Table of Contents
The Queen Does Not Need to Know
Act I: The Will of the Force (32 BBY - 29 BBY)
Chapter 1 - Pathetic Life Forms to Chapter 22 - A Change of Guard
Act II: Daughter of a Clone (25 BBY - 22 BBY)
Chapter 23 - Ahsoka Tano to Chapter 40 - Cue the Orchestra
Final Chapter - Outtakes
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
Act I: Return of the Sith (19 BBY ~)
Act II: The Knights of the Living Force ( ~ 0 BBY)
Final Chapter - Epilogue and Bloopers
WARNING: You do not need to read this chapter, but I thought this would be fun to share. It's the sort of things I know people put in youtube videos, podcasts, and for Patrons. I cannot thank the reviewers enough. Here's the inside scope on some of my musings.
AN: As I've been saying, I ended up writing many drafts for this story and snippets for chapters so far in advance that they no longer worked or were too crackish. So I hope these bring you some entertainment. The ones for I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing will be longer with much more crack and more epilogue snapshots that I can't include here because of spoilers ;D
Bonus Half Chapter 41 - Outtakes
AN: This one is one of my earliest drafts when this story was more centred on being a time travel than an AU. Rey was originally going to be able to sense Palpatine and assume he was a Jedi who had fallen from the Jedi Order.
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'A Particular Peeved Alderaanian'
Rey half expected to see Master Yoda rounding the corner when she sensed such a power coming toward them. That power did night shine in her mind like a light as others did but like a darkling star.
"Rey," Master Jinn said, "This is the Senator from Naboo, Senator Palpatine."
Rey stiffened,
Palpatine? As in Emperor Palpatine?
She regarded the man closely, warily.
The man smiled at her kindly, too kindly as if they were friends, "Ah, you must be Padawan Rey, I have heard so much about you, and can I be so bold as to presume you've heard of me as well?"
That name? Yes, she most certainly had heard it before, but the galaxy was large and if he was a Force user or a Jedi surely that would have been mentioned in the nightmares retold about the tyrant Emperor? Wouldn't it? Luke Skywalker being a Jedi had always been a big deal in the stories.
"I've heard of the name Palpatine, but I doubt it was you," she said, not able to even pretend to share his smile. Whether he was, or rather would b,e the Emperor or if he was just some unlucky soul in the galaxy to share that particular name, she didn't care. She didn't like this man.
"Oh," he said interestedly, "perhaps a family member of mine then?"
She shifted closer to Master Jinn who seemed unfailingly polite and respectful toward this man.
Were they friends?
She hoped not, as she answered coolly, "I think not, the Palpatine I knew of was an evil tyrant who died in a violent explosion. He made the unfortunate and interesting mistake of falling on the wrong side of a particular peeved Alderaanian."
Because the destruction of Alderaan had been the beginning of the end for their dear Emperor. Blown up in the second planet destroying monstrosity he thought to terrorize the galaxy with by Luke Skywalker, a pilot working for General Organa.
The Senator blinked at her, "Ah, well, I hope then that our meeting will remain in your memory more fondly than that."
Rey didn't say anything to this, and fought herself not to hide behind Master Jinn. She didn't know if it was the slim possibility that this might be the Emperor, his Force power that sang to her like a discordant melody, or just the manner of focus his eyes watched her from, but she was disturbed by him.
How could Obi-Wan be so calm around him?
AN: I love Bail Organa and in the next part of Significant Brain Damage he will get a starring role as he gets to know both Luke and Leia. For this story, though his role is not as large, we will be seeing more of him.
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'The Senator Organa'
"Ah, Rey this is Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan."
"Organa?" She breathed in awe.
In her time, Alderaan had become memorialized as much more than simply 'that planet that blew up.' Maybe if it hadn't been one of the most prosperous and peaceful systems in the galaxy it wouldn't have been so, but Alderaan seemed akin to paradise in Rey's mind. And this man, Bail Organa, father of General Leia Organa, was in her assertation, on par with meeting Obi-Wan and Master Jinn for the first time.
The man smiled at her kindly, "You've heard of me, Padawan Rey?"
She bowed low at the waist, seeming to take all her companions by surprise when she rose. Ignoring them, she said, "Only the very best, it is an honour to meet Senator Organa."
He blinked at her, a hesitant smile forming on his lips, his dark eyes filling with mirth, "I do believe that is the warmest greeting I've ever received from a Jedi on a first encounter."
