Archive of Our Own

“I shouldn't have let her go.”

“You couldn't have stopped her,” Rabé says reasonably. The gentle, calming lilt to her voice only makes Sabé more nervous.

“I should have tried harder,” she insists, pushing herself to her feet and striding out of the room. Distracted as she is, she still remembers countless sessions with her Queen, learning to mimic one another perfectly, watching holo-recordings of themselves walking across rooms for hours on end and analyzing each other's movements, gait, posture—carefully erasing both of their idiosyncrasies to craft a persona that could be tied to neither of them. Now would be the absolute worst time for her to let that persona slip.

“Your Highness,” Eirtaé mutters pointedly as Sabé relocates to a more central location, where several of their rescued pilots are loitering. They look up and bow to her as she enters, and she acknowledges them with a brief nod before sitting down on an empty couch. “Drawing attention to yourself right now will put you in danger.”

“I am aware.” Eirtaé is disciplined enough not to roll her eyes at the resurgence of the Amidala Voice, but it looks like a close thing. Sabé doesn't really care—not with a sandstorm howling outside and the Queen nowhere to be found. The silence in the ship's audience chamber had been torture.

The cruiser's pilot is worried about sand in the engines and landing gears; the padawan, Obi-Wan, is worried about his master. Sabé is having a quiet existential crisis over her missing Queen. The storm has knocked out communications, which they are assured is normal, but the radio silence is driving her very slowly mad. What had the hangup been in the first place? And where are they? Surely they wouldn't have tried to walk back in a killer sandstorm, surely either she or the Jedi would be smarter than that?

Of course, the alternative is almost worse. They might have had to duck into a cantina or a spaceport to escape the stinging sand. Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo, in the company of someone like Jar-Jar Binks. In a cantina. On Tatooine. In a place like this, crawling with gangsters and mercenaries, smugglers, murderers, rapists, drug lords, slavers...

Her head snaps up as the door to the bridge slides open and the young Jedi comes out to join them.

“Is there any news?” she asks, keeping her voice carefully steady and resisting the urge to jump to her feet.

Obi-Wan turns to her, mildly surprised, and bows slightly. “Nothing yet, your highness.” He nods to the bridge. “We expect the storm to last for several hours. You're that worried about your handmaiden?”

Eirtaé twitches, and Sabé tries to keep the guilty expression off her face. Is it that obvious?

“Of course,” she says smoothly, raising her eyebrows in only-mildly-exaggerated offense at the suggestion that Padmé wouldn't be concerned if one of them went missing.

“I would try not to worry too much, your highness,” the padawan says with a smile. He looks at Sabé like he thinks her concern is touching, rather than a matter of life and death. “Master Qui-Gon will protect her. I'm sure we'll hear from them as soon as this storm is over. I haven't sensed any increased danger to any of them. There is...” He pauses, folding his hands as he tries to find words. Sabé likes him, really; he's honest and easy to read. “There is something strange, some disturbance in the Force. But it's no danger to anyone yet; I do sense that much.”

A padawan's nebulous feelings are distinctly less comforting than he probably intends, but Sabé inclines her head gratefully regardless. He is making an effort. “Thank you.”

He smiles again and gives another little bow. “Excuse me.” He nods to Eirtaé and turns to disappear into the 'fresher.

“She's fine,” Rabé murmurs, too quiet to be heard by anyone other than Sabé.

“For now,” Sabé mutters back.

Eirtaé clears her throat and raises it just enough to be overheard by a handful of the nearby pilots, not enough to draw much attention. “My lady,” she says, and the demure politeness in her voice would fool absolutely no one who knows her. “You're tired, and you must address the Senate soon. You should rest.” Before someone coughs and you shoot them, she doesn't add.

Sabé stands gratefully. Whatever stress Eirtaé is under—they are all stretched to the breaking point, and the absence of Saché and Yané only makes it worse—she and Rabé have been doing their level best to help her keep up the illusion. It is too early to claim she's sleeping, but under the circumstances not too early for the Queen to realistically retire. And it will allow her to drop some of the charade, at least enough to breathe.

One of the pilots looks up and nods reverently. “Goodnight, Your Highness,” he says. The sentiment is echoed around the room, with a few murmured thank-yous tacked on.

The moment the doors seal behind her, Sabé sags. Eirtaé checks the lock, while Rabé wastes no time pulling the heavy feathered cloak off her shoulders.

“You're doing just fine,” she says kindly.

“You could be doing worse,” Eirtaé allows. Sabé doesn't bother glaring at her, given she's completely right. Her fear must show in her eyes, because the blonde handmaiden sighs and squeezes her shoulder. “You're doing your duty,” she says, barely above a whisper. “You're keeping her safe, no one can ask more than that. Your Highness.”

The odds of anyone overhearing them from inside the Queen's private quarters on a royal Naboo cruiser in the middle of the desert on the Outer Rim are astronomical. But then, no one could have predicted the Trade Federation's invasion, either. Sabé holds Eirtaé's gaze and nods jerkily, before allowing the others to guide her into a chair.

It is too dangerous to risk dropping the disguise entirely; Sabé must be the Queen at all times until they are safely landed on Coruscant. But they can make her more comfortable. Rabé has her work cut out for her, disassembling the complicated hairstyle she'd pulled together under such duress that morning; Eirtaé is more concerned with establishing exactly what kind of resources they have access to. Royal starships are kept perpetually stocked with a small emergency wardrobe—complete formal outfits for three days that can match with one of two sets of handmaidens' robes. There is also one wardrobe capsule with both combat gear and clothes for mourning, and one stuffed full of spare underthings and six heavily-insulated cold-weather robes in vacuum-flattened packs.

Eirtaé is satisfied.

“We're going to have to leave the facepaint,” she says apologetically. “It takes too long to apply, and if anything happens unexpectedly...”

Sabé nods, resigned. It's not as if she would be getting much sleep tonight anyway. At least the long stretch of time with Rabé working at her hair and clothes while Eirtaé keeps up a running commentary on the wardrobe situation is calming. It's hypnotic; almost familiar, however strange it is to be on the receiving end of the attention. It nearly masks the eerie sound of the sandstorm scouring the ship.

Actually...

“I think the storm's over,” Rabé says finally, tilting her head to listen. “Or letting up, at least.”

Right on cue, the door chimes. Eirtaé calmly spins Sabé's chair around so that her back faces the door while Rabé stands to answer it.

“Jedi,” she greets the visitor politely. “May I help you?”

“I thought the Queen might like to know,” Obi-Wan answers. “We've had a message from Master Qui-Gon,. They're all safe, staying with some slaves in the city. Apparently the girl...Padmé, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Rabé confirms.

“She made friends with a local boy who offered them shelter for the night. It's best they all stay where they are, Your Highness. It's too late now for them to safely return.”

Sabé and Eirtaé exchange identical, unseen expressions of horror at the thought of their lady crossing that slimy hellhole of a spaceport at night.

Belatedly realizing the padawan is waiting for an answer, Sabé clears her throat.

“Thank you, Jedi,” she says formally. “I'm grateful.”

“Of course,” he responds. “Good night, your highness.” The door slides shut, and all three of them let out breaths they hadn't realized they'd been holding.

“There,” Eirtaé says, unable to hide the relief in her voice. “I told you. My lady. She's fine.”

“We really should sleep,” Rabé points out. “It's late.”

Sabé glances at the clock; it is late. Amazing how much time fretting can take up. It feels like the invasion of Naboo was days ago. Actually, she realizes, it could very well have been at least a full day by now; the clocks would have synced automatically with local time when the ship landed. She has no idea what time it even is in Theed, any more than they have any idea what's happening to their people.

Suddenly she feels tired.

The others excuse themselves. Eirtaé tosses a plain white shift from the Emergency Underwear Reserve across to Rabé, who clicks the lights off as she left the room. Sabé bites down on a powerful urge to throw caution to the winds and follow them. She's been on this ship before, on a trip with the Queen. It had only been a short one, a two-day one-night appearance shortly after her inauguration, but it had involved an overnight flight. She smiles faintly at the memory.

The girls had still been figuring each other out at the time, and they'd ended up rolling a die for the single bed. The handmaidens' quarters were close, only intended to be used for sleeping rather than the Queen's larger quarters, which were intended to also serve as a dressing and/or sitting room. It was just a pair of bunks with a single bed sunk into the wall over a small storage unit. But it had been their first real mission.

(Yané had won the die roll. She'd insisted Sabé take the single bunk on the way back, because it had made her claustrophobic.)

It would have made her feel safer, being back there. But then, maybe it's better this way. The stark absence of Saché and Yané would only have been more obvious. She stares up at the ceiling, struggling to control her breathing, and wishes desperately for them to be safe. They're so young, not nearly good enough actors to have kept up the deception in such close quarters; but they are brave and honest, and Governor Bibble will need them.

She is exhausted, but her mind is racing and she is far too restless to sleep.

When she feels the mattress dip an eternity later, Sabé starts so violently she is halfway to the blaster under the pillow before she recognizes Eirtaé in the dark.

“Move over,” the girl says simply, as if Sabé has not just come close to killing her, and pushes Sabé's shoulder until she shifts to the side.

“Eirtaé...?”

Eirtaé sighs, flipping the covers off the side of the bed so she can slide under them. “We can hear you rolling around from in there,” she says.

Sabé would question the “we,” if Rabé hadn't chosen that moment to come around the foot of the bed and nudge her back toward Eirtaé. The younger handmaiden doesn't say anything, just smiles tiredly and wiggles under the blankets. She curls up with her forehead lightly brushing Sabé's arm; Eirtaé has calmly stolen a pillow and settled with her back to both of them, but somehow her presence is no less comforting.

“Thank you,” Sabé whispers after a pause.

“Go to sleep, Your Highness.”

Somehow, she does.

(Padmé returns the next afternoon. She is covered head to foot in dust, sweating, smelling like engine grease and ash but smiling and unharmed. Her smile to Captain Panaka as she boards is unforced, and there is a spring in her step that had not been there before. But there is still darkness in her eyes, a reserved tension along her frame, and Sabé does not regret getting her off the ship and into the open air, where she had something—anything—to focus on other than the planet they have abandoned.

She sweeps the young Queen into her arms the moment she crosses the threshold anyway, momentarily careless of onlookers as she pulls Padmé against her and clutches her shoulders, the back of her neck—almost a full day of silence and worry escaping in the breath of her name.

