Notes: I love Breha. One of the most beautiful things in the SW Expanded Universe (both the Old and the New Ones) is the fact that the minor characters are always interesting, and sketched out in the best way possible even if they appear only a few times. Breha is one of these cases, one of the best - and the fact that she is the wife of one of my favorite characters has only improved that!
That said, I am absolutely convinced that Breha, Mon and Padmé were great friends - adding the fact that in my headcanon Mon's lover is Breha's has made everyone a great family!
Again, sorry for the English, and see you at the end!
2. Sisterhood – Breha (0BBY)
"If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one?
Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?"
— Jodi Picoult
When Mon Mothma was a child, she had wished for a sister for years, in vain.
.oOo.
Mon Mothma knows Breha has a sister, and that the Queen loves her very much, it's one of the many things Bail has told her to satisfy her curiosity. She knows it, and sometimes she's jealous of it, because she's the only one without siblings. Padmé has a sister, Breha has a sister, Bail has three of them, and she has none. Which doesn't mean that she feels alone, because it's clear that she's now part of their families in all but formal papers.
.oOo.
Breha is not very often of Coruscant – between her duties and her frail health, it's almost impossible for her to leave Alderaan very often – but when she visits the capital world she always finds some time to visit and to go shopping with her.
And they talk. Mon tells her about the Senate, and Breha asks her to retell what her husband has already told her – mostly because somehow Mon knows how to make things funnier, and her amazement at some of her fellow senators' dullness makes her eyes go wide, and puts a note of indignant annoyance in her usually smooth voice that make Breha laughs so much.
On her hand, Breha tells Mon about Alderaan and its politics, and the culture and her family, and the Queen tries not to smile every time her friend struggles not to ask her directly about the Queen's cousin. It's fun, and Breha knows she shouldn't be enjoying herself so much, but Mon blushes in a particularly violent way every time Breha talks about her cousin, and every time Mon asks for more news, more details, more information on how to get to know him better, her cheeks are redder.
For work reasons, obviously. Mon believes that Antilles' work in the cultural sphere can somehow be interesting also for the cultural programs of Chandrila, and therefore, as senator of the planet, she would like to know him and his ideas better.
Just for work, of course. By now, her face is in flame, and her once fair skin clashes marvellously with her fiery red hair. Breha just smiles, she cannot be so pitiless against her already embarrassed friend. It's better for Mon not to know about the bets she, Bail and Raymus have already put on her and Antilles ending up together (the Queen is quite sure she's going to win).
.oOo.
To reinforce the already good relations between Alderaan and Chandrila, Breha sends her quite often useful snippets on what's happening at her planet's ministry of culture - she is not only the queen, somehow she is also the minister of culture, but then Padmé was the queen of Naboo, and now she's its senator - and suggests that Mon contacts her cousin on Coruscant to organize conferences, meetings, joint exhibitions on the two planets.
Among the suggestions and the facts about the politics of their worlds, something Mon finds useful information – his favourite kind of wine (white), his hobbies (mainly the theatre), in general his tastes (he really likes fashion, and his wardrobe is a solid proof of it). Mon is quite sure Breha is doing the very same thing on the other way around (she dearly hopes so), because every time she meets Antilles, he knows exactly what to give her (rare springs), where to take her (parks and gardens), and what she likes to do in her free time (walking, mostly).
.oOo.
Breha is the one telling her the Alderaanian diplomacy is trying to find a way to grant the Queen's cousin a divorce without upsetting his wife's family, their absolute monarch, and the ancient noble houses on Empress Teta. She tells her so, in a very unofficial way, only because Mon has started rambling about the fact that she may be, may be not, definitely is, pregnant.
.oOo.
Breha is at her side when Mon delivers her firstborn.
It's a nice day, on Chandrila. Mon can hear the soothing sound of the Silver Sea waves not far from the large windows of her room, see the orange reflections of the soft sunset light drawing abstract shapes on the white ceiling above her. She feels curiously calm and relaxed, something unexpected after all the terrible and objectively terrifying stories that the nannies have told her during her months of rest in Hanna City. Breha has snorted at every single one of them when Mon has told her the details, and now the Senator of Chandrila is relying completely on the almost transcendent composure of the Queen of Alderaan.
It's Breha's hand that Mon squeezes in pain when the first contraction hits her, and it's Breha's voice the only thing that keep Mon going through the labour; that, and the thought of becoming a mother – in hindsight, it's painfully ironic that the woman at Mon Mothma's side is a woman unable to have children on her own, and, every time Mon thinks about it, somehow she feels guilty. Yet, on Breha's side there's only unconditional affection and support, and Mon likes to think that's how sisters behave with each other. Having Breha at her side, when not even her own Mother had been able to leave her Governor seat at the Chandrilan Rotunda, makes Mon understand that friends are the family one choses for oneself – and she has never been happier to have chosen Breha.