Rey waved that off, "They'll come around."
"How did you hear about Senator Organa on Tatooine?" Obi-Wan asked as if he couldn't help himself.
She grinned, "Alderaan has a certain reputation."
Interested, Bail asked, "Have you ever been?"
"Only in my dreams," she said regretfully. Wanting to live on a planet that had blown up she supposed wasn't healthy but this was Alderaan they were speaking of.
"You should visit," Bail encouraged, "our system has always welcomed the Jedi."
She felt her excitement rise, Alderaan wasn't currently blown to smithereens, it was a real place just as she was a real Jedi. She looked up at Master Jinn hopefully.
He was looking at her with an expression somewhere between amused and thoughtful.
But before he could answer, Obi-Wan asked, "Rey, how can you admire Senator Bail Organa so much and dislike Senator Palpatine on some unknown principal? It isn't as if Alderaan and Naboo have such vastly different reputations."
She saw Master Jinn flinch and she realized that in their Master's eyes, they were both diplomatic disasters.
Oh well.
Rey turned a frown on Obi-Wan, and said simply, motioning toward Bail, "Because Senator Organa is a lovely human being while Palpatine is the definition of creepy."
Honestly, she didn't understand why Obi-Wan or Master Jinn would so vehemently defend a Jedi who had fallen from the Order to play politics.
"Padawan!" came Master Jinn's sharp reprimand.
Bail Organa was laughing, "Oh, she's the latecomer. I think I will be requesting you three if and when Alderaan is need of Jedi aid. At the very least it would make negations less tedious." He winked at Rey, "Such candidacy is to be appreciated." He bowed to the three of them at the waist, with as much respect as she had shown him, "Well met Master Jinn, Padawans Rey and Kenobi. May the Force be with you."
"And with you," they chorused together, returning the bow.
When the representatives walked off, Master Jinn sighed heavily, pinching the arch of his nose, "It'll be another blue saber for you then, it seems my diplomacy skills are not matched by my abilities to pass on my knowledge to my Padawans."
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Master," Obi-Wan said, "I think Rey just made us a new friend."
Master Jinn sighed again, "Making friends with politicians is a slippery slope."
"Most people who seek power are rotten," Rey said, "But a rare few are strong enough to not be corrupted because the desire for the well-being of others is stronger than anything else."
Master Jinn looked at her, "And you know Bail Organa is such a man, how?"
Because he fathered Princess Leia, but aloud she said, "The Force."
Obi-Wan coughed, "Cop out."
Rey lifted her chin, "Time will prove me right."
Master Jinn shook his head, "Time, my dear Padawan, will prove us all fools in the end. Come now, we have other friends to make."
AN: So this was the Council's original response to Rey's Mando saber that fit with the two above sections.
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'Not a Politician'
"So let us be clear," Mace stated in a long-suffering tone. "You, who have an inconsistent history with dealing diplomatically with various government officials, was somehow able to not just survive an encounter with a group of Mandolarions, but you were somehow able to work with them to complete a mission without causalities? A group of people I may add who have sworn themselves against the Jedi."
Rey crossed her arms, "I don't see why would align ourselves against a group whose main purpose, outside of tracking down criminals, is helping the defenceless and saving orphans."
"They are assassins," Mace said slowly.
"Well, they didn't assassinate anyone meaningful in front of me."
The Council sighed deeply.
AN: I had several variations for the seen Maul is revealed to the Council, including Qui-Gon being scandalized that his Padawan was having sex with a Sith Lord. This is one that got close to the presses. But it was an early draft and some of these Council members were dead by the time I reached this chapter. Oppsie.
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'He's a Sith Lord. Maul: No shit, Sherlock.'
She stiffened, "My loyalties are not divided. I never shared Jedi business with him."
"No, not even where you've been on your missions?" Mace asked.
"Aside from the few which I was specifically told to be a secret I thought where the Jedi went was public knowledge." Not that they were obliged to tell anyone, but they weren't secrets.
"You've formed attachments, you're compromised you should be stricken from the order," Adi Galia said.
She felt her Master and Obi-Wan stiffen but she beat them to it, her voice hard, cold. "I told him nothing that could have been used to hurt us."
"He could have hurt you."
"As anyone I knew could have, but I thought he was simply a powerful Force sensitive, the Force never warned me I was in danger from him."
