full summary: Chancellor Palpatine fears that Mirial, a once-barren and now extremely prosperous planet, will secede from the Republic and join the Separatists. The Jedi fear this will doom them in the war. When an attempt is made on the Mirialan Senator's life, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is assigned to guard her until the threat passes. However, Anakin is given another task, off the record: to find out if the Senator is a Separatist spy, and to keep her in the Republic—at all costs.
author notes: I have so many fics in progress and hundreds of drafts, but this is the one that finally got finished. And here it is! Barriss/Anakin, but with Barriss being a shady Senator. This is based off Legends!Barriss, which is my preferred interpretation, where Barriss and Anakin are the same age. This takes place about a year into the war, so they should be around twenty-one. I posted this on ao3 as well, and you can check it out there by the same name. I thought I'd share it on here as well. Enjoy!
It's a bright, sunny day when Senator Barriss Offee almost dies.
The weather shifts into the temperate climate associated with the summery months, allowing the planet's inhabitants to get a glimpse of its famed sun through the clouds. Barriss squints at the sky. Being a member of the Senate, she is privy to most things if not all, and it is well in her knowledge that Coruscant's sun is embedded within layers and layers of noxious environmental toxin orbiting around the planet, and this is merely a simulation to bring the average citizens comfort and an incentive to work.
From the smiling, toiling people around her—construction workers, window cleaners, street sweepers—it certainly is a successful measure.
She smiles at a passing child and mother, and winks against the glare of the artificial starlight from the Senate building. Approaching a small pop-up café at the intersection, Barriss starts rummaging in her purse in search for some credits. She grimaces at the sound of, well, nothing. Instead, Barriss slides a loan card across the counter. "The usual, Anita."
The yellow Twi'lek twirls a caf container in the air and smoothly pours out a cup. "Coming right up."
Barriss snorts. "I don't need the show anymore. Pretty sure I'm keeping your shop running."
"That's pitifully true, on my part. Especially since you buy the cheapest item on the menu." She raises one thin eyebrow. "You carry very little money for someone who seemingly works in the Senate building. I'm dreading the day that card rings up empty."
"You and me both," mutters Barriss. "But I'm only toe-deep in debt at the moment."
"I've never related more." The oven snaps open. Anita takes out the tray. "And here is your favourite tin jelly pudding—"
Barriss feels a familiar shudder along her spine. Her vision blanks—
DANGER!
She crashes against the shop door, narrowly missing the projectile. A sleek, silver arrow sticks out from the building at the end of the street.
Everything stills. Her hood had flown off and all eyes burn into her face, particularly her distinctive tattoos. Anita gapes.
There goes her disguise.
Barriss pushes the tray aside. "I'll pick it up later." And runs.
She weaves through ground traffic as the arrows miss her by an inch every time. One narrowly catches her in the shoulder and Barriss swerves, hitting a very solid brick wall. "Blast!" Pain blossoms in her side. She gets out her blaster, half-limping, half-hiding behind the building. Barriss squints at the sky, trying to spot her assailant. There is a shadow zooming between speeders, heading straight for her. She twists to avoid another barrage of arrows aimed at her chest and pulls one out from the bricks behind her, wrapping it in cloth torn from her sleeve before disappearing around the corner. It might be helpful later.
Barriss looks around. Her spirits lift when she notices a particularly tall building—the Coruscant library. If she could only sneak to the back stairs ...
She watches the air traffic. One. Two. Three—
The waiting speeders zoom between each other all at once, so fast it seems the colours shimmer in and out of existence. Barriss notices her attacker drifting further away, unsure how to proceed. She only has a small time frame. The pain from earlier runs sharply through her nerves, but Barriss closes her eyes and calls up that indomitable power within her. Like a taunted dragon, it wakes. Her pain vanishes in an instant, and the next moment, Barriss runs. She climbs up the stairs on the side of the building at an unnatural speed, imperceptible to the naked eye.
Her assassin looks up in shock as his speeder is shot from the back, and starts its violent descent.
Barriss stares down her smoking blaster. The wind, unforgiving on the roof of the library, hits her in the face, cooling her heated skin. She sighs in relief and slides back down the ladder. A crowd has gathered around where her assassin must've crashed. Barriss pushes through.
The speeder, broken and smoking, pitifully lies in a heap. But her assailant is nowhere to be seen.
Anakin breathes in the sickly sweet air of Palpatine's office. The cloying fragrance made him hurl the first few times, but now he welcomes it as much as he welcomes his close friend Palpatine. Even if the presence of the Council is putting him on edge.
He grits his teeth and glances behind him. The Masters are in deep discussion with the Chancellor about preventative measures regarding the internal security of Coruscant. Apparently, they are suffering of a bout of hacking and slicing from an unknown source, suspected to be Seppie in origin. Master Yoda and Master Ki Adi Mundi had accompanied him to the Senate, despite his insistence that he could handle this with the Chancellor alone. He doesn't see how this matter requires their input. Whatsoever.
They don't trust me, Anakin thinks.
He opts to stare out the window. It's noon, and the yellow light of the sun casts an almost ethereal glow across the miasma of buildings. There's something … peaceful in it. And peace is something he has not known for quite some time.
But peace is never meant to last long.
