Author's Note from DarthIshtar: To be clear, this is the story where the Alternate Universe that I imagined where Palpatine was married to an ambassador's daughter from Alderaan gains an Alternate Universe of its own. Book 4 of Wife of Deceit will cover the truth that Palpatine is a Sith, but the circumstances are nothing like this scene. Wife of Deceit does not involve this kind of supportive environment and what happens in this story shapes Lady Palpatine's new ending. The song quoted is "A Step Too Far" from Aida by Elton John and Tim Rice and is one of my favorite songs about a conflicted woman in love. A great deal of this was written by LLL with my feedback as the mind behind Amne, but I am posting with her permission and our collaboration.
-----
I am certain that I love him
But a love can be misplaced
Have I compromised my people
In my passion and my haste
I could be his life companion
Anywhere but where we are
Am I leader? Am I traitor?
Did I take a step too far?
----
Sereine stood alone in Padme’s fresher, giving herself a long look in the mirror. It had been a struggle to decide what to wear, how to do her hair. In the end, she had selected her work cloak, and simply braided her hair down her back.
Her braid was red again, but she couldn’t deny the signs of aging in her skin, around her eyes, on her neck and hands.
The woman to whom Palpatine said “I love you” was thirty-five. Thirty-five years old, petite, and beautiful, possessed of all the patrician dignity required of a Supreme Chancellor’s wife … and she would be here in less than thirty minutes.
She should be worried lest Amne Selrieen Palpatine come completely apart at the news that her husband was the Sith lord and rush to the Jedi Temple to start the war to end all wars. If she did, she would be doing Palpatine’s will in a way they all hoped she would stop and reconsider.
Instead, the sickness deep inside Sereine had much more to do with the fact that, arranged marriage or not, the man she used to consider “her” Palpatine had spent ten years telling Amne Selrieen he loved her, when he would never say it to Sereine nor allow her to say it to him.
Sereine had spent thirteen years, ever since Sheev’s wedding, telling herself there was simply no way he could share the passion with anyone else that he had shared with her. She had spent a total of twenty-three years telling herself that no one knew Palpatine the way she did, that no one was closer to him, that if he could have loved anyone, it would have been her. She had begun this quest to turn him largely because of that.
Now, after that horrid conversation alone with Palpatine, she knew it wasn’t true. It was good of him to explain, it was compassionate of him to hold her and kiss her–far beyond what she felt she could have expected of a Sith master–but clearly, whatever heart he had belonged to the woman Sereine was about to meet for the first time. And she was ashamed that the ache in her own heart was over this.
It shouldn’t matter whether Sheev loved her. It shouldn’t matter who he loved. What mattered was that he be saved. That his life be saved, and all others along with it.
Because the instant she and Anakin had brokered this armistice with him, all sides in this conflict had become one. She, Palpatine, Anakin, the Jedi, and all the people in the Republic were now on the same side, all their interests hanging in the balance. If this fragile armistice broke, so did the Republic and everyone in it. That should be her one and only concern.
That, and saving Sheev, turning him. If that only mattered to her if he loved her, then she had never loved him at all. Surely it would matter just as much to the woman for whom an arranged marriage had become love. Sereine should be able to trust in that.
As for herself, she would carry on with this as a last and loving gift to Sheev, as penance for her mistakes in bringing him to power; and then she would go home to the best and most loving husband any woman had ever had, and give Finis the best of herself. He deserved nothing less from her.
She should sit and let the others carry the meeting. If Lady Palpatine knew who she was, that course of action was definitely best. But it was more than likely that she did not; that Palpatine had never mentioned her at all. In any case, Amne Selrieen was First Lady, had performed admirably in the role, and had lost three of Palpatine’s children under terrible duress, and that alone deserved respect.
Sereine brushed away her few tears, and willed that there would be no more. At the very least, she could keep her heartbreak to herself.
Finis must be wondering where she was.
She wiped her eyes one last time, lifted her chin, and walked down the hall to Padme’s living room. Finis stood by the fountain. His eyes followed her across the floor as she came to stand by his side, reached for his hand, and pressed her cheek to his sleeve. He looked down at her as if in surprise; affection from her had been in short supply of late, and the gesture made her feel even more guilty.
Anakin and Padme sat stiffly on the couch, Padme in a too-loose maternity dress; her regular clothes were still too tight. A simple blue dress, with her hair down in curls. She and Anakin were holding hands, too.
