AN: The muse is a fickle creature.
Master Yoda was not particularly surprised at Anakin's request to speak with him. He knew that events were flowing around the young Skywalker in ways that made him very important to the galaxy.
"Master Yoda," he said very respectfully.
"Many topics we could discuss. For which do you come?"
"I wish to discuss the Jedi Code."
"An appropriate topic that is not. Discuss that in full Council we will, in the near future."
"Not that, Master. As the code is currently interpreted, I have done something that violates it."
Yoda harrumphed. "Unusual that is not. If every time against the most strict interpretation of the code you went came to me to discuss it, nothing else you would do."
"Well, then perhaps this particular breech won't shock you as much as it did Master Obi-Wan."
"If discussed this with Master Obi-Wan already you have, why do you come to me?"
"Well, it is rather involved," he said, and sighed. "I have someone I would like you to meet."
Yoda nodded sagely, and followed Anakin to the Temple's Guesthouses in his hoverchair without further comment. He entered, and though he knew quite a bit about what was going on with the young Jedi, it was in his best interest to pretend that he didn't. Anakin was more comfortable with the idea of revealing than admitting, and telling him that he didn't have to would only make it worse.
"Good afternoon, Master Yoda," Senator Amidala said.
"Met the good Senator I already have, young Skywalker," he teased.
Anakin took a deep breath. "I realize that this will probably get me kicked out of the order if it is generally known, but Master Obi-Wan thinks I need to tell you," he said, and Yoda waited. "Padmé is more than just my friend, she is my wife."
Yoda nodded. It had not been something he'd seen specifically, but considering how tightly her fate was intertwined with Anakin's, he wasn't particularly surprised. "More, there is, I sense."
"Yes, Master," he said, looking around for a moment. "I'll be right back."
"Master Yoda," the Senator started.
"An apology I sense, and necessary it is not. Discovering, I am, that one way alone to be a Jedi there is not."
"Do you mean that?"
"Mean it I do, though pains me to say that many there will be who will not agree."
Anakin came back into the room at that point, carrying two small bundles in his arms. He carefully shuffled one of them to Senator Amidala, and the other he fussed with for a moment then presented it to Master Yoda.
He examined the small bundle for a moment, finding it to be a very young human child. He touched the Force around the…boy, and found it to be surprisingly strong. "This is my son, Luke," Anakin said as Yoda looked up at him.
A number of things fell into place then. "Strong is younger Skywalker with the Force."
"Yes, and his sister is strong as well," Anakin said, and Yoda moved over to where Senator Amidala was holding the other baby. "Leia, our daughter."
Yoda found that she was equally strong, but he sensed reluctance in her, and in her father as well. "Not to be trained at the Temple, you wish for these two," he surmised.
"No, but if they choose to become Jedi, we wish that for them, either or both of them."
Yoda nodded. There was much sense in what Anakin said, and much sense in letting the twins, who were strongly bonded to each other, stay together. It would be very detrimental to both of them to be split up, and he was sure that their parents wouldn't take to well to it, either. "A liability this is for you," he said, looking up at Anakin.
"In what way?" he asked. No, this was definitely not the Anakin of even a month ago.
"Young and vulnerable they are. Care deeply about them, you do," Yoda said, testing Anakin's reactions to his words. "And were something to happen to them, a need to avenge them you would feel."
Anakin's response was slow in coming, and Yoda felt that was from the idea that he'd found the whole notion repugnant. "I can't say as to what my actions would be if someone hurt my children."
"An honest response," Yoda said, "Agree with your decisions I do not, but the Chosen One I am not. Capable you are of things that most Jedi, even me, cannot accomplish. A great capacity for caring you have, and that is as much your strength as it is your weakness. They are your strength, and protect them you should, carefully."
Anakin swallowed hard, and Yoda could see how much Anakin had feared his reaction—not for himself, or for his children, but for the Order, and his place in it. "What are you saying, Master?"
"Condone I cannot the way that your children arrived in this galaxy, but they are here, and a valuable resource to the Temple they are, should they decide to be trained, though a great liability they are to you, until they are able to defend themselves. Few things could be as great a double-edged sword as a Jedi's children could. Envy you I do not."
A shudder ran through Anakin's body, relief. "I can imagine not," he said with a half smile.
"Much work we have to do, and short our time is to do it," Yoda said, turning his chair around. "Your Master is waiting for you," he said over his shoulder to Anakin.
Palpatine thought for a while as he sat in his office, his face placid as he listened to yet another set of petitions about something he cared little about. He had formed his opinion from the brief that they had submitted, but he let them prattle on and waited until they were finished to render his opinion. He had paid as much attention to them as he thought they deserved. While he was thinking, he came to a decision that both due to his long absence from the capital and, apparently more-than-proper interest from his Master, Anakin had broken away from his considerable influence.
