Simply existing in this thankless galaxy was becoming harder by the day.
By the hour. When Padmé had told Queen Apailana that she didn't think she would be able to hold out for long, even she herself hadn't known what she was in for.
Everything was a disaster. The Senate was in disarray. It had been a few weeks, now, since Palpatine's arrest, since her babies' birth, since Anakin almost — ahem, uh — and now the government was deep in the throes of trying to figure out exactly what to do about all of it.
Being a new mom was stressful enough, but being a mom who had to go back to work while her body was still healing, having constant crying spells before and after meetings, having to pump milk in her office fresher every few hours because if she didn't she'd spend the rest of the day with a swollen, soaking chest — it wasn't fun.
But it was necessary, and Padmé would simply have to keep on reminding herself of how very very necessary it absolutely was. It was, frankly, non-negotiable. Palpatine had to be removed from office. And the fact that this was even a debate frightened her to her core.
And yet it was a debate. She'd been meeting with senators left and right, either with other Loyalists alongside her or not. It was disheartening, gritty, unappealing work, and the fact that she had to do it three weeks after giving birth to twins wasn't even the most upsetting part of it. The most upsetting part, rather, was that it wasn't working at all.
Padmé had known the Republic was failing for a long time now. She'd had her first inkling ever since the thousand year period of peace had been shattered by a few seceded planets and a few million droids. But to know, now, that the Separatists hadn't been the root of the problem at all, and that rather it was the fault of two elderly men who had played the galaxy like she had played with dolls as a girl…and to know out of the thousands and thousands of people in the Senate less than half of them seemed even the slightest bit concerned about this….
Okay, it wasn't that simple. Because Padmé had the benefit of knowing things that other senators couldn't possibly know. The average congressional representative was hardly privy to the information that the Jedi mostly kept to themselves, like the terror of the Sith and all the things Anakin and Obi-Wan had told her about over the years. Other senators hadn't been present at Geonosis, had never been in the heat of violent battle, a blaster warm in their hand as they stepped over bodies cold on the ground. But Padmé had first fought in a battle at the age of fourteen, had been doing refugee missions since she was half that age. Padmé had been around the block, and knew more than most of her colleagues exactly how horrible and messed up that block was.
But the thing was, people were not motivated by stories. Other senators were not moved by her pleas, her retellings of events that would have a lesser woman completely traumatized. Which wasn't to say there was anything wrong with traumatized people, because her husband was in fact one of them, but the point was she had been there. Done that. Padmé had been doing this her entire life. And no one in the Senate cared.
She brought figures. Proof. Examples. She brought the evidence that would eventually be brought up in Palpatine's trial. Actual physical copies of the evidence, that were on display for every senator to inspect. She showed video clips, played soundbites, saying over and over and over, does this man really sound like he has the Republic's best interest at heart?
After all, the fighting was practically over. Grievous was dead. Dooku was dead. Palpatine, Dooku's master, was in a holding cell inside the Jedi Temple. The Separatist Council was nowhere to be found. So why was the war still going on?
"Perhaps the fighting is over, but it seems a new war is on the horizon," people would say. "The Jedi illegally arrested the Chancellor. This is a coup. This is treason. They are the ones who should be put on trial, and after the Chancellor is freed, they will be!"
Padmé wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to go home and cuddle with her baby twins. But she couldn't, not until the end of every day, when she was run ragged on only three hours of sleep and two cups of caf because that was all she could have while breastfeeding. Everything was miserable, and every night she climbed into bed next to Anakin and couldn't even talk to him about her problems because he was just as miserable, if not more so, than she was.
They hadn't really been talking much at all. It was mostly stunted conversation, something about the twins, or Padmé's mom, or the weather. Sometimes they argued, and she was so tired she couldn't tell if he was the one being irrational or if this time it was her. Argued about what to have for dinner, about the right way to burp the babies, about how much they should bottle feed because Anakin wanted to feed them, too, even though he got to stay home with them all day and she had to work all the time and she was doing it for him, for them all, why couldn't he act more grateful for that even though she knew that deep down he was —
She didn't want it to be like this. She knew he didn't either, but they were both so trapped inside their own busy thoughts that they just couldn't communicate. She was too tired to try. And not nearly for the first time, she just wanted to fly away with him to Naboo, disable any connection to the holonet, put the babies to bed for the night and cuddle with him on the couch for hours on end. And maybe do a little more than cuddle, eventually, but honestly she was still pretty sore down there, so. Best hold off for now.