Padme looked over at Finis. After a long uneasy spell between them borne of that awful day when she had toppled him from the Supreme Chancellor’s podium, there had been some rapprochement between them Sereine hadn’t been present for. It said a lot about the state of things between herself and Finis that he hadn’t told her. Someday soon, she should ask him.
Padme said, “Ready?” and Finis said, “As much as I can be. I understand the beginning of this has to rest entirely on me, but I wish it didn’t.”
Padme said, “I–” and then the bell rang.
------
It’s so strange he doesn’t show me
More affection than he needs
Almost formal too respectful
Never takes romantic leads
There are times when I imagine
I’m not always on his mind
He’s not thinking what I’m thinking
Always half a step behind
Always half a step behind
Anakin stood. “I should,” he said.
“Right,” said Padme, and then raised an eyebrow at Sereine and Finis. “Sit,” she said.
Anakin’s voice murmured a low greeting, and a feminine voice floated back to them. Sereine drew a deep breath.
From the corridor they came, Anakin leading the beautiful young woman Sereine had seen over and over on holonet news and several times at a distance, in the Chancellor’s office. In person, she was smaller than Sereine had expected, almost as small as Padme. Her black skirt spread around her as if she were wearing an undergarment meant to create some fullness; her high-necked blue satin shirt, buttoned down to her wrists, was of the shade of blue Palpatine himself had often worn as Senator. She wore her red hair loose and pulled back from her face. Sereine recognized the necklace she wore; a wide piece on a chain consisting of blue stones arranged to suggest water, and emeralds for the riverbank. It was a popular style at home and reminded her of a brooch Sheev had once bought her. She remembered that occasion with a brief stab of pain.
Padme stood; Finis stood, and Sereine stood beside him.
Amne Selrieen Palpatine stopped short.
Padme bowed her head. “Lady Palpatine. Welcome.”
Finis bowed and Sereine dropped a small curtsey. Finis said, “My lady.”
Lady Palpatine glanced from one face to another. Then she gave Finis her own small bow and said, “Chancellor.” To Padme, “Senator.”
“Welcome to our home,” said Padme, in a tone Sereine could tell was her most friendly and soothing. “May I get you anything? Please, sit.”
“No, thank you, Senator,” said Lady Palpatine, cool as a breeze. Sereine could do it, too, though she mostly chose not to. Excessive formality did a client who needed a cold dose of reality no favors.
Amne smoothed her skirt and chose a chair. Anakin returned to Padme’s side and sat, looping his arm through hers. Finis sat, and Sereine beside him.
Lady Palpatine fixed an amber stare on Finis. “Chancellor Valorum. I was not forewarned that I would find you here.”
Now for it. Sereine felt his arm tense beneath her hand and gave him a surreptitious squeeze.
Finis said, “I realize that, my lady, and we apologize for the surprise. I realize the purpose of this meeting was to discuss disarmament issues with the Senator. However, in the course of that, some facts may arise that we must request never leave this room.”
Lady Palpatine raised her brows and leaned forward a bit.
“We’re here,” said Finis, “because you did indicate to Anakin that you wish to involve the Jedi Council in matters between the current Chancellor and Senator Amidala. And we must ask most sincerely that you do not.”
Lady Palpatine’s eyes traveled briefly to Padme, no doubt wondering why she didn’t speak for herself. “I believe the Senator and her husband know why I am here. I have cause to question both the intentions and actions of people I had believed to be allies of my family.” Her eyes strayed to the Jedi and her voice lowered in pitch while losing none of its firmness. “It troubles me that I may feel called to ask for help beyond these walls; I pray that the answers I seek can be found within them.”
“It’s imperative,” said Finis, “that the Jedi Council stay very far away from the Office of the Supreme Chancellor for the time being. I’m afraid that any attempt to involve them in a matter between you and Senator Amidala, we must object to. Also we must request that friends of yours in the Senate not be involved. Bail Organa, specifically.”
Sereine saw her brows angle in displeasure; Finis pressed on. “You aren’t aware of the fragility of the armistice that’s been in place since the deaths of the Separatist leadership. Things are much more tenuous than you realize, my lady.”
Lady Palpatine was frowning in earnest now. “An armistice between the Separatists and the Republic was part of the leaders’ conditions of surrender. You think it will not hold?”
“No, my lady,” said Finis. “There is another, informal armistice no one knows about. Between the Republic and the Jedi.”
