There's a hand on her shoulder. (When was the last time someone touched her?)

And Mace Windu, Grandmaster of the Order, looks Anakin in the eye and says, "You've already done all that could have ever been asked of you, and more."

"And now I ask you - stay here, and stay alert. Stay safe."

"I want to help."

Hug.

"You would be a liability against her," he says, quietly. "I'm sorry."

She knows. 

That doesn't mean she likes hearing it. 

"We'll be putting the Guard on high alert," he says. "Join them, and do as they say."

"Yes sir," she whispers, but no sound comes from her lips.

She feels the moment they die. 

She feels the moment that woman's commands echo through their army - 

Anakin is bigger than herself. It doesn't matter that she's exhausted, that she's heavily pregnant - that fluid is spreading between her legs and her entire core is wracked with spasms - 

She's fought a war like this. 

A nothingness falls over the Grand Army of the Republic, and Anakin reaches, desperate, to fill it -

There's nothing in those familiar minds for her to grab. No watchfulness for her to nudge, no courage for her to flame.

Just the mission, and their orders, and the traitors before their weapons. 

Anakin takes a deep breath, only vaguely aware of another person trying to lift her off the floor - 

And she cuts the thin tether she's clung to for four years, the thread suspending her above the churning ocean of the Dark Side. 

And where she cannot nudge, she commands - 

Stop - 

But there's millions and millions of soldiers, and only one Anakin, and a geyser of power ripping through her body, burning her from the inside out, and as soon as her control slips the women go right back to their mission - 

Turn my blaster to my own head, and pull the trigger.

Anakin is hundreds of thousands of soldiers right now, and she's reckoned plenty with the thought of killing herself. She doesn't flinch.

But her control slips - she doesn't get all of them - and there's so many, and the battle is spiraling so quickly, and this isn't fast -

She keeps grasping.

And she's not the only one with an interest in what these soldiers do. 

Another deep wellspring of power - one long refined, used to this rush - winds through the minds of Anakin's puppets, dislodges her grasp, disrupts her, slows her down critically. 

Fuck OFF.

A laugh. 

That isn't how you use the Dark Side, girl. 

You don't cajole. You don't find tricks or ways around. You take the universe, and you demand what you want. 

Then die.

And a hundred thousand soldiers drop dead like puppets with the strings cut - and Anakin swells, moving through the ranks as fast as desire, chased by that laughter - 

It isn't enough, the Jedi are still trapped in the Temple - 

She reaches out - 

She kills the first Jedi she tries to grab. She leaves the second a babbling wreck, useless to her. 

She starts trying to push thoughts - to the Jedi in the Temple, to ones on campaign (there's laughter in the Force) - some of those she reaches aren't even disabled by the roar of power in her. 

She grabs the mind of one of the Jedi in the Temple - a padawan though barely, lifted from the ranks of the initiates too soon for a war that steals their children as relentlessly as it steals their purpose - 

She doesn't kill him immediately. She takes his body, and she gets the initiates out - takes the body of a crechemaster - 

They burn out before long, but she's gotten a few to safety - 

(She's burning out.)

(She tries to pull back from the vision, sobbing. She can't. Not far.)

The geyser of power fades. She comes back to her body, someone with their hands on her elbows, trying to lead her to safety - ragged breath in her ears - the knowledge that she killed them, she killed her children - 

She stops letting herself be lead. "I can't," she whispers. "I need to find Elesse."

She doesn't kill the person who was leading her. She does kill the traffic control officers who try to keep her from leaving, who follow their orders - she kills every loyal enforcer of the Republic in a position to intercept outgoing craft while she's at it - 

She looks for Elesse.

Elesse - get me out - please -

There's no response.

She isn't in her right mind yet when she finds Elesse. Neither of them are. (No one has been, not for years.) She's angry, and terrified, and grieving, and still riding that agitated high - 

Yes, she says, when Elesse asks for truth - Yes, she's the Sith Lord, and the Council died fighting her. 

Why wasn't I there? Why weren't you there - you can't understand, you never listen - 

Somebody twitches, as the Republic falls and crumbles, and the Empire rises as its death mask.

Somebody ignites her lightsaber. 

Please - no -

(But when has the universe ever listened to 'stop'?)

Elesse's going to kill her. It pulses through her like her own racing heart, a terrifying, overwhelming knowledge. If Anakin slips, even an inch, if she regrets and turns off her lightsaber - Elesse will kill her. 

Isn't that what we keep wanting?

She's scared. 

There's no Republic to fight for. No war to win. 

She can't win this. She's exhausted, wounded in body and mind, and she's never been the fighter Elesse is. 

There's no point to duty. 

She doesn't want to die. 

Just let go. Just surrender. It'll be better that way. 

She knows what she needs to do, and she can't. 

Then you take the universe, and you demand what you want. 

Elesse's golden blade pushes against her saber - close enough to her face Anakin's vision develops spots - 

I demand to EXIST. 

It's her unwilling passenger who sees that demand ripple, who hears the reverberations in the Force like a great bell has been struck - who hears the echo of it, from countless universes and countless times, but always from Anakin -