Chapter Text
Some things, in life and in love, are never meant to be.
And it’s been thirty-five years without you, and neither of us are the same anymore. It breaks my heart, you should know. But I cannot say those words anymore.
They’re too true, you see, for me to ever acknowledge them. The light of day would break them.
Would break me.
Because I…
I still love you.
“And Alderaan ceded from the Republic,” Boba points out, slumped halfway off the couch.
“Yeah, but that was Palpatine’s doing, not ours.”
“Doesn’t matter; if a time traveller did it, it goes on the whiteboard.”
“Says who?” Anakin puts his hands on his hips and frowns at Boba. “The list is titled ‘ways we karked up’, not ‘the ways we and Palpatine karked up’.”
“Agh,” Boba groans over-dramatically, flapping his hands around like he’s swatting at flies, “semantics, semantics. It’s supposed to be about the timeline differences, isn’t it? So put Alderaan down.”
Anakin grunts. “Fine.” And in the middle of the whiteboard, next to ‘Kaminoan massacre’ and ‘Mandalore government mess’, he scribbles down ‘Alderaan not blown up’.
“Hey, that wasn’t what we agreed on!” Boba says, finally sitting upright so he can glare down Anakin with the full-force of his chubby eleven-year-old face.
Anakin crosses his arms. “I don’t recall agreeing to anything, actually.”
“It’s not supposed to be blown up yet anyway.” Boba jumps off the couch and storms over, gesturing for Anakin to give him the marker. “So you can’t put it down because it might still happen.”
Anakin refuses to hand over the marker, and holds it higher up so that Boba can’t reach it. Boba leans up on tiptoes, trying to reach the marker and scowling at Anakin when he can’t. “Give it!”
“Make me.”
Boba kicks him.
Between the legs.
“Shabuir!” Anakin kicks back at him, but Boba dances away with an evil cackle.
“Ba’buir, ba’buir!” Boba calls, jumping over the couch when Anakin lunges for him. “Help, Anakin is attacking me!”
“He karking deserves it!”
Anakin finally gets a grip on the back of Boba’s shirt, and yanks him to a halt. “Oof!” He plants his weight on Boba’s legs and pins down his flailing arms.
“Hey, get off!” Boba grimaces, struggling to turn his head away as Anakin brings the uncapped marker ever closer. “Anakin, I swear to the ka’ra. Get off me!”
“Anakin,” the Father’s stern voice says from the doorway, “let Boba go.”
The marker makes contact with Boba’s upper lip, and Boba sputters in protest while Anakin draws a curly moustache on him. “There,” he chirps, letting Boba go and getting off him, “perfection.”
“Ugh, you monster.” Boba scrubs furiously at his upper lip, but the marker just smears into an even worse moustache. “Ba’buir, see what he did to me?” He turns pleading, watery eyes on the Father, his lip trembling sadly for extra effect. “He hurt me.”
The Father’s eyes close, and his chest rises with a very slow and careful inhalation.
“He karking started it,” Anakin gets out before the Father has a chance to speak. “He kicked me in the manhood. What was I supposed to do, react in a calm and reasonable manner?”
The Father’s eyes open again, fixing on Anakin with the most unimpressed and exhausted look the old entity has ever managed to wield. “Children,” he starts, “I know recent events have been hard on all of us-”
“Kark’s sake,” Anakin cuts in, “how is that at all related?”
“-but that’s no excuse for such undignifying behaviour-”
“We were just having a bit of fun! It’s not…” He flaps his hands around erratically. “It’s not psychological, or whatever you think this is.”
“-and I know your father would be most-”
“Okay, no.” Anakin storms toward the doorway, throwing the marker over his shoulder as he goes. “I’m not sticking around to listen to this shit.”
“Anakin-”
“Kark off, old man.”
And he uses the Force to slam the sliding door closed behind him, dimly aware of the sound of cracking plastoid and crumbling plaster.
“Oh, thank you Teckla,” Padmé says, smiling warmly at her aide. “Is that Senator Rachi’s request?”
“No, ma’am.” Teckla dips her head politely when she reaches the edge of the desk, holding the datapad out toward Padmé. “A clearance request, from the Inquisitorius Program.”
Padmé frowns, taking the datapad from Teckla and clicking it on. Palpatine has always been a close confidant of hers, but in recent years he’s become… harder to understand. She keeps a close eye on the requisition forms and oversight reports of his new ‘Inquisitorius Program’ whenever they cross her desk, searching for some hint of his thoughts and motives inside the numbers and bland technical terms.