“The–” Lady Palpatine said, and stopped. She sank back into her chair. “Perhaps you’d better explain this to me.”
Padme spoke. “If the Jedi Council spend any amount of time looking into matters in the Chancellor’s Office, they’re likely to discover one piece of information that will shatter this peace and put them in direct conflict with the Army of the Republic. It’s a very delicate situation the Jedi won’t even know they’re stepping into.” She glanced down at her hands and looked earnestly into Amne’s face again. “That’s why it’s important that any differences you have with me, must be settled with me. I’m more than happy to listen.”
Lady Palpatine swallowed once. “Very well, then,” she said, and turned to Padme. “The signatories to the Petition of the Two Thousand have shown such strong opposition to everything my husband has tried to accomplish, for many months now. There is supporting evidence for the belief that you are the person most responsible for that, Senator. I confess that I do not understand it. Sheev is very fond of you, you must know that. You have been his political ally since you were fourteen, my lady, and he yours. What has happened?”
Anakin looked at Sereine, who met his gaze with a sort of sinking feeling.
She paused. “I hope you understand that, as heartbreaking as it has been to see the loyalists turn their allegiances from my husband, he must feel the schism’s effects on an equally distressing level. There has been no explanation, while my husband has relinquished so many of the emergency powers that were given him and does have an orderly plan to relinquish more. Yet, you continue to persecute him.”
She leaned forward, her back pin straight in a posture she must have rehearsed for years. “Senator … why will you not stop this seeming vendetta you have against him? Must I go to the Jedi for assistance, or can we agree to a cease fire here?”
Sereine caught Anakin’s eye and mouthed, He doesn’t know she’s here. Anakin agreed with his eyes. She returned her gaze to Amne’s face to find her looking right at her. Then she thought, He must feel? As in, She doesn’t know?
Weeks ago Sereine would have stared right back. Now she snapped her gaze to the window..
So far, they had gotten away without revealing the secret. Padme met Sereine’s eyes with a tinge of exasperation in her own, and a little quirk of her brows; then she looked at Finis. Her question was plain: Do we tell her?
It was an inconvenient time not to be able to talk. Sereine looked at Anakin and tried to ask him the question with her eyes. Anakin gave her an uncertain frown.
Sereine returned her gaze to Palpatine’s wife to find those hazel eyes squarely on her.
Amne turned her attention to Finis. “Chancellor, if I may inquire,” she said, “I realize that Master Yoda is an old and dear friend, so I can appreciate a reason for your presence here. But …if I might ask why your wife is here as well?”
Silence. No one quite knew how to answer that one.
Sereine stared at Padme’s blue carpet for a moment, then she raised her head. “I’m here because I know Sheev Palpatine,” she said. “And I’m here because Anakin needed me.”
Amne Selrieen held Sereine’s gaze in an even stare. After that He must feel remark, Sereine was in no mood to back down. Clearly this had not been a topic of discussion in the Palpatine household. Is anything? She says she loves him. And she began to feel angry.
Padme spoke. “Lady Palpatine, I don’t have a vendetta against your husband.” She said it with an earnestness and a sweetness that touched Sereine, and then Sereine saw the look on her face and realized: Padme had decided. She was going to tell her.
“What’s happened here is that I’ve discovered something about him that only the four of us know, and that the Jedi must never know. Or at least, not until we’re absolutely certain it’s safe.”
Finis took up the cue. “Because if they do, my lady, they will attack him. And with Palpatine in command of a good many battalions of the army, those kinds of hostilities are something that must be avoided at all costs.”
Anakin stepped in. “I was the one who discovered this, my lady, and I came to Sereine and the Chancellor for help. And since then–” he looked around the circle, acknowledging the three of them. “The four of us have joined hands around Chancellor Palpatine, because we need to protect him from the Jedi … and the Jedi from him. And the Republic from the conflict that would arise, if we didn’t do this.”
Under cover of a fold of her long skirt, Sereine felt Finis grip her arm. She moved her other hand to rest over his.
Amne Palpatine gave them a hollow stare. She leaned against the back of her seat, seeming to contract into herself, thinking.
At last she said, “May I ask what this is that you’ve discovered about my husband?” Her voice was low and tempered with steel.
Sereine took heart. Maybe she could withstand this news, after all.
Anakin glanced around at everyone, announcing that he would take it up from here. Instantly, Sereine knew what he would say, having been on the receiving end of this herself not so long ago.
