Palpatine answered his annunciator chime late the next night himself. Sereine stood there, bedraggled and filthy, a blanket wrapped around her. Pestage stood behind her, looking wiry and hard as always, and also as if he needed a shower.

"You're all right," Palpatine said to her.

Sereine's tremulous brown eyes met his, wordlessly asking him to take her in his arms. Palpatine would not lower himself to embrace her in front of any lieutenant, no matter how trusted. He stepped back and extended an arm to show her in.

She lowered her head and plodded in, looking more dispirited than he had ever seen her. Pestage filed in behind her.

"I received report from …" Sheev said quietly. He would not say Maul's name with Sereine standing in the middle of his formal living room.

"Yes," said Sate.

"Well done."

"As per your orders," said Sate. "Listen, do you have a drink? Even water." He cut his eyes across at Sereine. "Long trip."

Palpatine held up a finger and walked to Sereine standing dazed in the middle of his living room. He laid a hand on her shoulder, guided her to a couch, and sat beside her. "It's good to see you back." He lowered his voice to speak to her. "You're all right."

She nodded once and looked at him, a sort of glaze in her eyes. Slowly she leaned back, dropped her head against the back of the couch, and closed her eyes.

"You're exhausted," he said to her, simultaneously relieved that the Republic's best person to lead a Chancellery campaign for him was back safely in his formal living room, and apprehensive of one so filthy prostrating herself on his expensive new shimmersilk sheets. He lowered his voice to avoid the ears of Sate. "Why don't you take a long, soothing shower and slip into something comfortable?"

She sat, her head back, her eyes closed. At last she nodded her head. It took her a few minutes more to finally get up. When she did, he caught her arm and rested the fingers of his far hand briefly against her cheek.

Her eyes watered in response, and she touched his hand and turned away.

Sate met him in the kitchen of his private living quarters—the formal kitchen was for formal dinners and work functions—splashed some water on his face, dried it on a dishtowel, which he threw carelessly on the counter, and got himself a glass of water. Palpatine crossed into the dining room and poured two short glasses of brandy and brought him one.

Sate took the glass and said, "Thank you," and then raised an eyebrow in the direction of the living room. "I bet she's a handful."

Palpatine raised his own brows in response.

"When I found her she was fighting off a hijacker in the fresher. One of them ripped the door frame off a storage cabinet—" Sate pantomimed, demonstrating on a row of short cabinets higher up—"and she had broken it over his head and was using the frame to hold him off of her."

Palpatine blinked. "You don't say?" Not the sort of strength he associated with Sereine.

"Oh, she was tired, all right. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, she'd have been raped and then probably killed. But she was holding her own there for a while." Sate sipped his brandy. "Is she worth it?"

Palpatine chose not to answer the obvious interpretation. "Oh, I think so." He took a quick sip himself, then said, "When I am Supreme Chancellor, Sate, you'll be my chief of staff."

Sate inclined his head respectfully.

Sate borrowed his comm to make a few calls and Palpatine was sitting alone on the couch when Sereine emerged barefooted from her shower, one of his silk wrappers over one of her flimsy negligees and toweling her damp hair. She pressed close to his side and then crawled into his lap, hugging his neck hard.

"Sheev …"

Lord Sidious slipped his arms around her. "You're all right, Sereine," he said. "You're all right."

It was a simple statement of fact.

She clung to him for a minute and then pressed kisses to his cheek and whispered in his ear. "Thank you."

He turned his head and kissed her. "I would consider thanking Sate. I wasn't there."

Booted footsteps emerged from his office and Sate cleared his throat from a respectful distance across the room. "The authorities are aware that someone was rescued from the liner," he said. "I'm sure they'll know who once they go over the passenger list."

Sereine had hidden her face against his neck. Palpatine turned to look at Sate and said, "'Reine, I'd prefer our names were not associated with this. You don't have to reveal who rescued you. Sate did not commit a crime."

She lifted her head. Her large brown eyes drifted over his shoulder to rest on Pestage. "Does anyone else know where you are?" said Sate.

"I did message Tomal," said Sereine. "He has to know where I am at all times. He knows what happened."

"He may be 'visited' by authorities looking for you," Palpatine told her.

