An: Heavy descriptions of death and the emotions surrounding it.
There's no blood. She's just sleeping. With shaking hands Sola Typhe touched Padmé, ignoring Anakin who was also crouched over her. Padmé's gaze was growing dark as death clouded her eyes and Sola let herself choke on the sobs. Despite the spotty training she'd had so far, Sola had not promised the same oath as the Jedi so she screamed her grief, gently running her own fingers over Padmé's.
The dying women tilted her head to look upon Sola's tear streaked face. "You should forgive yourself for feeling what you do. And...let yourself have it. Take...take care of our people." Padmé Amidala was gone with this last order and Sola stared her serene, unmoving face in shock.
It was Obi-Wan who broke the silence moments later. Sola chose not to hear him, gently stroking Padmé's hair. "That was pretty clear to me. The senator wants you to keep doing your job. Keep pretending you're Padmé. There's a war coming and-"
Sola started muttering apologies to Padmé under her breath, pulling the senator into her lap and pressing her cheek to Padmé's forehead. "I'm so sorry, milady. I should've seen it. I should've known. I tried so hard to train it at the safe house. I'm so sorry." Her shoulders were shaking with full-bodied cries of pain. Sola had grown up alongside this girl, had learned to know her deeper than most people and now Padmé Amidala was just gone. Poof. Simple as that. My life's purpose...failed. I spent our last days feeling jealous of what you were developing with the Jedi and now you're gone. I'm a damned fool. Please, please wake up.
Sola snapped her gaze up to meet Obi-Wan's. "Do something!" She cried, face streaked with a deluge of tears. She wouldn't even look at Anakin who stood stone-faced and letting his own feelings boil below the surface. "Use your Force healing! Save Padmé!"
Obi-Wan's face fell softly as he knelt before Sola, meeting her at her current level. He placed both hands on her shoulders. "Ms. Typhe...She's gone on to be part of the cosmic Force. There's nothing here to heal because her suffering has already ended." Sola screamed, the full weight of the death crashing over her heart and fell into Obi-Wan's arms at this.
x
Sola had no time to rest. The moment her shaking steadied and her cries stopped, Obi-Wan gently began to talk about preparing to leave. Sola interrupted him. "Padmé is getting sent back to Naboo. To her family." Her resolute tone left no room for argument. "Her family will keep the secret she entrusted to us, or they won't and I will no longer have to puppet myself. This is madness. My lady is dead."
"It's her last wish. We will confer with Senator Palpatine and perhaps he will agree with you." Obi-Wan glanced worriedly at her.
"I'll send Padmé home myself if you don't, Master Jedi." Sola stared at him, dead pan.
"She's going home." Obi-Wan sighed. "I doubt her family would do anything to pull down your peace movement."
"Her peace movement." Sola corrected him. "Again, let me remind you my lady is dead. This is just a hopeful gamble, and if it wasn't Padmé's own wish, I'd call it distasteful to keep up this charade. I've merely picked it up for her. I will finish it and then I'll tell the world the truth myself."
The ship fell silent apart from the clones quietly calling out flight orders to one another as the guarded transport attempted to reach Coruscant with no further incidents. Sola looked across the room to where Anakin started out into deep space, watching it blur by. "Please check on Anakin." She asked Obi-Wan, wanting to be alone with her grief. "He lost his mother. Didn't you tell him not to dwell on those dreams?" This shut Obi-Wan up and Sola felt immediate regret at the cruelty in her comment. He'd looked stricken.
Great. I just keep hurting people.
x
Dooku kept a blank face as he listened to what Palpatine was crowing about. Padmé's death had struck him as a surprise, now they were puppeting a woman in her place? If Palpatine wasn't bragging about this, he'd still think the main problem with the Republic was the Jedi themselves. When the holo-call was over, Dooku steepled his fingers and thought aloud to himself. "This is wrong. To be encouraged to go after the double every chance I get...Perhaps the senate is the problem here." Casting his gaze to the shadows of his command bridge, he spoke louder. "Ventress...hold off on following his orders. Leave Senator Amidala alone for now. If Lord Sidious asks, I will cover you."
There was movement as his apprentice stepped forward. "Yes, master."
x
Sola slept uneasily, heart filled with grief and guilt and still burgeoning feelings of attraction to the young Jedi known as Anakin Skywalker. Padmé had encouraged her to go for it, but all Sola wanted was the chance to apologize for her mood the last few weeks. It was no surprise she suffered a nightmare when she finally went unconscious.
Sola couldn't breathe and her heart was breaking into a million pieces. She struggled to get away from whatever point of pressure was lifting her clean off her feet, but couldn't even see a reason she might be choking. Oh but I feel it. She thought as her head began to swim and her strangled cries became airless gasps. The Force is trying to kill me. It's so angry. So dark. How did things go so very wrong?
Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes as the vision stopped swimming and began instead to go entirely black. I'm going to die.
"Let her go!" The choking lifted from Sola and she dropped, vision clearkng as she looked up to see...Anakin standing over her solemnly in the senator's quarters.
"Are you alright?" He was looking around, checking for threats. When he found none his eyes flicked towards the door, unwilling to settle directly on Sola for too long. Sola understood.
"I'm...I've just had a bad dream." Sola sighed, heart getting even heavier. Anakin turned to leave, his assessment complete. "Anakin wait..." He stopped without turning around to look at her. "I'm sorry the council picked you to guard me. This whole thing is wrong. I... I don't like it either."
The slump of his shoulders seemed to relax a little. "It's not your fault, senator. I'll be outside guarding you in the living room. Master said I should continue helping you train. He said it seemed likely I was about to be assigned a Padawan...So, I'll see you tomorrow." He left then, leaving Sola with her snarled thoughts. How does one even begin to sort through the confusion in my heart?