Mace Windu wakes to the sensation of falling.
And promptly rolls off his bed to dry heave on the floor. His head has exploded with stars, vision whiting out in pain and the phantom feeling of rain on his electrified skin.
He lays shivering, forehead pressed to the cold tile of his room for relief from his currently massive headache. He then notices the horrid colour of his carpet through squinted eyes, he was sure that was the gift Depa had given to him as a joke, the one he at first reluctantly used and would never admit that it grew on him over time.
It was also, he noted, supposed to be burnt to pieces in an accident involving alcohol and too much butter.
It was a good thing that the sun was just barely shining through his curtains, he wouldn't be able to deal with the onslaught of sudden light in his confusion.
'Hold on,' he thought.
It was definitely night, and raining. In fact, the last thing he..remembered…was…
"In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest, Chancellor."
The wind whipping his robes as he fell hundreds of floors from the Chancellor's office, the searing heat of a lightsaber cutting through his flesh and bone, the tiring fight with Darth Sidious. Agen's, Kit's, and Saesee's signatures winking out so easily.
"He's too dangerous to be left alive!"
"It's not the Jedi way, he must live!"
The Sith's shatterpoint he saw, but was too late to do anything about, he couldn't kill Anakin, but if Anakin hadn't been there in the first place he—
Broken out of his spiralling thoughts with a gasp of sharp pain, he pushed both palms (both!) into his eyes to futilely relieve the hard throbbing in his head.
'What the hell is going on?' He thought as the room began to spin despite still being slumped on the floor.
He swayed uncertainly as he stubbornly got up, he could have physically opened the curtains, but he currently did not care about appropriate uses of the Force. With a dramatic swish of his curtains, he stared blankly at the rising sun and the early hour bustle of Coruscant.
It was morning.
'That's…not right,' came the rather redundant thought.
He looked at his hands, calloused after years of wielding his lightsaber, but on his right wrist sat a white scar that circled all the way around, as if branded into his skin for him to remember.
He made his way to the fresher through memory alone, wary of what he'd see in the mirror. Lo-and-behold, covering most of his face was the crawling trail of the terribly beautiful scars that came from lightning.
Sith lightning.
"It was real," he whispered with tired brown eyes and fingers clenching the sink hard enough to crack.
It was probably the worst (or best) time for his door chime to ring, snapping him out of erratic thoughts that made him fall deeper into questions of 'what do I do?' and 'what can I do?'
He couldn't go out like this. Whoever was behind that door would no doubt be surprised at his appearance and would ask questions he wasn't willing to answer. What would he say? Oh I could most likely end this Force-forsaken war, we just need to kill the Chancellor, who, as it turns out, was a Sith Lord all along! And was most likely the root of all our problems!
Taking a deep breath because his thoughts just wouldn't be quiet, Mace hurried to his closet to at least grab a robe, hopefully there wouldn't be too many questions about why his hood was up.
Opening the door, he was met with the wonderful sight of a concerned Plo Koon radiating worry. For a second Mace thanked the Force that it wasn't someone trouble (like Obi-wan) and ushered Plo in before he could even speak a word.
"Mace, are you alright? And why are you wearing your hood indoors?" He said the last bit with amusement when the door finally shut.
"I…" great, how was he supposed to explain his situation now?
"I felt your distress in the hall, is everything alright?"
Right. He couldn't do this alone, he needed allies, he didn't even know the date, what if it wasn't the day before his defeat (because he didn't die through lightning, but the impact of his fall most likely would have) like he assumed, what if it was months or years.
"I need caf," he declared as if he had invented the next best thing after bacta.
Plo watched as Mace ran to his brewer like a long lost lover in those popular holodramas, his robes billowing impressively. It was perhaps his bewilderment breaking through his concern for a moment, but he chuckled at the image.
Mace stood before the caf maker, his robed back turned towards Plo Koon who settled on one of the bar stools in the kitchen.
"Plo…I don't know where to start," Mace murmured, bordering on a whisper, and now Plo was really concerned because he could see Mace's hands shaking as he poured his frankly disgusting caf into a mug. (Mace had always insisted on drinking it just for the caffeine)
"Mace," Plo began sternly, "whatever you have to tell me, know that I will first and foremost listen, before making any judgement."
The robed shoulders drooped as he threw back the caf like it was alcohol, rubbing a hand down his face at its taste.
"What year is it?" Mace dreaded the answer.
"7956 C.R.C…is that important?"
2 years.
The war only got worse as it went on, and it did drag on, they were played right from the start, like pieces in a game of dejarik—or maybe Shah-tezh. Who knows how long the Sith Lord cultivated his machinations for.
"We're being played Plo." Mace ground out between clenched teeth.
The Kel Dor across him stayed quiet, silently urging Mace to continue talking, his long fingers stapled together under his mask as he focused all his attention on his friend and fellow council member.
"This war is a sham, someone high up is manipulating both sides, the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Haven't you ever wondered how the Separatists keep intercepting our strategies, or us frequently taking them by surprise? Not only is intel being leaked, but it's being actively used to drag on this war, it's killing the Jedi Order." Mace Windu took a breath, dared a look at Plo, but his emotions were locked tight under his shields, his mask also didn't help.
"We aren't made for war, we're being thinned out, scattered every day. Our tactical decisions seem to be thwarted even though the meetings are usually held between Jedi and clones," the Korun Jedi growled, "usually, that is. Tell me Plo, who else attends these meetings? Who has the final say in decisions for the Republic?"
"The Chancellor," Plo Koon rumbled, face ridges furrowing under and around his mask.
