Note: I was really bad and worked on this instead of some homework I really should've worked on... (cringes). Hope you like it. I know you'll like what's coming up next...

Also...I got over one hundred reviews! That's so crazy awesome! It's never happened to me before! Thanks a bunch people!

Chapter 35
Hollow

He felt raw inside. Like coarse sand had been blasted through him, or glass shards. It hurt so much.

He tried to flee from the pain. He burrowed into the darkness that enveloped him, trying so very desperately to forget. If he forgot, disappeared into the blackness, then it would stop hurting. He didn't want to hurt anymore.

Something touched him. A gentle whisper of sensation. Before he could beat down his curiosity, it drew him out of the darkness enough to feel more.

He was laying on some sort of narrow, short bed. He was wrapped in a blanket and warm. His body was scrunched up to fit. And his boots and belt were missing. Light attacked his eyelids.

"You need to wake up now," an angel whispered.

Almost against his will his eyes opened. Colors slowly swirled from hazy blobs into sharper, more concrete shapes. And then he saw her.

"Sorry for waking you, but you need to get up now." Padmé apologized softly. "Breakfast is ready."

"Breakfast?" Vader croaked.

"Yes, it's morning now." Padmé explained.

Vader blinked stupidly. When did it become morning? Last he remembered, it was nighttime after dinner…

"Come on now," Padmé smiled, "Sabé got up early to make us some of her famous omelets."

"Okay," he mumbled faintly, slowly stiffly sitting up. And then he remembered something. "Oh no, I was supposed to meet with Master Mundi last night."

"I know, I spoke with Master Windu last night after you fell asleep." Padmé informed him.

"Am I in trouble?" He asked after a moment.

She shook her head. "No, but you'll have to go straight to the Temple after breakfast."

Vader nodded. That seemed fair enough. More than fair actually. He should've been dragged back to the Temple last night right after the call instead of being allowed to sleep over here.

Padmé gently took him by the wrist and led him into the dinning room. Sabé had laid out three plates on the table, each almost over-flowing with fluffy steaming omelets. Saber herself was already seated and waiting for them to arrive so she could eat.

He meekly submitted as Padmé pressed him into a chair. As soon as she settled herself down, the meal began. Both of the women eagerly tucked into their meal. But Vader just sat there and stared at his plate. He didn't feel hungry.

"Don't you like omelets?" Sabé asked, making him start a bit.

"I do, I'm just not hungry." He shrugged.

"Try it please?" Sabé begged. "I made it with a growing boy like you in mind."

"Thanks," Vader tried to smile, but couldn't.

Reluctantly he picked up his fork and speared a chunk of egg. It took a moment before he could get it in his mouth and chew it. And it took another minute before he could swallow it.

It didn't taste bad. It probably tasted amazing. But…well…he just wasn't all that hungry.

Feeling their eyes on him, he forced himself to continue. It would be a shame to waste this food that Sabé had worked hard on for him. And he had always been taught to never waste food. It had been almost as hard to come by as water. So he ate it all.

He was slightly startled when his fork finally scraped the empty plate. He hadn't noticed that he'd finished. Vader swallowed a sigh and put down his fork.

"I should go now," he mumbled. "Thanks for breakfast…"

"You're very welcome," Sabé smiled.

"Do you need a ride back to the Temple? I could get Captain Typho to take you." Padmé offered.

"No, I can walk. It's better for me anyway." He shrugged and got up to leave.

Sabé rose to clear away the dishes and Padmé stood and followed him back to the lift. "Will you be alright?" She asked, catching his elbow and keeping him from stepping in the waiting lift-car.

"I…I don't know," he mumbled wearily, avoiding her worried gave by staring at the floor.

She reached up and grasped his left hand, giving it a squeeze that she probably meant to be comforting. "Come over anytime you need to."

"Sure thing," he swallowed, trying to squirm past and escape.

"I mean it," she declared, then leaned forward and gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek. "Now take care of yourself."

Vader glanced up at her for a moment, managed to force a smile that was only half-insincere, and nodded. "I will," he murmured, squeezing her hand back and then extracting himself from her grip.

He kept the smile in place until the lift doors sealed shut. Then he slumped against the back wall of the lift-car and sighed. With an absent gesture, he depressed a button that would take him down to upper street level without physically touching it. And then he cringed as a memory of his Master's disapproving expression hit him, scolding him for his careless use of the Force.

The numb throbbing in his chest flared up into a fiery acidic burn while some invisible hand crushed his chest. He tried to breathe through it, let the pain bleed away with each exhalation. But the agony seemed to spring from a bottomless well, it just kept rising up and strangling him.

