As he watched her march away, Anakin was able to feel how sincerely wounded Padmé was by his accusation that she had manipulated him. The way she was trailing hurt and betrayal behind her in the Force made him question whether he was right. But only slightly, because he had also felt her reluctance when they had been talking the night before. He had even felt outright deceit at certain points during the conversation. So he felt sure that she had used sex to distract him, either from her own discomfort with what they were talking about or to keep him from finding out something she didn't want him to know.

Even if she hadn't realized that's what she was doing, which he conceded was, maybe, a possibility. And one that maybe he ought to have thought of before right that second, after he'd already made the accusation out loud. Now he felt like a bit of a cad. But, again, only slightly.

He still didn't regret going along with her seduction. First of all, what was he, a monk? Dead? Obviously not.

He had also thought that if he could recreate the physical spark that had always burned between them, then maybe that would reignite the emotional spark that seemed to be missing since they had been reunited.

It had not.

At least not on Anakin's part.

Their sexual compatibility had been undeniable, but he had never doubted that for a moment. And his performance had been, if he did say so himself, particularly inspired. He was still feeling the effects of it in certain pleasantly burning muscles and, less pleasantly, in the lingering tenderness of his dick. However, as fantastic as it had been physically, the entire encounter had left Anakin feeling emotionally drained.

He still loved her. Her pain hurt him. The sight of her injuries made his heart ache and the dark side of the Force batter against his mental shields, although he was glad that she was not injured nearly as badly as he had imagined when Chancellor Palpatine had described what had happened.

But Anakin did not feel the same way towards Padmé as he had before their separation. Making love to her had used to make him feel alive. It had been one of the only things that had ever stopped his mind from racing and temporarily stopped the Force from pressing down on him quite so hard. It had always been a profound experience… Worshipping her body had been something like his own personal religion. But last night it hadn't brought him any relief at all (except for, obviously, the physical kind).

It had left him feeling emotionally wrung out. Hollow, even. Used.

Even if she had not been intentionally manipulating him, that didn't change the fact that she had seduced him rather than finish their conversation. Or that she'd been hiding things from him when they had talked. She had clearly been thinking about her own desires more than his—not that he didn't love sex as much as the next guy, but the emotional whiplash from being told he scared her and then having her in his lap two seconds later had been rough.

And her intentions didn't change how her actions had made him feel.

"Oh, good, you're still here."

Anakin nearly jumped out of his skin and swung his head around, hand automatically going to the lightsaber clipped to his belt, which was not there. Because he was only wearing the robe he had left hanging in Padmé's bathroom all those weeks ago when he had gathered his belongings. Cailee stood just outside the door on the far side of the veranda, wrapped in a fancier robe than his, watching him with raised eyebrows. Sun and stars, if he hadn't heard her or even felt her approach in the Force, then he was in dire need of re-centering himself. It was probably just that he had grown used to having her constantly in his space, much like how Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and even Rex seemed more like pieces of his mental landscape than outside presences invading it. But he'd be a shitty bodyguard if he just let people sneak up on him.

Apparently growing impatient with his lack of response, Cailee crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him.

"I need some guidance here, Anakin. Are we making a quick escape or staying for a super awkward breakfast where we all pretend like nothing happened last night?"

It took a few seconds for the implication of her words to register in his mind. When they did, Anakin felt himself blush to the tips of his ears. He slid down until he was lying flat on his back and stared up at the sky.

Although he already knew the answer, he asked, "You heard us last night?"

"Yep," she confirmed dryly, appearing at the edge of the couch he was lying on. "And this morning, too."

"Fuck me," he groaned and threw his arm over his face, as if he were a youngling who thought that if he couldn't see her then she couldn't see him.

Cailee snorted. It was the most unladylike display he had ever witnessed from her. "I'm trying really very hard not to… No, you know what? I'm just going to say it: The senator already did that."

Anakin choked and bit his tongue in surprise.

When he had recovered, he managed to ask, "Did you… Did you just make a sex joke?"

"I was thinking of going with 'that's what she said'. But it felt too on the nose, you know? Because I did hear her say that, actually, and I really wish I hadn't."

