Coruscant
19 BBY
Dorme had a funny look on her face when she opened the door to Padme's flat.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Sabe said, misinterpreting her expression.
Dorme had accepted her position as a kind of auxiliary handmaiden, but had surely been mystified by it. After all, Padme had refused to employ any decoys after Corde's death, and the workload was perfectly manageable for one without the ruse. But they weren't close, and Sabe knew Dorme was suspicious of her activities outside of her duties.
Dorme shook her head. "You're not. They just arrived."
"Oh?" Sabe asked with a smile.
Dorme's eyes sparkled mischievously. "I thought you and I might head to the market and give them some, ah, space. Padme asked for a special dinner tonight."
Padme's news must have been well received, then. Sabe nodded and went to retrieve their market bags.
They spent a pleasant couple of hours picking out a nice fowl, some fruit and wine. It still boggled Sabe's mind, eating this way in the capital. Where she'd come from, what little food that was available was made of synthetic protein with the texture of curdled milk and the flavor of plastic. She luxuriated in the textures and smells of Dorme's favorite open air market.
"How did they seem?" She asked as she picked up an imported apple and inhaled its fragrance rapturously.
She knew Dorme shared her devotion to Padme. It was the one thing that consistently eased any tension between them.
"Blissful," Dorme grinned. "They gave me a quick greeting and haven't emerged from her room since."
"I guess that's good," Sabe murmured, putting the apple in her bag.
Dorme looked at her sideways. "You're still worried?"
"I've never seen her like this," Sabe said. "One minute she's up, the next crashing down. She's worried all the time and second guessing herself constantly. I think a lot of Anakin, but I can't pretend to like it."
Dorme lifted one shoulder. "She's in love. The poets call it madness. And they've never really had the chance for the honeymoon to wear off."
That was true. There had been no day-to-day for them like a normal couple. Their relationship had been only a series of stolen moments punctuated by war and chaos. Now there would be a child in the mix. Sabe found she was not comforted.
"You know, you may understand one day," Dorme said, winking at her.
Sabe was silent.
When they returned to the flat, laden with choice ingredients, they found Padme and Anakin seated in the salon. The couple stood up quickly, as if the handmaidens had still interrupted some private moment. Padme's hair was frizzy and wild, and her clothes disheveled. But her eyes were alight, and there was more color in her cheeks than Sabe had seen for weeks.
"I'm sorry for my earlier absence, my Lady." Sabe said formally, with a bow.
"Not to worry, dear one"
The term of affection seemed to be Padme's way of letting her know that she was off duty, and that Anakin was to be treated as a regular member of the household rather than a guest. It must have gone quite well, then.
"Hello, Sabe," Anakin said with a smile.
Sabe returned the smile, genuinely happy to see him even if he always seemed to bring complication with him. It was hard to resent him when he made Padme bloom so obviously. She tried to decide if he really had filled out and grown taller since the last time she'd seen him, or if it was simply that she was always surprised to see a man and not a little boy.
"Hello, Anakin. It's good to see you home safe."
He looked tired, though. Very tired. His hair was long and shaggy, and a scar ran from his brow down alongside his right eye, giving him a roguish appearance. He looked at Padme warmly. "It's very good to be home."
The roses in Padme's cheeks deepened. "Tonight I want us to celebrate together. Dorme has planned a spectacular dinner."
She was right, if the savory smells from the kitchen were any gauge. Dorme had already set up the small formal dining room with candles and place settings and pulled back the curtains so that the skyline formed a glowing backdrop.
"Sit down!" Dorme said, bustling back and forth from the kitchen with steaming dishes. "It won't do for it to get cold."
When everyone had made themselves comfortable and Dorme had satisfied herself that their plates were sufficiently full, Padme poured glasses of wine for everyone but herself. She gleefully filled her own water glass with as much triumph as if it had been the finest champagne.
"Where have you been today, Sabe? Stirring up more intrigue in the Underground?" She asked.
Sabe had given her only the vaguest reports of her activities, but Padme knew the gist.
"Nothing new of that kind, I'm afraid." Sabe admitted, then smiled down at her plate. "I did gather some intelligence on where to find Nubian tea, the best I've tasted outside of Theed. I should bring you some."
