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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 13 days ago

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Chapter 3: But I Don't Want to Carry On Like Everything Is Fine

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!Reader, Reader POV

Summary: With a birthday printed on your wrist that happened over a hundred years ago, you always thought that you were cursed to never meet your soulmate. But when you finally meet the man that's supposed to be the other half of your soul, you wonder if the stars were wrong, and wonder how this man was meant for you. Reader is Hughie's sister, is not a supe, and is a Literature Professor that gets dragged into the middle of things. This fic takes place in an AU set loosely after Season 3 and does deviate from the plot of The Boys

Tropes: Soulmate AU, Little bit of Grumpy and Sunshine, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Protective Ben/ Soldier Boy, Jealous Ben/Soldier Boy

Warnings: I'm gonna label this one 18+ because it's Soldier Boy and we all know he's a warning. Homophobic comments towards Hughie (It's Soldier Boy y'all), Self deprecating thoughts, ANGST, SADNESS, HEART RIPPING OUT OF CHEST (figuratively because it's what it felt like to write this), Fear? Mentions of past graphic death, Mentions of torture (SB in Russia), Cursing, Mentions of past abuse (verbal abuse and it's SB doing it to someone because… we ALL know), Mentions of drinking, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of Death, Loneliness, Longing, Basically the reader just wants to be loved, Reader wears glasses?, Soldier Boy might be a little OOC.

Word Count: 6.9K

Song Inspiration For Chapter: Love In The Dark By Adele (Title for chapter taken from this song)

Playlist For Series!✨

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I know this chapter is a long time coming, but thank you so much to everyone who has loved this series so far, and for encouraging me to come back to it. I hope y'all are strapped in for a ride, because this is when all the angst starts to unfold… But also… I might have changed up the Soulmate AU even more in a crazy more heartbreaking direction so, there's that too

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Guide:

Reader's thoughts are in italics and in first person.

Ben's thoughts in italics, bold, and blue!

Previously:

"I've been looking everywhere for you sweetheart." The man rumbles, the words vibrating against your fingertips where they rest against his muscular chest. He smiles at you and somewhere deep down you feel something break open that you thought was locked away long ago.

And as you stand there looking up at the man you thought you'd never see again, you feel a flicker of something that could grow into a blaze.

You stand there in the silence that follows the words of your soulmate, the rough vibration of his voice still trembling through your fingertips where they lay against his chest, as you stare up into his hypnotic green eyes. The sunlight that streams in from the windows at you back traces the hardened edges of his handsome face turning his dark hair a honeyed brown. A smile pulls at the end of his lips, crinkling his eyes, and bringing a softness to the rugged features that make your heart beat quicken.

He was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen and yet nothing what you’d expected. You briefly wonder if you were what he expected, but judging from the women you'd seen him with in his memories you weren't, given that you looked nothing like them.

The air around the both of you warms as electricity pops and crackles along your skin skittering against the flesh and bringing goosebumps in its wake. A wave of heat travels from where Ben's hand is gently cupping your chin in his calloused fingertips, that makes you feel like you're melting from the inside out.

Nothing else exists in the world except the two of you. There's no need to breathe, no need to see, and no need to speak, because all you know is your soulmate. You can feel the beating of his heart in your own chest, feel the thrum of electricity in his body along your nerve endings, and each breath he takes you can feel vibrate in your lungs.

You'd spent years feeling like a freak, lost, and out of place, but standing here with Ben so close that you can feel his breath on your face, makes you feel whole for the first time in your life.

He's still too far away.

A voice whispers in your ear and you long to close the distance between the two of you, to hold him tight and never let him go.

The date on your wrist sears hotter than it did the first day you met him burning through the foundation once again that you'd smeared across it to hide it and the golden cord that wove through the air securing his heart to yours seconds ago grows so hot that it turns a blinding white. And just as you think you'll have to shut your eyes from the brilliant light, the cord squeezes your chest to tight it takes your breath away.

You inhale sharply as a flood of emotions comes washing over you that aren't your own, memories that you'd only seen in your dreams flash through your mind as if you lived them, and Ben's eyes widen as he feels the same thing. His heart beats in tandem with yours, the space between you growing to almost nothing as the cord yanks you so close that you can feel his breath on your lips and his hands fall to your hips to steady you against him, sending goosebumps prickling over your body with his touch.

You'd read about what it was like to meet your soulmate before and people had tried to tell you, but for everyone it was different and no one ever described as anything like this. Especially not happening a second time after they'd crossed paths.

This shouldn't be happening, we've already met.

But you know you're not imagining this, you know that your soul is singing to Ben's, calling out to his and both of them are twisting between the two of you, weaving you together, binding you as one.

The spark in the pit of your stomach you felt the moment Ben's eyes locked with yours has begun to flare again until it burns into a wild-fire, but it's not love you feel, not compassion, not relief, or love, it's fear.

It sobers you.

Its cold finger drags down your spine and seizes in your chest, wiping away whatever else you're feeling for the handsome man standing only millimeters from you.

The Ben's memories you re-lived in your dreams come roaring back like a lion over a kill, each one more horrific than the last.

You see your soulmate standing triumphantly over bodies burned beyond recognition, see him beating someone into submission his fists splattered with red, watch as he laughs at the torment of his younger teammates and then opens his mouth to say something so repulsive it makes your skin crawl, and you see the proud smirk when he knows he's won, when he knows that he can't be beaten and no one can stop him.

He had no remorse in any of those moments, no compassion, no regret, there was only the pride and arrogance that comes with his belief that he had bested whomever attempted to challenge him.

Nothing about him is gentle, caring, or kind and nothing about him is anything like you.

You who'd never been in a fight your entire life, you who tried your hardest to make sure that no one ever felt what it was like to be alone as you had for so many years, you who always put others first, and you who tried to always find something kind to say about someone else.

Everything about your soulmate and who he is terrifies you, chills you to your core and wipes away the sensations that skittered along your skin and buried themselves in your heart moments ago.

He can't be mine. Not someone like him. Please no, anyone but him.

Your soulmate's head tilts to the side and his eyebrows furrow with confusion, mouth twitching into a frown, and you realize that he can feel your fear, maybe even hear it in the quick pulse of your heart or maybe he could smell it.

You weren't sure how his powers worked, all you knew was that you'd seen what he'd done with them, you’d seen the kind of person he was, and you wanted no part of that even if it meant being alone.

You'd spent your entire life waiting for this moment and now you wish it never came.

The cord between you snaps, the sound like breaking glass, but the man's emotions still remain in your head. You feel his confusion, his apprehension, and underneath it all you feel something else, something vulnerable that flicks away in an instant.

You step back from him, allowing his hands fall from your waist, prepared to run, needing to put as much distance between the two of you, but his fingers closes hard on your wrist just over his birthdate, hard enough to bruise.

I have to get of here.

"Where are you going?" He asks, his voice gruff, the sound of water over rocks, smoothing the sharp edges, answering your thought with a question.

"Please let me go." You say, unable to catch your breath and tugging at where his hand tightens around your wrist.

The feeling of his skin pressed to yours is overwhelming, begging you to curve into him, to sink into the warmth of your soulmate and never resurface for air.

