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“Your Highness,” Eirtaé says, her careful formality undermined by the annoyed slant of her eyebrows, “I am sure that you wish to retire to your quarters, where it is most safe.”
(In other words: Sabé, just because Padmé left you in charge, you don’t get to hang out in the corridor and ogle cute young Jedi Knights.)
“Thank you, Eirtaé,” Sabé says, calmly. “We feel quite safe at present.”
She doesn’t, actually. In the last twenty-four hours, she’s been captured by an invading army, rescued by Jedi Knights, fired upon by the Trade Federation fleet while fleeing Naboo, limped through space in a damaged starship, and is now stranded on a godforsaken Hutt-controlled desert planet with a malfunctioning hyperdrive generator. At any moment, the Trade Federation might arrive to recapture them; and since Sabé is currently on decoy-duty while Padmé is gallivanting on the planet, she’ll be the one to face the strongest consequences. Safe? Hah.
Eirtaé draws herself up and walks gracefully back to their quarters.
The Jedi doesn’t look up from his datapad at first, although she knows he senses her standing in the doorway. It doesn’t take the Force to sense a hovering young woman, especially if she’s wearing a regnal dress that feels like it approximately doubles her size.
Sabé takes the opportunity to observe him. It’s not every day that you see a Jedi Knight. Sabé may not be as curious as Padmé, who craves information and retains it all like a superhuman, but she's not immune to the mysterious monkish robes that hide both the lines of the Jedi’s body and the lightsaber he carries, or the long sweep of his eyelashes, or the impishness she can read in the corner of his mouth, despite his stiffly calm exterior.
(Sabé is also the oldest handmaiden, seventeen to Padmé’s fourteen, which may account for some of the differently-focused curiosity. Their training was identical before Padmé’s election; Padmé may outdistance all of her peers in diplomatic skill and regnal acumen, but Sabé thinks she is more experienced in certain areas. When she looks at the Jedi’s robes, she is not only thinking of the color and sweep.)
“I salute your control,” the Jedi says, breaking the silence. (A particularly Jedi thing to say, Sabé thinks.) “In such dangerous times, it must make your handmaidens feel more secure to see you so calm.”
It’s a pity that such a pretty young man speaks like he’s a dusty old manual. She holds up a hand and starts ticking off her fingers. “We’re on a Hutt-controlled planet with a busted hyperdrive generator. My planet is held by the Trade Federation. I’m half expecting the Trade Federation to arrive at any moment and recapture me. I’m not calm, Master Jedi.”
She’s startled him. The dusty formality lifts for a second, and his eyes meet hers.
She lets her mouth quirk up into a smile underneath the regnal paint. “But I can’t tell Eirtaé that. She worries. It’s better to shock her and let her go tell Rabé how outrageous I’m being – it’ll help keep her mind off things.”
He leans back in his chair a little, datapad held loosely. “You’re not outrageous, Your Highness.”
“I think flirting with a Jedi is always outrageous,” Sabé says, and is delighted to see his eyes start to crinkle at the edges. “Although I suppose the rules on a Hutt-controlled planet might be different.”
“I doubt the Hutts have any rules,” the Jedi says, before obviously remembering that she is a queen and he must be ridiculously formal. “I beg your pardon. Did you require my assistance?”
“Just because I’m a Queen doesn’t mean you have to be a stick-in-the-mud,” Sabé says, and invites herself into the room. There’s a spare chair across from him, and she folds down into it carefully, arranging her skirts around her. “Though I guess my outfit isn’t helping. It’s for state occasions, you know – I don’t go around dressed like this in private.”
She sees the moment he gives in, his spine relaxing a few quarter-inches. “It’s not you being a Queen that means I have to be a stick-in-the-mud, it’s me being a Jedi,” he says, ruefully. “We’re not supposed to fraternize.”
She raises one of the perfectly-sculpted Amidala eyebrows. “And you don’t think your Master ever … fraternizes?”
