Take a good look at it, look at it now

Might be the last time you'll have a go-round

-T.L.C.

The second hour.

Sereine Lumisol, hidden in the Jedi robe provided by her accomplice, approached the emergency department entrance to Temple Hospital and strode in, a little sick in her stomach, nerves giving her entire body a sort of weightless sensation. She checked the deep pockets of the robe one more time, making sure the cloth bag was there.

It would be a horrible thing to show up here intending to commit larceny and not bring a bag for the loot.

Master Dooku had requested she dye her hair, so she was now a deep brunette. Her Palpatine—or not; neither of them really knew the status of that relationship at this point—had taken one look and said, "Please tell me that will wash out!"

Dooku had said, "Walk as if you live here; walk as if you belong here," so that was what Sereine was trying to do. Having coached politicians on professional confidence for several years now, she felt she should have an edge; yet, stealing in the Jedi Temple was something else entirely.

Passing the ER waiting room, she could not help but notice him sitting there. He was a head taller than the few other people there at such a late hour. He glanced up as she went by and got up to follow her.

Don't turn around. Just proceed through the corridors to the fresher, and I'll tap on the door when the cameras are disabled.

She had the route memorized. No problem. She disappeared inside the fresher, which was as empty as one might expect at the second hour of the morning, chose a stall, and sat down to wait.

Presently she heard a tap. The door slid open, and Master Dooku's deep baritone said, "Is anyone here?"

She got up and walked out. He stood there, cloaked, hood up.

"Ready?"

She said, "Ready as I'll ever be. What did you do about the droid?"

"Ah, a former Padawan of mine tampered with the programming a bit. It's taken the second hour rather than the fourteenth to return to its charging station. Be quick, and we should be all right. I'm at this end of the hall—" he gestured to the right, "and our accomplice is at that end of the hall."

"Okay." Sereine gave him a quick little curtsey. "Let's get to it."

"Let me clear the corridor. Five minutes."

"All right."

Sereine waited her five minutes and walked out. The records room was halfway down the corridor on her right. Mostly there, she heard Master Dooku's baritone at the end of the hall, speaking to someone.

She ducked into the records room, went to the cabinet on the right, and started scanning dates. Five holocrons stood in a row for the date in question alone. She took those; then she thought, why wouldn't there be anything else germaine on the dates afterward? She took several of those, then experimented with more, seeing how many of their neighbors she could move into the empty rows without making it clear that some were missing.

She heard voices outside the door and hurried into the utility closet. The steel doors opened for her and closed behind her.

Sereine stood there. She had no idea whether anyone was in the records room. She had no idea whether anyone was still outside in the corridor. Should she leave?

She had about twelve holocrons. They fit in the bag, but the bag no longer fit into her pocket. Perhaps she should have settled for the five, and then just sauntered on out.

She checked the time. She had been in here six minutes.

She heard the doors to the corridor open, then close. Open, then close. Now she was really afraid to leave. Was that a person entering and then leaving? One person coming in and then a second person? Was the droid back unexpectedly?

How would she know when it was safe to leave?

This had not been a good idea.

Time passed, and passed. Sereine walked back and forth. Why hadn't she thought to actually use that fresher while she was in there? And what time did actual beings arrive and take over in here?

She had paced to the rear wall when the door opened without warning. She whipped around with a soft gasp and realized that was exactly the wrong reaction. She could have grabbed something off the shelves and simply left, pretending to have been looking for it.

Now, standing there gaping, with a bag full of holocrons, she would look exceedingly guilty.

A Jedi she didn't know stood there, a younger man with blue eyes, long brown hair tied back off his face, and a beard. "Sereine Lumisol?" said the man.

There was no point lying about it; she didn't have a good lie, anyway. "Yes," she said.

"I'm with Master Dooku. Come out; there's no one in the hallway."

xxx

"I apologize for the confusion," said Dooku as they walked through Temple Plaza toward the Senatorial District. "I ran into someone I knew, and I did attempt to convey to Qui-Gon to go in and get you, only he saw no one in the records room and believed you had already left. It was extremely difficult to try to convey that you were still in there while trying to hold a coherent conversation."