Desperate, he tried to distract himself by focusing on the positive. After all, Master had always complained that he focused too much on the negative. He tried to think about how nice dinner had been, how relaxing it was to just sit back, eat good food, and listen to friends chatter about fashion and gossip. He tried to think about how great it was that he and Padmé were practically friends now, that he now had an invitation to stop by whenever. He tried to think about the fact that Padmé had kissed him again. But it was no use.

The lift chimed and the doors opened on an upper-street-level lobby. Struggling to pull himself together, he pushed off the back wall of the lift-car and trudged through the lobby, out the front doors, and onto the street. And then he oriented himself towards the Temple and started walking…

Padmé stared at the closed lift doors for a minute, then sighed sadly and went to help Sabé with the dishes. Though by the time she reentered the dining room the table had already been cleared. Shaking her head slightly, she then headed for the kitchen.

"Need any help?" Padmé asked, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen.

"Nope," Sabé replied, sliding the last plate into the dishwasher. "All done here."

"Sometimes I think you're too efficient." Padmé sighed.

"It's my job to be efficient," Sabé shrugged, "among other things."

"I know, but I wanted to help you." Padmé complained.

"You are a Senator of the Republic and your duty is to represent Naboo in the Galactic Senate, not wash dishes." Sabé retorted, taking the tone of a lecturing teacher.

"Yes teacher, I know," Padmé snorted teasingly.

"Good, glad that's been cleared up." Sabé nodded. "Now let's finish getting you ready to face the Senate."

"That can wait, the Senate won't come into session today until after lunch." Padmé waved her friend off. "I'll wait until Moteé and Ellé come before I primp myself any more."

"If you say so," Sabé shrugged, rinsing her hands off in the sink and then toweling them dry.

"I do say so," Padmé grinned faintly. "I say we take as much of the morning off as possible."

"No complaints here," Sabé smiled faintly back in response.

"Good, now let's get some caf and enjoy the morning." Padmé decided, rifling through the cabinets for some caf powder.

"Splendid," Sabé declared, digging out the caf pot and a couple of mugs.

Several minutes later, their caf was brewed, and they were sitting out on the apartment's balcony. Each clutched their mugs and nursed their drinks as they gazed out over the bustling cityscape of Coruscant. Neither spoke, too lost in thought to try and stimulate any conversation.

Padmé stared down into her mug, watching the thin tendrils of steam drift upwards until breezes that constantly blew at this altitude whisked it away. It was a lot like life, she mused despairingly. You rise upwards, spiraling with each new twist the galaxy throws at you, and then it's over. Gone when the winds of time decide to end things and blow you into oblivion.

Obi-Wan deserved better, she sighed. Qui-Gon deserved better! They should've died as old men, peacefully in their sleep after long fulfilling lives. Neither of them deserved to be snuffed out so suddenly, so brutally…

"It's not fair," Sabé murmured, unconsciously voicing Padmé's own conclusion.

"I know," Padmé sighed sadly, glancing over at her friend, "I know."

Of all the Handmaiden's she'd worked with over the years, she was closest to Sabé. They'd become instant friends at the Academy and had kept in touch when Padmé left at age twelve as part of the Apprentice Legislator program. And when Padmé was elected to the throne, Sabé applied for one of the five Handmaiden slots.

Some of the other girls thought that favoritism was what had landed Sabé the position. They thought that because she and the new Queen were so close that Padmé had arranged for Sabé to become a Handmaiden ahead other more qualified applicants. But that simply wasn't true.

Sabé had won her spot entirely on her own merit. Padmé had very little to do with the choosing of Handmaidens, she merely finalized their selection. Relying on her own wits and skills, not to mention her almost uncanny resemblance to the newly elected monarch, she had survived the harsh screening process.

Because of her strong resemblance to Padmé, Sabé was immediately put first in line for decoy duty. It also helped that she knew Padmé so well that she could imitate her speech patterns and predict most of her decisions. With the horrid 'royal accent' and the heavy ceremonial face paint, it was all but impossible for any but the other Handmaidens and Captain Panaka to tell them apart.

Practicing the switch had always been fun. In the first months after Padmé's rise to the throne, it was a common prank for her and Sabé to switch places without warning anyone and see how long it took for them to notice what they'd done. It was a fun prank to pull on the other Handmaidens and it gave Padmé a little time off, time to be herself in some place other than her private chambers. No one had ever seriously thought they'd need to use it for real.

But that was before the Trade Federation come and blockaded the planet. No ships could come, no ships could go. Without outside trade, the people began to suffer. And then when their last hope – the Jedi Ambassadors – failed, they did use it for real.

Sabé played the role of Queen from their capture by the droids all the way up until their arrival on Coruscant. During that time, Padmé was not Amidala, but merely the simple Handmaiden Padmé Naberrie. She did her best to help Sabé with the decisions as subtly as possible, but it was up to Sabé to actually make the choices and carry through with the elaborate charade.