“Your Highness,” he starts, his eyes wide with oh god, not those mental images, and she laughs, delighted.
She knows her laugh is one of her best features, bell-like and infectious, and she watches it work on him, relaxing his hackles again. “Relax, Jedi. I’m not propositioning you. Panaka would have a fit.” Also, Eirtaé would swoon, getting re-dressed would be a pain (this outfit takes at least an hour to reassemble), and Padmé would be pretty pissed if I got some action when I’m supposed to be her. Oh, and the Trade Federation (or the Hutts) would be bound to arrive at the worst possible moment.
“You aren’t what I expected,” he says.
“Thank you,” Sabé says, inclining her head in a royal half-nod. “That’s the best compliment I’ve been given in quite a while.”
Part of her brain is standing aside, judging her in a big way. Naboo has been invaded – has fallen. People are dying; very probably, many people are dying. Her world may never be the same again. How can she flirt and laugh and tease, when she has left everyone she loves to face the wrath of a coldhearted enemy?
But she has to cope somehow, or she will sit in her quarters and cry. And that would never do.
“I’m Obi-Wan,” the Jedi says. “If you want to use my name inappropriately and scandalize your handmaids some more.”
Sabé can’t give him her real name, not without authorization from Padmé or Panaka, but she grins instead. It’s conspiratorial and completely un-royal, and she’s thrilled when he smiles back.
“You’re cute when you smile,” she says.
The look on Eirtaé’s face as she appears in the doorway is worth all the scolding Sabé is going to get later.
-&-
She is frightened when the Tusken Raiders capture her, thoroughly frightened. At least when the Trade Federation took her, she was on her own planet, with friends and allies around her. At least when the Trade Federation fleet fired on their ship, she had Padmé, Eirtaé, Rabé, Panaka, Olié, and two Jedi. It is easier to be strong when you have people to be strong for.
Now she is on a strange planet, all alone.
When Obi-Wan rescues her, she winds her arms around his neck and clings to him for a long moment, hiding her face against him. He is solid, a rock to hold onto, the smell of the sweat on his skin grounding her and giving her space to breathe.
His right hand is holding a lit lightsaber, but she is not frightened. His left comes up to hold the nape of her neck, and she tightens her own grip.
“We have to go, Your Highness,” he says, his voice calm but urgent. She knows the combination well, after the last couple of days, and she forces herself to let go, forces herself to step back.
She looks up into his face, does not look at the bodies of the Tusken Raiders who had been her guards. “Lead on.”
-&-
After the defeat of the Trade Federation, Sabé doesn’t see Obi-Wan again for nine years.
It’s not surprising. Jedi are not an everyday event on Naboo. They are an everyday event on Coruscant, so Sabé does wonder if she might see him once Padmé finishes her Queenship and accepts Queen Jamillia’s request to serve as Naboo’s representative in the Senate, but it doesn’t happen. Apparently he’s quite busy running around the galaxy training that towheaded kid his late Master picked up on Tatooine, which figures. He’d seemed just the type to take on problems started by other people.
Sabé doesn’t mind. She’s quite busy; she’s Padmé’s chief of staff as well as her decoy, and she certainly doesn’t have time to think about a stuffy Jedi Padawan, even if his arms had been very strong, and his smile had warmed her.
She’s just been to her weekly meeting with Chancellor Palpatine’s chief of staff – although the Chancellor no doubt has greater matters on his plate, he has always maintained courtly courtesy towards his former Queen, and Padmé’s importance in the Senate means that there are often matters to be coordinated and lobbying work to be done. Sabé is good at it; she loves her weekly baring of teeth with Evonn, who she dislikes but respects for his political acumen.
Her mind still on today’s meeting, she dodges someone in her path – and the someone says, “Your Highness.”
It’s him.
“You know I’m not the Senator,” she says, lightly, because he does.
Obi-Wan grins. He looks good. No longer a Padawan; filled-out, strong. “I know.”
