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"You know, maybe being stationed with the Guard isn't all bad."
Padmé quirked a brow up at Fox, mid-sip of whiskey. "I thought you hated it?"
"It occurs to me." He said, with the kind of confidence she didn't often see on him. "That I don't have to deal with a Jedi."
"We have them down in the office all the time?"
"That's different." Fox jabbed a finger at her. "You deal with a Jedi periodically, while I just have to stand there. And most of the time there are no Jedi. It's not like that with the others."
"How? If you don't mind me asking?" Padmé swirled her glass around and absently considered getting more ice. She decided against it. They probably wouldn't be drinking for much longer, there was no point in getting up.
Fox snorted, looking faintly disgusted. "My little brother, Rex. He's always boasting about how well his little Padawan-Commander's training is coming along, but whatever he says is always objectively horrifying. It's all: 'Ahsoka's so fast, she can scurry up the side of a seppie ship like it's a tree' and 'Last week, Ahsoka tore a droid's head off with her bare. Fucking. Hands!'."
Padmé laughed, the doubling-over kind. She actually cried, enough that the smudged makeup around her eyes ran down her cheeks like colorful tears. "You're exaggerating! You have to be."
"You're right." Fox said, vicious. "Rex didn't say fuck."
Padmé sat back, still giggling. "How old is she?"
"Not a hundred percent sure." Fox reached across her to snatch the whiskey bottle off of the end table beside her couch. "A Junior Padawan, I think. But not one of the little ones."
"That's insane."
"Rex isn't even the worst offender." Fox grumbled. "At least he's just gone and gotten himself attached to some stupid Jedi kid. I have another brother- he's fallen head over heels for his General. Always gushing about every little thing she does, I swear."
"Well. Which Jedi is it?"
"Secura."
Padmé paused for a moment, then smothered a grin behind a hand. "I mean, can you blame him?"
Fox shoved her off the couch.
Sometimes Padmé wondered if she was the only person in the Senate building who possessed a brain. Discounting Fox, of course, and she didn't know any of his brothers well enough to decide on them just yet. But still, her point stood.
Either she was the one to possess a brain, or she was the only one who actually read mission reports. Neither boded well for the future of the Republic.
"Commander, would you mind double checking something, for me?" She didn't look up and felt more than saw him lean over her shoulder.
The 'something' in question was a standard year of mission reports, painstakingly compiled by her after something in the latest round of paperwork had caught her eye- if only because she was keeping an eye out for the names Ahsoka and Rex after what Fox had told her- and set off alarm bells. Padmé knew to trust her instincts. That was something that had been beaten into her years ago, sometimes literally. She'd been right, again.
"What about them?"
"Aren't the 501st and 212th supposed to be headed by the same General?" At the beginning of the war- the very beginning- there had been a miscalculation in the number of Jedi fit to serve, and by the time the error had been noticed, they'd had one too many Battalions and nowhere to fold the extra troopers into. With his prior combat knowledge far surpassing that of the average Jedi, Master Jinn had been the obvious choice to take both on. It was Padmé that had made that decision, actually. She had a good opinion of the man.
Now, though... That opinion might be changing.
"They are, why?" She could tell from his tone that Fox was already catching on. There was a reason why she had him appointed to her head of security, and there was a reason why she asked for his opinion on this. Because he could think.
"Well, I noticed that after their last engagement, the reports from their respective officers were from different fronts on the planet. At first I assumed that they were just split on different assignments, but something felt off, you know?" Padmé closed out of the window on her datapad to open a report from over a month ago. "This one, here, too. Same thing. All of them are."
"That's hardly unusual..." Fox said, slowly. "But I have a feeling that's not what you're talking about."
"There is not. One-" Padmé closed out of that window too and scrolled through the list for emphasis. "-singular report from any officer in the 212th that mentions their Jedi Commander, and not one from the 501st that mentions their General. That includes their own reports, Padawan Tano only mentions members of the 501st, and vice versa for Master Jinn."
Fox hummed. "You suspect something?"
"Child neglect." She put it bluntly, because there was no other way to put it. "When this war started, I only wanted senior Padawans at or above the age of majority to be involved. Master Yoda himself assured me that it was bad practice to separate a student from their teacher long-term, and that the children would be perfectly safe- thanks to their Master's constant presence, of course."
