Hey, guys. Sorry for the unbelievably long wait: I did warn you, though, that I wouldn't be updating regularly. Plus, this story isn't done yet, and I've gotten caught up writing another story, so I can't guarantee when I'll finish this one. I do still have a good seventy-five pages, though, before I reach the point where I'll have to write more, so I'll keep posting until I hit that point.

I do really appreciate all the encouraging comments. It means a lot. :)

A knock at her door startles Padme sometime around lunchtime. Really, though, at this point, it doesn't take much to startle her. After this morning's confrontation with Anakin, it would be a gross understatement to say that she has been left unsettled.

Frankly, she's not too keen to answer the door again. Confrontation she can handle, but this morning's catastrophe—she almost killed someone. She nearly attempted murder. That goes far, far beyond mere confrontation, and the fact that she was driven there—what does it say about her? She just… has to think things out before she faces Anakin again. Get her own thoughts in order before she attempts to evaluate someone else's motives.

But the knock keeps coming, and if she doesn't answer, and it is Anakin, he'll eventually walk in anyway, and where will that leave her? Looking too scared to answer the door. No. She will not be that person. He will never, no matter what he tries, cow her.

And so she opens the door.

It is not Anakin. It's not even someone she knows. Instead, she's faced with a pretty blond woman, slender, of medium height, with intelligent eyes—she's a bit started to be perfectly honest. Whoever this is, she doesn't strike Padme as a servant: yes, her clothes are relatively simple, but not to the degree of a servant. The servants all wear uniforms, but this woman—she's garbed in a dress of red material, something durable, but with a full skirt that pools around her lower half. There's enough fabric in that skirt to be slightly superfluous—not something of mere necessity, then. Not overdone, but a hint that she has enough time and inclination to take pride in her appearance. The top, too, is well-done enough to suggest that these aren't working clothes: it is fitted, framing her thin waist, with a square neck and long sleeves.

"Padme Amidala, I presume?" the woman asks with a warm smile.

When she extends her hand, Padme takes it, shaking it firmly. It's a less formal greeting than a bow would be. Interesting.

"You know me," she replies, not unkindly, "but I'm afraid I don't know you."

The woman's smile draws back to something more knowing, though not any less warm. "No. Not yet," she admits, nodding slightly, intertwining her fingers and letting them rest on her lower stomach. "But I do believe you've met my husband."

"Oh?"

"Yes. An Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

Padme feels distinctively as though she's eaten a frozen treat far too fast. Obi-Wan is… married? To this woman? Who is, for some reason, standing at her door? "You… are a former Jedi?"

The woman shakes her head and laughs a little. There's nothing mocking to it—merely amused. "No," she answers, pushing a lock of blond hair behind her ear. "I'm afraid I'm nothing nearly as exciting. My people were mostly killed off in a civil war. Those of us who were not—we found ourselves under the rule of those we had been fighting against."

Oh. "You were—"

She nods. "Truly, it could have been worse. The husband in the family I served was a businessman, and when he traveled to Coruscant, I was brought along to attend to his wife's needs, or to supervise the children. On one of those trips I did, shall we say, run into the man who would become my husband."

There's something in her eyes that seems deeper—no one who merely "ran into" someone looks like that—and Padme cannot quite suppress the swirl of curiosity that rises up in her. Of course, it would undoubtedly be rude to question her guest when she hasn't even invited her in yet.

In fact, it's fairly appalling that she hasn't invited her in already.

Truly, that's pitiful. One encounter with Anakin Skywalker and her manners seem to have disintegrated.

"Won't you come in?" Better late than never; she stands back away from the door a little too quickly for it to be natural.

Though the woman's quick glance and half grin suggest that she catches Padme's shame at her mistake, she says nothing. "Thank you."

