Reality Changer

Chapter 3 - Seeing the Future

"So..." Harmony begins finally, once they're seated in the car again, on the way back to her house, "Just so you know, pretty much none of what Cassie said is true." He can feel how apprehensive and worried she feels, and it does not bode well.

"What of it was?" he asks, voice likely sharper than he intended.

"Not – I'll start from the beginning. It... starts with who Sidious is, and I'm not sure how you would handle hearing it right now."

"Tell me," Anakin orders. "If that's what I need to know..."

"It's someone close to you." Harmony glances at him before turning back to the road. He senses the first spike of fear from her, which is even farther unsettling. "It's Palpatine."

"It – what?" he hisses, voice rising a little. That's impossible. He couldn't have heard her correctly, because that doesn't make any sense. But he knows he did.

Palpatine. The very Chancellor of the Republic, and the one person Anakin has always trusted, always known that he could go to when no one else would help him. How – he can't understand. How could Palpatine be the Sith behind everything?

He wants to deny it, but the Force itself answers Harmony is telling the truth. He doesn't know how to feel or what to think, or anything. Because yes, he might have dealt with betrayals before but never anything like this. Not by the one person he never thought would betray him, the one person he always thought would be there, because he always had been.

How could the Council have noticed nothing? How could Anakin have noticed nothing? They spent so much time together, and – and it doesn't make sense. Palpatine isn't bad. He isn't.

"He's a very good actor," Harmony speaks up again, almost as though reading the direction his thoughts are going, "It's not really surprising that no one suspected anything. And he's very good at shielding."

Maybe, but... He's almost beginning to think that she was right, that he wasn't ready to hear this. But it doesn't matter. He needed to know. The Sith is right at the center of the Republic, still leading it to its destruction right now, and at least now maybe he'll have the opportunity to do something about it. Or at least maybe he'll be able to once he can think something sensible past the denial and crushing betrayal screaming through his mind right now.

"The rest of this isn't going to be any easier," she cautions, something he already figured out.

"Just tell me." He needs to know, whatever it is. He can deal with his whirl storm of emotions later. Putting it off won't change it.

"After the Clone Wars had been going on for about three years, Dooku and Grievous were finally killed, so the Republic had basically won the war." It's strange to hear her talking about this like it already happened when it's still the future for him.

"You were just getting back from months of begin gone in the Outer Rim, to find out that Padme was pregnant." Wait – did she really say...?! Yes, he's admittedly thought a little about having child before, but it was something he knew would never be able to happen so long as he stayed in the Order. Yet in the universe Harmony is talking about, he still was in the Order. Cassie's words flicker through his mind again, and suddenly he has a very bad feeling about where this is going.

"Then you started having nightmares about Padme dying in childbirth." Anakin opts to remain silent, listening numbly as she continues talking. "Shortly thereafter, you and the Council found out that Palpatine as the Sith Lord, and Windu decided to take Jedi to arrest him even though there wasn't enough evidence for the case to stand in the Senate. When they got there, somehow arresting turned into trying to kill him."