But you can't. The fear is there, rising in the back of your throat, clamping down hard and stopping the rush of oxygen to your brain.

You weren't like Butcher, you didn’t hate supes, but you also weren't unrealistic or clueless about them. You didn't believe that all of them were bad, because with the bad came the good.

Your brother's soulmate Annie was proof of that, a supe that wasn't evil or callous or on a power trip to make others submit to her will. She cared for other people, used her powers to help others, but not all supes were like her.

Your brother had told you to stay away from supes like your soulmate, warned you about Homelander before he vanished, and warned you that not all supes were as they appeared. Although, Hughie had tried hard to keep his life separate from yours, Butcher believed you had a right to know that the supes who promised safety and freedom would be the first to take it away from you.

The stories Butcher had told you about Homelander kept you awake at night fearing for your brother and Annie’s safety, and your own. You knew that the new leader of the Seven, Stormfront, was just as bad, if not worse.

As much as you believed in the strength of your brother's soulmate, there was another part of you that knew she might not be a match for Stormfront, at least not on her own.

You yank your hand again trying to break his grip, but it doesn't move from Ben's grasp.

Why is she trying to leave?

Ben's voice in your head makes you hesitate, eyes widening as you look up into his face. You knew that Ben didn't say that out loud and yet you'd heard it.

Holy shit, how can I hear his thoughts? Can he hear mine?

You weren't a supe and you didn't understand why you could hear his thoughts and feel his emotions, or why you hadn't been able to feel or hear them in the year since the two of you met.

What the fuck is going on? Ben's voice says louder in your head and you don't understand what the hell was going on. No one in history had ever been able to hear their soulmate's thoughts or their emotions, you knew that for a fact.

"Let me go!" You say louder.

All other sounds of whispered conversations and tinkling glasses have stopped as everyone in the room turns to stare at the two of you.

Your emotions were overwhelming, the part of you screaming to run away fighting with the urge to get closer to Ben.

His confusion floods into you as well as a slew of other emotions from him that you can’t put a name to. He doesn't understand why you're trying to get away from him and why he can feel your emotions either.

"But-" Ben begins to say.

You're my soulmate. His thought finishes in your head.

"Let her go." Hughie says appearing on your left.

The confused look in Ben's eyes shifts to annoyance, the green hardening within a second. "Fuck off. This isn't your problem." He snarls gaze flicking to your brother who looks closer to anger than you'd seen him in years.

Ben's anger and annoyance comes in a wave of heat, scorching up your arms and into your chest, clawing against your ribcage.

What the hell is happening?

"Oi let her go mate." Butcher's voice joins Hughie's and you can feel the presence of the other man hovering just over your shoulder.

Truthfully you liked Butcher. You thought he was funny and that he cared more about other people more than he was willing to let on. Not to mention after he lost his Soulmate, Becca, Butcher didn't have much to do, so you’d invite him over for movie nights with Annie and Hughie so you didn't feel like the awkward fourth wheel. Butcher was as much your friend as he was Hughie's.

I didn't fucking ask to butt in you British cunt. Ben's thought burns through your body with a wave of his anger and you can feel the heat of his skin raise.

Another shiver of fear courses down your spine at the thought of Ben losing control and burning you alive just as he had done to his teammates.

Ben's eyes drop back to yours when you whimper in pain, trying to free your wrist from his grasp, and this time Ben releases you.

The warmth you felt from touching his skin is gone, leaving only a dull throb in your wrist as you clutch it to your chest, eyes wide with fear and horror.

Ben's eyes drag down your body to your wrist and you can feel a flicker of something that might be guilt, but you're not sure if he can feel things like that. All you know is that you have to get away from him.

Why is she afraid of me?

Ben's thoughts are back, vibrating through your skull and bringing a wave of emotion with it that's not yours. You back away from him, but Ben takes a step forward to fill the space you left behind reaching for you again.

"Don't touch me." You whisper, throat thick. You couldn't tell what were his emotions and what were yours colliding in your head, all you knew was that you didn't want him anywhere near you.

Stay away from me! You think taking another step back. Ben tilts his head to the side in confusion.

He takes another step towards you still not comprehending what is happening, frustration and confusion burning through the air between the two of you.

You'd seen the short temper your soulmate had, saw what happened to people on the wrong side of it, and you cringe away from him in fear. You didn't want to be on the receiving end of his fist or whatever the hell he had locked away in his chest.

Please don’t hurt me.

The thought comes before you can stop it and you watch something flash in Ben’s eyes that looks surprisingly like hurt.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ben says, eyebrows furrowing together. “I’m your soulmate, I’d never hurt you.”

It confirms what you already know, that Ben can hear your thoughts just as you can hear his.

You back up into Butcher's chest and he drops his hands down on your shoulders to make you feel better.

Get your fucking hands off of her. She's mine!

Ben's voice roars in your head. The wave of jealousy and rage that you feel rip through your body at the feeling of Butcher's touch scorches against your insides.

"You should go." Hughie says calmly, but you can hear an edge to his voice.

"I'm not going fucking anywhere you overgrown glory hole!" Ben snaps, eyes flashing in the light of the sun behind you, the soft green long gone, but falling on you once more.

Why is she acting like she's not my soulmate? Like she doesn't want me?

Ben's voice asks in your head, the words snagging in something deep down that you thought you locked away years ago, the empty place inside that you longed for someone to fill, the empty place you knew that this man was supposed to belong.

No. No. No. Why is this happening to me?

"Hey, you don’t get to fucking speak to him like that in our house!" Annie shouts back at Ben, her eyes narrowed at the man who was at least two heads taller than she was.

It was all too much. You couldn't be here, not with all these people watching you. You move out of Butcher's grip and around Ben as close as you dare, trying to get to the front door and away from him. You could feel everyone's eyes on you and hear their silent judgement.

It reminded you too much of your childhood, the one you spent wishing that the whispers and odd looks would stop, the one when people would cross to the other side of the road like you had something contagious, the one where you felt so alone that you couldn't standing it and when you wished that someone, anyone, would fill the hole you felt inside for far too long. The same hole that you couldn't feel when Ben was touching you.

"Wait-" Ben begins to say, voice gruff, while trying again to grab you, but you dodge his hand and run full speed at the front door of the apartment.

Come back.

There's something behind those words that grates against your heart, but you don't turn around.

Hughie and Annie shout your name, but you're already gone. You can’t be here, not now, not with him standing there, not when he's everything you'd thought you'd never have and yet, everything that you fear.

Your footsteps pound against the cracked pavement, the world around you a soundless blur with every pump of your arms. Rain swats against your skin as you run, each slap of your bare feet against cracked pavement mirroring the thunder that shakes the buildings around you.

You'd lost your shoes the minute you broke into a run outside Hughie and Annie's apartment, and you were too afraid to go back for them.

Water trickles down your spine, bringing the chill of the rain with it, but you can’t feel it, the only thing you feel is the flood of emotions you'd had since the moment you ran into your soulmate again, the one who left you on the street one year ago like you meant nothing to him.

Funny, when that happened you thought that was the worst of it, but it wasn't.

