A sharp intake of breath and a jolt woke Sereine. Instantly, she knew what it was; Palpatine had had another nightmare.

How sad, she thought. For the longest time he hadn't had any, at least not on the nights she spent here, and that was most of the time she'd been home. She had no idea what he dreamed about, other than that it was something that had happened to him when he was seventeen. He would say no more than that. She had no idea whether the episode had anything to do with the scars on his left arm and chest, but she rather suspected it did.

She lay still as he shifted beside her and got up, then listened as he moved about his apartment. She heard him in his small kitchen, splashing water on his face and filling a glass. She wanted to get up and go to him, but she had discovered that the more care she offered Palpatine during these episodes, or if he were feeling ill, the angrier it seemed to make him.

If she wanted to discover what was going on with him at all, her best bet was to stay quiet and in another room, and perhaps bring him a cup of tea after some time had passed. She might get a few words out of him, then; but an even look and a deferential, "Are you all right?" would get her a lot further than soft hands in his hair, hugs, and kisses. It made her sad, but in these times, she offered him only what he was comfortable with.

At length she heard him pad back into the room, and the mattress gave beneath him as he eased back into bed.

Then she heard his voice in the dark. "'Reiné? I know I woke you."

She took this as her signal to turn over. She debated whether to say anything, and decided to keep silent.

After a moment, he said, "Your professional opinion. What do you think my options might be from here?"

She laid her hand on his taut stomach and gently stroked him, up his chest and back down. "How so? Professionally, I assume?"

"Yes, that."

"Well …" She let her hand play on his chest, expressing all the soothing she had wished to do a half hour ago. "What do you want to do? You have an excellent foundation to go into business. You could do that if you wished. Stick around, make some more contacts in the Senate. Then you'd be very attractive material to a lot of large corporate entities."

His voice took on a softness, an earnestness, disembodied in the dark. "'Reine. I don't want to live as ordinary beings live."

She turned and put on the light on her side of the bed at its softest setting, wanting to look into his eyes. Then she rolled over and kissed him on the temple and laughed. "Well, neither do I. I don't think anyone does." She thought for a moment. "Well … I take that back. Some people do." She propped herself on an elbow so she could look down into his face, warming to the conversation.

She loved these sorts of talks with Palpatine. She felt privileged to have them, privileged to share his most private thoughts, and she often found them fascinating.

He gave her a quick smile. "I often think you and I are somewhat alike." He stared at the ceiling; then his blue eyes focused on hers. "Fortunately, your aspirations seem to support mine."

She tilted her head. "And those are?" He said nothing, and she prompted him, "You could certainly go home and be elected King. I could help you. You're older than the current fashion in Naboo monarchs, but we can do it."

He looked away from her. "You may be a bit too high-minded for this, my dear. I imagine no one attains this seat without a certain amount of … what did you call it? 'Political wet work?'"

Sereine understood instantly. She gave him a theatrical gasp, and put a tease into her voice. "Sheev!" She ducked her head and brushed his temple with her nose, whispering into his ear. "You want to be Chancellor!"

A coy note crept into his own voice as his eyes playfully roamed the ceiling. He steepled his fingers together. "I've … thought about it." And then he locked her gaze with his, and she saw steel there.

"Well. You won't be doing that for a while, this I can tell you." He laid his hands, fingers interlaced, over his stomach, and she laid her hand over his. "You're much too junior right now, and there's nothing I can do about it. There are people who've been in those pods thirty years who don't have a chance at the box—" that was the slang for the Chancellor's podium among anyone who worked in the Senate complex—"and they're not about to vote for some backwater upstart who thinks he can challenge a Valorum after only two years."

She began tracing the outlines of his fingers with her pointer finger. "You have three main caucuses you're dealing with, and if you don't lead one of those, you don't have a chance at the podium."