Padme exhaled, her eyes growing dreamy. "That would be lovely. All Coruscanti teas taste like plastic."
"And how is Master Kenobi?" Anakin murmured, taking a long sip of wine.
Sabe's smile faded, the hand holding her wine glass freezing a centimeter from her lips.
She comprehended his tone immediately. His words were calculated to embarrass her before Padme. It was unkind. Anakin had never been that way before. Emotional and tempestuous, certainly, but never deliberately unkind. Hot anger rose in her chest as she put down her glass. He had no right to mock her, not when he flaunted his own disregard for the code before her eyes.
"Ani," Padme said in soft admonishment, laying a hand on his arm.
Dorme looked confused, but could tell their dinner had become awkward. She cleared her throat. "Anyone for a top off?" She asked, picking up the carafe.
Sabe barely tasted the rest of the food, even though it was likely as delicious as Padme had promised. She pushed it around her plate to disguise her lack of appetite as Padme and Dorme chatted happily about plans for the birth and the things that would be needed. Once in a while she felt Anakin's eyes on her, and from a quick glance she saw that he was unhappy with himself.
After dinner, Padme and Dorme perused the holonet looking for news on the war effort while Sabe cleared away the dishes. Anakin approached her with a bowed head. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Sabe."
But you did intend that, didn't you, Anakin?
"Think nothing of it," Sabe said stiffly, raking the food scraps into a spare bowl and handing it to C3PO.
"Perhaps there is something I can do to make it up to you?"
She paused in mid action. "Actually, there is one thing."
"Name it."
She handed the last of the place settings to the droid, who squeaked away humming cheerily to himself "You know that I've still been looking into the attack on the Ankura and Ohma D'un?"
"Yes."
She sighed. "I'm having a great deal of trouble making any headway on my own. Given the separatist connections, I thought the Council may still want some involvement, or at least to offer some resources."
"I can put in a request," He said. "I can't promise they will listen to me. Sometimes it seems they move at the pace of a glacier."
"All I can ask is that you try. I have no other ideas at this point." Sabe said.
He nodded. "Of course. No one wants to undermine these separatist scumbags more than I do,"
Sabe blinked. His voice was full of venom. She often wondered how he and Obi-Wan could work together with such different temperaments. Try as he might, Obi-Wan had never been able to rein him in. Perhaps that was the magic of their partnership; Anakin's brash and chaotic energy balancing Obi-Wan's meticulous control. Certainly it appeared to have worked out for them so far. It even seemed sometimes that Obi-Wan had mellowed...slightly. She wondered if Anakin had ended up influencing Obi-Wan more than Obi-Wan had influenced him.
"I'll speak to Master Yoda tomorrow," Anakin said.
"Thank you, Anakin." Sabe said.
He smiled, all the storm clouds dispersed. Sabe was relieved. There would be no room for tension between them in the months ahead.
Apparently, he was as good as his word, because a few days later Sabe had her answer. Rather than a curt communication of assent or refusal as she expected, Sabe received a summons to meet with Master Yoda himself.
She had last been in the Temple only briefly before the events at the Morsa Loinga. She tried to ignore the nervousness she felt walking up the steps of the Temple between its columns and towering stone guardians. She was sure that no other structure in the Republic, no matter how large, could make her feel as small as this one did. A little Twi'lek padawan guided her through the temple halls to Master Yoda's chamber. As she followed, she tried once again to ignore the stares from the many Jedi. She was confusing. She was force sensitive, but not one of them. And yet here she was in their midst, all the same.
This would be her first one-on-one conversation with the diminutive Master. Previously it had only been in company with the other members of the council, and only in the council chambers from a comfortable distance. Within the dim little egg-shaped room, his immense force presence struck her as soon as she walked through the door.
Like a closed fist.
The sensation was hard to square with the wrinkled, jade-colored face that peered at her speculatively. He was seated in lotus position on a wide, round ottoman with his three-fingered hands on his knees. He would have been almost...cute if he had not felt to her so much like a coiled spring at its highest tension. Or a predator, ready to pounce.