Sereine gazed down into his lap, clearly digesting the fact that this was highly irregular, grateful though she might be for it, and that Sate Pestage and whomever had accompanied him were no regular Senatorial staff.

At length she looked up, from Palpatine to Sate and back again, a calm steel in her eyes. "What would you have me do?"

"If you instruct him not to reveal your whereabouts, can you trust him?" said Sate.

"He'll do whatever I tell him to," said Sereine.

"Then I suggest you get up and comm him," said Palpatine. "Use my office."

"I need to make contact with Senator Via's office, too," said Sereine. "Tomal's told them I was on Flight 83770. I'm sure he'd appreciate knowing whether his campaign manager is alive or dead."

"Take some time and do that," said Palpatine, giving her a gentle pat. "I'll provide you a different secure line, though. You don't need to comm him on either of my lines dressed like that."

Sereine rose from his lap and padded in the direction of his office, passing Pestage with a glance.

Pestage crossed his arms and locked glances with Palpatine. "You thinking of bringing her into the fold?"

Palpatine turned against the backrest, taken aback at the suggestion.

"I don't know, Sate. I've never entertained that possibility."

Palpatine set her up with his second comm—his, not Lord Sidious's—and waited while she finished her business. He and Sate had concluded theirs and he was alone by the time she came back.

"Senator Via is glad I'm alive," she said. "He's going to send his Consular class cruiser to pick me up when I'm ready to go back out to Kuat. We'll start the campaign a week late so I can recuperate. He's fine with that. In the meantime, I have time to work with you on theTonight Showand Bail's hyperlane request."

"Very well, then. Do you want to go and lie down? I have some work to finish, but I'll come to bed presently. Dry that hair first."

"Sheev, I'm so sore I can scarcely towel it. My arms hurt so I could barely wash it. I can lay a towel over the pillow, but I can't do a thing more tonight. My whole body aches."

Sheev pulled back a corner of his mouth, remembering more than a few days like that, himself.

"And …" She hesitated. He raised an eyebrow.

"You know I never say no to you,Zora. But I really need to just sleep the next few nights. Every time I stop moving I get so stiff and sore it hurts to move again."

She was a good little mistress; Sheev knew she wasn't just trying to put him off. "I'll have 4D come in to see if it can't make you a little more comfortable. The droid can dry your hair for you, come to think of it." He thought for a moment. "Have you eaten, 'Reine? How about some hot soup?"

She moved closer. "Warm blankets and hot soup? Oh, bless you to Shiraya, enSheev." Gingerly she pressed close and slid her arms around his neck. "Thank you for letting me stay," she whispered. "I—I don't want to be alone. That—that was horrible."

He slid his arms around her slender waist and pressed her close, relishing her weakness after all those campaign days she had battered him with her acid tongue and he had had no choice but to submit to her. He laughed softly and rocked her a little, enjoying the desperation in the way she laid her head against him.

After a moment he turned her loose, and she overwhelmed him with a grateful kiss. He gave her a gentle slap on her shapely bottom.

"Ouch!"

"Go and lie down."

Sometime that night, Sereine jerked into wakefulness. In her dreams, she felt that huge man's hands on her, felt him tearing her dress and bruising her breasts. She struggled with him again and again, seeing again the hate in a face she would never forget, sure any minute he would hit her, scar her, force her legs apart, hurt her, kill her.

She heard that blaster shot and saw his eyes widen over and over, saw him falling to the floor with blood welling out of his chest.

And she saw Sate Pestage's inhuman eyes over that blaster, boring into hers like twin drills.

As soon as she bolted up from sleep, every muscle screamed, and she gasped. If her sudden movement didn't wake Sheev, the sound most certainly would.

Gingerly she lay back down. In a moment, his hand found her and stroked lightly up and down her stomach. "'Reine, you're all right," he said into the dark. "You know that."

Remembering the many, many times he had awakened, obviously having nightmares himself, she turned carefully onto her side and kissed his cheek.

"You are, too," she whispered into his ear.

For a long stretch, silence reigned. Then he said, "I guess that makes two of us."

It was the first time he had directly acknowledged his own nightmares at all.

Lord Sidious drifted slowly back toward sleep. Almost gone, her softest whisper brought him back to consciousness.

"I love you, Sheev."

He decided to let that one pass.