ii.
"Asleep for a long time, you have been." Yoda's ancient, gravelly voice tumbled into his ears, the tone oddly conversational, where Anakin stood stock still, arms restrained in front of him, the hairs on the back of his neck raised on end. He'd been brought from his room on a hoverchair not long after he'd awoken, the corridors strangely deserted, air still fixed under his nose, but the apparatus had been removed before he'd been sent into the Council Chamber. He stood now before the Council itself, Master Yoda at his customary place in the centre, knees locked to keep from collapsing. Breath hissed reluctantly in through his stinging nose. The high ceiling loomed, the blinds drawn, throwing the room and its inhabitants (but not Obi-Wan, he wasn't here, he wasn't here) into murky grey. Vokara Che stood unmoving behind him, along with the two Temple guards who'd escorted him from the Halls of Healing. Plainly, there was no getting out of this. "Confused, you are."
Anakin swallowed painfully, hands clenched in front of him, white knuckles visible for all of them to see. "Yes, master," he rasped, unsure of what else to say, the loud thrum of Padmé Obi-Wan Padmé Obi-Wan where are they what happenedthat had taken precedence ever since he'd been woken up making it hard to think clearly, drowning out the other concerns he might presume to have. He'd tried to reach out earlier, tried to extend his senses through the Force and into Coruscant, searching for them, but he'd come up empty. He was too tired, too weakened. They hadn't given him an exact count (hadn't given him an exact anything), but he knew he'd been insensible in the Halls of Healing for the better part of two weeks since whatever had happened – had happened.
"Know, do you, why you are here?"
"No," Anakin said, frustration seeping through, though the voice of reason in the back of his head that sounded a bit like Obi-Wan, so often purposefully silenced, urged caution. He reigned it in, painstakingly, unable to relax his hands entirely. "I mean, I have – some idea, but I don't remember, Master." He looked up tentatively. Noted again the conspicuous absence of quite a few members of the Council. There wasn't a friendly face to be found – and more importantly, no sign of his master. He couldn't reach him through their bond, either, the connection either barred somehow or made impossible through distance.
Why isn't he here? Wouldn't he – wouldn't he try to be here?
Unless he'd finally had enough of him, Anakin thought with a grim sort of panic, swallowing harshly again. But maybe that wasn't giving his master enough credit – he'd seemed different lately. More open, less demanding. The back of his mind was still filled with red and pain and not much else, but what little he could remember of Obi-Wan was desperate and sad. Not angry, or hurtful, or cruel, though he had the feeling he might have deserved it.
He wondered if the Council had somehow done away with him, delayed him, prevented him from attending. An irrational thought. Paranoid, like they seemed to think he was. But persistent. He dragged his thoughts away from his master and Padmé with difficulty, tried to focus on the slivers of light just barely visible under the window blinds, the not-so-patiently waiting masters in front of him. "I – I'm still in the Temple," he observed finally, feeling the weight of many gazes fall on him. "Are you -" he swallowed, mind doing him the courtesy of flashing back to Ahsoka's trial, the way her eyes had widened in despair as the verdict was brought down," - are you going to turn me over to the Republic?"
He had just technically murdered their Head of State, though in light of all that Palpatine had turned out to be, he had to assume that the man (the monster) had been discredited enough to excuse his death.
(He'd murdered their Sith Lord and saved them all and somehow he'd still ended up hauled before the Jedi Council in chains, his ability unrecognized, their whipping boy once more, no, stop it, that's not right - )
"Republic!" Yoda said, huffing. His eyes met Anakin's own, piercingly. "Left quite a mess for the Republic to clean up, you did. Busy, they are." He paused. "An internal matter, this is."
Anakin closed his eyes queasily. Internal matter. Great.
"If not know," Yoda continued, "then feel, can you? The reason you are here before us."
"Feel?" Anakin asked, fists clenching and unclenching nervously, fear bubbling in his chest, chewing at his heart like it always did, seeking outlet as frustration, as rage. He didn't want to just stand around on shaky legs while the Council talked in circles around him – he'd had enough of that for a lifetime. "I -"
"Reach into the Force," the Grand Master ordered, still looking at him. His face was unreadable. "What does it tell you?"
That I'm knee deep in poodoo, he didn't say, but stretched out regardless, gut churning. It felt the same as it had since he'd first woken, dodging his grasp, slick like oil. A particular burning kind of cold, seeping under his bones, as though the warmth was just out of reach. It broiled under his careful exploration, unfamiliar and volatile.