"Sit," He invited in his funny little trill.
She sat.
He did not speak immediately, only sat there with half-closed eyes. She had time to look around the room a bit and notice what few personal articles were there; a flimsy book or two, a tiny cloak neatly folded, a pair of slides for his feet though she'd never seen him wear any. And the windows...Though they were covered, they stretched over every wall. His room was in one of the highest points in the temple, so the view must have been spectacular. She wondered if he often looked out over the city. The remote guardian. Watchful, but untouched by anything below.
He clasped his hands together. "Heard your request, the Council has. Denied it is."
She exhaled and stared at the floor. Anakin had told her not to get her hopes up. The Council had many irons in the fire and would not want to involve themselves in a matter that had a tenuous connection to them at best.
"I see," she said. "Then forgive me, Master Yoda, but why am I here? The council could have alerted me to their decision with a message."
She squirmed under the intensity of his gaze, feeling very much the youngling again. He seemed to favor long silences and carefully chosen words. Likely those silences caused the average padawan to try to fill them with nervous chatter, revealing themselves to the little ancient like open books. She resolved that she would not make that mistake. She became aware that he wasn't taking her measure only with his eyes. Shrinking from the creeping cold feeling, her defenses slammed into place.
He blinked one slow blink, the only visible sign of his surprise. "Another matter I have brought you here to discuss."
"Yes?"
"The matter of Master Kenobi."
Her heart gave a painful lurch. "What about him?"
Yoda chuckled. "Strong your shields may be, but open your face is."
She was not amused. "I am not a Jedi, Master Yoda."
"And yet Obi-Wan is. This you know."
"I do," She hated herself for the quaver in her voice.
"Great danger you present to him," Yoda said in a low tone.
Her hands fisted in her lap, but she couldn't think of a single reply that seemed appropriate.
"Much depends on him."
"I think I know that more than most."
"Love him, do you?"
She almost leaped to her feet and left right then, but she controlled herself. Her fingernails bit into her palms . "Master Yoda, I have nothing but respect for the Order and the commitment Obi-Wan has made to it."
"Question that, no one does," Yoda said, not unkindly.
"Then what are you asking of me? To stay away from him?"
A part of Sabe quailed at speaking to him in such a way. Every sense told her that he was superior to her in every respect. She felt like an insect before a leviathan. Not to mention that as a member of Senator Amidala's staff, she should always be fostering good relationships with other groups in Coruscant rather than antagonizing them. But did any of that mean she had to sit here and allow her most private thoughts to be dragged out and examined? Though he'd had a profound impact on her life, Master Yoda was still a stranger to her. It was a violation. The Council had lost the privilege of dissecting her motives when they had sent her to Naboo twenty years ago.
His eyes never left her while she struggled, and she began to realize that it was compassion she saw in them. Nine hundred years he'd been alive. In all that time, had he never wrestled with the same questions she faced?
"Take care, young one, only that, hmmm? Great care. Clouded the Force is. Its patterns the wisest of us struggle to see."
"That much is true." she said softly.
The cold fingers danced on her spine and the air thickened with his power. It was suffocating. She didn't belong here, and he had no authority over her. She wanted to snap that if the Council was suddenly so interested in policing attachments, there were other members of the Temple they should start with. She wanted to ask how they thought they could be effective guardians while staring down from their towers, allowing themselves only the most superficial connections to the creatures below.
But she said none of it. Instead, she stood and bowed. "Excuse me master. I must return to my duties to the Senator."
He frowned and inclined his head. She hurried through the door and exhaled as it closed behind her.
She was so flustered that she didn't hear the footsteps following her at first. A few corridors down from Yoda's chambers she was startled when a tall, cloaked figure joined her. He turned his face so she could see the shadowed features beneath the hood.
"Anakin?"
"Hello again. I thought you could use a friend," He said. He looked even more tired than he had at dinner a few days previous, as if he had not slept at all.
"He turned me down," Sabe said, trying to relax her still clenched fists.
"I know," He said. "That's why I'm here."
He pushed a bundle of cloth into her arms. "No one told you outright that you could not go into the Archives, right?"