Padmé pulls back gently. “You didn't need to worry about me, your highness,” she says. Her eyes glitter teasingly for a moment as they share their little joke, but the sweetness behind the words is genuine. “I'm sorry I didn't contact you sooner.”

It is only through monumental effort that Sabé shoves down the myriad responses she could make, along with her turbulent emotions. “We received a transmission from Naboo yesterday,” she says instead, with careful formality. “I am sure the others will fill you in at the first opportunity.” She glances at Obi-Wan, who is watching them with the air of a casual observer; but his Master is already irritatingly perceptive, and Sabé will take no chances with a Jedi.

“Come, she says coolly, setting the moment of relief behind her as the brief respite fades fully from Padmé's eyes. “You must tell me about the planet.”)

Sabé raises her hand for the umpteenth time, goes to rap her knuckles against the door. Hesitates. Lets her hand fall back to her side.

She grinds her teeth together and shakes her head sharply, furious with herself. Turns to leave—and just as sharply turns back again, making it once more to within an inch of knocking before stopping herself.

She takes a long breath. She's being ridiculous. She knows she's being ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason to suspect anyone is even actively plotting against Amidala's life—at the moment. Besides that, they're in a peaceful Nabooan facility and the security grid is top-notch. Even Panaka had been satisfied with it, and Panaka is never satisfied with anything. Sabé nods firmly and turns away again, determined to go back to the room she's sharing with Rabé and stop worrying.

She makes it two steps before turning back around, hand raised to knock, and once against stopping just before she touches the door.

Blast it, anyway.

She's just about to rest her head against the door in despair when it slides open.

“Sabé,” Padmé greets her, eyebrow raised as she leans against the doorframe. She looks vaguely amused.

Sabé opens and closes her mouth several times.

“My lady,” she says finally. “I....”

Words. They're not happening.

Padmé sighs and shakes her head. “Sabé,” she says, gentle but more than a little exasperated. “This is the third time in the past hour.”

Sabé flushes. “I'm sorry, my lady,” she mutters, ducking her head and wishing it wasn't so late so that she would still have a hood to pull over her face. “I'll let you rest.”

Padmé shakes her head fondly and steps back, keeping a hand in the door so it stays open. “Come in,” she says with that soft, too-wise smile. “I was making tea before bed anyway. Sit down,” she insists as Sabé instinctively moves to help her; then, more firmly, “Sit. I mean it.”

Fingers working anxiously at a fold in her nightdress, Sabé sits.

After a few moments, Padmé crosses carefully back, holding out a dangerously overfilled mug of steaming tea for her handmaiden. Sabé takes it, wincing as a few drops spill onto her fingers. Padmé, naturally, doesn't have any difficulties with her mug. She takes a delicate sip and sets it aside while she settles onto the couch. Graceful as a queen.

The low sofa forms a long L shape, with a rich wooden coffee table tucked near the corner; Padme's covered this with several datapads and a small pile of flimsiplast scratch-notes. Only Padmé Amidala would feel the need to study for a show appearance at a technological exposition.

She sets her notes aside for now, though, curling up in the wide corner of the sofa and tucking a fluffy throw blanket around her shoulders. She rests her head on her arms for several minutes, dark eyes thoughtful and kind as she watches Sabé slowly work on her tea.

“Sabé,” she says softly after a while. “You can't protect me from everything.”

Sabé's cheeks feel hot, and she's certain it's not the tea. She holds the mug between her hands and stares determinedly at the surface.

“Is it that obvious?” she mumbles after an awkward moment.

Padmé's lips twitch despite her visible effort to maintain a straight face. “Somewhere around the third time you stopped by my bedroom to ask if I needed a hairbrush,” she says as kindly as possible. Sabé still blushes harder than ever. Padmé reaches out and guides one hand away from its death-grip on her tea, rubbing her thumb over the back. “Nothing's going to happen to me.”

“You don't know that,” Sabé protests. “You are in danger, constantly, protecting you is my job.”

Padmé takes Sabé's hand between her own. “It's not your job to worry yourself sick about me when I'm perfectly safe,” she says intently. “You give so much of yourself already, Sabé, I don't know how I could possibly deserve any of you.”

Sabé finally glances up, offering her a weak smile. “You're our Queen, my lady,” she says. “You're all the purpose I have. I live for you.”

“No.” Sabé blinks at the sudden, almost frightened edge to Padmé's voice as the young Queen leans forward suddenly. “Don't say that,” she insists. She swallows with difficulty and finally tears her gaze away from Sabé's face to look down at their hands while she fusses over squeezing her handmaiden's fingers. “Don't say that, don't ever say that.” When she looks up again some of the terrifying intensity is gone from her face; she looks stricken, concerned. “You're my friend,” she says finally. “I don't ever want you to define yourself by me, Sabé. I care about you too much.”

“All right,” Sabé says softly. It's an impossible request, Padmé has no idea just how impossible it is—to do anything but separate her life into before and after she met this tempest in the form of a girl, this whirl of calm and ferocity with fire in her veins and a touch as gentle as summer rain; when the world was in color as if for the first time.

But she loves her beyond words for asking it, nonetheless.

They sit that way for several long, quiet minutes. Padmé turns Sabé's hand over in hers, running her fingers over the palm, rubbing circles at the back of her handmaiden's hand so absently Sabé thinks she might not realize she's doing it. Finally, some of the sudden tension seems to ease slowly out of the young Queen's shoulders.

“Tell me about your family,” she says softly. She doesn't hold Sabé's hand, but it's still resting lightly between her fingers. It feels nice. Sabé doesn't feel any need to move it.

She clears her throat and takes a sip of tea to give herself a moment. “There's not much to tell, my lady,” she answers in a murmur.

Padmé's smile is infectious. “Now, that can't be true. All right, then, tell me about school, and I'll tell you about my sister.”

Sabé hesitates. “Sola?”

There's a brief, disconcerted beat where she thinks she's gotten the name wrong before Padmé shakes her head and shoves her handmaiden's hand playfully away.

“I can never surprise you with anything,” she says with a mock scowl. Shyly, Sabé grins.

“I'm good at my job,” she says primly, and Padmé rolls her eyes.

“Tell me,” she insists. “You know everything about me."

“I...” Sabé sets her tea aside almost untouched, wringing her hands together. “Well, I...I always hated Literature.”

There's a pause.

“That's it?” says Padmé flatly, fixing her friend with a look that is absolutely stern and in no way teasing, because that would be unprofessional.

Sabé blushes. “My parents said I loved to read as a child—I don't have any siblings, you see—but I hated the way my teachers would dissect the stories in class. It took all the life out of them. And then I would end up in detention because I would argue with the textbook.”

Padmé's lips twitch. “You would have been happy in my program,” she says wistfully. “Our debate team won first in the sector three years in a row. We were lucky, really, we were matched with some awful teams.”

Sabé relaxes into the sofa in spite of herself. “False modesty,” she insists, and Padmé shakes her head with a laugh.

“Well,” she clarifies. “Awful compared to us, of course.”

“Of course,” Sabé echoes drily, and Padmé swats her shoulder.

“So what did you like?” the Queen asks, resting her head in her hand. “Are you secretly a prodigy chemist and never told me? Little Sabé, the junior triathlon champion?”

“You're thinking of Rabé.” Padmé groans slightly and nods in agreement. Sabé hesitates, then offers shyly, “I liked history?”

Predictably, Padmé's eyes sparkle and she shifts just that little bit closer.

“Tell me,” she whispers. So Sabé does.

Over the course of the next hour Padmé does, eventually, nudge Sabé out of the safety of commiserating over Philosophy essays and into softer topics. How they spent their free time as children, it starts out; then their favorite books. Childhood pets. Childhood crushes. Childhood fears.

“Failing,” Padmé murmurs into the quiet. “Letting down the people who depended on me. Being alone.” She pauses. "And those clinger insects. The ones that stick to your skin and buzz? Ugh."

Her handmaiden laughs. "They're harmless!"

She gives a pointed shudder. "They're horrible." For a moment they grin, and then they let the friendly silence back in.

Sabé's fingers dance over her palm, now. They've shifted closer, facing each other and curled against the back of the sofa so that their knees brush.

“You're not alone,” she breathes, almost to herself. Then, still soft but more audible this time, “You could never fail us, your highness.”

Padmé is still for some time, before squeezing her handmaiden's fingers in gratitude. She glances up with a smile.

“Not five minutes ago you said there was nothing I couldn't do if I set my mind to it,” she teases, and Sabé rolls her eyes. Padmé winks at her, and breaks into a yawn that she tries to hide in her shoulder.

Sabé instantly feels guilty; Padmé has a public appearance tomorrow, the expo starts early and she'll be awake even earlier.

“I'm sorry to keep you up so late, my lady,” she says hastily, trying to untangle herself from the plush blanket she'd pulled around herself at some point. Padmé reaches out and stops her.

“You're here now,” she says. “Stay?”

There's a vulnerability to the request that tugs at Sabé's heart.

“Well,” she says slowly. “I don't want to wake Rabé.”

(R2-D2 beeps welcomingly at Padmé as she closes the door to her bedroom, making a little whirring noise as the console he's attached to lights up and scrolls at dizzying speed down a long block of green text and charts.

“Anything unusual?” Padmé asks, and the droid gives a negative whir. “Good. Thank you, Artoo.”

The little astromech droid, for all that he really should stay assigned to the royal starship, has become something of a companion to the Queen over the past year. She'd taken a liking to his cheeky confidence during the invasion, and Artoo—as she's taken to calling him—now fills the role of a strange cross between information droid and oddly opinionated pet.

Noticing Sabé's curious look, Padmé crouches next to Artoo and pats his chassis; she's rewarded with a series of beeps that sound like cooing. “Artoo's been monitoring the security grid for any disruptions,” she says. “Haven't you, Artoo?” Artoo beedle-beeps proudly, then whistles a question to his mistress.

Padmé considers it, then looks over to where Sabé is efficiently turning down the covers and smiles.

“You can shut down, Artoo,” she says. “I have Sabé tonight.”)

It has been a long day.

It has been several long days, actually, out of a long week. Sabé's sleeping poorly, though she hopes she's hiding it; her Queen would worry, if she noticed.

Sabé hasn't heard a word of this budget meeting, despite being positioned almost at her lady's left hand. She's been scanning the windows, the entrances and exits, monitoring the Queen's actions and the actions of the guards; she will never be so distracted that she fails to perform basic security sweeps. But she can't look the Governor in the eye, and out of the corner of her eye she keeps catching Amidala glancing at her so she doesn't dare look that way either.

