A/N: So, I like almost literally just finished writing this chapter, meaning it is considerably less edited than most of my chapters are. So if you notice any confusing sentences or weird typos or anything like that, I'd appreciate hearing about it even more than usual! Also, thanks for reading, guys! You're all the best!

To Die for the Republic

Part III: In Which Sabé Almost Dies (Again)

Chapter 3: Break

Versé did not come find me with any more questions.

I did not seek her out to apologize for yelling at her. Just the thought of seeing her again made my stomach turn and my heart race. She was alive and that was the important part—I had seen her awake and I didn't need to see her again unless she felt the need to see me.

Instead, I took every spare moment I could to go down to the maternity wing and watch the newborn babies greet the galaxy. At first, Eirtaé went down with me every time, or made sure that Dormé or Wicaté were with me. However, after a few days of not passing out, I was able to go down to the nursery by myself.

I appreciated the quiet.

I also appreciated getting to see the adorable little babies waving their fists in the air or yawning or any of the other cute little things babies did when first getting used to the awful galaxy they'd been unfortunate enough to be born into.

While Eirtaé still claimed that my theory about babies being the only sentients worth being around wasn't really a theory, I knew that I was gaining more and more evidence to support it all the time.

The nurses were also starting to recognize me and, as opposed to being irritated or thrown off by my presence, were beginning to welcome me. Occasionally, they'd stop by and chat with me about the babies (in general, not in specific) and what it was their job entailed, exactly. Even when they didn't stop to chat, the nurses always took the time to give me a warm smile. I was glad—if they'd started to judge me, I probably would have felt a bit creepy about visiting the babies and stopped. Which would have been sad, because the babies were good for me, I was pretty sure. Seeing them always made the galaxy seem a little brighter.

The nursery was my favorite place in the medcenter by far.

My room was my least favorite and I took nearly any excuse to escape it, even if only for a few moments.

That was why, immediately after my latest meeting with my doctor, ("I understand why you're anxious to leave, Miss Reccen," my poor, blessedly patient doctor had said, "But we'd really like to keep you for another week, so that we can keep monitoring your legs—your injuries were very severe and the nerve re-growth procedure is very finicky even at the best of times so it's just safest for everyone involved if you stay with us for a little longer.") I took my hoverchair down to the nursery and lost myself in watching the babies.

Just as an adorable little Rodian concluded his boxing match against his invisible, but no doubt formidable, opponent, I was interrupted from my new favorite pastime.

"Sabé."

My head whipped around.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in the corridor in front of the nursery, beaming at me like a madman. My heart started to pound against my chest.

Obi-Wan was alive.

He was alive and healthy and he was here.

"Obi-Wan!" I leapt towards him.

Only I forgot that my leg hated me and, instead of successfully running over and hugging him, I managed a full step and a half before it gave out and I began to topple over.

Obi-Wan lunged towards me and, somehow, we ended up in a tangled mess on the ground.

For a moment, we just stared at each other. Then, we both burst out laughing.

"Sorry!" I gasped in between uncontrollable giggles, rolling off Obi-Wan. "I totally forgot that my stupid leg got injured and that it can't support my weight yet! So sorry! Are you okay?"

Poor Obi-Wan had mostly cushioned my fall, leaving him to take both our weights as we'd crashed into the tile floor. My elbow felt a little scraped but otherwise I felt fine. Hopefully Obi-Wan did as well.

"Yes, I'm fine—although I think you may have elbowed me in the stomach at some point," Obi-Wan laughed as he pulled himself into a sitting position.

"Sorry!" Still laughing, I propped myself up across from him.

His hair was disheveled and he looked like he hadn't slept in about a week, but his eyes still danced as he grinned at me. "No need to be sorry. I also forgot that my leg is injured—had I remembered, I would have been more careful about how I caught you and we could have avoided this mess altogether."

I immediately sobered. "You're injured? What happened? Are you okay?"

Obi-Wan smiled back at me. "I am perfectly well. My leg and arm each sustained a bit of a cut, but so long as I keep a bacta patch on them, I should be entirely healed by the end of the week." His smile faded a bit. "What about you? You said you injured your leg as well?"

