Chapter Text
Days turned into weeks.
Not that anyone had the courtesy to announce them. He had to keep track of it himself, which, how dare they.
Time, he'd discovered, behaved very differently when one was bedridden and slowly dying instead of orchestrating galactic war from a comfortable red chair. When he had been healthy aka magnificent, unstoppable and eternal, days had flown past in a blur of senatorial grovelling, Jedi irritation, and the occasional satisfying assassination. The only bitterness that came with it, the lack of success when it came to getting rid of one Kenobi. But other than that, highly satisfactory. But now, now time stretched and sagged and killed his spirit, whatever was remaining of it after being bedridden for kriffing months!
He'd been here, withering away like some wilted flower while his plans waited and waited for his glorious return which was unacceptable. Just unforgivable. He would not allow it. For he Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, Dark Lord of the Sith, soon-to-be Emperor of the Galaxy, orchestrator of the most elegant war in recorded history refused to be defeated by time itself.
And yet……
Time was winning.
It was kriffing beating him and he hated it. Hated how it was taking everything away from like it owned him while everything in existence knew he owned time.
It began quietly enough. The headaches returned first, pulsing behind his temples like tiny saboteurs. Then the fatigue followed, heavy and humiliating, settling into his bones like an unwelcome tenant who refused to pay rent. His limbs felt distant as if they belonged to someone else entirely like someone significantly older and considerably less impressive.
He took his frustration out on the useless droids and often times it made him feel slightly better which tidied him over and gave him enough energy to pretend to be happy to see his lackey every time he came to visit. Which for some reason happened less frequently. Maybe the war was taking its toll. If so good. The idiot could stand with losing some more important people. Smiling he leaned back into his pillow. The thought of Anakin crying making him feel marginally better about his circumstances.
The smile eventually faded though when the reality of his circumstances kicked down the doors to his mind and made themselves at home.
Worse still, the search for a cure was proving… disappointingly mortal.
Every few days Anakin and Kenobi would sweep into the medical suite smelling faintly of starship fuel, disappointment, and self-righteous Jedi optimism. They would report on yet another world visited, another healer consulted, another Force tradition studied. And every time the result was the same.
Nothing.
Sheev had never before experienced the peculiar indignity of watching other people try and fail to save him. It was deeply irritating. If anything, he should have been the one orchestrating the effort for his own salvation. Threatening and possibly torturing a few specialists for efficiency like the true Sith he was.
Instead he was forced to lie there like some decorative corpse while Obi-Wan Kriffing Kenobi sipped tea and delivered updates in that infuriatingly calm voice of his.
''We’re still looking,'' Kenobi said one afternoon, leaning casually against the wall with the air of a man who had absolutely nowhere better to be. Sheev hated that wall now. And also, Kenobi had better places to be. Wherever the damn cure was! Why was he standing here telling him the obvious when he could be digging through dirt finding something to aid his betters? Useless Kenobi.
He couldn't show that though. Couldn't show the hatred. So he stared at the Jedi through half-lidded eyes, carefully arranging his expression into one of gentle gratitude rather than the murderous contempt he truly felt.
''How reassuring,'' he rasped.
Across the room Anakin shifted uncomfortably, as if sensing the invisible lightning crackling through the air. Good. Anakin didn't deserve to feel a single moment of comfort in his life unless he was back in peak health. The universe should grant him at least that chain of event.
''We checked three systems this time,'' the brainless apprentice of his added quickly, hands moving as he spoke, always moving, always gesturing like an overly excited holo-drama actor. ''There was a healer on Dorin who claimed she’d reversed neural degeneration before, but--''
''But she had not,'' Obi-Wan finished unhelpfully making Anakin deflate.
Sheev allowed himself the smallest inward sigh. It would have been delicious, Anakin being torn down by Kenobi if one ignored the fact that he was the one degenerating.
Still, he watched them carefully. Observing their interactions and their general state of being. Not like he had anything better to do and from what he could see, Kenobi looked tired and Skywalker looked worried.
Good.
Suffering suited them.
-----------------------
Unfortunately, the galaxy did not appear inclined to suffer alongside him.
In fact, it was doing something far worse.
It was adapting.
At first the Senate sessions had merely been postponed. Temporary delays, they called them. Out of respect for the Chancellor’s health. A kindness they'd said. He'd found it disgusting but had accepted this out loud with the patience of a predator waiting for prey to wander closer.
