Anakin and Padmé sat, hand in hand, before Healer Bant, Healer Lyne, and Healer Tyro, waiting for the results of their investigations and their many tests. Bant sat placidly, gazing at them. Tyro, a large Dug, sat paging through documents on a datapad, and the Human healer Lyne avoided Anakin's eyes. What were they waiting for?
It's bad news, Anakin thought, and immediately felt nauseated. I don't think I can take any more.
The door to the tiny office opened and Master Yoda hobbled in on his stick.
"Senator Amidala. How feel you?"
"Good afternoon, Master Yoda. I'm very well, thank you," said Padme. She lowered her chin as she said it, and Anakin knew that seeing Yoda brought back agonies of embarrassment at their deception.
The master levitated himself to the couch along one wall. "Late, I am. Apologize, I do. Waiting on me, you were." He nodded to the trio of physicians behind the table. "Healer Bant. Begin, if you will."
Bant gave them both a smile. "We're pleased to be able to report that the Senator is in excellent health. We see no signs of any impending medical problems, or any reason why her delivery should not proceed smoothly."
Healer Tyro spoke up. "We were wondering, Anakin, if you could give us any more specific information about your visions. We have searched in the Force for any future complications of the nature you spoke of, but we foresee nothing of the kind."
Healer Lyne added, "We even brought Master Yoda in to consult."
Yoda said, "Meditate on this, I have. See nothing, I do. Young Skywalker...when did you last experience this premonition?"
Anakin had to think. "It was before the war ended." He shook his head. "Was that really a month ago?"
Yoda thoughtfully stroked his chin. "A month, you say. So long a time, it has been. Either your premonition, false it was, or occurred something has, to alter it."
"But how would we ever know that?" said Padmé.
"Know it we may not, either until comes to pass it does, or comes to pass it does not."
Anakin shook his head slowly. "I went over it for you three several times. I told you everything I could remember then."
The three healers looked at one another. "At an end, our usefulness is, then," said Yoda.
Panic invaded Anakin. "But—but this is ridiculous! This is my wife! I can't just—"
He felt Padmé's hand on his arm. "I'm all right. I'm not going to die in childbirth, Ani." He turned to look into her warm brown eyes. "I promise you."
"Done our utmost, we have," said Yoda. "No more can we accomplish." He looked toward the three healers and nodded once. "Healers. A moment, may we have. Senator?"
Oh, no, thought Anakin. As Bant, Tyro, and Janna Lyne filed slowly out, Padmé stood up, her hand over her belly, and dragged her eyes away from Anakin's. I know what this is about, thought Anakin gloomily. Padmé's eyes said, I feel sorry for you.
Padmé twisted her hands and went out.
"Young Skywalker," said Master Yoda when the door had closed. "When came to see me you did, speaking of this, you were."
Anakin could not look at him. "Yes."
"Lied, you did."
Anakin hurried to interrupt. "I didn't lie—"
"Dishonest, you were."
Anakin didn't know what to say. His throat constricted; his face burned.
Finally he said, "Master Yoda, I don't know what to say. I love her. She loves me. We want to share our lives. I just didn't know what else to do." Tears threatened, and he had to stop.
"Mmm," grunted Master Yoda, narrowing his eyes at him thoughtfully. Finally he alighted from his seat on the couch, took up his stick, and hobbled for the door.
As he passed Anakin he stopped and patted him on the arm. Yoda had never touched him before; Master Yoda never touched anyone.
"Right I was, from the first," said the High Master. "Not your fault this is, Anakin." He turned away, leaving Anakin alone.
A sense of failure and terrible shame overcame him. Anakin leaned forward and put his face in his hands.
***
Anakin's idea was simple. He used bandage tape to secure the sharp point of a thumbtack against the tender skin of his forearm, high enough so that Palpatine could not see it. He had Sereine tape it tight enough so that the persistent pricking was uncomfortable, but not so tight as to break the skin.
"Now we watch Palpatine," he said.
They rode the elevator to the Supreme Chancellor's office in silence.