"So, you were saying how you met Obi-Wan…"

"Yes," she continues, sliding fluidly into the room, each step measured but light, authoritative but not threatening. She holds herself well—like someone born of far higher station. "Yes. I was out buying dinner for the family. Coming home, I tried to shave a little time off—foolishly took a back ally. Obi-Wan, who was accompanying the son of his master to the market, happened across me as I was having an unfortunate confrontation with a man who was in the business of earning his living by taking it from others." She pauses then, tripping over her unspoken words. When she again starts speaking, there is the distinct impression left in the space of silence—something left circumvented. "Obi-Wan needed a friend. And later, when he was brought to the palace at the insistence of a small child, I found myself visiting when I could."

"And you… married?" Padme asks, beckoning her guest to the sitting area of the living room.

The woman settles herself on the couch in a flow of red fabric, her manner entirely proper. Though, remarkably, she seems to skirt away from stuffiness, remaining warm, almost open. Friendly, certainly. "Eventually. I'm sure you're aware that, as a general rule, slaves are not permitted to marry."

And how to answer that? Even if this woman is no longer a slave—and she very well still might be, since Obi-Wan most certainly is—issues like this are sensitive. Terribly so, and Padme finds herself settling on the sofa next to this woman, hands clenched together. How to proceed?

She needn't have worried: the woman's face softens, and her lips twitch as she relaxes, leaning back just barely into the sofa. "I'm not offended by the truth, Lady Amidala," she says wryly. "You'll find Obi-Wan is, as a general rule, the same. A truth is still reality whether you accept it or not, and only by accepting it can you hope to change it."

Padme folds her hands into her lap, forcing herself to unclench them. She's begun to sweat now, and her palms are damp from it. "I'm aware, yes," she concedes.

"Anakin has his faults, but he cares very deeply for Obi-Wan."

Padme can't quite contain her small snort of distain. Anakin? Care?

The woman's eyebrows lift. "I take it your entire experience with Anakin has, as of yet, been negative?"

Attempted murder? Yes, negative is certainly one word for it.

Her silence is taken as an affirmative: the woman just nods knowingly. "It's understandable. Anakin can be… difficult. But I promise you, he became that way with good reason."

"I suppose that being raised… the way he was… would make things difficult." In fewer words, Palpatine must have been a terror. However, there are things Padme will say, and there are those that she will never stop thinking: the later may not be fit to be spoken allowed to someone of whom she knows very little She knows nothing of her, really. Not even… "I'm afraid I haven't asked your name. You'll have to forgive my terrible manners."

The woman waves her off. "Satine," she answers.

"Kenobi?"

"Yes. Though, I occasionally still use my maiden name as well."

When Padme inclines her head, nodding slightly, the action is genuine. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance." And she is. Very pleased. Something about this woman is just… intriguing. Somehow, woven into her features and manner, she possesses a strength, something obvious, but what Padme is seeing—it doesn't seem to be all that Satine is.

"Likewise."

All of Padmen's skills in the Senate, and this is still a difficult conversation to navigate, not because it's not enjoyable, but merely because it's… complicated. So layered with meaning. "You… seem to speak favorably of Lord Skywalker."

An impish smile steals away Satine's evenness. "Anakin. Yes. Sometimes. Other times…"

"Most people don't dare to speak ill of him, not matter what the time. Suppose I were to tell him. Why trust me so quickly?"

Laughing a little, Satine slips her fingers down to finger a fold of her skirt. "You'll find that Anakin is well aware of my views. Even more aware of Obi-Wan's. And Obi-Wan tells him directly, at least most of the time. Or perhaps not so directly, even if he does make his thoughts clear."

"I—but if I were to tell him, wouldn't you face consequences?"

"At any point in this conversation have I advocated harming Anakin?"

"No."

"If I avoid that, I find that I don't have much else to worry about that."

She says that with such an amused look, eyes dancing and thin eyebrows raised. "Let me worry about how what I tell you will affect me, Padme. I've been doing this long enough to know what pushes the limits."

"All right. I'll concede that," she admits with a small smile.

