Disclaimer: I am neither Disney nor George Lucas, and am not wishful, expectant, or accepting of profit from this work (except for reviews and happiness). Thank you and do enjoy.

A/N: Here, have an early Christmas AU. Leave a review!

Next Morning A/N: I ought to have mentioned this last night, but I was really tired. The major difference in this AU is that the mission to Ansion went long and Obi-Wan and Anakin were not available to accept the mission to guard Padme. However, the Clone Wars still began (after all, they had been planned for a long time). The War proceeded about as usual, except for all instances in which Anakin and Padme were specifically sent on missions together. In fact, by the end of the war, due to different circumstances and meetings, Padme actually knows Ahsoka better than she knows Anakin - more on that later.

Prologue: Fall

"In light of the unfortunate recent tensions between our Order and the Galactic Congress, which have been brought to our attention through several incidents, the High Council of the Jedi Order would like to extend a new hand of friendship and partnership to the Senate and its head. A seat in this Council has, as has happened far too often over the course of the past three years, become unexpectedly available in the last few weeks. We propose that our two organizations renew our commitment to cooperation by creating a new position – the Senate Liaison Chair of the Jedi High Council. While the Jedi Order has acted with a great deal of autonomy in our private affairs for centuries, we understand that the past centuries have also been free of galactic war, and that such devastating conflicts require complete honesty between partners in the struggle for peace, and require each body also not to look solely to its own interests. The appointed Councilor will become the bridge between our two worlds. They will represent the interests of the Senate and the Office of the Supreme Chancellor in Council meetings and will in turn report the content of these meetings back as a means of accountability between our two ancient institutions.

"A list has been prepared of ten Masters who are currently or have recently been under consideration for Council seats. All have agreed to come before the Senate to speak for themselves if you require it. Know, however, that the assignment of our Council seats is not treated like your elections. They will not attempt to sell themselves, but will instead provide you with a clear picture of their beliefs and values, especially with respect to the war, and the assignment the Senate agrees upon will be accepted by all with humility and dutiful gravity, as is our way. You may also propose a Jedi not on this list to the Council, though we respectfully ask that you limit your total period of review to one week after the motion to create the Chair has been passed, and that you adhere to the traditional values of the Jedi hierarchy in that you select a Jedi who has been granted the rank of Master within our Order…"

With effort, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker kept himself from violently thumping his fighter's control console with his mechno as he and his squadron did another pass over another mountain range of a frankly boring moon looking for Separatist hideouts that probably didn't exist.

That position should've been his.

Even several full days after the Siege of Coruscant had been lifted, Anakin remained on-planet, ordered to take a week to not only rest, but also to refresh his knowledge of the war's progress on the large scale by taking advantage of the capital's central military command and intelligence centers.

That was when the Supreme Chancellor had called him to the Senate Offices to make the proposal.

Palpatine's suggestion that Anakin represent his Office on the Council had been more than unexpected, and Anakin had been in shock for few moments, overwhelmed by a tide of jumbled feeling. There had been the usual flustered, slightly embarrassed pride at the Chancellor's high opinion of him as a Jedi – after all, it's not like he got many sincere compliments from the people in his life, the uncomfortably fervid hero worship of the faceless masses notwithstanding. That had been coupled with a warmth of happiness at having earned Palpatine's personal trust to such an extent. But there had been pessimism too, a bit of logical, realist squashing of hope.

The Council barely tolerated him. Many of its members distrusted him – and for what? Because Yoda hadn't been able to foretell the future of a nine-year-old boy with perfect clarity? And even many of those who grudgingly admitted to his abilities disliked him.

There were a few who seemed alright enough.

Master Yoda treated Anakin the same way he treated everyone else, though Anakin wasn't sure if that counted for anything, because, really, no one but Yoda really knew Yoda's thoughts. Although, truth be told, in some of the old Grand Master's more eccentric moments Anakin doubted even that.

Kit Fisto had always been friendly in their few casual interactions. But then, Kit Fisto was jovial with everyone.

And after having spent a couple of years as the Master of Ahsoka Tano, Anakin imagined that his friendship with Plo Koon was a little like what it might be like to have a favorite uncle, the reserved and mysterious Kel Dor Jedi having continued to keep a watchful eye on the little Togruta girl he'd found well into her apprenticeship, and always keeping judgment-free advice at the ready for her woefully inexperienced young mentor.

It had only been about six months since she'd walked away from him down the Temple steps, but she still refused to contact him. Anakin knew she wanted to be able to start a new life without constant reminders of the horrible end of her old one, but this was taking things a bit far. She was still in contact with Master Plo, though, and while, respecting her request, Plo had declined to give Anakin her comm channel or current address, he had also kept Anakin more-or-less fully informed of how she was doing and what she was doing (against her wishes), and Anakin was grateful for that.

