Full disclosure: this is the big bad chapter. Have a cup of tea or similar at hand.


"Master Yoda, it's time to send the Jedi into hiding. You need to get to the Chancellor's office right away."

The comm arrived shortly behind Yoda's sensation of a disturbance in the Force, deep in the Coruscant night.

"I think he's the Sith Lord and Anakin's gone to him. I'm on my way already. I'll meet you there."

Yoda opened his mouth to tell Obi Wan Kenobi to slow down, that he would meet him at the Senate building and that they would enter together. But the former Knight had hung up on him.

He attempted to call him back.

This line is busy.

Yoda abandoned his useless comm and hurried to action. He had a Temple to evacuate and a Sith Lord to face.


The call arrived shortly after lunch time when the spring sun was high in the sky and it should have been impossible for anything bad to happen. The light that entered the royal study's stained-glass windows was stretched out, lazy and resplendent, across the Duchess's desk. Blue, green, rich purple. But even without video transmission, Satine knew that the news was bad from the first breath.

"Is Korkie with you?"

Obi Wan's voice was ragged. He was running, perhaps.

"Yes, my love, we were just working through the latest…"

Her voice faded as she realised, gut clenching, that he had no time to listen to the story of their mundane afternoon. Korkie's eyes were alight with fear.

"Buir?"

"What is it, Obi Wan?"

"Just an update," he managed, breathless. "Things have turned here. I need your help."

Korkie's eyes widened.

"Things have-"

"I don't have much time, Korkie, I'm sorry," his father interrupted. "You'll have to listen. I need the two of you to stay right where you are in Sundari. I've sent Padme to you. She's not safe on Coruscant. You'll need to look after her, please."

Satine felt a horrified chill run down her body.

"What's happened, Obi Wan?"

"Anakin's just…"

Obi Wan faltered.

"Well, he might be in a spot of trouble. I'm going to go lend him a hand."

His words were casual but fooling no one. Korkie rose to his feet and leaned over the comm, gripping the desk with beskar grip.

"Buir, please don't do anything stupid. Can you call-"

"I've called Master Yoda," Obi Wan affirmed. "I won't do anything stupid, Korkie. Only what's necessary."

The two realms weren't mutually exclusive. Satine knew it. Her son knew it. But he nodded and clenched his jaw.

"As an aside, I love you both very much."

It was no simple aside. It was everything. They returned the sentiment with trembling voices.

"I love you too, Obi Wan."

"I love you too, Buir."

"And no matter what happens," Obi Wan went on, his voice catching, "I will love you forever. Love is never lost. I will be with you always."

"Buir-"

"Obi Wan-"

They called out his name but did not know what they might say to him. They had no more time. Korkie embraced his mother across the desk, gripping her like a lifeline.

"Korkie. Satine. I love you both so much. You are a greater gift than I could ever have asked for and far more than I could ever deserve."

Satine screwed her eyes shut against pressing tears. She would hold strong, for him.

"We are no gift to be earned, Obi Wan. We are your family. We love you and we always will."

The comm crackled and died. Satine and Korkie embraced in shocked silence. Satine wondered if she should say something to him but there was nothing she could say. Korkie knew. She felt it in the way he clung to her.

Obi Wan had not called to ask them to take care of Padme. He had called to say goodbye.


Anakin moved as though sleep-walking. Calm, certain, resolute. The fear that had seized him, the young man who had wanted to run away from this wicked planet… he was another person, perhaps. Another Anakin. He entered the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor and his hand did not shake. The elevator gave a ding of approval and began its smooth ascent.

It was only after Anakin arrived on the hundredth floor that his doubts began to return, in fitful spasms. The Red Guards were manning the door to the Chancellor's office. It was the middle of the night. Why was the Chancellor even in his office? How had Anakin known that he would be in his office? And why, now, were the Red Guards wordlessly admitting him entrance with demure nods of their heads?

Sheev Palpatine was seated, perfectly postured and dignified despite the late hour, watching the Coruscant skyline through the glass wall of his office. He gave no immediate reaction to Anakin's presence. The Force was so blank around him it could only be a lie. The Red Guards moved silently to bar the door behind Anakin. It was hard for him, now, to remember why he had come.

"Chancellor."

The greeting was fumbled, spilled from a dry mouth.

"Your Excellency, I'm sorry to disturb you at such a late hour."

An apology. An apology when he should have been stabbing his lightsaber through his chest.

Palpatine turned slowly in his chair. There was no hostility nor surprise in his expression. Nor was there any warmth. Anakin knew then that there never had been. It had all been a lie.

