Prologue

"It's Obi-Wan. He's gone missing."

She accepts the news with a hang of her head, the clothes in her hand falling to the bed, just missing her suitcase. Her hair falls down out of its clip, cascades over her face, and for a moment she feels completely alone and almost allows herself to start shaking, to cry. Her stomach is hard and when she looks to her hands, she finds them no longer loose but tightened into fists, nails digging half-moons into skin.

She lifts her head, looks at nothing in particular, and swallows. The silence - save for the creak of the floor as the messenger (her ex-husband of all people) awaits a reaction and shifts his feet - is deafening.

But, really, this is much later on in the story.

-

In the beginning, they met in a clearing on a bright day, the hillsides glowing, hands across their foreheads to block out the glare as they greeted each other. Her first, and she said her name like he'd know it, a habit she was never really aware of - as generally modest as she was, it'd become a habit, being recognized. She remembered the way he nodded, like he'd done so many times, a way of neutrally acknowledging her without really showing recognition. They weren't on Naboo, they weren't even on a Republican planet - she wasn't known, she was just someone, someone else.

When she asked after his name, "What name do you go by?" he smiled, just bordering on mischievous.

"Here? Here, I go by Ben."

"Just Ben?"

"Ben Kenobi, if you'd like to call me that," he said, and looking back on it, he was surely teasing her. He'd started to turn, to back away, to go back into the jungle - he was hunting, she found out later, asking after the stranger she'd come across on her way to town. He waved, wished her a good day, and then disappeared into the dense jungle.

It was as simple as that.

Her wedding was only a few hours later. She wore a simple ivory dress to make up for the absence of the pale white makeup, a Naboo tradition. "No time for it," Palo said with a smile, and nobody else at the party understood why she would want to waste the time on it.

"We all sacrifice traditions, especially in marriage," someone said, a stranger of many. Really, save for Palo, she hadn't known a single person at the ceremony. Simple, quick, she kissed her husband with a smile on her face, but knew this wasn't what she had dreamed of - even if the dream had been rare indeed - as a girl. Really, though, even if at the time what the woman had said to her hadn't made sense, it was true. Maybe not in every marriage, maybe not in any happy marriages (lasting marriages - the ones that are happy for a time but then deteriorate, like Palo and hers, don't count) but it certainly rang true in the following months.

No sooner than had they arrived at their new home, miles from the nearest town, had things already started to shift considerably. The winery they planned on starting was no longer a part of the equation. "We're going to mine the resources," Palo informed her over dinner with a certain casualness that wasn't appropriate coming from someone dealing with money that was only his by marriage.

"That..." Politics, if anything, taught her patience in stressful situations - and leaving the Senate did nothing to relieve the stress in her life, she would find out. She bit down, calmed herself, and chose her words carefully, folding a napkin in her lap and refusing to even meet his eyes. "That's a very tricky business."

"Everyone's got wineries on his planet, it would be just as fruitless for us to try and turn a profit with that much competition. Mining will prove more profitable in the long-run."

"We decided on a winery. We decided it together."

"You were still on Naboo, I was here - I had to make the decision before it was too late. What did you expect me to do?"

"I expected you to go along with what we decided, Palo, that's what I expected you to do."

"I want us to be able to live comfortably, to be successful. I took a chance with mining."

"Maybe next time you should take a chance with your own money."

Palo placed a firm hand on her arm and held it tight, eyes dark. "Just because you brought money into this marriage, does not mean you can talk to me like that."

She snatched away her arm, and stood. "And just because you married someone with money doesn't mean you can gamble it away on a whim. Next time, consult me."

He stood as well, stepping forward, their toes touching. His jaw firm, he cupped her face and kissed her, hard. "I'll do that."

It was like that for them, the first few months, a certain tension between them at all times, sometimes bubbling up to the point where they would argue, but always a moment of weakness, letting the frustration turn into passion, which led to reconciliation. They'd spent years apart after their time together when they were young, then reunited, then married. It happened too fast, and the transition seemed to leave a permanent gap between them - every time they tried to fill it, it widened all the more.

One morning she awoke to find that he had gone on a hunt. Their personal aide, Rosh, informed her that he would return before the storms settled in on the land. The storms that wouldn't come for another standard month.

That was the first time she thought about leaving him, leaving the farm, giving up. And it was her stubborn denial of ever doing the last, of ever giving up on anything, that made her lose steam halfway through packing. She stayed, of course, returned her clothes to their proper places and got dressed for the day, as if nothing had happened.

But, really, it was the start of things, the gradual decline of her denial that the relationship was anything more than a matter of convenience, the decline of her own self-respect as a woman, at least in relation to her and Palo. If such a thing had ever happened on Naboo, in her other life, would she have let it pass? Absolutely not.

But there her clothes went, back into the armoire, back to their drawers, and there she went, putting her energy into other things, into the farm. She wouldn't realize it until later, but even with all her years in politics, it was the first time she ever felt scared. Not for her safety, but for her individual strength, her humanity.

In a way, even if her clothes were in the armoire, even if she still kissed Palo when he returned, it was the start of her leaving, of the separation, of everything between them falling apart but, for her, building up.

It would just be a matter of patience, and a matter of a man, wandering in the jungle, to finally bring the events to actuality.