What did I do to deserve this?

Flashes of your soulmate's memory echo the lightning above, the horrors you witnessed in the sweet abyss of sleep that haunted your mind. Bloody fists, blackened bodies, harsh laughter, and clips of dialogue play through your mind on a sickening loop.

You ran as if you thought you could leave it all behind, as if you could leave him behind, but he was everywhere. He was in the faces of the people in the crowds, in the sound of the thunder, in the thrum of your blood through your veins, in each beat of your heart, and in each breath you took.

The look he had on his face when you fled was there, bringing a wave of guilt for leaving him behind the way that he left you one year ago.

But he left me before he knew me. I know him. I've seen what he's done. I-

The thought brings the memory of the hurt that flashed through Ben's eyes at the apartment back into your head.

In all the memories you'd seen of him, you'd never seen him look hurt, but it was there somewhere, slipping through whatever warped telepathy the two of you had, the telepathy you didn't understand.

How could someone you waited for your whole life fill you with such dread? How could the man who was the other half of your soul, be anything like the man you met?

In the past you'd tried to imagine who it would be, what your soulmate would look like, how he'd treat you, and what kind of man he'd be. You'd seen a faceless man holding sunflowers out to you, a man holding you while you cried, a man sitting with you curled on the couch while you read through one of your favorite books with your head leaning on his shoulder, a man taking you to bed while your fingers clasped his above your head and the soft sound of his voice telling you how much he loved you, a man who touched you reverently, as if you were something to be worshipped, a man who made you feel safe and who would listen when you talked to him, a man who remembered the little things, a man who took care of you, and a man who sat with you while you graded papers and sighed to yourself at the end of a day that seemed endless.

Now it all seemed like a big lie, because your soulmate could never be that man. You'd seen exactly who and what he was.

The idea that you were cursed seemed to fit now, because there had to be something or someone above laughing at your expense, making you suffer all the years you were alone dreaming of a man who could be those things for you only to give you the one man who could be none of them.

Annie and Hughie were perfect in every way. All the little things that made each of them unique molded together to create something beautiful. They loved each other in a way that made your chest hurt to look at them.

You'd wanted that so badly for so long.

And now the stars laughed at you because they'd given you him.

You didn't think it would be possible for you to ever love someone like him. Someone who took from others and gave none in return, someone who found joy in the submission of others, and someone who hurt and killed with no remorse.

Monsters did that, men who thought the world owed them something or rather that the world should submit to them, men who took and took and never once cared what it did to the people around them, and men who never saw anyone else as an equal.

In the past you'd thought that your soulmate of all people would see you as something more than just a possession, but rather something that strengthened him, made him stronger with your love and care, made him a better man, and a man who saw you as someone, not something.

People clear out of your way, parting to watch what they must believe is a woman driven mad, running shoeless, down the streets of NYC in the middle of a torrential downpour.

And maybe you were crazy to run from someone who looked like your soulmate did.

There was no denying that he was gorgeous. He looked like he stepped right out of a book, the dashing dark-hared brooding hero with sharp features and green eyes you wished to lose yourself in. Your soulmate looked like every lead male character you'd imagined and fallen in love with in every book you ever read. The novels you read when everything in the real world was disappointing and bleak, the ones that opened their pages and welcomed you home, promised an escape from the mediocre and enveloped you in the extraordinary.

He looked like everything you ever wanted. Something taken from your unconscious and made real.

Why me?

The fear was back, the cold trickle that became a roar blocking out the little voice inside your head that scolded you and told you to turn around and go back to him, that you needed him, the little voice that told you he was yours, that he was made for you, just as you were made for him. The voice that promised after years of being alone and filled with a cold, empty feeling, all you had to do was turn around and run back to the sun.

But you can't go back, because you're not sure if your soulmate is even human anymore.

In the past your bathtub had been a place of solace where you could have a nice glass of wine and lose yourself in a good book, but today the warm water did little to sooth the anxiety prickling on the back of your neck.

There was a Rosemary Mint candle lit on the small counter next to the sink sending a flickering yellow light over the worn subway tiles in your bathroom. One of two candles Annie had gifted you for Christmas in a handmade basket full of things to pamper yourself and a candle that was supposedly good for "stress relief" but you were prepared to call bullshit on that given the state of your nerves.

The plush white bathrobe hanging on the back of your bathroom door, the jar of soothing lavender bath salts nestled into the elbow of your tub, and the face masks scattered on the bathroom counter also came from the same basket.

All of which served as another reminder of how perfect she was for your thoughtful and caring brother.

The thought brings a wave of sadness over you and you lean your head into your knees.

None of this was helping.

You couldn't remember coming home, didn't remember running up the creaky stairs to your floor, didn’t remember passing by Mrs. Charleson's apartment with the happily painted yellow door, didn't remember unlocking the five locks on your apartment door, and certainly didn't remember slipping into the warm bath you found yourself in.

The only thing you could remember was meeting your soulmate, feeling the warmth of his caress over your skin, hearing the smooth rumble of his voice like distant thunder, and seeing how the memories you'd seen did not do justice to the handsome and rugged features he had.

A shiver of fear follows and your tighten your arms around your knees.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be different.

You think to yourself as your eyes drift to the hand print on your wrist, the one that had already begun to turn an ugly blue and ironically was curved over the birthdate that glowed gold in the flickering light.

Why him?

A wave of guilt comes swiftly when you think of the way he looked at you when you thought that in front of him.

How could he hear my thoughts? How could I hear his thoughts and feel his emotions?

There were so many things about the soulmate bond the two of you had that made no sense. You knew for a fact that no one else could see their soulmates memories when they slept, but the ability to hear your soulmate's thoughts and feel his emotions? It was impossible. And unless someone had spiked your drink with compound V at the party, you still weren't a supe and had no idea what the hell was going on!

But you were thankful that you couldn't hear Ben's thoughts and emotions right now. You didn't know why that was and hoped it meant that it only happened when you were around him or hoped it meant that it would never happen again.

The memory of how you met Ben again sends a warm feeling from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Another mystery… why it was like that to meet Ben the second time.

None of your friends ever told you that it was like that to run into your soulmate a second time.

Then again what other soulmate leaves you standing in the street alone?

The golden cord glows behind your eyelids, the cord that bound Ben's heart to yours for a few precious seconds, a moment that lasted forever. You'd never heard anyone talk about a golden cord before either. Annie said that when she met Hughie it felt like fireworks, but she never talked about feeling like she was bound to your brother or told you that it was anything like what you’d experienced with Ben.

What the hell is going on?

When you'd told Mrs. Charleson that you were dreaming Ben's memories she'd said that she'd heard a myth about it, that it meant the two of you were "meant to share more than one lifetime together," (whatever that meant), but she'd never mentioned anything about a cord that wove soulmates together. You would have gone to talk to her after the train wreck that happened at the party, but you knew that she was still at work.

Despite the fact that she had more than enough money to retire, your neighbor argued that people "who slowed down got old." She'd been running a successful apartment and house cleaning business for years, but about a year ago a man had hired her to clean his apartment and cook for him full time. He'd offered her so much money that your neighbor no longer needed to clean anyone else's home and was employed as his housekeeper.