"You wish to speak to me, Anakin?" he asked, plainly.

No. He did not. He had come to kill him. He had come to end him and end it all. Why then did he say-

"Yes. About…"

Kriffing hell. Anakin could not summon the resolution that had seemed so concrete within him only moments before. There was something new rising up, some hook lodged in his brain that he could not slip from.

"…about the story you told me at the ballet."

Palpatine gave a faint, joyless smile.

"Yes, my boy?"

Anakin saw Padme dying in that white hospital gown. He saw her right in front of him. A faint anger began to rekindle in Anakin's chest. It was surely no coincidence that he would see her now.

"You know about my dreams," he gritted out. "I want to know what they mean. How to save her."

Palpatine cocked a brow, amused.

"How do you think I might know of such things, Anakin?"

And the spark ignited into flames of dancing anger.

"You are a Sith Lord," Anakin hissed.

Anakin hated him, this man who dared to play naïve. This man who had groomed him, predated him since he was a child. But Anakin hated himself most of all for standing here, in this office, his lightsaber untouched at his belt, asking for his help.

Palpatine did not affirm nor deny Anakin's accusation; they both knew the truth, plain as day. Instead, he rested his chin pensively upon his hand.

"Do you truly want to know the answer to that question, Anakin?"

"I-"

-do not. I do not.

The words strangled and died in his throat. Padme was dying before him, all around him. When he spoke, his voice was but a choked whisper.

"Yes."

"Very well."

The Chancellor rose to his feet and clasped his hands in meditative posture behind his back.

"You are gifted in the Force, Anakin," Palpatine informed him calmly. "More so than any Jedi alive. You are not the only Jedi to see the future, of course. But you have the greatest power to change it."

Anakin's heart spasmed in his chest.

"The future?" he breathed.

Palpatine nodded sagely.

"You have seen the future, Anakin," he affirmed. "Padme will die in childbirth. All the medical droids on Coruscant would not be enough to save her."

His tone was solemn but remorseless.

"Who can?" Anakin asked, voice hoarse with emotion.

Palpatine lifted his eyes to meet Anakin's. Their pale blue was piercing, hypnotising. He delivered his words with delicate precision of the dancers they had watched together.

"You, Anakin. And I. Together."

The words struck him like daggers at his throat, in his chest. All the air seized from him. It would as though the planet had ceased its turning upon its axis. Anakin had never felt so trapped.

"No," Anakin gritted out, clenching his fists. "You're lying."

"I am not," Palpatine countered calmly.

Then his shielding was lowered and Anakin was drowning. It was like nothing he had ever known. Darker and colder than deep space, stretching as wide as the galaxy. Anakin stumbled and gripped the Chancellor's desk to keep himself upright as the tidal wave of Darkness rushed over him.

And then it stopped.

"You know my power, now," Palpatine went on, matter-of-fact. "You know that it is true."

Anakin looked at him with tears in his eyes.

"In time, Anakin," Palpatine told him, "this power will be yours."

Anakin shook his head. The simple act somehow took all the strength in his muscles.

"I will not be your apprentice."

His voice shook but he was certain. He had never been more certain of anything in his life. Palpatine tutted his disappointment.

"This Jedi way of thinking will get you nowhere, Anakin," he advised. "The Sith tread where the Jedi are too afraid to go. And it is only through such courage that one can gain power over life and death."

Anakin shook his head once more. It was a little easier, this time.

"I am no Jedi."

"Then why do you hate my kind?" Palpatine asked.

His voice was pleading, pathetic. As though he deserved his sympathy. The anger was rising again inside Anakin now.

"You're evil!" he spat.

"What does that mean, Anakin?"

Anakin could barely see for his rage.

"It means," he roared, "that you-"

"Lower your voice, my boy," Palpatine hushed him. "I believe we have a visitor arriving."


Obi Wan cut the Red Guards down with two clean strikes of his 'saber. He had never killed like this before – fast, careless, barely seeing the lives extinguished before him. All he could see was Anakin.

Anakin standing tall and bright as a maelstrom of Darkness whirled around him. Anakin lost, at sea, no land in sight. Obi Wan knew then that what he had felt was true: he was Anakin's only hope.

But the young man's eyes filled with despair as he saw him.

"Obi Wan, no!"

Obi Wan saw Anakin ignite his lightsaber, bring it down upon the Chancellor. He saw the red lightsaber of the Sith appear and flash at inhuman speed.

"Anakin!"

Obi Wan leapt his brother's aid but seemed to be stuck in slow motion. Then the red loomed ahead of him; it filled his gaze. There was no time to land a blow upon his enemy, no time to tell Anakin that he loved him. There was only rushing red and searing heat and then it was all over.


