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Chapter 7: In Which Palpatine Finds His Limit

Palpatine looked at the holoclock and sighed. Were younglings created every generation to go with less sleep each time? Leia chose that moment to scramble past, squealing as Luke pursued her with his glowstick.

Or rather, she tried to. Moving with a swiftness that belied his age, Palpatine launched up from the couch, startling a half-asleep Obi-Wan Kenobi, and snagged her in a midair leap for the armrest. He dangled her in front of him, trying for a serious expression. She looked ridiculous, wearing one of her mother's old headdresses that she had clearly smuggled into her overnight luggage. He faintly remembered that one; Padme had looked just as ridiculous at the time, but no one made fun of the Queen of Naboo. Not out loud, at least.

Leia wriggled like a sandworm in his grasp. He eyed her.

"And now, young Skywalker," he said sternly, "you will go to bed."

"Noooooooooo," Leia half-whined, half-giggled.

"Oh, I'm afraid so. I've indulged your antics long enough. Look at Master Kenobi," he rotated her to take in the Jedi, who was circumspectly wiping a thin line of spittle from the corner of his beard. "You've worn the poor man out. Don't you know he has a war to win?" Good luck with that, Master Jedi.

She looked at him and then shrugged. "He was sleeping."

"And so you should be, soon." He carried her in the direction of the guest rooms. "Come along, Luke. You're going too."

They must have finally reached their breaking points, because Luke voluntarily fetched their vibrobrushes from their luggage. He watched them from the door of the bathroom as they struggled to clean their teeth and pondered how his life had ever reached this point.

Fortunately or not, Palpatine barely had time to process his burgeoning existential crisis. "Leia, get back in there and rinse properly. You don't go to bed looking like a rabid vine tiger."

She bared her teeth at him cheerfully, foam dripping on the immaculate tile floor. He gingerly turned her by the shoulder and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the sinks.

Luke obediently rinsed and disappeared into the internal refresher with his pajamas tucked under his tiny arm. He didn't reemerge. After a time and while Leia was changing in her room, Palpatine tapped tentatively on the door panel. "Luke?" He carefully pushed it open, and there was the boy curled on the plush rug in front of the shower, in his one-piece wookie pajamas. He peered up at Palpatine with bleary eyes. "I'm tired..."

"Really?" It was amazing; once younglings decided they were tired, there was no stopping the progression.

"Here, Chancellor, allow me," Obi-Wan Kenobi offered from behind, appearing in the door frame, and the Jedi master stooped down and scooped up the small fuzzy bundle. "I'll get him settled."

"Much appreciated," Palpatine said as he watched them go. He should probably ensure that Leia was accounted for. He found her in her bed, chatting nonsense to a small stuffed Gungan. She clutched it close when he arrived and waved him over.

"Bedtime story! Bedtime story!"

He eased himself onto the edge of the mattress and studied his future apprentice. "A bedtime story?" he repeated. "I'm afraid I don't know any bedtime stories, Leia."

"Didn' anyone ever tell you a bedtime story?" Leia asked, looking up at him with disgustingly large brown eyes.

The innocent question left a slightly sour taste in his mouth, and he settled for a quick shake of his head. "I'm afraid I was not that fortunate." He thought back to Convergence and the Lake Country, a storybook setting if ever there was one, lacking only the appropriate temperaments. That was an understatement.

Her tiny face screwed up in deep thought. "They shoulda. But thas' okay, you can just make one up."

Palpatine appraised her closely, noting how her eyelids were beginning to droop along the edges. "And if I do, will you promise to sleep?"

"Yeah," she yawned.

"Then we have a deal. Let me think for a moment…"

He searched his memory of the many books he had read over the years, and came up with very little that would be appropriate for tender ears. Of course, he also hadn't read a novel for nearly a decade, and he didn't really think political treatises or arcane Sith disquisitions would appeal to Leia's definition of "bedtime stories." But, now that he thought about it, perhaps he did have story to tell. A biography…of sorts.

He crossed one leg at the knee as he perched on the edge of the mattress and called on his most dramatic Senate voice, the one he used on the poor idiots when they were not sufficiently swayed to his causes. "Once upon a time, there lived a smart and crafty Sith Lord."

Leia interrupted him. "Was he big and scary looking?"

Palpatine glanced in the reflective panel on the closet doors. Actually, the Sith Lord looked more tired than scary, but he had better cover his bases. "Why not?" he sighed. "The Sith Lord was very big and very scary. He was at least twenty meters tall."