Anakin couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up out of his throat. It wasn't even that it was particularly funny. It was that prim and proper Princess Cailee, who a month ago had given him a disapproving look every time he said even a minor curse word in her presence, had not only heard him fucking his secret wife but was also making jokes about it. Then she started giggling too. The light, airy quality of her Force presence filtered through the miasma of his own black mood, and the dam completely broke.

He laughed until his ribs ached and his throat was dry. He laughed until he thought he couldn't possibly laugh anymore. Then he removed his arm from his face and met Cailee's eyes, and that set them both off again.

By the time they managed to stop, nothing was even funny anymore.

"Stop! I'm serious!" she begged, nearly gasping for air.

"I'm trying," wheezed Anakin. "Stop looking at me!"

Another half giggle, half snort emerged from her at that, but Anakin tried valiantly not to react. He was a (former) Jedi, damn it! Not a very good one, but a (former) Jedi nonetheless. What good was enduring nearly fifteen years of forced meditations and constantly being told to control his emotions if he couldn't even stop cackling like a bog witch over a stupid sex joke told by a teenage girl?

Anakin couldn't recall ever feeling so carefree before. Floaty, almost... Or maybe he had just descended into hysteria. Probably it was a combination of the extreme emotional fluctuations of the past several days and his continued lack of quality sleep….

Still, it was nice.

"Thank you," he told the princess sincerely, once he felt like he could breathe again. "For seeing the humor in this situation. For taking my mind off things. For making me laugh so hard I think I may have cracked a rib."

After a slight pause, she said, tone quite serious, "Anakin?"

He turned his head to look over at where she was lying across the sofa opposite him, her body angled to face his. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

Anakin blinked and briefly flipped through his mental catalogue of memories, but he couldn't think of anything she needed to apologize to him for. If she had done something wrong, he had no idea about it.

"What for?" he asked, somewhat dreading the answer.

"For taking my feelings out on you these last few days." She pushed herself up from her prone position so that she was facing him properly. "It was wrong of me. You couldn't have known."

"You don't have to apologize to me for that," he burst out, truly surprised.

Cailee frowned, which made her seem even more solemn than before.

"Of course I do. I treated you poorly. And unfairly. It was wrong of me. So I owe you an apology." At his bewildered expression, she let out an exasperated huff. "Anakin, even if I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong—which I do, but even if I didn't—my behavior still hurt you. Don't pretend like it didn't. So I'd still owe it to you to say I was sorry for that, if nothing else."

He got the distinct impression that she felt like she shouldn't have to explain this to someone older than about ten years old. But the picture she was painting had never been Anakin's reality. He hadn't often received apologies. Explanations for why people had done things or made certain decisions, yes. Occasional expressions along the line of "I'm sorry you feel that way," yes. (The "even though you're wrong" was usually left unsaid, but not always.)

Genuine apologies for the way peoples' actions or choices had affected him personally? No. Almost never.

Obi-Wan had never apologized to him for putting him through the second worst few days of Anakin's life, when he had thought his master-father-brother-friend had been brutally murdered right in front of him. Obi-Wan had acknowledged that he had made some questionable decisions, but he had not apologized for the way his decisions had made Anakin feel. For the fact that one of his choices had been to deliberately use Anakin's feelings for Obi-Wan and his utter devastation at Obi-Wan's death as part of the plan. He had only said that he had done what he had to do and that he hoped Anakin understood.

Anakin did understand. But understanding didn't mean that he magically stopped feeling like he'd been absolutely gutted by the way Obi-Wan and the Council had used him. They had let Anakin literally attended Obi-Wan's fucking funeral.

Most of the Council had never apologized to Ahsoka either. Plo Koon had said that he owed Ahsoka an apology, but Anakin didn't recall the words "I'm sorry" having actually left his mouth. Most of them had only made comments about how Ahsoka had shown great fortitude or that her ordeal had been the will of the Force (or, more accurately, had remained silent and let Mace Windu speak those words on their behalf). They hadn't even taken responsibility for their own culpability in her ordeal.

