Summary: "Why am I even here?" They're topic-hopping again. Spoilers for 'Pursuit of Peace'.
Pairings: None
Author's Note: Padmé's recklessness astounds me. And poor, poor Mina, and poor, poor Lux.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

"Let me get this straight." Even lying prostrate on the low chaise lounge in Padmé's bedroom, Sabé still has the power to be imposing, eyes sparking with poorly controlled fury in the dim lamp light—it's night and Padmé has pulled the blinds closed over her window. "You went out into one of the most dangerous sectors of nearby Coruscant, with only an injured senator and an unarmed guard for security, and you left the guard to watch the transport?" The last few words are spoken in an angry breath of air and almost sound like a rhetorical question.

Padmé nods, pulling the last of the pins out of her hair. "That's right."

At this, she can practically hear Sabé's blood pressure rising. The handmaiden's voice drips sarcasm and incredulity as she goes on. "And once you were done speaking with Senator Christo, instead of immediately returning to your apartment with Senator Farr and our hapless Hogan Tinmar—" the guard who had driven Padmé and Onaconda Farr "—you decided…" she shudders, her voice beginning to rise "…to walk back through, let me emphasize this, one of the most dangerous sectors in the vicinity?"

The Nabooan Senator smiles, though she can feel the last of her confidence draining out of her. "I needed the fresh air, Sabé."

And this is the point where Sabé loses her temper entirely. "You…You… needed the fresh air?" Instead of shouting like others would she simply sounds like she's on the verge of suffering a nervous collapse, low, slightly raspy voice fluctuating and cracking on every syllable. "First of all, Senator, there is no fresh air anywhere on Coruscant! Don't even try to delude yourself into thinking that there is—it's a polluted, smog-filled quagmire, not a mountain meadow!

"Secondly, how could you be so careless? After what happened to Senator Farr I know you knew someone would try to attack you! And look what happened? My guess is that your insanely good luck is the only reason you weren't killed, let alone arrested for reckless driving!"

Padmé restrains a horrified giggle at the thought of that, then sobers as her hand strays to the small sore patch on her cheek. She had deliberately kept from brushing makeup on over it so the other Senators could see that she would not be cowed by any sort of attempt on her life. Still, the phantom memory of cold metal being pressed to her throat is such that Padmé knows she likely won't sleep soundly tonight.

And now, she realizes, that Sabé won't be sleeping soundly for a long time, after what's happened. Not that she ever slept soundly to begin with.

With a small cry of pain Sabé falls back into the embrace of the chaise lounge and casts weary eyes up at her mistress. "Why didn't you take me or Captain Typho with you?" Her voice is heavy and tired and somehow this is what makes Padmé start to feel guilt, more than anything else.

"Because you were still at the hospital and Captain Typho had gone to pick you up?" she supplies weakly, attempting a smile and falling flat.

In retrospect, Padmé knows she should have been starting to get worried at what happened to Sabé, rather than just starting to get an inkling of the danger posed to her when Onaconda Farr approached her with his arm in a sling.

Five days ago, while walking home from delivering papers to Senator Farr, Sabé was accosted and attacked by two strangers—the same bounty hunters, Padmé is sure, who tried to kill her. She managed to fight them off and attract that attention of a Senatorial guard, but not before being stabbed in the belly—a blow that cost Sabé a great deal of blood but thankfully missed any vital organs. Captain Typho has been watching them both like a hawk since Padmé returned from the Senate.

"All because I look like you, my Lady," Sabé returns sardonically, and Padmé winces because it's true.

In the shadows, though Sabé can no longer act as Padmé's decoy the resemblance is strong enough that two bounty hunters were willing to take it on faith that the woman they attacked was the Senator from Naboo. However, to Padmé the differences that have arisen in their appearances are all too jarring. Sabé now has almost for inches of height on Padmé. Appropriately, her face is longer, thinner, and far, far paler, its lines sharper and huge dark eyes set far back in her face. They still could pass as sisters, but not as twins and the mirror has become stretched and warped and is now imperfect.

Sabé's sharp, incisive tones draw Padmé back to the present. "Why didn't you take one of us with you?" she demands again.

Padmé avoids Sabé's piercing eyes uncomfortably, and ultimately opts for the truth—what Padmé has discovered the hard way is that one lie, any lie, eventually becomes a web of lies that she'll get tangled in. "I didn't think I needed anyone with me."

The look Sabé throws her makes Padmé regret her words instantly. Sabé's face becomes a pale mask of indignation, plainly wounded and closer to tears, purely out of frustration, than Padmé has ever seen her. "Then why are any of us here? Why am I here? I'm here, my Lady, to protect you but you seem to have forgotten that. You're not supposed to go running off into stupid situations at all, but especially not alone." Padmé turns her back on her and Sabé's voice heightens in agitated desperation. "Please, my Lady." Frustration again flavors her words. "Let me do my job!"

