"What do you mean she is missing?" Padmé said quickly covering the distance in the large room to get to Breha.
Breha grabbed both her hands in her own. "The guards are already searching for her. She left a note. I went to check to see if she was ready for dinner and there it was sitting in the middle of her bed."
Bail grabbed Padmé as her knees failed and she began to glide to the ground. The day had already begun to take a toll on her emotions and now this. "What did the note say?" Bail asked as he guided Padmé to a soft chair in the corner of the room.
"Some nonsense about her marrying for love and not for politics. I don't know where she would have gotten the idea we would force her to marry." Breha sighed loudly as she noticed Bail's guilty look. "Bail, you tell me right now what you said to her."
"I may have told her she wasn't getting married until she was 35 and even then I was going to pick her husband. This was over a week ago. I don't understand why she would be running or why she took me seriously. It was just a father being a father to his little girl." Bail said as he handed Padmé a glass of water.
"Oh honey," Breha said taking Bail's hand. "You know your voice has that deep tone and sometimes we have a hard time determining when you are joking." She stepped away,"But you're right I don't know what got into Leia's head and made her run off."
"This one may be my fault actually." Padmé said gently setting down the glass of water in her hand. "Leia was complaining about waiting until she was 35 to marry. I mentioned I would be more upset about not being able to marry for love. I told her I had married for love."
Bail stepped back as she said to her in a whispered tone,"You told her about Anakin?"
Padmé averted her eyes from his gaze. "I didn't tell her his name. I just told her the story. How I met a young slave. He was brave, courageous, and intelligent. He was younger than me, and I had thought nothing of romance, only friendship. I spoke about being separated and of us growing up. I told her about the day I realized I was completely in love with him. I told her ours was a forbidden love, but our love was more important than rules."
"What did she say?" Bail asked as he kneeled next to Padmé and grabbed her hand. He knew the toll it took on her to speak of those days with Anakin. Bail could count on one hand the number of times in the past almost 16 years that Padmé had spoke of Anakin.
"Leia thought for a moment. She finally looked me right in the eye and asked me what had happened to him." Padmé said her head tilted up toward the ceiling as she fought the tears that wanted to spill down her face. She briefly wondered if the thought of her wayward love would ever not bring tears and heart ache.
"And did you tell her?" Breha said as she kneeled on Padmé other side.
"I told her the truth. It was to difficult to speak of." Padmé said looking briefly from Bail to Breha. "I couldn't stand to tell her one more lie."
Bail nodded his head and squeezed Padmé's. He stood quickly as they heard a loud noise coming from outside. "It sounds like the guards have returned. Perhaps they have found Leia."