"Cailee?" he ventured tentatively, peeking at her from beneath the hair that had fallen into his face. At her little hum of inquiry, he said, "I never apologized for pushing you so hard about flying the ship. I told you why I did it, but I never said that I'm sorry. But I am. Sorry, I mean… I'm sorry."

Her blue eyes went soft and luminous in the early morning sun, and he thought for a few terrifying heartbeats that she would cry. He'd had more than enough of that already to last his next two lifetimes. When she rose from her seat and made her way towards him, he sat up quickly, mostly out of alarm.

"Thank you. You're a good man, Anakin Skywalker," she declared, then stooped down to press a kiss to his cheek. When she straightened and saw the dumbstruck look on his face, she smiled. "But I still need to know what the plan is, so I can get ready."

"Uh… Well…" he struggled to answer.

Neither option was especially tempting. Staying and hanging around the apartment as if nothing had happened was completely out of the question. But they couldn't exactly make a run for it in dressing robes, so they'd have to go back inside regardless. Anakin could sense Padmé's presence nearby—she was still in her bedroom, where his clothes and lightsaber were. (Actually, if he recalled correctly, his outer tunic and left glove, at least, were on the floor of the sitting room just outside her chambers.) He'd rather just stay out here, on the balcony, until she finally got dressed and left for the day, even if that wouldn't be for another hour or two.

As if she had read his mind, the princess poked him in the shoulder. "What are you, fifteen? I'm not staying out here just because you're afraid to face your lover."

"I'm not afraid," he insisted, fully aware that he had started to sound like he was whining. "And I promise you, I never had this problem when I was fifteen."

"I'm cold," Cailee informed him. "Just because you're like a furnace..."

Anakin's eyes snapped down from her face to her body (carefully skimming over the generous glimpse of her cleavage the loosely tied robe afforded), and he noticed for the first time that she was shivering. The obvious solution was that she could wait inside her borrowed bedroom until he was ready to go. But he was sort of gratified that it didn't seem to have occurred to her that she wouldn't be where he was.

And she was right anyway. Not that Anakin was afraid—healthily reluctant, yes—but that he couldn't exactly avoid Padmé.

"Fine," he grumbled, pushing himself up from the sofa. "Meet me in the living room. This won't take long."

He didn't wait for an answer before he began stalking towards the door that led to the bedroom he used to (sporadically) share with his wife. Nor did he pause before he entered. He may have changed his mind if he had.

Padmé was sitting on the edge of the bed staring off into space, still makeup free and with her hair flowing freely around her shoulders.

Anakin resisted the urge to fill the space with useless words, as if an awkward conversation would feel any better than an uncomfortable silence. He silently bent down to scoop his trousers off the floor, but he didn't see his underwear anywhere obviously visible. Based on his memories, they were probably tangled up somewhere in the absolute disaster of sheets half hanging off the bed. As sensitive as his penis still felt, he knew he would regret going without them even for the few minutes it took to leave the apartment and fly back to his ship, but it was preferable to digging around the bed trying to find them while Padmé was sitting right there.

He shook his head, partially to shake his hair out of his face but mostly out of disbelief that he had been reduced to pulling on his trousers under his robe so that his wife wouldn't see his bare ass. Not that he was embarrassed. (Was it prideful that he knew how good his body looked? Oh well, he wasn't a Jedi anymore.) Padmé had dug her fingers and, later, her heels into the globes of his ass only last night, and in the past she had occasionally been known to do more than that to him, so, no, definitely not embarrassment. It was more that he had developed a sudden aversion to doing anything around her that could be considered even mildly sexual or seductive.

Probably, without examining his feelings too closely, that was because, even as furious as he was, if she offered sex again while he was standing there naked next to their bed, he might take her up on that offer.

Anakin had never once claimed to be a saint.

Having finished zipping and buttoning his trousers, he untied his robe and shrugged it off his shoulders as he made his way towards the door that lead into the anteroom where his cotton tunic and leather jerkin were likely to be found. Before he made it halfway there, Padmé's resentful, sorrowful voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Is this it, then? Are you going to walk away like yesterday didn't matter, like we're strangers?"