‘Pursue suspected Jedi’, she catches sight of. ‘Evidence volunteered by civilian informants’… ‘suspected criminal’… ‘locate and detain’.
Padmé grimaces, taking a sip from her bitter caf. “I don’t suppose the legal status of the Jedi has changed recently?” she asks Teckla mildly.
“No, my lady.”
So Padmé scrolls to the bottom of the form, and reluctantly signs her approval.
She doesn’t believe for a second that the Jedi are guilty of everything they’ve been accused of, but the law is clear on it. And she won’t violate the sanctity of the Chancellorship by undermining the law in that way.
“Here you are,” she says, passing the datapad back to Teckla. “And could you pick up a caf refill on your way back from delivering that?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” Padmé flashes her aide a smile before she leaves, then turns back to her monitors.
She’d started the Chancellorship with one modest datapad. Then, at Teckla’s persuading, she’d gotten a monitor fixed onto the desk, for an easier time typing. Less than a month into the Chancellorship, when she was trawling through a solar system’s worth of paperwork on the Mandalorian Clusterfuck (as the aides in the Senate had come to refer to it), she finally decided to get a second monitor.
Now she has three.
The left one is permanently devoted to the never ending crisis that is Mandalore, and the middle one to the administrative forms that should be the entirety of the Chancellor’s workload. The one on the right alternates between the fear-mongering reporters on the news, the terse requests of the Senators, and whatever her aides have flagged as potentially important.
On the right-most monitor at the moment is a live news segment about one Jango Fett.
Because everything seems to relate back to Mandalore these days, even when it’s not on the monitor labelled ‘Mandalore’.
“-an act of terrorism against his own people,” the reporter is saying, “though some claim it was an act of ‘reunification’. But how can it be peaceful political reforms if you come in with an armada of ships and an army of soldiers, and forcefully lock down the entire planet overnight? That’s military occupation!”
Padmé frowns, watching the reporter’s over-exaggerated facial expressions whip between anger and fear at intervals, his eyes large and bulging like he’s staring down the barrel of a gun and not a camera. His audience is being whipped into a frenzy, no doubt, hanging onto his every impassioned word and crying for blood.
Bloodlust on Coruscant is the last thing she needs, but the news fights her at every turn.
For every reassuring speech she makes, it only takes one quick segment to undermine that work, to bring words like “terrorism” and “dictator” and “war” echoing in the minds of the people. The galaxy is seconds away from complete chaos, according to the people on the streets, and Jango Fett is coming to kill all their children.
“But Mandalore keeps twiddling its thumbs,” the reporter says, looking personally affronted by every word he says, “because the people now in power were put there by this terrorist. The common people want him tried for crimes against peace, but his puppeteers in this facsimile of a ‘Mandalorian government’ won’t bite the hand that’s spoon-feeding them.”
Below the reporter’s desk, the news headline scrolls away to itself; ‘Jango Fett to be put on trial?’
Padmé sets down her now-empty caf cup, and cracks the stiffness out of her knuckles. “Let’s change that question mark to a full stop.” And she starts a new communique to Bo-Katan Kryze.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you,” Rex says, tapping away at his datapad without looking at Anakin, “but why are you here?”
“Maybe I just enjoy the smell of plants,” Anakin says, following after Rex as he walks the rows of the hydroponics bay. The many, many garden beds are mostly empty, with only tiny green specks of seedlings popping through the dirt.
“Uh huh,” Rex mutters, crouching to adjust the settings on one garden bed. “Are you going to do anything useful with your time here, or just… follow me around?”
Anakin shrugs, leaning over the garden to look at the seedlings. “I’m not a gardening expert.” He side-eyes Rex, watching him chew his lip thoughtfully as he taps at his datapad. “And I thought you weren’t, either.”
“Well, needs must.” Rex turns away from the garden, crossing over to one of the other rows. Anakin follows after him. “Beskar stealing didn’t work out. Equipment stealing didn’t work out. Repairman didn’t work out. Cooking really didn’t work out. So…” He shrugs, finally looking up at Anakin. “I’m a farmer now, I guess.”
His shirt has sweat patches around the armpit from the humid air, and his boots are caked with mud and manure. But his hair is still buzzed short with military precision, and he’s not even trying to hide the WESTAR-35 holstered at his hip.
