Chapter Thirty: Sabé

"Are you serious? You knew she was watching the house and you didn't think to tell me that. You told me this place was secure," Ahsoka snapped at Vader from outside the sitting room they left Sabé in, just in their view.

Having the dark-eyed, brown-haired woman in her view did little to comfort Ahsoka, though. Just in case this was a distraction, she kept her bond with the twins wide open to sense any distress.

"It is secure."

"Someone spying on the house is not secure."

"I knew she was there. She wouldn't have been able to get this close if I hadn't let her."

"You let her? Who is she?"

"One of Padmé's former handmaidens."

"I never met her," Ahsoka replied as she remembered the handmaidens that she'd met during the Clone Wars. Dormé, Moteé, and Ellé, namely.

"She took care of things for Padmé that went beyond Coruscant," Vader replied vaguely. "Something like Diya is becoming to you."

"A spy to keep her informed in the places she can't be seen then. Or to be seen in the places Padmé needed to be seen so they wouldn't see where she was. Like a vacation with her secret husband," Ahsoka surmised.

"Effectively. After I found you and the twins, I went through incredible lengths to make sure no one went digging into Padmé's past, particularly the Naboo government after you told me about your mediocre efforts to keep the twins' birth from becoming known."

"It was good enough not to trigger an Imperial manhunt for Luke and Leia."

"No. It wasn't," Vader corrected bluntly. "The Naboo did their own autopsy. Yet somehow, they came back with the same results that the medical center you left came to. That Padmé died pregnant still from complications in childbirth. I did some investigating and found that they sent a team with Sabé to retrieve her. I later found out that she thought Padmé's death was suspicious and had been investigating it ever since. I've been allowing her to watch this retreat as part of her investigation for months now."

"And you didn't tell me."

"Why? I investigated her. She clearly helped hide the twins' birth by falsifying the autopsy. She doesn't want to draw any attention to them either, and I think she'd be a valuable asset to us. There was no need to tell you."

"Yeah, but it would have been nice to know before I sensed her watching us and before I put a lightsaber to her neck. And you just can't make decisions when Luke and Leia are concerned without me."

"Why not? You get to."

"You know exactly why I get to do that," Ahsoka said, putting her hands on her hips. Force, she hoped Vader didn't make her spell it out for him. Reminding him that she was doing the bulk of raising the twins because he couldn't raise them and hide them from his master was sure to put him in a terrible mood.

"And I trust you when you do. So why don't you trust me?"

"It's not about not trusting you. But just because you think something is best doesn't mean it is." Again, his apprenticeship to Sidious was the prime example, but Ahsoka didn't feel like having that fight either. "I do at least consider what you'd think when I make choices with the twins. You didn't even think about what I thought of all this. And I know that because not once when I was going over all the reasons I didn't want to come to Naboo did you mention her."

"Because I knew you'd overreact."

"I'm not overacting. You're missing the point."

Vader rolled his eyes as frustrated with her as she was with him.

"Well, since you're so worried, all the more reason not to keep her waiting and talk to her," Vader said, walking away from Ahsoka and into the sitting room to talk to their guest.

Ahsoka let out a groan of frustration, asked the Force to give her patience, and then followed. She sat across from Sabé with her arms crossed, not even trying to hide her displeasure about all this.

Finally, Sabe said to Vader, "I thought you were dead with all the other Jedi."

Ahsoka was silent, not sure how exactly Vader planned to handle that one.

"The entire galaxy does," he replied. "For obvious reasons, it was just as imperative that people believed Anakin Skywalker died as it was for them to believed Padmé died pregnant. How long have you known that she wasn't?"

"Since after her autopsy, when I brought her body back to Naboo."

Ahsoka was less surprised that Sabé had fallen for Vader's deflection tactic than she was about the fact that Vader knew such a manipulative tactic in the first place. Then again, when you had a lot to hide, and a lot was at stake, you learned very quickly how to subtly get people focused on something else. Breha and Bail taught Ahsoka that one. Ahsoka supposed Vader hadn't survived his apprenticeship with Sidious and not have eventually figured out the tactic either.