"Thas' silly," Leia protested.

"Who's telling this story, me or you?"

That silenced her for a moment, and he leaned back and brushed a hand through his silver hair. "Now, this Sith Lord knew a young Jedi, and he wanted him for his apprentice, but the Jedi managed to escape every time he set the trap." He couldn't completely help the low growl in the back of his throat.

It must have added to the story, because Leia's eyes got huge. "But thas' good, right?"

"From a certain point of view," he muttered. A particularly loathsome one, at that. "The Sith Lord knew he had to – "

"Old," Leia suddenly announced. "Make him old."

He stared at her.

She giggled and fluffed the covers at him. "Like reaaaaally old, like fiffy."

Palpatine ignored the twinge of indignation. "I'll do better yet. This Sith Lord was immortal, for he had discovered the keys to life and death." Chew on that one, little Skywalker. After all, Anakin's persistent ignorance had re-motivated Palpatine to urgently pick up Plagueis' research in the last several years, and the results were quite… illuminating. At least his hair was no longer thinning, and the scar between his thumb and index finger where Leia had bit him clear through a year ago was nearly gone.

Leia's large eyes squinted. "What's imm – immor? What's that?"

Palpatine grinned. Just the best thing to ever happen to any Sith, that's all. "Immortal means you live forever, my dear girl."

She thought about it for a long time, her tiny face scrunching up into a bundle of skepticism. Finally she blurted out, "That would be boring."

"Give it time," he snorted. "You are young. And cease these attempts to stall. You should have been asleep hours ago."

Leia beamed up at him. Impudent little whelp, he thought half-fondly, and then mentally slapped himself. Focus.

"What happened?"

"To the Sith Lord? Well, he continued to set trap after trap, until one day he devised a terrible scheme with which to ensnare the unwary Jedi," he raised both eyebrows significantly and paused, and Leia wiggled excitedly. "He promised the Jedi the darkest gift ever imaginable."

"Cookies!" Leai squealed, caught up in the story and unable to resist.

Well, he had been about to say "absolute power," but on second thought… He was flexible. "Naturally. The most succulent, tender, sucrose-infused delicacies the galaxy had ever witnessed. The Jedi and his entire family fell to the power of the Sith Lord's offer, and eventually the entire galaxy." He glanced at the holoclock. "The end."

"It really ends like that?" Leia's mouth hung open, a thin, sleepy string of drool sliding down her chin in spite of her desperate attempts to stay awake.

Palpatine adopted a suitably somber expression. "Unfortunately, my dear girl, not all stories have happy endings."

Leia thought hard and then brightened. "But the Sith did."

Well now. That was interesting. "You know," he lied, getting up from the edge of the mattress, "I've never thought about it like that before. Goodnight, Leia, and stay in bed this time."

"Wait! Gotta kiss GuGu," she held the stuffed Gungan high.

Palpatine was a seasoned Sith Lord; he had waded through the blood of his enemies, leapt into the most dangerous situations, and made small talk with countless, equally small-minded Senators. He had even played dead on the floor of his own apartment.

He drew the line at kissing stuffed Gungans.

He didn't want to imagine what sort of microscopic ecosystem existed on the monstrosity, so he patted the soft, balding head and searched for an excuse. "GuGu…" – how it hurt to say it – "…only likes kisses from little younglings," he told her.

GuGu retreated under the covers. "Oh. Okay. Go'night," she murmured, her large brown eyes drifting shut as she pulled the covers up around her tiny chin.

He was almost to the door when a tiny voice called: "I love you, Palpy."

Palpatine smiled. He told himself it was simply because he was impressed by the level of emotional manipulation she had already reached at her tender age.

He certainly didn't care what she thought about him.

As he dimmed the lights and slipped quietly into the hallway, he reflected that if Skywalker didn't turn to the Dark Side for a few more years, it might not be completely unbearable. At least, not as much as he once thought.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Oh dear, fluff. How did that get in there? Out, fluff, out, I say!

And Leia's not quite done with him yet. Stay tuned for the final chapter/epilogue.

Well, what did you folks think? Leave a review!

I don't know about you guys, but I've enjoyed torturing my muse. It goes without saying that he's less than pleased with my writing lately, so I've decided to throw him a bone and start up a story that might provide him with some entertainment. Check it out. It's an AU called "Fathers and Sons."