Late evening on Coruscant. Anakin thought about comming Padmé again as he approached the planet, but decided against it. What would she say if she knew where he'd been? He thought about what she might be doing now - changing into her nightgown, taking down her hair. Or maybe changing a diaper. He thought about his love for her for a moment. Really felt it. Analysed it.

It seemed the same, so far. And that much was good.

He needed to talk to Sereine, but she wasn't answering her comm at home. If she was still at the office, then so was Palpatine. He decided to hurry there and try to see them together.

As if she could save him from Palpatine. Ridiculous, that.

He had trouble getting the sword into the building. Only the Hero with No Fear could bring a hand weapon into the Senate Office Building, and then only with the intercession of the Chancellor's Office.

If he didn't know I was here before, he does now, Anakin thought sourly.

Sereine and Palpatine were alone in the office, arguing peevishly over a speech when he walked in. Anakin caught the words, "- because it is my job to save you from looking like a pompous bantha's behind!" and had to smother a smile. Like it or not, Palpatine still had one foot in the everyday world, and Sereine was still bold - or stupid- enough to bite the Sith lord's ankle.

Palpatine looked up. His voice, already halfway there to begin with, dropped into that gravelly low vibrato. "Lord Vader," he said. Then, "Sereine. Leave us."

Sereine had dyed her hair in Anakin's absence. Arranged in a loose pompadour, every strand was a rich, deep, gleaming red. As she turned away from Palpatine, the Chancellor's hand slipped langorously across her bottom.

Anger flared in Anakin, but he said nothing. As she passed him, he whispered to her, "Please stay." She gave no sign, but he knew she had heard him.

When the doors had whispered closed behind her, Lord Vader lowered himself to one knee.

"My master."

"I see that you have brought me something." Palpatine arose and came around the desk, and Anakin extended the sword to him, hilt first.

Palpatine took it and made a few short moves with it, balancing it, playing with it. "Well done," he croaked. He held it straight up, admiring it, but Anakin felt him at the edges of his consciousness, probing. He shrank away from the sensation.

Two ice blue eyes peered down at him from beyond the blade. "Well, Lord Vader," he said mischievously, "how feel you?"

Anakin wasn't sure how to respond. The only real answer was, I don't know.

He felt Palpatine touch that, and sink back, frustrated. "You are a slow learner."

Suddenly bewildered and sad, Anakin merely accepted the insult.

The Sith master sighed and his shoulders dropped; he turned and laid the sword on the polished desktop, then turned to perch on the edge of his desk .

"You were angry with me a moment ago. Explain that. Tell me why."

Anakin said, "Why do you have to do that to her, master? You don't love her. You don't even want her. Do you have to ruin her marriage just to get back at both of them, is that it?"

Palpatine laughed then, his tone climbing back towards the tenor.

"Young Vader," he said as if he thought Anakin were the most stupid creature alive. "Get up. Sit." He gestured Anakin to a chair. Anakin sat.

"I make it a practice not to speak about my 'private life' - such as it is - but, since there exists a lesson in it for you, I will make an exception."

Anakin waited.

"Two lessons," said Palpatine. "One, an intelligent Sith never, never does for himself what someone else can be counted on to do for him."

"Master?" said Anakin.

"I haven't 'ruined their marriage,'" Palpatine scoffed. "Finis did that himself, a long time ago." He shrugged. "And she helped him, of course."

"I don't understand."

"By moving her," Palpatine said, "so far away from Coruscant. It was the main reason she wouldn't marry me. She was afraid I'd make her stop working. Give up her career, as something 'inappropriate' for the wife of a sectorial senator. And, as I've told you, what she does here is her life's blood. Sereiné is not one of the 'ladies who lunch.' "But poor Finis was so traumatized by what happened when I took office that the instant he married her, that was precisely what he did." Engrossed in his tale, Palpatine hopped off the desk and began to pace, sounding like the Palpatine millions of Republic citizens saw on their holovids every day.

"The Sereine I know would never be happy on a backwater country club like Spira," Palpatine spat, "but, of course, she was afraid to hurt him by telling him that. And that omission grew into a thousand omissions, and now neither of them understands why she can't be happy!" he expostulated, facing the window, throwing both arms out at his sides.

He grew quiet, gazing at the speeder traffic in the dark outside. "Sereiné was always most herself with me, which is why she's happy now. And I was most myself with her - as much as I could be, for someone of our Order. And that was why we could be together for the eight years that we were."

Silence hung in the air. Anakin could not see his master's face, even in the glass; the back of Palpatine's head was in the way. He crept toward him in the Force. A steel wall a kilo or so thick blocked him.

