(minor) edit 3/14
To Change the Galaxy
Chapter 1: Distractions
The Coruscant Crumbly Café had the best croissants on all of Coruscant. It was an indisputable fact.
And, I thought as I munched on my second croissant of the day, if I had to watch as Coruscant fell to the Separatists, I was going to do it while eating something delicious. Silver linings were hard to come by these days, and I had to take them where I could get them. Admittedly, croissants weren't particularly large silver linings but they were silver linings I could buy, which made them reliable, at least.
My fellow tablemates at the Crumbly Café, however, did not seem to share my point of view about croissants and the probable oncoming Separatist invasion. All of their croissants remained untouched. Captain Typho was too busy anxiously watching Padmé to eat his croissant, and Padmé was too busy anxiously looking back and forth between the window and the viewscreen to eat her croissant. Ellé and Moteé, two of Padmé's handmaidens, were too busy quarrelling about which reporter was the most useless to pay attention to anything, much less the delicious pastries in front of them.
"We should be doing something," Padmé muttered as another starfighter disintegrated in the atmosphere above Quadrant Q-58.
I resisted the urge to sigh. "Like what?"
"There has to be something we can do that's not just—just sitting here!" Padmé turned away from the window to glare at me.
I pushed her plate closer to her. "Eat your croissant," I advised.
She stared at me.
Apparently that answer was not good enough.
"We can't really do anything else, Padmé," I said. "We can't go join the battle, because that would just give all the Republic commanders massive headaches and a lot more to worry about. We can't go volunteer at the medcenter, because you barely know the basics of first aid and because I sincerely doubt the doctors would appreciate me standing in their waiting room and asking if anyone was having any issues with their pregnancy. If they thought that would be helpful, they would have commed me in already. I suppose we could go around trying to rustle up a resistance effort or something, but that seems a little premature to me. Also very defeatist. So, I'm pretty sure the only thing that leaves us to do is to sit here and eat croissants."
"I wouldn't have put it that way, but Reccen is right, milady," Typho said. "As much as we may dislike it, there isn't anything we can do right now."
I grinned at him. "Look at us! Agreeing on something! I think we've grown as people, Captain. I really do."
Typho just scowled at me in response, clearly not as impressed with us as I was. I shrugged at him and took another bite of my croissant.
Padmé huffed and went back to dividing her attention between the window and the viewscreen. Across from us, Moteé and Ellé continued their argument.
"—loser on channel 5 is gorgeous, sure, but he's been saying the exact same thing for the last two hours, Ellé! I don't think he's told us anything new about the situation at all. He hasn't even confirmed that the Chancellor's been kidnapped!" Moteé was saying.
"At least he's been saying something though. That idiot on channel 3 has just been—" Ellé began.
I tuned them out in order to focus on the flaky, buttery goodness on the plate in front of me. I wished I had the recipe for it, so I could make some for myself at home.
An idea hit me.
I glanced at the counter. Two humans huddled behind it, staring intently at the viewscreen and occasionally sending fearful glances out the window. I didn't recognize either of them, which probably decreased my chances of getting them to share the recipe with me. Also, they seemed a bit preoccupied with the battle taking place, which could work for me or against me. Either they'd be so preoccupied and worried that they'd give me the recipe without thinking about it, or they'd be so anxious that they'd get snappy and refuse outright.
It couldn't hurt to ask either way though, could it? The worst that could happen was that they'd say no and that didn't mean I couldn't ask someone else again later. The best that could happen was that I'd get the recipe and be able eat these croissants all the time.
I was going to ask.
"How are you so calm?"
"Huh?" I turned away from the counter to see that Padmé was, once again, glaring at me.
"The Chancellor's been kidnapped, the Legislative District has been evacuated, there is a battle between the Republic and the Separatists occurring right above our heads, and you're obsessing about croissants!" she snapped. "People are dying, Sabé! Maybe even An—our friends! Now is not the time to buy another pastry!"
