Timeline requests - first batch
The first three bits for the timeline request meme. These are so much fun. But I come up with about sixteen options for each one, and picking which one I like best can be so hard. Not to mention restricting it to a little snippet and not having it go tearing off to make a proper fic of itself. *G*
for bantha_fodder - some years after " Bread and Circuses":
The Will of the People
The day the populace of Coruscant turned out in force to demand the dissolution of the Senate, Padme was alone in the capital. Anakin was leading the Third Army of the Republic against dissidents in the troubled Carpas sector, the closest she'd been to him in weeks watching the poor quality HoloNet footage of his daring exploits. At least she could guarantee there would always be plenty of that, whenever she had the urge to remind herself of her husband's features.
Two days earlier, Obi-Wan had removed himself to the Summer Palace on Naboo, giving no reasons. Of course. The Master of the Republic did not explain his actions, not even to his Chancellor. He had not even told her directly; she had learned from her assistant halfway through the morning that he had left at dawn. She had a new assistant now.
She'd wanted to speak with one of them today. Though she wasn't sure why, when she knew what they both would say.
The political quarter - the squares and gardens surrounding the Senate building, the palace, the chambers of assembly - was a solid mass of protest. From the balcony attached to Padme's office - more a grand terrace than anything else - it appeared to seethe, like something primordial. Impossible to even approximate how many people were there. All traffic had stopped. The senate were barricaded in their building, sending a new plea for attention, rescue, assistance every ten minutes. They came up on her communicator, buzzing desperately into an empty office. She could hear the muted voices from where she stood at the railing, but there was no one paying attention to them. Padme had dismissed her assistant, her secretaries.
If she was going to be alone for this, she was going to be alone.
And so that no one could see the tears that crept their slow way down her cheeks. She was hardly crying; two tears, what was that? Barely anything. Just a nominal mourning for something beautiful, something vital, something that she had believed in her whole life. Something that had reached its inevitable end, that was obsolete, that had no further place in this world.
Padme turned from the railing, wiping the back of her hand across her cheeks as she crossed to her desk. Turned off the communicator in the middle of Mon Mothma's cool appeal for reason. Pressed her intercom. "Send for my ladies and assemble an escort of Imperial Guards."
They could take her to the Senate, where she would tear it down. And build something better.
for deepredbelle - Post " Mortified", one year:
Hence
The three-hundredth-and-sixty-fourth day, Gabriel will walk out of the cold mansion he woke up in, and get lost in the miles of gardens, almost falling into the swimming pool three times before he finds a wall, climbs it, sets off an alarm and doesn't care. He will hitch back to the city with a pair of girls who clearly take him for one. They have the windows down and loud, angry music on the stereo, but they sing along with big smiles and sunshine in their hair, surfboards strapped to the roof of the car.
They will invite him for a drink when they hit the city proper around dusk, and Gabriel will have no good reason not to. They will drink a lot of tequila, each glass easier than the last, and eventually one of them (he can't tell them apart, hasn't bothered trying) will turn him towards her and kiss him, tasting of citrus and salt, until the other drags her away laughing because "Love Shack" is playing. While they are shimmying together, Gabriel will leave.
There will be money in his pocket, and he will buy a bottle of Jack Daniels from an indifferent clerk who doesn't care that there's no ID to go along with it. By the time Gabriel gets where he has been going, the bottle is empty and broken and lost.
Gabriel will not remember how he got into the room, whether the hospital is open all night or whether he had to break windows and set off more alarms. It doesn't matter. The pool will not have changed that much - some new anti-slip tiles, a mural of mermaids, all the damage they'd caused fixed. Gabriel will walk into the water, feeling it gush into his shoes, drag down his trousers. He will kneel, the water closing over the top of his head, swallowing him whole. He will have to breathe out, rid his lungs of air to stay down properly. Lying on the bottom of the pool will be peaceful.
He will come to choking, rolling onto his side on anti-slip tiles to cough up bile and water. It will take some time.
When he is done, there will come the scrape of a lighter next to him, a smell of sulpher and nicotine, and John will say, "One year ago today, huh?"
"No," Gabriel will say, weakly. "Really?"
for bedlamsbard - five years after " Some Things Are Certain":
The Chosen One
If the Emperor had any choice in the matter, Obi-Wan knew, he would go himself. He could sense that about him, how much Palpatine wanted to be there. It piqued his curiosity, but he was careful to hide that from his Master. If he knew Obi-Wan was interested in the mission, come hell or high water he'd find a way to do it himself.
