A year passed. Toward the end, Anakin abandoned all attempts to change the Sith lord and simply accepted him as he was. Anything he could do to make the old man's life easier or bring some little pleasure into his days, he did. He brought any holorecordings made at the Galaxies Opera for Palpatine to see and enjoy. When the Sith was no longer mobile, he got permission to take him outside to the gardens, provided no padawans were present. He brought Palpatine audiorecordings of his favorite music. When the day came that the Sith's eyesight finally left him, Anakin would stop over in the evenings and read to him from the classics.
At last the day came when Anakin Skywalker burst into a staff meeting in Chancellor Organa's office.
He bowed to Bail. "Sir - if I may borrow your administrative aide for a moment. It's important."
Bail nodded, and Sereine got up from the table and joined him in the corridor.
Anakin's eyes were rimmed in red, and he found it hard to look at her.
"Palpatine has pneumonia. It's really bad." He met her eyes. "They're not expecting him to live through the night."
Sereine put her hand to her mouth.
"Come and see him, Sereine. He can't hurt anyone now."
She walked into Palpatine's room at Temple Hospital and stopped short. Anakin heard her stop breathing. She stood frozen for a moment, staring at the shriveled, paralysed, blind, rasping being trembling fitfully in the bed.
She hadn't seen him since she was last in this hospital herself, and as bad as he had looked then, he looked infinitely worse now. Anakin felt sorry for her.
Her throat clicked, and she turned suddenly and rushed from the room.
Inside that ravaged prison of a body, Palpatine's mind was still there, active and alert and as bitter as ever. Anakin was the only link that mind had with its surroundings, now. The Healers, and once, Master Windu, had made attempts to communicate, but Palpatine would as likely as not refuse to speak to them. Anakin touched his master's mind, conveying a wordless impression that he would soon return, and went out into the corridor.
Sereine stood against the wall, her hands folded at her breast, tears standing in her eyes.
Anakin walked over to stand beside her.
"Is this what's left of Palpatine?" she said finally. "Of our lives together, and the tremendous potential that he had?"
And she began to cry.
Anakin gathered her into his arms.
Trapped in blackness, Palpatine lay on the bed. His chest rattled when he breathed; he had never known it could be so much work simply to inflate one's own lungs. The pain was tremendous. But if he stopped...if he stopped...
He was too cold, but there was no one there to attend him. He could not get up to locate another blanket for himself. And yet he was glad of these things. He disciplined his mind to hold to the discomfort, because to be comfortable, with nothing but the blackness, was more than he could bear.
Over and over, the questions assailed him. Why? Why had destiny promised him one thing, only to grant him another? How? How, after so grave and terrible a failure, after ruining the proud traditions of a thousand years and so terribly squandering his own gifts, how could he abide his own existence?
His glorious rule had never been. The galaxy would never again kneel at the feet of a Dark Lord of the Sith. The Jedi mocked and bastardized their traditions - but what was he to have done? Let them die altogether?
It mattered little. The Sith Order was no more. All this, all by his failure.
What was left? What was left for him?
As he lay there, unable to stop the rebellious quivering of his arms and legs, an answer came. Unbidden, Phineas's face swept before his consciousness as if in a dream, and he heard the sound of the rushing river. He could almost feel it cooling his bare feet again, and he had a sudden memory of being held to kick at the spray, long before he was old enough to walk out on the stones himself. He could feel the warmth and strength of Phineas's arms around him.
Out of all the Sith, Lord Plagueis alone would receive his last wish. That, after all this, was Lord Sidious's sole accomplishment.
And something about it broke Palpatine's heart.
Sereine composed herself and walked back into the room.
Palpatine heard her footsteps, and he asked Anakin a question.
"He wants to know who's there."
Sereine cleared her throat. "It's me, Palpatine. It's Sereine."
"He wants to know what you're doing here. After all he's done, why should you even care to be here?"
Tears started in Sereine's eyes again, and she came forward and sat down on the bed.
