Chapter 11. Pictures on the Wall

The prince of darkness
is a gentleman.

- William Shakespeare, King Lear

For all the hundreds I'd attended by the time I was twenty-four, there are specific Lunar Day dinners that stood out in my memory. There was the time grandmother Ryoo accidentally cooked a large, non-metal spatula with the main entree in the oven, and it came out looking like a display piece from the Naboo Museum of Eccentric Art. There was the dinner when Sola and I collected fresh wildflowers for a centerpiece, little interior designers that we were, and bugs erupted from the petals all over the table midway through the meal. Who could forget the time when Pooja, the bright-eyed babe in her mother's lap, said her first word ("Mama") to a chorus of cheers? For as many bad luck instances that had been refolded into our family history under laughable delights, there's a much longer list, a treasure chest full of Lunar Day dinners wonderful beyond expectation.

Like the time Anakin Skywalker sat down and completely won over my family.

Once his self-consciousness and insecurities seemed to resolve themselves for one afternoon, Anakin relaxed and flexed his true charismatic muscles. Sola and my parents did a superb job of making him feel welcome, and in such a friendly environment, the dashing, quick-witted man thrived. It was a side of him I'd only seen in glimpses, and it was much easier to appreciate it all when I wasn't the sole focus of his attention. He was far funnier than I'd already thought he was, and I wiped away a tear from laughing so breathlessly more than once. Anakin and my sister— the two of them sharing similar sarcastic senses of humor— got along famously, which annoyed me less than I thought it would. Anakin regaled us with chronicles of his training mishaps, turning what were surely embarrassments at the time into hilarious histories. He had more than enough material alone from pranking Obi-Wan over the years. I held my breath more than once, though, fearing his stories would clue the rest of the audience in on his still-current status as an apprentice. Thankfully, that particular clarification never came up.

I myself did not escape the table without enduring many, many stories gleefully recounted to Anakin centered around me in my younger days. If Anakin entered that house thinking I was a perfect, doll-like child growing up, he was going to leave having learned a new side of me as well. I wasn't necessarily a troublemaker, but there was certainly more to me than public service and politics, especially in my early youth. According to my loved ones, I had a stubborn and imaginative streak in full bloom long before I joined the Legislative Youth Program. Though they shared their tales teasingly, every eyeroll from me seemed to make my family relish in telling their anecdotes even more. If I had a credit for every time I heard "When Mémé was a little girl…" or "There was this one time, when Padmé…", I'd have enough currency to buy Jar Jar new dress robes. Anakin gamely pitched in with his own storytelling to match, giving an embellished account of my apparently "terrifying" stare at the dejarik table. I tried and failed to suppress blushes as he spoke of my victorious run with unmasked pride and esteem.

The only drawback to the whole experience was watching my parents exchange poignant looks across the table more times than I could count. I had a sneaking feeling Anakin and I were the topic of their silent conference, but they were communicating in a secret language all their own, one exclusive to familiar couples. I tried to dismiss it. I was pleased they all liked Anakin, and pleased he very much seemed to like them. Beyond this, I forbid my thoughts from analyzing any further.

My rebellious heart, however, was doing ruminating of its own.

Watching the dinner unfold as more and more anecdotes were shared, my beating organ saw that Anakin and I were more similar that I'd realized. Both of us had been fueled by internal bonfires since early childhood— his was simply channeled into podracing and Jedi feats; mine into diplomatic work. Different blazes in different worlds to superficial eyes, but there were underlying sparks more alike than they were contradictory. After hearing as much, my mother even commented that if Ani and I were playmates in the same neighborhood growing up, we would've burned the place down.

I assure you, she meant it as a well-meaning jest.

At the end of the meal, our bellies in pain from fullness and the jiggling effects of laughter, my father asked my bodyguard to accompany him outside for a walk around the grounds. The offer was quickly accepted.

We'd been at the table for over an hour at this point, and the environment couldn't have been more amiable. But I stilled nervously at Papa's invitation. He wasn't asking Anakin to join him to tell more stories about little Memé, nor to show off the beautiful gardens.

"Papa, would you like me to join you, too?"

"I'd appreciate your help clearing the table, dear," my mother interjected. I turned just in time to see her send another one of those knowing looks to her husband.

I was outnumbered.

I sent a look to Anakin, inadvertently copying the same technique my parents had been using since the day they'd formed their unspoken connection.

He gave me a gentle smile before pushing his chair back in tandem with my father. After he stood, he gave a small bow to the matron still seated at the other end of the table. "Thank you for an excellent meal." An earnest look came over his face. "I've truly enjoyed this." Looking down at me, he gave one last smile before turning and following my father. I watched his back as they headed out of the room in the direction of the stairs which led to the yard below.

I steeled myself as I began to help my mother and sister empty the table of its plates, bowls, and cups. The meal had gone well. Too well. Too well to not be discussed.