The Emperor does not trust his newest apprentice. Nor should he. Despair may have enfolded Obi-Wan in the Dark, bricked him into it with the dead bodies of his fallen comrades, but that does not mean he has any love for the elder Sith. On the contrary: he caused their deaths.
Baroonda, as a planet, was one big party. The spectacular terrain was just a backdrop for nightclubs, and the endless nightclub circuit just something to fill in the time between one of the four major podracing events held there every year. On the eve of the Fire Mountain Rally the place was nothing less than a seething mass of half-naked adrenaline junkies, the night hot and getting hotter by the minute. The directions Obi-Wan had been given were next to useless, but the Force was on his side.
The bouncers were no trouble. The pair of Twi'lek determined to divest him of his outer garments were slightly more trouble, but he left them with his black surcoat and carried on. The inner room of the suite was practically empty, just a few hangers-on talking quietly in the flickering light of projections of tomorrow's course. A shadowed figure at the door to a balcony who claimed Obi-Wan's full attention from the moment he turned to look at the new arrival.
Of course. He should have known.
At the door to the balcony, Anakin Skywalker grinned, the expression belonging to the harsh, bright sunlight of a desert world. "Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said warmly. He turned to the others - all looking their way now - and said, "Rack off, you lot. Go have some fun, for fuck's sake."
They shrugged, turned the projectors off, filed out past Obi-Wan. Anakin turned on a lamp, stepped behind the bar in one corner of the suite. "Didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said, dropping ice into a pair of glasses.
Obi-Wan came further into the room. "You made it to Fire Mountain."
Anakin grinned, looking up from pouring liquor. "Of course I did. I'm Anakin Skywalker. I can do anything I want, right?"
Obi-Wan laughed. Couldn't help it.
He walked back to his ship in the cold, silver, pre-dawn light with his surcoat slung over his shoulder and the beginnings of a hangover. The streets were quiet, the only others about the technical crews for the Rally. He sat in the cockpit for a long, long minute before flicking the communicator on. Palpatine answered with an alacrity that suggested he hadn't been sleeping.
And then, irrevocably, Obi-Wan lied to his Master.
for bantha_fodder - some years after " Bread and Circuses":
The Will of the People
The day the populace of Coruscant turned out in force to demand the dissolution of the Senate, Padme was alone in the capital. Anakin was leading the Third Army of the Republic against dissidents in the troubled Carpas sector, the closest she'd been to him in weeks watching the poor quality HoloNet footage of his daring exploits. At least she could guarantee there would always be plenty of that, whenever she had the urge to remind herself of her husband's features.
Two days earlier, Obi-Wan had removed himself to the Summer Palace on Naboo, giving no reasons. Of course. The Master of the Republic did not explain his actions, not even to his Chancellor. He had not even told her directly; she had learned from her assistant halfway through the morning that he had left at dawn. She had a new assistant now.
She'd wanted to speak with one of them today. Though she wasn't sure why, when she knew what they both would say.
The political quarter - the squares and gardens surrounding the Senate building, the palace, the chambers of assembly - was a solid mass of protest. From the balcony attached to Padme's office - more a grand terrace than anything else - it appeared to seethe, like something primordial. Impossible to even approximate how many people were there. All traffic had stopped. The senate were barricaded in their building, sending a new plea for attention, rescue, assistance every ten minutes. They came up on her communicator, buzzing desperately into an empty office. She could hear the muted voices from where she stood at the railing, but there was no one paying attention to them. Padme had dismissed her assistant, her secretaries.
If she was going to be alone for this, she was going to be alone.
And so that no one could see the tears that crept their slow way down her cheeks. She was hardly crying; two tears, what was that? Barely anything. Just a nominal mourning for something beautiful, something vital, something that she had believed in her whole life. Something that had reached its inevitable end, that was obsolete, that had no further place in this world.
Padme turned from the railing, wiping the back of her hand across her cheeks as she crossed to her desk. Turned off the communicator in the middle of Mon Mothma's cool appeal for reason. Pressed her intercom. "Send for my ladies and assemble an escort of Imperial Guards."