"Palpatine," she said, reaching for one gnarled hand. "Do you think I do not love you, that I could let you die alone in here like this? Never, never, never, never would I let you die alone. No, no matter what you had done, no matter what anyone said."
Having nothing more to fear from him, she gathered his frail, feather-light body into her arms and pressed the misshapen head to her heart. Slowly she rocked him back and forth.
"Never, never, never, never, Palpatine. Never, never, never, never."
And it was the most marvelous sensation Lord Sidious had ever felt. Her arms were soft and gentle and strong - he felt utterly cradled in warmth. He heard, rather than felt, her kiss on his brow, but when she kissed his eyes, her lips were whispers of velvet. He relaxed against her body, and the involuntary trembling ceased.
She kissed his lips. What memories that kiss awakened!
Once, he had had this for the asking every morning and every night. And what had he done? He had only permitted it to himself for moments at a time, turning away from her once he was fully awake, or unless he was manipulating her to some end. Sith were not supposed to have these feelings. These feelings could not be trusted. These were the feelings that led one to one's doom.
That they could be the one tranquil grace in a doom that was assured anyway seemed never to have been discovered by any Sith. Darth Sage, maybe. Darth Avarice. And - oh, yes - by Darth Plagueis.
Truly he was, Sidious thought, Darth Plagueis the Wise.
To think that he had once cheated on this tender being who held him - not once, but repeatedly! Sidious - Palpatine - felt the pull of the Void, and he knew now what he would give to have even one of those moments back again to spend in the arms that held him now.
And it struck him suddenly, how desperately he would miss her, this eternity that they must spend apart. That, being Force-blind, someday she would cease to exist, and he would miss her forever more.
She rocked him like a child. "I've always loved you, Palpatine," she told him. He tasted the salt of her tears on his lips. "Always, always, always, always."
Anakin stepped back to try to give them privacy. Just before he turned his head away, he saw a tear course down the Sith lord's face that wasn't Sereine's. He felt a gentle shift in the Force then - and nothing was the same.
Across the room, the heart monitor screen - with the sound off, so as not to disturb the patient - registered a skipped beat.
Anakin reached for Palpatine's consciousness in the Force - and what he felt sent tears down his cheeks.
Will you let me tell her, Master?
Palpatine struggled with the question, struggled against the admonitions of fifty-seven Masters who would have caned their apprentices for ever breathing such a thing.
Master?
Another skipped beat. The line swung crazily on the monitor screen.
Master - it would make her so happy.
And it was then, in the final moments of his life, that the fifty-eighth, last, and greatest Master of the Sith, did his first unselfish thing.
Tell her, he said.
Anakin raised his head. "He loves you," he said. "And, before he dies, he wants you to know."
"Oh, Palpatine, I love you, too. Darling, I love you, too."
Palpatine's heart beat once more. Sereine wrapped her arms around him. The Master's heart stopped.
Running feet pounded down the corridor in response to the changes on the monitor - and in response to something else, it seemed.
Healer Bant stood framed in the doorway. "Did I feel a - What is going on in here? It's as though a fragrant breeze has suddenly swept through this Temple."
Anakin and Sereine laughed and cried at the same time. "He did it! He did it!"
"Tell Master Yoda - tell the entire Council! Tell the entire Temple," Anakin said, wiping tears. "He did it!"
A long-missing puzzle piece fell into place. So this is how it happens, Anakin thought wonderingly. No one can make it happen. You just act without malice, with the greatest compassion that you can for every single being, no matter what they've done -
- and it happens all on its own.
It was the revelation of a lifetime. Wait til I tell Master Yoda this.
More Jedi gathered outside the room. "What happened?" someone whispered.
Mace Windu stuck his head around the corner. "Anakin, what was that? Was that Palpatine?"
Anakin was suddenly conscious of a deep sense of shame and embarrassment. "Everybody, clear out," he said. "He's still here, you know." He couldn't quite stop his smile. "And he's mortified."