“My lady,” said Anakin, “I wonder how much you know about the rumors of a Sith lord operating somewhere in the highest levels of government?”
“I have been made aware of them,” she said. Her face was impassive, but her breathing quickened, as if her body could know the truth before her mind.
Anakin said, “Lady Palpatine … the night the war ended, Chancellor Palpatine identified himself to me as the Sith lord.”
The shallow breaths stopped altogether as the woman went perfectly still, her posture rigid and her expression frozen. Sereine watched with sympathy as her ivory skin turned pale. Her features crumpled into an expression of helplessness and horror. Her mouth opened in an agonized, mute square.
And then the air rushed out of her in a keening wail as she slumped forward, arms crossed protectively over her abdomen. Sereine remembered this moment only too well, and her heart went out to her.
Anakin sat with such sympathy on his face. Tears gathered in Padme’s eyes.
Sereine had said, We just have to sit with her. Let her have her cry out. Support her; we’ve all been through this.
Yet, how should she support someone whose husband she’d coveted ever since he left her thirteen years ago?
Finis wore an expression like stone, but she saw the compassion in his eyes. Presently he got up, and she heard water running in Padme’s kitchen.
Padme got up and crossed the room to her. Leaned over her and put her hands over Amne’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “We’ve all been through this moment. Force knows, we understand.”
Anakin looked away with a grimace of regret while the composed and stalwart First Lady shrank and transformed into a person consumed by grief and impotence. Amne shook Padme’s hands away. Then she put her own over her face and sobbed.
Finis appeared at her side holding a glass of water. He laid his hand over her bowed shoulders and slowly stroked her back, up and down. Sereine saw the sorrow in his eyes, and something else: impotent rage at Palpatine. Anakin got up and walked over, too, and the three of them formed a compassionate net of human love and kindness around the woman who sat at their center. Her ragged sobs filled the room. Finis leaned down and held her shoulders as she gasped for breath.
“I can’t–I can’t–” Amne wailed the words, and then she began to cry again. Padme looked at Sereine, and made a wiping motion over her face.
Somehow, they had all forgotten to set out tissues. Sereine got up and went to the nearest bedroom–Finis’s–and returned with a box. That it was only one quarter full worried her.
“Oh,” Amne sobbed, and the pain in her voice seared the very air. “Oh, how many people? How many people has he killed?”
She sobbed again, and Finis said, “I guess we may never know the number, my lady.”
Amne looked plaintively up at Padme, her face red, swollen, tear-splotched. Her breath hitched. Padme handed her a tissue. Palpatine’s wife held it to her eyes for a moment, pressed it to her cheeks, hiding her mouth.
“Just this morning, I woke up next to him,” she whispered. “I kissed him, I held him. We had breakfast. He was my husband.” Her voice broke. “And now, tonight, I return home to a hated enemy who has killed millions.” Her hazel eyes, wide and tremulous, jerked hither and yon around the room as if she sought an escape. They fell directly on Sereine, who could only look back at her with memories of the night of her own baptism in this fire.
“How can this be?” Her voice rose in a cry that was painful to hear. “How could he–how can I–?” And she began to cry again.
“We’ve all been through this,” Anakin murmured soothingly. “We’ve all been through it.”
“It’s all right, here,” said Finis. “We’ve all cried our tears over this.”
They stood like that interminably, while Amne cried, stopped, cried, stopped. At last Amne sat there, cried out, her head bowed in her hand. At last, she took the water from Finis and sipped.
Padme crouched on the floor at her feet. Anakin lingered close by, then sat at the closest place on the couch. Finis remained standing at her shoulder.
At last Amne looked down at Padme. “You have just given birth to twins, my lady. Do get up, please.”
Padme rose, stiffly, and Anakin got up to help her. They settled themselves back on the couch.
Amne looked at Anakin, and said, “How did this come about?”
“Palpatine is the Sith master, my lady. He’s asked me to apprentice,” said Anakin.
Amne gulped. “Surely, you would never …?”
And then it was time to explain. Round-robin, they took Amne through that difficult night, Anakin’s premonition of a difficult childbirth, Palpatine’s offer and stipulations, the crafting of Palpatine’s speech and how they had cornered him into giving it. Sereine’s hidden reward of an additional year in office. How they had settled into uneasy detente.
Amne at last looked at Sereine and addressed her directly. “You knew … you knew this? How could you even think to grant him one more day?”