Then for some kriffed up reason the 'temporary' leadership adjustments began and suddenly fake Chancellor Bail Organa was giving addresses from the central podium. His central podium. His----
Bail Organa.
The man had the charisma of a politely dressed chair. He had no business leading the republic!
Sheev had watched the first broadcast in stunned silence while the medical droids fluttered nervously around his bed. Organa spoke calmly and with all the tiresome moral clarity of someone who had never orchestrated a galactic conflict in his life. And when he was done, the Senate had applauded. They'd applauded, stood up and gave him a standing ovation like he'd given them hope. What nonsense was he witnessing?
Sheev had nearly swallowed his own tongue.
Now the broadcasts came regularly. Organa discussing reconstruction plans. Organa negotiating ceasefires. Organa gently guiding the Republic forward as though the last thirteen years of manipulation, bloodshed, and careful orchestration had simply been a slightly unfortunate administrative hiccup. His entire galaxy conquering plan, ripped to shreds through the effort of a man dull as a wall.
Sheev lay in bed watching the holo one evening, fingers twitching weakly against the sheets. ''This,'' he informed the ceiling when he couldn't take it anymore, ''is theft.''
No one argued. Of course not. Because here he was alone. No one bothering to keep him in the loop. The hope of his return being slowly transformed into early retirement plans on the news and to the public. It was infuriating and he just wanted to get up and use his last strength to kill somebody, anybody. But even that appeared to be beyond his means. For the Force had begun behaving very strangely.
For most of his life it had been a roaring storm at the back of his mind, powerful and eager to bend beneath his will. Now it flickered. Faded. Slipped through his grasp like smoke. Sometimes it disappeared entirely.
The first time it happened he had attempted to summon a small burst of lightning toward a particularly irritating diagnostic droid and had been caught off guard when nothing occurred.
The droid had beeped politely and Sheev had glared at it for several minutes. The humiliation burning on his cheeks.
Occasionally the Force returned in brief, uneven pulses. Resulting in moments of clarity and whispers of the vast power that had once been his. It was addicting the moments he had it, but even those moments had begun behaving…strangely, dare he say threateningly.
One such moment was one afternoon. He'd drifted half-asleep while the sun filtered through the tall medical windows. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and tea; Kenobi had been there again earlier, naturally, contaminating the air with his presence.
He'd fallen asleep after asking the stubborn Kenobi to tell him where Anakin was and receiving nothing but stonewalling much to his fury. In the end he'd closed his eyes in order to more effectively ignore the irritating prattling of a man with no value and he'd slept.
He didn't know how or when it happened. If it only took place because his guards where down in his sleep as of late; lack of energy preventing him from keeping his guard up but the force had stirred.
Not the dark, crackling abyss he knew so well but something much softer.
For a fleeting instant he'd seen an old veranda overlooking Naboo’s endless green lakes. Sunlight glimmered on the water. Laughter drifted through warm air thick with summer blossoms.
A woman stood there. Her hair was silver with age, her eyes bright with mischief. She swung their clasped hands back and forth as if he were still a child too small to keep up with her stride.
''Come along, Sheev,'' she said, laughing.
Sheev snapped upright in bed and the vision vanished like a burst bubble.
'Disgusting,' he thought disoriented, shoving the memory aside immediately, mentally incinerating it with all the efficiency of a Sith Lord who had spent decades suppressing inconvenient emotions.
Clearly the illness was affecting his brain. Another item for the complaint ledger.
Unfortunately, the week’s final catastrophe arrived shortly thereafter. It was evening when Anakin appeared. Which was a surprise for from what he'd gathered from Kenobi, Anakin had chosen to spend his time fighting the useless war rather than visiting him. He hadn't known what to believe when Kenobi spoke the words to him with gentle pity; not able to access the force to read his truth but seeing his young soon to be apprentice in front of him now. He knew Kenobi must have been twisting the truth for the boy clearly seemed to care for him still.
But…..
But…….
The boy entered quietly for once, which alone should have been warning enough that something was wrong.
Sheev regarded him from his pillows with weary suspicion. ''Anakin,'' he greeted. ''You look… grave.''
Anakin paused beside the bed. There was a heaviness in his posture Sheev did not like. The boy who normally burst into rooms like an enthusiastic meteor now moved with careful restraint; concern coming off of him in waves.