Though she couldn't have said she hadn't known he was dangerous, but he was not the Sith Lord who had beaten her in her visions nor the truth behind the wraiths she had encountered on Ilum. Maul wasn't that.
"I told him nothing. I never brought him to the temple, I never-"
"You might have chosen him over us," Ki-Adi Mundi said, "he could have betrayed you, or he could have pushed you to fall to the Dark Side."
She pulled the comlink from her pocket and put in Maul's frequency. Her pulse was unsteady as he picked up.
His usual rough greeting loud enough for the room to hear, "Rey."
"Darth Maul."
He was silent for a moment, then he laughed, "Seven years, my little Jedi."
"So you are Sith?" she asked.
"No."
"Do not," she said coldly, burying the disappointment. Now was not the time for her to slip up with her shields and emotional control, "lie to me again."
"I was merely the apprentice. A Sith Lord I am not, as a Knight you are not."
"Zabrak, the Council knows of you," Mace Windu declared, and she thought his words came in her defence.
"You were brought before the Council because of me," Maul stated, ignoring Master Windu.
A spark of hope filled her, Maul didn't care about being revealed, he did care that she would get in trouble for it. His friendship was true, the Force bond between them as real as the one between herself and Obi-Wan.
"Maul-" she began, not knowing what she would say.
"Tried in front of the Jedi Council, you will be," Master Yoda interjected.
Again, Maul spoke to her, not to the Masters, "Fear not, Master Jinn's Padawan, being a Sith is not illegal, simply unhealthy."
"You will return to Coruscant, or a warrant shall be placed on your head," Master Windu said.
Maul was characteristically unphased, "For what? Breaking the Jedi Code?
"The Sith have sworn to destroy the Jedi." This from Master Jinn who had finally spoken.
"Yet I left your Padawan alive, Master Jinn, and I saved your Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite the opportunity, despite the bounty, my Master has placed on both their heads. In sparing Kenobi's life I am apprentice no longer."
AN: Sometimes I take out pieces of dialogue for the overall flow of the story. I know I tend to write chapter by chapter stories like episodes, but for this story, in particular, sacrifices must be made. But this scene is still canonical to The Queen Does Not Need to Know.
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'Jinn, You Motherfucker'
Rey loses her temper in front of the council, "This is why the Jedi die, this is why eighty years now no one believes you even existed."
Walks out, Obi-Wan follows, leaving Qui-Gon to face the Council.
He clears his throat, "I told she was from the future, right?"
Silence.
Yoda, "Tell us, you did not."
"Really, I'm sure I must have mentioned it."
Mace leans forward, "The hell you did."
"No, I must have told you, that seems like too big a thing to simply slip my mind."
Mace, "Jinn, you motherfucker."
Qui-Gon folds his hands in front of him respectfully, "No, I'm certain I told you. Don't you remember her last outburst about the clones, how would she have gotten that from a Force echo, hmm?"
Mace ground his teeth, "Yet you failed to inform the Council."
Dooku leaned back, "He informed me, and I told Sifo-Dyas."
Every other Council member turned their attention on Sifo-Dyas, and he raised his brows expectantly.
Mace nearly growled at him, "Sifo-Dyas."
The man stroked his thin beard, and Qui-Gon had the idle thought of why people, and by people he meant Dooku, never seemed to rebuke his long hair.
Maybe because it was sleeker and straighter than Qui-Gon's and possible more traditional of his people.
Sifo-Dyas shrugged, "What does it really matter? I see the future all the time, and I can say with absolute certainty that Rey's future no longer exists."
"But time travel!" Kit Fisto exclaimed.
Plo brought his fingers together, "But she didn't time travel herself, the Force itself pulled her. This was the Force's doing, not the act of any one individual. Therefore, the inexplicable possibility of time travel remains out of reach for any including ourselves. As Sifo-Dyas says, her future is gone, that she exists in our time stream now must means that she exists in the Force, that this is the Force's will."
"So we just move on?" Depa asked, "You realize that the Chosen One from the prophecy that Qui-Gon was so obsessed would be proven true? Not by Rey herself, but because if someone can exist out of time with the Force then it is no leap to say that child could be born from the Force."
Mace rubbed his face, "Why am I suddenly worried about a Chosen One?"
Mor smiled at him, "Because balance doesn't mean Light Side, does it?"
Fey hummed, "This is proof that the Force is sentient."
Mor snorted, "We really are a cult of a bunch of religious nut jobs."