You didn't know anything about him, didn't even know his name, but your neighbor said he was a kind young man who often reminded her of her son and was richer than a piece of french silk pie. You supposed he was a wall-street guy or the founder of some tech company, but you couldn’t believe the descriptions of his apartment she told you or the pictures you'd shown you.

It sounded and looked like a palace so far in the air it might as well be a castle in the sky, but you wanted to see it in person.

You did like your apartment, but it was too small even just for you. The thought of having a place where you could have a real desk, sunlight, consistent water pressure, a breathtaking view, and no super who only responded to twenty dollar bills and asked you for pictures of your feet daily sounded heavenly.

Not to mention it would be nice not to live somewhere with walls so thin you could hear your neighbors having obnoxiously loud sex at all hours of the night like bats. You had no idea how they ever got anything done with so little sleep.

And yeah, maybe Mrs. Charleson and you had made fun of the guy's decorating choices, but you figured that maybe he just needed someone to help him pick out furniture that was a little more comfortable to make his apartment seem less like a museum and more like a home. Mrs. Charleson had said he was single anyway, which meant that guy probably hadn't met his soulmate and when he did, they would help him out.

The front door of your apartment opens and fear momentarily spikes at the thought of it being your soulmate, that he'd somehow figured out where you lived, and he'd find you naked and vulnerable in the bathtub.

But then you hear your brother shout your name from your living room and a wave of relief crashes over you.

"I'm in the tub." You yell back.

Honestly, you didn't feel like talking to anyone, not after the day you had. You wanted to forget it happened, to go to bed and go to work tomorrow as if everything were normal and not as if your life was falling apart. It always felt like it was falling apart, but today was exceptionally heart breaking.

"Can you come out?" Hughie asks. You can hear him lean his head against the door of your small bathroom and you imagine his frown.

"I don't feel like talking right now." You reply pushing your face further into your knees.

"I brought tacos."

You hesitate for a second. Your brother and you had always been close. Sure there were those awkward sibling moments and a little bit of sibling rivalry and times when Hughie annoyed you to no end, but he was your best friend. It was him who encouraged you to become an English teacher despite the constant disapproval from your parents, him who loaned you enough money to get out from under their roof and start your own life, and him who always knew just the way to cheer you up… hence the tacos.

"And a blind date from Inky's Inspirations." He continues.

Damnit.

Inky's Inspirations was your favorite used book store. You had spent many a weekend curled up in one of the holey reading chairs with a worn paperback in your hand, letting the rest of the world fall away while you were lost in a book that whisked you away on ink and paper with gentle prose. The store had started doing "blind dates," wrapping up books in brown paper with descriptors like "Will melt your panties" or "Made me realize I have a bondage kink" or "Supernatural creature hunter vibes" or "In case you're curious about what the inside of the Loch Ness monster looked like."

That last one had been a supernatural romance that you still weren't sure if you liked it or not. It had been interesting...

But you were under the impression that no one could have too many books. The books scattered all over your apartment and stacked up so high they hit the ceiling were proof of that.

You sigh to yourself cursing your thoughtful brother. "Give me a second."

When you come out of your bathroom wearing your favorite soft t-shirt and sweatpants, your brother envelops you in a warm hug, and unfortunately undoes the little relaxation you felt when you took a bath and makes you begin to cry.

Worse was that a little part of you wished that it wasn't your brother but your soulmate who was here holding you, or rather the version of the soulmate you'd invented in your head, not the man you’d seen earlier.

It made all of this worse, that you were still so alone and sometimes you couldn’t understand how you could feel so alone with so many people in your life who cared about you. But you wanted him, wanted the other half of your soul to hold you close against him, to feel the warmth of his body curving around yours as he told you that everything was going to be okay.

It hurt more than you knew it would, especially now that you knew he existed.

Sobs shake through your body as you cling to your brother and rub your nose into the front of his shirt as everything from today washes over you all over again. Meeting your soulmate again after a year, having all those feeling and emotions roll through you, seeing flashes of his memories again, and running away from him as fast as you could.

You felt lost and yet there was a voice whispering in your ear that told you that the only place that you could be found was back with the man who held the other half of your soul.

"Shh. It's alright." Hughie soothes, rubbing his hand up and down your back. "It's okay."

It was the same thing that he used to tell you when you were younger and nothing made sense, when it felt like you were a freak because of the date printed on your wrist. The same days when you'd ask yourself the ultimate question: would it be okay?

But now you knew the truth… it wouldn't be.

Because you'd hoped and prayed to meet your soulmate every day of your life, and now that you had, you wished that it never happened, because the man who grabbed you so hard it bruised your skin couldn't be the man you imagined falling in love with when you were a little girl.

"Are you okay?" Hughie asks you.

"No." You murmur pulling back to clean your tear smudged glasses.

Hughie was still wearing the light blue button down shirt from the party, and you feel a wave of guilt crash over you thinking that you ruined his and Annie's housewarming party.

Your brother presses his lips together. "I'm sorry-" He begins to say, but you interrupt.

"I'm the one who should be saying that."

"What? Why?"

"Well I ruined your party and-"

"Are you kidding? No you didn't! That asshole did-" Hughie frowns. "I don't know what he was thinking grabbing you like that."

You swallow the lump in the back of your throat remembering the grip Ben had on your arm.

"Did he hurt you?" Hughie picks up your hand to examine your wrist, frowning at the handprint. "What a dick!"

Your brother didn’t usually get angry, he was more of a suffer in silence kind of person who kept all their emotions a little more close to their chest, but he looks livid. "I swear the next time I see him I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. He shouldn’t have fucking grabbed you like that-"

The thought of your gentle brother yelling at Ben makes a lump of worry catch in the back of your throat. You didn't want Ben to hurt your brother, he was only person in your entire family that made you feel like you belonged.

"Hughie calm down, it's okay."

It wasn't and you both knew it.

"No it's not. He could have broken your arm!" He snaps.

"He didn't." You murmur.

But he could have.

Those words are like taking a bullet to the chest. You’d seen exactly what your soulmate was capable of and exactly how he acted when he didn’t get his way.

What did I do to deserve this?

"That doesn't matter! He didn't have a right to treat you like that. Like you're-"

"His." The word comes out before you can stop it. "But I kind of am." You shudder at the confession.

Even if you didn't want Ben in your life, it didn't change anything. He was still your soulmate. Every part of him was molded and shaped for you just as every part of yourself was molded and shaped for him.

Ben was yours, but you didn't want to be his.

Hughie shakes his head. "He might be your soulmate but you don't belong to him. You're not his property-"

"I know that but-" Your voice breaks under the weight of everything crashing back down over you. "How can he be my soulmate?"

Hughie whispers your name, but you keep talking. It was coming out of you, everything that you had pushed down, all the emotions you'd had as a child, because you didn't want to keep going like everything was fine, it wasn't.

It never had been.

"Why is he my soulmate? How are we anything alike? He's-" A memory of Ben ripping someone in half comes across your mind and it makes you feel nauseous.