All in all, all things considered, life was a miserable hyperspeed trainwreck where the magnetic rail guides had lost power and the crash site had caught fire. And there were only so many times a day Padmé could find a smile being brought to her face, and those times were when Leia made an adorable sound or Luke held his sister's hand while falling asleep. Right now, the twins were everything. Absolutely everything. Right now they were her only hope that the future might not yet be lost. Right now, they were all she had left.
Right now, when the galaxy was tearing itself apart, trying to repair itself in the wake of a galactic conflict the likes of which no one had ever known, when her marriage was little more than two people whose only communication was things involving their children and not even a whisper of trying to improve their relationship…all she felt like she really had was her twins.
She wasn't sure it would be enough.
In fact, it almost hadn't been.
It had been a month since the day the universe had almost ended, and even after all that time Council meetings still felt…odd.
They had lost many members during Obi-Wan's tenure — Even Piell, Adi Gallia, Oppo Rancisis, to name a few — but nothing had been quite so shocking and upsetting as losing Kit, Agen, and Saesee all in one fell swoop of Palpatine's lightsaber. At a time when their forces had been stretched so thin, when there seemed to be more Jedi on the front than in the temple, sometimes, it had been difficult to balance the need to be patient with the need to replace the fallen. If it hadn't been for the urgency of Palpatine's trial, and the demand to have the Council be secure and strong in the wake of the Sith attempting to act against them, Obi-Wan was sure there would have been more deliberating and less shoehorning in.
That wasn't to say the three new councillors were not qualified. Quite the contrary. Depa Billaba had already been a member before, but had stepped down due not just to her injury but also to focus fully on training her new Padawan, Caleb. Cin Drallig was more than qualified, and had turned down the position before out of commitment to what he had already been doing full time — training the next generations in the ways of the lightsaber, and leading the security force of Temple Guards. But he had agreed to hold a seat at least temporarily, conscious of the great need, and Obi-Wan thought it was an honor to be able to serve with him.
The last to join their ranks was Luminara. An excellent, if admittedly by-the-book Jedi, Luminara may have never finished training Barriss but she'd handled the girl's betrayal admirably well. She was kind, compassionate, and more able to let go than Obi-Wan thought he would ever be, if he had to admit it. She would have driven Qui-Gon absolutely mad — Obi-Wan couldn't remember if they had ever met when himself and Luminara were Padawans together — and sometimes Obi-Wan wasn't sure if that was a good trait or a bad one.
The only seat that remained, now, was the one Anakin had barely occupied for four or five days, the concept of which Obi-Wan had been against from the start. It wasn't that Anakin hadn't been ready — he hadn't been, but that wasn't the point — but the circumstances under which the Council had given him a seat. A situation the Council members had conveniently managed to avoid discussing, now that Anakin was gone.
How interesting, Obi-Wan thought. How very interesting.
So that was that. Eleven occupied seats, which wasn't as good as twelve but would give them more power over Palpatine if he did manage to try something. Which was exactly what they were discussing today.
"Soon to begin, the trial of the Chancellor is. Ready and defensive, we must be, but show him our worry we cannot. Underestimate him, we cannot. Deceived us for a lifetime he has. Allow it to continue, we cannot."
Sorrowful agreement was almost tangible in the room. "And if he wins the trial?" Ki-Adi-Mundi said.
"Allow this, we cannot. Putting together a strong defense, we are. Evidence, we have."
"Three dead Jedi Masters," Plo Koon said thoughtfully. "And what else?"
"The changes to the constitution," Mace said. "Years of corruption. Much of the Senate is on our side."
"Much, but not all," Plo countered. "Perhaps not even half. The pressure is on us to prove our claims. We cannot expect the truth to reveal itself. The odds are against us."
"I agree," Obi-Wan said. "Our prosecution is in capable hands, but it may not be enough. Palpatine controls this government. He nearly controlled us."
"He nearly destroyed us," Plo added, and Obi-Wan wasn't sure if even they knew exactly how true that was.
He thought back to Anakin that night, and had to work to repress a shudder.
"We will have to gather testimonials," Mace said, nodding. He glanced at Obi-Wan with a raised eyebrow, as if sensing his thoughts. "I hate to say it, but Skywalker's is key."
Obi-Wan was about to object when instead Yoda spoke up. "Hold off on that we will for now," he said, and Obi-Wan could not decipher his expression. "Our duty it is to uncover the truth, but highly sensitive this is. Keep Skywalker away from Sidious I would, unless as a last resort."
"He would make proving our case easier," Ki-Adi pointed out, but Yoda shook his head.
"The easy path we are not taking. Nothing about this situation is easy."
"I do not disagree with you, Master," Shaak Ti said to him, "But Palpatine verbally admitted to Anakin that he is the Sith Lord. I'm aware that eyewitness testimony is not always seen as reliable, but this was a direct confession."