Anakin clenched his teeth and made fists with both hands and counted to ten, all in an attempt to keep control of himself.

When he felt like he could speak without yelling at her, he managed to grit out, "Not like we're strangers, no. Like we're separated and last night was a mistake."

"What about the rest of it? If I used sex to manipulate you"—Her voice cracked slightly there, and Anakin ground his teeth together even harder—"then what do you call what you did to me?"

"What I did to you? I didn't do anything to you!" he denied, unable to stop himself from whirling around to face her now.

"You held me! You comforted me! You made me feel safe and loved and like everything would be okay! Like we could be strong again—like I could be strong again!" she returned, her voice rising with every word until she was very nearly screaming at him by the end. "And now you're saying it was all a mistake!"

Anakin stared at her, stunned. She held his gaze with her fierce glare for only a moment before he saw tears well up in her eyes. She looked away and crumped in on herself, hunching over with her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving. He felt the need to go to her, even now, and comfort her all over again. He couldn't stand to see her pain. He dug the fingernails of his gloveless hand hard into his own palm.

"Padmé, of course I comforted you. I was so worried when I heard that you had been injured, and what else was I supposed to do when you started crying? But that doesn't just make everything else go away. Nothing about our marriage has changed. Nothing about me has changed."

Well, it had. But given that the change was that he had loosened the mental shackles he had always tried to use to keep his dark side in check, he doubted it was one that would be beneficial for their marriage.

"You left the Jedi Order," she said into her hands. "You didn't do that for me?"

"No!" he replied, truly annoyed now. "Why in the world would I have thought leaving the Jedi Order would make any difference to you? I told you multiple times that I was thinking about leaving the Order—before we were married, right after we were married, after Ahsoka left—and you always encouraged me to stay."

"Of course I did! You were too important to the war effort, Anakin!"

"And it turns out that I still can be," he pointed out sharply. "But you still won't tell the universe we're married, will you? Not even if I tell you that it's the only way to save our relationship. Not even after you said yourself that the secrecy has destroyed our marriage."

Padmé lifted her head to look at him with red-rimmed eyes and a regretful expression on her beautiful face.

"No. No, I can't," she almost whispered. "You know that the scandal would be too much, that my career in the senate would be over and, more than that, it would be decades before I would be able to find another job anywhere near politics or diplomacy. And they wouldn't even be wrong in their accusations—I have influenced you in your military duties, just as you have influenced me in my senatorial duties. We have each disobeyed direct orders, broken rules, diverted resources, and risked other peoples' lives to save each other. Multiple times."

"And your career is more important to you than I am," he concluded bitterly, ignoring the rest, which he thought was too obvious to deserve a response.

It hurt to hear it, to say aloud that he didn't matter as much to her as she did to him. He could feel what little hope he had left in his heart for their relationship get crushed beneath the weight of that admission. Even though he had known it in the back of his mind, before.

She rose from the bed and darted over to him, crossing the room so quickly that his roiling mind couldn't think of how to react before she had grabbed both of his hands in hers. She looked up at him with new unshed tears in her big brown eyes.

"No, Anakin. My career isn't more important to me than you are. I swear it's not." She swallowed and shook her head. "But there are billions of lives depending on the senate to guide the war effort, and there are so few senators left who care about relief efforts for the people who have been hurt or who seem to want to see the war end. I'm not worried about myself, but about all of the innocent lives caught in the middle of the conflict. You know that I want the entire universe to know about our relationship… after the war is over."

"I get it, Padmé," he told her, tone flat and devoid of the emotions he was struggling mightily to hold back. "But then we're just going in circles. Like you said, our marriage isn't a marriage so long as we're keeping it a secret."

"I told you that I was wrong to say that!" she cried out, squeezing his hands desperately.

Anakin non-too-gently extracted his fingers from her grasp and, brows furrowed, frowned down at her. "Are you even sorry?"

Her lips parted in surprise. "What?"

"You haven't even apologized, Padmé. You've told me why you said it. You've said that it was wrong of you to do. But you haven't actually told me you're sorry for what you said or for how much you hurt me."