When her daughter screams for the first time, the baby's father is somewhere outside her room, excited and nervous in equal parts. Mon suspects that Bail and Breha have convinced Antilles to drink something to calm himself down, because he was bordering on hysteria. The fact that he hasn't already stormed the room convinces Mon that Bail must have taken his fellow politician somewhere else, another thing to add to the list of what she's grateful to Bail and Breha for.
"She's a pretty, little girl."
Breha's voice is laced with enthusiasm, and she's smiling satisfied; the delivery has been easy and fast, and Mon feels just fine. Crazy with joy and love for the squirming bundle in her arm, but the pain is gone, and the baby is looking at her, and everything is just perfect.
"She has Antilles' eyes."
The Queen snorts – she's good at it, she can put all the sarcasm in the galaxy in that single sound – and caresses baby Lieda's cheek, "Let's hope it's only the eyes."
.oOo.
Breha tells her of the children. Via comlink, in detailed letters, in long holograms from Alderaan, in person on Coruscant or anywhere else, the Queen tells to the Senator of Chandrila about her children, and the Senator cries. Breha sends holograms of Lieda playing the Alderaanian flute, and of Jobin rehearsing his speech for the simulations at the Legislative Youth Programme – it's a cross and delight, a mixed blessing, to see her children's holograms, for Mon knows she won't be able to go to the Crevasse City Collegium for Young Ladies to hear her daughter play, or to go to Hanna City to assist to her son's debate. But she knows that Breha will go, and that she will write her everything about it, and that she will send plenty of recording, just to give Mon the impression to be there with them.
She's not a good mother, Mon knows it, no matter if Breha vehemently protests against it. She hasn't told anyone outside of her family and closest friends of her children, and she has missed her children's first steps and words, their first everything, actually, because she's a powerful politician, because it could put Lieda and Jobin in danger, because no one knows, because someone may hurt them to get to her.
Mon Mothma can't allow it. Rather, she'll be the worst mother in the galaxy.
.oOo.
Other times, the Queen tells her about Antilles, and Mon drinks her words as if she was a thirsty woman in an oasis after days in the desert. She listens to Breha, and she learns about Antilles' work in the cultural ministry, about his projects, about how he cares for their children. She finds out he's a doting father, and the discovery makes her happy and sad in equal measure - happy, because she knows that their children are in good hands, that they are well cared for, that they're having the childhood she wants to give them; sad, because she would give up everything she has to stop being Senator of Chandrila, one of the most important political figure of the galaxy, one of the few politicians ready to defy the Emperor, just to be able to go home at least once, to her family, without jeopardizing their safety. But she just can't.
"He's a good father."
She smiles at Breha's words – somehow, the Queen always seems to know what to tell her to assuage the Senator's fear and worries.
"I'm glad they're with him," Mon replies, "He will protect them, if something happens."
"Nothing will happen!"
Breha's answer to her fatalism is always piqued and angry; she loves their family, she loves her and Antilles, she loves their children as if they were her own. Some nights, when Mon is alone in her luxurious and empty apartment at the 500 Republic, after the parties, the meetings, the sessions at the Senate, after that last glass of something with Bail, after his goodnight and his sideway glance to let her know he knows something is wrong, some nights Mon thinks that Breha is so kind with them only because one of Mon and Antilles' children could, one day, be chosen as Breha's heir and accede to the throne after her death.
Mon thinks this when she's particularly down in the dumps, and regrets it immediately after. She would be so damn proud if Lieda or Jobin would became Breha's heir.
.oOo.
It's another of these depressing nights, and everything is pitch black around Mon Mothma.
Her bunk inside Draven's ship is uncomfortable and small, but she has adamantly refused the private quarters they offered her, accepting only a private couchette, with a private lavatory and a small, fake window, which, days before, she set to show her pictures of her family.
The awareness that the few images on the fake window are all she will see of them from now on brings her to tears again, but this time she's alone, she has no one against whom to assail and scream. She's sorry for how she behaved with Draven and Rieekan when they told her of the Disaster, and now she's alone.
In the complete obscurity of her minuscule cabin, for a moment Mon forgets everyone except Breha, and she bitterly cries for the sister she has lost.
Notes: I hope you've liked this as much as I loved writing it.
R&R please, it would made my day!