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The smell of ozone lay thick in the air, residual smoke still filling the hallway from the previous incursion.
Sabé glanced across the hallway to Padmé crouched behind the stack of cargo containers they were supposed to be retrieving. One day, she thought, she and Padmé would put their running into blaster fire days behind them. Of course, she had thought that at eighteen as well with the ending of Padmé’s rule. And yet over ten years later, she still found herself following Padmé’s command down a suspiciously empty corridor on a suspected Imperial ship.
The two women made eye contact before Padmé subtly tilted her head to the left and Sabé glanced around the corner to check for a clearing. She turned back with an affirmative nod. Years spent being her shadow, more still by her side, Sabé was nearly certain she could read Padmé’s mind. And occasionally, circumstance proved her right.
Padmé took off toward the cleared path, with Sabé on her heels when the sound of blaster fire rang in her ears again. Just get to the ship, she reminded herself, firing behind her best she could without slowing down. Get to the ship and we’ll be out of here in no time.
They stumbled over each other in their rush up the boarding ramp, securing their footing enough to fire back at the new line of Stormtroopers assembled when the ship began to rise. It was only in the safety and silence after that Padmé went slack against the wall behind her and Sabé allowed herself to take her first deep breath since the deathly silence of the hallway.
“That… Could’ve gone better. But we made it,” Padmé offered, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Even if we lost the—”
She shook her head, too out of breath herself to counter Padmé. The adrenaline from their escape continued pulsing through her veins while she closed the short distance between them and took Padmé’s face in her hands. “Nevermind that. I could’ve lost you.”
“You won't lose me,” Padmé whispered.
Sabé seized the moment to crush her lips against Padmé’s before the moment slipped away.
Despite a planetary blockade, a galaxy-wide war, and the fall of the Republic, Sabé swore there was still a hint of optimism in Padmé’s eyes when she gazed into them. Her voice was one of hope in a sea of rebels clinging to the message. One day, this regime would fall. The Emperor who had betrayed their beloved planet more than any other would be overthrown. She would bet her life on it.
Perhaps that’s when they would learn running from danger was an option as well. She and Padmé could return home, as they’d always planned, and kiss slowly, deeply, in a haze of their own creation, and not from blaster bolts. But for now, she pressed her forehead to Padmé’s, mirrored her smile, and grounded herself to the one thing the Empire couldn’t take from her.