My mom had moved on to put leftovers into a bag while Sola finished drying the dessert cups by the sink. I'd barely finished getting the table cleared when my sister started in. "Finally, my baby sister brings home a young man. Why haven't you told us about him?"

There is a technique I've often seen employed in politics: Minimization. It's not overtly complicated, but it's effective more often than one would think. The idea is to be as flippant and disregarding as possible, so that your opponent has as little fire as possible to work with.

Minimize, minimize, minimize.

"What's there to talk about? He's just a boy."

"A boy?" The way Sola looked at me, I might as well have called him a Gungan. But my attention was stolen by the sight outside the window over the sink; Anakin and my father were strolling leisurely through the yard. The sight of the two men walking and conversing with each other made my lungs grow with a sweet kind of air that hand nothing to do with the decadent herbs hanging from the shelf nearby. Sola's voice dipped lower. "Have you seen the way he looks at you?"

Caught off guard, my minimization strategy flew out the very window I was stalking my father and Anakin from. "Sola, stop it!"

Her voice was kinder, but just as firm. There was something serious to the gleam in her eyes. "It's obvious he has feelings for you."

"Anakin and I are…"

{You're exactly the way I remember you in my dreams.}

"…friends." My voice sounded unconvincing to my own ears. I stared out the window at my tall, attractive 'friend'. His eyes suddenly caught mine across the distance; he could see me watching from the window. I continued on as if he could hear me, as if the words were meant for him as much as for my sister's sake. "Our relationship is strictly professional."

After a beat, in my peripheral vision, I saw Sola share a look with our mother. I turned to read the expression on Jobal Naberrie's face, and I was unsettled to see that my words hadn't influenced her at all. She smiled back at me with too much mirth, before shaking her head and returning to the leftovers in front of her.

This one look bothered me far more than Sola's teasing. My sister had built a side-career on pairing me with diplomats and celebrities I'd never even met. Her comments about Anakin, while veering uncomfortably close to the mark, were somewhat easy to dismiss. It was the same old Sola. My mom, on the other hand, who knew my expressions and behaviors in a way only a mother can, a way that superseded any training my handmaidens could absorb, hadn't rolled her eyes at Sola's prodding as she normally did. She was rejecting my spewing of friendship and professionalism. The wisdom in her eyes, which I'd always valued and respected, warned me the act of lying to myself and to my family was wearing thin. This was daunting, to say the least. Although extended by stories and laughter, Anakin and I had only sat down with them for the length of a single meal.

What did my mother see at that table?

Like a habit that had already established itself in the burrows of my subconscious, I turned back towards Anakin as I thought these musings through. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him for very long even when I tried. My father said something that made him laugh— but I couldn't hear the sound through the closed panes of glass. I saw his lips spread into a dazzlingly smile; saw his chest vibrate with his amusement. My eyes got their fill.

My ears, however, felt longingly bereft.

"Professional, you say? If Darred looked at his work colleagues the way you're looking out that window, I'd be a looking for a new husband."

I rolled my eyes for the hundredth time that day and fixed my sister with a stern look. This wasn't a conversation that could go anywhere. "He's a Jedi."

She shrugged as she continued rubbing the inside of the small gray cups with a towel. "Well, I don't speak Jedi, but I know attraction when I see it— and this breed goes both ways."

I passed her by as I walked towards the kitchen island to help our mother. Tapping Sola's forehead lightly along the way, I advised, "Get your translator chip checked."

My mother peeked at me from under her long lashes as I came to stand by her side. "What exactly does the Jedi code say on romances?"

I blinked at her, a little surprised at the inquiry. "Well, um, attachments are forbidden."

She studied me closely, as if she could see a video of the speech Anakin had given me on the freighter play out in my eyes like they were holoscreens broadcasting it. "That's it? That's all it says?"

I half-believed she'd actually watched him say "unconditional love" right before she asked her question.

"Mmm-hmm."

Not only was it certain to hurt my case if I recounted to them what Anakin told me, I was sure I'd babble my way through it if I tried.

Sola was depositing the tiny cups on in the cabinet. "You say you want a family, Mémé, yet you never date! Why do you deprive your big sister of all that fun?"

I spun round and leaned back against the kitchen island, crossing my arms over my chest. "You and the gossip tabloids can commiserate together."

"Well, it's good to know I'm not the only one who notices your lack of a love life."

I stopped, taking another look around the kitchen as realization dawned on me. "Speaking of love lives, where is Darred? I thought he and the girls would have been here by now."

I'd have to be deaf and blind to not notice the way the room quieted at my remark. The lightness disappeared from Sola's movements, and she placed the remaining cups in the cabinet with a solemn slowness akin to ceremony. My mother looked at the back of her eldest daughter tenderly, but then suddenly shifted her gaze to me. With a quick shake of her head, I muted my tongue.


"Don't worry, this won't take long."

"I just want to get there before dark."