Sereine sat bolt upright, staring at the lifeless corpse in her arms. She looked up at Anakin, the whites of her eyes showing. "He's here?" she said.
"Well, not there," said Anakin. He concentrated, pinpointing the area where the Sith master's consciousness felt strongest. He pointed to an area above the bed, in front of Sereine's face. "Right about there."
Quickly but respectfully Sereine laid the Sith lord's body down, and crawled hastily backwards. She put her hand up, feeling at the air. "I don't see anything," she said.
"You won't," said Anakin, "but that's where he is. He just wants to be alone with us, right now."
Bant spread her arms. "Let's grant the patient and the family some privacy," she said. She turned as the door closed everyone else out. "Anakin, I apologize, but he is the former Chancellor. It's an important matter of protocol."
Sereine made room for her as she moved to the bedside to officially pronounce Chancellor Palpatine dead.
Anakin took Sereine's arm. "I was his apprentice," he said. "I have one last duty I must perform for him. "Will you come with me, Sereine? Will you accompany his body to Korriban?"
They left that night, leaving Bail and Finis to deal with the public outcry over the fact that Chancellor Palpatine would not be receiving a state funeral. Anakin had made a public statement informing everyone that the Chancellor had requested a small private burial in an undisclosed location, and that he intended to carry out his wishes, but public opposition was building to that, anyway. Small impromptu services were springing up all over.
Getting their small shuttle out without being recognized, holographed, or followed was an operation worthy of a wartime covert operative, but they accomplished it. It did not matter, anyway. Sereine had decided to write a book about the entire experience. Someday, everyone would understand.
She spent the journey on a hard chair next to Palpatine's casket. She talked to him the entire way, telling him things she would never again share with anyone.
They stood on the hot sands of Korriban, looking up at a building so dark and imposing that it chilled Sereine just to be there.
"Oh, Anakin. We have to leave him here?"
Anakin sighed heavily. "Yeah."
It was just as well that she could not feel Palpatine as he could. Palpatine did not want to go in. He didn't want to go in, but he was afraid not to. The currents of his regret eddied around them with such despair that Anakin knew if Sereine could have touched the Force, she would have stood outside those doors with that casket forever and never left. Anakin almost could, himself - but there were children at home. Three children, soon to be four, and his beautiful wife. Obi-Wan, Master Yoda, his duties in the Temple. His life, his real, good life, at home.
And Palpatine knew that, too. Still, the Sith master held back, clinging to these final moments together in a silence deeper than words. Not yet. Please. Not yet.
Finally resignation softened the deep grief that permeated the Force.
All right. I'm ready now.
"I have to leave you here, Sereine," Anakin said.
"I know."
Tears filled her eyes. She laid her palms on the gleaming black casket, leaned over, and kissed its polished surface. "Goodbye," she whispered.
Anakin took the secret entrance, through the Hall of Treasures. Its door opened to meet him. He could feel the malevolence within, the savage hatred that reached for the being he bore inside.
I promise I won't forget you, master, he said. I'll come to see you. These beings won't keep me out.
Through an aching sadness came wordless thanks.
Sereine sank down in the sand outside, her eyes brimming with tears. She reached out for a gleaming obsidian shard that lay in the sand to her right.
Surely the spirits who resided here would not mind if she took this one thing. A memento, a reminder, something to replace the rainbow geode Anakin would leave at the foot of Sidious's throne. Something that would make her feel close to him every time she saw it.
She held it to her heart, wondering at the cruelty of the cosmos. It was cruelty, it was - for how else could it be that, harder than any freedom fighter had fought, harder than any Jedi had struggled in the darkest days of the war, had been Palpatine's struggle for this. Just to know this one thing. Love, something every other being in this universe knew, had been given as a birthright.
So much was said about the cruelty of the Sith. But nothing had been said about their desperate, primal struggle just to reach this first step that everyone else had been born on. All this struggle, and finally, victory - only to end in this.
"We'll tell them, darling," she said. "Finally, people will know. And this will never happen to another being, again. You really will be the last. I promise."