Give Me Love

chapter fifty one

The Chancellor couldn't fool you with his trick ass bullshit.

Here you were, sitting across from him at his big mahogany desk, and his eyes were gleaming. Those beady little bird eyes. You never trusted them, not from the minute he stepped onto your holoscreen even before you came to Coruscant.

There was just something about the... smugness of him. The vast depth of his knowledge on things he shouldn't know about. How he spoke as if he was always one step ahead, peering into your mind, mocking you as if he knew something you didn't.

For all his confidence on the big screen, he was utterly useless behind closed doors.

"What do you mean, you don't know what to do?"

"I mean," the old man's tone was withering. Pleasantries had long gone out the window. "I cannot glimpse into the future like Anakin can. I know many things, but I do not know how to alter a premonition. I cannot change the course of life."

"So you're saying I should just accept my fate? I should just die?" I should just sit by and let it happen while Anakin ruins himself trying to save me?

The Chancellor's squinted eyes slid over me. Once, twice. He pursed his lips into a near invisible line, then cut his gaze to the view outside.

"Anakin, as I'm sure you know, is very powerful."

He is.

"And he is destined for great things."

"I thought you just said you couldn't see the future."

"You do not need to possess supernatural gifts to be able to know that, my dear child," he smiled thinly and continued on. "He is perhaps the most important person in the galaxy at this point in time. If his life is tied to yours, like you've supposed, then there is a real issue at hand."

Well no fucking shit. You've been here for thirty minutes, and he's just now coming to that conclusion?

He could read the annoyance on your face. "Forgive me if I'm taking my time piecing this together, child. This situation is dire, and my thoughts are scattered."

"Trouble in the Senate?"

"There is unrest everywhere these days," he sighed deeply. "But my priorities lie with you. Anakin is like a son to me, and to see him suffer like this– through losing you–" he shook his head. "If only the Jedi could see that the love you share is not a bad thing..."

Your shoulders slumped at that. Possibly the only good thing he's actually said this whole time.

"Do you think he should leave them?" you asked quietly.

"He will decide that when the time comes." His words were grim, musing as he neared the window. You wished he would turn around so you could see his face.

"Will the prophecy still apply if he's not a Jedi anymore? I mean, the one about him being the Chosen One?"

"A prophecy is a prophecy because it is destined to come true. Anakin, at his core, is not a Jedi. He is something else entirely, too powerful to put into words. So no– the prophecy will remain."

"And... you really don't see a way to alter his dream? Our future?" My death?

The Chancellor was quiet for a moment. Still as a statue, and as ancient as time itself it seemed, as he stood there unmoving– like he could sink right into the core of the planet itself and be right at home.

"When Anakin brought you back," he avoided your question. "He accomplished something only one person has done before since the beginning of time." His slow steps brought him back to his desk, robes dragging along the floor in his wake. "Since Darth Plagues died and his apprentice disappeared, the Sith have been searching for a way to create eternal life for thousands of years. Anakin, unknowingly, discovered a breakthrough."