“I don’t think this counts as being a farmer,” Anakin says, gesturing around them at the environmentally sealed and fully controllable greenhouse. “More like a technician… for plants.”
Rex scowls, and turns away for the next garden bed.
“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean that in an insulting way,” Anakin says, trailing after him, “just a teasing way. You’re only supposed to be, like, 20% irritated. Maybe 25%, at most.”
“Yeah, I got it.” Rex crouches by the next garden bed, reaching out to prod at one of the seedlings. “Do you really have nowhere better to be?”
“Not really.” Anakin kicks at the dust of the greenhouse’s floor, the rocky Concordian soil that refuses to grow even weeds. Hard to believe this moon used to have farms on it. “Need any help around here?”
“Not really.”
The door of the greenhouse hisses as the environment seal breaks for a moment, admitting one of the hydroponic workers into the room before it hisses shut again. The controls on the wall beep and flash, little red and green lights indicating… something. Probably important.
“You do this all day? It’s kriffing boring.”
“That’s what having a job is like,” Rex mutters distractedly, inspecting a new garden bed.
“Hmm, not jobs in the military. Always action in them, between one campaign or another. Paperwork. Injuries. Kidnappings and assassinations and the like.”
Rex grunts, tapping at his datapad.
“Oh Force,” Anakin whispers, “am I going to have to get a job one day?”
Rex scoffs. “You? Not likely.” He pauses, looking up at Anakin. His brow is furrowed. “Oh, actually… since your buir sort of… doesn’t have a job anymore… you might have to?”
Anakin frowns. “Osik. No one told me that was an occupational hazard when you get adopted.”
“You would have had that problem even if you weren’t,” Rex says, once again staring at his datapad.
“Not really. I had a tidy bit going from my information selling business, until Jango made me shut it down.” Anakin takes a running start, kicking a clod of dirt down the greenhouse path until it breaks open against one of the garden beds. “A kriffing shame, too. You know how many customers I had?”
“For the sake of plausible deniability; no. And I don’t want to.”
“Lots! From every corner of the galaxy, and every profession imaginable.” He leans back against one of the garden beds, gesturing at the roof of the greenhouse like there’s a hologram floating up there. “I was passing entire database’s worth of information every week, for nefarious purposes unimaginable. Blueprints, security keys, blackmail. You name it, I had it.”
“Oh, what’s that?” Rex reaches up to tap at his ear, making a face like he’s got a headache. “I seem to have lost my hearing. What a shame.”
Anakin scoffs. “Stop worrying. Skywalker Informational Services disappeared without a trace. No law enforcement even knows it existed.”
Rex grunts.
“You’re so entertaining, you know. Conversations with you are truly thrilling.”
“Uh huh.”
“I could listen to you talk for hours, and never get bored.” Anakin leans in closer and stares at him intently. “Go on. Say something evocative.”
“Hmm.”
“Oh, amazing!” He claps loudly, drawing weird looks from the other people in the greenhouse.
Rex sighs, tipping his head back to stare in exhaustion at the roof. “Anakin…”
“Let me guess; you know recent events have been hard on all of us…”
“No, not that.” Rex looks at him, expression somewhere between irritated and understanding. “I just… I’m trying to work. And it’s… really hard when you’re…”
“Annoying you?”
Rex pinches the bridge of nose, leaving streaks of dirt across it. “I’m sorry. I would love to hang out with you, really. But I’m on duty right now. Maybe on the weekend?”
Anakin grimaces. “I can’t. The Stuffy Old Man is taking me and Boba over to Mandalore.”
Rex’s eyes widen. “Oh. Oh. To see J-”
“Tomorrow? You can’t be working all day tomorrow, right?”
“I-” Rex sighs. “Yeah, tomorrow works.”
“Great! I’ll swing by ba’vodu Tervho’s place in the afternoon.”
“Have you calmed your temper?” the Father asks Anakin when he gets home.
Anakin grunts, bypassing him and going for the kitchen. “Yeah, I’m finished sulking. You haven’t been waiting for me this entire time, have you?”
“No. I had to assist Boba in his bedtime routine, for one.” The Father follows him toward the kitchen, floating unnaturally over the floor, his glowering etherealness completely out of place in the dinky little plastoid kitchen. “Would you like to discuss your outburst?”
“No.” Anakin flicks the kettle on, leaning against the counter as he waits for it to boil. He meets the Father’s impossibly calm eyes, narrowing his own to a glare.
