Chapter Text
Padmé stares out at the vegetation and flowering plants, eyes unseeing even in this place of exquisite beauty. The last thing she can remember with any clarity is arguing with Dormé in her office in the Senate building.
Over Anakin. The only thing Dormé ever argued with her over anymore was Anakin. Her memories after that are foggy and smeared with agony, moving on some strange instinct as she bolted from the rotunda.
Padmé tilts her head back and furiously blinks, knowing it was already pointless.
By the time she had come back to herself, having somehow talked her way into one of the Jedi Temple’s outer meditation gardens, she had likely already been crying for minutes. Silent, wrenching sobs from deep within her chest.
Padmé isn’t sure how she got from the Senate to the Temple district, doesn't understand what could have sparked this rush of adrenaline and a feeling in her mind almost like a wound being ripped open.
Distantly, she wonders if her less opulent, solemn navy-blue gown had made her more or less recognizable to the temple guards. It was high-necked, like many of her Senate robes, and studded with tiny crystals meant to resemble the night sky on Naboo but open-backed and nothing like what she was shown wearing in the tabloids or holos.
It was supposed to be a joyous afternoon, a long-awaited homecoming, and she had wanted the practicality of light layers and fitted sleeves.
She tries to calm her hyperventilation, humming a plainsong as a desperate reach for comfort. Since the occupation, when Padmé is ill or unsteady, like she has been for days now, she feels the automatic urge to seek out her handmaidens.
The aftermath of the Trade Federation’s crimes had left all of them scarred, with the realization of the Senate’s corruption and the brutality of what had been done to Naboo.
One handmaiden tortured and another forced to watch, the rest of them fleeing the planet in a terrified bid for aid but ultimately being forced to return empty-handed.
They had already been her closest friends, the only beings who saw her at her most vulnerable and authentic besides her family. But by the time their people’s freedom and autonomy had been restored, their bonds had become so deep that no amount of distance or time could sever them.
Padmé had relied on friends and allies among her council and those planetary leaders who had extended their support, but her handmaidens were the ever-present safety net waiting to bolster her.
The reminder of her duty brings Padmé’s resolve back to the forefront of her mind, but she lingers on the migraine thrumming in her skull and the sticky, woozy sense of something being deeply wrong. She should be panicking about being in the Jedi Temple, somewhere she has never visited before, and which could put her secret marriage in jeopardy.
That fear is far away at this moment.
She sinks her nails into the meat of her palms and forces her scattered thoughts to focus as she rises from the intricately carved stone bench and makes for the exit.
Padmé dips her head shallowly in acknowledgement to the white-robed guards stationed at various points, Jobal’s voice saying “Politeness costs you nothing,” ringing in her ears.
Padme feels clear-headed and more like herself than she has in a long time and she chooses to chalk it up to the emotional release, whatever had caused it. Of course, that’s it, what else could it possibly be.
She purposefully ignores the fact that she had been planning to surprise Anakin with a clandestine reunion once he disembarked his ship this afternoon, and had been riding that thrill-danger-anticipation all morning before the fight with Dormé.
Now the mere thought of his eyes on her, his hands on her, felt violating.
She needs space to think, and she misses Rabé and Eirtaé keenly in that moment.
They had gone home to visit with their families on Naboo and check in with the queen and the handmaidens on planet in her stead.
Padmé is so rarely alone these days, constantly working or being accompanied by a security officer or handmaiden. But with Moteé and Dormé working in the office or taking meetings for the rest of the day, it was just her. She had not even notified her security team that she had left the rotunda. Shiraya’s light, this was such a mess. Padmé quickened her steps.
She passes no Jedi on her way out and takes a second to be grateful that no one witnessed her breakdown before summoning up the mask of a serene but preoccupied senator, not to be bothered or stopped for trivial matters.
Being a senator differed from being Queen in many ways, as Padmé and her handmaidens had quickly realized. It is a charade and a mask that must not appear to be one. The pretense of it grates increasingly as the war rages on, mostly because she sometimes struggles to see the point in her work at all.
Pushing her pessimistic brooding aside and quickly saying a prayer that this headache pulsing in her temples would leave her soon, Padmé calls for a speeder and starts outlining a plan.
She needs backup; every fiber of her being was screaming with it, and she knows exactly where to get it.