Surrender Ch. 3: Coruscant II (Part 2: Blah Blah Blah Politicakes)

Padmé had scarcely slept at all the previous night. For some time she had listened to Dormé and Captain Typho's muffled voices. They were laughing together over private jokes, they were murmuring into one another's ears. They were happy, Padmé reflected distantly, in a way she would probably never be again. She felt numb. What she'd said to Anakin… those hateful things, hurtful things. But they'd needed to be said. And he'd hurt her, too.

Once or twice she caught the sound of her own name coming from the adjacent room. "She doesn't seem like herself," Dormé was saying. "Haven't you noticed?"

"Yes, well," Typho muttered uncomfortably. "Give her time."

And then she's lost the thread of the conversation again. When the voices eventually ceased, she lay staring into the shadows of her darkened room, too tired to think, too troubled to sleep.

When the morning came, her body was sore again, the gashes across her back burning. She snapped at Dormé and Typho while getting ready for the meeting, and then had to watch them exchange doubtful glances as they clearly entertained the possibility of prohibiting her from working today by lashing her back onto her bed and locking the door to her chamber. The stiff Senatorial gown only made her discomfort worse as she made the journey to Bail Organa's apartment, where the meeting was to be held.

There she somehow managed to meet every concerned "How are you?" with a reassuring smile. While this satisfied the rest of the committee, it did not deflect the anxious attention of Jar Jar and Bail. The Gungan was hovering so close that once or twice he tripped over her train. The Alderaanian Senator was constantly at her elbow, warding off the more curious delegates with a protective air and a warning gaze. Padmé quickly grew grateful for both Bail's support and Jar Jar's clumsiness, and manifested this by graciously pretending not to notice either. Everything was going smoothly, she almost felt relaxed, when…

She could not be sure, afterward, which had come first—the sudden, strange awareness of his presence or Jar Jar's delighted squeal of "Ani!" Perhaps they had both reached her consciousness at once. As Jar Jar babbled a series of questions about Anakin's health, Padmé, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, slowly turned to face him.

He looked horribly tired. His attention, thank goodness, was monopolized by Jar Jar. At his side stood the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Padmé winced at Jar Jar's lapse in courtesy, not greeting the Chancellor first. And she, Senator Padmé Amidala, would have to set it aright.

Steeling herself, she stepped forward and politely addressed Palpatine who, inevitably, presented her to Anakin. He bowed.

"M'lady." His voice was so cold, so distant.

"Jedi Skywalker." She could scarcely utter the words. For a fraction of a second, their eyes met, but Anakin looked away too quickly for her to get any sense of what he was thinking. Last night, she thought, just last night we could have drifted in one another's eyes like sunlight on the sea, forever. But there was no use wasting time on those memories now, she told herself. Best to attend to the matters at hand.

The ten members of the Loyalist Committee seated themselves in a circle with the Chancellor at its head and the Jedi padawan standing behind him. The meeting began.

"Esteemed delegates of the Senate representing the Loyalist Committee," Palpatine made eye contact with each in turn, "may I begin by thanking you for your dedicated service to the Republic and to myself."

To the Republic, Padmé thought, not to you.

"And let me congratulate you on your initiative in a crisis, the rapid and necessary gain of approval for our Grand Clone Army."

Padmé caught an uneasy look on Bail's face which matched her own feelings about this army.

"You have stood firm and performed your duties efficiently in confronting the Separatist crisis," Palpatine continued. "Now, sadly, it is our misfortune to have fallen into civil war. This necessarily changes the situation in nearly every aspect of our government. We must now determine the function of this committee, if it is to remain intact, in the new and difficult times to come."

He opened the floor to the delegates. Bail was the first to speak.

"I move to continue the committee's diplomatic function, in light of recent events," he stated.

Padmé nodded. "I concur."

"Well, I don't!" Ask Aak interjected. "Surely this committee is unnecessary, now that we have passed the phase of negotiation."

Padmé stopped listening. The Senator from Malastare was loud, patronizing, and defensive in debate situations, unable to see reason until it was practically presented on an engraved plaque ten centimeters from his eyestalks. She had no patience for this today.

Anakin was deliberately not looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the far wall.

She looked down at her lap, and realized that she was playing with her hands, knitting her fingers together, clenching and unclenching them. She remembered Anakin's words from the night before.

He's right, she thought. I do do that.

Sithspit. How was it that he knew her so well after only a handful of fleeting days? Was it some Jedi power?

No. No, because I know him, too.

They'd shared so much, words and feelings and… moments. Looks and kisses… a picnic in the meadow. What did it all add up to, really? Not much. Not on the surface.

But he'd bared his soul to her. She'd seen him completely vulnerable before the fire at Varykino. She's seen him angry, devastated, on Tatooine. He had frightened her that day. What he'd told her had been horrible, and even now the thought of it caused icy fingers of dread to grip her heart.