“That's settled then,” Bibble says finally, standing. “A pleasure as always, Your Highness, and an honor. I'm sure the compromises will be accepted.”

Amidala stands as well, acknowledging him with a regal nod. “If they are not,” she says formally, “We are at your service for further discussion.” Bibble bows, nods to Captain Panaka, and lets himself out of the throne room.

“If there is nothing further requiring our attention...”

Panaka inclines his head, hands clasped politely behind his back. “Not to my knowledge, your highness, but you should get in a bit of marksmanship before you leave tomorrow. At least an hour, my lady, you've been falling behind.”

Amidala's lips twitch. “As you wish, Captain.”

“I'll have someone set up some proper targets for you in two hours, your highness. A few surprises.”

“Please,” she deadpans. “Don't go to any trouble on my account.”

“I'm only doing my duty, Your Highness,” he answers with a bow. The Queen shakes her head affectionately and moves off, the handmaidens on duty falling in behind her.

A hand grabs Sabé by the elbow as she tries to move to her lady's side. She looks up at Panaka, startled, but is interrupted before she can ask about the uncharacteristic move.

“Captain,” Amidala says sharply. Of course she'd noticed the moment Sabé moved so much as an inch from her side. Her tone, while not quite angry, demands explanation.

“There's nothing to worry about, Your Highness,” Panaka says firmly, not looking away from Sabé's face. “I need a word with her.” Finally he looks up, nodding to the Queen in as clear a dismissal as is possible without being disrespectful. “I'll send her along in a moment.”

The Queen's gaze flicks between them for a moment before she inclines her head the barest fraction of an inch. Her response is less icy, but still hard.

“See that you do, Captain.” And she is gone.

Panaka doesn't let go of Sabé's arm, though he relaxes his grip somewhat. It had never been hard enough to be painful, of course; but now he softens it to a guiding pressure instead of a restraining one.

“Captain Panaka?”

He looks down at her. “How long?”

She frowns and tries to step back; he lets her, but tightens his grip on her arm again when she moves more than half a step away. To her credit, Sabé manages to keep her expression perfectly still. “I don't understand.”

“Don't you.” He raises an eyebrow, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “I'm not in the mood for games, Sabé. This is an issue that affects the Queen's security arrangements. You and Amidala. How long.”

“Captain,” she says slowly. “You hired me.”

He looks her dead in the eye for several long, angry heartbeats, during which it takes all of her training from Padmé not to drop her gaze.

“Sabé.” Damn him, damn him, she respects him too much for this, she would do anything for him to stop looking at her like that, and his voice is both too hard and too reasonable to stand up against. “I'm going to ask one time, and I'm going to trust your word. If you lie to me, and I find out you lied to Her Highness' Chief of Security about this, you will be arrested for treason. You are the last person on Naboo who deserves that and it would break the Queen's heart if I had to, but don't think for a moment that I'll hesitate.” He gives her a moment for the seriousness of the statement to sink in. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she bites. Damn him. He doesn't have to threaten her, he knows that. He means what he says, but he's so obviously doing it to give her an easy out. This way she has no other options, this way her hand is being forced; this way she betrays no one.

“Sabé,” he says again, and waits until she makes eye contact. “How long, to your best estimation, have you been sleeping with Queen Amidala?”

“Technically—” she starts weakly.

“Sleeping double for her security doesn't count.”

She swallows.

“Six months,” she says, defeated. “Since autumn.”

Even that's not the full truth, not really. They've been sleeping together—intermittently, as often as they can manage—since they were fifteen. But it was only ever that, until recently; genuine sleep, quiet conversations in the dark and gentle kisses, falling asleep in each other's arms with Padmé's head tucked against her chest. Precious moments, to both of them. Sabé feels no shame in keeping them private; she's answered the question that was really being asked.

Panaka lets it sit for a beat before nodding, finally releasing her arm and letting her breathe. “There,” he says. “Was that so bad? Six months, really?” She looks up, frowning, and he clarifies, “I wouldn't have taken any odds it had been more than a week. Two at most. You're jumping around each other like... well,” he allows. “Like nervous teenagers who made a mistake.”

“It wasn't a mistake, Captain.” Sabé knows she can only be digging herself deeper, but she has spent too much time as Amidala, too much time around Padmé, not to have a touch of her bite when needed. “You asked after a very specific aspect of an arrangement that has existed for several years. We know exactly what we are doing and why. Whatever may exist between us has never affected my service. I regret nothing.”

She's surprised him, she can tell; still, he is ever and always professional. “I'm glad to hear it,” he says mildly. “I always wondered if I was reading too far into you two. So. What changed?”

Sabé glances away, and says nothing.

Panaka sighs. “Something's changed, and recently,” he points out. “Now, I'd like to say most of your private life is none of my business. We both know that's not true, any more than it's true of the Queen's; but my input only carries weight when the personal lives of the palace staff interfere with her safety, judgment, or ability to serve. I don't see signs of that. Not in her.”

“Captain...?”

He sighs. “You're not going to Chommell Minor. I can't send you out like this.”

Sabé's heart nearly stops as she realizes what this means. “You—no—Captain, please, you can't—”

“I just did,” he says firmly.

“She needs—”

“You're grounded!” She actually steps back at that, and he continues grimly, “I'm taking you off-duty until you either get your head on straight, or tell me what's going on. The Queen needs bodyguards, not whatever you've been for the past few weeks. I won't risk Her Highness' safety by placing her under the protection of someone who won't so much as look at her. You're no good as a decoy either, the way you've been avoiding making any kind of contact with each other.” When Sabé makes no reply except trembling through sudden tears she's still too proud to shed, he adds as gentle an admonishment as he can.

“Lovers don't make good bodyguards, Sabé. If you can't be around her without being distracted, then you can't be around her.”

“That's not—” She chokes on the words. It's not fair, it's not even remotely what's happening, and for a moment she hates him for it; but it's not his fault. This is his job. This is what she has been afraid of.

Panaka crosses his arms and waits, watching her force back panic until finally she can't stand the silence anymore. She raises desperate eyes to look at him, and flinches when he finally speaks—but his voice is as kind she's ever heard it.

“Then you'd better tell me what is.”

If only she had the words.

He sighs. “Did she call it off?”

“What?” Sabé is genuinely taken aback. “No, that's... no.”

“Did you call it off?”

“Never.” That, at least, she doesn't have to think about.

Panaka spreads his hands. “I'm out of guesses,” he says. “You're going to have to enlighten me.”

Sabé turns away, fighting to breathe. He lets her.

“Three weeks ago,” she says finally, then hesitates. “I think. When was the spring festival?”

“A little closer to two and a half,” Panaka says quietly. “Go on.”

Sabé nods sharply at the empty space in front of her. “We didn't....think anything of it,” she says. The words are slow, painful, forced out against her will. The Queen's role in the ceremony had been over; she was really only there as a formality anyway, to make a speech. “It was... you remember the day, Captain,” she says desperately, silently begging him not to make her describe the delicate beauty of Naboo's spring, the way the sunlight played through the trees, the scent of flowers in the air and the effect of the first buds of the new year, woven into Padmé's hair.

“I was there.”

She nods again. “The others were watching for any threat,” she says. “It was a safe location, you saw to the security arrangements yourself.”

“If I remember correctly,” Panaka admits, “I said one of you could probably stay home; she only really needed two handmaidens for appearance's sake.” He laughs slightly. “She insisted you wanted to come. It explains a lot, really.”

“We didn't do anything wrong!” Sabé finally cries. “She was trying to see how many flowers I would let her balance on my head before I shook them off. I told her she was lucky we were in public, or else I wouldn't put up with it, and she said that was the point.” And it's not affection but a hard thread of royal defiance that brings the words out. “We sat in the grass, she kissed me, we laughed, I touched her hand. That was all. We were the picture of decorum.”

“How many flowers?” Panaka asks, humor leaking into his voice.

Sabé finally has to smile. “Fourteen,” she murmurs.

She can hear Panaka chuckle, and glances over her shoulder hopefully. His expression is almost pitying now.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she says honestly, turning. Not to face him, not yet, but she leans against a pillar and watches him from the corner of her eye. “Except that night Eirtaé...she was only joking,” she adds quickly. “We always tease. She was smiling. She just said that we were intentionally trying to give her a heart attack, and that we needed to be more careful, because... someone, I don't even remember.” She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “I don't remember who it was. Some politician. He saw us. Eirtaé only mentioned it because she said if one of us was dressed as the Queen it's a lot harder to convince people that we're just two random handmaidens. She said she had to pretend she'd been on duty and the Queen was just whispering something to me, and he must have seen it wrong.”

Panaka sighs. “It never occurred to you that you might get caught?”

Sabé stiffens.

“It never occurred to us,” she says softly, “that we had anything to hide.”

A long pause. That is not what he was expecting to hear.

“I see,” he replies.

Finally, she turns to face him. “We were never hiding,” she says, trying to make him understand. “We didn't... it never...”

He rescues her. “You haven't been open about it, either,” he points out.

“Of course not!” Sabé latches onto the statement like a lifeline. “In public, she's the Queen. She is the symbol of our people, she represents a higher ideal. My job is to fade into the background until I'm needed. To be interchangeable with the others—we're there to complement her. If I became recognizable, different in any way, I could never be a convincing decoy; it would be obvious she had taken my place. She would never show any kind of recognition or—or special treatment when she's acting as Amidala. It was always discretion, Captain Panaka. Not secrecy.”

She thought at first he would say she was speaking nonsense, but he nods. “Protecting her image,” he says, “as opposed to her reputation.”

“There is no law that requires the Monarch to remain unattached,” Sabé says, low and defiant. “And no ruler of Naboo has any need to make a political marriage. There is no dynasty to secure.” There have been royal weddings throughout the years; not many, but some. Almost all were love matches, celebrated and supported by the people. She pauses. “As you said, Captain. The Queen's private life is her own, until it affects her safety or the well-being of her people. Or so we thought.”

Panaka crosses his arms and just looks at her for several long seconds.

“So it's the secrecy that's been getting to you,” he says. “You've never actually tried to hide your connection in public before, have you?”

“I've never had a reason to,” says Sabé.