"I was afraid to leave," said Sereine. "I had no idea if someone was on the other side of the door or not, and then the door opens, and there's some Jedi I don't know! I did find myself panicked there for a second," said Sereine. "However—" she held her bag aloft. "We do have about twelve holocrons to show for it. Let's hope there's something helpful on one or two of them. Six of us; twelve holocrons. If we divide them up, we should know in fairly short order. I'm going to give you two of them now, if that's all right."

Master Dooku took them and put them in a pocket. "Wait," he said. "I need to do this, or no one else will be able to view them. They will work the same as the one I gave you." He removed holocrons from the bag, holding each one briefly and closing his eyes over it, then handing it to Sereine to hold or put in a pocket until all were dealt with. They replaced her ten in the bag.

"Thank you for your assistance tonight," he said.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm going to go home and try to calm down and sleep. You?"

Dooku continued on a trajectory away from the Temple. "I have a young friend I believe I'll look in on. Good night."

She walked in the direction of a row of speeders for hire.

xxx

***This scene owes a bit to Almost Famous … one of my favorite movies ever.

I don't have my holocrons yet. Where are you?

I can't bring them to you now, I can't leave where I am. I'll bring them to you tomorrow.

I want them now.

Well, you'll have to come and get them, then.

You're wandering all over the Senatorial District with them?

It's rather conducive to delivering them to everyone, dear.

Sereine laughed as she typed, imagining the scowl on Palpatine's face.

Except me, obviously. Where are you? he typed.

She sat at a long table in a rented suite at the Zenith Hotel. Around her, her consultant and speechwriting colleagues, mostly male, laughed and drank through a rousing game of sabacc. Sereine chatted and laughed with the loudest of them … but now and then she would rise, make an excuse, and surreptitiously pour her drink into a sink or a potted plant. She was aware of the disapproving looks she got from the three other women in the group and the looks they kept giving one another. Eventually, they all drifted out, leaving her the reigning queen, her feet propped on a little hassock, exposing her red satin slippers with jeweled buckles on them.

She certainly wouldn't chance getting drunk wearing what she was. Her long, russet gown fitted her closely until it flared just below her knees. Up top, it exposed nearly all of her sides and back. The back of the dress made a lovely drape just above her bottom, and she'd accentuated the effect by putting her newly dark hair up in a loose pompadour.

It was amazing what you could get men to gossip about when they couldn't take their eyes off of you. Of course, she was very careful to observe who got how drunk, when.

Heat suffused the room and the door stood open. The talk and laughter lowered a few decibels suddenly, and she looked up to find Palpatine standing in the doorway. Of course, a roomful of political consultants and speechwriters would know instantly who he was, even if he had changed into a simple linen shirt and slacks and a light wrap to come over here. The look on his face brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of pride and pleasure in her appearance, and apprehension that he might think she was angling to seduce someone in here tonight.

He strode over to her. "Senator Palpatine!" she said. "Welcome!"

Across from her, Sant Riser of KWE nodded and said, "Senator," and Tice Riddin of Tappan and Associates did the same.

"Welcome to the campaign managers' sabacc party!" said Sant. "It's rotating and ongoing—"

"And can be played in any condition," said Sereine.

"How much have you had to drink, Sereine? I could hear you laughing all the way at the lift."

She turned to look at him, attempting to let him know she could only answer sotto voce. He leaned down, and she said, "Are you kidding? I don't drink in this crowd!"

"Wise of you," he said.

"I have what you came for," she said, and bent low to reach under her chair. As she did, the eyes of ten men riveted to her neckline.

She sat up, holding the fabric bag with the two holocrons, and someone said, "Hey, just a little lower, there, Lumisol."

Palpatine's brows lowered. His mouth cut a grim line. Sereine gave the remark a sour smirk and a head shake that indicated she wasn't taking any remark like that a bit seriously.