Palpatine greeted them with annoyance, barely looking up from his work. "Back again, are you? I do wish you'd tire of this already."
"No, you don't," said Sereine, and held their small audioplayback out to him on the palm of her hand.
He turned his chair to face them, and two ice blue eyes swiveled up to focus on her face. "What's this?"
"The contents of your holocron on audioplayback," said Sereine. "Or some of them, anyway."
Palpatine lifted his head to look at her and slowly relaxed back into his chair. "May I ask how you acquired this?" he said finally.
Sereine looked at Anakin and cracked a smile. Anakin couldn't help but smile back.
"I wasn't about to even try to bring you the actual holocron," she said, "so this will have to do. I'm sure you'll find the sound quality adequate."
Now it was Palpatine's turn to smile in amusement. He took the playback device. "You listened to this?"
"Someone had to. There was no sense bringing you that if you couldn't hear what was on it."
The Chancellor looked as if he might laugh. He scratched his forearm, then turned his attention back to Sereine, blue eyes twinkling merrily. "And what did you think?"
"Well ..." she said. "It was interesting. Intriguing. I never thought I'd hear health advice being dispensed by a Sith master." She shrugged. "But some of it made sense. The part about listening to the beat of your own heart rather than living to please others, for example."
"Ah." Palpatine's eyes lit up. "So this is the lost Darth Orphic holocron, then. He was a scholar whose work focused on avoiding the more deleterious effects of the dark side. He lived to be a hundred and thirty-four—very old for a Quarren."
Palpatine gazed down at the playback device in his hand, and an odd, faraway look came over his features, one Anakin could not decipher.
"This is the first time anything on the Darth Orphic holocron has touched Sith hands in over three hundred and forty years," he said softly.
Finally he looked up at them. "Thank you."
"I can't really say it was a pleasure, but you're welcome," said Sereine.
Palpatine smiled. "Subjected to an 'adventure,' were you?"
"You could say that."
Palpatine's eyes found Anakin's. He frowned, and reached up his sleeve to scratch his wrist. Then he cocked his head and quipped, "'We are still flying half a ship.'"
Anakin snickered and Palpatine smiled, leaving Sereine glancing bemusedly from face to face. "What?" she said.
"I'll tell you later," said Anakin.
Palpatine smiled up at them in companionable silence for a moment. Then he rubbed his arm and turned to shut down the document he was working on. He ruffled his robes like a great, preening bird, and rose to his feet.
"I trust you'll excuse me for the next few evenings," he said. "It appears I have some studying to do."
As they descended the steps outside the Senate Office Building Anakin said, "You know, every once in a while he convinces me that there might be hope for him yet."
"If I didn't know there was hope for him," said Sereine, "I never would have started this to begin with."
***
Obi-Wan argued on Anakin's behalf, but it wasn't enough. A month to the day after the Clone War had ended, Anakin Skywalker was formally expelled from the Jedi Order.
This glamorous and heroic young couple, so soon to have twins, touched off a Galactic firestorm. "Should the Jedi Have Expelled Anakin?" and "Is It Right to Forbid Jedi to Marry?" emblazoned the headline of many an editorial.
He was still to serve as Palpatine's Special Representative to the Jedi Council, although most of the members had initially been against it. Palpatine had insisted—or rather, had asked again very nicely. It was his new brand of insistence these days, and it seemed to be working very well on the blindsided, contrite, and bewildered Jedi. And Anakin—whom they had expected to be furious—acted unexpectedly beaten, accepting, and resigned to whatever was decided.
The Jedi weren't used to getting their way with either man, and they were too uncomfortable with it to argue.
It was just as well. Anakin waited, feverish to know if the Darth Orphic holocron would be enough to save Padmé. If it was, he knew what he would have to do. How could he be a Jedi and a Sith?
He haunted the Supreme Chancellor's office until Palpatine banned him from all but the outer lobby, saying that he had enough to do without needing to reassure Anakin every hour. Each evening Anakin, feeling very out of place in simple street clothes and harassed from the sympathetic onslaught of well-wishers who called out to him and stopped him everywhere he went, rode the elevator to the top floor, turned the corner into the Chancellor's wing, and stopped at Sereine's office. Each evening she saw him coming and shook her head.