Sabé can still remember the look on his face when Padmé told the Gungans about the decoy arrangement. He’d been professional – he’s always professional – but. Well.
“How long has it been?” she asks. He doesn’t look like he’s about to stride off on important Jedi business, but she puts a hand on his arm and draws him into the courtyard all the same. “Nine years? Damn. That’s a long time.”
“I won’t say it feels like yesterday,” Obi-Wan says, waiting for her to sit down on a bench before joining her. “But you don’t look a day older.”
Sabé laughs, feeling the blush on her cheeks. For once she actually half-misses regnal makeup, and she would’ve sworn that was never going to happen. “You’ve learned how to flirt! Congratulations, sir Jedi Master.”
“I always knew how to flirt,” he says, unruffled. “I just, hmm, how did a young woman once put it, I was just a stick-in-the-mud.”
Sabé, feeling daring, reaches out to pat his hand. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. That young woman was under a lot of stress, and insulting young Padawans helped.”
The beard looks good on him. She doesn’t always like beards, but this one works. And the laugh lines around his eyes are even better; he looks like a man at peace with himself. She wants to thread a hand into his hair and draw him down into a kiss, to disrupt his peace and disturb his hair, but she knows it would be overstepping her bounds.
“Young Padawans should always be insulted,” Obi-Wan says, his eyes dancing. “It keeps them from getting too full of their own importance.”
Sabé punches him lightly in the shoulder. (“What did you do today, Sabé?” “I punched a Jedi.”) “Easy to say that when you’re not a Padawan anymore.”
“And because I have a Padawan of my own to try my patience,” he admits. He nods back towards Palpatine’s offices. “He’s in there now, talking to the Chancellor. Did he remember that I scheduled training for this afternoon? Nope. I’m just his Master, not anyone to pay attention to.”
He’s just teasing, and she matches his tone. “Poor Obi-Wan. Gets no respect. Has to come all the way down here to get his errant Padawan. You should force-yell at him, tell him to get his ass out here this instant or he doesn’t have lightsaber privileges for a week.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Obi-Wan says, laughing.
Sabé arches a skeptical eyebrow. “Not at all?”
She doesn’t care about the details. Jedi protect the Republic, sure, but it’s not really necessary to know the details. She already knows how politics work, and that’s enough nitty-gritty details for one lifetime. She trusts this man, with his laugh-lines and his beard and the way his eyes meet hers.
They sit in silence for a moment, looking at each other. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, like so many Sabé’s encountered over the years (uncomfortable silences being a tool in the diplomatic arsenal). It’s warm, like a Padawan’s hand on her neck, all those years ago.
He was probably frightened too, she realizes, fighting alone without his Master to back him up. There had been a lot of Tusken Raiders, and he had thought she was the Queen; if the Queen fell, the Trade Federation would probably have taken Naboo.
Perhaps he had been frightened for her too, not just her-as-Queen.
Impulsively, she reaches out, stroking her thumb down his cheek. It’s lightning-fast; there is no one in this courtyard to see, but her heart still beats a tattoo in her chest.
He does not flinch away. He smiles.
-&-
Sabé is five months pregnant when she tells Padmé.
Obi-Wan is off again with his Padawan, somewhere gallivanting around the galaxy. He’s never going to be a steady partner, and she knows that; he’s a Jedi. Technically, he’s not even supposed to care for her, beyond a generalized affection – Jedi can have sexual relationships, because most humans have sexual needs, but they aren’t supposed to have romantic bonds. It compromises them, apparently.
Sabé doesn’t know why romantic relationships are such a bad thing for Jedi. She knows the way Obi-Wan nuzzles the back of her neck when he sleeps, drawing her close. She knows the way his face lights up when he sees her, his eyes laughing and his whole posture relaxing. She knows the way he holds her, the way he kisses her, the way he makes her feel beloved. She knows that he is happier because he has her – that he is more at peace.