"The problem is that Palpatine is not on trial for being a Sith Lord," Windu said. "His defense is adamant that this is irrelevant in his case."
"But by extension of that fact we know that he was directly controlling Dooku's movements. That evidence is infallible."
"Infallible to a Jedi, yes," Yoda said. "But physical evidence of Sidious's communiqués with Dooku we do not have. A fact it is that we know, but prove it we cannot, however obvious it may seem to us. Left no trail did Sidious, that we can find."
"What about the other Sith?" Depa said, speaking up. "What of Maul? I believe Ahsoka Tano said he wanted to defeat Sidious as well?"
"I spoke with him," Obi-Wan said, shaking his head. "He refuses to collaborate in any way — though anyone here is welcome to try and persuade him otherwise. After all, he would rather kill me than talk to me."
"Then would Skywalker not be the next best thing?"
Obi-Wan frowned. "I must ask you all to reconsider. Palpatine has a very negative effect on Anakin. Being confronted with what happened before he can work through it on his own is the last thing he needs right now."
"Agree with you I do, Obi-Wan," Yoda said, staring at him, "Though I caution you on your line of thinking. Brought us danger Skywalker did, with his attachments. Fall into the same trap, you cannot."
"And I am making an effort not to do that," Obi-Wan conceded, "But that isn't my point, Master. Anakin has barely begun his own recovery. We've already asked so much of him. Please let us not put the fate of the Republic on his shoulders again."
"Do you not trust his ability to be objective?" Windu said, eyeing him.
Obi-Wan exhaled. "I do trust him, Mace, even if you don't. But you saw him that night. Palpatine has been psychologically abusing him very effectively for over a decade, right under our watch. I agree with Yoda. If it later comes to be absolutely critical, call him in. For now, please, can we let him rest?"
There was a quiet murmur of agreement around the room, and for once Obi-Wan thought he had actually helped to persuade them. At least, when it came to the controversial subject of Anakin's very existence.
Perhaps the Negotiator was an apt nickname, after all, no matter how ridiculous it was.
"Another matter there is," Yoda said, changing the subject. "Young Ahsoka Tano has decided to rejoin our ranks."
Obi-Wan had to bite down a frown. Yes, Ahsoka had decided to come back to the Order, and he wasn't sure why he felt so uneasy about the whole thing. Not that he wanted to talk her out of it — on the contrary, if that was what she wanted he would be pleased to welcome her back. He simply wasn't entirely sure that was the case.
Anakin said she'd talked to him about it briefly, and though he hadn't specified what they'd discussed he clearly thought Ahsoka should do it…but Obi-Wan wasn't positive. But it was Ahsoka's choice, and he would support her as best he could no matter what she decided to do. He owed as much to Ahsoka as he owed to Anakin, after he'd done so much to let them both down….
At least he could sense happiness radiating from Master Plo.
"We will hold her knighting ceremony in two days time at eighteen hundred hours," Windu stated. "Afterward, she has requested to be reinstated to leadership of the Five Hundred and First Legion, which has been without a general since Skywalker's departure."
"A job we have for her already," Yoda said, "Once knighted she has been. Finally a trace we have of the Separatist Council, though a month old it is now. Obi-Wan?"
He cleared his throat. "Before killing General Grievous, I witnessed the departure of the Separatist Council from Utapau upon Grievous's orders, but I did not hear of a destination. After the battle had concluded I called upon my commander to gather the remainders of droids located in the hall where I fought Grievous. Technicians have been working to comb through the memory banks of any droid remains to see if there might be a hint of the Separatist Council's location, as interviews with the local Pau'ans came up dry. We have come to learn that Grievous had directed the Council to hide in the Mustafar system, though that command was given four weeks ago and it is very likely the Separatist leaders could have moved by then."
"Proven herself with delicate missions, Padawan Tano has," Yoda said. "An appropriate mission for her and her clones, this will be. Find nothing, she may, but also a lead there may be, if the Separatists are not there. Then an end to the war, we may truly have."
There were nods of consent and agreement around the room, and it was final. The part of Obi-Wan that was a committed Jedi Master to his Padawans (one less formal than the other) wanted to volunteer to go along with her, to help ease her transition — but he knew she could handle it, and he knew she needed him less than he was needed on Coruscant. He trusted her. She would make him, and Anakin, proud.
And there it was. The Council adjourned, and Obi-Wan went off to think. About an end to the war, as unreal and impossible as it seemed. It had already begun…they just had to make sure it stayed that way.
He only wished he were a bit more confident.