"He doesn't know yet," she'd say.
At last, after about a week, he walked in one evening to see Sereine stand up and beckon him in.
"He wants to see you."
Anakin felt his heart lurch in his chest.
She pushed a button and announced, "Anakin's here."
"Well," came the reply in a pleased purr. "Send him in."
Anakin turned and started out, then turned back. She was right behind him.
"You're coming?"
"You bet I am. If I'm going to have two Sith lords to contend with, I want to know about it!"
"He's not going to like it."
"Tough."
They entered the little gray office and Palpatine turned to face them. He frowned at Sereine.
"This matter is between the two of us, Anakin."
Anakin crossed his arms. "She stays."
Palpatine frowned and let the matter drop. "I see they've left you your lightsaber. I'm surprised."
Anakin shrugged. "No reason to take it. I could just build another one if I wanted to."
"Why?" said Sereine. "Do they take your lightsaber if you leave the Sith order?"
Palpatine leaned back and laughed softly, steepling his fingers. "If any Sith is deemed unworthy to remain in our Order, he loses a lot more than just his lightsaber." He paused reflectively. "Except in one case—but you'll encounter that one in your study of the Fifty-seven Masters, Anakin."
Anakin's pulse quickened. "Then the holocron must have had what we need!"
Palpatine nodded once. "Yes, that was what we needed." A troubled look crossed his features. "It wasn't what I wanted, or even expected ... but, for our purposes, it will do."
Anakin nearly collapsed with relief.
Palpatine fixed him with narrowed eyes. "Anakin. Surely you understand that this isn't free. And you know what I want."
He half-expected Sereine to jump in and berate Palpatine, but when he turned to look at her, she only stood against the wall, arms pinned behind her, evenly looking on. As he glanced between them Anakin felt how disappointed he was, how keenly he had hoped that Palpatine wouldn't actually do this.
He felt the master open to him, nibbling at the currents of disappointment.
"Anakin. You've understood the reality of our situation for an entire month now. This is surprisingly childish and naive of you."
"I thought ..." said Anakin. He couldn't stop himself from looking at Sereine, who encouraged him with her eyes.
"I guess I thought ... I hoped," he said, and forced himself to meet Palpatine's eyes. "I hoped ..." and his throat closed. This was very difficult to say.
His eyes traveled to the speeder traffic outside, and he had to force them back to Palpatine's face. "I had hoped ... that you cared enough for me, Sir ... that you wouldn't threaten the dearest thing that I have ..." And his voice started to break, and he had to stop.
It was the loss of the kind of friendship he thought he'd had in Palpatine that stood uppermost in his mind, and how much he had needed it. How much he had valued it. And as that thought rose into his consciousness , he felt that openness in Palpatine encounter that in the Force, trace its contours with hesitant fingertips.
And drop it. And retreat into itself, and close the door, and disappear.
The corners of the Chancellor's mouth pulled thinly back, in a controlled manner. As if to dampen the annoyance in the gesture as well as possible.
The blue eyes snapped to the left. "Anakin," he said, and lowered his eyes, and then his chin, and swallowed once. When he looked up, his eyes darted around the room, settling anywhere but on Anakin and Sereine. His left index finger traced an aimless pattern on his armrest.
He gave them a terse sigh, and then his eyes struck Anakin's like laser beams. "Young one, how foolish can you be? Do you think Padmé's life is the only life at stake?"
Bile rushed up into Anakin's throat. He couldn't threaten their babies, he couldn't.
Could he?
"You know I'm not well," Palpatine said. "I've told you what Lord Tyranus and I attempted with General Grievous. I've told you that what you've given me may be what Padmé needs, but it isn't what I need. I've told you why I can't use the other healing techniques on myself. Surely I don't need to draw you a diagram?"
Anakin's eyes widened and he felt almost ashamed of himself.