He frowned as the petitioners finished their presentation. "I am terribly sorry, but I don't see any way that this is possible at this point. Perhaps after the war has concluded, but right now, I cannot condone this, as I told you before you came here. I would like to do it, but the government's budget is too strained."
The beings in front of him nodded, and he waited until they were out of the door before he commed his personal assistant. "Yes, sir?"
"I don't want to be disturbed for the next two hours."
"Yes, sir," the man said, sounding resigned. He had hour-long appointments the next two hours, which would have to be rearranged. He didn't particularly care, because Skywalker was making his life difficult.
He headed for a secret exit, and once he was safely ensconced in one of his Sith havens, he started to work on two things. First, he started assigning some of his many spy drones to watching Anakin specifically. Second, he contacted Nute Gunray.
He watched the odious—but useful—toad appear on his screen. "Lord Sidious, I was not expecting your call today," he said as he quickly assumed a properly obsequious posture.
"I know how hard it has been on you that Senator Amidala continues to thwart your plans. I have recently learned that she has moved her entire family to Coruscant," he said, with a pregnant pause, "Including her month-old twins."
The Viceroy looked positively gleeful once he got over his shock. "Yes, my Lord. What would you have me do, my Lord?"
"Indulge yourself."
Obi-Wan packed away a few extra things as he prepared to head to Utapau. He had the bag he was carrying, which would be stowed in his Eta-2, and that would be stowed aboard The Negotiator, which, despite the fact that he didn't think he really needed a ship, he had one, and it was, in the way of the Republic Navy, even named after him. He had nearly half a dozen additional Venator-class Star Destroyers, including the Elegance and the Deadly Dance.
He hadn't quite found out which of the other transports he would take, and he left in a few hours' time, but he felt that it would be fine. Of greater concern to him was Anakin wanting to go, and being torn between wanting to stay where he was within easy reach of Padmé and the twins.
"Anakin, I can handle this. Grievous will be difficult to kill, but if you feel the need to stay here, I can certainly see why."
"It's not that I feel the need to stay here, it's that…" he trailed off. He pressed against Anakin's barriers and found the emotions he was struggling with. Anakin was in the position of having just realized that if he didn't come back, Luke and Leia would grow up without him.
"You have just stumbled upon a notion called responsibility."
Anakin looked down, a slight blush spreading across his face. "I suppose you think this is funny."
"Well, I might, but it is something that we've been trying to teach you."
"You really think you'll be fine?"
"I really think I'll be fine, but I would like you to come with me, because I would enjoy the company."
Padmé settled into her Senatorial Pod, as the Senate's main session started. They were debating what to do about Naboo. Most of the human residents had gotten off, and all of the Gungans; the Gungans had gone to Ohma-D'un, for the most part, and the human refugees had scattered to the four winds.
"We know the kind of devastation that is done by this kind of weapon. I don't know that we can reclaim Naboo," one senator said, and as his pod settled back into position, Chancellor Palpatine recognized another.
"We must try. Our technology has advanced greatly since the last time someone was barbaric enough to drop fission or fusion bombs on their fellow beings. Most of the people that we've gotten off won't even have any lasting effects from the radiation poisoning. Can we not try to do the same with their environment?"
"This is diverting badly needed resources from the war effort. Perhaps once we have defeated the CIS, then we can do something about Naboo."
"The hazard represented by General Grievous cannot be underestimated. We must find him and bring him to justice."
"I recommend that we appoint a committee to oversee the rebuilding of the environment of Naboo. It's been, what, four weeks, five? It's high time that we got someone out there to take a look at it, and get started on cleanup."
"I concur, I think that this is something best left in civilian hands, anyway. We can appropriate some funding to the committee and then send them off to find someone who knows something about this."
"I am prepared to begin a vote on this, I call to defer this matter to a committee to be formed to deal with this issue."
She watched her panel light up with the question, and she pressed the 'yes' button. She sighed, knowing that it was useless, whatever she did, but she just wanted some progress, something to cling to that said her home was going to get the help it desperately needed. She didn't really expect that much would get accomplished by way of the committee, but she had a faint flicker of hope.
Leinea sighed. It had only been through the judicious use of the Force that she'd gotten Jander and herself integrated into the staff of the 500 Republica building. It was amazing that the staff was human at all, but as Jander had thought, they liked for their residents to have the 'feel' of humans around them. It wasn't terribly unusual; the staff of any building, whether droid or human was a weak point in the security of the building, and he had checked their credentials as thoroughly as it was possible for them to have been checked. Both of them had reams and reams of paper trails for him to follow, and most of it was tagged so that they could see who was looking at it. The man had hit well over ninety percent of the paper that existed on the two identities she'd set up and he'd planted.