“Well, you don't have one now, either. It doesn't work, for one thing.” She makes a face as he continues. “Furthermore, it's putting you both in danger. You've always worked together better than any other decoy pair I've seen. This thing between you two's made you more professional, not less, at least until you started trying to pretend you didn't have one of the strongest bonds in the galaxy.”

“Badly,” she acknowledges.

“Like a Hutt to a salt mine. And, come on.” He spares her a quick smile. “You don't think you're the first, do you? That kind of connection? It would be easier to name monarchs who haven't had at least a brief fling with one of their attendants.”

“It's not a fling, Captain,” Sabé warns him, and he inclines his head.

“No, I can see it's not.”

She hesitates, then finally blurts out her real fear. “She's standing for re-election next year,” Sabé says in a rush. “If there's a scandal now...”

Panaka holds up a hand. “I'm stopping you there. You need to read more tabloids, Sabé.”

There is a brief pause as they both silently acknowledge that this is something neither of them ever dreamed they would hear him say, and equally silently agree never to mention it again.

“The point is,” he says hurriedly, “Queen Amidala's popularity is off the charts. She's brought about an era of unprecedented peace, almost single-handedly ended an invasion that would have been the death of millions—she's made Naboo's voice in the Senate worth more than it's ever been before through sheer force of will. Amidala could marry a guarlara and voters would turn the other way, as long as she keeps leading them the way she is. I'm not convinced anyone will even be willing to run against her.”

Sabé starts suddenly as she realizes he's walked up to her at some point during the conversation. He places a hand lightly on her arm.

“You have nothing to be afraid of,” he promises. “I'll talk to Eirtaé about crowd control in the future. It would be easier if she just expressed surprise that anyone needed to ask—act as if it's already common knowledge. The media can't have a field day with old news. Even if they did, you can put good money on them spinning a legendary love story. Not a scandalous affair. Naboo adores her too much.”

Sabé has never, she is quite certain, breathed properly until this moment.

“You're not throwing me out,” she says weakly. And it's stupid, because that was never what she was afraid of, not really—but it would be a lie to say the thought hadn't been there.

Panaka smiles and shakes his head. “I'm not throwing you anywhere, Sabé. You're an invaluable asset, when you're not panicking because you think remembering the Queen exists is going to clue the whole galaxy in to a scandal that doesn't.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles. He rolls his eyes and, just for a short moment of uncharacteristic warmth, pulls her close. She clutches at the worn leather, tucking her head against his chest and frantically blinking tears out of her eyes. He lets her cling to him until she finally stops shaking, then steps back gently and waves a hand, dismissing her.

“Go on,” he says. “Before Her Royal Highness decides I've taken you hostage. And make sure she goes to that range lesson. You're taking her to Chommell Minor tomorrow, she won't get a chance to train for a while.” Sabé flashes a shaky smile that doesn't come near expressing her rush of relief and gratitude. She'd been so certain, so utterly certain for a moment that she was going to lose Padmé after all. She goes to pull her hood up, but before she's gone more than a few steps he stops her again.

“Oh—Sabé.” She turns around. “Just to be sure. This is all willing? You're not under any feelings of... duty, or obligation?”

She's shaking her head before he finishes.

“None, Captain. It's...” There are words she's not entirely ready to say, not yet, not to him. “She's...” She ducks her head, smiling. “How could I not?”

He nods, and waves her off. “That's all I needed to know.”

She pulls her hood up properly, and is careful to keep her head lowered in the halls of the palace until she reaches the Queen's chambers, so no one can see the ear-splitting grin, or the tears.

After all. They have a reputation to maintain.

(Padmé looks up in concern and stands when she enters, and Sabé doesn't pause; the door, opened carelessly wide rather than a demure crack, has not quite closed behind her when she all but crashes into her lady with a hard, desperate kiss. There are small squeaks and startled silence from the other girls; as Sabé said, they have never been secretive or shy in private, but neither has she ever been so forward in front of the young women who are, after all, her coworkers.

This time, just this time, when she is blinded by tears of utter, incoherent relief, she does not care.

Padmé's hands, raised automatically to run gentle fingertips through her hair, guide her back kindly.

“Sabé,” she says, pleased and bewildered as her focus darts between her handmaiden's eyes like one of them holds an explanation. “What's the matter, what's happened?”

And Sabé lets three weeks of tension dissipate in a single, cathartic huff of laughter, ducking her head and looking up at her lady—her Queen, her world—from under her hood.

“I missed you,” she says honestly. Padmé shakes her head, indulgently amused by her bodyguard's antics but certainly not upset by them, and pulls Sabé down onto the couch beside her so Eirtaé can finish with her face paint. Sabé is handed a small pile of clothes by someone, and obediently starts folding them, and the galaxy is in balance once more.)

The girl stands instinctively when Amidala enters the room.

“Your Highness,” she says, nervousness in her voice as she bows her head.

“Cordé.” Padmé hasn't bothered with more than the bare minimum trappings of royalty today; it would be counterproductive. Her face is bare and her gown, while finely made, would not look out of place at any formal civilian function; still, she takes Cordé's hand with the firm confidence of a monarch. Her half-smile softens any coldness she might have projected. “I'm grateful for your service.”

Cordé glances around the room; the smile she offers in return is shaky. “I haven't served you yet, your highness.”

If Padmé didn't know better, she would swear Sabé grinds her teeth.

“Padmé,” she corrects. “Today, I need to be Padmé. This is Sabé. Ignore her, she's sulking.”

“My lady—” Sabé protests. Padmé glances over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow; Sabé glares, but stands down.

“Captain Panaka suggested you for this position,” she says matter-of-factly, gesturing for Cordé to sit down and taking her own seat next to her new handmaiden. “But I want to make it clear that all of my handmaidens who can do so are prepared to act as decoys in a crisis. I won't ask anything of you that you're not comfortable giving, Cordé. I can appoint one of the others as primary decoy.”

Cordé's eyes flick to Sabé, standing cowled in mulberry-lined obsidian at Padmé's shoulder.

“Captain Panaka said you already have a primary decoy,” she says slowly. “I was meant to learn from—you're the decoy.” Padmé manages not to smirk at the girl's moment of false realization. “You're the decoy, and I'm an idiot.”

Even Sabé's scowl fades a little at that. Seeing the break, Padmé exchanges another look with her bodyguard. “Sabé?”

Sabé looks pained. “She really is the Queen,” she assures Cordé.

“But you're right,” Padmé adds. “Sabé has been my primary decoy since my election.” And her advisor, her lover, her best friend—but none of those are positions Cordé is in any danger of replacing. “I want you to learn from her as well.”

“Why?”

Sabé stiffens; Padmé's reaction is more schooled, but her eyebrows still go up. Nothing she'd seen of Cordé before had suggested an arrogant streak.

“Sabé has four years of experience,” she says coolly. “She can tell you what she struggled with, techniques to make sure you don't give yourself away. You're lucky to have access to that, Cordé.”

Cordé is shaking her head before her Queen is even finished.

“I didn't mean that, your highness,” she says quickly, shooting Sabé an apologetic look. “I only meant—why me? You have a primary decoy already—as you said, one you trust with years of experience. I'm sorry, my lady, I don't quite understand. Or are you leaving?”

The last is directed at Sabé, whose response is a flat, dangerous “No.”

“Sabé.”

“Sorry,” she mumbles. Padmé sighs, and takes pity on her. It's not Sabé's fault, any more than Cordé's assumption was unreasonable; there's been juggling of the palace staff, with her second term as Queen beginning. Several of her handmaidens have left, with her blessing; if anything Cordé's guess speaks well of her opinion of Sabé's loyalty. The idea that Amidala's body double might want to leave palace service after four years, and remain behind solely to train her replacement, is hardly outside the realm of possibility.

Sabé...doesn't exactly relax when Padmé pulls her firmly around the end of the sofa and down next to her, but her shoulders go slightly less tense.

Padmé runs her thumb over the back of her lover's hand. This is hard for Sabé—so much harder than risking her own life for her lady's. The idea of stepping back and letting someone else—someone who doesn't know Padmé as well as she does, who couldn't possibly love her the same way, who isn't her—has Sabé almost in a state of panic. She's only agreed to this because not doing it would leave Padmé in danger, and that is the only thing more anathema to Sabé than not protecting her personally.

“We chose you because you look like me,” Padmé explains calmly. Sabé is still radiating stress; she turns the young woman's hand over and rubs gentle, reassuring circles into the palm. “It's not perfect, but we're close enough that with training, you could pass for me in a crisis.” She leans slightly into her rigid double. “Sabé's gotten too tall.”

It's really not fair; the universe is almost cruel to do it. But it's still true. While the difference was only just over an inch it was negligible; when it became a visible height difference it could at first be mitigated with creative hairstyling, but now with Sabé approaching nineteen and easily a four-inch gap between them there is no way to deny that she is nowhere near Padmé's body double anymore.

Cordé seems to pick up instantly on everything her Queen has left unsaid; Panaka always did have excellent judgment when it came to Padmé's handmaidens. The young woman winces sympathetically.

“Bad luck,” she says. “Sorry to come in like this and take your place, Sabé. I never meant to step on any toes.”

Padmé doesn't respond; Sabé needs to do this on her own.

After a moment, her handmaiden sighs and takes her hood down. She shakes her head shortly.

“We're lucky Panaka found you,” she acknowledges, and even offers Cordé a strained smile and a handshake, which is accepted with a look of surprised pleasure. “I worry about her, that's all.”

Cordé makes a face. “I understand. Thank you. For agreeing to help me, I mean.”

Sabé hesitates, but finally nods jerkily, and some of the crackling tension finally leaves the room.

Padmé's gaze flicks between them both, several times, before she nods and pulls out a small holoprojector, which she sets on the nearby table.

“The first step is going to be exactly how Sabé and I began,” she says matter-of-factly. She wishes there was a way to phrase it that would be less likely to hurt Sabé's feelings, but there really isn't. “We're going to establish a baseline to see how you walk, so you can learn your tells. Sabé,” she adds, glancing at the young woman, “I'll need your eye for that.”

“My lady.”

It's hideously unprofessional; but if Cordé is going to learn to be her, there are more important things than propriety at the moment. She indulges herself, leaning over to kiss Sabé's cheek. “You're very familiar with my body language,” she teases. She's rewarded with a bright, sudden blush, and a laugh from Cordé.

“Start at the door,” she instructs, sitting back against the sofa and straightening the holoprojector's camera. “Walk toward the window until you pass the central pillar, then turn and walk back.”