Only it wasn't, exactly. His heart thundered in his ears, a memory of the Tusken camp flashing to the front of his mind, the shift of sand under his feet, the incandescent rage that had flowed bitingly cold through his veins -
The Council members, faces shadowed, shifted uncomfortably. An unsettled mutter filled the room.
"What?" Anakin asked, feeling himself pale. "I don't -"
"The dark side, that is," Yoda said, fixing him with a gaze that was both firm and almost apologetic. "Touched it, you have. Forever taint you now, it will."
"No," he protested fruitlessly, "no, I didn't -" mean to, I didn't want to, it just -
The walls of the room seemed to grow smaller, pressing in from all sides, the room darkening. His breaths echoed harshly in his ears.
"There must be some mistake," he said, chest rattling, blood running like ice in his veins. "I didn't turn. He – the Chancellor, he wanted me to be his apprentice and I refused, I said no, I – I killed him! I ended the war!"
Isn't that what you wanted?
Yoda considered him, one ear twitching. His face was still perfectly calm.
"Gratitude, do you think we should feel?" he probed. "Indebted to you, are we, young Skywalker?"
Anakin flinched, pressing back until he ran into Master Che, still and solid as stone behind him. No, of course not, a part of him insisted, while the roiling darkness nestled under his heart beat a furious rebuttal. Of course you are, it thrummed. I have saved you from yourselves. He didn't know what to say. It was a trick. It had to be.
It was always a trick.
"I don't understand," he said instead of answering, breaths still coming too fast, too harsh. "I – alright, so it would have been better to bring him before the Council to be tried, but he was dangerous, and I -"
He stopped. Don't embellish the truth, Anakin, the Obi-Wan in his head chided.
" - I don't think I went there intending to kill him," he admitted, eyes focusing on the slivers of sunlight across the room. "It was sudden. If I'd thought about it for longer than a second, I'm sure I'd be dead too." He looked to Master Yoda again, searchingly. "He wanted me to join him. He'd been – waiting for me. You can't understand. To realize that – that for all these years he'd been –"
He broke off, shuddering, phantom hands squeezing his shoulder in a mockery of affection, feeling used and unclean.
"So killed him, you did," Master Yoda said, slowly. "Good for the galaxy, perhaps it was. But not so good for you. Broken the Code, you have. Fallen, you have."
A cold, grim silence fell.
"I don't understand," Anakin said slowly, feeling like a faulty holo-record, doomed to repeat itself. "Then. Is...is this a trial?" Dread crept up his spine, a gradual, icy panic. It was true that he could feel the dark side, feel its slimy coldness even now, begging to be wielded, but -
He didn't feel like a Sith. The dark side saturated everything at the moment, the Force slippery in his grasp, but he could still see the light, could almost, almost reach it – wanted desperately to reach it. Wouldn't a true Sith decry the touch of the light? Profess his dark, homicidal urges freely, have broken free from his bonds and slaughtered them all by now? Anakin didn't exactly like the Jedi Council (with the obvious, singular exception), had been wary of them since he was a child, chafed under their constant rejection, but he didn't want to murder them. Right now, he didn't want to murder anything. He was just – scared. And worried. And closer to collapsing into a shaky-limbed heap on the floor than he would have liked.
"No," Master Windu answered, a stone-like silhouette against the meagre grey light. "Your fate was decided long before we sent for you. Your violations of the Jedi Code alone would be grounds for severe consequences." His upper lip curled, ever so slightly. Thinly veiled disgust rippled through the Force, and some long scabbed-over pain. "Your surrender to the dark side has made matters more complex. If not for your - weakness, we would not be in this situation."
"Situation?"
"A Jedi, you are not," Master Yoda said firmly, as Anakin's breath caught raggedly in his throat at the bluntly stated proclamation, chest aching. "Disgraced this Order, you have. But complicated, things have become."
"You acted outside of the law," Master Windu continued, "and left the Senate in chaos. They're scrambling for a convenient moment you fall out from under our jurisdiction, you'll be at the mercy of the Republic."
The mercy of the Republic. What a joke, he thought bitterly, Ahsoka's eyes flashing blue in the back of his mind. Like that sort of thing had ever mattered to them before. They were cutting him off, disassociating themselves from him to avoid further censure, avoid proving the accusations of the Senate right.