My eyebrows shot up. Moteé and Ellé stopped bickering and turned to stare at us. Even Typho looked taken aback. Padmé just continued to look like she would be perfectly okay with murdering me because I liked croissants.
Clearly, she was a bit stressed.
"Right…" I drawled. "Okay. Let's take a little walk, Padmé."
I slung my bag over my shoulder as Padmé's scowl deepened.
"I don't want to take a—" Padmé began.
I shot her a look as I grabbed my cane and stood up. She fell quiet and, still scowling, stood up too.
"We'll be back in a bit," I told the rest of the table.
Typho frowned. "It's not safe to go outside."
"Which is why we're just taking a lap around the Café," I said, grabbing Padmé's arm with the hand not holding the cane. "Let's go, sunshine."
Padmé glared, but followed me as we began to make a very slow circuit around the café.
"I don't appreciate you dragging me around like this," Padmé snapped.
"I know. I'm sorry." I wasn't. "But stress is bad." I left the 'for babies' part unsaid, both because we were in a public place and because Padmé could fill in the blanks on her own.
'Stress is bad for babies' had basically become my mantra over the last six months. In the beginning, I would follow it up with all the bad things that could happen to her and the babies—including but not limited to pre-term labor and negatively effecting the babies' immune systems and attention spans—if she was too stressed. However, after a month, she began to look annoyed and recite the list with me so I limited myself to just that one sentence.
"I know," Padmé said tightly. "But for people who are not obsessed with pastries, it's difficult to avoid stress when our friends could be fighting for their lives right above us."
My heart stopped, the phrase 'our friends' finally sinking in and demolishing all of my careful, purposeful thoughts about croissants.
Obi-Wan and Anakin.
She thought Obi-Wan and Anakin were in the battle occurring right above our heads.
"I thought they were in the outer rim," I said sharply, stopping to stare at her. "Last I heard they were in the outer rim. Did you hear more? Why didn't you tell me? You should have—"
"Because I don't know where they are," Padmé said. "The most recent report I heard said they had been killed and—"
"They are notdead. We would know if they were dead. They're just fighting in the outer rim sieges. That's all. They're both perfectly fine."
"Then why haven't you heard from them?" Padmé asked as she began to walk again.
I trailed after her, suddenly feeling very sorry that I had dragged her away from the table.
"I haven't heard from them because they're busy," I glared at her. "It's hard work, fighting a war. That's all. Nothing bad has happened to them. We'd know."
"Would we?" Padmé's voice was very, very quiet.
"Yes! I've left loads of messages for Ob—for them. If they'd died, I'm sure the Jedi would want to repurpose the comm link and, if they did, they'd have to delete all my messages first. Once they did that, I'm sure they'd comm me back and tell me." Except the Jedi didn't believe in attachments. And—I cut myself off. "They aren't cruel. They'd tell me." They would.
I had to believe they would.
"It's been weeks, Sabé." Padmé's irritation slipped away. Instead, she just looked exhausted. "Have we ever gone this long without hearing anything?"
I tried to put myself in her shoes— after all, I couldn't even imagine how awful she must be feeling, knowing that the father of her twins was fighting a war—but still failed utterly at beating back my annoyance. Just because it'd been ages since Obi-Wan had commed me back didn't mean he and Anakin were dead!
"No," I snapped. "But there could be lots of reasons for that. And you still haven't answered why you think they're here."
"The Chancellor's been kidnapped and Coruscant is under attack," Padmé said. "Everything we have heard indicates that this is an incredibly serious situation. Our friends are two of the best. Wouldn't it make sense for them to be called in for this?"
I scowled at the floor as we passed by our table and began our second lap around the café. She had a point. Obi-Wan and Anakin did have a horrifying habit of fighting on the most dangerous and hopeless seeming battlefronts. If they were alive—which they were—it would make a terrible kind of sense for them to be taking part in the battle going on above us.
"Maybe," I reluctantly conceded even as I tried to ignore my roiling stomach and the heavy pressure building in my chest. "But it doesn't matter either way. We still can't do anything and worrying ourselves sick isn't going to help anyone."