Korkie refreshed the HoloNet news feed.

"No news," he reported.

He rose from the desk and drew the curtains to block the offensive sunlight. He refreshed the HoloNet news feed again.

"No news."

He picked at a scab on his forehead and refreshed the HoloNet news feed again.

"No-"

"Korkie, my dear," Satine pleaded. "If you are to refresh that screen every twenty seconds then this afternoon is going to be very long indeed."

Korkie glared at his mother. The afternoon was going to be very long regardless.

"I'm sorry, my love," she sighed, understanding what he had not said. "You're right."

Korkie scooted his chair over to sit close beside his mother and leaned his head against her shoulder. He refreshed the HoloNet news feed once more. They gazed together at the nothingness.

And then something changed.

Not on the screen but in the Force around them. The sense that something was suddenly missing. The pain was not intense, exactly. But the missing piece was unsettling. Some part of him that he had never known he possessed. Gone, now.

Korkie looked to his mother, ashen-faced.

"Mum," he croaked. "I think something terrible has happened."


It would be easy, from here.

Sidious watched Anakin Skywalker drop to his knees beside the body of his former Master, the most terrifying of his visions realised. His lightsaber lay, abandoned and extinguished, on the rich carpet. Sidious felt the flooding grief, heard the young man's wail of despair, and smiled.

It would be easy now.

"Obi Wan!" Anakin sobbed. "Obi Wan!"

He pressed his forehead to the dead man's, gripping Obi Wan's lifeless frame. Sidious had long been amused by these displays of grief, the manner in which a sentient felt a connection to the corpse that was no longer the being they loved. So illogical. So inelegant.

"Anakin," Sidious ventured.

Anakin shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, burying his face at the ground where Obi Wan lay. Hoping, perhaps, in his pathetic grief, that Sidious would strike him down too.

But he had no intention of doing that.

"Anakin," Sidious tutted. "What have you done?"

He broke into the young man's mind, then. Captured his attention once more. Anakin's sobs quietened; his gaze lifted.

"What have I done?" he repeated, with ragged voice.

"You deceived him," Sidious mused. "You betrayed his trust. And now…"

Anakin was struggling to suppress his hyperventilating breaths.

"I- I-"

"You did this to him," Sidious concluded, mournful.

Anakin, shaking, was rising to his feet now.

"I didn't do this," he spat. "You killed him!"

An amusing attempt at resistance.

"He came here to kill me, Anakin," Sidious reasoned. "And he came because you let him."

He shook his head in solemn reflection.

"You must have known, Anakin," he went on. "You must have known how deeply he cared about you. The lengths he would go to, to protect you. And yet you were rash. You deceived him and now look at what you have done."

Anakin could barely look at it, the clean oblique slash dividing Obi Wan's torso from his lower limbs.

"I…"

"He loved you so dearly, Anakin."

Tears streamed down Anakin's ashen face.

"I know," he choked out.

Sidious gave a grim sigh.

"And you let him die," he repeated. "Just as you will allow your wife to die in childbirth."

This jolted Anakin, his eyes darting to the window.

"Padme," he breathed. "I-"

"Only I can save her, Anakin."

The time had come for the young man to fall upon his knees. But Anakin began instead to pace, side to side, muttering to himself.

"No… no. This isn't right. I… This can't be-"

"You've lost Obi Wan with your reckless folly, Anakin," Sidious warned. "You cannot afford to lose her too."

Ah, yes. The words had finally felled him. The time had come. Anakin sunk, miserably, to kneel.

"We're going to have twins," he whispered. "She needs… I need…"

Sidious nodded his sympathetic – entirely disingenuous – understanding.

"Let me help you, Anakin."


He almost said it. He truly, almost did.

Tell me what I must do.

But he knew what would be asked of him. And he knew, that although he loved Padme with every cell in his body, that although Padme was the only light shining in his miserable life, that it was far worse than losing her.

He rose to his feet. By some strange illusion, he felt Obi Wan's hands, lifting him up. Just as he had on the pavement that evening. Just as he had every single time Anakin had fallen.

"Help me?" he repeated, disparaging. "After you did this to me?"

He gestured to Obi Wan, now. Forced himself to look. Felt that grief and love and let it anchor him to the Light.

"He was my father," Anakin gritted out. "He was my brother. He was everything!"

There was a faint flicker of surprise on Palpatine's countenance. A hint of impatience edged his voice.

"He is not everything, Anakin," he reminded him. "Padme still lives. For now."