"I mean I-" The tears were coming fast again now, hot against your cheeks. "I waited all these years, thought that he'd never exist, thought that I was going fucking crazy staring at this damn date on my wrist and after years of feeling like a freak I find out that the man I've been waiting for is him? How is any of this fair?"

"It's going to be-"

"Stop saying that!" You shout, hands clenched at your sides. "It's not Hughie! It's not going to be okay and I'm so sick of hearing you say it. Not everyone can be happy all the time and have a perfect soulmate. Some of us are fucking stuck with a barbarian who doesn't give a shit about anyone else and kills people for sport!"

Hughie recoils with your words and you feel guilty.

You didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and you knew that your brother was here to help you, but you were just so frustrated and confused over everything that had happened today. You had no idea what was going on and what any of this meant. It all made you feel helpless and you hated feeling like that.

"He's-" You squeeze your eyes shut as if it'll make the thoughts stop, but it doesn't. "He's nothing like me! He's-" The image of a body laying at Ben's feet comes flashing through your head with him standing triumphantly over it. "He's a monster."

You hadn't said it out loud until right now only thought it. The word seems harsh, but you didn't know what else to call a person who killed and hurt other people with no remorse. In all the memories that you’d relived of your soulmate that was the ingredient missing.

Remorse.

Regret.

Guilt.

Shame.

All were things that would have made you reconsider going back to Ben if he'd felt those things after killing or hurting someone, but you didn't feel a shred of any when you watched him tear people apart with his bare hands.

You wonder if it had something to do with being tortured in the lab all those years, if being put through that changed him, but you’d seen memories of him acting just as terrible years before that happened.

"Someone like him isn't capable of feeling love! You can't do all the things he has with no remorse and still be capable of that." By now you were babbling, your voice barely recognizable from the sobs and shaky breaths you kept taking to stabilize yourself, but the truth was you were on the verge of a panic attack. Your eyes shift to your brother's concerned expression. "I'm sorry Hughie I-"

Hughie hugs you again, holding you so tight against him that it hurts. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know you’re frustrated. And I don't understand why he's your soulmate either. You have no idea what I’ve seen him do.“

“I don't know what to do.” You whisper into his shirt with a sniffle, still trying to calm the rapid breathing and beat of your heart, but nothing was working.

Because what the hell should you do?

You'd lived so long believing that you’d never meet your soulmate and even though the thought of being around him terrified you, there was another part of you that was begging you to go back to him.

The fantasy version of Ben manifests again, the one you'd imagined when you were a little girl dreaming of the day you'd get to meet the man who would complete you. Now those fantasies mocked you, every year you spent celebrating the birthday of your soulmate alone in the darkness of your apartment, every minute you spent trying to shrug off the taunts of the people in your hometown and your own parents when they saw the date on your wrist, and every second you spent hoping that it would happen to you while a little voice in your head told you it wasn't meant to be, that someone above cursed you to be alone forever.

All the hope you'd felt was a lie.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this and now that I’ve seen what he’s done I… I don't think I could ever love someone like him."

"No one is asking you to." Your brother says.

"I know that, but- He's still my soulmate."

I want to love him. A little voice deep inside said, it was the same one that was begging you to give Ben a chance, but you ignored it. You had seen the kind of man he was and you wanted no part of him in your life.

You take in a shaky breath and pull back from Hughie to examine the handprint shaped bruise on your wrist right over the golden birthdate that glows against your skin. "I'd rather be alone than be with him.”

The words hurt to admit to yourself, especially after all the years you’d spent wishing that you wouldn’t be alone and watching everyone else get the happy ending you so desperately wanted.

But none of that mattered now. Soulmate or not, everything about Ben scared you, and it didn't matter that the universe said he was yours, you knew in your heart that he couldn't be and that you'd never be able to love someone like him.

And miles away, on the other side of the bustling city that never sleeps, your soulmate sat on the end of his large bed in his empty apartment and looked down at his own wrist, tracing an ugly blue bruise that looked surprisingly like a handprint over your golden birthdate, and the first bruise he'd had in over eighty years.

A/N: Welp, I told y'all it was sad and oh my stars it broke my heart to do this to Ben. 😭 I'd like to say that the next chapter I have planned is less sad... but oh man I think it's worse 😅

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, comments, and likes are not required, but are always welcome and appreciated! I really love hearing what y'all think. ❤️ If you'd liked to be added to the taglist for this series please let me know :)

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corellianhounds · 4 months ago

Text

Redrafting The Phantom Menace

This is an informal essay/pitch meeting restructuring and changing The Phantom Menace to better utilize its characters and to make it a more compelling sequence of events.

Word Count: 5k

Art Credit: Doug Chiang

I think The Phantom Menace needs some of the biggest revisions of the prequels to set these characters up to be used better not just in the trilogy but in the film itself because not only is Obi-Wan mostly absent for all of Act II and nothing he does in that time affects the main plot on Tatooine, but Amidala’s presence doesn’t really add anything to it either. She learns a little about the culture on Tatooine and she meets Anakin and Shmi (which will be relevant in the next movie), but nothing she says or does affects the plot. Any of her protests against Qui-Gon don’t amount to anything since he’s the adult calling the shots, nothing in Act III is affected by their regard of one another, and she honestly could have just met Anakin on the ship on their return to Coruscant. Qui-Gon ends up being the main character of the movie, which I think was a mistake when Kenobi should have been the lens through which we saw the story unfold.

I don’t especially care for the slavery plot point to begin with because it doesn’t compel me as much as if Anakin and Shmi were just dirt poor. The slavery scenario feels like a way for the plot to keep Anakin and Shmi apart and for Shmi to remain destitute and it takes any real choice of the matter out of their situation. Of course she’s going to let Anakin go the second an opportunity like the one Qui-Gon’s offering falls out of the sky, who wouldn’t?

If she’s stuck in the cycle of poverty and had a choice in the matter of sending her extra set of hands away while she stays behind, that gives a little more meat to her character. Have her indebted to the Hutts or something, give her some astronomical loans she’s struggling to pay off, meaning everything they can spare just gets funneled directly into that debt so they have very little money or means to escape to a better life. What that sets up is Shmi being given the agency and genuine choice of either sending Anakin to be a Jedi because she wants him to have a better life, or keeping him there to help her work off the debt. The control chip won’t be keeping them tethered to that location and it keeps both Amidala and Qui-Gon from being complacent in leaving Shmi to be a slave.

If you wanted for Shmi and Anakin to be slaves, but wanted to solve some of the moral quandaries and give all of the characters more active roles in driving the story (and not just tell the audience “These are the circumstances, the Jedi can’t get involved with local matters, their hands are tied”) what you could have done was have Obi-Wan join Qui-Gon and Amidala on their trip instead of Jar Jar. Shmi explains the circumstances keeping them slaves, Obi-Wan can see Qui-Gon leaning towards doing something to help them, but because he’s more inclined towards following the rules than Qui-Gon is, Kenobi tells them honestly that they don’t have enough people to fight for the freedom of the slaves, and they’re already short on funds and already on a mission trying to save people on Naboo.