The doors whoosh open. Anakin turns around and his eyebrows raise. A Mirialan woman covered in grime and looking like she was thrown in a flimsi shredder stands at the entrance, flanked by not one but four Coruscant Guards. The ripped fabric at her side reveals a nasty bruise spanning her ribcage, and Anakin notices the small twitches of pain in her face as she descends the steps, the guards following her like shadows. "Chancellor Palpatine." She has a pleasant, lilting accent, but not one he can place. Certainly not Mirialan.
Palpatine rises up immediately. "Senator Offee! How … What has put you in this terrible condition?"
Senator Offee opens her mouth to respond, but is interrupted by a guard, "We found her downtown, Chancellor. She was being pursued by an unidentified attacker who escaped at the last possible minute."
Anakin finds himself watching this Senator. Her face goes from grim to annoyed at being spoken about as she casually … bites into a pastry and sips from a cup of caf. She notices his shock. "What? I'm hungry."
He recovers. "Of course, Senator. I can't imagine what such an adventure would do to one's appetite."
"Yeah, and I paid for it."
"I can see." Anakin pulls a face at her injury. Yikes. "You should get that checked out."
"No, I meant the food."
"Oh."
Yoda looks concerned. "Senator, alright, you are?"
Her face clouds over. "I could be better," she hisses. "As this gentleman noticed, I am indeed injured and should seek medical attention. Which I was going to do, until your—very capable, I'm sure—guards picked me up."
Palpatine assumes a position of humility and clasps her hand. "Senator, I apologise deeply that our task force was, in fact, incapable to keep you safe. This is simply unacceptable. I will swiftly call in a review of the guards in charge of the Senate district."
"As you should, Chancellor." Her chin tips up. Despite her remarkably short stature, she radiates the arrogance of someone who knows she can do whatever she wants, and that no one will call her out on it. "In fact, send the review over to me so I may double check. I am not satisfied with the bureaucratic proceedings as of late."
"Senator, I understand that you have been ambushed and you speak of a place of—"
"Chancellor, your guards have been defective since their conception and have grown incapable ever since the Jedi became the formal defenders of the Republic." She waves a hand in dismissal. "I made a huge mistake in entrusting my well-being to the Republican defence—"
The deceptively diminutive Grandmaster steps forward. "Worry not, Senator. Very important your safety is to us. Fulfil our obligations to you, we shall."
The air grows cold. Anakin narrows his eyes as his watchful gaze volleys between the two, the Force strumming out a warning, but it is gone before he can dissect it. The Senator only nods and turns around without a farewell, but Palpatine calls out to her, making her stop in her tracks. "Senator, please. Allow my personal guards to accompany you to your next destination."
Tension ripples across her shoulders. "Very well. Thank you, Chancellor," she says in a clipped tone and makes her exit. Anakin watches until she disappears from view, the diamonds on her cheek the last thing he sees before the doors close.
He turns to his friend, ignoring his fellow Jedi, and bristles, "Apologies for my frankness, Chancellor, but what makes her think she can act like that?" Her rudeness to his dearest friend rankles him. Whatever his policies, the Chancellor of the Republic does not deserve such treatment.
"She has much reason for her countenance, Anakin." Palpatine ambles to his chair and sinks into it, wearied. "That was the Senator of Mirial. Her planet is a very recent addition to our Republic and a very odd one, I've been told, as it lies far out in the Outer Rim."
"And she lives here?" Most Outer Rim Senators don't bother approaching the Senate, considering their positions to be just decorative titles. Local warlords, such as the Hutts, are the true rulers of that domain.
"Her planet is very crucial to the war effort," Ki Adi Mundi speaks up for the first time. "Mirial is home to at least eighty percent of the resources required by our army, such as the material required for the clone armour. She frequently travels between her planet and Coruscant to ensure our trade runs smoothly."
"The Republic relies heavily on her planet," Palpatine adds. "In fact, the war only continues through her resources. To be frank, she has us in a chokehold. There is no way of crossing the Senator until we can sustain our efforts through alternative measures. And if something were to happen to her …" Palpatine lets his words hang in the air. The Jedi grow apprehensive, particularly Anakin. The chest plates his men wear is the sole barrier between a victory and a certain death, and any changes to the material could spell doom for them all. He begins to understand why the Chancellor deferred to the Senator so easily. She must be pretty important. But then, why hasn't he heard of her before?
"Understand we do, Chancellor," quips Yoda. "Informed, you may keep us, of her future protection detail."
"Certainly, Master Yoda."
The Grandmaster bows, and Anakin and Ki Adi Mundi follow. "Your leave, we shall take."
The Chancellor nods. Anakin shares a companionable smile with him before he turns to leave with his fellow Jedi. He dreads to exit the opulent rooms which make up Palpatine's office and return to his own quarters, a cave in comparison, but by the time he considers making up an excuse to stay longer, his company has started to descend to the great halls below.
Groggily, Anakin follows at their heels, until a flash of white distracts him. He glances down, between the velveted pillars which hold up the Senate building. On the other side of the hall stands Senator Offee, flanked by Palpatine's assigned guards. She's about to step into her speeder when, as if sensing Anakin's gaze, she looks up. Their eyes meet. A shiver runs through his body and he grabs onto the railing of the stairs to balance himself, bleaching his knuckles in his iron grip. The Senator remains unmoved—except for a small smirk across her mouth.
She turns, her head-covering fluttering in the wind, and zooms off, leaving the Force to tremble in her wake.
author notes: Please review, follow and favourite! They keep me going. Thanks for reading.