''Chancellor--- I mean Sir,'' he said with some modicum of joy.
Sheev straightened slightly, ignoring the stab of pain in his chest. ''Well?'' he prompted.
Anakin hesitated. ''We captured Count Dooku.'' He said it like he was trying to shield him from perceived failures. Like them capturing Dooku so quickly after his hospitalization had disgraced him somehow.
Sheev blinked. For a moment his mind simply… stalled.
Captured?
That had not been part of the plan. Dooku was supposed to die dramatically during a confrontation engineered by….well. Him. Preferably while Anakin looked conflicted and morally tortured and likely had done the killing of the Count.
Captured was… unacceptable.
''The war,'' Anakin continued, ''is basically over. The Separatist council’s already negotiating surrender.''
Sheev stared.
That couldn't be. Surely not? Thirteen years of---
His magnificent war. His masterpiece of manipulation. The carefully orchestrated chaos that was meant to carry him straight to imperial power, ending? Without him? Without even the courtesy of a final dramatic confrontation where he killed them all?
He felt strangely winded.
Anakin shifted again, rubbing the back of his neck. ''And I'm so sorry Sir, but we didn’t find anything.''
Sheev’s attention snapped back. ''Nothing?''
''We tried everything,'' Anakin said quietly, sounding so heartbroken, Sheev wanted to stab him in the neck and watch him bleed on the pristine white floor. ''Master Obi-Wan talked to Force healers, archivists, even some… really weird monks on Jedha.''
Sheev narrowed his eyes.
''Kenobi talked to monks.''
''Very weird monks.''
''And still no cure?''
Anakin shook his head and thus silence settled heavily over the room. Sheev felt something sharp and frantic begin clawing inside his chest slowly but surely with each second that passed.
It wasn't fear of course. Certainly not fear. But some type of….Merely… urgency. Yes, urgency. Because this was very slowly turning into an unwinnable situation. He'd lost the Republic. His puppet clown Dooku was captured and he was sick and dying. All he had left was the doofus. He needed to keep him by his side. He---
He reached out weakly, catching Anakin’s sleeve. ''You must stay with me, Anakin,'' he said, voice rough with strain. ''The Jedi… they will turn on you. They always do.''
Anakin looked down at him. There was no alarm in his expression. No panic. Only something soft and gentle. A mixture of fondness and pity.
Sheev nearly bit through his own tongue.
''Obi-Wan knows everything, Chan---Sir,'' he patted his hand like he was an ail child in need of comfort. ''So you don’t have to worry about me anymore. You can rest easy now.''
Everything. The word echoed unpleasantly. Sheev’s fingers tightened. ''…Everything?''
''About Padme,'' Anakin said with a nod, smiling at him. Practically shoving him towards the light from where he was sitting.
''And?'' he prompted through gritted teeth. Hoping for a scandal. For righteous Jedi condemnation. For even Kenobi could surely not hide his horror at what Anakin had done. Surely?
Instead Anakin smiled. ''He’s happy for us.''
Sheev’s mind briefly left the building.
''He even helped me talk to the Council about it,'' the idiot goon continued, almost sheepishly. ''They’re…surprisingly supportive.''
Supportive.
Of love.
From the Jedi.
Sheev felt something deep in his carefully constructed worldview crack slightly. Impossible.
''Obi-Wan’s helped me more than you can imagine,'' Anakin patted his hand and he nearly clawed his face off. ''It really sucked when you got hospitalized Sir, but I think I seized a moment of misfortune and turned it into something good like you always said. And I think making peace with Obi-Wan was one of the best choices I could have ever made. So you don't have to look out for me anymore. I'm okay now, I promise.'' He squeezed his hand and smiled and--
The knife slid in cleanly and cut his well-constructed, decade long plan in two.
Sheev found that he could say nothing. What could he say? That Kenobi was supposed to be the problem, not the solution? That the boy’s emotional isolation had been a key structural component of the entire Sith recruitment strategy? Apparently Kenobi had simply… fixed it.
Unbelievable.
Anakin gave his hand one last gentle squeeze before standing. ''You should rest, Sir.''
Yes, rest. Maybe he'd misheard something because he was so tired? Sheev watched him walk to the door. Every step carrying away something precious.
Influence.
Control.
Future.
The door slid shut with a soft hiss and for the first time in decades, Sheev Palpatine lay alone in a quiet room while the galaxy continued turning without him.