They could take her to the Senate, where she would tear it down. And build something better.
for deepredbelle - Post " Mortified", one year:
Hence
The three-hundredth-and-sixty-fourth day, Gabriel will walk out of the cold mansion he woke up in, and get lost in the miles of gardens, almost falling into the swimming pool three times before he finds a wall, climbs it, sets off an alarm and doesn't care. He will hitch back to the city with a pair of girls who clearly take him for one. They have the windows down and loud, angry music on the stereo, but they sing along with big smiles and sunshine in their hair, surfboards strapped to the roof of the car.
They will invite him for a drink when they hit the city proper around dusk, and Gabriel will have no good reason not to. They will drink a lot of tequila, each glass easier than the last, and eventually one of them (he can't tell them apart, hasn't bothered trying) will turn him towards her and kiss him, tasting of citrus and salt, until the other drags her away laughing because "Love Shack" is playing. While they are shimmying together, Gabriel will leave.
There will be money in his pocket, and he will buy a bottle of Jack Daniels from an indifferent clerk who doesn't care that there's no ID to go along with it. By the time Gabriel gets where he has been going, the bottle is empty and broken and lost.
Gabriel will not remember how he got into the room, whether the hospital is open all night or whether he had to break windows and set off more alarms. It doesn't matter. The pool will not have changed that much - some new anti-slip tiles, a mural of mermaids, all the damage they'd caused fixed. Gabriel will walk into the water, feeling it gush into his shoes, drag down his trousers. He will kneel, the water closing over the top of his head, swallowing him whole. He will have to breathe out, rid his lungs of air to stay down properly. Lying on the bottom of the pool will be peaceful.
He will come to choking, rolling onto his side on anti-slip tiles to cough up bile and water. It will take some time.
When he is done, there will come the scrape of a lighter next to him, a smell of sulpher and nicotine, and John will say, "One year ago today, huh?"
"No," Gabriel will say, weakly. "Really?"
for bedlamsbard - five years after " Some Things Are Certain":
The Chosen One
If the Emperor had any choice in the matter, Obi-Wan knew, he would go himself. He could sense that about him, how much Palpatine wanted to be there. It piqued his curiosity, but he was careful to hide that from his Master. If he knew Obi-Wan was interested in the mission, come hell or high water he'd find a way to do it himself.
The Emperor does not trust his newest apprentice. Nor should he. Despair may have enfolded Obi-Wan in the Dark, bricked him into it with the dead bodies of his fallen comrades, but that does not mean he has any love for the elder Sith. On the contrary: he caused their deaths.
Baroonda, as a planet, was one big party. The spectacular terrain was just a backdrop for nightclubs, and the endless nightclub circuit just something to fill in the time between one of the four major podracing events held there every year. On the eve of the Fire Mountain Rally the place was nothing less than a seething mass of half-naked adrenaline junkies, the night hot and getting hotter by the minute. The directions Obi-Wan had been given were next to useless, but the Force was on his side.
The bouncers were no trouble. The pair of Twi'lek determined to divest him of his outer garments were slightly more trouble, but he left them with his black surcoat and carried on. The inner room of the suite was practically empty, just a few hangers-on talking quietly in the flickering light of projections of tomorrow's course. A shadowed figure at the door to a balcony who claimed Obi-Wan's full attention from the moment he turned to look at the new arrival.
Of course. He should have known.
At the door to the balcony, Anakin Skywalker grinned, the expression belonging to the harsh, bright sunlight of a desert world. "Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said warmly. He turned to the others - all looking their way now - and said, "Rack off, you lot. Go have some fun, for fuck's sake."
They shrugged, turned the projectors off, filed out past Obi-Wan. Anakin turned on a lamp, stepped behind the bar in one corner of the suite. "Didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said, dropping ice into a pair of glasses.
Obi-Wan came further into the room. "You made it to Fire Mountain."
Anakin grinned, looking up from pouring liquor. "Of course I did. I'm Anakin Skywalker. I can do anything I want, right?"
Obi-Wan laughed. Couldn't help it.
He walked back to his ship in the cold, silver, pre-dawn light with his surcoat slung over his shoulder and the beginnings of a hangover. The streets were quiet, the only others about the technical crews for the Rally. He sat in the cockpit for a long, long minute before flicking the communicator on. Palpatine answered with an alacrity that suggested he hadn't been sleeping.
And then, irrevocably, Obi-Wan lied to his Master.