"The medical center I was sent to retrieve her from said she died while still pregnant from a complication in childbirth, but Naboo ordered a second, especially when we found out her ship had been pawned," Sabé explained. "I managed to intercept the report and found out she'd given birth. Moteé informed me that a Jedi visited right before Padmé left the planet without telling anyone where she was going, and the next thing we heard, she was dead. Clearly, someone was trying to hide something. But I didn't know who, and I didn't know why. So I forged the official Naboo reports and have been investigating what happened to her and her child ever since."

Ahsoka was now even more concerned than she'd been before. "That's a lot of trouble to go through for a handmaiden."

The sabaac face Sabé had been wearing broke as she said indignantly with shining eyes, "Padmé wasn't just my mistress. She was my friend. Something wasn't right about her death, and her child was missing. She would have done the same for me."

Ahsoka understood the sentiment. Padmé would have intervened for anyone she'd cared about. She'd done it for Ahsoka on multiple occasions, even as little as getting Anakin to back off and stop being so overbearing after her exoneration.

Sentiment wasn't logical, though. Just because Sabé was loyal to Padmé didn't mean she'd be loyal to either of them.

"So you're looking for closure?" asked Ahsoka.

"Yes. But I also failed to protect Padmé when she needed me most. The least I could do was find out what happened to the child and help protect them."

Ahsoka raised an eye marking. "And now?"

"Now I'm sworn to protect both her children, no matter what and by any means necessary," Sabé declared.

If Sabé was insincere, Ahsoka didn't sense it. She had no reason to argue with the woman, though she wished she did just so Vader would stop being so smug about it. Ahsoka used the Force to give him the equivalent of a mental shove while sending him, Shut up.

"When you say, no matter what, how far can that boundary be pushed?" Vader asked, still exuding smugness.

Sabé's eyes flashed with something, but Ahsoka wasn't sure what. Sabé was like Padmé in the sense that she was a non-Force sensitive that was incredibly hard to get a read on through the Force.

Then the woman replied, "If you're asking, am I willing to help you despite the fact that you're Darth Vader and despite the fact that you now stand for everything Padmé was against, then the answer is pretty far."

Ahsoka couldn't help the widening of her eyes that Sabé knew that, but Vader didn't seem surprised at all. In fact, he was pleased.

"See, Ahsoka," he said without taking his eyes off Sabé, a smirk on his lips. "I told you she'd be a valuable asset."

Ahsoka wasn't convinced. If anything, she had more questions. But Vader seemed validated in his decision and decided to be a gracious host and show Sabé to a guest room to discuss the details of her service later. That included, Ahsoka found out later, briefing her about the rebellion. Nothing classified, Vader assured. Sabé was to be his personal agent in the same sense that Diya was Ahsoka's. But Sabé could blend into places to get information that none of them could, and she had the skillset to do it.

Grudgingly, Ahsoka again had to admit that he was right. During her briefing, Ahsoka still couldn't get a read on the woman, though. She wore a perfectly blank mask that Ahsoka was more frustrated by than she was surprised considering she'd once been Padmé's handmaiden and decoy.

"Why are you doing this?" Ahsoka finally asked.

Sabé didn't miss a beat as she said, "I already told you. I failed Padmé. I won't fail again."

"Even though Vader stands for everything she was against."

"You have to live for the people left behind. She left Luke and Leia behind. She'd want them safe. And if the best chance of ensuring that is working with him, that's what I'll do." Sabé gave Ahsoka a penetrative stare then; one Ahsoka met head-on. She stared Darth Vader down at his angriest with the dark side egging him on. Sabé, no matter what her skillset, didn't intimidate her. The human woman continued after a few moments, "I see why Padmé thought so highly of you."