“That's all?” Cordé asks as she gathers her robe and stands. The laugh Sabé gives would be cruel if there was just a little less sympathy in it. Padmé labels it in her mind as benevolently sadistic.

“For now,” she says ambiguously.

Cordé, providing more evidence for Padmé's assessment that she's very smart, groans.

(It is exactly as difficult as Padmé anticipated, slowly molding Cordé into her new decoy. Panaka ends up more satisfied with her imitation than any of the three of them; he explains with exasperation that Cordé has become functionally identical to the Queen, down to an electronic analysis of their voice patterns; Cordé is still of the opinion that she just doesn't have Sabé's intuitive understanding of Amidala's wishes and is worried that in a crisis she won't communicate with her half as well.

Padmé and Sabé agree with her. Actually, so does Panaka. He just doesn't think it's a problem. When he set up the decoy system, he points out, he never expected to end up with a pair half as effective as Amidala's; if he had never found Sabé, and Cordé had been molded into precisely the double she's become, he says, she would have surpassed his wildest expectations.

It does everything for Cordé's confidence, and absolutely nothing for Sabé's wavering sense of purpose.

But at the end of the day, Padmé realizes that once Cordé's intensive training is completed nothing has really changed, except that either Saché or Yané always gets the short stick when it comes to her traveling attendants. She needs to have Cordé nearby, just in case—but Sabé is still closer, still her first and best, still her right hand. It's Sabé she turns to for advice and comfort in equal measure, Sabé who meets her sideways commentary on visiting diplomats halfway; Sabé, as always, whose hair gets in her mouth more nights than not and whose warmth helps her sleep when the world is too heavy on her shoulders.

Eventually, Sabé realizes it too.)

“You asked me to come with you!”

Padmé sighs, folding a towel over her arm. “Dormé,” she calls into the next room, ignoring Sabé's distinctly unimpressed look at her transparent attempt to ignore the issue. “I called to cancel our egg delivery, didn't I?”

“This morning, my lady,” comes the slightly muffled response. There's the sound of a large, overstuffed basket being set down, and Dormé continues, “You marked it on the checklist.”

Right. She knew that. “Thank you, Dormé.”

Sabé crosses her arms.

“You asked me to come with you,” she insists. “You can't go to Coruscant alone, Padmé!”

Dormé sticks her head into the bathroom, eyebrow raised and a basket of laundry balanced on her hip. “Pardon?”

Sabé grimaces, and Dormé gives a half-smile and shakes her head as she moves off.

Padmé keeps folding towels. Sabé, she's certain, will get around to absolutely everything currently on her mind.

After several long moments, Sabé sighs and pushes off the wall. She takes one end of the fitted sheet Padmé is folding, and they pack several of them away in the same fashion before she finally speaks.

“You're my Queen,” she mutters. “I should be with you.”

“Jamillia is your Queen,” Padmé informs her; then, with a faint smile, she looks over her shoulder. “I hope I'm more to you than that?”

Sabé flushes. “Of course you are, I didn't mean... You want me to come, don't you?”

“Oh, Sabé.” Padmé finishes stacking linens and seals the bag; the vacuum droid Sola named 'Later' for some reason (L8-E4, but still) rolls over to hook up its vaccum attachment and flatten the package down. She turns away from the packing for a moment, crossing the room to take Sabé's hands in hers.

“It's not that I don't want you with me,” she says, eyes tracing her lover's face. “I'll always want you with me, Sabé. But you were right to accept Panaka's offer. We both know you need this.” Some time apart, yes—to prove to themselves that they could do it. But more than that, Sabé needs it so she has something in the world that's hers, entirely. Her life has revolved around Padmé since the moment they met. It's not healthy to continue that way forever, not when Sabé's skills are so valuable to others.

“You need me,” Sabé insists. “I'd hardly be the first Senator's wife to...”

She blushes even deeper when Padmé looks up at her, eyebrow raised and pleasant shock written on her face.

“Shut up,” she mutters, and Padmé grins, cupping a hand behind her neck and pulling her down into a kiss.

“I couldn't possibly take you away from Captain Panaka,” she says with a playful smirk when she finally pulls away. “All those new handmaidens to train? He must be frantic.” She pecks Sabé on the cheek and turns back to the daunting task of moving all of her belongings halfway across the galaxy. The Senatorial apartment she's chosen is conveniently small and already furnished, which helps some; and Jamillia's arranged for a not inconsiderable part of her Senatorial wardrobe, which helps a lot. There are benefits to being the most popular monarch in your planet's history. By popular demand Padmé has even retained the right to use royal chrome for her transports. She agreed to that one only because the sleek shimmer is such an icon of Naboo's culture.

“The girls aren't that bad,” Sabé protests. Well, all right, they're not that good, either—but then she doubts she was much better when she was less than six months into the program. And anyway, Jamillia—while a fine woman and a good Queen—doesn't have Amidala's fire.

Padmé looks over at her again, and her voice is tender. “You would never abandon a commitment, Sabé,” she points out.

Damn her.

She's right, but Sabé doesn't have to like it. “You said you wanted to retire,” she grumbles as if she hasn't pointed this out seven times already.

“So you've mentioned. Hold this.” Padmé is frustratingly calm as she presses a plastic container into Sabé's arms and starts placing vacuum-packed sleeves of assorted fabrics into it. Dormé enters the room and just as calmly starts taking them out again, scribbling labels into the flimsiplast with a felt pen.

Padmé winces at the near mistake. “Thank you, Dormé.”

“That's why I'm here, my lady,” Dormé mumbles around the pen cap in her teeth.

“I have a duty to my people,” Padmé continues as if they were never interrupted. “You know as well as I do what's happening in the Senate. Jamillia is the Queen. She's a good ruler, but her influence on the Senate is minimal. She needs to be on Naboo to lead her people. I can make a difference, Sabé. We need voices of reason if we're going to avoid a war. I never planned for this, but...” She looks up, and while her voice is firm there's the barest hint of pleading in her eyes.

“I know, my lady,” Sabé says quietly. “If I'd realized you would end up in the Senate...”

The pleading vanishes, replaced by the stern amusement only Padmé Amidala is capable of. “You would still have joined Royal Security,” she informs her former bodyguard crisply, “because you're needed there. And I'm needed on Coruscant.”

“My lady—”

Padmé silences her with a look. “I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Sabé. I've already arranged for Captain Typho to take charge of my security arrangements, and Senators have a budget set aside specifically for guards and aides. He's vetting them as we speak. Dormé is coming with me, Ellé and Moteé have already agreed to come back—”

“And Versé!” Dormé adds. “She just called. I'm sorry, my lady, I forgot to tell you.”

Padmé smiles at her. “And Versé, then. Cordé's already there, coordinating with Typho. She wants to continue the decoy tradition.” Which her former Queen is not happy about; but it had been Cordé's suggestion, and she doesn't anticipate having much real need for that contingency, anyway.

“My lady,” Sabé repeats, somewhat frantically. “Can I put this down now?”

“What? Oh!” Padmé leaps forward to take one half of the overflowing container and help Sabé lower it to the ground. Vacuum-packing fabrics. Saves on space; less so on weight.

Sabé rolls her shoulders and winces, but lowers her eyes and nods slightly when Padmé meets her gaze.

"Sabé," she says gently. "If I asked you to come with me. Drop everything and follow me to Coruscant to be the dutiful Senator's wife...?"

She looks up with a sad smile. "I wouldn't have fallen in love with you. I know where I need to be,” she says. She pauses, glances away. When she looks back her voice is no less soft, but her eyes could cut steel. “But when Jamillia's term ends, I'll be where I belong. My lady.”

Dormé glances between them drily and pulls out her felt pen again to label the container. Padmé ignores her.

“I'll wait for you,” she says.

(She does.)

All in all, the situation could be better.

Padmé bites her tongue, trying to work her fingers around to get at the wires in her sleeves. There's a sickening rush of pain; someone had broken her wrist with a clinical strike against the handrail when she tried to fight her way free on the first landing. She reminds herself that a blaster bolt to the head, while less painful, is still a more serious worry, and tries to keep the pressure off the broken wrist as she plucks at the inside of her sleeve. She's grateful, briefly, for Captain Typho's paranoia. And Sabé's paranoia. And, well, the paranoia of absolutely everyone who has ever worked for her, honestly. Normal people don't need lockpicking materials sewn into their nightgowns.

There will be no living with any of them after this, assuming her kidnappers don't kill her. She can already hear a chorus of I told you sos.

Holding herself carefully upright as a blaster rifle between her shoulder blades prods her up a flight of stairs, she redoubles her efforts. She has no intention of spending eternity with her entire security staff glaring judgmentally at her presence in the Force. This is embarrassing enough as it is.

There. Finally. She twists the wire around and stumbles as they turn onto a landing. It's harder with her left hand, but she manages. There will be a weak point in the binders right about...

“Nice try, girlie.” And that's the lockpick gone. It pings as one of the kidnappers tosses it back down the stairwell. “Cud, you owe me fifteen credits. Told you she'd try it before we hit the roof.”

One of the others grunts. It sounds vaguely feminine, but that doesn't mean much. “Figured she'd be smarter. Bit of advice, Senator. Plan on picking a lock in the middle of a kidnapping—”

She doubles over as a blaster rifle is rammed into her stomach, barely managing to keep her knees from giving out as she tries desperately to suck air back into her lungs through the thick canvas wrapped around her head.

“—save it until you're not being watched. Pretty piece of work, though, I'll give you that. Soon as we've got you secured properly we might just have to go through your clothes, now, make sure you're not hiding any other little tricks.”

Padmé stiffens before she can stop herself. Whichever of her kidnappers is behind her jabs their rifle into her back again. The female makes a disturbing clicking sound that is probably laughter of some sort.

“Keep quiet and behave yourself, Senator,” she says with a satisfied rattle, “and maybe me and Gunner here'll forget about that part.”

One of the others shoves the back of Padmé's neck, and she stumbles into a wall. A large, hard hand—not human—holds her there as the others fuss with something—the door lock, she thinks. They're high enough in the building by now. “Not likely. She bit me.”

“Focus!”

There's a series of beeps, and a burst of cold air as the door slides open.

“After you, milady.”

Think, Padmé tells herself frantically as she's poked and prodded out onto the roof. The wind whips around her, freezing through the thin nightgown and threatening to push her off her feet. They're on the rounded portion of an observation deck's roof; if she falls, she's not certain she'll be able to catch herself before she slides off it.