And there was Obi-Wan, of course. Obi-Wan was a given.

So that was two Council Masters that liked him and two that were ambiguous.

That left, since there was currently a seat open, a grand total of seven Masters who would rather the Force never be brought to balance than it be brought to balance by him.

Some of them were sort of civil about the way they expressed that opinion. Others not so much.

Saesee Tiin and Ki-Adi-Mundi were of the habit of reciting basic Jedi teachings to him rote, as they would to a small youngling. Apparently they were of the mind that if someone didn't accept those teachings at face value, it must be because they'd never heard them before, not because they legitimately held a different opinion.

Shaak Ti's eyes flashed with irritation every time he opened his mouth, like she was deciding whether or not the Order would be best served by chucking him off the pinnacle of the Tranquility Spire.

He didn't even want to think about Mace Windu.

It was just as well that the cynical little voice in his head had spoken up to temper his hope, since the Council had done more than deny his request. In fact, they had turned the request back on the Chancellor, specifically pointing out certain Jedi traditions as if to say, "Skywalker's not an option, no matter what you think is best."

One would think that someone the Chancellor trusted on both a personal and a professional level would be better suited than a stranger, but no.

Sitting in his Temple quarters, he found he was only able to listen to the first few minutes of Master Windu's address to the Senate before hurling the innocent datapad across the room to crash with a sickening crunch into the opposite wall. Hoping to keep his pet projects in peace (some of the parts had been rather hard to find), he spent the rest of the evening relieving the Temple inventories of quite a lot of training remotes of various difficulties before returning to collapse to sleep in an exhausted heap. Though he knew from experience that weariness and dreamless sleep only took the edge off of bitter resentment for a little bit, it was better than nothing.

The next day Anakin found himself on his way back to the Outer Rim to rejoin the fleet, now tasked with taking out a new series of completely automated Separatist mini space stations, refueling and auto-repair waypoints in an out-of-the-way sector, where the Seps were testing a new line of hyperspace-capable vultures, and wouldn't it just be fun if he got out of their hair for a while and stopped causing political tensions with his unacceptable Skywalkerness?

And they wondered why he didn't want to be them when he grew up.

As if he wasn't grown up already.

Anakin tightened his grip on his controls, neatly banking his fighter into a gentle turn to avoid a very obvious, large mountain, which was the closest yet the survey of this moon had come to "interesting."

Having discovered that the mini-stations were virtually undefended and very easy to destroy, Anakin had decided to take a squadron out and knock a bunch out in one standard rotation's worth of work. The Resolute was on standby just a little beyond Republic-occupied space – close enough to reach in the case of some kind of mechanical failure, but not close enough for a little one-man fighter's communications system. Luckily for them, the prototype stations didn't appear to be linked, so they couldn't tell each other they were being attacked. The Separatist researchers monitoring them on whatever faraway base would be nearly incapable of catching up before the damage was irreparable. The hope was that, with Republic knowledge of their new development obvious, the whole project would be scrapped – the whole point was surprise, after all.

But still, they did a quick sweep below the atmosphere of every moon or planet housing a station as a precautionary measure. In the midst of his tumultuous thoughts of Council slights, Anakin felt vaguely pleased that this particular moon, boring as it was, had seen the ravages of neither war nor tourism.

It was nearly perfect – and perfectly uninhabited. Temperate forests of lush mixed woodland, foliage in all the colors of the visible spectrum, nestled in sheltered mountain valleys, while towering peaks swept up to snow-capped heights, the melting water from which ran down alpine streams to crystal-clear lakes. The clone pilots had been commenting on it the whole time.

With a jolt, Anakin realized that they had stopped. He opened his mouth to ask if they'd spotted something suspicious when he realized they weren't looking, they were listening. He could hear muffled tones in his headset where the clones' helmet receivers were all picking up the noise, but he couldn't quite make out what was being said.

He fought a sudden, unexplainable urge to shoot his fighter into a dive and attempt to get as lost as possible in the thickest part of the mountains – maybe even the forest. He squished the thought. There was nothing wrong. Sure, they shouldn't be receiving any outside transmissions – there was no reason, anyways – but maybe something was wrong with his comm. Maybe this was like that time with Ahsoka, that last time they fought together when there had really been buzz droids all over the underbelly of his fighter and he hadn't realized.

The urge was so strong now that he had to tense his whole body to keep himself in his seat, because danger. He opened his mouth again, this time to ask the clones what was up, and was cut off again – this time by his wingman's answer, an answer that made his blood run cold with a deep and deadly chill.

"It will be done, my lord."