"A presence that this- Commander Tano, was it- doesn't have?"
"She was fourteen when she first became his Padawan, Commander. She's fifteen now- that's seven and seven-and-a-half in clone years- she isn't even supposed to be on a single mission separate from a trained Knight or Master. She's had dozens."
Fox made a faint noise of disgust behind her. "How do you want to handle this?"
Padmé drummed her fingertips on the table. There were a lot of things she didn't like about her job. She wasn't the most ambitious person in the galaxy, so, frankly, she didn't know how she'd gotten here. She hated the slimy politicians who assumed she was like them. She hated the wealthy benefactors who tried to bribe her. She hated how, whenever she tried to quietly report either, they got out of it, and she'd have to meet their eyes at the next gala while her skin crawled. She thought she wasn't much of idealist anymore- but she must've been, at the start of her tenure, because she was so convinced that she could fix the system from the inside, and that she could kill the corruption, and that she could broker peace. But she was wrong. She was shown more and more of that everyday. She could hardly leave now, though. Force knew whoever replaced her wouldn't feel the same way she did.
If there was one good thing that came out of the office of Supreme Chancellor, though- it was that she could request an audience with any member of the GAR at any time. She'd used it before, and not just for missions. When it wasn't actually related to the war, it was mostly at Fox's behest- making sure that none of his brothers were being mistreated. As an underage Padawan, Commander Tano should be accompanied by her Master to their meeting, but, well, he probably wouldn't follow standard procedure here, either. She could have a chance to talk to her.
Force fucking dammit, she wasn't a social worker. But needs must.
Padawan-Commander Tano was a very tense person- more of a girl, really. A tense kid. She stood in the middle of Padmé's office, back impossibly straight with her hands folded behind her back, a perfect replica of the new Guards fresh off Kamino- shinies, Fox had called them. She didn't quite have the expressions of the Troopers she was copying down yet, though. Her face carried the perfect, statuesque, focused indifference, but her eyes didn't. They flicked between the doors and the massive windows and Padmé and Fox like a spooked animal's.
"Why don't you take a seat?" Padmé gestured towards one of the couches in her office.
"No thank you, ma'am." The response was immediate. Clipped. "I'm alright standing."
"Are you sure?" Padmé put on her 'spooked toddler' voice. It didn't really work.
"Yes ma'am." The girl's jaw worked anxiously. "...Is something wrong, Madame Chancellor?"
"Well." Padmé folded her hands on her desk. "That's what we're trying to figure out."
The girl- subtly, Padmé could give her that- frantically tried to battle-sign 'mayday', 'help', and 'extraction' at Fox. Maybe, if not for the Naboo War- and the frequent use they saw whenever Padmé had to spend a gala in the company of her least favorite oligarchs- she wouldn't have picked up on it. Unluckily for Padawan-Commander Tano's attempt to escape this conversation, she did know them. And Fox was on her side, in this- just like he was at the aforementioned galas. No Fox-sanctioned getaways for her, that was a Chancellor exclusive right.
When Fox tilted his helmet down dubiously at her, making her realize it wasn't working, Padawan-Commander Tano immediately tucked her hands behind her back again. "What is it you need to know, Chancellor?"
Padmé chose her next works carefully. She was a politician, yes, and one known for being well-spoken, but it wasn't everyday that she had to do something like this. There was a chasm of difference between swaying votes and soothing some hurt kid.
"What do you think of your Master, Qui-Gon Jinn?"
There was a moment where Padawan-Commander Tano blinked and she twitched, almost imperceptibly, before recovering immediately. Was that... Surprise? Was she was expecting Padmé to say something else? ...No matter. This conversation was still about what it needed to be about. Still, she filed that away for later. "He's fine, why?"
"Padawan-Commander-" Padmé sighed through her teeth. "-we've seen the mission reports. I'm concerned that he isn't overly invested in your continued wellbeing. I find no mention of him in the reports of you or Captain Rex, and no mention of the two of you in the reports of Commander Cody or Master Jinn himself. Even after, I might add, you have suffered severe injuries in the field, including a period of MIA."
"There must've been a mistake in the reports." She said, far too quickly.