I grimaced. If only my news was as good as his. "Yeah… um, my leg got a bit crushed when the ship blew up. The doctors wanted to amputate but Eirtaé and I wouldn't let them. So, instead, they tried some nerve re-growth surgery thing but it didn't totally work like it should have. And the doctors think that if they amputate my leg now I'll probably have severe phantom leg pain for the rest of my life, which I don't really want to deal with. So I'm keeping my leg, even though it's slightly useless at the moment." Obi-Wan looked stricken so I hurriedly continued, pointedly focusing on the positive. "But, if I keep exercising and taking these supplement pill-things they've given me, I'll probably be able to gimp around with a cane eventually. And," I went on to explain my very favorite part of the entire situation, "I've started playing around with canes in my therapy sessions and you would not believe how fun it is to sort of lightly whack people in the shins with it when they're being annoying. It's great. And my leg's really the only thing that's still wrong with me, you know. Things could definitely be worse." I gave Obi-Wan my best attempt at a smile, which was actually at least half real.

I was pretty impressed with myself. When I first found out about my leg, I probably wouldn't have been able to explain it without bursting into tears, much less with a semi-sincere smile. Clearly, my attitude was improving.

Obi-Wan smiled back encouragingly. "Master Yoda uses a gimer stick much of the time. He has been known to gently hit people with it, on occasion."

My smile became fully sincere. The Grand Master of the Jedi hit people with his cane? That was such a perfect image.

I gave Obi-Wan my most superior look. "Yes, well, of course he hits people with it. Great minds think alike, after all." I managed to maintain my air of superiority for a few seconds before breaking down and snickering. As if my mind were anywhere near as great as Grand Master Yoda's.

Obi-Wan smiled back for a moment before his amusement faded into a faint look of worry. "It is truly just your leg that's still injured? Nothing else?"

"Nothing else," I confirmed.

For a moment, I was going to leave it at that. He'd just asked about my injuries, after all, nothing else. But I knew that if I was Obi-Wan, I would want to know everything else too. And Obi-Wan was such a good listener and maybe… "I actually fared best out of the handmaidens." I looked down at my hands, unable to face looking at Obi-Wan while I told him the rest. "Versé only just woke up a few days ago and—" I stopped.

There was a lump in my throat and the words wouldn't come out. I wanted to tell Obi-Wan everything but I was so tired of crying. So, instead, I focused on my hands.

My nails were getting a bit long, I realized, and my cuticles were a total mess. It was a wonder Wicaté hadn't made me get a manicure yet. It was probably just because she was so focused on getting me to use the hoverchair correctly. Once she finished bashing the hoverchair controls into my head, she'd probably go back to worrying about things like the state of my hands and clothes. Which was just as well. Maneuvering the hoverchair without running into anything was more important than—

"Sabé?" Obi-Wan gently grabbed both of my hands in his. His hands were warm and calloused and wonderfully, inexplicably safe.

I looked up and met his eyes. His beautiful, kind eyes.

And then I broke down completely.

In between gross, messy sobs, I told Obi-Wan all about my awful year.

I told him about how Padmé and I had spent most of the year arguing with each other and about how much I hated my job. I told him about going back to Naboo and returning to the orphanage I had grown up in—about how the matron had told me that I never knew when to ask for help.

Then, I told him absolutely everything I knew about the girl-who-burned and what she'd told me all those years ago. I even told him the absurd bit about how she had said that if I didn't die, I could somehow stop Naboo from being destroyed, stop the galaxy from being imbalanced, and even stop her from burning.

He'd already known from an earlier conversation that I knew something bad was going to happen to the ship. He soon learned that I'd actually known about the ship being dangerous for years. I admitted that the possibility of dying on that stupid starship had worried me so much that I had spent most of the year ignoring the problem entirely. I had even ignored Anakin when he had confronted me about my dream in the diner and demanded to know how he could help.

Finally, I told him about how, when the time eventually did come, I hadn't trusted anyone with the truth of my dreams. Instead, I had told a slap-dash lie and tried to save everyone on the ship all on my own because I was too embarrassed to say that I had prophetic dreams. Because I had put off confronting the problem for too long. Because I was too proud to ask someone to help me.

I told him that it was all my fault that Cordé and those poor guards had died. That I thought Versé hated me and that I knew I deserved it.

Sometime during the course of my break-down, I ended up hugging Obi-Wan and crying all my awful confessions into his shoulder. And, through some parts of it, I was sobbing so hard I could barely breathe, much less talk. It was loud and it was messy and it probably took a lifetime and a half for me to finally manage to spit everything out in a semi-coherent fashion.

In short, I made a total scene in the middle of the corridor in front of the medcenter's nursery. I also got snot all over Obi-Wan's nice, clean robes.

It was not really one of my finer moments.