But she had held him as he cried. She'd held him to forgive him, or maybe just because she didn’t know what else to do. She'd held him to protect the innocence of that little boy she'd met ten years ago. She loved that boy, and she loved the man he had become. She loved him for loving her in a way no one ever had. And that day in the Lars' garage, when she'd seen him broken and sobbing and she'd knelt down in the sand beside him, she fully realized it, deep inside herself, for the first time.

Many things will change when we reach the capital, Ani, she'd told him once, when she'd knelt beside a crying, grieving boy separated from his home and all he knew, and had held him in the same way she'd done only days ago, But my caring for you will remain.

And it had. Though everything was changing all around, that one thing had stayed. She cared for him, so much. So why were they avoiding eye contact, separated by a few meters of carpet that might as well have been half the galaxy?

Suddenly Padmé felt very alone.

She wasn't used to feeling alone. Usually she felt herself to be intimately connected with others through her service, tied to the life of the community. But somehow that wasn't enough, now. Of all those people she made it her duty to serve, not one of them really knew her. And here, surrounded by bickering Senatorial delegates of varying moral worth, she was lonely in a way she had never been before.

Someone had said her name. It was Orn Free Taa, the Twi'lecki Senator.

"As Senator Amidala should be able to tell us, we cannot hope to reach the Separatists through peaceful means."

Padmé started to respond, but was abruptly cut off by Onaconda Farr, the Senator from Rodia.

"Oh, yes, Senator Amidala should be able to tell us all about the Separatists," he said in a withering voice.

"And why is that?" Ister Paddie asked, sounding bored.

"Isn't it clear to you? Isn't it clear to you all?" the Rodian shouted, and pointed at Padmé. "That one is in league with them! Has been all along! That is why she advocated a non-aggressive stance in the dispute, it is why she stalled the work of this committee, and it is why she was on Geonosis when battle broke out! Not captured by the Separatists, but employed by them!"

Even Anakin's carefully neutral expression turned to one of shock at this outburst.

Padmé, flushed with anger, scarcely knew how to begin, but Bail beat her to it.

"This is ridiculous!" He fixed Senator Farr with a fierce glare. "How dare you, sir?"

"I must ask you, Senator Farr, to calm down and, if you have proof of this very serious accusation, to bring it forward. Otherwise, we must move on. I will not entertain groundless arguments." Palpatine's stern words were supported by his tone.

"How can you say it is groundless?" Farr continued to yell. "What further proof do you need?"

"I advocated peaceful resolution to this conflict as well," Senator Lexi Dio, from Uyter, spoke evenly. "Do you wish to accuse me also?"

"Not yet," Farr answered sharply. "But you were not there when the war started. She was."

"Senator Farr." Padmé at last found her voice. "This is out of line. If I had wanted war, would I have spoken out for peace my entire life? My reason for going to Geonosis was diplomatic, and I was imprisoned for espionage and would have been executed if—"

"And why were you accused of espionage?" Ronet Coorr asked. "I do not support Senator Farr's claims of treason, but it seems to me that a legitimate diplomatic conference would not have gotten you arrested—"

"And we all know what the holonet is reporting," Ask Aak inserted, unwilling to be left out.

"Dis is nutsen! Senator Amidala is no doin’ nutten wit da Separatists and nutten wit da war!" Jar Jar Binks interjected, and was largely ignored.

"Come now, Senators." Horox Ryyder, ever placid, motioned for calm. "Surely we have not come to that. The holonet has been reporting something different every hour."

"And any way they report it," Farr finished maliciously, "she was the final spark which ignited open warfare in the Republic."

That's not true, Padmé wanted to scream, You know it's not true!

But Palpatine spoke first. "Delegates, we are off topic. I order the committee to return to the matter at hand."

Bail met her eyes apologetically. Padmé looked down at her hands as they smoothed out her dress. She was alone here. Even Bail, whom she trusted and respected, even liked, even he she had not let in. She would always be alone here. Senator Amidala, cold and untouchable.

She longed for Naboo suddenly, for a place where she was simply Padmé Naberrie, a woman who, until a week or so ago, she'd almost forgotten existed. She thought about being a child, swimming across the sparkling lake, laughing. She thought about her parents, how they tried to convince her that her service was done, that she should come home. She could never tell him how often she'd secretly agreed. She thought of her sister Sola's reproachful, "Don't you ever want to take, just a little?" Sola, who had seen in Anakin what Padmé hadn't wanted to. "Just a boy? Have you seen the way he looks at you?"

She thought of her nieces Ryoo and Pooja, laughing as they danced around Artoo.

She thought of how she'd laughed, when Anakin was with her.

We'd be living a lie, she'd told him, but were they living any less of a lie now, by not being together? All at once she knew that she could not go back to being Senator Amidala, content to be always alone. Nor did she want to.

What she felt for Anakin wasn't simply some irrational whim. Anakin knew her. Truly knew her, even if she couldn't explain it, just as she somehow felt that she knew him. When she was with him, she felt safe. Safe from all of this, all of the bickering and the corruption and the violence. When she held him, she knew that they both felt sheltered from the forces of chaos they could not control. Now, when she may have lost him forever, pushed him away of her own free will, she just wanted to feel safe again.

She wanted to be somewhere where she could feel safe.


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