"A year's worth? From four people." Padmé asked, quirking a brow. The girl didn't even flinch. Well, Padmé thought, darkly, at least she holds up well enough under interrogation.
"There's a lot of people in the war, a lot of legions." The girl shrugged, a casual gesture when she'd done nothing of the sort before- an attempt to diffuse tension? "Statistically, it had to have happened eventually."
Padmé did not say that Commander Cody had been specifically praised for his reports four times. Force, she felt like an idiot for only realizing this a year in. The kid wasn't helping, though, she was trying very hard- and had been- to make sure nobody found out.
"Some statistics." Padmé leaned forwards and lifted her hands just slightly off the table in a way she hoped was soothing. "Look- I'm worried, is all. Just tell me, are you okay."
"I'm fine. Right as rain." She insisted and gave Padmé a face-splitting grin that came nowhere near her eyes, then held out her arms in front of her. She hadn't noticed it, before, but with her reaching forwards, she realized the girl wasn't in standard Jedi robes- she had on the Commander armor that some of the Knights and Masters favored. With her being as small as she was, a quartermaster would've had to have a special order put in for it. "I'm still in one piece, aren't I?"
"I suppose you are." Padmé fought to keep her frustration in check. Force knew what she'd do if the girl sensed it. "I'm serious, if there's anything you ever need- anything- you can come to me, alright? We can talk, girl-to-girl."
"I'll make sure to keep that in mind, Chancellor." Padawan-Commander Tano tucked into one of those Jedi bows, but it wasn't nearly as neat as her at-attention pose from before. "If that's all you wanted from me?"
"You're dismissed." Padmé gave her a dismissive little wave, and she fled at the fastest possible respectable speed.
The door clicked shut behind her.
"...Wow." Fox sounded even more unimpressed than usual. "She wasn't even subtle, was she?"
"No." Padmé put her face in her hands and gave herself a moment to collect herself so she wouldn't explode.
It didn't work.
"When I was a fourteen year old a war zone-" Padmé gritted out. "Master Jinn seemed much more invested." This felt like a betrayal and she didn't even know why. It wasn't like it was her that had been left to fend for herself.
"I'm sure he was. He's hardly being subtle either. I looked through those reports again, last night. He only mentioned her by name five times. Each one, she was 'Padawan Tano', like she was someone else's student." Fox's voice was dark with anger.
"Why has nobody else intervened? Surely the other Jedi must know, right?"
"Force if I know, I'm not a Jedi."
Padmé groaned into her hands. Fox gave a brief tap with two fingers onto her shoulder, letting her know that he was moving past. When he came back, there was a clink of glasses on the table.
"Commander, we are not drinking on the job."
"You slotted four hours to deal with Commander Tano and spoke with her for ten minutes." Fox said, shoving a glass across the table and pushing it up against her folded arms until she was forced to take it. "That, Supreme Chancellor, was the last four hours you had scheduled for your day. Ergo, our day is over."
Padmé groaned and tried to give Fox her best 'disapproving-Chancellor-stare'. Fox was immune to it. She took a deep breath, thought of what she'd gone over with her therapist, and took a sip of whatever Fox had just put in front of her. That reminded her-
"Do Jedi go to therapy?"
"Do you want my honest opinion?" Fox continued without waiting for an answer as he poured himself a glass. "I don't think any of them know the meaning of that word."
"...Seems accurate."
"I mean." Fox sat down on top of her desk and tugged off his helmet to set it next to him. "Even before the war- I keep hearing stories from my brothers about their Jedi. It's always one thing after another with them. I was talking to Cody the other day, one of my batchmates. You've met Cody?"
"Mhm." Padmé watched a drop of condensation skid down the rim of her glass.
"Well his General is Jinn- we were just talking about him- plenty of standard stuff. Lots of brokering peace deals and ceremonial crap and saving tookas from trees. Then his Padawan is straight up murdered and the next thing you know all he's doing is getting himself into one war after another." His words took on a bitter tone. "And then he gets himself a new war and a new Padawan and immediately leaves her on a rock with Rex."
"Fucking Jedi." She groaned and sat back upright, taking a long swig from her glass as she spoke, half-draining it.
Fox laughed and leaned down to clink their glasses together. "I'll drink to that."