The liner that carried the crew in for the day finally arrived at the landing pad on top of the building, that was for the exclusive use of the residents and their guests, and, three times a day, the staff liner from and to the employee parking lot a half-hour's ride away. "Ariel, you'll be with me. You're pretty enough for front desk work," an older, but still dashing gentleman told her. "I know it's biased, but we do have an image to maintain, and within the scope of that image, the beings serving the front desk should be of the comely sort for their species.
She heard the back personnel supervisor barking at Jander. "Terkin, on your feet, man. Some of the plumbing on the north side of the building is giving us trouble. I need you to see if you can chase it down, to at least within two or three apartments so that we can call the professionals in and not waste their time, and our money." Leinea was out of earshot after that, but he'd turned to another workman and started rattling off that man's assignment.
Anakin thought about what Obi-Wan had said, and he wondered at its cause. He had always felt confident in his ability to return to Padmé when he was out on the battlefield, but the twins…they didn't know him. They could feel him through the Force, and he had begun to teach them the basics that he had learned to teach younglings while he worked in the crèche. It was the one time that he felt free to care. It was sad, that notion, that he didn't feel free to care about even his own Master, but he'd felt more free to express his adoration for other beings while he was doing something most of the other Padawans saw as an incredibly harsh punishment—caring for those who could not care for themselves.
For him, it had been freedom from his normally dreary life, and time to think—which was part of the purpose. Obi-Wan had started letting him spend part of every day that they were at the Temple there by the time he was twelve, and it had helped rein in some of his wilder impulses, because he would think while he was there. He had been constantly in motion from the time he'd hit the doors to the Temple until he'd been hurt when he was fighting with Count Dooku. The enforced stillness that had been required when he had been hurt was worse than almost anything he'd endured.
He was looking into the crèche's window—it was much like the window at the nursery had been on Alderaan, and he could watch the youngest younglings while he thought. "Master Skywalker?"
He turned to see Arien next to him "Yes?"
"I wasn't entirely satisfied with the answer that Senator Amidala gave us the other day."
"Regarding?"
"The father of her children."
"And you probably shouldn't be. But she is a politician, and they are notoriously slippery when they choose to be. It is obvious that she regards her husband's anonymity with some importance."
"Why would she care whether we knew who he was?"
"Perhaps anyone knowing who it was would be dangerous. It depends on who exactly she is married to."
"Do you know who she's married to?"
"If I did, you would pester me with questions until I gave in out of frustration, therefore, I cannot possibly know."
"That makes no sense, Master Skywalker," Arien said, furrowing his brow.
"And neither does politics, young one. That is most likely the reason that Senator Amidala will not reveal to anyone who has fathered her children," he said. He looked down at the boy, and sighed. "Put yourself in her position. She's married to someone who, if their relationship were revealed, would cause a political firestorm, and quite possibly reap negative consequences personally for both of them, for whatever reason. First, that would detract from the War effort. Second, that could ruin the sway that she has over quite a number of Senators. She holds a great deal of respect in the Senate, and that is a delicate situation right now, to say the least. Third, she is a private citizen, and so is he, and if she chooses to keep that relationship out of the public eye, that is within her rights, and we should not impinge upon those rights for the sake of curiosity."
He tilted his head, considering. "You are right, Master. I think that I should apologize to her."
"She might appreciate that," Anakin agreed, and he came to a decision finally. He would accompany Obi-Wan, because he knew that it was the right thing to do. He was going to have to learn to be more cautious, but leaving something undone because he might fail was beneath him. "Come on, I've got to go talk to her anyway."
"Why?"
"I'm going with Master Kenobi to Utapau, and I want to say goodbye."
"It is normal for you to visit the Senator and tell her about your missions?"
"We have been friends for a very long time. I was nine and she was fourteen when we met."
"When you first came to the Temple?"
"Yes," he said, "I've been a hero to the Naboo since then as well."
"A Jedi does not seek accolades."
Anakin smiled, and said, "No, but I wasn't even a Jedi at the time, and I did not seek the accolades; I simply did what I needed to do to defend the planet."
"What was that?"
"I was told to stay in a fighter, but as I am a very curious person, I started pushing buttons. I was only nine and I hadn't been inside a fighter before. It was programmed with an autopilot sequence that took it into a space battle along with the other fighters that were in that squadron. I was lucky that Artoo had gotten into the fighter with me; I'm not sure I would have been able to disengage the autopilot without him. Once he'd done that, we were in space, and somehow I ended up actually on the droid control ship. I was trying to get off when I fired some missiles, which hit the reactor core of the ship, but I was able to, after that, get off before it blew up."
"And the droid control ship went down, causing all the droids to shut down. I can see how they would get hero out of that," Arien said.
Anakin grimaced. "Yes, and out of every other thing I do. I sometimes wonder how I survive myself," Anakin said, and he rounded the corner to where the Temple's large selection of speeders was held.
"Come on," he said, vaulting himself over the side of one of the speeders. "Get in, and you can see why Master Obi-Wan refuses to ride in the same speeder with me."