Kenobi’s also the one to also bring up a logical part of the Jedi Code: instead of saying they can’t interfere with local politics, he points out an obvious rule they would have in saying “The Jedi aren’t allowed to buy slaves either,” because yeah obviously the Jedi wouldn’t be allowed to do that. Even if that’s the easiest way to free somebody, the Jedi can’t do anything that would compromise other people’s faith in them, because yeah maybe you freed that person, but now that person either has to remain on the planet where that practice still exists and they could easily end up there again once you leave, OR you as the Jedi have to take them with you and hmmmmmmm seems pretty suspicious if you ask me, sounds like you just bought yourself your own slave.

Even dropping that person on a safe planet isn’t a great option because they would likely have no understanding of or foundation on that planet, and they especially wouldn’t have a support network of any kind. How much money, time, and resources do you have to devote to setting them up for success, now that you’ve gotten them out of a life of bondage? Completely uprooting yourself and starting from nothing in a completely new country alone is bad enough— Imagine an entirely separate planet. The alternative is obviously keeping that person with you and placing them under your own care and protection, but that’s exactly what makes you look like you bought a person to begin with and now we’re back to square one.

But, Amidala is there, and she’s a queen. She would likely have oodles of money at her disposal. Ignore the whole “Republic credits don’t spend out here” and say SHE offers to buy both Anakin and Shmi’s freedom, extending the offer by saying Anakin could train at the temple and Shmi could become a ladies maid or a consultant to the queen on Outer Rim territories, something Amidala even says she’s not familiar with. Both of them would be taken care of, Shmi would have a support network and a means of income and the freedom to leave at any time if she wished, nothing wrong with that.

In the end, however it happens, Shmi could be freed from being a slave (since that happens between this movie and Attack of the Clones anyway), but she makes the choice for herself to decline Amidala’s offer. Tatooine, though a harsh planet, is still her home and all she’s ever known. Being taken out of that environment and thrust into one of courtly nobility isn’t one a lot of people would be able to adapt to. Amidala finds a way to maintain communication so if there’s ever any trouble, Shmi has a contact who cares about her wellbeing, and she chooses for herself to remain behind and let Anakin go because that’s what is best for him. The characters are the ones making choices with their own objectives and reasonable enough justification for what they do instead of the circumstances moving them around.

There’s plenty of other ways the story would change by giving them those more active roles and choices. Obi-Wan and Anakin and Qui-Gon would all obviously have more of a relationship to build off of if they’re all there together, which will make Qui-Gon’s death more meaningful for the both of them and will introduce history that will carry over into Attack of the Clones whenever Anakin thinks Shmi might be in trouble. Amidala would have a more grounded interest and stronger connection to Shmi herself, and Anakin’s frustration with Obi-Wan concerning the rule about one’s personal attachments creates more effective interpersonal conflict when Anakin argues that she’s in danger. “Master, if you had the chance to prevent Qui-Gon’s death— If you’d known ahead of time that it would happen— Wouldn’t you have done whatever you could to stop it?”

If you cut down Act I enough (because you don’t really need the entire underwater sequence, Jar Jar was in exile up on land and you could have just had him lead them to the palace, which would have given us the chance to see the invasion affecting the citizens and common folk), Tatooine could have been the majority of Act I with the race being the climax. Make the Separatists more of an enemy force that’s actually intimidating and isn’t just mad about taxation of trade routes. Say they’ve been doing their own thing independent of the Republic for some time and don’t care about the legality of what they’re doing and have the Jedi discover the droid armies and the plot to take over Naboo because it’s a pacifist planet rich in whatever resources the Separatists want to take for themselves.

Cut out the Gungans and the underwater sequence and have whoever Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan meet on land take them to the Theed palace as a navigator directly. I don’t care for Jar Jar’s character and he doesn’t add anything to the film besides (weak) comic relief and a connection to the Gungan army at the end, which can easily be altered if you give Ahmed Best a better character just as himself, leading the Jedi through the forest to Theed. On the way there we see the recent havoc wreaked by the droid army and the effects the invasion is having on the people of Naboo, making the war feel a lot more real and immediate. Make Best’s people like the people of Rohan in Lord of the Rings who have survived as independent nomads and mounted woodland riders for centuries, not given as much support by the city-states and the capital but otherwise left to their own devices (setting them up to become the main cavalry/fighters at the end). They don’t have to be enemies of Theed, but they're not on great terms. They're the first people we see affected by the war, the destruction a lot more down to earth, showing us the severity of the Separatist’s actions and giving us a legitimate sense of danger and despair.

The three of them make it to Theed and manage to save the queen and her entourage. Amidala is introduced desperately trying to make contact with Palpatine in the Senate, the circumstances conveyed much more urgently than before, and she tells the Jedi that she’d been trying to contact them before the invasion even started. In the midst of the fighting Amidala makes a pointed effort to save Best’s character, the two of them making a connection as they move and showing both him and the audience that the queen does care about what happens to people who live beyond the city and palace walls. Qui-Gon convinces Amidala that they need to get her to Coruscant to plead their case on behalf of her people to the Senate. Amidala pleads for Best’s character to call upon the peoples living in the woods and to tell them that the capital city has been invaded and taken over too but that help is on the way. Amidala may be a pacifist, but this invasion shows her that her ideology won’t save her people because it doesn’t matter to the invaders whether you’ve done anything to “deserve” that oppression or not. Those who don’t live by the sword can still die by them.

If the Senate is too far removed from their corner of the galaxy to see that innocent people are being slaughtered and that the Separatists have waged a war that has isolated Naboo by severing their communications network, then she’s going to plead their case by taking it directly to Coruscant herself. Who’s to say theirs is the first planet the Separatists have done this to? What other occupations might they be unaware of?

The ship is still damaged upon their escape, forcing them to make an emergency landing on Tatooine. Amidala has some money with her, but her accounts have been frozen by the Separatists and she won’t be able to acquire more unless they manage to save Naboo and she’s restored as queen. The Jedi also have some money with them, but even together it’s not enough to buy the hyperdrive piece.

In this timeline we go with Kenobi being present with Qui-Gon and Padmé (still disguising herself as a handmaiden, Qui-Gon having a hunch as to who she is though Kenobi doesn’t know) and we cut out Watto and change the slavery circumstances to the Skywalkers being impoverished and indebted instead. City boy Kenobi, unfamiliar with the terrain or locals, accidentally bumps into whoever it is who tries to start a fight and Anakin jumps in and mediates for them. Qui-Gon thanks him and Anakin points out there’s a storm coming and takes them all back to his and his mom’s place, despite Kenobi’s protests that the mission takes precedence and the ‘queen’ has only her personal guard at the moment, they really should be finding the parts and getting back to the ship.

Over dinner the group discusses their prospects. Anakin was already planning to race in the Boonta Eve Classic to put the prize money towards finally paying off his mother’s debt. He and Shmi exchange a look, and he decides he wants to help them out of the goodness of his heart or whatever and in exchange for part of the money, Qui-Gon also offers him the chance to become a Jedi because he senses there’s something different about this kid. Kenobi protests, citing the fact the boy’s too old and they don’t have a solid reason to think he’s sensitive to the Force (regardless of what Shmi tells them about the circumstances of his birth). Have him be the skeptic providing the opinion the council would give, giving the conflict that will spur conversation between himself and Qui-Gon in order to provide exposition for the audience and prompt tension between himself and Anakin that’ll evolve as their relationship and reliance on one another in this movie progresses.