She also knows that if the Jedi find out that Obi-Wan has fathered a child, they will try to take it from her.
“I don’t see why you have to retire,” Padmé says, her forehead furrowed. “I promise that I’ll hold your job for you, if you want to take off some time when the baby is born.”
Sabé shakes her head. It’s hard, leaving; Padmé is more of a best friend than an employer. There’s a bond that gets forged when you literally lay your life on the line for someone on a regular basis.
Padmé’s brow clears. “Oh! Is it the decoy thing? Of course you can’t decoy when you’re pregnant, but Cordé can do it. She’s not quite as close a match as you are, but it’s perfectly fine.”
“It’s not the decoy thing,” Sabé says, because Padmé is a problem-solver and if Sabé doesn’t shut this down now, they’ll be here all night. “It’s been my honor to serve as your handmaiden and chief of staff, Senator. But now I need to move into another phase of my life.”
The formality, unlike Sabé’s usual manner, hits home. Padmé nods, obviously still processing. “Of course, if that’s what you want… but oh, Sabé, I’ll miss you terribly.”
Sabé accepts the impulsive hug, holding Padmé close. “I’ll miss you too,” she says, turning her face into Padmé’s hair.
“But we’ll still see each other,” Padmé says, cheering up. “I’m not on Naboo often, but when I am, you’ll have to bring the baby. And tell me I can be godmother!”
“A baby would be honored to have the legendary Senator Amidala for a godmother,” Sabé says, which makes Padmé laugh, and is not an answer.
Sabé knows what Padmé does not: she will never be on Naboo again. It is too close to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple. She knows from Coruscant gossip (and her own memories of a desperate flight from Naboo) that Obi-Wan is strong in the Force, and she knows that the likelihood of their child inheriting his gift is high. She does not hate the Jedi, but she won’t let her baby be taken away to be raised as one.
She has money saved. She has skills. It will not be a hard life, raising her child on the Outer Rim, as far from Jedi as she can get. She can already feel the baby kick; she loves it with all the fierceness in her heart.
“Just don’t name it after me,” Padmé says. “Too many little Padmés already.”
“I promise,” Sabé says.
-&-
The last time she’d seen Obi-Wan, he’d kissed her goodbye in her kitchen, off to go to a brutally early sparring session with his Padawan. She’d laughed, and kicked his leg with her bare toes; he’d ruffled her hair and leaned in again, his beard tickling her face. There’d been sunshine in her eyes, because she’d forgotten to close the shades the previous evening, distracted by a Jedi in her arms.
That evening, he and his Padawan had been sent on a sudden mission. She’d been in a meeting at the Senate, and she hadn’t found out until she came home to a note under her door. (Frightfully low-tech, but the best way when you’re in a secret relationship with a warrior-monk.)
See you soon,
O x
He was no poet, but the ‘x’ had warmed her heart.
-&-
Sabé leaves a note of her own on her kitchen counter, where he will look, sooner or later.
Never forget that you're cute when you smile.
S
She rests a hand on the swell of her belly, gazing out the window at the glittering majesty of Coruscant. Tonight she leaves for a new life.
When she tells her child about its father, she won’t make it a star-crossed tragedy. She loved him, and she thinks he loved her, but it wasn’t a ferocious kind of all-consuming love, it was a warm affectionate love that made her feel safe. And they both knew from the beginning that anything more than a casual relationship was impossible. Jedi don’t marry; they don’t settle down; they don’t come home for dinner; and if they do have a child, it is given to the Order if it inherits their gift. These are the rules, and Sabé has always known them.
Obi-Wan will know that she has retired because of pregnancy; she has not asked Padmé to hide it. Perhaps she should be worried that he will tell the Order. But she feels, deep in her bones, that he will let her go. There are enough Force-sensitive children in the galaxy to fill the Jedi Academy – the Order doesn’t need hers.
“Goodbye,” she whispers into the night air, and lets the door swing shut behind her.