"It's going to be very difficult for me training you as it is. You both know how ill I was toward the beginning of the war. It was because I was training Count Dooku! Powerful as he was, I had to reach deep into the dark side to train him, and you're going to be even harder." His eyes flickered to one side. "Most of the time I'm very quiet in the Force, by necessity, as you well know—and I believe that's why I've been as well as I have of late," he said. "But that is about to change. I only pray that I can train you, and ensure the future of our great Order—and not die before I finish."
His eyes met Anakin's in a silent reproach. "Do I have to beg you to save me? Perhaps I am the one who should feel wounded."
Anakin felt very small. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know."
"Well ..." Palpatine's eyes bored the wall to Sereine's right. "Now you do. Therefore I'm sure you'll understand my insistence upon your oath to our Order prior to the birth of your twins."
The master paused and looked at Sereine. "The Lord's Day and the Name Day of a member of our Order, although very short ceremonies, are nonetheless momentous occasions, and therefore private. I'm afraid you won't be welcome." To Anakin: "In your case, as in every Jedi's, they will be the same day. Most auspicious."
"What?" said Sereine.
Palpatine began patiently to explain. "Each Sith is given a special name, to signify his or her special significance to the Order—or at least, the master's hopes for such. When the master bestows this mark of favor, that is your Name Day. And, at some point in your training, your master hopefully will deem you capable enough to work alone: your Lord's Day. Prior to this, you may use the appellation 'Darth,' but never 'Lord.'"
Palpatine smiled, apparently enjoying recounting these traditions. "There is one other special day in the life of a Sith: the day your master considers you to be fully trained. This occasion is marked with a gift the master must make at least partially by hand, usually something the apprentice will wear. The customary gift is a brooch. It's a tradition; started by Lord Momin, who was a sculptor of professional caliber. Of course, none of the rest of us are; yet he started it and it remains tradition. It signifies that we always carry something of our master with us, even after that master is gone. And that will be your Commencement. I've already begun making yours, Anakin. I have great faith in you."
An idea grew. Anakin tried to seize it before it sputtered out, tried to find the right words.
He gave Palpatine a small bow. "Since I appreciate so well the significance of that," he said slowly, "I trust that the master's faith in me runs deep enough to postpone these rituals ... until after my children are safely born."
Palpatine's wheaten-silver brows twitched, and it was not hard to decipher the expression on his face: not pleased. "But if you begin your studies now, you may be advanced enough in your training by the time they are born to accomplish the necessary skills yourself. We will start with the Darth Orphic holocron." Wheedling, with an undergirding of steel.
"All the same," said Anakin, meeting his eyes, "I'll wait. You have greater reason to trust me than I have to trust you."
Palpatine's eyes simmered; his face went hard as stone. Then he shifted in his chair and laughed.
"Already a Sith."
Anakin bowed again, and tried once more to follow Sereine's lead in always calling Palpatine by his name. "Sheev ... please don't think that I am ungrateful. I'm more thankful for this than you can ever know."
"In that case," said the Sith with a shrewd narrowing of steel blue eyes, "I require ... a show of good faith from you."
"A show of good faith?"
"You have some three months before your children are born. You will spend one night of each week at my residence, beginning your study of the Fifty-seven Masters and ur-Kittat, the ancient Sith language. We'll do the Scholars first. I want you to know something of the Order you will be joining. No skills are involved. Only history and language."
Anakin's spirit quailed. He looked at Sereine, who could only look on helplessly.
"I'm afraid I must insist." Palpatine's voice held an oily, slippery note.
Anakin wet his lips. He was afraid to refuse. "All right," he said finally.
Palpatine stood up. "Very well, then," he said. "I have a holocron to study, so I presume you'll excuse me for the evening."
"Of course," said Anakin stiffly.
"And, Anakin?"
"Yes?"
Palpatine's voice dropped and went razor sharp. "When you are my apprentice, be advised that this impertinence will no longer be tolerated."
Anakin tried to tell himself he had done well. He had stood up to the master, and he had prevailed. He was not the Sith apprentice yet, was he?
So why did he feel as though he had lost?