She takes a deep breath.

“What are you trying to accomplish by this?” she asks, fighting to keep her voice even and friendly. “If you intend to force concessions from the Senate, it won't work. My kidnapping will only increase sympathy for—”

Somehow, the blow to the gut is even harder this time; she can't keep her knees from buckling, and isn't sure whether or not to be grateful when one of them grabs her by the head-bag to keep her from sliding off the roof. At least it wasn't the elbow; her wrist feels like it's on fire. She'd jerked instinctively on the binders to try to catch herself, and the wave of sharp agony threatens to make her collapse again. Or throw up. Either is a possibility, really.

“We're gagging her, right, boss?”

“Stun her if she causes trouble,” the rough-voiced leader snaps.

As soon as Padmé's lungs fill again, she opens her mouth. Whichever of her kidnappers is holding her by the scalp shakes her viciously before she has a chance to say anything.

“You're wanted alive. No one said anything about what condition you had to be in.”

Wheezing, Padmé tries again. “Whatever strong-arming scheme you've concocted, I will not sacrifice the cause of peace by cooperating with—”

The rifle butt is square in her back this time. Well, she thinks as she blinks stars out of her eyes and tries to remember which way is up. At least they're being creative.

“I don't give a bantha's ass about your cause, sweetheart, and the more you annoy me the less pleasant this trip is gonna be.”

“Shut up,” the leader hisses.

“'s what I'm trying to tell the cargo, boss—”

“You. Stop playing a thug and watch the damn perimeter, this is the dangerous part. Senator, every word that leaves your pretty mouth from now until I'm paid, you start losing fingers. Are we clear?”

Very carefully, Padmé inclines her head.

“Good girl. Move.”

“We shouldn't've shot the other one,” the quieter member of the group mutters. “Amidala's a weakling. The servant could've been leverage.”

Padmé tries not to show how the statement affects her. She's sure Dormé's fine. She has to be. The kidnappers had used a stun gun—she's not naïve enough to think it's a sign of mercy, stun guns are quieter than blasters. But if she hasn't hit her head too hard, Dormé will be fine. She holds onto that.

The leader growls something derisive under her breath at the suggestion of hauling along an unneeded mouth to feed and prisoner to watch, that they wouldn't even be paid for delivering. Padmé breathes deeply as she's inched along the edge of the roof, tries not to give her captors the pleasure of seeing her shiver too violently in the cold, and starts picking at her waistline for another wire.

Too late.

She can't see the speeder as it trundles up next to them. It doesn't sound like anything special; the engine's a little too heavy to be a standard open-top model. Probably a delivery vehicle of some kind. Generic and enclosed.

Rough hands grab her waist to toss her across to the idling speeder, and she bites back a cry as they jostle her wrist even more; but before she even has time to decide whether or not to risk fighting her way free, she hears something over the wind and rumble of the engine.

Something oddly like a set of emergency docking clamps detaching from the underside of an observation deck, and a deep-space cruiser's engines growling to life.

“What the—”

There are exactly two blaster shots and a stun-pistol whir, the sound of a single falling body and two more sliding off the roof, and then Padmé is gripped hard by the shoulders and hauled backwards. But this time, the hands pulling her away from the building's edge are also working at the ties around her hood. Behind her back, there's a fizzling pop and the binders snap open. A rush of relief ripples up her arm as some of the pressure is taken off her broken wrist.

The last of the ties is cut, it feels like, and the dark cloth is pulled off her face and flutters away.

“Evening, Senator.”

“Eirtaé?”

A sudden burst of blaster fire has them all ducking again; Padmé clutches her wrist to her chest as she finally looks at what's going on, and isn't entirely certain what she's seeing.

She'd been right about the speeder; it's a plain brown thing with a plumber droid on the side, and two armed humanoids inside not counting the driver. They're shooting at her, so apparently she's not wanted alive that badly.

They're also being tossed around by a sleek Nabooan cruiser like a Colo claw fish toying with its prey.

Every time the speeder tries to veer to the side, the cruiser banks and blocks its path; every time it tries to accelerate or reverse, the landing thrusters are gunned and the ship rears or dives briefly to knock it back. Rabé—and what in the wide galaxy could possibly have brought Rabé here is anyone's guess, but Padmé is certainly glad to see her again—braces herself, raises a distinctly non-standard-issue blaster rifle glinting with Naboo royal chrome, and squeezes the trigger, once.

The speeder veers wildly as the driver collapses, and the cruiser banks sharply to the left to catch the battered vehicle on its right wing. There's another, desperate series of blaster shots. They all go wide, and are answered by several more from inside the cruiser. Judging by the cry of pain, those shots hit home.

Finally, at the roof access door, there's shouting and banging. It doesn't open; the kidnappers, for all they'd behaved rather like amateurs in the business, must have had the foresight to seal it.

Eirtaé raises a hand to her ear and keeps the other firmly on Padmé's shoulder, keeping her in a crouch. “She's safe. Let us back on the ship before we find out whether they brought snipers.”

If there's a reply, Padmé can't hear it; but the cruiser acknowledges her statement with a slow, lazy midair roll. There's muffled swearing from inside the speeder as the shooters realize they can't stabilize the vehicle from the cargo area. The speeder stays tucked against the top of the cruiser's right wing, held there by centripetal force as the larger ship spins, and slides helplessly back along the smooth surface as the cruiser rights itself.

Unfortunately for them, the cruiser's roll has taken it a little too close to the building for its wing to clear the overhang. It doesn't bother slowing down before impact.

CRUNCH.

No more speeder.

Padmé spares a thought to hope that the falling debris doesn't hit anyone on its way down as her former handmaidens nudge her urgently onto the ship's wing. An emergency hatch, still open from someone shooting out of it—Ellé, she realizes as the young woman pulls the hatch aside for them—seals itself as soon as they're across the threshold. Rabé crosses the main gathering space to grip a handhold next to the opposite emergency hatch as Eirtaé presses the intercom button.

“We're in,” she says shortly. The engines snarl in response, and Padmé stumbles as the ship leaps forward.

“How did...what?”

Eirtaé smiles, though it still looks strained. “Did I mention I'm a royal adviser now?”

“What?”

She shrugs modestly. “I'm thinking of running for Governor of Theed, but obviously that's tabled until the next election. I like Jamillia and I missed the palace. By the way, the Queen's visiting Coruscant. We didn't say anything in case she was attacked.”

“Why am I always the last to know about these things?” Padmé mutters, pulling a shawl from where it's been discarded over the back of a chair and folding it into a makeshift sling. Eirtaé winces, and reaches out to help her secure it. Rabé tosses her a patch from the other side of the room, and Eirtaé smooths it over the back of her hand—a local anaesthetic that takes the edge off. “Thank you. How did you even know to come for me?”

“Hello,” Rabé says with a cheerful wave from across the room. “Naboo Royal Intelligence. I think we've met, Senator.”

Padmé shakes her head with a smile. “You do seem vaguely familiar,” she allows. “Maybe we've run into each other once or twice.” Then it hits her. “Wait a minute. You knew?”

Eirtaé sighs. “I told her you wouldn't like it.”

“Sabé almost killed me,” Rabé admits. “You were never in much danger, my lady,” she adds, and Padmé is reassured by the genuine worry in her eyes. She wouldn't want her girls to go cold; she worries about Rabé, sometimes, worries that she'll lose the gentleness and patience that were always as much her hallmark as her marksmanship. “It was the girls we were worried about. Versé was off-duty and we pulled Moteé and Cordé out to a meeting with Typho—”

Padmé turns on her. “And I assume you didn't warn him about this, either?”

“He's a terrible actor, Padmé. The leader of this group—I mean, Cad Bane she is not. But they were only sloppy because she's never done a job like this before, which means whoever wants you is a cheapskate who wouldn't pay an actual bounty hunter's fee. Normally her people are smugglers, black-market weapons and drug dealers. We were lucky to get a shot at them, but she's incredibly paranoid. We might not have gotten another chance if she spooked. And, um.” She coughs. “We only found out two days ago.”

“Don't ever do that to me again,” Padmé says harshly. “I had a right to know—they might not have bothered using a stun pistol on Dormé! Did you even think of that?”

“Yes,” Rabé says quietly. “I'm not a monster, Senator.”

Eirtaé clears her throat. “Someone had to be there,” she says, “or they would have suspected a trap. We all knew the risks when we joined you. If she had been a civilian, Rabé wouldn't have put her in danger.”

Rabé nods sharply. After a long moment, Padmé sighs and inclines her head.

“Of course,” she says. “I know you wouldn't have.”

Rabé relaxes, and goes back to looking out the viewport as Padmé excuses herself with a brief squeeze to Ellé's shoulder and ducks onto the bridge. She slips into the copilot's chair without looking over at the pilot.

There's a pause.

“Let me guess,” she says with a smile, relaxing finally into the comfortable seat. “None of this would have happened if you'd been here.”

“You never got kidnapped when I was guarding you,” Sabé agrees. “Hello, Senator.”

“Hello, Sabé. Trade Federation?” Padmé points out.

“Doesn't count.” Padmé finally looks over to find Sabé watching her, smiling faintly and looking unspeakably relieved that she's safe and in one piece. “I was with you the whole time.”

“Really? So you'll stop bringing up being left alone on Tatooine...?”

“When the stars burn out. You still owe me for that.”

Padmé shakes her head and leans over to kiss her. “I'm sure I can find a way to make it up to you.”

Sabé hums, her eyes drifting closed as she leans into her lady. Gentle fingers wrap around the back of Padmé's neck, pulling her closer.

There's a high-pitched, screaming horn from very close by, and they spring apart as Sabé yanks the ship back into their own skylane.

“Sorry,” she calls weakly over her shoulder.

The intercom crackles.

“Sabé,” Eirtaé says, extremely polite. “This ship isn't actually transport-lane legal.”

“And whatever you just did,” says Ellé. “Please stop.”

“Or at least get a room,” Eirtaé adds with an audible smirk.

Sabé glares at the intercom, but can't keep it up for long because the cruiser is beginning to pull heavily to the right.

“We don't have clearance to go to cruising height,” she informs them both. “I'm trying to stay between lanes.”

Padmé clears her throat and switches primary control to the copilot side.

“Heavy cargo lanes,” she says, nudging the ship downward. It swerves violently to the right, and Sabé clutches her own inert controls until Padmé has wrestled the ship back into line. It's harder than it looks with only one hand. “Where are we going?”