"I just wish we knew," said Padmé softly. "This would be so much less awful if we just knew."
We were quiet as we passed by the counter and the two anxious women standing behind it.
Padmé was right.
The absolute worst thing about this war was the fact that, most of the time, we knew practically nothing. Even though Padmé was a member of the Galactic Senate, most of the information she was given was very vague, in order to prevent the Separatists from learning too much about the Republic's plans. And the information available publicly was even worse, as most of it was based on unsubstantiated rumors.
One of the most persistent rumors was that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker had been killed in action during the outer rim sieges.
Whenever I heard that particular rumor, I had to remind myself that there were lots of rumors about them and that there was no chance in the galaxy that all of them were true.
For example, several news stations were insisting that Anakin and Obi-Wan had lead Republic forces to victory on at least six different planets while others were reporting that the duo had been stuck fighting on Cato Neimoidia or Jabiim or Boz Pity (none of their sources seemed to agree on which it was) for the last two months. One news source on the holonet claimed that Obi-Wan and Anakin were actually deeply enmeshed in peace talks with Count Dooku. Another news source said they had irrefutable proof that the two best friends had recently had an enormous fallout with each other and that the Jedi Council had been forced to place them on two different battle fronts as they could no longer stand to work together.
What they were actually doing, though, was anyone's guess.
And if I thought about that fun little tidbit too much, I felt sick. So I did my best to ignore all the serious rumors and instead focus my attention on the sillier ones. Like that Anakin was furious at Obi-Wan, because his former Master had abandoned the war effort altogether in order to pursue his dream of becoming a singing sensation.
That one popped up on the news quite a bit and I liked hearing about it. It was much better than the ones saying that Obi-Wan had been kidnapped and tortured by the Separatists or that Anakin had been the only survivor of a brutal battle that the Republic had lost horribly. Those were common rumors, too.
My stomach twisted itself tighter and tighter the more I thought about it. My hands started to sweat. It was time to move on.
I turned back to Padmé. "We just have to find other things to focus our attention on, that's all. Things that don't cause stress. Things like croissants. I was thinking of trying to get the recipe from the Crumbly Café. What do you think?"
Padmé's lips twitched towards a smile even as she rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I am exceedingly jealous of you, Sabé. I think you should try to get the recipe, if you really want it. It certainly can't hurt." And then she lost any semblance of amusement and sent a worried look back at the viewscreen.
"You mean we should try to get the recipe," I corrected, nudging her gently. "Stress is bad, you know. And recipes aren't particularly stressful. Well," I reconsidered, "Trying a new recipe can be a bit stressful, but just getting a recipe isn't. Come on. Let's go talk to the people at the counter and see if they can't help us out."
I started to cut back across the café towards the counter. I went slowly, both so that I could safely navigate around the handful of tables filled with people and to give Padmé time to decide to follow me.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, I heard Padmé behind me, murmuring, "Excuse me, pardon, terribly sorry—"
A small, satisfied smile slipped across my face before I managed to suppress it. A distraction would be good for both of us and if Padmé saw me looking smug she might get her back up about it. She'd been touchier than usual lately, for understandable reasons.
Finally, we made it through the tightly crammed together but, thankfully, mostly empty tables. We were almost to the counter.
"Any ideas as to how we should approach this? Any helpful strategies you've picked up in your years of being a politician?" I asked Padmé in an undertone as we slowly walked towards the counter.
Another shadow of a smile flitted across Padmé's face.
"Nothing specific is immediately springing to mind," Padmé whispered back. "But I have found that, generally, compliments can be a good way to start negotiations off on a friendly foot."
"Excellent. Great advice. Let's start with that then."
We reached the counter and I gave the two women behind it my very best smile.
"Hello!" I said cheerfully.
But both women were so engrossed in the viewscreen that they didn't even look at me.
I shared a look with Padmé.
"Not off to a good start, are we?" I muttered.
This earned me an actual smile that stayed on her face for a good several seconds.