"And they're all diametrically opposed," mused Palpatine. "The corrupts are the second-largest caucus. Hence the need for, as you say, 'dirty tricks.' I see no way around that, 'Reine." He looked up at her. "Do I need to fire you and seek the advice of Broi Tappan from here on out? Especially since Finis Valorum is your client now. That gives you a rather large conflict of interest. Your professional prestige, versus …." He cast a meaningful look farther down the bed, and she had to laugh at that.

"It's not a conflict of interest for me," she said. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you haven't got a hope for eight years, minimum. As I said, you're too junior right now. You need to build seniority, and you need to do it the right way, or you're going to be trying for a lot longer than eight years. And," she paused to drop a kiss onto his forehead. "Any manager with clients in that Rotunda is going to have a 'conflict' if they also rep the Chancellor. Can't run any other way. It takes too much for us consultants to break into the Rotunda to begin with. There aren't many of us, and you can count the ones who get all the Chancellery candidates on one hand. No matter what, someone has the current and future Chancellor at the same time."

Palpatine lifted a hand to trace her own hand with his finger. "Is that someone going to be you?"

She adjusted her elbow to let the fingers of her other hand play in his hair. "I don't know. I don't play dirty politics. If that's what you want, I don't want to part ways with you, but …"

She tilted her head again. "Why is your first instinct to throw in with that caucus anyway? Why do you need a caucus at all?"

"I believe you just told me I did."

"But I'm thinking about it …"

"Yes?"

"Just let me think a minute." She put her head down and kissed his forehead again. An idea was beginning to take shape. "Know how many independents there are in the Senate right now?"

"I think we only have about fifteen hundred at the moment."

"One thousand, five hundred and twenty-three, to be exact," said Sereine. "I think it's a lot easier to stand out against that number than it is to stand out in any of the caucuses, major or minor."

"Sereiné, none of the independents stand out at all." Palpatine's sandy brows rushed together to meet over his nose.

She smoothed his hair back. "Oh, ye of little faith. Darling, I would like to know why it is that you have so little faith in yourself."

He glared at her. "Excuse me?"

She sat up a little higher to take him in. "You are so gifted," she said. "You are so intelligent. You are so captivating. You are so radiant."

She leaned down and kissed him once. "Look at these beautiful eyes. You have the most beautiful voice in that Rotunda. You are a magnificent being, Erasmesheev Tiberius. You don't even know that."

His eyes flickered away from her with a quick frown she didn't quite understand. She went on anyway.

"Here you were, committing political break-ins on your own staff, trying to second-guess me, when you didn't need any of that. All we needed to do was just let you shine, and you brought the house down. Sheev!"

He looked at her.

"You are brilliant. Brilliant! You can do such great things!"

And then he looked away from her again. That troubled frown, again.

"Sheev," She placed her hand over his once more. "Sheev. Listen to me."

He closed his eyes instead.

"My darling, you are a brilliant jewel. You don't need 'wet work,' you don't need to caucus with people like Ask Aak. Look at what we just did. We didn't do any of that, and you're still here. Right?"

He opened his eyes, looking carefully away from her at their joined hands. "I suppose."

"What is this? What is this 'I suppose?' You are noble and you have the seeds of greatness. You are as gifted and as brilliant as they come. I don't want to hear you limiting yourself to 'wet work' to do anything. You aren't limited to that. Greatness is a transcendent quality and so are you."

His mouth tightened in a hard line. "Sereine. Enough."

She settled down onto her side to break the eye contact. Strange that someone who hungered for high office seemed uncomfortable hearing what she saw in him. Most people would be gratified to hear that someone close to them thought the best of them. It was like when he had nightmares and then pushed her away.

She put her arm around him. "You could do worse than stick with me and the independents. You can choose allies across the Senate that way. And, you know, Valorum has to leave office in eight years anyway. If he's disposed toward you, that can work in your favor." She kissed his scarred shoulder. "Vice chair, perhaps? A lot of vice chairs rose to become Chancellor."