"I…"she choked out, astonished.

Anakin pressed on, "I don't want you to say you're sorry for what you said, if you think it was the truth, which I think we both know you do. But it'd be nice to hear that you're sorry for the way you said it, and the way you treated me afterward when you called to tell me to get my shit out of your apartment. Hell, even for the way you treated Threepio, although you owe that apology to him, not me."

"Threepio?" repeated Padmé, clearly confused.

"You talked about wiping his memory right in front of him," he reminded her, working doubly hard to suppress his anger over that incident. It would do no good to let his temper get the better of him now that they were finally somewhat, sort of, almost talking like rational adults. "That's why he came with me. I told him he could stay with you if he wanted, but he was afraid you were going to destroy him."

She took half a step forward and reached for him again, but Anakin took a full step back out of her reach. He was acutely aware that he was shirtless—was it ridiculous that he felt exposed and like he needed to cross his arms over his chest and conceal his nipples like a girl? His wife's lips visibly trembled at his rejection.

"Anakin, I am sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I said anything at all, especially knowing that nothing could change until after the war ends. Whatever I was feeling, and whatever truths I thought I was speaking, it was unfair of me to treat you the way I did."

It was not as fulsome an apology as Anakin would have liked, but he did believe her, for what it was worth. Which was not a whole lot, admittedly. Better than nothing, though. He released a long, deep sigh, allowing the tension to flow out of his body with his breath.

"I know you are, Padmé. Thank you for saying so," he acknowledged truthfully. Then, before the hope could fully bloom in her eyes again, he added, "But I don't think it's enough, at least not right now, so long as nothing has really changed."

She was silent for the space of ten or twelve heartbeats, just watching him. When she finally spoke, the brittle, powerless quality of her voice almost broke his resolve.

"But after the war? Will it be enough then?"

"I don't know," he said aloud, unable, even now, to definitively slam that door in her face.

But in his heart, he knew it would never be enough again.

Anakin had rarely ever had a reason to visit the Galactic Senate Chamber, much less to appear before the senate.

He immediately hated it.

He had, perhaps, not fully realized what it meant for thousands of senators to collectively represent over twenty-four thousand systems, until he stood in the supreme chancellor's box in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by over a thousand repulsorpods stuffed full of senators and junior senators all staring at him at once.

It was no wonder the senate hardly ever got anything of use done, and that, more often than not, any actions they did manage to take left half of the galaxy feeling like their voices didn't matter. Too many planets and star systems were represented by too few senators, many of whom had never visited all or even most of the planets and systems that fell under their purview. On the other hand, there were already too many senators to take an effective vote on anything—a majority vote could still mean that a minority of ten thousand systems from the mid-rim and outer rim were beholden to laws passed by senators from the core and outer core systems, despite their concerns and economies and cultures being completely different from each other.

Of course, none of that really mattered to Anakin's confirmation vote.

As their pod flew into the center of the Senate Chamber, Chancellor Palpatine rose to stand in front of the microphone. Anakin reluctantly rose to stand a step behind him, as he had been instructed to do beforehand. He was wearing his newest, best clothes and full armor, and he was as uncomfortable as he had ever been in his entire life.

"My dear colleagues, thank you for coming on such short notice," began the chancellor. Anakin could feel a spike of mixed amusement and annoyance from Cailee, who was sitting behind him as unobtrusively as possible. "As you all know, we are here to confirm Anakin Skywalker, formerly a Jedi knight and general under the auspices of the Jedi Order, to the post of general of the Grand Army of the Republic. General Skywalker's accomplishments are well known to this body and, indeed, to the citizens of the galaxy at large. His heroism during the Battle of Jabiim and the Battle of Aargonar, when his name first became known to most of the galaxy, are well known to us all."

Palpatine had to pause there, for the applause was so thunderous that he couldn't have been heard over it even with his microphone. Anakin tried his best not to shift his weight from foot to foot or let it show on his face how mortified he was by the attention. He appreciated praise as much as the next person—especially since he hardly ever got it from his master or the other Jedi—but he much preferred to hear it in private. This public display made his muscles twitch with the need to flee.