Now.

The consequence of Kenobi being present for all of this is that his and Anakin’s and Qui-Gon’s relationships are given focus and development, but it also means the ship is left without a Jedi guard.

Now let’s say Darth Maul finds the ship sooner while the main characters are occupied: Maul kidnaps Sabé, kills the rest of the guard, destroys the ship, and then he leaves. Qui-Gon, Kenobi, and Padmé hear what happens from R2, the only one who survives. Cut out whatever extraneous Watto junk happens and have this be what ups the stakes for the race because now they end up needing all of the winnings to buy a whole ship, not just to get a part. Amidala does the whole handmaiden reveal here and they realize that buys them a little time since Sabé signing the treaty will mean nothing when it comes out that she wasn’t actually the queen, but that will only be a possibility if they can provide Coruscant with further evidence of the Separatists’ plot and subjugation of the people.

Kenobi by now has figured out that the disturbance he’s been feeling in the force must have been the dark warrior who tracked their ship and stole the ‘queen,’ R2’s security footage getting them a good look of Maul. Kenobi and Qui-Gon confer and realize that if this guy is a Sith Lord, they HAVE to get back to Naboo to stop him at any cost. If he’s been the real power behind the Separatists this whole time, then losing Naboo to their control must be part of a larger scheme that will lead the Republic to war.

Now it comes back down to Anakin and Shmi. Either Anakin doesn’t want to give them the rest of the money, having wanted to provide for his mom too, and Shmi has to reassure him that she’ll be fine before he agrees to still participate in the race and give them the money, or Anakin’s unaware of the change in circumstances at all and Shmi’s the one to say they can have all of the winnings provided Qui-Gon gives her his word that Anakin will be guaranteed a better life being trained as a Jedi. Either way, Shmi’s the one in control of her decision to let Anakin go while she chooses to remain behind. Despite Amidala’s offer for Shmi to just come with them as part of her court or entourage, Shmi declines, knowing Anakin needs a clean break in order to dedicate himself to this new life and that her place was still there on Tatooine, and the Skywalkers are able to part ways with Anakin still missing his mom.

During the whole Tatooine sequence Kenobi has his doubts about Anakin, but during the race we see Anakin finally do some incredible feat that defies all logic, bringing down a rockslide to his advantage or controlling a dust storm or standing out on the bow of his speeder holding the now-damaged, motley assembly together with the invisible hold of the Force itself as he crosses the finish line. There needs to be a clear show of something unexplainable for both the audience and the other characters to see (Kenobi especially) that convinces us this kid has an exceptional command over the Force even untrained, not just that he’s a child prodigy when it comes to racing and mechanical ingenuity. Kenobi needs to be convinced that taking the kid is a good idea here because it provides the basis for their relationship moving forward and it gives ample reason for Anakin to be included in all of the further peril without any of the responsible characters logically being worried for his safety. (As it is in the movies, we never actually see Anakin do enough to warrant being considered “the Chosen One” since nothing he does isn’t something other trained experts of that skill could feasibly do. He needs to be visibly, uniquely powerful even for a Force-user.)

After the race they have to scramble to get transportation and head back to Naboo. Keep their communications interrupted so they can’t contact the Jedi council back on Coruscant to tell them about the invasion, the handmaiden switch, OR Anakin possibly being the Chosen One.

In this interim we see Maul on his ship discussing his success with Sidious over a holocall, along with the next steps of the plan. Sabé is locked in a holding cell, unbeknownst to Maul acting as a spy and gathering information, reading his lips and figuring out what conversation is being had though she can’t hear the voice of the person in the hood (because logically she’d be able to deduce that it’s Palpatine on the other end of the call). It’s obvious this mysterious agent doesn’t know she’s one of the handmaidens because otherwise she suspects she’d be dead, and it’s clear they need ‘the queen’ alive for something. Depending on how you want to play the scene and the characters, she could either remain stoically silent after he’s done talking to Sidious, taking everything in and observing serenely while environmental storytelling gives us the clues and info she’s picking up on, or Maul could monologue/antagonize her, or she could try to negotiate with him under the guise of the queen, subtly trying to figure out his motives, or she could just outright question him, reasoning that he’s not going to do anything to her since she’s needed alive (to which Maul could refuse to give up anything and instead easily threaten her once he decides she’s gotten too comfortable, maybe even giving us some visual foreshadowing/parallels to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith by using the Force to hold her by the throat and remind her that she need only arrive to Naboo alive, not unscathed.).

Have the Theed city battle happen as Act II, show more of the Separatists’ effect on the people they’re subjugating, and have Anakin involved on the ground instead of in the gunship. He ends up seeing/being involved in the Duel of the Fates, exhibiting an impressive display of the Force and throwing up a force field that blocks what would have been a fatal hit from Maul against the two Jedi. Anakin uses the Force to fling Darth Maul back, though it’s not enough to get him off his feet. Maul’s distracted for just a moment as his boots gain traction and he skids to a halt, locking eyes with the kid before he uses the Force to throw Anakin into the path of danger as Qui-Gon approaches. Obi-Wan diverts course to save Anakin and gets him out of the way, telling him to stay back as Maul continues to fight Qui-Gon. Anakin ends up separated when Obi-Wan jams the control for the force field corridor, cutting him off from the fight as Kenobi and Qui-Gon back Maul towards the reactor shaft together.

Anakin surveys the hangar and starts to climb up to the access catwalks overhead, trying to get to the Jedi to help, but as he finally reaches a position overlooking the room he realizes he’s too late. Darth Maul hits Qui-Gon and stabs him through the chest as Kenobi screams. This time however, Kenobi isn’t fast enough in the aftermath to do anything beyond wounding Maul, and when Maul is nearly hit by Anakin doing the equivalent of throwing a ship at him, he escapes.

Kenobi’s and Anakin’s shared story with Qui-Gon comes to a close as Qui-Gon dies and Kenobi tells Anakin he’ll apprentice him instead, and that he has strong evidence for the council that Anakin is the Chosen One. Cut back to Sabé relaying to Amidala through covert means that the dark warrior isn’t acting alone; he’s taking orders from somebody he calls Master, and even if he is killed, it’s likely he’s not the only one directing the war from the shadows. Have the Separatists win the battle and Naboo seemingly come under their control, the treaty signed by Sabé (the Separatists still unaware she’s a decoy).

Maul makes a break for it to head back to Coruscant, for the moment incapacitated and in no condition to fight Kenobi and Anakin together. Kenobi may be alive, but Maul’s mission to make sure the Separatists took Naboo and that the queen signed the treaty is complete, and he tells Sidious over a holocall that there’s a child with Kenobi who is strong in the Force and could be a threat to them…. Unless he can be turned to the dark side.