"She talked about me?"

"Frequently." Sabé cracked a smile. "She always said she could have made one hell of a leader and politician out of you if she could steal you from Anakin and the Jedi. I can see why."

Ahsoka huffed. "Hardly."

"Your rebellion says otherwise."

"Other people laid the foundations."

"And modest to boot. You'd have given Palpatine a run for his money." When Ahsoka laughed dismissively, Sabé continued. "Padmé thought so. She said you were kind, honest, confident, quick to make friends, and compassionate with a sharp sense of justice and the desire to do the right thing. She also said you lacked tact and the patience to sit still and were easily bored, but nothing a little maturity wouldn't eventually solve."

"Well, I still don't have a lot of tact," Ahsoka said in a teasing tone, though she hadn't let her guard down. Raising the twins helped with the patience. It was hard to know if she were still easily bored because she always had something that needed her attention. There wasn't enough downtime to be bored.

"She said the only real problem was that you were a little too innocent, despite fighting in the war. Padmé had hoped the day wouldn't come that you lost that even though she knew in this kind of galaxy, it was inevitable."

Ahsoka didn't deny it. Whatever rose-colored lenses that were over her eyes had shattered along with the rest of her world the day Padmé died. She didn't mourn it anymore or wish to go back to the days where things were so sure, and she felt like she knew who her enemies were. She wouldn't have been prepared to fight Palpatine and be there to hinder Vader's darker tendencies every step of the way if she hadn't lost that innocence and faced reality.

"She saw a lot of herself in you but was convinced you were greater."

Not comfortable anymore with hearing Sabé talk about how high Padmé regarded her, Ahsoka asked, "How did you know he was Vader?"

Sabé winked and said, "The handmaidens know everything. Remember that." Then she said seriously, "He left a clue while I was investigating. So minuscule no one would have found it, not even if they knew Padmé. Or at least, they would have brushed it off as a coincidence or some unfathomable possibility. It was like he was testing to see how competent I was. That if I could figure that out, I was worth letting into his circle."

"That sounds like him. Would have been nice if he'd told me about it," Ahsoka replied. There was one more thing nagging her about all this, though. Just one. And better to lay such a pertinent truth out now than for Sabé to find out later when Ahsoka didn't have any control over what the other woman might do about it.

"I don't know what Vader has made you think you're getting into with him. He's capable of good and kindness, but in a lot of ways, he's every bit the monster people claim him to be," Ahsoka began.

"If this is your way of trying to prime me for the fact that he might have had something to do with Padmé's death, I know that too," Sabé replied. "The way I see it, I could try to get revenge and kill him, but then where would that leave Padmé's children when he plays some part in their protection?"

"That's assuming you could kill him," Ahsoka pointed out. Vader would hesitate for sure. If Ahsoka hadn't seen Padmé die with her own eyes, even she might be fooled by Sabé's uncanny resemblance to Padmé. But even if Sabé ever changed her mind about getting revenge, Vader at the very least wouldn't allow her to kill him even if he couldn't bring himself to strike her down. Ahsoka would have no such reservation.

Sabé quietly conceded that point and continued, "Besides, that's not what Padmé would have wanted. I would know. I tried to convince Padmé to quietly divorce him, that he wasn't worth her career. But she said there was more to him than what I saw on the surface."

"There is," Ahsoka replied simply.

There was no way to explain the nuance and duplicity that was Anakin Skywalker without getting to know him. He was the type of person that gave people back tenfold what they gave to him. Most of the time, the general dismissiveness, arrogance, and mean streak had been because people treated him the same way, thinking there was little to him beyond the brawns of the hero that war propaganda had depicted him as. Not many people had the openmindedness to take the time to get to know the totality of him. Not to mention, the Order hadn't left much room for the totality of him. If he had shown it, Ahsoka imagined he might have been expelled from the Order long before he destroyed it. Maybe even before she'd gotten the chance to know him at all.