I gave Anakin a reassuring smile as we turned down the long hallway that led to my bedroom. The row was lined with several holographic still pictures and short video blips— a visual timeline of past and present loved ones.

"A solar day on Naboo lasts twenty-six standard hours, and the most direct way to the Lake Country has us going away from the sun. We'll have gained several hours back by the time we land."

He let out a long breath. "Good thing we slept on the flight here."

I gave him an understanding look. All things considered, we were both operating on very little sleep. Waking up to the orange sunrise on Coruscant felt like years ago— and neither one of us had gotten much recuperation in the hours before that.

"Wait." Anakin paused in front of one of the video blips on the wall. "What's the story here?"

I came to a stand next to him. "That's in the village where Sola and I were born. The one in the mountains."

"I remember." He let out a chuckle. "Why are you covered in mud?"

My grin spread as I recalled the story. I was too young to remember it clearly myself, but I'd heard it enough times to tell it. "That's after I kidnapped the village children."

Anakin's eyebrows rose as he turned to me with a wide smile. "Come again?"

I laughed at his reaction. "I was five. My parents had taken us on a walk to a nearby lake. It was a stunning sight. A few days later, I told my friends about it during playtime. They wanted to see it, so I led the way." I crinkled my nose at him. "The problem is, we didn't tell any of our parents or caregivers where we were going or, indeed, that we were going. As far as the adults knew, ten children simply disappeared."

"I see you started your tour guide career early on."

Girlishly, I lightly punched him in the shoulder. His grin only grew. "You mean as a leader. We were fine. We got a little muddy on the bank of the river—"

He pointed at the image of a five year old covered from head to toe in brown, wet dirt, waving back at him proudly with a toothy smile. The teeth— not all of them accounted for— were the only clean aspect of the little girl. The face was so matted you couldn't see where the proper hair stopped and the eyebrows began. "—A little muddy?"

"But I led us all back home safe and sound… After dark. And after every person living in the village had either gone crazy with worry or had gone out looking for us."

"And when you returned, your parents had the peace of mind to take a commemorative hologram?"

I laughed. "Sola did it. She thought it was all hilarious." I pointed at the image. "Notice how the camera is barely higher than me?"

He squinted as if it would help. "Uh-huh."

"She was only nine."

He chuckled and moved down to the next image on the wall. "And this lovely woman?"

I gazed adoringly at the woman smiling serenely back at us. It was an older capture, so it was in still form. "This is one of my great-grandmothers. She came up with the recipe for the tunda rolls you loved so much."

"She has my most reverent thanks," he mused. "Those were delicious."

"Oh, I know. They were my favorite part of dinner, apart from the guelee fish."

Anakin shook his head and clucked his tongue. "You lost me there."

"You don't like guelee fish?" My eyes went wide. Not only were they a delicacy, but they were also my personal favorite fish of all the many varieties Naboo had to offer.

"Don't tell your mother… But I don't like fish at all."

He was doing that thing again where he made my cheeks hurt from smiling so hugely. "You do realize you're on Naboo, right? For the foreseeable future?" The number two export on the planet, second only to the art, was fish. We sold mountains of it to fellow Outer-Rim appreciators.

He laughed and rose his hands in defense. "I grew up on a desert planet! I told you, Tatooine isn't renowned for its fishing prospects." His face wrinkled in mock-disgust. "I've never gotten used to the taste. They're so slimy."

I squared my shoulders. "I don't know what the Jedi are serving you on Coruscant, but we'll make you a convert before your assignment here ends."

"You will try." We chuckled once more. Then Anakin pointed again at the image on the wall. "I'm still a little lost on your family tree," he admitted. "But I like the continuity of the names—with your nieces and their great-" he smiled, "grandmothers."

"I do, too. Their legacy lives on. Quite literally." My eyes fondly traced the brown eyes and hair of the woman who looked so much like my sister and I. Of all my extended relatives, I had bonded with her the most. "I miss her."

Anakin turned to me, surprised. "She was alive long enough for you to know her?"

Wistful, I replied, "She was a young mother who went on to live a long, happy life. We were very close." I smiled at his puzzled frown. "Such longevity in humans is so foreign to you?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "People don't usually live long enough to know their grandchildren on Tatooine, much less their great-grandchildren." He didn't say it morosely. He simply stated it as fact. He peered closely at the image. His eyes darted over at me, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "So, what was her secret?"

"To near-immortality?"

"Mm-hmm."

My eyes fell upon the woman with chestnut hair and affectionate eyes. "She was asked that a lot. She did live a long life, even for a Nubian."

"And what was her answer?"

"Family. Love." I smirked. "And a lot of fish."

Anakin threw up his hands theatrically, but he was grinning. "Well, I'm done for."

I laughed heartily at his response. "If I recall correctly, she didn't like fish much, either. In fact, we always said great-grandmother Le—"

"Padmé!"

I leaned around Anakin to shout my reply to my mother's call. It had echoed down the hallway unexpectedly. "Yes?!"