Kenobi and Anakin sneak around and meet up with Amidala and her remaining entourage and tell her that she has to come back to Coruscant with them because only her presence there while Sabé remains behind (never leaving the Separatists’ watch) will be what shows the Senate that the treaty is void. They scheme to go back to Coruscant with the still-undiscovered true queen; Amidala uses the handmaidens to disperse the message and ready an ambush with the help of Ahmed Best’s character and countrymen, telling those who remain behind not to fight back yet but to comply with the Separatists until she can provide the Senate with the proof of the truth.

The three of them with Amidala’s retinue return in stealth to Coruscant. Keep Amidala from telling Palpatine anything because maybe he was just as complacent as the rest of the senators who didn’t believe her when she voiced concerns of the Separatists setting up an invasion of the planet prior to the movie. Kenobi enlists the help of the council members, telling them what truly happened and that a Sith is behind the Separatists’ machinations, and they also provide video footage of the carnage they saw levied against the people of Theed. The council prompts Senator Organa to bring up the Naboo treaty during the Senate session. The Senate pulls up a holovid conference call with the Separatists and remaining Naboo politicians, Sabé among them, the Separatists showing their “proof” of being able to reach a “peaceful accord.”

And THEN Padmé Amidala steps forward in the Senate to reveal her true identity and the plot the Separatists had the whole time forcing who they thought was the queen to sign the treaty under extreme duress while their people died in the streets and countryside. There’s a collective gasp as her witnesses, including Obi-Wan, come forward with evidence to the veracity of that statement, and the Senate erupts in an uproar as the Separatists flounder on the call, having been caught in the act in front of an audience of thousands.

The holocall is cut short as we the audience see the handmaidens, the remaining guards, and Ahmed Best’s character and his people back on Naboo spring the ambush on the Separatists in the palace, and we see the tide change as the people of Naboo fight back together. Valorum tries to keep order but the longer he goes without taking decisive action the worse he starts to look, and Palpatine quickly steps in to propose a vote of no confidence against him— If Valorum isn’t willing to send arms and support to a pacifist planet clearly under military attack right now, what’s to say he’ll ever do it for anybody else there among them? At what point is it considered an act of war against the Republic, if not now? The people of the Senate begin to concur and Republic forces quickly rally support for Naboo, senators from neighboring planets ordering their fleets to converge on Naboo to lend aid and route the fleeing Separatists as an emergency meeting is called to force Chancellor Valorum to step down.

(Palpatine meanwhile is absolutely seething behind his fake shock and horror, and as soon as he’s able to reconvene out of the Senate chamber he comms Darth Maul like “YOU ABSOLUTE #!$%*&@ IDIOT YOU GOT THE WRONG GIRL”)

Maul’s coming to several conclusions at once with a metric ton of dread flash-fried by anger and they both know they can’t do anything to Amidala OR the politicians back home on Naboo while all eyes are turned that way, BUT Maul realizes that this was all Kenobi’s fault and— probably knowing Palpatine's going to wring his neck if he ever gets his hands on him— he goes rogue in order to get his revenge against Kenobi and try to preserve his standing with his master. The climax of Act III comes down to a much more publicly visible and hard-hitting fight between Darth Maul and Kenobi before Anakin (who’s been with Obi-Wan the whole time and was supposed to be in hiding) uses the Force again to shield Obi-Wan right as it looks like Darth Maul is about to strike the killing blow. Maul’s saber bounces off the shield and in shock he turns to see Anakin, who he recognizes as the kid from the Theed palace who thwarted him then too. Obi-Wan shouts “No!” as Maul charges, and Anakin scrambles away and throws up a shield in front of himself that Maul strikes once, twice, a third time before it shatters, each side of the Force colliding, causing an explosive blast that takes out half of the tower floor with it and renders Anakin unconscious.

Just as Maul rears back to kill Anakin, his saber meets that of Obi-Wan’s, and Obi-Wan pushes him back, determined and revitalized.

The fight ends dramatically on top of one of the skywalks of Coruscant, Jedi and Sith locked in battle as word quickly starts to travel and people start racing up to the tower. Obi-Wan succeeds in cutting Maul’s saber apart before ultimately stabbing him just as Maul had done to Qui-Gon, sending him off the overbridge to his death.

Naboo is shown winning against the invasion thanks to help from the Republic, and the people of Theed and the surrounding forests are saved. Ahmed Best’s character and Sabé are both hailed as victors, the two of them standing united with their people together after a successful ambush and reclamation of Naboo. Kenobi’s a veritable hero, receiving praise from both politicians and Jedi for discovering and eliminating the Sith. The Jedi council manages to frame Maul’s presence as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan “mission” this whole time, and Kenobi’s valor and strategy award him the rank of Knight. The council is still wary of Anakin, but he’s been shown to have had a surprising awareness and command of the Force, and if he’s capable of that without training, they can’t let him continue to live as a civilian with that amount of power unchecked, agreeing that the boy needs supervision, guidance, and accountability. It doesn’t help that Obi-Wan’s determined to keep Anakin as his Padawan now, especially since training him was Qui-Gon’s dying wish.

Sidious manages to frame Maul for the loss of Naboo to the Separatists, telling them that he has been “dealt with.” Though Darth Maul is defeated and the public’s faith in the Jedi remains intact, the Jedi council is deeply troubled by the apparent return of the Sith, and they confer with Kenobi, Anakin, Sabé and Amidala (who are unfortunately accompanied by Senator Palpatine) about what knowledge they have, knowing they need to keep word of a potential second Sith under wraps for the public’s well-being and peace of mind. The fact the Separatists have been revealed to have massive covert operations taking over smaller planets with the aid of droid armies for a while now is shocking enough as it is; they can’t afford widespread panic over the possibility of this being orchestrated by a Sith, let alone more than one.

The result of those decisions, as well as the very public fight Kenobi had with Maul, means that the Jedi are now inextricably bound to serve in the war, still unsure of how they couldn’t have sensed the Sith to begin with, and it sets up Kenobi to wonder if perhaps the Jedi involvement in the war and their deaths at the end of it are his fault for being too rash and ready to fight. It’ll drive his character to mature and become more of a negotiator, and try to keep Anakin from choosing to act without thinking moving forward. Though both Kenobi and Amidala have saved people in this movie, it was done through actions that forced them to compromise their anti-war ideologies, and those irreversible actions will directly lead people who were once pacifists and protectors into war.

That plotline forces the characters together more organically and still covers the same amount of ground and achieves the same result, but utilizes the characters better and creates more of a sense of urgency than before. The consequence of these changes is that Palpatine will later ascend as Supreme Chancellor with sympathy from a majority of the Senate, meaning the Grand Army of the Republic is formed between this movie and the next, setting up Attack of the Clones to be happening in the midst of the war. Sidious has contingency plans upon contingency plans; he still has Count Dooku in his back pocket, still has the Separatists on his side, and now he has his sights set on the young prodigy from Tatooine who seems verrrrrryy interesting to him. He can misdirect the Jedi’s suspicions of Sith towards Dooku and General Grievous, should they end up being discovered, still keeping all eyes off of himself. Palpatine also has a much stronger motivation to assassinate Amidala after this since she’s proven to be more capable than he realized and isn’t just a political pawn he can manipulate. She’s unpredictable, and she needs to be eliminated.

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