Palpatine turned around. "And that, apprentice, is the second lesson. Betrayal of the self in order to spare another is the most egregious trespass there is. Why is Sereine lost in the forest she finds herself in? Because she ignored the promptings of her own nature."

Palpatine put both hands on his desk and leaned across it at Anakin, his brow furrowed almost pleadingly.

"Without your anger, young one," he said, very gently, "where would you be? Starving to death, that's where. That is what a Jedi would have done."

And with that he straightened, and swept from the room.

Anakin sat, stunned by the power of a new idea. He thought of Obi-Wan and his carefully hidden grief over Siri. He thought of the lost love Master Jinn was rumored to have had, of his own inability to leave Padmé. All the things the Jedi denied themselves, gritting their teeth and clenching their fists and bearing it by calling it "virtue." Weren't they betraying themselves?

Could it be, he thought, trying to breathe through the wave of dizziness that swept him, that the Sith are right?

He sat there a long time.

When he finally got up and walked out, Sereine sat at her desk in her transparent-walled office, and Palpatine leaned over her, peering at something on a datapad.

"All right, perhaps that will be acceptable," he was saying.

She looked up to give him a mock glare and a raised eyebrow. "I'd call it more of a step in the right direction."

"Then savor it, my dear," said Palpatine with a playful grin, "because it is all you are going to get."

"We'll see about that," said Sereine, and the smile that lit her face in response to his went straight to Anakin's heart. He saw a smile like that on Padme, every time she bent over their babies' cribs. And he realized that Sereine loved Palpatine in exactly the same way.

"That is red hair," Palpatine said softly, and bent behind her. He nuzzled the bare nape of her neck with his sharp nose and planted two kisses there.

And Anakin charged forward with an anger that was - still - borne of compassion.

Palpatine straightened, and one corner of his mouth went down. And it wasn't just the interruption he was reacting to.

Anakin opened his mouth to shout. Then he remembered.

"I had quite forgotten, master. Lord Bane sends you a message."

The master's eyes narrowed. "And what is this message?"

"Master Bane congratulates you on your first serious mistake. He says that he will see you in the Hall of Warriors very soon."

Palpatine gave him a short, mirthless laugh and a dangerous clawfish grin. "We'll see about that, my young apprentice," he said.

"We'll see about that."

Sereine looked up from her work. "What's the mistake?"

Anakin leaned against the doorjamb. "I carried the message. I didn't ask."

Sereine shut her datapad down and closed her eyes. She looked as exhausted as Anakin felt. When she opened them, she spun in her chair to look at Palpatine. "Sheev? I want to talk to you about something for a minute."

Palpatine answered her with his eyes.

"Well ... actually. Let me ask you this. If I ask you later, and I don't detain you, will you actually go home and sleep?"

One side of the master's mouth quirked up in a half-smile. "Probably not. Actually."

"Holocron?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were done with that."

Palpatine gave his head a shake. "Not after that. Not to mention it's a collection of Sith teachings no master has had access to for centuries. I'm going to study everything I have of it."

Sereine zeroed in on any sign of weakness. "I knew you weren't well. I was worried about you."

Palpatine cut her off. "Sereine. A question to ask me?"

"Yes." She looked at the floor a lot longer than Anakin would have expected of her before she could meet his eyes.

At last she looked at him. "The Doriana affair. You-Were you testing me?"

Palpatine turned his head to the side, a just-checked headshake. "I'm surprised you thought of it," he said.

Silence lay between them. Hanging in the doorway, Anakin wasn't sure if he felt more like a welcome presence or an unwanted eavesdropper. But, anything Sereine had to discuss with Palpatine, he felt better if he could witness.

Palpatine backed up and hiked himself up to half-sit on a small table behind him. "But, since you asked, yes, Sereine, I was."

Anakin heard Sereine exhale. He couldn't see her face, but he caught the shudder that took her shoulders, and the way they shifted forward toward his new master.

Anakin walked in and circled the perimeter of the room until he had a better look at her face.

Sereine twisted her hands in her lap, her head down. When she looked up at Palpatine again, her haunted eyes speared Anakin where he stood.

"Do you mean that you ... would have told me? That you wanted to tell me, all those years ago?"

Palpatine crossed his arms in front of him, slid down off the table, then leaned against it again, eyes on the floor.

"Oh, I don't know, Sereine, it wasn't that simple. I realized that in the future, I may have need of someone with your abilities, and while there are many who do your work well enough, I did consider that it could be you. I did consider it."

Palpatine put his hands on the table and looked up. "And then I'd consider how in blazes to tell you." He glanced at Anakin. "It would be even worse than trying to tell you!"