Once the crowd had calmed enough that there were only a few smatterings of applause left in the chamber, the chancellor continued.

"It would be beyond my abilities and the time constraints we have here today to list all of his accomplishments on the battlefield. Beyond General Skywalker's public accomplishments, he has also proven himself to be a valuable and reliable asset in covert operations, many of which have been summarized in the materials sent to your encrypted datapads. And, if I may indulge in a point of personal privilege, Anakin has been a great friend to me, and I know he has been one to many other senators as well. He has displayed his care and loyalty to the Republic many times over, and I am sure that all of you, my esteemed colleagues, will join me in voting in favor of his confirmation."

There followed another round of applause as Palpatine turned off his microphone and turned to smile encouragingly at Anakin. Anakin tried to smile back, but he was sure his face was frozen in the stoic mask he had adopted to survive this spectacle.

"Relax," Cailee muttered quietly from her seat just behind him. "You look like they're about to vote to execute you, not hire you for a job."

Anakin wanted to turn around and glare at her, but he could not.

"I'm trying," he hissed back through clenched teeth.

Her feelings of amusement and fond affection caressed him through the Force, like soap bubbles whispering against his skin. They soothed him, even as battered as his emotions were from the prior night and his final confrontation with Padmé not two hours ago, and even as discomfited as he was by the current situation he found himself in. Anakin realized with a start that Cailee was deliberately projecting her feelings to him. She had to be; he had cut his senses off from the Force as much as he possibly could to avoid being bombarded by the feelings and surface thoughts of the thousands of people in the Senate Chamber, not to mention the billions of other people on Coruscant. So there was no way he was sensing what she felt by accident.

When had she learned to do that?

As Anakin was pondering his new revelation, Bail Organa rose to speak of their adventures together, beginning with the blockade Anakin had broken while Organa had been trapped on the surface of Christophsis and continuing on from there.

He was broken out of his reverie by a surge of pride from Cailee, and he started listening in time to hear Senator Teeda Worsley of the Regency Worlds give a rousing account of Anakin's deeds on Arkanis.

"I assure you all," concluded the woman, who bore some little resemblance to the princess, "that I speak on behalf of Her Majesty Empress Elisa and every member of the royal family when I say that the Regency Worlds wholeheartedly support General Skywalker. The only objection we have to his appointment as a general of the Grand Army of the Republic is that it means we cannot secure him as a leader in our own military."

Anakin did turn to look at Cailee after that pronouncement, and she returned his look with a wry smile.

Mon Mothma rose next, looking as severe as always.

"No one here can deny that Skywalker's exploits are impressive," she began, although she sounded more wary than impressed. "However, I cannot in good conscience vote to place someone in a leadership position in our army when he has been removed from a similar position by the Jedi Order. I wonder, can Skywalker explain to this body why he was expelled by his fellow Jedi?"

A wave of gasps and objections flowed through the Senate Chamber at her question. Anakin's stomach flipped uncomfortably. It was probably only Cailee's piercing rage and feelings of fierce protectiveness surrounding him like a warm blanket that kept him from grimacing where everybody could see.

He had very much hoped that he would not have to speak at all, and Chancellor Palpatine had assured him that he very likely would not. Now, though, despite their intentions, Anakin found himself being motioned toward the microphone by his friend.

"I was not expelled from the Jedi Order. I resigned," he told the however-many-thousands of people were present in the chamber, his voice only a little shaky. He swallowed and wrapped himself tighter in the princess's emotions. "As for why, Senator Mothma: It became clear that my own values and priorities are incompatible with the Order's."

"And by that you mean that you fell to the dark side of the Force?" she persisted, her calculating stare seeming to penetrate his shields even across the wide gap between their pods.

It was clear, at least to Anakin, that her contacts on the Council had spoken to her before the hearing.

And, well, it did have something to do with his falling to the dark side. That was the crux of it—Anakin had very clearly fallen, but he had also very clearly not become some sort of monster on a murderous rampage who was beyond redemption and needed to be contained or put down. Everything had been completely different from what the Jedi had taught him about the dark side, about those who fell. Just as everything the Jedi had ever taught him about their use of the Force and their purpose in the galaxy had been tossed aside as soon as the war had started. And if the Jedi were wrong about those things, what else were they wrong about?

