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“I have seen a security hologram of him killing younglings. He was deceived by a lie... We all were. It appears that the Chancellor is behind everything, including the war! After the death of Count Dooku, Anakin became his new apprentice.”
In another life hearing those words might have been enough to inspire her to follow Anakin to Mustafar, to try and bring her husband back from the brink, but before she can even properly form the thought her hand moves to her stomach instinctively resting against the bump where her child grows inside of her.
It is that moment the sudden realization, that if Anakin had been able to kill those younglings in cold blood what would stop him from killing their own if the child grew to be Force sensitive, overwhelms her.
She can scarcely breathe, her hands shaking as she falls forward crumpling in defeat, hands hovering to protect her yet unborn child.
Obi-Wan’s hand is against her shoulder in an attempt to comfort, comfort that he surely needs as well, but he finds it in himself to be strong when she cannot. “I must go find him, you know this.”
She nods her head weakly in ascent. Finally answering his unspoken question, the reason he came to her, “Mustafar.”
He looks both relieved and devastated to have gotten his answer.
“Is there anyone I can call for you, someone to bring you comfort when I leave?”
In her desperation only one name comes to mind, “Sabé.”
---
She remembers the first time they met.
Handmaidens in Naboo were women warriors. Trained to defend their queen, and act in her place if necessary. Sabé had been the best of them all, a year older than Padmé, but wise in ways Padmé could only hope to one day be.
Sabé taught her how to hide blasters in her queen’s gowns. She taught her how to handle a variety of blasters, far beyond the standard issue, and how to quickly pull them out from those layers of clothing to wield the weapon with a killer’s intent.
“You won’t always have me to protect you,” Sabé had said, her fingers hovering just over Padmé’s adjusting her grip once more, only after that does she remember to tack on the obligatory, “Your highness.”
They practice moving together, walking along the length of the palace’s grand halls so that their footsteps are the same. Each habit Padmé has is analyzed and repeated before her, until looking at Sabé could be like looking into a mirror.
She prides herself upon the fact that the first time her mother comes to visit her at the palace, even she cannot tell which one her daughter and which is the handmaiden.
---
“My sister,” Sabé says, her accent a clipped Corellian one. The same accent that she has been practicing with Padmé every night in their chambers. “She’s about to burst, we need an EmDee.”
The man running the refuge ship looks between the two of them for a moment, the way his gaze lingers on their faces worries Padmé for a second, but the second passes when his eyes drop down to her stomach. He nods then, once and then a second time, before moving off to get them help.
There is pain, endless pain inside of her, though she feels as though she should be used to the pain by now. Her heart already broken too much to bear, now it seems as though her body would give up on her too, as if forcing this child out might just end her as Anakin had always feared.
She wonders, not for the first time, if Sabé can read her mind, as the other woman brings her hand down to entwine their fingers together, squeezing ever so slightly against them in comfort.
“I’ve got you,” Sabé says.
It’s only then that she allows herself to break.
---
A piercing cry splits the silence of the ship’s medbay, joining the wailing of its twin.
Twins.
A girl, and a boy.
She cries anew when she realizes they were both right.
---
There is a longing for Naboo deep in her very soul. For the lake country where she spent her childhood, the buzzing city streets of Theed.
She had never intended to settle down, there was so much work to do in the world, so much that needed to be fixed. Now though her body was tired, finding some outer rim planet to live on where nobody would remember their names, would almost seem like a blessing.
When Sabé asks her where she wants to go.
For some reason the only place she can think of is, “Tatooine.”
---
Obi-Wan finds her there years later.
She’s standing in a marketplace with her son in her arms, debating over the price of a new stabilizer for their speeder in vicious huttese, looking to every outsider like a woman born of this desert land.
Their eyes meeting across a marketplace a chance encounter.
It is only fate that could bring them both here, or the memory of someone too far gone.
“If you ever need any help with-“
“I have Sabé.”
There’s a flash of pain in his eyes, they’ve been lingering on the figure of her son, and she adjusts her grip on him ever so slightly. She knows they both seem the same thing, the sun-dyed blonde hair and the familiar wide blue eyes. The young boy is still too small to understand the implications of what is going on, as she turns him around to meet Obi-Wan, but he smiles nevertheless.
“Luke, I’d like to you to meet-“
“Ben.”
---
Sabé had always been the one to adapt. To change to the new circumstances with surprising ease, and to wield a blaster with ease. Padmé is only a step behind her in either aspect, but it is a step that could become noticeable if anyone were too look hard enough.
It is Sabé, who crafts their stories for her.
Sisters. Refuges. Just looking for some place safe to raise their children, but willing to strong arm anyone necessary to get their way.
She whips out a blaster the first time anyone dares to make a less than polite implication about Padmé and her children, killing the man where he stands. Sabé makes sure they never talk about her that way again.
It is Sabé, who helps to look after the children on days when Padmé does not think she can go on. Cradling them to her chest as though they were her own. Speaking to them in soft voices.
“Why do you do all of this,” she asks, one night, when it is Sabé once again who has risen from the small bed they share, to cradle a crying Leia to her chest until the child can sleep once more.
“It is my job to look after you, your highness,” the title is said with a hint of humor, her lips quirking up ever so slightly, as she slips in to settle back in the sheets beside Padmé.
“But who looks after you?”
---
She kisses Sabé on one of those nights, like she used to when they were queen and body guard, sleeping double to Padmé’s protection. Her lips press against the other woman’s brow, so soft as though they are barely there.
Before moving down to press their lips together in a way that is the start of something new between the two of them. Something that is neither soft nor sweet, but harsh and desperate like the world they have no found themselves in.
It is only when Sabé responds, that Padmé remembers how to breathe.