His eyes flickered to meet hers. "If I don't caucus with Valorum, I highly doubt it."

Now it was her turn to stare at the ceiling. "Hm. I suspect you're right."

He ran a hand over hers. "I must say, you've given me a bit to think about. I hadn't considered some of this. I think …"

Now it was his turn to prop himself up on an elbow. He looked down at her.

"I think … in formulating a plan for the next eight years, I need as many perspectives as I can acquire. I don't mean to belittle your thinking in any way, Sereine, but I wonder what Broi Tappan might advise me."

She sat up. "You still don't trust me. I brought you through that self-induced hell. I believe in you. I see utter greatness in you, and you still don't trust me."

"'Reine. It's my future. Surely you see I need as many opinions as possible." A kindness lit his eyes for a moment, one she was deeply relieved to see.

She lay down again. "Well, I can tell you what he'll say. He'll tell you to join the Aak caucus and try to distinguish yourself there. I don't want to see you in that department of dirty tricks."

"Yet, you can't deny that some relationships there might be useful."

"They might. To Finis, even. Which is why I say, independent is the way to go."

He raised an eyebrow. "And you to steer my ship?"

"Have I let you down yet? Where was Broi Tappan after the earthquake?"

He lay down facing her and stroked her arm and shoulder. "'Reine," he said. She couldn't decipher the look in his eyes in the gloom.

"I don't suppose you've considered," she said, forcing the words around a tightening in her throat, "what it will do to my reputation if you switch agencies on the heels of that election?"

He caught a handful of her curls. "I take it, then, if I speak to Tappan, I won't see you in this room again?"

"I don't want to do that," she said, and she didn't. "But … it's definitely a changed dynamic, here. I don't know if I support you if you fall in with the Aaks, anyway. You know what kind of lot they are."

"I'm trying to plan, my dear. We're not a powerful sector. I imagine this will brook no mistakes."

She felt that heaviness in her chest again, the same as when he had called her his servant.

"And you don't trust me." She closed her eyes a moment. "Perhaps you should consider that the person who sees the best in you can present you to your best advantage. As I've just done, which is why we're even here to discuss this."

"The point is, I am carefully planning a future."

"The point is, you don't trust me. And I don't want to lose you to those people. They're the lowest common denominator, and you're better than that."

He turned onto his back again, giving the ceiling a blank stare. Why doesn't he like hearing that?

She crowded close to whisper it in his ear. "Sheev … you're better than that. You are a luminous soul."

He'd had the delivery service and the droid put out her favorite breakfast meats and the kaffe he knew she most favored that morning, in an attempt to ferret out the subject of her meeting with Bail Organa. And got the distinct impression that last night had not been a fortuitous evening for the conversation they had ended up having.

It wasn't a fortuitous morning, either. The first article on his routine morning data search revealed an editorial, with his name in the headline, written by an employee new to the Naboo Delegation who had been a thorn in his side for months. One Sendy Viritine, a recent transfer from the Naboo Ministry of Agriculture, where the man had actually been within striking distance of being named Minister of Agriculture.

The policies he favored—restocking Naboo's silos after the Karlinus earthquake disaster instead of selling off all Naboo's surplus cheese and grain—conflicted with what was beginning to coalesce in his own mind concerning Naboo's future. Viritine had continued writing about Naboo agricultural policy even though Palpatine had circulated a memorandum reminding his staff that he preferred them not to get involved in political matters in any public manner as private citizens.

Palpatine had assumed that would finally be the end of it.

Now, here was an editorial from the very same official, attacking him on the basis of free speech.

He had received a tip that this was coming; nonetheless, he scowled and threw the datapad across the floor.

It landed almost at the feet of his newly quiet mistress, who had emerged from his bedroom so silently he'd had no idea she was there. An occupational hazard for a Sith Master with a Force-blind mistress.