"When you get to Varykino, make sure you tell Paddy not to water the eritra tree! It only needs watering every other season, and I don't want to him to forget!"

"Yes, Mom!" I eyed Anakin with a head tilt in the direction of my bedroom. "We should get moving."

I didn't know why I held my breath as I walked into my room until I realized it was the first time any young man had ever been in it. Prompted by the nerves of this fact, I went straight for a suitcase in the back of my closet and laid it on the bed.

I'd already had this idea since the washroom in the palace, but my mother's face in the kitchen cemented my decision. I would not be at the mercy of Dormé's wardrobe pickings with the slim options she'd packed alongside. I'd build a whole new suitcase full of appropriate clothing for a senator about to spend one-on-one time with her Jedi protector. If I couldn't make my mother and sister believe Anakin and I's relationship was strictly professional, I'd at least make the groundskeeper at Varykino— Paddy Accu— believe it.

There would be no corsets, no thin nightgowns, no more stomach cut outs, and no scandalous swimwear.

As I moved, adding things to the luggage box, Anakin toured my room around me.

"So, you still live at home?"

"I move around so much. Never had a place of my own. Official residences have no warmth." Whether on the walls surrounding us, the bed comforter, or numerous décor pieces, my room was filled with the hue of soft, creamy yellow. It was no coincidence that the couches in my Coruscanti living room were the same color. "I feel good here. I feel at home." I tucked a brown shawl into the suitcase. The more layers, the better.

"I never really had a home." Anakin was looking out my bedroom window, blinking into the sunlight. "Home was always where my mom was." The words could have been taken sadly, but he was smiling at me as he spoke them. I waited to see if he'd elaborate, but when he didn't, I smiled softly back.

I hadn't expected to feel his eyes on me so intensely as he watched me carry a long, boring skirt to the suitcase. The accompanying shiver down my back prompted me to place the garment in the box that much more enthusiastically.

"Is this you?"

I stood straight, turning to see him looking at a holographic blip of me on the wall. Under both my arms were two children from Shadda-Bi-Boran. We were hugging each other tightly, rocking back and forth as we beamed into the camera. My breath hitched in my throat as it always did when I looked at the hologram, a familiar wave of affection and sorrow coursing its way through my lungs. I let the former emotion rise as a smile parted my lips.

"That was when I went with a relief group." My smile faltered. "Their sun was imploding and the planet was dying. I was helping relocate all the children." I watched as the trio of cheerful, optimistic younglings laughed blissfully together. The warm feeling when the blip was captured returned to me. "See that little one I'm holding? His name's N'a-kee-tula, which means 'sweetheart'."

{Ryoo is more temperamental, but she's a big sweetheart.}

My description of my niece came back to haunt me. With a painful stab to my chest, I aimlessly carried a blouse to the case, realizing as I walked that N'a-kee-tula was Ryoo's current age the last time I'd seen him. "He was so full of life. They all were." I fought the urge to turn and look at the colorful bracelets on my dresser table. They hadn't been worn in years, but I hadn't the heart to move them. Anakin was not the first being to offer me jewelry to remember him by. "They were never able to adapt, to live off their native planet." In what felt like a betrayal to N'a-kee-tula and his brother, Cordé and the faces of all my fallen crew suddenly flashed before my eyes. The grief from all combined losses stole the breath from my throat. I pushed the remaining words out. "They all died."

I remembered my father's metaphorical drawer technique he'd taught me in the tearful days after the relocation efforts had failed, and I compartmentalized my grief. Sometimes, there are things no one can fix.

As I turned over my shoulder, feeling Anakin's eyes on me again, I saw he had just begun studying the next image on the wall. In contrast to the child's dress from Shadda-Bi-Boran, I stood in a senatorial pod in the Senate Rotunda garbed in Nubian ceremonial attire. But that wasn't the biggest change in my appearance. "My first day as an Apprentice Legislator." I could still remember how cold the chamber was the first time I walked into it. I'd never gotten used to its frigid temperature— I don't know how the beings from climates more tropical than my own could stand it. We both stared at the severe, unsmiling child, and I grinned. "Notice the difference?"

I returned to the suitcase. It was near full now, and I started tucking the red blouse on top to make room for another item. One more thick shawl couldn't hurt.

Anakin was still scrutinizing the image on the corner wall. "You certainly don't look very happy."

"I was learning that policing-making is more like a marathon than a sprint." I walked over to the row of drawers Anakin was standing next to. As he stepped to the side to move out of my way, he inadvertently went in the opposite direction than what my aims required. My hand accidentally brushed his outer thigh, and I mumbled a quick, "Excuse me," as he reordered himself further to my left. Continuing with the previous line of thought, I said, "I came in with all these ideas for radical changes; the dreamer with plans for sweeping reforms." I gave him a wry smile over my shoulder. "Reality came quickly."

"Was that around the time you started to change?"

I frowned at his question, confused as to his meaning. My attention left the chest of drawers as I fixed him with a look. "Change?"