“Senate building,” Sabé says, fingers brushing the blaster strapped to her thigh. It's a comfort thing. “The long way.”

“You're cutting it a bit close,” Ellé observes over the intercom. “I think you just knocked over a lightpost.”

“I'm doing my best,” Padmé bites out, fighting with her ship. “Something's wrong with the starboard stabilizers.”

“Really?” Eirtaé sounds innocently cheerful, which is always a danger sign. “I wonder how that happened.”

“I asked you to drive!”

“Girls,” Padmé sighs.

Just like old times.

She bullies the beautiful cruiser down into the heavy shipping lanes and eases up on the throttle. The ship chokes and jerks like a podracer; Sabé cringes, but it's the best Padmé can do. A Naboo cruiser isn't designed for this kind of slow, within-atmosphere traffic. It wobbles worryingly, but at least at lower speeds they're less likely to crash her ship into a building.

…Actually.

“Sabé,” she says slowly. “This isn't my ship.”

“No,” Sabé agrees, fiddling with her controls. “Please give it back. What happened to your wrist?”

“Whose ship is this?”

“That looks broken, what did they do to you?”

“Is this a royal cruiser?”

“My lady?”

“Did you steal a royal cruiser?”

Sabé looks offended. “Of course not.”

Padmé risks turning to glare at her.

Sabé bats her eyelashes. “I borrowed it, Senator. Queen Jamillia sends her regards.”

Padmé shakes her head and laughs. Conceding the point, she flicks primary controls back over to Sabé and leans back in her chair, curling up and turning to face her. “What are you even doing here, Sabé? You're supposed to be on Naboo!”

Sabé hastily snatches at her controls, steadying the ship's sudden careening to starboard. “I need a reason?”

Padmé's eyes soften. “Of course not,” she says softly. “It's wonderful to see you.”

The starboard stabilizer blinks out again, and Sabé throws herself on the controls to drag the cruiser back in line.

“Why didn't you tell me you were coming?” Padmé continues as if they hadn't been interrupted.

Sabé glances up hopefully, almost shy still. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well,” Padmé allows. “It worked.”

Sabé winces. “Don't. Don't joke about that. I still have nightmares sometimes.”

Padmé reaches out to her, squeezing her lover's hand tightly.

“You know you can always stay with me,” she says. She notices the flickering of the broken stabilizer's indicator light, switches control back to her side, and jerks on the controls just in time for the ship to shake but not veer off-course. Sabé looks traumatized, so Padmé calmly gives the ship back to her. She's getting the hang of this. “I don't want to pull you away from your work, Sabé, but if you ever change your mind...”

“I know.” Sabé squeezes her hand gratefully. “I will, someday.”

Padmé brings Sabé's fingers to her lips. “I miss you terribly,” she whispers against her knuckles. “But with the Separatists gaining so much ground so quickly I don't know when I'll be able to risk coming home for more than a few days.” She sighs. “Or at all.”

Sabé reaches out; her fingers in Padmé's hair are cool and gentle. “The Queen's staying the week,” she murmurs. “She wishes it could be longer, for our sake, but with the festival coming up...”

“Of course.” Padmé smiles softly, drinking in the sight of her. After almost a year apart, mired in bureaucracy and longing for the clean air and shimmering trees of Naboo... Holocalls are a godsend, but they're not enough. It's as if she hadn't noticed she was in pain until it vanished with her lover's smile. “Oh, Sabé, I've missed you.”

Sabé has always been serious; but her smiles are all the more genuine for it, and the unashamed joy and love in her eyes warms Padmé to the core as they take their quiet moment while they can, basking in one another.

There's a horrific shrieking sound and a deep, frantic foghorn as their starboard wing scrapes along a large garbage scow. Sabé jumps and wrestles them back into line.

“Who's driving this thing?” Eirtaé demands over the intercom.

“Amidala,” they reply in unison. They glance at each other, and then they can't help it. After so long apart, and the stress of the past half hour, they dissolve into helpless laughter, giggling like schoolgirls.

“I think we've circled wide enough,” Sabé grins when they can breathe again and have managed not to crash into anyone else. “I'm still waiting on traffic control.” Padmé pats her hand sympathetically. Coruscant is nothing but a constant, unending traffic nightmare. Sabé taps the throttle; the ship jumps forward with a sound like a Gungan being chopped across the windpipe and they nearly fly straight into the massive exhaust pipes of the industrial liner ahead of them. The second time goes more smoothly, and Sabé swings them out of the shipping lane and in a wide rising arc to rejoin the transport lanes.

Keeping one hand on the controls to compensate for what is now a constant, powerful drag to the right, Sabé flicks their comm channel open and keys in the local traffic-control code. There's a few seconds of aggressively cheerful electronic music, and then the hail is answered by a traffic droid that somehow manages to sound bored.

“Tʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ғᴏʀ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟᴏᴄᴀʟ...ᴛʀᴀғғɪᴄ...ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ...sᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ. Hᴏᴡ ᴍᴀʏ I ʙᴇ ᴏғ ᴀssɪsᴛᴀɴᴄᴇ.”

Sabé glares at the speaker, and Padmé clears her throat as they start drifting toward a skyscraper that she absolutely cannot afford to replace.

“Naboo royal starship Jamillia requesting clearance to ascend to cruising altitude,” Sabé says crisply.

There's a mechanical hum. “Mᴍᴍ... Dᴏᴇs ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴜᴛᴇ. Cʟᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴅᴇɴɪᴇᴅ. Hᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴀɴᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴɪɴɢ.”

“Naboo royal starship Jamillia,” Sabé repeats, with a slightly manic look at all of the incredibly breakable civilians and glass surrounding them as the cruiser bucks under her hands. “Escorting Senator Amidala, emergency clearance requested to ascend to cruising altitude immediately.”

There's another, even less convinced hum.

“Nᴀʙᴏᴏ ʀᴏʏᴀʟ sᴛᴀʀsʜɪᴘ. Cʟᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴘᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ. Pʟᴇᴀsᴇ ʜᴏʟᴅ.”

Sabé groans and closes her eyes. This, as it turns out, is a terrible idea, but the delivery speeder swerves out of the way at the last second.

“You're going to get us arrested,” Padmé sighs in exasperation. “Just let me drive.”

Sabé glances at her wrist, raises an eyebrow, and revs the engines experimentally. Somehow, this actually makes the ship more stable for a few seconds. Padmé pouts, sits back grumpily in her seat and tries to convince herself she isn't pouting as the pain in her wrist flares and becomes even harder to ignore.

The door slides open with a faint swish, and Ellé knocks lightly on the frame. She looks remarkably put-together, all things considered.

“We're receiving a transmission, my lady. I think Typho's figured out where you are.”

“Thank you, Ellé, one moment.” Padmé sighs, standing carefully as the cruiser lists to the left. She braces herself on the back of Sabé's chair and leans down to kiss her cheek. “You're doing fine,” she murmurs. “I'll be back once I've convinced them I'm in one piece.”

Sabé looks like she wants nothing more to return the kiss, but restrains herself to nodding tersely, staring lasers at the skylane in front of them. There's a family speeder with two children in the back just off their port bow that's making her visibly sweat. Padmé winces, pats her shoulder, and makes her way out to the main gathering area.

“No,” Eirtaé is in the middle of saying, holding her hands up placatingly. “There is absolutely no indication that we were followed—”

“Senator!”

Padmé manages not to cringe as she steps up to the console and nudges Eirtaé out of her chair. Her former handmaiden seems only too willing to step out of the line of fire.

“Good evening, Captain Typho,” she says calmly. “I can assure you, everything is under control.”

“What happened to your arm, Senator?”

Padmé coughs and adjusts the makeshift sling. The pain in her wrist is a constant, sharp throbbing now, even with the temporary relief from the patch; but given how the night could have ended she's perfectly willing to put up with it. “It's only the wrist, Captain. Is Dormé all right?”

Typho stares at her before giving an exasperated sigh. “She's fine. A little dizzy, but she'll be good as new in a few minutes. Where are you? What happened?”

“A botched kidnapping attempt,” Padmé says evenly. “I have every confidence in our ability to locate the instigators.”

“We left them a gift on the roof,” Rabé points out from her viewport.

Typho almost smiles at that. “We found her. She's in Republic custody; we'll find out who sent them. Thanks for that.”

“Any time.”

Padmé clears her throat. “Has the Queen been informed of the threat?”

Typho nods sharply. “Her Highness has her own security, my lady.” Padmé glances toward the cockpit and decides not to mention that she's accidentally stolen one of the Royal Security Force's senior coordinators. “There's nothing to indicate yet that this was an attack on Naboo, but my uncle assures me they'll take necessary precautions.”

Somewhere, Padmé thinks, Jamillia's first handmaiden is going to have a very long night.

She inclines her head. “In answer to your first question, I'm afraid the Lady Sabé will be returning Her Highness' cruiser in slightly less than mint condition,” she says, unable to quite keep the smile off her face. As if on cue, there's a disturbing shudder and the ship drops sharply enough to make Eirtaé clutch at a guiderail as the others stumble.

“Everything's fine,” Sabé says over the intercom, a little too quickly.

“We need to get you to a secure location,” says Typho, looking concerned. “Where are you?”

Padmé is about to answer him, until Rabé clears her throat loudly across the room.

“En route to a secure location, Captain,” she says instead. “I think we can agree it's best to say no more over an open channel.” Typho sighs, but doesn't argue the point.

“I'd be more concerned if you didn't have Sabé there,” he admits. “I trust her judgment where you're involved. Contact me as soon as you're safe, Senator.”

“What are we, bantha fodder?” Ellé mutters. Eirtaé tsks at her language but doesn't argue the point.

Padmé ignores them in favor of smiling at Typho. “Of course, Captain. I apologize for the excitement. Try to find out who's behind this.”

Suddenly, Moteé appears behind him in the holo. “Nute Gunray, you mean,” she says.

Padmé frowns and leans forward at the same moment Typho turns to look at her.

“Why do you say that?” he demands, and Moteé looks askance at him.

“It was an out-of-the-blue attack by a group of incompetents with no apparent motive who wanted her alive but not necessarily unharmed, and openly had no intention to use her as leverage with the Senate,” she points out. “Has it ever not been Nute Gunray? He's obsessed.”

“She has a point,” Ellé admits.

“It's a bit sad,” agrees Rabé. “It's been almost ten years, you'd think he would move on. It's not healthy at all.”

