anakin yelled, but Obi-Wan turned around a corner and disappeared into one of the more mazelike intersections of the Temple.

“Kriff,” Anakin muttered as he went back to retrieve his toolbox.

The crawlspace was dark and free of other people. Anakin wanted to be alone, so it suited him just fine. He'd have to meditate later, but now-

He curled up around himself. He'd known Obi-Wan wouldn't go back to being the kind, snarky Master he loved with just one conversation, but he'd still hoped, hadn't wanted to accept it in his heart.

Let go of your attachments, he told himself. Your attachment to people. Your attachment to things. And your attachment to the outcome of your actions.

Obi-Wan was stubborn and reckless, but he'd taught Anakin all of that as well, so Anakin would just out-stubborn him. From what Anakin had seen of mind healers, the entire profession was stubborn as well, and as Obi-Wan sat on the Jedi Council, his fellow Council members had ample opportunity to gang up on him and drag him to the mind healers if he tried avoiding them.

Still, it stung. He'd hoped Obi-Wan would accept the olive branch and reach back, but it seemed he needed more time.

Anakin gathered up his toolbox with a sigh. Well, he still had months left of his probation. When Obi-Wan was ready to talk, he'd be there.

The anniversary of his confession came sooner than he'd expected. It was hard to get information on Tuskens, but he had managed to dig out that they found their banthas important and didn't use machinery, as that would sever their connection to the land. The latter had axed his first half-idea of providing them with moisture vaporators, but the former had led to a chase through bantha import and export documents that revealed that moisture farmers' banthas had been hit hard by the Dxun Bantha Plague. Diseases knew no bounds, and the vaccine was something that the Tuskens would have no access to. Add orbital water surveying gear to the shuttle and they were good to go.

“You truly think there are untapped oases in the deep desert?” Mace Windu asked once they were in hyperspace.

“The Tuskens can use much smaller water sources than a settlement needs, and cities on Tatooine can only be founded by Hutts. The Hutts would never let anyone build something in the Dune Sea where they couldn't keep the occupants under their thumb. Plus, I can use the Force to enhance the scanning sensitivity of the equipment.”

Mace nodded. “And your means of conveying the information to the Tuskens?”

“Ancient Tusken stick sculpture language. If left near the banthas, they'll take note. If they already know most of the water holes described, they'll be more likely to trust that any new ones are legitimate, too.”

“And how do you propose to vaccinate the banthas?”

“No-one is outdoors at high noon if they can help it, so that's the best time to vaccinate the banthas. Night is also an option, but there are more guards then. I will ascertain the number of banthas and potential guards from afar before approaching from the direction of the suns.”

“And should the Tuskens spot you?”

“Run away and go vaccinate another tribe's banthas.”

Mace smiled. “Good.” He rose, cloak billowing out behind him. “Tea? We have H'Kak bean tea.”

A grin tugged at Anakin's lips. “Sounds good.”

The final clan on Anakin's itinerary was a small one to the south of Mos Ila. Most of the moisture farmers with banthas lived around Mos Espa and Mos Eisley, but a family near Mos Ila had a bantha cow, so Anakin had decided to include the Tusken banthas around the city in the vaccination programme as well.

A herd of perhaps a dozen banthas napped in the lee of a rock outcropping at Jundland's edge. The main Tusken camp was just out of view, tents strung up amidst the rocks in such a manner to provide shelter in case of a sandstorm.

One man – young, Anakin's age at most – was petting his bantha. Anakin reached out in the Force and felt the telltale signs of illness. He wasn't good enough to tell whether it was the Dxun Bantha Plague, but if it was, the vaccine should hopefully prevent its spread to the rest of the herd.

The Tusken man went back to the tents and their shade. Anakin counted to a hundred under the baking heat before carefully tiptoeing to the banthas.

One of the banthas spotted him. He reached out with the Force and lightly touched its mind. Friend, he said.

The bantha put its head back down and whuffed. Anakin sighed softly and loaded a vaccine cartridge into the vaccination gun. The bantha was a hearty and hale individual. It was easy to find a spot to press the gun into when he'd brushed away the hair.

The bantha twitched. Anakin sent soothing feelings to the bantha with the Force and moved to the next one.

With the routine he'd developed, it was fast work to work his way through the herd. Finally, he came to the sick bantha.

He placed a soothing hand on the bantha's neck. It whuffed softly. Love had embedded itself on its fur and care had kept it alive this long. It was sick, and wouldn't get better.

Anakin reached out with a tendril of Force and sent the bantha some strength. It was beloved by someone. Let it live.

The Force curled its finger. The bantha made a pleased sound as the illness fell from it.

“That's the spirit,” Anakin murmured as he pressed the vaccination gun to the bantha's shoulder.

With a final pat, he turned away from the banthas and the Tusken encampment and back to where Master Windu awaited between the dunes. He'd used up the supply of vaccines and built little stick sculptures for every tribe he'd visited.

Yellow sands stretched from horizon to horizon beneath a cloudless sky. No landmarks interrupted the wind-shaped undulations. The wind tugged at his tan cloak. He tugged it closer around him.

The suns had baked off his errors. The winds had whipped away his guilt. The sands had swallowed his past.

Like a mirage in the shimmering heat, Mace Windu rose from his post, he, too, covered in a pale borrowed cloak. The suns glinted off the body of his lightsaber.

Anakin bowed, penitent to parolekeeper. “It is done.”

“It is done,” Mace Windu replied, and bowed like benediction.

Like the scorpion who crossed the desert to find water, Anakin had crossed the desert to find atonement. He now followed Master Windu into their spaceship, ready to depart the planet he had spent less than half his life on.

He'd been nine when he joined the Jedi. Now he was twenty-two. They had taken the boy from the desert, and whatever conventional wisdom may be, the desert was slowly leaving the boy as surely as the land shrank in the viewport.

“We will have to discuss the matter with the Council, but I see no reason not to return you to active duty,” Mace Windu said as he steered the ship in an ascent.

“And Ahsoka?”

“That lies with the Council of Remediation, but if she still wishes to be your padawan, they will not deny her.”

Anakin made a satisfied sound and leaned back in his seat. It'd be nice to train with her again, and take her on missions in places that were not war zones. Maybe-

The ship's comm trilled. Anakin and Mace shared a look before Mace keyed on the holo.

“Master Windu. Anakin. I seem to have run into a spot of trouble,” Obi-Wan whispered, obviously cowering in a corner somewhere.

“What do you mean?” Mace asked. Anakin was having flashbacks to Geonosis.

“It seems Darth Maul is significantly less dead than we thought.” Obi-Wan peered over something, then abruptly ducked. “What was that song you sang, Anakin?”

“‘Party-’”

“Could you sing it?”

“Su-”

“Now?”

“Of course, Master.” Anakin took a deep breath and prepared to sing.

“If you drop your lightsaber and surrender, I will make it stop,” Obi-Wan yelled to someone outside the comm pickup range.

“You're a party girl going through the core worlds,” Anakin started singing.

On the other side of the comm, someone growled. Maul intermittently flickered into the holoprojection as his and Obi-Wan's lightsabers collided.

Obi-Wan was dodging and blocking with ease, and had called Anakin of his own volition. Perhaps they'd soon be all right.