"I mean, well," he took a deep breath. "At dinner there were so many stories about this spitfire of a girl. It was almost—" He paused.

"Almost what?"

"Almost hard to believe." He bit down on his bottom lip in an effort to look apologetic. "I just mean, I've always known you to be so, so—"

"So?"

Anakin shrugged, seeming to commit to whatever hole he'd dug himself into in the name of being honest. "So orderly. Even at fourteen, you were such an adult. So methodical. Logical. It's hard to reconcile Amidala with the stories of Padmé Naberrie."

His words bothered me more than they should have, though not because I took any offense from his intentions. A voice I didn't want to acknowledge mournfully agreed that he was right. In my own defense, I countered, "It's not appropriate for queens to play pranks when the planet has been invaded and her people are dying. I had to grow up very quickly, Ani."

"Don't get me wrong," He stepped closer till he was directly in front of me. I arched my neck slightly to meet his stare. "You've always been kind. Warm. Gentle, but strong." The labels came out of his mouth slowly and spaced apart, adding depth of emphasis to them. In his eyes and hallowed words, I heard echoes of the way he'd chosen to describe his mother back at the dinner table. I knew better than to take such comparisons lightly. "But you have a fire buried in you that's beyond what I even suspected." Two confident fingers rose to trace the jawline on the left side of my face. I looked back at him in shock, yet I didn't move away. I instinctively knew that to do so would be more of an admission than an admonishment. His eyes moved to follow the path his fingers were carving before lifting once more to bore into mine. "I'd like to see more of this spontaneous, reckless Padmé."

My entire world became his darkening eyes and the sensations rocketing through me as he touched the skin just below my cheeks. The edge of the precipice loomed nearer. Amidala was suffocating under his stare and burning at the pyre under his touch; the sensual woman he hoped to coax out stirred with life under the layer of her ashes.

Adrenaline pumped searing blood through my veins until it became too much. "Anakin," I warned. I couldn't do this. Not here. Not now. Not yet.

It was as if he didn't hear me. "Would you like to know what I would've asked for, Padmé?" He whispered my name like it was something unbearably precious to him. "If I'd won our little bet about your father's mantra?"

His fingers were moving to better curve around my jaw. Slowly, achingly, he applied just enough pressure to tilt my head up higher. He was leaning in, and I was losing my equilibrium in the riptide. Any second I was going to surrender to the pull and my eyes would flutter closed. He was watching me intently, as if waiting for this signal of submission.

When his thumb suddenly brushed my bottom lip with exquisite demand, parting it from its northern sister, I separated from him with a breathy gasp. I was merely trying to move away, anywhere, and my feet took me in the direction of the suitcase. At least my betraying, flushed cheeks were removed from his sight. "That's enough, Ani."

"Anakin." It was growl from the back of his throat as much as it was a statement of the name.

I turned back to see him watching me with churning eyes. Enticing flames threatened to engulf me.

"'Ani' makes me sound like a little boy."

I shook my head, bewildered. "I thought you were happy to hear it again." My voice was more breathless than I anticipated, no doubt a byproduct of my pulse. It was flying at a speed that would put podracers to shame. "You said at the table that you hadn't heard it in years."

A wry smile accompanied a short exhale. "That's true— when it comes to your family."

"But not when it comes to me." I didn't phrase it as a question.

He stepped towards me again, and I tensed in rush of fear and exhilaration. My heart started beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it. "I told you. I've grown up, Padmé. Your family can call me whatever they wish, so long as you know the truth."

I gaped back at him, as paralyzed as if he'd begun stroking my face again. I'd been called out. He, who celebrated in pushing my boundaries, had caught on that I used his childhood nickname to put distance between us, consciously and otherwise. Agitated, thrilled, weak-kneed, I peered up at him with more daring than I felt. "What truth?"

Cobalt eyes smoldered mine until they abruptly flickered to the wall behind me. His lips turned down. "We're about to have company."

"What?" I spun around towards the doorway, seeing no one. But Anakin's Jedi senses had clued him into the sound of my mother's heels seconds before my own mundane human ears did. I at least had the foresight of my own to abruptly put appropriate distance between him and I a moment before she arrived. She knocked on the door frame twice, even though the occupants inside the room were already looking at her.

I prayed my cheeks were not as heated and crimson as they felt.

My mother studied my face and Anakin's. I stole a read on him. He looked the picture-perfect gentleman. "Am I interrupting?"

"Not at all," the young man replied, in a voice so composed and even that I richly envied it. His eyes moved to meet mine, and a flash of the heat that had been in them before sprung back to life briefly. "Nothing that can't wait till later."

Later. I called back to my own words to Queen Jamillia earlier in the day. Let us pray that day never comes.

Anakin caught the mood of my thoughts. His damnable smile cautioned that my prayer would go unanswered.

"Anakin, would you care to join me for a walk?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Another one?"

