Chapter Text
“Do it!”
The order (and it was an order, a command to be followed, must be followed. Do it!) won’t stop ringing around Anakin’s head.
Over and over he hears it, rotating like it had its own orbit within his skull.
Over and over he finds himself (unable to stop it, he can’t stop, he tries, for all his worth he tries, but the images won’t stop) replaying the execution of Dooku, of staring down into wide brown eyes. Wide with surprise, with pain, with…
A look of deep betrayal that burned as bright as the hottest of suns.
A look of betrayal, coupled with a two word order, spin and hiss, and snap and bite at his mind.
“Do it!”
He killed an unarmed opponent in cold blood on a two word order, with very little fight, with so little hesitation, it scares him, still scares him days later.
“Do it!”
He should not have done what he did.
Murdering Dooku in cold blood was not the Jedi way.
Not only that, with his death, with his murder, Anakin will never know why the old man had looked so betrayed in his final moments of life.
It wasn’t as if Dooku would have any reason to feel betrayed that Anakin was ending his life.
He had never cared before that Anakin was his great grandpadawan. Not in all the times they had fought, all the times he had electrocuted Anakin or sliced off his arm during their first ever duel, so that look of betrayal had certainly not been for him!
But, if not him, then who? There had been no one else there but Anakin.
And, of course, his Excellency.
Anakin rubbed his face.
He was so tired, so very tired of everything.
The war, the Council, thinking about Dooku, of two word orders that he followed so easily, without question. All of this compiled on top of the sick terror of his recent terrifying dreams about Padme, and now…
Now it looked as if-as if…
“… to accept a post as my personal representative on the Jedi Council.”
“Do it!”
Anakin blinked at the Chancellor, unable to stop what the Chancellor had just said and that two word order he had given back on the Invisible Hand from rolling together into one thought even though the two things had nothing in common with each other.
“I’m-I’m sorry?”
He felt awful, he truly did. He had spent much of their conversation not paying it the attention it deserved. The attention that the Chancellor always showed Anakin, even when Anakin was simply ranting truly about nothing but just needed someone to listen to him (someone who wouldn’t immediately get him to try and look at things from another point of view, someone who would simply sympathise and offer guidance without immediately trying to turn everything into some cryptic Jedi lesson), and there were much more important matters that deserved his undivided attention, the Chancellor always, always made time for Anakin. And yet, here was Anakin, letting his mind drift and not showing the same consideration in return.
And now he has missed something important, something vital, but despite his best efforts to replay what little he remembered of their conversation, and their conversation had appeared to follow the usual route they usually followed; they spoke of the War – that it must come to an end – a general agreement of where they both felt the Jedi Order was lacking.
And well – and he tried to ignore the burn of resentment in his chest – they had talked about Anakin having yet still not received the rank of Master – something Anakin wanted more than anything. To finally be recognised, to finally receive the validation that the risk the Council had taken in taking him in as a nine year had been worth it, that he had been worth it.
But these were all topics of conversations they had had so many times before that Anakin had mostly just gone through the motions while his brain focused on replaying Dooku’s death over and over again.
Now though, he wished he had been paying a little closer attention because clearly he had missed something and it was HUGE!
“I am asking for you to be my personal representative on the Jedi Council, dear boy.”
Oh… oh, they were going to love that. Anakin can already envision Master Windu’s temple, bludging and throbbing upon hearing about this.
“Do it!”
Be wary of Palpatine. That had been what Obi-Wan had said, hadn’t he, only a few hours ago?
(Hours, days? Who knew? Anakin can’t even remember the last time he slept a full eight hours, let alone trying to function on a normal day/night cycle.)
Had he… had he somehow known about this? Or was he simply speaking in general.
Anakin’s chest felt tight, because this was what he wanted!
What he had always wanted, to be a Jedi Master, to finally be seen as an equal, as being worthy. And above all of that, as a Master, he could access forbidden holocrons in the restricted vault and learn of ways to save Padme from his dreams.
But…
But…
But…
“I am overwhelmed, sir.” Speak carefully, chose your words wisely, Obi-Wan’s advised, threw their bond or simply from Anakin’s own imagination, “But the Council elects its own members. They will never accept this.”
They wouldn’t, he knows they won’t.