When Padmé decided to retake Naboo herself instead of waiting for the Galactic Senate to get it's act together, Sabé again took up the costume of the Queen. She became the focus of all the battle droids and their blasters. And with luck and probably some divine intervention, Sabé survived it all, playing her own crucial part in capturing the Federation Viceroy.

And then when the dust settled and she returned to her usual role of Royal Handmaiden, she took on a new and challenging duty. Busy with cleaning up the spectacular mess the Trade Federation left behind, Padmé was forced to focus exclusively on her queenly duties and so left the entertaining of her guests to her Handmaidens. Sabé specifically was placed in charge of looking after Padawan-turned-Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It was up to Sabé to see that he ate and slept regularly, and to make sure that he was comfortable. For just under two weeks while the Council gave him leave, Obi-Wan remained in the Palace and Sabé mothered him. Or at least she mothered him as much as he let her. He was a grown man and a Jedi after all.

All in all, it had been a rough couple of months. First the stressful blockade, then the hectic run to Coruscant, then the return and battle, and then looking after a grieving Jedi. And Sabé had handled it all very well.

Padmé could not put into words how proud she was of her oldest friend. Nor could she described how grateful she was of her friend's service and continued service. Sabé was simply amazing and Padmé was humbled and honored to count her as a friend.

Poor Sabé, Padmé sighed to herself as she studied her friend. She was just as close, if not closer, to Obi-Wan than I was…

Sabé knew her caf was starting to get cold, but she really didn't care. She watched the endless streams of airspeeders and various other air transports without really seeing them. The moving colored dots were just an elaborate pattern that she used to distract her eyes, though it wasn't quite enough to distract her thoughts.

Obi-Wan was gone. The Padawan, Knight, Master that she had worked alongside and served no longer existed. She'd never see or speak to him again.

Now she regretted not taking advantage of his last stay in the Palace like she could've. In fact, she'd avoided him altogether and instead had focused all her attention and energies on keeping the injured Vader going. And all for a stupid, stupid reason.

When she'd first met him during the Federation blockade over ten years ago she was trapped in the guise of Queen Amidala. Nonetheless, she'd been deeply impressed by him. He was skilled in his Jedi craft, brave, clever, and handsome. And there was her problem.

Shortly after meeting him, she developed a crush on him. It was totally understandable on the one hand. He was, as previously mentioned, handsome, clever, brave, and skilled. Rabé and Eirtaé, who had also come along on the trip to Coruscant, had spent most of the transit time commenting on how cute the Jedi Padawan was, implied that they might've harbored a slight crush on him themselves.

The problem with having a crush on Obi-Wan was manifold. At the time, she was playing the Queen of Naboo. Queen Amidala was a mature, if young, ruler of an entire planet, and she did not develop crushes on any handsome young men she might work with. There was an age difference, he being in his mid-twenties and her being a mere teenager. And then there was the fact that he was a Jedi, a person who had long ago forsworn intimate, long-lasting relationships with the opposite gender.

It was a pointless infatuation. It would never, could never, be anything more than a one-sided fantasy. And it was a distraction that she could not afford.

So she quashed it with all of her will. She focused on her duties and banished all silly daydreams from her mind. While waiting on Tatooine, she put all her energies into impersonating the Queen and reading anything she could get her hands on. During the battle of Naboo, she immersed herself in Captain Panaka's training and ignored the fact that Obi-Wan and his Master were fighting some mysterious dark warrior alone. And after the battle, she buried herself in her duties, not really resting until all the off-world guests had moved on.

Then, when Obi-Wan returned to the Palace after Geonosis, she'd avoided him to prevent whatever forgotten embers of the old infatuation from flaring up again. She spent all her time with Vader, when she spent any time with the Jedi guest at all. And on the day the Jedi were to leave for Coruscant and their Temple, she arranged to have a day off and miss the big farewell that she knew would come.

And in doing so, she blew her last chance to see Obi-Wan. Just because she was afraid of a stupid little crush resurrecting itself. Moteé and Ellé are right, Sabé sighed, I'm a fool…

Of course their poor opinion of her had nothing to do with her old secret crush on an unobtainable man. They instead based it on what they saw as her lack of professionalism. Because she didn't act like a cool, detached servant in private like she did in public, they didn't think much of her.

But they were ignoring the fact that she did act that way when Padmé entertained important guests. Just because she acted warmer and more friendly when it was just Padmé and some close friends didn't make her a bad Handmaiden. Moteé and Ellé were just a tad too uptight for Sabé's taste. It was really too bad that they were so well qualified and approved of by both Captain Panaka and Captain Typho.

Sabé took a sip of her caf and grimaced a little. It was somewhere between lukewarm and cold. And caf that cool tasted nasty.

"Let your caf get cold, did you?" Padmé asked.