Apparently that's all she'll get the chance to concede, because Force forbid Anakin would let her have time alone with a perspective friend. No. He has to take that moment to force the door open and come pitching forward through it, face flushed and eyes unnaturally bright. Even his clothing is rumpled, and dark as the fabric is, there are smudges of what looks to be some sort of dried brown-red liquid.

His eyes settle on Satine.

"You knew—" he growls out, voice low and throaty as he stalks forward, shoulders back and muscles drawn tight. "Do you have any idea? Palpatine is going to try to kill him."

He stops at the sofa, shoving his hands into the backrest on either side of Satine's head, bracketing her in. His mouth twists, quivering, forming words that never come out, at least not yet.

There's a dash of pain in Satine's face: the bridge of her nose wrinkles, and there must be more, surely, because Anakin has just told her that her husband is facing death. But, no, even with Anakin hardly a foot away from her face, she manages to schools her features into passivity quite quickly.

Her voice is not as even: "He knew that if he got caught that would be the result," she says, breaking over the last word.

Anakin jerks closer, fingers driving down into the cushioning. "I know he knows that! And now I want to know where he went and what he's doing before he gets himself killed on some damn fool idealistic crusade!"

How strange it is to see Satine reach up, hands gentle, and cup Anakin's face. There's no fear in her—not of Anakin—but the sorrow in the curve of her mouth and in the lines under her eyes—lines that didn't seem to be there before now—is undeniable. "You know I won't tell you," she says softly, almost sympathetically.

This isn't like yesterday—not when Anakin advanced on her, pinning her to the counter. Padme is not so blind that she can't see the difference: she and Anakin fought as equals. Here, there is something almost pleading in Anakin's temper, as though he's a small child pitching a fit in hopes of making a parent give him what he wants.

But Satine is not giving anything.

Anakin's face grows a little redder, and he raises a hand, beating it emphatically at the air, as though he thinks it can make his words carry greater weight. "So tell me something—anything that could help!"

"He didn't know," she answers, dropping her touch from Anakin's face and folding her hands in her lap, sighing. "He suspected this would happen soon—"

Anakin rakes a hand through his hair. "Of course he did—"

"But he didn't know it would be today. And I won't tell you what he's doing."

"He's—Satine, he's going to get killed. Palpatine wants him dead, you know that, I know you don't want that—" Every bit of his movement is imbued with panic, and his words break down with it—his expression breaks down with it, and Padme just sits and watches it, admittedly somewhat morbidly fascinated. He cares. And why does he care? Obi-Wan is a slave—Anakin could just get another one.

But, for whatever reason, he's very literally at the point of losing his composure over the fact that Obi-Wan could die. Even Satine is calmer than he is.

"Don't you care?" he says finally, almost plaintively, sinking down on the couch next to Satine. Almost reflexively, he reaches out, brushing his fingers in the fabric of her skirt. "Don't you?"

Again, Padme is reminded of a child with a parent: a young boy, pulling at his mother's skirts, begging.

"You know I do, Anakin. If I had the talents Obi-Wan has, I would go in his place. But I don't, and there is nothing I can do. You know where Obi-Wan's loyalties lie. You know he's prepared to die for what he believes in."

Anakin's temper bursts open again, and he purses his lips, expression fading into something between petulant and furious. "No. His loyalties should lie with me!"

"He is a Jedi, Anakin—"

Slamming a fist into the back of the couch hard enough that Padme jumps and even Satine clenches her hands into the fabric of her skirt, he spits out, "No, he's not! He's not. The Order is dead! He's doing this for nothing!" He pulls back then, wrenching himself off the couch and careening toward the door.

"You know that's not true," Satine calls after him. Slowly, she raises a hand to her forehead in the first gesture of real stress that she's shown. "You know it's not, and you know he's willing to die for this. He doesn't want you to find him."

For a man who's used to everything going according to his every whim? That must, Padme images, be infuriating. Anakin plays the part, too: red faced and tight-lipped, furious.

And then his comlink sounds.