They fall back to silence and Padmé falls to the task of combing out her hair, working around her tangles as she sits on the edge of her luxuriant bed. Sabé says no more on the subject, remembering propriety and plainly horrified by how far she went in her words. Normally, Padmé would have cut her off and rebuked her long before Sabé stopped herself (gross disrespect isn't something Padmé tolerates gladly in her servants), but tonight, seeing how visibly overwrought Sabé has become and Padmé's own guilt over her wound stays her own tongue. It's not worth the shouts that will inevitably come.

Dark eyes stare tremulously at her from the chaise lounge. "Your speech was…well-done. I was watching it from a view screen. Teckla seemed pleased." Sabé now seems almost apologetic—no, intensely apologetic—, all the air out of her and, without that, she seems so much smaller. Long, pale fingers twitch uncomfortably at blue silk sleeves—the enveloping robes are loose so as not to lie uncomfortably over Sabé's bandaged torso. She flicks a long, loose tendril of wild dark hair from her cheek.

Changing the subject is a tool they've always used when the uncomfortable tension grows so thick that a vibroblade or even a lightsaber could not hew it. Somehow, it's always Sabé who initiates a new topic of discussion with a slightly high-pitched voice, despite being reserved and taciturn and a notoriously poor conversationalist. Padmé is, as ever, grateful for the opportunity to defuse the tension.

Padmé nods absently, the thought of Teckla's clear, pale sapphire eyes shining from the shadows of the alcove still fresh in her mind. Teckla was highly…convenient, Padmé has to admit. Had she not given Padmé that idea, she's sure she would have been unable to sway the Senate. She could have presented her speech without Teckla, but it wouldn't have carried nearly as much weight without her standing there. And Sabé, Padmé is sure, appreciated it too—the province she grew up in is even poorer than Teckla's. Despite being a member of the ruling family, Sabé grew up just as hungry as any peasant in Arturia.

Teckla was useful, something Padmé is thankful for. Useful as a symbol for all the ones that have no say, as a tool for Padmé to use and exploit, flaunt in the faces of all those who would oppose her. If they had opposed her, they would have unavoidably been brought to bear with the widespread opinion that they have grown hard-hearted and uncaring, and ultimately probably been expelled from office.

To think… All that because of one insignificant little Nabooan peasant girl.

Padmé frowns, looking around, expecting to see blue eyes out of the darkness—so much like Eirtaé's but without any of Eirtaé's ice or cynicism—or a moving shadow. "Where is Teckla, anyway?"

Sabé wears a frown to match Padmé's own. "She went home, remember?" she reminds her mistress in a soft voice. "It was her last night."

I'm growing forgetful… "I thought she still had another week."

The handmaiden shakes her head. "No, this was the last night."

Padmé smiles slightly as she lays her brush down on her vanity and undoes the buttons at the back of her gown—Sabé attempts to rise to help her but Padmé shakes her head and waves a hand in the air. There's no need. "The impression I get, Sabé, is that you have found our Teckla Minnau to be just a little annoying." The playful tone doesn't do much to lighten the somber mood that has inexplicably deepened since Sabé switched the subject to speeches and politics.

The older woman closes one eye speculatively and swishes a hand through the air. "Naïveté in anyone tends to grate on my nerves, and Teckla is very, very naïve. But she has been very helpful since Dormé left."

Padmé can imagine, thinking of that young, enthusiastic face. Eager to please, almost too eager, like a puppy hopping at her heels.

"However, all things end." Sabé's tone is dry and detached, ironic as she frames the words. "And I think I may finally be able to reach an arrangement with the government to transfer two more handmaidens to Coruscant to serve in your retinue. The bureaucrats are finally starting to see it my way," Sabé mutters and Padmé smiles again, thinking on Sabé's legendary disdain for bureaucrats.

And as quickly as the smiles appears it evaporates. Sitting now at her vanity, Padmé blinks and stares long into her reflection in the mirror. What she sees there is a face still painted with lipstick and mascara and eye shadow, incongruous with the jarring lack of make up across her cheeks. Even without blush to redden her cheeks she still resembles a little painted porcelain doll. Pristine and lovely and perfect and hard, unbending, and lifeless. This is what others see when they look upon her. With a rag and a basin of water, Padmé starts to wipe it off, glad to have it away from her.

"I wish she could have stayed," Padmé sighs.

Sabé's reply is blunt. "Teckla is a twenty-three year old woman with two children and no husband to help raise them, with parents who have disowned her out of shame. She desperately needed the money that a few months of service in your direct employ would bring her, but you could not have kept her here forever. She had to go home eventually."

The Senator nods, head feeling heavy on her shoulders. "I know that."

Only pausing for a second, a smirk steals over Sabé's pale face. "And I know I especially appreciated the looks on several of your esteemed colleagues' faces while you were making your speech, my Lady."

Padmé nearly laughs, grinning briefly. "I can imagine."

"Yes, especially considering my opinion of said 'esteemed colleagues'." There could not be more contempt in Sabé's voice than there is at that.

Remembering something Sabé said not a week past, Padmé's smile grows decidedly sardonic and even a little vicious as she loosens earrings from aching lobes. "Your opinion being that the Republic would be far better off if half the officials in the Senate would go jump off a high rise?"

