Anakin nodded, slowly, as Palpatine finished telling him about this Darth Plagueis guy.

"That's… an interesting story, Chancellor," he said. "Where did you hear it from?"

"...I beg your pardon?" Palpatine replied.

"Well…" Anakin said, waving his hand in a vague sort of way, mostly for emphasis. "I got to thinking about how… you know. You said that this wasn't a story the Jedi would tell me, and it really got me to realize that you can't just believe everything you hear without knowing where you hear it from. So, uh… if the Jedi tell me a story about the Jedi making mistakes, that's something that's more likely to be believable, that kind of thing."

He shrugged, awkwardly. "So… where did you hear it from?"

"Someone?" Palpatine replied. "It was a long time ago. You wouldn't know him, he's dead now."

"That's a shame," Anakin admitted. "But, still… what kind of person was he?"

"Oh, a businessman," Palpatine answered. "I worked quite closely with him for a time, though we did eventually have something of a falling out."

"Right," Anakin nodded. "So I guess… it could be that this person who told you this was telling the truth. I don't know him, so I don't know if he'd be honest about it, and I guess I can't think of a reason why someone would tell a story about this without telling the truth but that's kind of the same for a lot of stories, right? And they can't all be true."

After a pause, during which Palpatine appeared to be thinking, Anakin had another thought.

"So this businessman," he said. "What did you have a falling out over? I don't hear much about what you were like when you were younger, Chancellor."

"You seem very curious, all of a sudden, Anakin," Palpatine deflected.

"I guess," Anakin admitted. "Maybe I'm just kind of trying to think about something to distract me from the ballet."

"Ballet is cultural," Palpatine pointed out.

"Yeah, that's why I'm trying to distract myself from it," Anakin agreed. "I guess what I'm wondering is why someone would tell you a story like that."

"It-" Palpatine began, then shook his head. "I suppose… you may have a point, Anakin."

"It's like with the way the Jedi talk about the Sith," Anakin went on. "They said the Sith were extinct for nearly a thousand years, until this Darth Maul guy showed up, and then suddenly everyone realized the Sith had been hiding out for a thousand years instead. Just, you know. Not doing anything."

Anakin chuckled. "Maybe that's the thing! Because Sith use the Dark Side, right? And that's all about instant gratification, not about being hidden for hundreds of years until eventually someone gets their revenge on the rest of the galaxy… it's almost like it'd make more sense for these Sith to just be a new group who've called themselves the Sith. Sith is just a name, right? And it's not like it's impossible to use the Dark Side otherwise… but I guess the Jedi must have thought of that."

Palpatine's expression looked like he'd bitten into some kind of particularly sour fruit, and Anakin frowned.

"Are you okay, Chancellor?" he asked. "Do you not like the ballet either?"

"The ballet is fine," Palpatine answered. "I do not mind the ballet. I am wondering if my entire life has been a lie."

"Oh, yeah, I do that sometimes," Anakin replied.

That evening, in his office, the Chancellor glowered at his statues of the Sages of Dwarti.

Then frowned.

Why had he been doing all of this, anyway?

Power? He had that, and power was a means to an end, anyway.

The destruction of the Jedi? Maybe… but that was a means to an end. Not an end in itself. He wanted to rule the galaxy, and finally get revenge on the Jedi for what they had done to the Sith-

-and there, again, he ran into the problem Anakin had pointed out, perhaps without noticing.

Palpatine didn't have any clue whether his master Plagueis had actually been… a Sith.

He could have just been a Dark-sider who had taken the name. Palpatine had thought himself an intelligent man, a dangerous man, a man who would never be taken in by trickery… but he had never questioned the idea that Plagueis was an actual Sith.

A Sith of a line of Sith who had lasted a thousand years, each of them intending to pass on their hatred to the next Sith, until some future Sith would actually take their revenge.

And that did not sound very Dark Side now that Palpatine actually thought about it.

How was it possible that a line of Sith could last so many centuries without breaking, without betrayal?

It didn't seem possible.

And yet… and yet the plan was still working. It would allow him to turn the Republic into a new Sith Empire.

...no, not a Sith Empire. Just an Empire, where he could rule and do whatever it was he wanted. Like…

...he actually had trouble with that bit.

He'd spent his entire life pretending to be a kindly man to gain power, and what would he do with it then? He'd literally just been trying to recruit his newest Sith Apprentice by telling him about how he'd murdered his own Master. Anakin had already killed Tyrannus on Palpatine's orders!

How long would Palpatine last if he became Emperor, the Jedi slain, and Anakin his apprentice?

Two years? Maybe three? If he killed off Anakin's wife and avoided Anakin realizing why, that would get him a bit more time.

Or.

He could step down, with nobody any the wiser. The war won, Sheev Palpatine relinquishing his power, rich and honoured and able to do whatever he wished with the remaining several decades he could expect from his life.

It would even give him more time to do the closest thing he had to a hobby… manipulating people.

And, more than anything, it would mean he was not following the rut that a mere jumped-up businessman had created for him, decades ago, with his fanciful tale of a thousand years of Sith all finally – conveniently – coming to their culmination just then, in Palpatine specifically.

Yes.

That was a much better plan.

AN:

Ever had one of those moments?