"There are… rumours, in the Senate, about Master Kenobi," Palpatine confided. "Many believe he is not fit for this assignment."
"Not fit?" Anakin repeated. "Why would anyone think that?"
Palpatine spread his hands slightly. "They say his mind has become fogged by the influence of a certain female Senator."
Anakin blinked.
"That's ridiculous," he said. "Who?"
"No one knows who she is," Palpatine said, slyly. "Only that she is a Senator."
"Oh, okay then," Anakin replied. "It's complete nonsense."
Palpatine frowned.
"You seem very certain about that, Anakin," he noted.
"Yeah, but rumours are usually pretty specific about details like that," Anakin shrugged. "It's a rumour in the Senate, right? So it's a rumour about a Senator, too."
Palpatine began to object, then paused.
"Well, yes, but not specifically-" he began.
"Are there rumours about a Senator whose judgement has been impaired because she's sleeping with a Jedi?" Anakin went on. "Because if there is then we just line them up and that explains who it is. Or who it's supposed to be."
He frowned, minutely. "My money's on Mon Mothma, honestly. Or Bail Organa. Are we sure the rumour said female?"
Palpatine raised a hand.
"Well-" he began, but Anakin was already standing up.
"Actually, I'm going to ask someone else about this," he said. "See you later, Chancellor!"
"Anakin, I'm trying to-" Palpatine said, but he was talking to an empty office.
"Really?" Padme asked, then shook her head. "No, that's not one I've heard."
"You're sure it's not one that's passed you by?" Anakin asked. "I don't know how much Senators talk to one another."
"We do it a lot," Padme told him dryly. "It's the main thing we have time to do. Are you sure the rumour said female? Because I'm getting a lot of my information from Bail Organa, and he'd be my first guess."
"He was my second," Anakin told his wife. "But, no, Palpatine was sure it was a female senator."
"Then I'm out of ideas," Padme said. "I'd have thought Mon Mothma, but she's quite married to Perrin Fertha and he looks more like Qui-Gon Jinn than Obi-Wan."
"Yeah, I guess so," Anakin said. "And, honestly, I don't really believe it myself… he didn't shack up with Satine even when it would have been a net benefit to the Order and the Galaxy and stuff."
He frowned. "Unless…"
"Unless?" Padme asked. "That sounds like you've had an idea, Ani."
"What about if the rumour was trying to throw me off?" Anakin asked. "I heard it from the Chancellor, but maybe he has another reason to say it. He is a politician… maybe Obi-Wan is seeing Palpatine, and the female senator bit was to throw me off?"
Padme blinked.
"I'm fairly sure they don't like one another very much?" she tried.
"That's just what they want us to think, right?" Anakin asked. "Think about it! That's actually a way better way to disguise a relationship than what we've been doing."
He glanced at Padme. "What have we been doing to disguise our relationship, actually? I'm sure there's something."
"We don't tell anyone that we're married?" Padme said. "It's worked so far."
"True," Anakin agreed, relieved. "I'm glad we're doing something."
Padme smiled, then her smile turned into a frown. "Now I think about it, I can't remember a time when Palpatine was interested in women – as a Senator or as a Chancellor. So it's not immediately wrong… I just can't think of a time he was interested in men either."
Anakin looked thoughtful. "I think… I'm trying to think of a time he's looked at Obi-Wan that way, but the only person I can think of he looked at that way is me…"
Obi-Wan's commlink rang, and he nearly crashed his starfighter into the raw matter of hyperspace itself.
"What is it?" he asked, picking up the commlink in one hand.
"Master!" Anakin said. "I think Palpatine is just using you to get to me!"
Obi-Wan, who had no context whatsoever, just sort of stared for several seconds.
"What?" he said, then noticed that the nav computer was giving him urgent warnings and yanked back on the hyperdrive lever. His Actis fighter dropped out of hyperspace, and he disengaged from the hyperspace ring with the practised motion of someone who had become very, very good at a thing they fundamentally didn't like doing very much.
"I thought about how he's been looking at me," Anakin explained. "Whatever he's told you, I don't think it's real."
"Anakin, what are you-" Obi-Wan began, then paused. "Actually… wait."
"What?" Anakin asked. "You don't believe me?"
"I am trying to think," Obi-Wan answered. "And fly a ship, as well. I have a job to do before Cody gets here."
"All right, Master, I'll wait," Anakin said. "But this is important. I don't want your heart to be broken."
"My – no, this is important, Anakin," Obi-Wan replied. "You killed Dooku, correct?"
"This seems completely irrelevant, but yes," Anakin answered. "Why?"
"I was thinking about something Dooku told me once," Obi-Wan told Anakin. "He said that Darth Sidious had control of a lot of Senators."
"Still not seeing the connection, unless you think those Senators have been seducing you," Anakin replied.
"I think the Chancellor is Sidious," Obi-Wan declared. "And, Anakin, you're going to have to tell the Council and get help sorting it out, I am landing in less than two minutes."
Anakin was silent for several seconds of those less than two minutes.
"If you want to break up with him, Master, you don't need the whole Jedi Council to do it for you," he said. "And if you think he's hideous, why did you start sleeping with him in the first place?"
"Put Padme on the line," Obi-Wan suggested. "No, wait."
"Waiting, Master," Anakin replied.
Obi-Wan took a deep, calming breath.
"Put your wife on the line," he resumed. "Or, if she's not there, tell her that I'm fairly sure Chancellor Palpatine is the other Sith we've been looking for. And get her to call a vote of no confidence, she's good at those."
Satisfied that that would buy him the time he needed, he began making his final landing approach.
It was only a shame he wouldn't get to see their faces, really. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
AN:
Don't holocall and fly, guys.