Brotherhood

Chapter 67 - The Exit

Author's Note: We're winding down. Let me know what you think about the pacing and everything. I'm a little uncertain about how it's all playing out. Lol.

~ Amina Gila

He watches the recordings late into the night, watches as a child is torn apart, piece by piece, and molded into a weapon. He watches as the child is shaped into something that he never wanted to me, something that he fought tooth and nail to resist.

And Mace Windu grieves the mistakes that the Jedi Order has made as he begins to finally understand exactly how much and how badly they have failed. But it is not too late. The Order is still standing. The Republic is still standing. He has allies, and he can find a way, with help from Dooku and former Senator Amidala, to stop Darth Sidious before he can diminish the Light in the galaxy and sow the seeds of Darkness even further.

***

Sidious does not say much of anything to Anakin during their return to Coruscant, disappearing back to his surface life without so much as a word. If Anakin didn't know better, he would think the Sith was hiding from him, from what happened. Or maybe, that's exactly what he's doing. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot forget the fear that he felt when he, somehow, did... whatever he did.

It is strange to think of Sidious as fearing anything.

But he does.

Anakin is glad to be alone, though, because he needs the time to himself to sort out his own head. He meditates for hours in the still quietness of the place he stays in the Works, trying to settle inside his own skin, trying to find a sense of calm that has always alluded him in the past. It works, partially, but he finds himself torn by questions about Sidious. At first, when Anakin was young, he had felt nothing but gratitude towards Palpatine, seeing him as the man who had been kind to him, accepting him after the Jedi rejected him. That gratitude changed to resentment when Palpatine showed him his other side.

It was shockingly easy to hate Sidious, hate what he stood for, the Master who kept Anakin and his mother enslaved. But he didn't always hate him. In recent years, it was more common to feel bitterness and resentment – and fear – than anything else, but before that... There had been a time when Anakin had genuinely believed that Palpatine meant well. He had looked up to him. He had respected him, even.

That... complicates things. It leaves him feeling incredibly uncertain of himself and of his path.

He doesn't have long to mull over everything though – only a couple days – before Sidious sends him a brief, terse message, telling him to go to Mygeeto to deal with a major CIS assault on the planet. Anakin does not particularly want to fight anymore, but he is good at following orders, and destroying droids is very different from killing people. So, he goes, leaving Coruscant and heading back to the frontlines.

A part of him wishes that he had the chance to talk to Sidious again in person before leaving, but... well, they are not friends. Anakin owes him nothing. That doesn't mean that he doesn't wish to... something. Help maybe? It sounds so insane, even in his own head, and yet, he cannot deny the feeling. Sidious has chosen his path, but he was a victim too, once, and perhaps feeling empathy for him is stupid, but it's not a feeling Anakin can shake.

The mission didn't sound so bad until Anakin does a little research into Mygeeto itself. Great. A cold, frozen, snowy planet. Exactly the kind of place he wants to go to, especially without any backup. ... But he is the Chosen One, the Sith'ari. He does not need backup. He is his own army, and the Force is with him.

Something hums in the Force, whispers of things to come, whispers of change, and Anakin doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't know what to make of any of the things that have changed since Mustafar. He doesn't know when he tapped into the Light, when its currents became familiar to him, as familiar and comforting as the Dark. He doesn't know how it happened that, accepting what his mother said to him, led him to letting go of the Dark, something he has only ever done once, months ago, when he was with Ahsoka.