"Exactly."

Padmé's stripped down to her shift now. She starts to slide it over her head before stopping, remembering Sabé, and casting a faintly apologetic look down at her. "Do you mind?" she asks anxiously, tilting her head.

An indelicate snort reverberates unmistakably around the dim-lit room. "My Lady, if you will recall, I am on a regular basis required to help you in and out of your ridiculously complicated clothes. The sight of you stark naked is hardly anything unfamiliar to me." Charmingly blunt as usual—so much more so than the rarefied circles Padmé is used to circulating through.

Dim highlights glimmer on bare flesh only for an instant before Padmé has her silk nightgown—already laid out on the bed beforehand—over her shoulders and down over her slim body. She's at her vanity again, inspecting the cut on her cheek when Sabé speaks up.

There's a note in the handmaiden's voice that Padmé isn't used to hearing there: fear. This tone bespeaks wretched, involuntary, unwilling fear—taut and tentative it makes Sabé's question. "My Lady… Is… Is it true what they've been saying? That… Senator Bonteri has been murdered?"

This is the subject Padmé was praying wouldn't be brought up, the thing that's been hanging over them both the whole night. A buzzing, angry cloud to descend like a pall on the luxurious apartment.

Padmé squeezes her eyes shut, the same cold hand closing over her heart as it had when she had first heard of Mina's death, stricken and stunned. "Yes, it's true."

Sabé's face twists in revolted rage, becoming an ugly mask, a representation hardly recognizable as her. Boiling, furious words escape from gritted teeth like puffs of steam, of which only the words "vile" and "despicable" are at all coherent, in native Nabooan rather than Basic. Thin hands twist on her skirt, no doubt imagining a blaster or a vibroblade to be found there. Padmé can relate.

When the immediate storm of her rage subsides, Sabé stares up at her mistress uncertainly. "How… are you holding up, Senator?" Brown eyes reflect the lamp light and are deeply troubled.

Padmé runs a hand through her hair and lets it rest on her temple, regardless of what oils may transfer, elbow finding its way to the surface of the desk. "Fine, I suppose, all things considered." Her lips twist bitterly. "I wish Mina was still here. She shouldn't have died."

"I agree." Sabé nods somberly, and Padmé remembers that she wasn't the only one Mina mentored—Sabé was a student of hers too, one who perhaps listened a little more closely to Mina's lessons than she did. At any rate, Padmé wishes she had remembered her old mentor's lessons a little sooner—if she had, maybe they wouldn't be in the mess that they are now.

For your information young Padmé Naberrie, there is no right to any conflict that you will find, especially not war. From the moment two parties enter to war and begin to kill, both are wrong and utterly reprehensible, no matter how they believe in the rightness of your cause. Always remember that if you are elected Queen of your world.

I'm sorry, Mina… I should have listened…

"Do you remember?" Sabé's face is abstracted and dreamy now, her expression almost as though she can read Padmé's thoughts. "She taught Vuselani to us as though she had learned from him herself." Vuselani was a Nabooan essayist and author who had lived roughly five hundred years ago. Highly controversial, his theories on philosophy and politics and the military had not been at all accepted in the time in which he lived and he had eventually been stoned to death for blasphemy. Sabé is a fan of his works.

"Lehh." Padmé shudders. While Sabé loves Vuselani, she most definitely does not.

There's still no word as to whether it was Count Dooku or really the Republic who had Mina killed, and personally, the thought that it might be the latter who is truly responsible rather than the former is what frightens Padmé the most. To think that the Republic may have fallen so far as to have good people like Mina assassinated in order to keep the Separatists in the "wrong" is sickening to her, but she's realizing with a cast of cynicism over her eyes that she wouldn't be truly surprised. She can think of any number of war hawks who might have had the deed done.

And it hammers home the point Padmé has always known, but always seems to forget in her own over-confidence.

No one is safe.

Not even Mina.

"What about Lux?"

Padmé's eyes flutter open in horror. Goddess… I had not even stopped to think.

Sabé's eyes are wide open as she stares searchingly up at Padmé. "I mean, he was at home with Senator Bonteri when she was killed, wasn't he? He's already lost his father, and now his mother too. He's just a boy, my Lady; nearly grown, but still a child."

Padmé doesn't answer. She remembers Lux—a teenager who has his mother's eyes but otherwise strongly resembles his father. A kind, good-natured, charming adolescent, who was capable of making friends with anyone if he put his mind to it—he'd even managed to get Sabé to warm up to him. Maybe a little older than Ahsoka. He seemed taken with her.

If Dooku feeds the information—Padmé's not even sure it's a lie anymore—that Mina was murdered by the Republic, than what must he think now?

Sabé's voice flavors in a coppery way with panic. "Is he alright? Do we even know if he's still alive?"

Utterly overcome, Padmé squeezes her eyes shut again and covers her face with her hands. She had never known she could feel so tired, not even when she watched the droids of the Trade Federation marching through Theed.

"I don't know, Sabé. I just don't know."