Anakin was here. Coruscant. How long had it been? A week? A few days. Anakin couldn't tell, but it seemed a lifetime away. Everything had changed then. And they couldn't change back. They could never return to how they were.
It was difficult to truly know how he felt. Everything was muddled, and confusing. But something was coming out more clearly, genuine and true remorse. He had broken the trust of the Jedi, broken the trust of his wife, and become a criminal; there was no other way of putting it. He had embraced evil and darkness, becoming the very thing he had once sworn to destroy.
I must atone, he knew and thought. And this was it, he would have to do that through even more humiliating and degrading processes and procedures. Just a short while ago, he was the emperor of the galaxy, at least in some titular sense, now he was a convict, who would be tried.
He had landed - now in handcuffs - and looking worn out and dishevelled and above all, very tired - on the platform that opened to the senate building and chambers. There were quite a few ships already there; people around in the platform didn't seem to have much of an idea as to what happened. Perhaps they were still processing the massive changes that had taken place; now those changes had only accelerated by the death of the man who had proclaimed himself Emperor, a death committed by none other than him alone.
He was taken or escorted out of the shuttle onto the bay by these Alderanian guards. Several clone troopers were already there, and a few blue Senate guards. Organa had already walked out and spoke with them. The clones were clearly agitated, while the guards were anxious and bewildered; but both did not know what to do.
The clones had the order for Order 66; but Anakin was no longer a Jedi, and some of them were informed of this; some of those in the platform did indeed insist on ending the threat at once, but Organa was capable to persuade the Senate guards to hold for a trial to take place. The guards immediately issued that Mas Ameda would have to be informed and would take the final call.
When Anakin walked down, all glared at him; but Amedas' secretary had responded immediately, Ameda being informed of the arrest earlier on the ship, and by hologram directed the clones not to take any action against the former Jedi, former Sith, former enforcer of the Empire.
But Anakin was to be kept in detention now, Organa informed him, and Senate guards took him there, in a procession that appeared to last for hours, as people continued to glare at him, in surprise and bewilderment. He still had Jedi robes on - it had also been a while since he had last a bath - so most individuals still associated him with that order, and wondered why he still was in one piece, and simply in arrest by guards. Anakin, too, wondered why Ameda is allowing for this trial of Organa. It seemed apparent, Anakin deduced, that Ameda required a forum to cement his authority; and Anakin also knew of Ameda's shock at his mentor's demise, and part of Anakin found that rather humorous. Anakin was, however, would not be allowed to see his wife, and Ahsoka who were both injured and unconscious.
The detention centre, where Anakin had often visited; now he was incarcerated; for many hours he sat and stood and paced; mulling over his thoughts, which was ironic, for he was never usually a thinker, and certainly it was not thought that brought him to dissolve his Jedi self and recreate him a Sith, but it was thought that brought about the revolutionary and rotatory process; he was now fully and truly reversed; yet as he thought, he was nowhere, and he was nothing; and everything at the same time.
Tarkin and Organa arrived; Tarkin didn't speak. "We will assign you a lawyer." Organa said impassively, "Tarkin shall prosecute you." The latter nodded. "I don't want one." Anakin retorted. Tarkin spoke, "You cannot always get your way can you, Skywalker, sure you have in all your pursuits and endeavours, but now you ought to face justice just like any other common criminal and convict, and you must be assigned and represented by a lawyer." "You're going to execute me anyway," Anakin sighed, "and I don't want to defend myself, I will just own up to the stuff I've done. And on my own terms. I murdered the Emperor on my own terms, and I will face justice on my own terms, Admiral Tarkin."
The two just stood there, and finally Organa said, "Very well, if that be your wish. Now you will stay here, and await trial which has been scheduled, by Ameda, and the Security Council, in but a few days."
Okay, thought Anakin; I'll wait a bit longer; and suffer my fears of Padme, and of Ahsoka too. I obviously don't look forward to it at all. Anakin did just that, and he always revived himself, shaving his stubble, and looking far more presentable. He requested simple, cheap civilian clothes, which would signify him to be just an average human citizen, who had broken all the laws of the Galactic Republic.