Or
They will because it has been demanded of them, but they will never see him as their equal. Never view him as being truly one of them, due to his place amongst them not being of their choosing, instead it was a position forced upon them by someone outside of the Order, by someone they did not like nor trusted. And by that extension, Anakin knows some of that distrust falls shadow over him by some in the Order.
“I promise you they will.” He could hear the Chancellor reassure, smiling all the while Anakin’s hands are flexing in and out of fists, “They need you more than they realise. All it will take is for someone to properly explain it to them.”
It feels like a threat.
“Do it!”
Why?!
Why did he keep thinking those two words, spoken in a voice that had sounded anything but the kind voice of the Chancellor, who he knew and loved like a grandfather?
Why did those words keep circling around his head alongside Dooku’s look of betrayal, of-of heart break?
As if everything he ever knew, ever trusted had been torn from him by the roots of his bones.
Accept, accept and then you’ll be able to save Padme.
They’ll hate you, never accept you, you’ll never have earned your place amongst them as you will forever been seen as being put there by the Chancellor, because of your friendship with him, not because you have earnt it. They will never, ever accept you for this
What does it matter when it’s to save Padme!!!
“DO it!”
“Do IT!”
“DO IT!”
“I-I - “Do it!” – humbly beg for your forgiveness your Excellence but - “Do it!” – I.” His face burned with shame, his head hung low so he could not look the Chancellor in the eyes as he refused his most generous of gifts – I’m sorry Padme. I’m so sorry – “I cannot accept you’re most generous of offers.”
“Anakin, if you are worried about the Council…”
Oh, he most certainly was, but that… that wasn’t… that wasn’t why…
he didn’t even really know why he was doing what he was doing, only that those two words – two little words, an order to be followed, without question, without thought – spoken by the Chancellor right before Anakin murdered Dooku – in cold blood while the old man looked broken and betrayed –
just won’t
stop
whirling
around
his
HEAD!
“I’m sorry, but I cannot. I…” he had no words, nothing he could say to express just how sorry he was for turning down such a marvellous gift – he was turning down the chance to save Padme! And yet in that same breath, why did a huge weight feel as if it were being lifted from his shoulders? – all he could do was bow and try not to bolt out of the Chancellor’s office, ignoring the Chancellor’s calls for him come back – the last call has sounded like an order, like the order to finish off Dooku, an order that Anakin’s feet had felt half incline to obey, only Anakin was already in the lift and the doors were closing and Anakin felt very, very light headed.
Had he made the right choice? The Force around him seemed to think so.
In fact, the Force appeared to be almost singing at his choice, which made no sense, no sense at all, did the Force want Padme to die? For her and their child to die?
No, no it did not.
But by his turning down the Chancellor, he might as well have just run them both threw with his lightsabre himself because without access to the restricted vault, access he could only have as a Master, they were doomed.
But the Force did not seem to think so, and if anything, it was pushing him to go and visit Padme, visit her and their unborn child and see just how alive they were.
For now, he thought but let himself be dragged along all the same.
There was no response to that in the Force, only a sense of calm and warmth the moment he entered Padme’s apartments to find her there, looking over a datapad only to drop it in surprise at his unexpected appearances.
Every moment with her, Anakin felt no sense of foreboding – though he could certainly feel something dark and angry brewing just beyond his reach but he feared to touch it, feared to bring it into this bright and warm moment with his wife, as she settled him onto couch, his head in her lap, feeling the gentle tap-tap of tiny feet – or was it elbows? Hands? – of their unborn child kicking the back of his head and her fingers in his hair.
His closed his eyes and tried to ignore orders to execute unarmed men, of unarmed men looking betrayed and hurt, as if they had just been stabbed in the back by a dear friend, by someone they trusted above all else.
Ignored that he had been given the chance to save Padme from death, in favour of sparing himself further looks of distrust, of anger, because he feared the reactions of the Council upon their learning that they were essentially being ordered to place him amongst their ranks by a man they did not trust.
He even ignored his dreams of Padme dying – which oddly, as he lay not quite asleep but near enough in her lap, the pit-pat of tiny feet drumming against his head, no such thoughts of her death entered his.
And any that tried to, ones brought on by his own musing, were quickly dispelled by a particularly solid thump against his skull by a wilful little girl who already, even before her birth (and her twin, though the existence of the two of them were of course, still an unknown fact at this point in time), was not going to put up with an overly dramatic father