In his haste to grab for it, Anakin almost drops it, but he does manage to collect it at the last moment with shaking fingers, frantically pressing at the buttons until he gets what he wants. "Well?" he snaps into the device.

Across the line, the voice of a clone cuts through: "We know where he is, Sir. But it's not someplace you'll want him to be."

Anakin's fingers tighten on the comlink, creasing white and making the device creak. "I don't care if I'll like it or not. Just get him out of there."

There is a short silence, in which by some miracle Anakin doesn't erupt despite the fact that he is nearly shaking with his mix of emotions. Then, clearly, the clone's voice trickles out of the comlink.

"Lord Sidious already denied that request."

There's a certain joy for Obi-Wan in seeing his childhood friend again, though it is nearly overshadowed by his sheer dread at the prospect of having her on Coruscant. Bant isn't safe here—not like in the Outer Rim, where she was lucky enough to escape to with Tahl after Order 66. Coming back is a risk that Obi-Wan rather selfishly wishes she hadn't taken.

Still, he can't deny that it's important that she's done so… and that he's pleased to see her. The information she's brought from Master Yoda—it's crucial, if still a little vague. Of course, it's purposefully vague—if this meeting is interrupted, no one knows any exact locations or numbers. Just general figures. If something like that comes out during torture, it will not be nearly as damning as more specific information would be.

Still, the fact that he's seated here in a room with Bant and a dozen or so other rebellion officials would be pretty damning in and of itself.

"What you're suggesting then," Obi-Wan says a little tiredly, skimming his fingers over the chart of the galaxy which displays areas of Empiric control—nothing Palpatine doesn't already know, but certainly not information readily available to a slave like himself, "is that we try to smuggle in lightsabers to the palace itself? A mass exodus?"

Ki Adi Mundi—who has, for the past few years, been hiding in the lower levels of Coruscant—nods, glancing around the room. The other pairs of eyes stare back, their owners sitting silently around the table in this dimly lit back room in the entertainment district. "If Master Yoda had the extra help…"

Yes. More Jedi. "It would get them out of the palace—and with the way they're living, that's just as important."

Mundi probably disagrees. On his left, Mon Mothma also frowns, though she's overshadowed by Mundi when he shakes his head. Anyone would be—after all, his head is, as is common to his species, very large.

And that—it's just such a pointless thought, and one that Obi-Wan has to wonder why he's even taking the effort to think at all. He's tired, yes, but he ought to be able to push through that, to stop his mind from wandering into extraneous places that have no bearing on this situation. This situation—it's too crucial to be muddied with something as human as fatigue. What right does he have to be tired when he sleeps in a good bed most of the time? He is not Garen, not the Jedi like him-he doesn't live like them, and the temptation that thought brings—the desire to just cradle his head in his hands and not look up, never really face the unknowing stares of people like Ki Adi Mundi and Mon Mothma, who can't possibly know just what the Jedi in that palace have been through—that desire is nearly overwhelming. They don't know, and he can't make them know. But because he knows, he has to accomplish this.

"I know my priorities sound off-balance," he admits, far more calmly than he feels. "But I would ask you to please try to understand."

The people in this room have not been chosen for their proclivity to bend to emotions—they're strong, all of them… but they feel emotion. Obi-Wan can see it influence them now, subtly, just in the easing of their expressions and the small shift—that sense that they are willing to at least listen in the face of someone who knows.

"We do, Obi-Wan," Mundi tells him, a little less forcefully this time, the lines around his eyes smoothing out as he regards Obi-Wan sympathetically.

No, they don't know. They think they do, but they never could until they have lived it… and none of them have. Obi-Wan is the only one here who didn't escape Coruscant, and it shows. But they are trying, and that is enough for him.

"We understand the reality of the situation," Mundi continues. "And our goals are the same—more Jedi to aid Yoda will mean the removal of the Jedi from the Temple."

"Yes, I know.