"So," Anakin rasped, the Council chambers wavering at the periphery of his vision, "you are handing me over to them."
"No," Yoda said. "Expelled from the Order you will be, but under our jurisdiction you will remain. A provision of our cooperation with the Senate, this is." He gave a solemn nod to Master Che behind him, the lines on his face pronounced and deep.
Not good, something whispered in the back of his head.
"What provision?" Anakin gasped as she stepped forward, undoing his restraints and grasping him gently but firmly around the elbow of his flesh arm. He grit his teeth and forced himself not to flinch away, feeling the tension in the room increase like a pressure valve. The Force, whether it was the dark side or not, rippled a warning, sliding greasily across his skin. Run, it said.
If I run, he shot back irrationally, heart twisting, I might never see them again, I'd only be hunted down, a monster, a killer, not a husband or a father or a friend. "I don't -"
"A liability, you are," Yoda said quietly, voice carrying in the surrounding silence. "Contained, you must be. But not imprisoned. Our agreement with the Senate, this was."
No. No.
"Please," Anakin said raggedly, breath coming in strangled, desperate heaves, Force rippling around him, hand itching for his saber, "please, you don't have to do anything, I won't use it, I won't," but it was no use and Master Che had grasped his forearm, was encircling his wrist grimly with something he'd only seen once, in a controversial book he'd found in Qui-Gon's study, the Temple Guards converging behind him, it was too late to run, too late to stop this, "I just want my family, I just want to be safe, you don't," and it was like something out of every padawan's worst nightmare, a grim reminder of the dark past of the Jedi, something ancient and barbaric, "you don't have to do this!"
With an innocuous click, the slender-looking bracelet snapped together, pushed two thin poles through the delicate bones of his wrist and drove him to his knees with a pained shout, sucked the colour and life from the world in less than an instant. In the periphery of his blurry vision, several masters leaned forward with interest.
He reached in vain for the Force, for the barest hint, the slightest touch, and found only emptiness. A hollow, dry absence. His heart beat dully in his chest. Something wet and cold slid down his cheek.
"This device dampens your connection to the Force," Master Che explained firmly, face schooled into something remarkably dispassionate, though the tips of her lekku were twitching in discomfort. "Any attempt to remove it," she hesitated, frowning as what little blood there had been in Anakin's face fled completely, "or to leave Coruscant," she continued, as black spots gathered in the periphery of his vision, bile rising sour in his throat, phantom suns burning the back of his neck, "will cause it to detonate."
It was lucky, he thought, folded over on the ground as he threw up on the chamber floor, that he hadn't had anything solid to eat in what apparently had been weeks. It was more of a dry heave, really, foul-tasting spit congealing in his mouth, stomach cramping. He closed his eyes, limbs trembling, long-ago fury rising in his throat, stinging behind his eyes when it found no outlet through the Force.
The two Temple guards hauled him to his feet roughly, drew his hands behind his back. Master Windu stood, face unreadable. The Force told him nothing, showed him nothing, like a comm signal that was out of range -
"My master," Anakin rasped, legs shaking underneath him, the world dull and grey and empty like it had never been before, "can I – please –"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi is no longer a Master. He has been removed from this Council," Master Tiin told him with a face like stone. "He's been sent to lead the war-relief efforts in former Separatist territory."
The guards' hands tightened around his arms as he buckled under this new information. Guilt broiled in his gut, sucked the air from the room.
"But," he protested, "he didn't -"
"A shame, really," Master Tiin continued over him. "Kenobi could have been a magnificent Jedi, if it hadn't been for you. His actions since you both returned have gone on record – it's highly unlikely he'll ever regain his seat again with that sort of black mark."
Master Koon looked down at him from his seat. "When he returns," he said, more quietly than his counterpart, "it might be better, for his sake, if you don't attempt to contact him."
"This wasn't his fault," Anakin hissed, twisting in the Temple guards' grasp, heart pounding at the thought of never seeing him again, never touching, never sparring, he couldn't - "He had no idea what I was going to do, had no idea about Padmé, had no idea about anything, you can't -"
"Know more than you think, Obi-Wan did," Yoda interrupted, voice firm, almost pained. Without the Force, the unwavering, peaceful strength he projected was undetectable. He seemed less omnipotent and more frail. "Allow more than you know, he did. Complicit, he is. Attached."