"Um, excuse me?" I tried again. "Sorry to interrupt."
Finally, the two workers turned to look at me. One appeared absolutely bewildered and the other seemed irritated.
I could already tell this was going to go really brilliantly.
"It's just, you two are really brilliant bakers," I tried to project all of my sincerity into the compliment in hopes it would help. "Your croissants are like nothing I have ever tasted before."
They stared at me.
"Um, well, thanks," the bewildered one began, "But, uh, we don't bake them."
"Oh." I maybe should have guessed that. "Well, um," I struggled to come up with another compliment. "I also, uh, I really, um, like your necklace? It's, er, very pretty."
Next to me, Padmé stifled a snort.
"Thank you?" the woman said, looking a little uncomfortable.
"Right, well." The compliments were not working. Time to move on. "My friend and I were actually here because of your really delicious croissants. And we were wondering if you could do us a favor and—"
Beepbeepbeep.
I stopped and frowned. Was that—?
Beepbeepbeep.
"Sorry," I apologized. "Just a moment."
Next to me, Padmé valiantly took up the croissant recipe crusade as I rummaged around my bag in search of whatever was making the beeps.
"We really are sorry to interrupt," Padmé was saying. "We were just wondering if there was any way we could get the recipe for—"
It was my work comm. I glanced at the display and then swore.
One of my patients had gone into labor.
Babies were great, but sometimes I could swear that they had the worst timing in the galaxy.
"What is it?" Padmé asked, her worried look firmly back in place.
"I've got to go in to work." I tried to smile.
"Now?" one of the women behind the counter demanded. "You mean our boss isn't the only crazy one?"
I shrugged. "I'm a midwife. And babies don't really care if there's a battle going on." I turned back to Padmé. "So, I'm entrusting the mission to you, Padmé," I said with mock seriousness, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. "Enlist Moteé and Ellé if you have to, but I'm counting on you, alright?"
I began to head towards the door—babies really did wait for no one, and this particular woman, Angelou, had been very anxious about the thought of giving birth to her first child. If it took me too long to show up, she'd probably become really worried.
"I'll comm you when we're done, okay?" I quickly said over my shoulder.
Padmé nodded, looking like she was trying not to appear too miserable.
Unfortunately, I really didn't have much time to help her with that anymore.
"Just remember," I said, "Stress is bad and croissants are good!"
With that little nugget of wisdom, I left the café and began my search for an airtaxi that was crazy enough to be braving the skylanes.
Seven hours later, I left behind a sleeping Angelou and her adorable, healthy baby boy. Feeling exhausted and exhilarated—there was nothing quite like helping a brand new person make their first appearance in the galaxy—I waved down another airtaxi, directing the pilot to take me home.
After a few minutes of staring happily out the window, I remembered that prior to heading to work, there had been a battle taking place. The world seemed to freeze and, for a moment, it was nearly impossible to breathe. Then, everything sped back up again.
"Excuse me." I hurriedly leaned forward to talk to the airtaxi pilot, my stomach churning furiously. "Sorry to bother you; it's just that I've been at work for the last couple of hours and what happened with the battle? Did the Separatists win? Are we going to have to start forming a resistance?"
The pilot gave me an incredulous look through the mirror. "You don't know?" she demanded.
"Look," I scowled back at her, "I was helping someone give birth, okay? I was a bit preoccupied with other things!"
"Oh, well, that's fair enough then. And the battle was a rousing success, is what it was," the pilot informed me with an enormous grin.
I let out a gust of air, sagging back against the seat. I sent a quick prayer of thanks to any gods who might be listening.
The pilot continued, still grinning. "The Separatist force was routed, Count Dooku was killed, and we got the Chancellor back, safe and sound! The—" she swore cheerfully, "Seps didn't even know what hit 'em! That's what they get for underestimating Skywalker and Kenobi!"
Once again, the world froze. Skywalker and Kenobi?