She handed him the bag. Rather than leaving, he put his hand on the back of her chair and stood there.

"Senator!" a junior account exec called from across the room, and held up an elaborate crystal decanter half-filled with a gleaming amber liquid. "Aged Corellian whiskey? It's good stuff."

Palpatine considered and then crossed the room to accept a small nosing glass.

"What brings you here?" the man nattered on, offering no honorific, oblivious to the look Palpatine gave his lack of manners. Sereine played her cards, but she strained to hear over the chatting and laughter of those at the table.

"You seem to have waylaid my consultant." Palpatine turned to lean against the drinks table, trying his whiskey and surveying the card game.

"Oh, we'd like to waylay Lumisol, all right. I don't think too many of us have much of a chance, though." Palpatine cut his eyes across at the man; Sereine made sure to keep her face to her cards and observe without turning her head.

"All right, men," Aarv Aev announced from his seat at the head of the table, in that bleating timbre common to most Grans. "The Ack campaign has a little problem. Three lovely ladies who have to leave the tour before we reach Malastare and Mrs. Ack!"

"All Grans?" shouted someone.

"Of course," said Aev, who had managed Aak reelection campaigns for as long as Ask had been Senator.

"No, thanks!" shouted someone else.

Palpatine caught Sereine's eye and mouthed the word, Three?

Sereine shrugged.

"Hey, my guy might be interested." A Dug consultant spoke up from the foot of the table.

"Maybe one," said someone else. "Not three."

"Take them and he can have his pick," said Aev. "One card, gentlemen. The winner gets three ladies and a case of Corellian whiskey!"

Three men cast a card each into the center of the table. Palpatine caught Sereine's eye again and mouthed, At once?

Sereine chuckled and shrugged. Privately, the sort of swapping she saw on these campaign tours made her sick, but she could never show that in present company. Republic politics required a thick skin in more ways than one. In previous years, she would never dare to show her face in here dressed like this, or some nights even at all, but her new status in the group made her untouchable. No one would make more than a verbal advance toward an owner whose boutique firm they all wanted on their resume.

Whatever else one might say about him, her Palpatine always maintained a touching gravity and dignity about him, and for that, she was grateful. Not like these boors.

"Aaaand the winner is … Mahar Stott! Three lovely ladies in the custody of the Cantonica campaign. Please stop by my suite tonight to collect your winnings. If you're still sober enough to walk."

Sereine found herself at a definite stopping point and lay down her cards. "I think I'm out, gentlemen," she announced, and thought, And I do use that term loosely.

"Sereine! Calling it a night this early?"

"Too hot in here for you, Lumisol? You could drop that neckline a little."

"I don't think so." She rose and lifted her wrap from where she'd folded it under her seat to conceal Palpatine's bag. She turned, giving the party, and Palpatine, a full view of her almost naked back and her nearly visible derriere, and said, "Next time? Someone send me an invite."

"Yes, ma'am," chorused several voices. She turned to find every eye in the room following her out the door.

In the corridor, Palpatine appeared at her side as if by magic. "Share a speeder?" he said.

"I'm going home," she said. "No driver tonight?"

"One gets tired of being shadowed by guards," he said. "I'm quite all right out here incognito."

She stood apart from him in the lift, watching the quick glances he kept giving her in its mirrored walls. She hadn't planned it, but she definitely had another chance to sleep with him tonight. She asked herself if she should take it, and firmly answered no.

They walked out onto the upper plaza in the balmy air of a Coruscant spring. As always, she gloried in the beauty of the Capitol districts after hours, the millions of lights of the towers and speeders adorning the velvet jeweled blackness of night. Theed was lovely in its own way, but Coruscant was and always would be her hometown.

She stopped and drew a deep sigh. "I love it here," she said.

Palpatine drew so close behind her she could feel the warmth of him blocking a gentle breeze. "As do I," he murmured in her ear.

