Midnight in the Garden

Chapter 3: Only What You Take With You, Part One

Both men looked at her as if she'd just gone crazy.

Valorum said, very gently, "Sereine. You know he's lying to him. You and I both know how sick Palpatine really is."

Anakin said, "Sick?"

Lady Valorum turned to him. "Palpatine has several autoimmune diseases going on at once. He's had autoimmune arthritis since -- since I knew him. You know how he holds his hands up like this?" She pulled her hands up close to her chest and let them hang limply from the wrists.

"Yes."

"He does that because he has terrible arthritis in them. Whenever you see that, you know it's bothering him. He has some autoimmune problem with his eyes, too. The medical term for it is uveitis. I've seen his irises turn yellow. I've actually seen them bleed into the space behind his corneas. He'd have this little bit of settled blood in each eye, right here." She pointed at the very bottom of the colored part of one of her eyes. "He'd have to sit in the dark when they bled, it made him so photophobic. He'd have to take drops every four hours."

Valorum cleared his throat. "Sereine," he said in a warning tone.

She glared at him and went on. "That isn't all. Remember how bad he looked about the time the war started? When he disappeared for a couple of weeks and came back sort of looking like he had a suntan?" 

Anakin remembered. "The holomedia had a field day. He went on vacation when a war was about to start."

"That wasn't a vacation. Finis heard it from a relative who works programming medical droids for intensive care. Palpatine had some sort of autoimmune crisis where your own immune system breaks down all your red blood cells. He almost died. That wasn't a tan, it was jaundice."

Anakin's heart dropped to his feet. He murmured, remembering something Palpatine had said to him. "'...  but he couldn't save himself ...'"

"What?" said Valorum.

"Nothing," said Anakin.

"You have to see, young Skywalker. You're holding back for nothing."

"Not necessarily," his wife pointed out. "Palpatine's looking awfully well these days."

"But he hasn't been able to cure himself. That we know of."

"But he isn't dead, either!"

Anakin broke in. "He didn't indicate that he had actually done it. That he knew the theory, yes, but ... If what you're telling me is true, he has more reason to pursue the answer than anyone. There are Sith holocrons in the temple. Perhaps ..."

Former Chancellor Valorum let out an exasperated growl and stalked back to the table.

"You said ... stopping time. What were you talking about?" Anakin asked Lady Valorum.

She stared at him. "Not one more being has to die to do this. We can stop it all -- without firing another shot!"

Valorum growled at her from the table. "Sereine. Are you mad?"

"No. No, I'm sane!" She turned and ran from the kitchen, knocking herself against the retracting door in her haste.

Valorum turned an accusing blue stare on Anakin. Anakin could not meet his gaze.

With a rustle of long skirts Lady Valorum swept back into the room, two datapads in her hands. She stopped in front of her husband.

"Finis. If you were still Chancellor -- I'm sure you have all kinds of thoughts about what you'd do after the war, to bring relief to the suffering and get the most affected worlds' economies running again."