"Ha! As if a bunch of droids stood a chance against two of the best blasted Jedi in the whole—"
"Wait, hold on!" I leaned forward, my heart pounding furiously in my chest. "Do you mean Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker? Are they here? Were they hurt? Have you heard anything about—?"
"Yeah, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker! You know another Kenobi and Skywalker?" The stupid pilot laughed at me. "The Jedi Council recalled them from the Outer Rim just to beat back the Seps and rescue—"
"Are they hurt though?" I demanded. "Were either of them hurt?"
The pilot stopped laughing to give me a funny look. "You aren't one of those crazies who obsess about the two of them, are you? Because they're Jedi, you know, and—"
"Oh for the—!"
She was useless! The pilot was absolutely useless! What good was knowing what they did, if she couldn't tell me if they were okay or not? And why wouldn't she just give me a—
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait!" I yanked my bag onto my lap and began to furiously dig through it.
After a few frantic moments, I found my personal comm link.
"Ha!" I crowed, beaming at it.
There was a small light flashing at the top of it.
I had messages.
I had messages!
With shaking hands, I connected my ear piece to the link and entered in my code. My heart seriously felt like it was about to beat out of my chest as I waited for the first message to play.
"Sabé, it's Padmé."
My heart sank and I sagged against the seat, putting my hand over my eyes and trying to focus on breathing.
"I just wanted to let you know you don't need to comm me tonight," Padmé's voice continued.
Just because it wasn't Obi-Wan didn't mean he was hurt. He could have been busy or—
"I'm going to be, um," Padmé giggled. "Otherwise occupied."
My back went ramrod straight again. Padmé did not giggle. Not unless—
"They're home! I'll speak with you later. Good-bye, Sabé!"
Padmé's message ended.
They were home! Padmé said they were home!
A giggle escaped me. I clamped my hand over my mouth to try to smoother my laughter, knowing that the pilot was probably thinking I was some kind of mad woman. But I couldn't stop laughing and, actually, on second thought, I didn't really care if she thought I was crazy.
Because they were home! Obi-Wan and Anakin were—
The next message started.
"Hello, Sabé." Obi-Wan's voice was the best thing I'd heard in years. "I am sorry to have been out of touch for so long. I'm afraid the Council have been keeping Anakin and me very busy. However, as I'm sure you've heard, we have finally been recalled to Coruscant. Anakin and I do have a number of meetings to attend and reports to finish. However, I will have some free time tonight and I was wondering if you would be able to meet up for tea, somewhere. If not, of course I understand and we'll have to find another time." There was a small pause. "I hope you're well." There was another pause. Then he said, "Well, goodbye."
Obi-Wan was alive.
He was very definitely, absolutely, completely alive. And he was doing well. He wasn't hurt or injured or lost in the middle of nowhere, on the verge of dying. And neither was Anakin. Those awful rumors had been totally wrong. Both of them were alive and well and they were finally, finally home.
An unfamiliar voice interrupted my thoughts. I jumped and looked around wildly.
I was still sitting in the airtaxi, which had come to a stop in front of my apartment.
The pilot had turned around in her seat and was cautiously studying me.
"I—sorry, what?" I had no idea what she'd just said.
"Are you alright, is what I asked." The pilot continued to stare at me.
"I—yeah, I'm fine. I'm—well, better than fine actually!"
She frowned at me. "Are you sure? Because you're kind of crying, aren't you?"
"I—" She was right. "Oh." My cheeks were wet and the world was a little blurry. "I am." I wiped at my eyes and sniffed a bit. "I just got some really great news. Um, here's your fare."
I hurriedly paid her and then exited the taxi before she could say anything more, quickly swiping at my eyes again.
As I waited for the elevator, I entered in Obi-Wan's comm number.
It had only just begun to beep when he picked up.
"Hello?"
At the sound of his voice, a huge grin spread across my face.
"Obi-Wan, it's Sabé!" My smile felt like it might crack my face in half, it was so big, but I didn't even care. "I definitely have time to get caf tonight if you still do!"
Expected Update Time: Before March 24th