"Did you think I wouldn't want to chat with my daughter's bodyguard myself? Come with me, Anakin. My dear husband was just the warm-up."

"Mom," I pleaded, giving a wildly excellent impression of the petulant teenager I never got to be.

"It's alright," the man beside me assured, looking comfortably between mother and daughter. "I understand. I'd be happy to accompany you."

"Wonderful." She gracefully extended an arm that pointed back down the hallway from whence she'd came. "Right this way, Anakin."

"Please," he shot a look over his shoulder at me as he moved towards the door. To my mother, he finished, "Call me 'Ani'".

Only after I watched him disappear behind the door frame did I sink into a sit on my bed. I placed a shaking hand over my chest. My heart thundered wildly underneath.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm the torrid storm scorching its way through my system. The knots in my stomach felt like they were encased in radioactive barbs.

But what stung me was Anakin's description. Orderly. Logical. Methodical.

I twisted at the waist to peer at my reflection in the mirror behind me. My posing in the palace's washroom mocked me. So, too, did the amount of time it had taken to rest my hands at my sides when looking, alone, at my own reflection.

I'd told myself then that Dormé could pick out whatever clothes she wanted, but I decided what went on my body. But I'd rushed to choose the blue cinched dress blindly. I'd been too frightened to breakdown the decision. That wasn't very methodical or logical of me.

But it was the act of a scared woman afraid of her own sensuality.

My eyes, which were scanning the back I'd noted so many times to myself to be bare, dropped down to the conservative, monk-like garments next to me on the bed. They were very logical. Very methodical.

Very safe.

My safety. That had been the nonstop topic for weeks. My safety in regard to the trip back to Coruscant to vote against the Military Creation Act. My safety on the landing platform, when I was rushed away instead of resources and attention being spent on aiding the dying people at my feet. My safety when the Jedi were assigned to me. My safety when I was for all intents and purposes released of the very duty I'd sacrificed so much for and stolen back to Naboo.

I was beginning to feel very tired about what was and wasn't considered safe in regard to me. Safety had become a prison, but who was true warden with the keys?

I closed and locked the suitcase, but I made no effort to lift it from the bed. Instead, when I stood, I went to my closet by the door. In it were gowns and other garments too long or fragile to be tucked away in drawers. My hands— purposeful, not rushed— sought out the dress I owned but had never worn, my brain fully conscious of the decision.

I pulled back the fluid, layered dress and draped it over my arms. It had been a gift from my mother when I was an older adolescent. She'd given it to me as a present to commemorate the coming end of my reign as monarch. She'd anticipated me stepping away from politics, as I'd told her often I was going to do, and I suspected the feminine, womanly dress was a symbol— a blessing— from my mother as I graduated into a new, less austere chapter of my life. Though bestowed, the dress had been tucked away into the shadows of my closet after she learned I was trading the Scar of Remembrance for regular stays in Coruscant's cold atmosphere.

The purple train on the otherwise white, yellow, and pink fabric— a rich, silky cloth— was long. It made the hem of the blue dress I was currently wearing look like a skirt. To better appraise it, I laid it out on the bed diagonally to keep all of the gown off the floor.

I stared at it silently as I bit down on the nail of my thumb.

No rash decisions anymore. I wanted to choose to do this.

"I didn't know you owned that dress."

I spun around to see Sola leaning in the door frame. She was watching me with a solemn smile on her face.

I glanced at the beautiful drapery on my bed. "Mom gave it to me."

"No, no, I remember when she gave you that one. I didn't know you owned that dress." She pointed at current clothing.

I stopped myself from muttering 'Neither did I' just in time.

Feeling like a six year old desiring her big sister's approval once again, I ventured, "You like it?"

"You look like…" An unreadable expression came across her features.

Defenses came up faster than I could put them down, and it reflected in my tone. "Like what?''

She shrugged, and her smile grew sadder. "Like a girl."

I lifted a shoulder. "Papa would disagree. I think he has a different idea of what his little girl would wear."

Sola let out a genuine laugh. "I'm sure. If he could, he'd have you covered in mountains of layers like when you were queen until you're fifty. I wish I could have seen his face when you first arrived in that outfit."

I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. "He almost cried."

"Did he really?"

"Close."

She shook her head and pointed to the dress on the bed.

"That would look stunning on you. You'll be a rainbow on legs."

I bit the inside of my cheek. "It shows a lot of my back." All of it.

She studied my figure. "And that one doesn't?"

Fair point. But at least the current dress covered my arms.

I had no defense when it came to the midriff.

"It's warm in the Lake Country this time of year. Warmer than here."

It was almost like Sola had become the audible voice of my conscious that I'd been debating with before she'd made her presence known.

"That's true."

"And you can blame the change of dress on the tan lines." She made a criss-crossing motion as she emphasized the diagonal straps on my back. "You've always burned easily. If you wear that in the sun at Varykino, you'll regret it in under an hour."