Anakin shook his head.

"I know what you're doing to me."

"We can save her, Anakin."

Palpatine's voice were weighted heavily with the persuasion of the Force. Anakin pressed back at the rising visions of Padme in his mind's eye.

"It is the only way, Anakin," he insisted. "Together. Together we will have unimaginable power. The power over life and death. The power to free the slaves and the clones-"

"You engineered this hell-damned war!" Anakin roared. "Don't pretend! You did this to them! You did all of this!"

Palpatine smirked.

"Such anger, Anakin… Use it. Use it in the way the Jedi never allowed you."

"I'll use it to kill you," Anakin snarled, and ignited his 'saber once more.


The Chosen One was powerful, of course he was. But he was young and unpractised at fighting in anger. He was not powerful enough. Sidious deflected his blows easily as he wondered what exactly to do with him. He had never imagined that the Jedi could brainwash the boy so thoroughly. But it mattered little. He had time. He would live forever. He would find another temporary apprentice – another Maul – and he would carry on the fight. While Force-blind, Grievous would be a powerful enough enforcer for now. Sidious had an empire to rule.

Groaning with frustration, Anakin leapt at him in a renewed attack, clamouring rage in the Force around him. Not strong enough.

Sidious countered with a twisting leap that severed Anakin Skywalker's three remaining organic limbs. He looked at the Chosen One, unchosen now, lying before him, chest heaving with his dying breaths. He electrified the pathetic body with Force lightning and was rewarded with a cry of pain.

"This is your final chance, Anakin, to join me. To be healed. To live. To save Padme."

But somehow, amidst all the pain, Anakin had found the sort of Jedi calm that had always eluded him.

"No," he answered, voice low and certain.

With swelling rage, Sidious electrified him again.

"You may be beyond my reach, Skywalker," Sidious spat. "But your motherless children will be easy pickings."

"No!"

His voice was weak, his protest pathetic.

"No, you can't, you-"

Sidious lifted his comm to his lips.

"Execute Order 66."

He would finish Anakin and address his Senate. The would build the Galactic Empire and the children would be found, turned. His.

He lifted his 'saber but never managed to bring it down.


Yoda knew before he saw it that he had arrived too late for Obi Wan Kenobi. But Anakin Skywalker was still alive. Weakly alive. Desperately alive. He flung the distracted Dark Lord across the office with an almighty push in the Force and knelt beside Anakin's maimed body, laying a hand upon his chest and channelling into him the healing Force.

"Don't give me your energy, Master," he choked out. "Save it, to defeat him."

Yoda shook his head. He knew, heavily, in his heart, that he had no chance at truly vanquishing the Sith. But if he could keep Anakin alive, if he could escape…

The reprieve granted by the Force push was brief. Sidious was back on his feet and countered with a blow of his own. They leapt and weaved and clashed blades. Released and deflected Force lightning. All the while, two bodies on the floor beneath them. Only one still breathed, and yet, Yoda protected them both from the combat, from any further blemish upon their skin.

"You are fighting with compassion," Sidious spat in derision. "How can you ever hope to know true power?"

He sent forth an enormous pulse of lightning that scorched Yoda even as he deflected it into the enormous glass wall behind them. It shattered upon impact. The whistling wind of the Coruscant night whipped at their robes.

"You are running out of tricks, Yoda," Sidious snarled.

He was. But help would come. He knew.


"What the kriff is going on here?" Barriss breathed, horrified.

They were approaching landing altitude on Coruscant now. Fire burned in the Jedi Temple.

"The Sith Lord has turned the clones against the Jedi Order," Ahsoka explained grimly.

The white-armoured soldiers marched like action figures from the distance of their view. It seemed impossible, bizarre, that the Jedi would end this way.

"There are younglings in there!" Barriss choked out.

There was anger, a Darksider's anger, welling in the small fighter cabin now.

"Hopefully Master Yoda will have been able to evacuate them," Ahsoka muttered. "You can see that a few ships are being deployed from hangar-side…"

But they surely could not have evacuated them all. The trembling fear and wails of pain in the Force were undeniable.

"You can land there, up ahead," Barriss instructed. "I'll get out and go help. You can carry on to the Chancellor's office."

Ahsoka grimly complied. While an extra sword against the Sith Lord might have been nice, she had been cautious about the Sith's ability to manipulate a recently fallen Jedi. Besides, who was she to stand in the way of Barriss's redemption? To prevent her from saving the lives that she had only months ago been willing to sacrifice?

"Thank you for coming back with me," Ahsoka told her, as they pulled up in a hasty landing.

"Thank you for bringing me back, Ahsoka."