Bant sighs, looking away and across the table at her colleagues, though when she speaks, it's directed to Obi-Wan: "But you worry that, if the situation were to shift to the degree that freeing the Jedi in the palace was no longer tactically beneficial, we would abandon our efforts."

"That is precisely what I worry about."

Across the table, the man seated beside Mon Mothma waves his hand, just lightly, catching their attention. His name—yes, well, someone told it to Obi-Wan when the man came in late, having been sidetracked because of the riots. His brother lives in that area, apparently, and while Obi-Wan can certainly sympathize with that given that Anakin was out there too, he cannot help but be slightly annoyed at the man's tardiness. Sometimes duty demands the sacrifice of peace of mind… and for the life of him, he cannot remember this man's name.

When the man speaks, though, his voice is low and smooth, even enough to provide an explanation for how he arrived at this position. Tendency to abandon duty to ease his worry about his family's location aside—and perhaps Obi-Wan, concedes, he is judging that too harshly—he speaks like a man who has neatly collected his thoughts and lined them into a row, ready when needed.

"We understand your point of view, Kenobi," he says, not unkindly, "but surely the greater tactical picture is more important than two hundred or so Jedi?"

Obi-Wan leans forward in his chair, stroking a hand over his beard as he watches the man unblinkingly. "More important, yes. But that does not make those Jedi unimportant."

He's arguing semantics, and Ki Adi knows it—it shows in the way he frowns slightly, though not in a manner that suggests he's unsympathetic to Obi-Wan's position. No, he's merely being practical. "What do you propose?" he asks.

"I understand that there is a point where the cost could simply become too high—but I would ask that, if at all possible, you extract the Jedi from Coruscant."

Ki Adi nods, hands coming together on the top of the table, fingers barely touching. "And what do you mean by 'possible'?"

"I mean that I think it would be a mistake to abandon this endeavor simply because it ceased to be profitable. I suggest that we view extracting these Jedi as a matter of duty rather than a convenient aid to the war effort."

Yes, and apparently that is what needed to be said.

He has gotten through to them. It reads in their faces, in the creases of their brows and the slow blinks, the half nods of some, and the contemplation of others. But all of them, he would be willing to bet, though they will differ on their definitions of "possible," would now likely agree that possible or not, an effort should be made unless it is absolutely impossible.

Maybe they would have disagreed on what constituted impossible. Maybe he's entirely wrong in how he reads their reactions. Obi-Wan will never know—because they never have the chance to discuss it. The door is already slamming open, and the man nearest to it—Fang Zar, Obi-Wan thinks his name was—does manage to lurch for the controls, trying frantically to shut it again. His hand even reaches the panel.

"They're shot out!" Ki Adi barks, though he might as well not have bothered—Zar is shot through the head with a blaster bolt before he can properly make an attempt to shut the door.

His body smacks down onto the floor with a sickening crack. Skull on durasteel. Bones, blood, skin, all just a dead corpse now.

Someone curses, and then the room rips into motion. Through the door, clone troopers come pouring in, surging around them, and Obi-Wan almost laughs at just how unfair it all is. He can't laugh, though, because he has to duck, catching a stormtrooper at the waist, sending him flying over his back and into the hard steel of the table. That's only one, though. It won't be enough.

And it's not. The stormtroopers rush in around them, too quickly for him to categorize them all. He counts, though, until he loses track and his senses numb, tunneling into that place where it's all just a fight. He can't think. Just keep hitting and fighting, no consequences, no thinking about the screams and the grunts, the bodies hitting the floor, or the torn flesh of his hand when he splits it open on a clone's helmet. Thinking won't help him now.

He swings again, hard, and his blood smears on another piece of armor. The clone gets in a hit of its own, though, and Obi-Wan slams into someone—it looks like Mon Mothma, though the smash of steel into his back as he hits the table, jarring him down every limb makes it impossible to really tell.

The blaster at his temple stops him from trying anything else.