I turned my back towards the mirror on the opposite side of the room and frowned, as if I could already see the marks she warned against. "I hadn't thought of that. But won't the other design do the same with my sides?"

At last, Sola's true reason for advocating for the rainbow dress came out. "I think Anakin would like it."

"That's all the more of a reason not to wear it." But I'd paused too long to contemplate her words, so her eyebrows rose disbelievingly at mine.

I cut her off before she cut start this again. "He's a Jedi."

"Ah. Another public servant enslaved to their job."

I winced on Anakin's behalf.

Sola caught her insensitive remark, and immediately became remorseful. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." She diverted her eyes, and the topic, back to the dress on the bed. "So, are you going to wear it?"

Forgetting Sola's watchful eyes for a moment, I turned to stare down the gown one last time. The urge to don it was greater than the desire to rehang it back in the closet. I took a deep breath, consciously edging closer to the cliff, even though Anakin wasn't even physically here to push me towards it.

This was my choice.

"Yes."

She nodded, pleased. For the first time, she left the doorway and stepped into the room. "You'll want to change your hair."

I stared at her quizzically, hesitant. "I like the curls." As the formidable senator, I rarely, if ever wore such a delicate curtain of coils. I was loathe to part with them so quickly.

"Well," Sola mused. "They are pretty. But they'll also hide the top of your back. In a dress like that, you want the featured piece to be unhindered, no?"

It took me all of one second to agree with her position. "You're right." I wasted no more time in walking to the chair nestled next to my vanity table. Settling in, I reached my hands up to touch my headband, but stopped when I caught Sola's face in the mirror.

"What is it?"

My sisterly, normally so confident, suddenly looked timid. "I'd meant to… to do it for you." Something in her eyes grew cold. "But I understand if you don't want me to. I'm not one of your more experienced handmaidens."

I twisted in my chair to look at her directly. "Sola."

"I get it," she tossed her hands up. "I'm no wardrobe mistress. What does a housewife and mother of two little girls know about grown women's hairstyles?"

I rose. Something was going on here that went far beyond hair techniques.

Comments made by mother over the years echoed in my ears. She'd subtly reminded me more than once that as close as I'd ever become with my handmaidens, they weren't my actual sisters. That sacred title belonged to one alone.

Sola was my big, my only sister— who'd never gotten the chance to truly be one after we'd moved to Theed. I was in need of ceremonial robes for my days in the Legislative Youth Program— clothes I couldn't raid her closet for, like many little sisters tended to. By the time I was fourteen, I was learning makeup from my handmaidens— yet another role of mentor and sister she didn't get to play. Instead of experiencing my teenage years around her, I spent them amongst a circle of girls closer to my own age, far away from Sola's influence by the practicality of the situation. In the name of protecting the family's anonymity, Sola and I had very little face-to-face time in the years I was queen. While her family was growing, I was transitioning to more and more time spent on Coruscant, lightyears away.

And here she was, nervous and flustered, because I'd accidentally denied her a chance to be big sister yet again.

I suddenly saw her romantic brokering with a clearer perspective. She wasn't boy-crazy on my behalf. The matchmaking tease was the only sisterly toy I'd left her to play with.

So many moments had been sacrificed in the name of my political career. We both came from a family of public service— she had the same father and mother I did. But that didn't mean her flame shone as brightly for it, nor did the understanding when I'd continuously put the needs of strangers before the needs of my own loved ones.

I sat down in the chair. "Sola," I began. "I'd love to see what you'd like to do with my hair. I'm sure it will be beautiful."

I didn't, actually. But some things are far more important that cosmetics.

Sola studied me for a moment, as if to determine if my words were said in earnest. When I smiled at her encouragingly, she came around the bed towards the chair, her dark blue cape brushing against the floor.

She placed a hand on my shoulder, much in the same way Dormé had after she'd placed Cordé's blue headpiece into my hair.

"You're going to the Lake Country. I'm thinking… something that looks like the shells on the beach by Varykino. The ones that spiral in." She made an explanatory swivel with her other hand.

I nodded, though I wasn't really following along. I couldn't quite picture whatever she was envisioning for the style, but I believed she knew what she was talking about.

Hands brushed through my curls absent-mindedly. "So. Are you ready to talk about Anakin?"

My voice had more of an clip to it than I would've liked, but I was caught off guard by the question. "It's not worth the time to discuss it. It's inappropriate even to talk about it."

"Padmé," she knelt down next to my chair, placing a hand on my knee. "I'm not a delegation and this isn't a congressional hearing." She took my right hand in her left. "I'm your sister. Anything you say will stay in this room."

Speaking about all the emotions Anakin elicited in me would make them real. So long as I denied them, denied him, I could maintain some semblance of control. But the longing to confess the hurricane that had been growing in my head ever since he'd stepped off the elevator was bordering on painful. I gaped at her dumbly. "I-I don't know."