To Sereine, he said, "You weren't the most knowledgeable person about Jedi matters even then. Then there was the fact that you would most certainly predecease me, and what would happen then. But, oh, worst of all ... you still worked for Finis, and if you ever suggested, even in all innocence ..."

"I understand," said Sereine. "But, Sheev ... I'm younger than you! By a good twenty years."

"All the same," said Palpatine smoothly. A quick sigh. Anakin had the thought that he seemed so unguarded, in a way he'd rarely seen him. He tried to stretch his senses toward him without being so forward as to alert him.

The Force lay in a calm eddy around Palpatine. Then, a few sharp pinpricks of emotion Anakin couldn't quite name.

"I went back and forth about it for, some two years, I guess," said Palpatine. Even his diction relaxed in the sudden calm of the moment. "And then, you found my connection to Doriana. I don't know how, but once you knew, I thought, this is as good a time as any. If you didn't react well to that, there was no way I could tell you the other."

Silence dropped like lead. Sereine stared at her hands, clasped hard in her lap. "I failed that one," she said finally.

"Oh, yes," said Palpatine softly. "You don't get angry, you hit back."

Her chin snapped up. "Not now!" Her body strained forward, toward him. "I promised you! I told you it didn't mean-I told you that!"

Palpatine looked down at her with a remarkable absence of emotion, considering. Anakin held his breath, wondering where this was going to go. Promised him what?

Palpatine glanced over at him, and he realized he'd been too noisy.

"That was then, my dear." The master's tone was simple, matter-of-fact, quiet.

Sereine bowed her head, staring at her hands. "Yes, it was," she whispered. She looked up, and Anakin caught the gleam of tears in the low light. "And I am so sorry, Sheev, that you didn't think I'd be able to hear-that." Her voice caught, and she leaned toward him, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair. "Because, oh, my darling, none of this had happened yet! And that makes a great deal of difference."

She put her face in her hands for a moment, and looked up at him again, her eyes red. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry I made you think that of me. Because I would have heard anything from you."

"Except that."

"But ... but, that was my work! You know I vet my clients, I always have, at least as soon as I could afford to. I have more of the vote then the people do, I tell them what to think! I know adoring crowds are hard on you, Sheev, but I never wanted to inflict someone on them who would repay them with harm."

She paused, shrinking inside herself. "And you showed me that I had." She looked up and searched his face with her eyes. "You had to know how I'd feel about it. You saw me fire clients."

She swallowed, hard. "You could have approached me, you could have told me anything else, and I would have heard anything from you. Anything but that. That had to be the worst way to approach me you could possibly have picked."

Anakin was careful to mask the thought: Yeah, because you didn't know one thing about the Sith.

Palpatine crossed his arms and looked at the floor. "Ah, well. No matter. I guess we've been at cross purposes, then."

"I could have done something," Sereine whispered. "Anything but this."

"I couldn't let you do that."

"But if I could have!" she said. "Suppose, just suppose, the Jedi would let you alone. Would you have done all this?"

Palpatine turned and walked a few paces to his left. "That's a hard question. So much of the destiny laid on me revolved around retribution. Around supremacy. Around power." He looked back at them. "However, being allowed to live does have a lot to recommend it."

"But that's what they wanted. What do you want?"

Palpatine bit back a short, bitter laugh. "That's a whole kaleidoscope of questions, my dear. It would be easier to ask me what I don't want."

Then he glanced aside to fix her with two sharp blue eyes and a question of his own. "What do you want?"

"Oh, Kinschem," she said, and the word twisted in Anakin's gut. He had thought that was her name for Valorum alone. "I just don't want one more being to die."

"Ha," said Palpatine, in that same bitter tone. He stared straight ahead, through Sereine's transparent office wall at nothing. "Well, that's what I want, too."

***

Anakin left the building with her and Sereine broke down in tears. "I can't believe this. But for that, I might have had a chance to do something ... before any of this happened."

Anakin turned her to face him, gripping her hands in the cold night air. "Sereine, stop. It's better this way. I don't-I don't mean it's better this way, but if he had told you then? You knew nothing about Jedi ways, or the Sith. He could have told you anything, and you would have believed it." She stared at him, tears running down her face.

"Like that last thing he told you. I don't think that means to him, what it means to you, when you say it."

She blinked. "But what else could he mean?"

"You were talking about the galaxy." Anakin swallowed against a sudden pain in his throat, remembering the malevolent minds of the ancient Sith. "Sith talk about themselves."

Sereine blinked up at him. He hated to be more specific than that-it would break her heart. Maybe tomorrow, he told himself.

She surprised him by putting a hand up to cup his cheek. "Anakin, you're doing so well," she said. "You are doing so well."