Should he? Why lay here, under a clone, letting its fingers wrap around his neck, not quite choking, but just holding him still? Why let it do that? Would it be better to just be shot? Maybe, but he can't quite do that, and so he lets his chest keep heaving—drawing breath—as he stares up into the clone's helmet, imagining that there are eyes there. A soul, even. Some sort of mercy.

Yes, mercy. He does laugh them, bitterly and a little hysterically, because mercy is not something he experiences much of anymore. Wanting it now is a little like wanting rain on Tatooine.

Relax, he thinks he hears the clone say roughly, a shade mocking, and he does. He leans into the table, letting the edge of it dig into the back of his legs. It hurts, but the pain is solid and real, and at least it gives him something to concentrate on. He waits then, staring up at the clone as chaos rages in his peripheral vision. So many sounds, all of them hurting, causing pain, but he tunnels his vision and breathes, wondering how quickly they will kill him.

It ends eventually. He wouldn't know it, except the noises stop, and his own breathing sounds too loud to his ears. The clone must think so too, because it squeezes his neck a little harder, and with the blaster still to his temple, pulls him up and away from the table.

"'Cuff this one," the clone orders gruffly, relinquishing his hold as another clone pushes Obi-Wan face first into the wall, holding him there. Someone pats him down then, fingers just a little too invasive, though he can understand why, given that he does have a small blaster—oh, and he would give just about anything for the civility of a lightsaber—tucked into his boot. They take that, then the knife hidden by his hip. Knives and blasters aren't his style, and he's almost glad to be rid of them, or he would be, if he had anything else to defend himself with.

Cold durasteel cuffs wrap their way around his wrists next, and of course they are tighter than they need to be. Mercy for prisoners was a Jedi trait. For the Empire, mercy is only a curse word—a way to mock prisoners before they kill them.

"Count yourself lucky," one of the clones tells him, about as derisively as possible, right before he spins Obi-Wan away from the wall and shoves him hard, just once, sending him down to the floor. "The Emperor requested you specifically."

And he's supposed to be pleased about that? All that means is that he's going to either be tortured to death or tortured until Palpatine thinks Anakin will be suitably appalled. Either way, he's probably not going to come out of this with all his skin intact. That will be… unfortunate, though he'll probably be better off than the others that haven't been killed. He's been through this sort of thing before—at least he's had practice when there was no information to give away. Just a teenage slave with a dead Jedi master… and also with a master in the traditional sense, and one who had seen fit to beat him bloody for daring to lash out in grief at the reality of losing the only father he'd ever known. No one had wanted information. They'd just wanted him to hurt physically as much as he had mentally.

Truthfully, that had been the one time in his life after the fall of the Order where he'd felt like his outside had matched what he'd been feeling.

"You too," one of the clones barks at Ki Adi Mundi, who it seems is also alive. And Bant. Everyone else… everyone else is gone.

Breathe. Just breathe. The dead can't be helped now, and there is a time for mourning—one much later. Looking at death-glazed eyes and shots to the skull will do him no good at the moment.

Bant sinks down against him when she's pushed toward him, meeting him just as he's yanked to his feet. He takes her weight, stopping her from hitting the wall. It's a small comfort, but it's the best he can give.

She looks scared: her big silver eyes peer at him, slightly glazed, like she's half-way dead already—maybe she is, or at least knows she soon will be—and she swallows, saying nothing when one of the clones grabs her bound hands and pulls her away from him, pushing her toward the doorway. Obi-Wan goes with her, preempting the hands that materialize a second later on his wrists. Move they say, and he does.

"Wait."

They all jerk to a stop, just inside the door, and perhaps that would be a good thing—delay what is coming—had the reason been different. But for what it is—Obi-Wan would rather keep marching.

Mon Mothma is still alive. Just barely, too out of it to stay still until the clones have left the room. And it costs her. She's shot. Coldly. Like it doesn't matter at all.

She stops moving then.

Bant breathes out slowly.

And then they are moving again, this time all the way out the door.