"I've never seen you like this, Mémé. You're edgy, defensive. And yet you turn into a puddle before our eyes every time you look at him. If you'd just keep looking at him, you'd be fantastic company. It's when you're not looking at him—"

"Stop scrutinizing my eyeballs. You're being ridiculous and seeing things that aren't there."

"Am I?" She pointedly glanced over her shoulder and looked at the dress on the bed before looking back at me.

I confessed as much as I dared. My voice was small, fragile. "I don't know what's happening." I looked to my big sister for guidance, lost as I was in the whirlwind.

"For both your sake's, perhaps it's best that you find out."

I said it as a prayer to the galaxy. To simplify things. To make them easy again. "He's just a boy."

"I know. And you're just a…"

She wanted me to say 'girl'. I wanted to give her the answer she was steering me towards. But political strategies aren't universally applicable— minimization doesn't always work.

"Senator."

"You're more than just your titles, Mémé."

I searched her eyes. I wasn't the only one keeping secrets.

"What's going on with Darred, Sola?"

She pulled back slightly at the question, but she didn't fully retreat. Frown lines, so much deeper than I remember them being just a year ago, riddled her forehead.

There was a long pause. "We're having… difficulties." She swallowed, her eyes avoiding mine. "He's always spending so much time at work." I barely withheld a gasp she wiped away a tear with a trembling hand. "I'm afraid that we're growing apart." Her voice broke on the last word.

My heart dropped to the floor. Sola always called Darred the love of her life, and likewise. "Do you think… Is he…?"

"Being unfaithful?" My sister met my eye, and her look was strong. "No. I know it's not that." She took a shaky breath. "But I can't seem to connect with him anymore." She gave a ghost of a smile. "Mom knows. That's why she didn't put up a fuss when I sent the girls down to try to encourage him to come home for the meal." Sola shrugged. "I told them, if he didn't want to come, stay down there and have lunch with him. Being a distant husband is one thing, but I'll be damned if he thinks he can start being a distant father."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Oh," she waved away another tear with a fluttering hand. "Maybe… since last summer?"

Something shattered inside me. I'd been so caught up in fighting the Military Creation Act that I'd been blind to my own sister's pain. I'd been so forlorn about becoming an empty chair to my nieces that I hadn't realized what their mother was going through.

"Oh, Sola." How did I begin to apologize for failing her as a sister?

"It's marriage," she shrugged. "It has its ups and downs. It's not always flowers and bliss." A soft hand came up to cup my cheek. It was the opposite side from where Anakin had burned the skin. This touch was cooling, comforting, yet just as meaningful. "You'll find that out one day."

I felt the overwhelming urge to cry, but more than any other time previously, I violently suppressed it. I feared that if I let the exhausted, weeping creature in me out, I wouldn't be able to stop. The last thing I wanted was to alarm Sola when her own pain was deservedly center stage. Instead, I placed a hand over the one curved around my cheek. It had a few more vein lines than I remembered her having, but it was no less loving and soft. "I'd like us to spend more time together."

She smiled and winked at me. "Senator and constituent? Shall I make an appointment with your office?"

I appreciated her attempt at humor, so I grinned back, but my tone was serious. "As sisters."

A smile identical to mine lifted her face. "I'd like that, too. Very much." She eyed the gown on the bed. A confidence returned to her voice. "Before that, what would you say to a change of shade on your eyelids?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Something purple. To match the bottom part of the dress." I nodded, full of trust. "Good. But, first, your hair." She came to a stand and started removing my headband.

In in the mirror, I looked at the suitcase on the bed, full of all the clothes a disciplined, methodical, logical senator would stow. To save time, I'd simply tuck the luggage box into the closet and unpack it on my next visit.

Either way, I was leaving it behind.

Tender hands, experienced by the diligence given to her daughters' hair, moved my coils into straight, manageable strands. I closed my eyes, and it would have been easy to believe I was back in the chair under Tarel's ministrations as I was just hours ago. But as much as I appreciated the handmaiden's efforts, I felt swathed in a warm cocoon of love under my big sister's attentions.

When my eyes opened, I looked past the bracelets on the right side of my dresser. In contrast to the bright, holographic visuals on my walls, here was a small, hand painted portrait of the woman I'd shown to my Jedi protector in the hallway. The woman who was so much more to me than the originator of the tunda roll recipe. Anakin's question about when I'd started to change revisited me. She'd passed away a few months before I'd started as an Apprentice Legislator; if there was a turning point, that was it. As I looked into her chestnut eyes and remembered the adventurous, fiery spirit she'd had, I wondered what she'd make of the orderly, self-sacrificing Padmé I'd become.

I knew one thing for sure. She would be glad I chose to wear the dress.

Peeking at me in the mirror, Sola noticed the small image my gaze lingered on. I heard the smile in her voice before I saw it, as she murmured, "I think great-grandmother Leia would've liked Anakin."

It was more of a feeling than anything else, but I followed the thread. Softly, confidently I stated, "I think so, too."