“Your father had hoped that exercise would assist you two,” he says, stroking slowly at his delicately plaited beard. “I will quite regret when I have to inform him of the outcome.”
Anakin scowls, turning away from the Father to stare instead at the hissing kettle. “One stupid moustache doesn’t mean we failed. We can try again tomorrow, so long as Boba keeps his limbs to himself.”
“That would be commendable. Perhaps you can settle further disagreements by reaching a calm compromise.”
Anakin grits his teeth. “We can try. But Boba better not start kicking next time he gets pissy.”
The kettle whistles shrilly, and Anakin grabs a bowl out of the dishrack. It’s still wet and sudsy from its recent wash, but he pours the boiled water into it anyway.
“Have you made preparations for our visit to Mandalore?” the Father asks.
Some of the water misses the bowl, splashing Anakin’s wrist. He flinches.
“No- I…” He sets the kettle down loudly. “Do I have to?”
The Father is stroking his beard thoughtfully when Anakin turns around, his glowing blue eyes staring through Anakin. And though Anakin tries to avoid touching the Force too much these days, he can still feel the being’s vast Force presence filling the room, closing tight around him. Staring.
Poking, prodding. Enclosed around him like that Force-awful suit, restricting-
“Your father would be disappointed not to see you, I believe.” The Father releases his beard, clasping his hands together in front of him. “And he would be most concerned for you. For his peace of mind, it would be best if you came along.”
Anakin turns away, escaping the Father’s gaze, and digs through the cupboards for the soup flavouring packets. There are instant noodles in there too, but he can’t be bothered with them. Flavoured water will do for now.
“I hope you intend to eat something more nutritious,” the Father says, watching closely as Anakin tips the powder into the soup. “Liquid alone will not sustain a mortal.”
“It will this mortal.” Anakin takes a sip of his liquid soup, ignoring the burn on his tongue. “How long will we be on Mandalore?”
“Only for the weekend. You may… ‘pack lightly’, I believe the expression is.”
“Hm.” Anakin stares down at the murky surface of his soup, his own reflection distorting and stretching as it stares back at him.
He doesn’t have the scar next to his eye. He should have had it by now. The face looks… foreign without it.
Too young and… innocent? No, wrong word.
Deceptive.
“I’m going to bed,” he decides, putting the bowl down on the bench. “See you in the morning.”
“Anakin,” the Father starts, but Anakin closes his bedroom door behind him.
The door beeps quietly as it locks, leaving Anakin in the complete darkness of his bedroom. The muffled sound of Boba’s snores come through their shared wall, almost drowned out by the rasp of Anakin’s breathing.
“It won’t be for long, ad’ike,” Jango said, smiling as warmly as he could, but it was too tense around the edges.
Boba was still sobbing.
“Just while they get this whole mess sorted out, then I’m coming back.”
“Buir,” Boba had croaked, lifting his head from the wet patch on Jango’s shirt. His cheeks streaked and eyes rimmed with pink. His lower lip shuddered as he spoke. “Buir…”
“Kriff’s sake,” Anakin mutters to himself, stumbling through the darkness of his bedroom. His stomach growls unhappily. He finds the edge of his bed and collapses onto it, not bothering with changing clothes or brushing teeth or… anything. He just lies there, face pressed against his pillow, staring into the darkness and hoping no faces form to haunt him.
“Ba’jur bal beskar’gam,” he recites into the darkness, half-familiar words taking the place of much older mantras, “Ara’nov, aliit… An, no. Mando’a bal Mand’alor. An vencuyan mhi.”
Boba’s snores still reverberate through the walls. In the kitchen, the lights flick off, and there’s the faint hiss of a door closing.
Anakin closes his eyes, and repeats the words to the darkness there. “Ba’jur bal beskar’gam, ara’nov aliit…” A ward to banish the ghosts as they appear for him. “Mando’a bal Mand’alor, an vencuyan mhi.”
“It’ll be fine,” Jango had whispered. “I promise.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do, ad’ika.” Jango put a warm hand on his shoulder. Warm, but too heavy. “It’s just a legal technicality, nothing more. They’ll make a big show of it, but it’ll be over soon. And until then… behave, yes? Don’t cause any trouble for the Father, and please try to get along with Boba.”
“No promises.”
Jango chuckled, and leaned in to tap their foreheads together briefly. “Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum, ad’ika. Stay safe.”
“You too.”