When I finally finished and started to pull myself back together, my face was burning and I was fervently wishing I knew how to disappear.

"Um…sorry about that," I mumbled, carefully letting go of Obi-Wan and looking at the floor. "I—uh—you probably weren't expecting to get snot all over you when you came to visit. Or, to, um, to have me whine about my life in a really loud and incoherent way. So. Sorry. I'm, um, maybe a little bit of a mess at the moment? Sorry for making you listen to—"

"Sabé."

I stopped talking immediately. I also kept my gaze firmly on the ground. Looking Obi-Wan in the eye was what had gotten me into trouble the last time.

"Sabé, you have nothing to apologize for." Obi-Wan paused.

I continued to inspect the floor. It was incredibly clean and surprisingly well-polished.

"You have clearly been under an enormous amount of pressure lately," Obi-Wan continued. "And I am so sorry to hear that Cordé died. She sounds like she was truly a lovely person." There was another small pause before he went on. "Sabé, it wasn't your fault."

The words hit me like a waterfall—I flinched back from him. How could he say that, knowing everything? It was so obviously my—

"You did not know why you had to hide under the landing ramp," Obi-Wan said, his voice soft and kind. "The little girl didn't tell you that the ship would be blown up—only that you had to fall off the ramp and hide beneath it. You could just as easily have been hiding from blaster bolts as taking cover from an explosion. She made it nearly impossible for you to come up with another solution because she did not fully explain the problem. It was not your fault Cordé, the pilot and several of the guards died. You did as best you could, given the circumstances."

"That's not true!" The words burst from my mouth before I could stop them. "Obi-Wan, you know that's not true. I could have told someone about my dreams. I could have started planning earlier and made sure that we were never on that blasted ship to begin with! I could have—"

"No," Obi-Wan interrupted. "You could not have. Who would have believed you, if you told them about the little girl visiting you in your dreams and warning you about your death? Sabé, you barely believed your dreams were real and you had already had your life saved by them once. I am a Jedi, who knows the future can be seen and knows that you are imminently trustworthy, and I was not wholly convinced of the truth of them. I should have known they were true, but I did not. Telling people about your dreams would not have done you any good. Perhaps planning ahead and avoiding the starship altogether could have helped. Perhaps. However, it is equally likely that it would not have. The future is not static and, had your plans changed, the assassin's plans would most likely have changed as well. It is very possible that more people would have died if you had successfully avoided taking the ship. You were in a very difficult situation and you did the best you could."

I blinked rapidly, trying to keep back tears. Even if Obi-Wan was right, people had still died. My best hadn't been good enough and people—Cordé—had still died. The floor blurred and I kept blinking.

I was so, so tired of crying.

Obi-Wan took my hands in his again and squeezed them comfortingly. Holding his hands, I realized, felt a little bit like finding an enormous drop to sit in front of—it was comforting and felt like a reminder that I was just a very tiny, very human part of an infinite universe. That my hands were small and that I could not possibly be responsible for holding the entirety of the galaxy safe within them.

"Sabé, you saved the lives of three people," he said. "That is no small thing."

"Five people still died," I whispered, staring at my hands in Obi-Wan's and drawing comfort from the sight.

"Yes," said Obi-Wan. "Five people died because Zam Wesell killed them. Three people still live because you saved them. That is nothing to be ashamed of."

I kept staring at our hands.

I had not thought of it like that. I did not even know if I could think of it like that. It still felt like it was my fault that Cordé and the guards were dead. Now that Obi-Wan mentioned it, though, it was clearly more Zam Wesell's fault than mine. And regardless of whose fault it was, Cordé, the pilot, and the guards were safe in the Peaceful Lands, gathering light into themselves so that, someday, they could be born into the galaxy anew.

And, because of my plan, three people were still alive and relatively unhurt.

"Okay," I said. "Okay. I don't know if I can believe that right away but you're—well, you're probably right. So I'll try to believe you. Maybe eventually I'll be able to."

I kept holding Obi-Wan's hands as I took several deep breaths, and blinked away the rest of my seemingly endless supply of tears.

Finally, I looked back up at Obi-Wan, smiling faintly. "Thank you."

Obi-Wan smiled back.

"So," I grinned self-deprecatingly. "Now that I got snot all over you and you helped me sort out my life, I don't suppose you've any existential crises I could help you with?"

"I'm afraid you missed mine," Obi-Wan said. "But if it makes you feel better, your advice was invaluable in helping me decide how to react to it."

My eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"I presume you heard that Anakin and I were assigned to—"

"Oh, stars!" My mouth fell open. Padmé and Anakin! "I completely forgot! Are Padmé and Anakin okay? I mean, since you don't seem too upset, I'm assuming—"

"They are both alive and mostly well," Obi-Wan quickly assured me. "Anakin was injured fairly severely but he will undoubtedly recover. Padmé sustained slight injuries but ought to be entirely healed by the end of the day."

"Oh, thank the stars," I slumped back against the wall to the nursery, feeling lighter than I had in days. They were all alive and well. They were all safe. "Sorry. Please continue. How, exactly, did I manage to help you with your crisis while unconscious?"

Obi-Wan went on to explain that after seeing my dream come true in a rather spectacularly awful fashion, both he and Anakin had decided that they needed to do something about Anakin's dreams. They devised a plan to get Anakin to Tatooine in order to check on his mom and, if necessary, save her life. Obi-Wan and Anakin's plan basically consisted of lying to the council so that the Jedi Masters would send Anakin and Padmé to Tatooine as opposed to Naboo. Obi-Wan did not describe what they did as lying, rather 'telling the truth from a certain point of view'. As far as I could tell, though, that was just an elegant way of saying 'lied through their teeth'.

Regardless of how honest Obi-Wan and Anakin were with the council, Obi-Wan claimed that my advice about Anakin being different than people who were Jedi-raised had helped him feel more comfortable about helping Anakin check on his mom. I was fairly certain he would have helped Anakin even if I hadn't said anything to him about it, but I didn't tell him that. It was, after all, very nice of him to say and the entire story helped me feel a bit better about my meltdown.

I had just suggested that maybe we should continue our conversation in the medcenter dining hall as opposed to remaining on the floor, when one of the nurses who'd been especially kind to me walked out of the nursery.

She smiled down at me. "Sorry to interrupt, Sabé, but I thought you'd want to know that a new baby is coming down with his father. So if you and your boyfriend want privacy, you may want to go somewhere else. Of course, you're still welcome to stay if you'd like."

Boyfriend?

My brain stuttered to a halt. Did she just call Obi-Wan my boyfriend? My face began to burn as I inwardly started swearing up a storm. Not that I wouldn't have liked Obi-Wan being my—I cut that thought off immediately.

"Obi-Wan's a Jedi," I blurted out. Then I hurriedly continued to clarify, if that wasn't a blatant enough correction. "We're friends. And he's a Jedi."

Jedi weren't even okay with a little boy being attached to his mother—there was no chance in the world they would be okay with a Jedi having romantic feelings for—not, of course, that Obi-Wan would think of me that way even if he wasn't—the important thing was that Obi-Wan was a Jedi. And that he was my friend. And that was it.

"Oh!" the nurse looked surprised. "Of course—Sorry about that. I just assumed you were together because—"

I did not want to hear why she assumed that Obi-Wan and I were dating. Because that was an impossible thing and thinking about it would possibly do bad things to my well-being and to our friendship. I was not willing to risk anything messing up my friendship with Obi-Wan and my well-being was precarious enough as it was.

"Oh, don't worry about it," I quickly interrupted. Frantically, I racked my brains for a way to quickly and effectively change the subject. The answer came to me in a flash of blinding humiliation. My face burned. "And, um, sorry for the, uh, erm, well." There was no good way to say this. "Well, basically, I'm sorry for turning into a sobbing mess in front of your nursery. I'm, uh, not having an especially good year. I hope I didn't interrupt or—"

The nurse waved me off with a smile. "Think nothing of it, dear. If you were disrupting us, we would have let you know. By the by, do you need help getting back into your hoverchair?"

My face got, if possible, even hotter. "Erm, well. I mean if it's not a bother, I—"

"Wouldn't have offered if it was," the nurse said.

After a few more almost unbearably uncomfortable moments, I was off the ground, back into my hoverchair, and Obi-Wan and I were on our way to the dining hall.

There were a few false starts, mainly on my end, but eventually we were comfortably embroiled in a conversation about Padmé's assassin, my notes on the assassination attempts, and how Obi-Wan had ended up finally unraveling the mystery behind it.

I was strangely unsurprised to find out that Nute Gunray and the thrice cursed Trade Federation had been behind the entire nightmare.

We were just about to turn the last corner into the dining hall when someone behind me shrieked, "Sabé!"

I glanced over my shoulder and—

"Padmé! You're here!"

Expected Update Time: July 11th, 2015