"The Emergency Powers Act has granted Palpatine so much influence and authority that he has long surpassed his expiration of his elected terms, he will also be making several more amendments to the Galactic Constitution to gain even further control of military affairs. He will become the most powerful Supreme Chancellor since before the Ruusan Reformation." Mace finished grimly, staring into his empty caf mug.
Plo Koon sat unspeaking as his thoughts churned in his head, it was a lot to process.
"How did you come by this information Mace? What do you mean by 'he will be?' Just yesterday I saw you, completely fine, but today I felt you ache horribly."
'Now this was the hard part,' Mace thought with pursed lips.
"Was it a vision?"
"No," he sighed, "I'm afraid…it's worse than that."
Mace figured the best way to start explaining was to show his appearance, so he reluctantly pulled his hood down, wincing at Plo's strangled gasp.
"Mace! What happened to your face?!" Plo's chair was knocked to the side as he jumped to his feet, goggles tracing the creeping scars across his face. "You look as if you were hit by a storm on Dorin!"
"Calm down," he groaned, waving a hand in dismissal, feeling the other Jedi Master's worry exploding.
"Look, I took on Sith lightning and most likely fell to my death, but for some reason the Force, probably, sent me back to two years ago, the Chancellor is the Sith Lord we're looking for," he blurted out in one breath and Plo froze.
The room felt incredibly quiet as the two Jedi masters stared at each other, Mace hoped his friend wouldn't faint on him. He had just started to sweat as the silence continued, before Plo Koon slowly picked up the fallen bar stool but he didn't sit back down, he moved to the cupboards, found the straw he used whenever he came over to visit, plunged it quite viciously into the caf pot and took a long sip.
"This is the worst caf I've ever tasted," he said while he continued to drink.
"But you need it," Mace nodded.
"But I need it," Plo echoed back.
He didn't finish the pot, thankfully, but handed the rest to Mace, who took it gladly and didn't bother to pour it into the mug, but drank it straight from the rim. The last drops were always awful, and the aftertaste left something to be desired.
"So…what do we do?" Mace asked, leaning against the counter. Plo let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a curse before he eyed Mace's face.
"First, we should get you to the Halls of Healing, maybe Master Che can do something about your looks, you can't exactly go out like this." He pointed out.
Mace groaned. Vokara Che was a strict woman who was going to kill him for not coming to her when he was 'injured' right away.
"Maybe we should comm her to arrange a private room?" He suggested.
"Yes, best not to give the other healers a show, especially when Vokara chews you up," Plo chuckled at his gloomy air.
"Take off your hood. Now." The irritated tapping of a foot seemed to be the loudest thing in the examination room in the office. The blue Twi'lek raised a brow, though it couldn't exactly be seen from her headdress.
Mace grumbled in consternation, before he hesitantly swept his hood down. Thankfully, the healer's experience and professionalism allowed her to keep a straight face, save for the slight widening of her eyes.
She gently lifted her hands to sweep over his cheek, his forehead and ear, using the Force to diagnose the cause of the scars. Her hands stilled as she felt the leftover claws of something dark in the burnt and stretched tissue.
"You weren't hit with ordinary lightning, were you?" She asked as she searched for nerve damage.
"…no."
She grunted as she proceeded to conduct various tests, checking for hearing loss, any damage to his brain, eye, or spinal cord. For a man struck by suspicious lightning he seemed to be in very good shape.
"Is there any way to heal his scars? Reduce the damage?" Plo koon spoke up from where he sat observing.
"Hhmm, bacta and some strong scar removal cream should help fade the broken blood vessels," she walked to a white a shelf with a large clear, bowl-like contraption, grabbing it with some aid with the force she brought it to where Mace sat on the blue sheeted cot.
"We can do the bacta now, which should allow you to walk freely without too much attention, and I can prescribe the cream for you to apply in your own time," she gestured for him to put on the breathing mask connected to the delivery system near the bed, he shuffled onto the cot and let the essentially mini bacta tank enclose over his head.
Vokara connected a tube from the delivery system and pushed a button, the gelatinous substance flooded around Mace's head. The feeling of being conscious while only his face felt cool was marginally different than being completely submerged in the slime-like liquid.
"Two hours should be enough for the bacta, but for the cream, once a day should be sufficient until you can barely see the marks."
Mace did not mention the scar around his wrist, if he thought about it a little too long he could almost feel the way his skin and everything underneath sizzled and burned. No, he did not want this particular scar to fade. A reminder of what the future could not become.
"Mace, you stay here and meditate, get some ideas. Meanwhile, I'll be in the archives, find me in the study hall," Plo said, and as Mace couldn't exactly move his head around, only gave a thumbs-up in response.
As the footsteps of Plo faded from the room, Mace forced himself to relax and fall into a light meditation, giving him time to actually think since waking up years before.
'What a mess.'
The Force felt murky, it wasn't always like this, he could still faintly recall the way the curtains weren't almost drawn closed.
But that was when he was younger, when he didn't have millions of lives riding on his decisions, when he couldn't see as shatterpoints continued to increase on places and people, and when he hadn't had to watch as more padawans went out to fight in active war-zones.
Why? Why bring me back?
Mace asked the Force, hoping for an answer.
However, it was like wading through mud, and he was sinking deeper.
Such a short meditation would not give him the answer he sought. Opening his eyes to bubbles, he waited as the bacta drained.
Vokara gave him a towel to wipe off the excess dripping down his face, he paused over the mirror she had given him. The branching figures were now just barely visible, though he could still notice a slight sliver of them when the light hit just right.
Good, time to get to work.
