Re: Rey & Anakin
"I... just didn't know he had any family," Anakin finally said.
His world had been blown.
But then, given Rey's age, contemporaneous with Ben's. And Rey hadn't met him, so maybe Palpatine didn't have family yet.
"He's, uh-" Where did Anakin start? "He's a smart politician, but he was always... supportive of me." Anakin half smiled. "Being accepted by the Jedi at nine was hard and he understood." And Anakin realized that might require an explanation. "The Jedi don't accept initiates over the age of three standard years old. I wasn't found until I was nine, and even then, most of the Jedi-" he thought about how to explain it. "There wasn't a consensus that I should be allowed to join- I don't even know what made them change their mind because at first, they refused. No one ever explained to me what changed. Even then, most of them never fully accepted me there. The Chancellor understood how alienating it was-"
Anakin huffed a small laugh, eyes going down as a memory came to him.
"I almost left, when I was younger. The Chancellor never told me what to do, not- Anakin you should leave or Anakin you should stay, but he listened. And then he showed me the good Jedi can do for the Galaxy. So I stayed."
He looked back up at Rey.
"That's the kind of man your grandfather was. He saw a scared child no one wanted and made him feel heard."