As Darth Vader, the same was still true, but he now had no interest in allowing people to see his duplicity. Though Ahsoka admitted, it was harder to see past the wholly evil cyborg he publicly presented himself to be after the third or fourth genocide committed by his hands no matter whose authority enabled him. It had been a long time since he'd committed a great atrocity like that, though. Probably since right after they'd been reunited again. He was still bound to acts of cruelty, and there was only so much he could do to mitigate the Empire's current terror without falling under suspicion, but there had been some progress. He was definitely the much lesser evil compared to Palpatine, and Sabé seemed to have figured that out on her own, despite having no illusions about Vader's sins. Maybe she would eventually see the duplicity and nuance in him too.

"Can I ask you a question now?" Sabé asked.

"I suppose it's only fair since I've gotten your life story."

"What do you get out of all this? I understand you're doing it for Luke and Leia. But when you've fought your war and given Vader the Empire, what exactly will you do? A warrior, with no war to fight. A leader with no one else to lead because you'll have handed it all over. I can imagine you settling into the palace and being some kind of stay at home mom even less than I could see it with Padmé."

That, Ahsoka thought dryly to herself, was the million-credit musing of this entire trip. Without a war to fight, without Luke and Leia to raise, without a rebellion to run, what purpose did she have? What would her place be when no one needed her anymore?

Luke and Leia thundered down the stairs and ran directly to stand in front of where Sabé was seated at the table, giving Ahsoka a needed distraction from her mental brooding and an excuse not to answer Sabé's question. Both were practically bouncing on the balls of their feet.

"Daddy said you knew our first mother," Leia said.

"Can you tell us about her more?" Luke asked.

Ahsoka nudged them both mentally. When they looked at her, she gave them a patient, wry look.

"Oh. Right," they both said.

"Sorry for interrupting. I'm Leia."

"I'm Luke. Can you tell us about our first mother?"

"First mother?" Sabé asked with a frown.

"Padmé," Ahsoka explained simply.

Sabé laughed in delight—the first real emotion she'd expressed since Ahsoka met her the previous night—before looking at Ahsoka for permission. Ahsoka shrugged. Vader brought her here. There was no reason to keep her away from them now, and the twins knew the things they couldn't openly say. And if they weren't sure, they knew just not to say it. To exchange a look with each other (a way of having a quick mental conversation, Ahsoka assumed), giggle, and then make adults dismiss their behavior as silly childishness. She hadn't even had to teach them that. They figured it out on their own, and Ahsoka saw them use it masterfully on Bail, who Ahsoka was sure just thought Luke and Leia had concocted an imaginary friend named "Dad."

Ahsoka decided the fact that they were learning deceit so early was the very least of the things she needed to be concerned about. It was good they figuring out how to protect themselves. It also meant that Ahsoka didn't have a good reason to delay teaching Leia how to use a blaster or teaching Luke how to pilot, even if that meant inadvertently teaching them how not to need her.

Ahsoka groaned, deciding to follow Sabé and the twins into the living room. Maybe hearing Sabé regale the twins with stories of Padmé would help take her mind off her existential crisis.

AN: I don't know much about Sabé or her personality. There's not a lot to go off of to figure that out, even in canon. What I do know is that she had to have had a steely personality and the nerves to match to play Padmé's decoy during her queenship. I also imagine because of the nature of her job, she was probably very no-nonsense and even more pragmatic about situations than Padmé was. Also, there seems to be the general consensus of the fandom that her personality likely leaned that way.

The next chapter is going to please all of you who want this slow-burn to burn a little faster. The next chapter is a big step toward that direction.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed. Review, please. We officially crossed 200 reviews as of last chapter! At some point, I'm going to have to find a way to answer guest reviews because I don't like to clog up my author's notes but I want to answer some of the questions that can be answered without spoiling the story. Maybe I'll make a Tumblr where guests can send in their questions and I can reply to them there. Let me know what you think of that.