Heartbroken; Padmé returns home.
What was left of the Jedi Council entreated she not return. That it would be better to hide. She had placed herself in opposition to Palpatine, and reports of arrests of Senators had already begun to trickle in. Obi-Wan was especially insistent; guilt perhaps had gripped him. She noticed his eyes lingered on the bruising blooming around her throat.
Bail said nothing during these arguments; only promising to take her wherever she wished to go.
She insisted, they relented, and it was decided. Padmé would return to Naboo.
The Tantive IV left her on the outskirts of Theed under the cover of night. She wept openly at its ascension; thinking of her daughter in the arms of her new father, and her son soon to be in the care of his aunt and only thing of her they have is the halved pieces of her japor snippet she'd left with them.
Theed was quiet. The winter season was approaching, and her citizens keep to the warmth of their homes. The moon a sliver of silver in the sky peeking out through wisps of clouds. Padmé didn't need the moonlight to see; her knowledge of the well worn, cobblestone paths of Theed instinctive as breathing.
She cuts through the water gardens adjacent to the palace. With the fountains turned off, the flowers dead, and the trees bare, it looks a desolate, forgotten place. Padmé does not linger.
The painkillers have worn off, and each step is creeping towards agony; her breath the slice of a vibroblade against her throat. Her relief at approaching the house is a physical thing. She enters through the backyard. The gate glides open easily.
A faint light beams across the lawn; someone is in the kitchen. Padmé hesitates only just before she knocks. When the door opens she is greeted by the sight of her mother; eyes wide, hair undone, in her dressing gown, a lit cigarra between her fingers.
Stupidly, she blurted out, "I didn't know you still smoked."
Jobal ignored her, and took in the sight of her youngest. Pale, eyes dull, and drowning in a too big dark cloak. She does not recognize her daughter in that moment. Breathless, she asked, "What's happened?
Words fail her, they stick to the back of her teeth, refusing to dislodge. Padmé swallows; it hurts. A dull throb begins in her chest, and tears threaten. She swallows again.
"Truthfully, mama, I'm not sure where to begin."