"No-oo."
He bent his head, speaking in a low tone. "If they notice you, they will escort you out. So go in like you own the place. If you work fast enough, you just might find something you can use."
Then he winked and took a sharp right down another darkened corridor.
"Like I own the place..." Sabe muttered, shaking out the cloth.
It was a cloak. Glancing around, she slung it around her shoulders, slipping her hands into the billowing arms. It was far too long, but if she walked fast and with enough self-possession, perhaps they wouldn't notice.
It took long moments of falsely confident roaming to find the way to the archives. Once inside, she tried not to look like a tourist by staring up at the towering ceiling or the huge shelves lined with glowing data banks. The center of the room was lined with tables and the busts of notable Jedi from ancient times to the present. She had trouble covering her surprise when she realized one of them was Count Dooku. Would they remove it after everything he'd done? Or would they just keep it out of sheer stubbornness and inertia?
Finding an empty data console, she sat for a moment with her fingers hovering over the touch screen, trying to think of what to search for. Then she just began throwing out terms at random as she thought of them.
"Sideous von falcos" was a complete non-starter. "Equis" only brought up biological information about the species and planet of origin. She did notice that it came from Alderaan. She remembered what Dex had said and did a search on the Incom Corporation. She brought up a link showing the company's organizational structure. Just as Dex had indicated, Seti Asgard was listed as a lead designer and stakeholder. Then she noticed another stakeholder.
Bail Organa of Alderaan.
It was probably a coincidence. There were many stakeholders, and she recognized more than a few from the Senate and from other government organizations, right up to the Chancellor himself. Was it possible that someone had been arrogant enough to mark the aerosol containers with a link to a planet?
As she was thinking about it, a hand came down on her shoulder. "I've been looking for you, Padawan."
Busted.
She looked up into Obi-Wan's face and smiled sweetly. "Were you? Whatever for?"
He lifted an eyebrow. "Come along."
"Fine," she sighed. She stood to follow him, but not before she quickly downloaded the organizational chart into her comvid.
What was interesting was that he didn't try to stop her. He kept his own counsel as they walked back through the hall of a thousand fountains with its roar of rushing water, and out the main entrance down the steps. His silence didn't matter. For the first time all day she felt her jaw unclench as she looked at his profile out of the corner of her eye.
Once they had covered some distance from the Temple and its foot traffic, he reached out and plucked at the sleeve of her borrowed cloak. "Count yourself lucky I pulled you away. Master Nu already had an eye on you and she is not to be trifled with."
Sabe widened her eyes. "I was only browsing, Obi-Wan."
"Well, I will return your browsing attire to its rightful owner," He said, sliding the ridiculously over-sized cloak from her shoulders and folding it over his arm.
"I did ask for help through more...traditional channels. They turned me down flat," Sabe said.
"Of course they did. You—and Naboo—have rather pressed your advantage with the Temple these past few years. They don't want the appearance of partiality," Obi-Wan said.
She looked away, remembering the majority of the conversation she'd just had. Her cheeks burned. Had Master Yoda addressed his concerns with Obi-Wan directly? She would never know, because she would never be able to bring herself to ask. Then she thought of Anakin's shadowed eyes, and Padme's fearful ones. There were a lot of things she couldn't bring herself to discuss with Obi-Wan.
"Are you alright?"
Master Yoda was right, in some respects. It would be easy to confuse her own loyalties. Her duty was to Padme, and under no circumstances could she betray Padme's confidences because of her own feelings. No matter how much it hurt to tell him a lie of omission.
"Of course I am," She said brightly, jerking her face into a smile. "Only in a hurry. The Senator will be expecting me back."
It was ironic. She would have done almost anything to remain with him. To just stand there bantering with him in the sun, or to say nothing at all. Sometimes she found herself feeling envious of even the clone troopers he fought beside. But for the last two days it seemed she was always the one hurrying off and leaving him behind.
She tried not to notice the small frown on Obi-Wan's face as she turned away. All he could tell was that she was being cold for no discernible reason.
It's better this way, Obi-Wan. Better for us both. Your own Council thinks so.