But he could hardly say that in as many words to the senate and still expect most of them to vote in his favor. Most people in the galaxy only knew enough about the Force to know that the "dark side" was evil. Knowing the way he would have to explain this, Anakin squared his shoulders and looked directly into Mothma's eyes.

"Senator Mothma, the High Council and I disagree about the nature of the Force and how to wield it. I was taken from my mother by the Jedi when I was nine years old, which is many years older than most younglings. I was old enough that I could not forget what it's like to be raised by a loving mother, nor my own love for her, and that attachment to my mother is incompatible with the Jedi's teachings."

He paused there to let the rumble of discomfort pass through the senate. He had known the senators would not like to be reminded that the Jedi took younglings from their families and cut off all contact between them.

When they had calmed again, he revealed, "I have struggled with the Jedis' teachings from the moment I entered the Temple. You can ask any member of the High Council to corroborate that point—in fact, it's why they initially refused to train me, when I was first discovered by the Order, because at nine I was too old to be able to adapt to their way of life."

"But you stayed," pointed out Mothma. "You have had many opportunities to leave the Jedi Order. Why now?"

Anakin let out a frustrated huff, which unfortunately was caught by the microphone. A ripple of laughter went around the chamber, and he had to dig deep within himself to avoid blushing in front of them.

"I thought about leaving the Order many times," he said loudly, drawing their attention back to the point at hand. "If you were to ask my former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, he would tell you that I told him I was leaving the Order when I was eleven, but he ultimately convinced me to stay. I have thought about it since then, since I grew up, but I decided to wait until the end of the war, because I could not imagine sitting on the sidelines or abandoning my men. But yes, Senator Mothma, it is true that what led me to leave now rather than following my original plan was a disagreement with the High Council over whether the methods I used to protect Princess Cailee were appropriate for a Jedi."

"And we may all view footage of that incident ourselves," the chancellor broke in, effectively boxing Anakin away from the microphone with his body.

Not that Anakin was reluctant to step aside.

After that, things went relatively smoothly and quickly. The footage was watched and commented on, and a few more senators came forward to speak against Anakin's appointment. Senator Kin Robb of Taris spoke up in support for Anakin. She said that, despite not always agreeing with his methods, he had proven himself a capable and caring commander, and she reminded her colleagues that Anakin had saved her life and the life of several other senators when they had all been captured by the bounty hunter Cad Bane.

Anakin's appointment was confirmed by an overwhelming majority vote.

Afterward, he ushered Chancellor Palpatine and Cailee out of the pod so quickly that they were very nearly jogging. If he had thought he could get away with picking one of them up under each arm and making a run for it at Force speed, he would have.

"Anakin! Anakin, wait!" urged the chancellor, and Anakin reluctantly stopped, looking wildly around at the senators streaming out of doors all up and down the corridor on either side of them. "My dear boy, whatever is the matter? Do you not want to receive the congratulations and well wishes of your supporters?"

Anakin knew that his expression was pleading and desperate, but he did not care.

"Please, Chancellor, I went along with the public spectacle like you asked, but don't make me stand here and talk to all of them!"

The older man chuckled and reached out to pat Anakin's shoulder. "Very well, dear boy. You go. I will stay here and hold them off. Oh! It's almost like I'm on a covert operation of my own."

Anakin grabbed the princess's hand and turned to make their escape, practically dragging her the remaining steps to the chancellor's private elevator.

"You have the supreme chancellor's access codes?" she asked as she watched Anakin punch buttons on the elevator's security pad.

"I have my own code," he muttered distractedly as the elevator doors opened and he all but shoved her inside just as the first voices started calling his name behind them.

"Really? Why?"