The former Padawans gripped each other's hands, briefly, and parted ways. There was so little time.


Anakin felt himself slipping away, as green and red and electric blue flashed above him. He wondered if he would see Obi Wan again. If he would be able to tell him how sorry he was. He knew that he would feel him. He felt him even now. That gentle warmth in the Force. He felt his arms around him.

He knew that Obi Wan had forgiven him. That he was proud of him, for staying in the Light.

But still, he'd like to be able to tell him how sorry he was.

Master Yoda was surely tiring now. More and more Force lightning danced above Anakin's watching gaze. Tonight would surely be the end of the Jedi. Anakin had never exactly felt at home in the Order but the tragedy of it was staggering, enormous.

He thought of Padme. His children. So long as they survived, everything would be alright.

And then there were arms around him. Real, warm. A familiar presence in the Force.

Ahsoka.

She yelled something at Master Yoda – Anakin was too faded to pick out words anymore – and Yoda groaned with the enormous effort of his final Force push and they leapt.

Out the window? Out the kriffing window? Anakin could have died far more peacefully on that carpeted floor, he could have…

They landed, with an agonising jolt, in the cabin of what Anakin eventually realised was a two-person fighter. It was like some bad joke told in the cantinas of Tatooine. A woman, a midget and a limbless cripple get into a two-person speeder…

Anakin was surely dying. Delirious.

"Snips…" he managed.

Easier than her real name.

"Th- thank-"

And then the last of Master Yoda's healing energy washed over him and Anakin fell into a deep sleep.


Sidious knew better than to expect that the Jedi were killed in their fall from the window; there was, presumably, a vessel waiting below. He watched the speeders of Coruscant move like an enormous insect colony. Amongst them, a Mandalorian fighter.

He reported the ship's description into his comm and turned from the gaping window. His army would take care of it. He would not waste time chasing the dying. There was a whole galaxy upon which to enforce his will.

The first traces of dawn were becoming faintly apparent on the horizon. Soon, he would speak to his Senate and the Empire would be born.


She had two half-dead men in the back of her two-person speeder. Kriff. There was no one yet on her tail, but there would be. It was a terrible night in the galaxy.

"Where are we going, Master?"

Yoda's eyes were closed, his head resting against Anakin's shoulder.

"Mandalore, maybe?" Ahsoka prodded.

"Not to Mandalore," Yoda managed. "Safe, Mandalore is not."

His voice was weak, frighteningly so.

"To Dagobah," he croaked. "To Dagobah, we must go."

Ahsoka's eyes widened.

"Dagobah?" she repeated. "Master, there are no sentients on Dagobah. Just wild swamplands and wild creatures. Anakin needs healing, he needs a hospital, he needs-"

"Prostheses and bacta, to survive, Anakin needs not," Yoda whispered. "To survive… to survive…"

"Master?"

"The Force, Anakin needs," Yoda finished simply. "The Force, I need. To survive."

Ahsoka offered no further argument. She flew the fighter to within an inch of its life. Bo-Katan would forgive her.


Yoda closed his eyes and allowed the lost Padawan to take them away. Away from the Darkness churning like a roiling sea. Away, and into the Force.

He felt everything. He was not strong enough to sift through the millions of messages whirling in the disrupted Force, to dampen the blows. He felt the death of the younglings at the blasters of the clone troopers. He felt the death of his Knights upon the battlefield. He felt the despair of the un-chipped clones, those who had been spared their loss of autonomy but carried now the heaviest burden of all: to turn their weapons against their brothers. He felt the tears upon their faces; he felt the tears upon his own face. He felt blaster bolts in his gut. He felt it all.

But he felt, amidst it all, the remaining life. He felt Mace Windu, worried sick, battered and bruised, but alive. He felt younglings and their creche-master gazing into the enormous unknown of deep space. Survivors. There were hundreds of survivors. Thousands lost, but not all. Yoda felt the ache in their hearts as they saw their new path. Exile and persecution and never, ever, that feeling of safety. That feeling of home.

Never again would the galaxy be as it once was. He would perhaps save the life of Anakin Skywalker. But the age of the Jedi was over.

He had failed.


A life lost, a soul saved.

I'm really sorry everyone. This is how the story came to me and the way that felt right. But I understand that there will be much disappointment that we have lost our beloved Obi Wan and you have my complete permission to be as angry at me as you'd like.

Next chapter: the rise of the Empire. Grief. Exile and uncertainty. Padme makes it to Mandalore.

I promise, I truly promise, that I believe that the ending to our enormous journey will be optimistic.

xx - S.