She picked up the datapad and sat, a vision in her very sheer mauve negligee, her long red hair in a riot of loose curls down her back, and scanned the headline.

"My. Not happy about this, are we?"

Her condescending tone rankled; one thing he would be glad to be rid of.

She lifted the lid over the meal the droid had set out for her, sniffed approvingly, and glanced over at him. "You know, Sheev, if it isn't getting bigger on its own, let it alone."

Then she stared down at her plate and didn't talk to him while she ate. Any other morning but this one, and the silence would have been welcome.

He had to prompt her. "How was your meeting the other day, 'Reine?"

"Which one?" She didn't look up.

"You were visiting the offices of a certain Bail Organa, I believe?"

She sipped her kaffe, and still she didn't look at him. "Oh, that. Hm. I absolutely love it when someone takes half an hour telling me this long story, and forgets to mention the one thing that makes it all turn on a pebble until the very end. He almost didn't mention it at all."

Palpatine sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at her, waiting for more. When she didn't look up, he prompted, "All right."

The words took a moment to register. She sat, concentrating with deep attention on the empty spot in the middle of her plate, then looked up at him finally and said, "I'm sorry, what?"

He suppressed a growl of frustration and kept his irritation out of his face, then glanced down at his own plate and tried a soft tone. "Ah. You're unhappy with me about last night."

She said in almost a whisper, "Well, I'm not pleased about it. Why would I be?" Her eyes were distant, her mouth taut.

He felt his own mouth harden into a firm line and knew she could see his impatience with the topic. "I'm trying to tell you that this is my political future. I'm attempting to make the best decisions I can. I believe I said that last night."

Her face relaxed at that, and she closed her eyes briefly. "I know that. And you have every right to. It's just that—"

He had to reach for the patience to deal with this conversation until he could turn it.

Sidious hated dealing with people. Hated it, hated it.

Sereine put her fork down. "It's just that I can't see myself sleeping here when there's some other consultant in your office. For one thing, it's too many chefs in your kitchen, and I know I won't be able to leave it alone." She cut her eyes to the side with a sigh. "And you know it, too."

At least that was mildly amusing. Because it was true.

She continued, "And I can't see myself sleeping here when I feel so shut out. Not after the election. I had thought …"

She put her head down and pushed her food around a bit.

He shifted in his chair. "So. You're holding our intimate relationship hostage to a professional contract, is that it?"

Her eyes flew to his with a suddenness that told him she had never considered that. "No!" burst from her, and then she softened it to a much gentler tone. "No."

She sat for a moment, and Palpatine realized he was watching a technique she had once taught him. Hold the mood, engage the question, pause for the words.

Speaking very slowly and softly, she said, "I know it's your future, and you have every right, you do. And I don't begrudge you that right. But … I thought what we did together in that campaign was something very special. And I thought you valued all the things we have, and not just the one. Or perhaps that all the things became the one."

Her eyes returned to her plate. "If you find someone else's services better for you than mine, so be it. But it would make me very sad. Too sad for this … I think."

He saw her draw a deep breath, and then she turned her eyes back to his. "I'm sorry."

It hadn't occurred often, but Palpatine had observed speeches like this before—lesser beings referred to them as "breakups"—and recalled that they usually involved tears and a dreadfully emotional scene. Sereine's voice was unsteady, but her eyes remained dry, a fact for which Palpatine found himself momentarily thankful.

"Sereine. I was only speculating what I might do."

She tilted her head. "Well … it did seem to be some pretty heavy speculation. And I found all that sad enough." Her tone implied that the last referred more likely to their discussion about the Aak caucus.

She did have some dignity about her, this one. However, there was no convenient way to turn the conversation back to Bail Organa's Jedi matter after this derailment.

He would have to try again tonight. He dropped his gaze to his own plate, then looked up at her and said, "Will I see you here again tonight?"

"Am I invited?"

"Of course." For now, at least, he thought.