"Yeah, hate it when I do that." Sabé scowled slightly.

"Want me to get you some more?" Padmé offered.

"No, wasn't much in the mood for caf anyway," Sabé shrugged.

Padmé sat silently for a moment. "Want to go back in now?"

"Sure," Sabé nodded, "it's getting a bit too windy out." To punctuate that statement, a particularly strong gust blew some of her loose hair into her face. "I, for one, do not enjoy eating my own hair." She added, once she tucked her loose locks behind her ears.

"Agreed," Padmé smiled, "let's go."

Sabé nodded again and led the way back in. She took her mug and Padmé's into the kitchen to dump the leftover liquid down the drain and dump the cups off in the dishwasher. That little task accomplished, she rejoined Padmé who had remained in the common room, just in time for Moteé and Ellé to arrive.

"Good morning ladies," Sabé greeted her fellow Handmaidens.

Moteé and Ellé merely nodded stiffly back in greeting. Sabé muffled a sigh and instead focused on her current duty, to make Padmé presentable to the Senate. Since she'd already cooked breakfast, she won the simple task of sorting through Padmé's jewelry collection and find pieces that accented the dress that Moteé chose and the hair and make-up style that Ellé came up with.

Ah, the glorious life of a Handmaiden. Not only do we defend our Lady from harm with blasters and impersonations, but we also make her pretty for the cameras. What a life we lead…

Vader made it back to the Temple and his apartment without incident. Before tracking down Master Mundi, he took the time to shower and dress in fresh, unwrinkled robes. He would've shaved, but he generally only had to shave every other day and he'd shaved yesterday so he was good for today.

When he came out of the refresher, Master Mundi sat waiting for him. The white-haired Cerean did not look particularly pleased. But then again, Vader couldn't really remember ever seeing any of the Council Members look pleased except for Master Yoda. And Master Yoda didn't really count because Vader harbored a suspicion that the ancient troll was entering the early stages of senility.

"Good morning Padawan Vader," Master Mundi greeted sternly, "though one could almost say 'good afternoon'."

Vader supposed he ought to feel some regret for disappointing his new temporary guardian, or maybe some anxiety, but he didn't. "My apologies Master Mundi," he murmured, bowing respectfully. "I did not mean to disappear and miss our meeting."

"Please do your best to not let it happen again." Master Mundi admonished. "Now come with me to the sparring rooms. A'Sharad and I shall test you to see what exactly you know."

Vader bowed again and feel in step behind the Cerean Master as they exited the apartment and headed for the sparring gym. Outwardly, his expression was calm and utterly blank. Inwardly, he squirmed in discomfort.

It felt wrong to be following a different Jedi the way he'd followed his Master. It was probably just habit, but the sensation of following someone else was very disquieting. With his luck, terrible as it was, it always would be that way for him.

Thankfully it wasn't too long of a walk to their destination. A'Sharad was already waiting for them there. Once he finished the warm-up kata he'd been performing, he bowed to them and stood at one end of the sparring mat, waiting.

Numbly Vader took a position opposite A'Sharad. He unhooked his saber and dialed down its intensity to something well below lethal, then stood ready. A'Sharad did the same with his saber.

Then Master Mundi gave the signal. "Begin!"

Vader limped into his bedroom and fell onto his sleep couch. It was hard to find any part of him that didn't hurt. To say that Master Mundi's 'test' hadn't gone well was something of an understatement.

After an hour of A'Sharad kicking his butt all around the sparring mat, the Cerean Jedi had finally called the match off. The Jedi Master had been disappointed, that much was clear. He'd even gone so far as to wonder aloud what Obi-Wan had been teaching him all this time.

That comment had hurt. Vader had wanted to snap back that his Master had taught him a lot. That he knew enough to knock A'Sharad into next week without breaking a sweat. But he didn't, because A'Sharad was there watching and listening, and because he hadn't proved how good he really was.

He hadn't been able to hold his focus. He hadn't really cared about what he was doing. And A'Sharad had. So the Tusken wannabe had won, and he had lost. Quite spectacularly in fact.

After ending the test and questioning Vader's apparent appalling lack of skill, Ki-Adi-Mundi sat him down and explained what would be happening. For the rest of this week, Padawan Hett and Master Mundi would train with Vader and hopefully get him battle ready. At the end of the week, they were to ship out to the Varonat System and deal with its skyrocketing piracy problem.

Looks like they're takin' me out of the war, Vader sighed bitterly. After losing Master and all that mess on Jabiim, don't suppose I can blame them…

It wasn't even dinner time yet, the sun wasn't even close to setting, but Vader'd had enough for the day. Moving stiffly, he kicked off his boots, peeled off his belt, and burrowed under his sheets. Mornings are gonna suck, but at least the afternoons are mine to waste as I please…