Her tone was thick with surprise, which would have maybe offended Anakin if he hadn't known why it was so surprising for a random Jedi knight to have a personal access code to the supreme chancellor's office. Not even Master Yoda had private access to the chancellor. He had to announce his arrival to the guards just like everyone else.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "We've been friends for a long time, like Chancellor Palpatine said. Or, well, I guess that he was more my friend for most of it—we met when I was nine, the first time I ever came to Coruscant with Padmé, and then after I helped to stop the Invasion of Naboo he took an interest in me. He was my friend, my mentor. I ran to him whenever I was having trouble in the Temple or whenever Obi-Wan did something I found particularly unfair, which was a lot. I guess he got tired of having to constantly approve my entry into his chambers, because eventually he gave me my own code and told me to come in whenever I needed an escape from the Temple, as long as I waited quietly for him to finish if he was in the middle of something. But I hope that since I've grown up, I've managed to be a true friend to him as well."

When Cailee didn't respond, Anakin turned to look at her. She was staring at him incredulously.

"Are you telling me," she asked, clearly astounded, her voice a titch higher than usual, "that you fought in the Invasion of Naboo when you were nine years old?"

He felt the corners of lips curl up at how horrified she was.

"To be fair, I wasn't supposed to fight. I was told to stay where I was, and I did. I just happened to be in the cockpit of a starfighter, and it just so happened that I was a fairly competent pilot even at nine." Her eyes widened even further, and he smiled outright. "I'll have to tell you the whole story sometime."

But the elevator doors had dinged open by then, and there were too many guards standing around the chancellor's office for him to feel comfortable talking about those early years.

"I plan on heading straight to the Integrity," he informed Cailee. "But if you want to change clothes first, I can wait a few minutes."

"I'll be fine," she told him as she breezed past him on her way towards the cockpit. At his assessing look, she offered a wave of her hand to dismiss his concerns. "I was practically born wearing formal attire. I'm not uncomfortable."

Anakin didn't know how she could be anything else, judging by the tightly laced corset and stiff material of her gown. (He had no idea how she'd gotten herself into it by herself.) But who was he to opine about the comfort of women's clothing?

The first thing he did upon sitting in the pilot's chair was to dial a number almost as familiar to him as Padmé's or Ahsoka's. When his captain appeared on the cruiser's holoprojector, Anakin couldn't repress his smile, not that he wanted to. He had thought he'd never see any of his men again.

"This is Capt—General?" exclaimed Rex, stopping in the middle of his usual greeting as soon as he recognized Anakin.

"Hi, Rex. Long time no see."

There was a commotion in the background, just audible over the line, and his second-in-command briefly turned around.

"Yes, it's the general! No, I don't know how he is! And I never will if you lot don't SHUT UP!" By the time he turned back around, Anakin was grinning from ear to ear. Rex smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about that, General. We were told that you had turned dark. That you abandoned the Jedi Order. None of us believed it, but nobody would give us any details, so the men have been worrying themselves sick."

Anakin's resentment and anger grew deeper the more he heard about what his former masters had been up to in the few days since his discussion with Obi-Wan and Windu. He shook it off, for the moment, and focused on the conversation at hand.

"Don't worry about it, Rex. I've been worried about you guys, too. Look, I'll be there in a few minutes—tell the men to open the doors for me, will you? I'm in a repurposed Arkani gunship, so I wanted to call and warn you first so you know it isn't a trick."

"I…" the clone captain started, then paused, clearly weighing his options. After a brief hesitation, he said, "General, I don't want to make things harder on the men. The Jedi have been awfully touchy about the subject of who our new commanding officer will be, but whoever he is, I don't imagine he'll be pleased to know we let you on the ship."

Anakin stopped his takeoff preparations to give Rex his full attention. "Captain, trust me. No one will get in trouble. In fact, why don't you gather all the men in the hangar, and I'll tell you all the good news as soon as I land?"

Rex scrutinized his face for several seconds before the furrow in his brow relaxed into his normal neutral expression. He brought his hand up in a crisp salute.

"Yes, sir. We'll be waiting."

"See you soon, Rex," Anakin replied, then ended the call.

Author's Notes: A chapter entirely from Anakin's POV?! When was the last time that happened?! Next time we'll get to find out what the Jedi think about everything that's happened.