He hailed them a speeder and, surprisingly, gave the driver her home address. Against all common sense, she felt a dart of disappointment.

"Ask Ack—" he said suddenly, and she looked over in time to see him blink and shake his head hard. "That conjured a disturbing mental image. I think I could have lived a thousand years and not discovered that."

She thought, and then she realized to what he was referring. The specter of four cavorting unclothed Grans passed before her eyes, and yes, proved an impossible image to shake. "Oh, no," she said. "Why did you have to—" and then she doubled over in laughter and could not stop.

She heard him laugh, too, and found him shaking with laughter beside her. She managed to wheeze out, "Oh, I hate you!" but she was laughing so hard, she was sure he couldn't understand her.

Palpatine lost control and laughed so hard he dissolved into a coughing fit.

She straightened and pounded his back. "Are you all right? You brought this on yourself, you know."

He sat up and eyed her with a naughty gleam, then tucked his chin and chuckled some more, which set her off laughing again.

She got control of herself and wiped her eyes. Beside her, Palpatine produced his datapad and typed something into it. A message appeared on the driver's monitor up front, and their driver changed course, heading unerringly for 500 Republica.

She felt his hand, unnaturally warm, pressing and playing at the side of her thigh.

"Am I being kidnapped?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. What do you expect, appearing in front of me wearing that incomparable vision of a dress?"

"You recall, I had no idea you were coming out here. I didn't wear this for you."

He stiffened. "I see. You were selecting company for the night from among that swarm?"

"No. It's just that when you get colleagues drunk and staring at you, you can get all kinds of instructive tidbits." She glanced over at him and smirked. "They say women gossip. They've got nothing on men."

His hand climbed higher. He had the habit of stroking the less obvious curves on her body, making the touch that much more erotic. He found the bare spot where her waist flared into her hip, and stroked her there slowly with the backs of his warm fingers. His eyes reflected hunger even in the dark.

When they were relaxing in bed together, if she cuddled against his side, he'd stroke the dip where her buttock joined the top of her thigh. As soon as that memory entered her mind, all the thoughts of what came just before that followed, and Sereine knew she was in danger of losing the battle.

"You'll have to remind me later," he said in a low, velvet whisper, "to ask you what tidbits you've gleaned tonight."

He slid his fingers under her narrow straps and ran his hand higher, playing at the side of her ribs. Here, it was about all he could reach, but it was enough.

Her memories—they were the problem.

Because Senator Palpatine was not one to roll over and go to sleep.

She lowered her head, feeling desire flowing into her like a river, in and down like molten lead. She closed her eyes. It would recede if she waited it out. Unfortunately, she knew only too well what she would be turning down.

She felt his sharp nose graze her shoulder, and then his warm breath and two languorous kisses.

Senator Erasmesheev Palpatine would never lower himself to kiss anyone in the back of a speeder, where a driver might sell a tabloid story or anyone with a long lens could take a picture.

"'Reine, leave the rest outside tonight." That low, lovely murmur in her ear sent tingles down her spine. "Don't say no."

The speeder lowered onto the private dock adjacent to his apartment. She shifted her hips over a tender ache and tried to force her thoughts to keep up with her pulse. We haven't dissolved our contract yet. It's only been two weeks, I see him over this Organa thing anyway. I'll just start over again … trying to say goodbye to this man.

Who hadn't had her in two weeks. Which promised fire of a special sort.

Palpatine got up and out of the speeder and turned around. She got up to follow him.

At his door he paused and swung her up into his arms. He carried her into his bedroom, not bothering with lights, and threw her onto his bed. The top left corner hit the floor suddenly with a loud crack.

Sereine let out an amused little scream. "You broke your bed!" she shouted, and dissolved into laugher again.

He crawled over her, his limbs forming a human cage around her, and lowered his face to hers. The dim lights from speeders outside outlined his smile. "I'll replace it," he said.

And then he began covering her with tiny little kisses, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, her neck, and worked his way down from there.