Attached. The Jedi Order's favourite dirty word. Anakin closed his eyes, air wheezing in his chest, frustration and fear tangling in the back of his throat. He hadn't wanted this. For himself, but especially not for his master.
"Anakin Skywalker," Master Windu said, voice echoing in the sudden silence, "you are hereby expelled from the Jedi Order." There was a pause as he allowed the proclamation to set in, the words wrapping themselves around Anakin's throat and squeezing. A gradual, driving panic was settling into him, fighting its way through the hollow, cottony absence that now filled his head. "The guards and Master Che will take you to clear your quarters. You're free to live your life however you see fit now, Skywalker." His eyes narrowed. "But be warned – we will be watching. Once you've become settled somewhere, a representative from the Temple will be around to check in with you periodically. To satisfy our agreement with the Senate."
Your continued freedom is not guaranteed. That's what he was saying. And even the so-called freedom he'd been given wasn't freedom in a real sense. The detonator in his wrist was proof enough of that, no different, no better than the slave chip he'd been fitted with as a child. Something old and furious burned in his gut, a hollow, flickering flame, weak without the Force to channel it. He was nothing, now. Not a Jedi, not a Sith, not the Chosen One – just Anakin Skywalker. Traitor, husband, father.
Trapped.
"Not so tall, you are, without the Force," Yoda observed quietly, looking suddenly very old and very frail. Tired. There was a pause as he considered Anakin from his seat, the air between them heavy and thick. The mask slipped ever so slightly, and the look he gave Anakin was something that was not quite pity.
"To his wife, take him," he told the Temple guards as they hauled him out of the chamber, and those muddy brown eyes, piercing and ancient, were the last he saw of the Grand Master of the Order for a very long time.
Anakin didn't have much in the way of material belongings – no Jedi did, and so the clearing out of his quarters took very little time at all. He left the Temple in a borrowed tunic, river stone weighing down his pocket, the folded blanket from his bed that he'd inherited from Obi-Wan and a toolkit he'd bought with his first GAR stipend tucked under his arm, the undisguised stares from the few Jedi he'd run into in the corridors painting his back.
("That R2 unit is property of the GAR," one of the Temple guards had told him when he'd asked about Artoo, recharging in his quarters, shifting uncomfortably when Anakin had then sunk down to his knees to pat the little droid on his domed head.
"Bye, buddy," he'd choked out, getting a sad-sounding whistle in return. "I'll -" I'll be back soon.
He had swallowed, fingers running over the ridges of the droid's forward sensors. There was no point in lying to Artoo. It would only be cruel. "Don't let them touch your programming," he'd whispered, against the increasingly distressed-sounding beeping, the confused mess of shrill, curse-laden binary. "Be good." )
Now he was being bundled into a Temple air speeder, Master Che's solid gaze at his back.
"Your respiratory system has been irreparably damaged," she had told him on the platform, face grim. "Avoid strenuous activity, and accept the limits of what you can and cannot do now. I would have liked to have done more," she had admitted. "But my hands are tied. From now on you'll have to deal with the Republic's medical services, should you require further assistance." Her lips had thinned, pressed together into an expression he couldn't recognize. "May the Force be with you, Skywalker."
He had turned away, jaw clenched. The phrase felt more like a mockery now than a goodbye.
The world was numb to him now, colourless, lifeless. As the speeder moved into traffic, he closed his eyes as Coruscant failed to rush to the forefront of his mind, heaving, swirling with existence. It was loud and crowded and impossibly dull. His head pounded with the empty space. The future loomed impossibly, and for once he had no insight, no sense whatsoever of what it might hold.
"I thought you were taking me to my wife," he said as the driver of the speeder made a sharp left when she should have turned right. She looked like an initiate, old enough to drive, but barely. The Jedi often employed Force-sensitives not strong enough in the Force to be Jedi. "This isn't the way to where she lives."
The driver turned back to him briefly, young face pulling into a frown.
"I am taking you to your wife," she said, even as something that was not the Force caused his heart to drop into his stomach, trepidation raising the hair on the back of his neck. The driver's gaze turned sympathetic. "Haven't you heard? Padmé Amidala's been in a coma for weeks. We're headed to Grand Republic Medical."
Thanks so much for reading! More on the way. Cross posted to ao3.