Yoda pursed his lips, "True all this is."
AN: Chapter 37 - An Offering of Peace, had a lot of forethought, as in I've been actually dreaming about for nine months. I am not quite happy with how the chapter turned out but that is more to do with my health at the moment. Chapters like this are what I'm hoping to cultivate in my own novel.
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'Attachment'
"We will not abandon our home."
Dooku scoffed, "Attachment to a thing, to a place, at the cost of lives, of our future. You did not protest the restrictions on families but this hunk of stone, you would die for?"
"The legacy of the Jedi lies not in this temple but the younglings, in your Padawans, in the Masters beside you. The archives, the medical equipment will, of course, be saved, but it is time the Jedi move on. The walls themselves cry out their history, the Sith died here long ago, we seek to ensure the Jedi do not find their ruin here also. That so many of you would object, only confirms the necessity," Mace Winduaddressed the assembled Jedi Masters. "Our Order is more than a temple, our beliefs are more than empty words."
Mace stepped up, "We must change as all living things do, but we will remain Jedi, no matter where in the galaxy we find ourselves."
Mutterings filled the room, but the Masters were cowed some more out of appearance to their attachments to the past, others registering what a move like this meant.
No longer the peacekeepers of Republic, but if truth be told, there Republic had not at peace and their stewardship had failed. To move now was to admit their danger. To admit the Jedi were the ones who needed help, who needed assurances of peace.
This is why they had been brought back, Masters and Padawans alike.
This move could take months or years, but the council had allotted only days. The same days that the senate was arguing within itself, too busy serving itself and debating with political rivals to do the jobs they had been elected for.
The Jedi movement would not be a secret thing, but the Republic was not ready for them to leave, nor would anyone have time to mount an attack on them.
Master Yoda assigned there best field strategists and strongest protectors to the younglings. There ships sending out first. Every remaining Master and Padawan grouped into units of six, each member responsible for the whereabouts and health of any of the group.
It made the work clunky at first. The archive units especially disparaging the rapid movement of the shelves and immediate disorganization, but everyone remained accounted for.
And in days, the Jedi temple was stripped down, brick by brick, down to the foundation that was too lifted up. The Sith artefacts were incinerated and destroyed.
Where once stood the Sith shine, where once stood the Jedi Temple was marked by a flat pavilion of stone pieced marble. A mosaic, not in the symbol of the Jedi or the Sith, but the Grey Jedi who had once sought to find the middle ground. The initiates who had not become Padawans who stayed with the Jedi, spent an entire day planting the turned earth.
When they Jedi left Coruscant, they left knowing that they had the plot of ground better than when they had seized it.
AN: I really wanted to put this in but it didn't fit.
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'Rex's First Crush, Crushed'
"Long Necks approaching!" Echo called
The three Mandalorians put their helmets on. Rex and Cody hurred Padawan Palpatine and Duchess Satine and followed in after them to hide them.
The Long Neck seemed grumpy as he looked into the room, "Why are they sleeping in their armour."
"They're having emotions about the Jedi being here," Waxer offered.
The Long Neck moved on.
Rex tried was left in the awkward position of having a woman half laying on him.
Rey Palpatine didn't seem in the least affected.
He glanced over at Cody and the Duchess.
Both were flushed and avoiding eye contact.
Rex glanced back at Rey who had settled herself peacefully at his side. Rex really didn't know what to think about this.
oOo
Rex couldn't help but admire Rey, and as they landed on Serreno, he feared he was developing a crush on her.
Which on a particular level he didn't like. She was one of two women he had ever met.
And then he saw who greeted Rey as she disembarked.
The tattooed Zabrak male was the strangest being he had ever seen, and when he leaned in to kiss Padawan Palpatine, Rex decided that that particular female was a bit too odd for him.
Master Kenobi caught his gaze and smiled kindly, "That's Rey's mate, Darth Maul. He was a Sith Lord, now he's a Master of a separate Jedi Order from ours on Dathomir."
Rex blinked at him, "Aren't the Sith and Jedi foes?"
Kenobi grinned, "That was the theory."
Rex exchanged a look with Appo.
Appo shrugged, "What did you expect? They are space wizards."
AN: Hope you enjoyed some of my outtakes!
AN: Please review if you have any feedback about this fic as it is a prototype to a novel I am writing. Also, review with anything or anyone that you might like to see more or less of in the next fic? As I am currently plotting individual chapters, now is the time to speak :D