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“Did you miss me?” asked Padmé, slender fingers looping tenderly through Sabé’s hair as gently as rain.
She didn't answer. She didn't have to. Sabé had always missed Padmé, and for as long as she lived, would always miss Padmé. Still, she proceeded to nudge the back of her neck with a finger as though she was concerned Sabé had dozed off.
“Dreadfully.” It felt scripted. In a way, it was, though sort of in the way that a prayer is. Tonight was their ritual, which they had performed over and over until they knew their roles off by heart. Padmé would take care of her, and Sabé wouldn't worry about the consequences of tomorrow. And at such moments, she wouldn't worry about the days after tomorrow either.
At such moments, however small they might be, she wouldn't worry about anything. Even if smoke billows out into the streets and all Hell breaks loose, and if everything ends in a crushing embrace of death's loveless hands, she wouldn't worry, because in the midst of all chaos, Padmé is the one who loves her.
“Dreadfully?” Padmé echoed, mouth closer to her ear than she imagined. Sabé nodded carefully, not wanting to ruin Padmé’s handiwork on her hair. Sabé never lunged to speak. Instead, she wanted to listen like this was goodbye, like she may never know her face in another life.
On the one hand, the prospect of such a fruitless existence saddens her to the core, but on the other, she is certain that there is no existence without her. Without Padmé, who would she be? There are certain questions to just leave forgotten, collecting dust someplace else.
A soft pair of lips find themselves a place to rest at the top of her forehead. Sabé knows there will be an embarrassingly wet stain there too, but she's learned to ignore that fact to hear Padmé’s laughter at the sight.
“Dreadfully," Padme repeats a second time, more to confirm rather than to question. “What do you dread most?”
Certainly everything. That is why she's brought here, isn't it? To sit atop one of Padmé’s chairs with her fingers woven in her hair and to inevitably awaken bare in her bed. Padmé would prefer to refer to their nights as required leisure, but it has morphed into something more habitual.
Their intimacy in the quiet is undeniable now.
Back to the question: what does she dread? There are a number of things she dreads, that would not crown her a liar if she were to admit them, but she knows what Padmé wants to hear.
“Losing you. Even if only for a day or two. I could not carry such a burden.”
Padmé smiled like her mouth was trickling holy water then kissed her. It blurred into something frenziedly careless, with Sabé half certain her chair had since toppled over and half certain she hadn't even moved a muscle. Padmé was only certain they had collapsed as one into her legendary sized bed and were now carving patterns of various shapes into each other's skin.
Forever would be plenty with this.
After all, moments are destined to be lost.