Padmé privately thinks they're right; Nute Gunray's revenge fantasies have been an irritating but largely insignificant part of her life since her re-election. Unfortunately, they cannot accuse him without proof, and she tells them so.

“Proof will be hard to find,” Typho says. “But we'll do everything we can.” He frowns. “I don't like just assuming it's someone as harmless as Viceroy Gunray, Senator.”

“Neither do I,” she admits. “It fits him, but I have more dangerous enemies, and next time they may not care if I'm alive or not. I trust you'll look into it, Captain.”

Typho bows. “I intend to investigate this fully rather than risk missing anything. Keep yourself alive until then. Ellé, you know what to do.”

“Now he remembers I'm here. She's safe with us, Captain,” Ellé calls.

He inclines his head. “I have no doubt. I'll speak to you soon, Senator Amidala. Typho out.”

The holo blinks off.

“He's going to kill me,” Ellé decides.

Padmé sighs. “He has every right to be worried.”

“Besides,” Rabé points out. “I'm the one who's going to have to fill out a system's worth of forms explaining why I used a Senator as bait.”

Eirtaé pats Ellé's arm. “It could be worse,” she points out. “You really are technically employed as a personal assistant. Typho can't set us all out on a predawn training run to teach us a lesson.”

Ellé grins. “Say hi to Captain Panaka for me when you get back? Tell him I miss him.”

“Ten credits says Sabé's worse than he is,” says Rabé. The ship shakes like it's trying to get water out of its circuits; by this point they're so jaded they barely notice. Padmé is fairly certain she has a point. Jamillia's poor attendants, under the yoke of Panaka and a former handmaiden.

“It's an even split,” Eirtaé admits. “At least from what I've seen. I'm not actually here very often.” She doesn't turn away from Rabé, but Padmé can feel her friend's gaze flick over to her for a split second. She can also feel her smirking. “The uniform suits her.”

Ellé snickers, and Padmé shoots her a look. The Royal Security uniform does suit Sabé. Very well, actually. She's noticed that just fine on her own.

She clears her throat and stands.

“I'm going to see where we are,” she informs them coolly, and Eirtaé laughs.

“Try not to distract her too much, my lady,” she says, and Padmé shakes her head. There's warmth in Eirtaé's voice; she's a good friend. Padmé is grateful to have her here, as the realization of just how close she had come to disappearing sinks in.

“I can't make any promises,” she shoots back, and slips into the cockpit again.

Sabé acknowledges her with a white-knuckled jerk of the head.

“Still no word from traffic control?” Padmé says sympathetically.

Sabé makes a strangled sound and fiddles with something on the control panel. There's no visible change, but someone screams from the hall outside.

Sabé hastily flips the sprinkler system back off.

Padmé settles back into the copilot's seat and is relieved to recognize the area. “Dormé's safe,” she says, and Sabé is able to flash her a brief smile. Then, “Swing right up here, the approach from the southeast is easier.”

“Turning right, I can do,” Sabé says gratefully, and lets go of the controls. The cruiser banks sharply; its wide, arcing turn is almost graceful until Sabé tries to level off slowly and the ship utterly fails to respond. An antenna snaps off a balcony and clatters across the windscreen as Sabé braces herself and hauls the cruiser to port. There's a terrifying beat in which nothing happens, and then something explodes on the right wing and the ship tumbles violently out of its spiral.

The intercom crackles, and Sabé whispers something in Huttese that Padmé hasn't heard since half the crowd at Anakin's podrace lost all their money betting against him.

“The good news is...” It's Eirtaé again. “The starboard stabilizer is no longer broken.”

“And the bad news?” Padmé asks as the Senate building finally comes into view in the distance.

Eirtaé's conversational tone never falters. She could be discussing the weather.

“The starboard stabilizer is on fire.”

The sad thing, Padmé thinks, is that this is actually a distinct improvement. It's possible to keep a ship under control with only one stabilizer, provided you keep to a careful cruising velocity and don't attempt any maneuvering more complicated than a gentle bank. Losing a stabilizer completely is actually much less dangerous than trying to fly with a faulty one that keeps blinking out, switching on again, and giving off confused signals at random.

On the other hand, the starboard stabilizer is on fire.

At least there's less traffic to worry about. For some reason the presence of a large, out-of-control deep-space cruiser spewing smoke and flames through the skies of Coruscant has made the other speeders decide to keep their distance.

The Senate building looms larger and larger in the windscreen. Worryingly fast, actually.

“Sabé,” Padmé says. “You're coming in too hot.”

“Is that a pun?” Sabé demands incredulously.

“You're going to miss the landing platform,” Padmé insists. Sabé shakes her head as she eases back on the throttle—too slowly for Padmé's tastes, they're still almost at flight speed.

“Not that landing platform,” she says quietly. Padmé doesn't have a chance to ask what she means before they've overshot her usual parking place and are making a cautious, sweeping arc up along the building. Sabé keeps drawing their speed down, ever so slowly; the ship hiccups a few times and there's still a fire warning flashing on the dashboard, but it doesn't lurch sideways into a wall, which is a vast improvement.

They finally shudder to a shockingly gentle landing on what Padmé realizes is the Chancellor's private platform. She's pleasantly surprised to see him standing at the doors, waiting for them with a small flock of fire-suppression droids that descend on the ship the moment it stops moving. Her friendship with Palpatine has suffered greatly since she became a Senator; it's reassuring to see that it hasn't been irreparably damaged. The concern on his face as he hurries toward the ship the moment it's settled looks unfeigned.

The communications array crackles lazily.

Rᴏʏᴀʟ sᴛᴀʀsʜɪᴘ Jᴀᴍɪʟʟɪᴀ, it says. Sabé stares at it incredulously. Cʟᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ ɢʀᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴀsᴄᴇɴᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴄʀᴜɪsɪɴɢ ᴀʟᴛɪᴛᴜᴅᴇ. Hᴀᴠᴇ. A ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴀɴᴛ. Eᴠᴇɴɪɴɢ. The transmission ends.

Sabé's expression suggests she is giving serious consideration to shooting the speaker.

“Roger roger,” she eventually mocks, and cuts the engines.

The last time Padmé remembers seeing her look this relieved, they were a few levels down and to the left from almost this exact location having escaped the Trade Federation by the skin of their teeth. She stands and helps Padmé out of her seat, and Padmé is tactful enough not to comment on the fact that her fingers are still half-clenched like she's gripping cruiser controls.

“You know,” she says lightly, brushing the fingers of her good hand down the leather of Sabé's uniform. “I'm impressed. You haven't said 'I told you so' once.”

Sabé visibly forces back a laugh at her Senator's impish smile. “You'll invest in that electronic security grid now, I think.”

Padmé shakes her head with an indulgent grin. “We'll have it installed before you leave,” she promises, and leans up to, finally, give her wayward lover a proper kiss. It's like coming home. It is coming home.

Sabé's fingers at the back of her head hold her close when they finally break apart.

“I'm just glad you're safe,” she whispers.

Padmé's smile softens.

“Thanks to you,” she murmurs, and kisses her again. “I love you, you know.” Sabé mumbles an affirmative and nuzzles into her temple. And...oh. Oh, it's been too long without her.

“You know what Panaka would say,” she says breathlessly, pressing a light kiss to Sabé's jaw, which is all she can reach with her lover's face buried in her hair.

Sabé pauses and pulls back, frowning.

“Being around you... distracts me from my duties?” she asks. She looks perplexed and more than a little irritated at the inexplicable ruining of the mood.

Padmé chokes a bit. “No,” she assures her quickly. “No, no. I meant...following such an obvious threat...” She runs her fingers down Sabé's chest again. “It would be irresponsible for me to sleep alone. I should really double with someone for my own safety.”

The corner of Sabé's mouth turns up as her eyes darken. She shifts closer. “Is that an order, Senator?” she asks, her voice low and inviting as she rests her hands on Padmé's sides, warm through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

“I can make it one, if you want,” Padmé whispers. Her eyes drift close as she tilts her head up.

Unfortunately, Sabé's hand happens to brush hers at that moment, and sends a bolt of pain along her injured arm.

“Ah—!”

Sabé's desire takes a sharp turn back toward earnest worry, and she jerks back. “We need to get you a medical droid,” she decides. “Since I know you won't go to the hospital.”

“You don't know that,” Padmé argues petulantly as Sabé guides her off the ship. Her former decoy rolls her eyes and doesn't bother dignifying it with a response.

“Blast it,” Ellé observes from where she's wringing out her sleeves at the bottom of the gangplank. “I thought you'd be at least five more minutes.”

“Pay up,” Rabé mutters.

“Later.”

“Ah!” Whether Palpatine didn't hear her handmaidens' continuing habit of inappropriate betting on their mistress' personal life or is choosing to ignore it, Padmé isn't certain. He offers her a hand as she steps onto the landing platform, but Sabé's elbow is already exactly where she needs it. “Senator Amidala. I'm so relieved to see you safe, my dear.”

“Thank you, Chancellor.” Ow. Either her makeshift sling is shifting, or the adrenaline and anesthetic have well and truly worn off. Still, she offers him a tight smile. For all their differing politics, Palpatine is a good man. “It was kind of you to let us land here.”

“Not at all, my dear, think nothing of it. And, forgive me—Lady Sabé, it's always such a pleasure to see you as well. I wasn't aware Queen Jamillia was visiting until this morning.”

Sabé inclines her head politely. “We apologize for any inconvenience, Chancellor. Naboo has learned not to be careless with her Queen.”

Palpatine sighs, sympathetic. “And too hard-learned a lesson it was. But my dear girl you're injured, come inside, I'll have a medical droid brought up at once...”

Padmé reluctantly lets go of Sabé's arm at the door. She'd been hoping for an early night. But before she does anything else she needs to contact Typho and let him know they arrived safely; and she wants to speak to Dormé as soon as possible to be absolutely certain she's safe, and the medical droid will probably insist she at least schedule a proper examination—droids are much less difficult to brush off about that kind of thing than organic doctors. And Typho and countless others will want to ask her about the kidnappers, and she wants to interrogate the surviving leader herself...

And unfortunately, Sabé needs to get back to her Queen. They both know it.

But very briefly, just before Padmé squares her shoulders and moves off to deal with all of this, Sabé presses fingers to the inside of her good arm.

No, she signals with a dry look, then me, and then overreacting.

Padmé sighs.