Sereine gave her an even stare and said, “That’s how you have to deal with Palpatine. We need to engage him, we need to re-engage his mind, and for that you have to be even in power to him. When you’re his peer, he’ll come out and be conversant with you. He’ll think and consider and turn things over in his mind, and that’s what we need. One hand giveth and one hand taketh away. If you aren’t in a position to do that, you have no influence with him. Even-even, balance-balance, give-receive; and that’s how it’s got to stay. This year is how I did that. We needed to command respect, and that is what we did.”
Padme said, “Now everyone’s fate hangs on that balance. Anakin’s discussed the fate of the Sith lord with the High Council. They want to attack him. I’ve tried to involve a few Senators in this, including Bail, and it’s not going to work.”
Finis moved to stand before Amne rather than behind her. “No one has a bent to approach the hypothetical unmasking of the Sith lord with anything that won’t lead to a catastrophic conflict between Palpatine and the Council. And we cannot risk that. If the Council attacks the Chancellor … what will that bring? Especially if they lose. Any violence plays into his hands, my lady. It must be avoided at all costs.”
Amne breathed with hard little jerks. “But you cannot continue this forever. What happens as his final year in office draws to a close?”
Sereine glanced around at Anakin, Padme, and Finis. In turn, they all glanced at her and each other.
At last, Finis said, “We do not know.”
“It’s going to be a very difficult year,” said Sereine. “We’re going to have to join our hands and ride it out. He’s going to struggle to slip around us any way he can. Finis studies the relevant law day and night, and he’s the only other living person to hold that office. He’s been able to predict some of it, but Palpatine is desperate. He’s gambling on his ability to turn Anakin. You have to understand that he’s the last surviving master of his order, and he’s trying to preserve it. He’s in fear for his life, and part of what’s happened is because he always has been.”
“Right now, Anakin is drawing all the fire,” said Finis. “At this point, we are all trying to support him in any way that we can. If Anakin says no …”
“Should you gain any knowledge that may help us, we ask that you share it,” said Padme. “As we humbly ask for your silence.”
“I can’t, I can’t promise that,” said Amne. “How can I? How can you?”
“I remind the First Lady, since we did this, there has been no more bloodshed. We accomplished all this inside of twenty-four hours without firing a shot. Approach Palpatine the right way, and you get results,” said Sereine. “We ask that you allow us to continue.”
Anakin leaned toward Lady Palpatine with his heart in his eyes. “Sereine and I …” he said, and cast a look at Padme that said, Please don’t argue. “Sereine and I want to try to work with the Chancellor. We believe he has potential to come out of this. We believe he has potential to turn.”
He glanced at Sereine. She locked eyes with him, hoping to convey her thanks with a look.
Finis cleared his throat. Sereine saw the flicker of anger in his eyes, and put her hand on his arm. He had to know that if he spoke of his doubts here, it could drive Palpatine’s young wife straight to the Jedi Temple. Finis swallowed and said nothing. Anakin held Padme’s gaze with a meaningful look, and when Sereine looked down, she saw him grip Padme’s hand and squeeze.
Amne’s eyes locked on Sereine’s with a deep distrust. She looked around at everyone else, and the look muted into confusion and grief.
“We must have an answer from you, my lady,” Anakin prompted.
“I need some time,” said Amne. “I cannot decide so important a question in an instant.”
“Do you wish to be alone, my lady?” asked Padme, and Amne locked glances with her and said, “Amne.”
Padme nodded and said, “Padme.”
Finis nodded as well and said, “Finis, if you please, my lady.”
Anakin was silent. She already called him Anakin.
Sereine said nothing.
“Padme, yes,” said Amne. “I do.”
“Do you have any more questions for us, my lady?” said Anakin.
“I do not,” said Amne. “I need the company of my own thoughts.”
Padme nodded at the back corridor and said, “The study,” and they all stood.
In the study Sereine said, “How do we know she won’t just leave?”
“She isn’t,” said Anakin. “I can sense her in the room. She’s moving toward the fountain, looking out onto the balcony. If she moves to go, I will stop her.”
Sereine turned to them and said, “I just want to give you my heartfelt thanks for today. I could not have done this. I questioned whether I should even be here.”
“If she says no,” said Padme, “what are we going to do?”
“We cross that sky when we fly it,” said Finis in a somber tone.
“She’s more likely to say no if the two of you share your opinion that Palpatine won’t turn,” said Sereine. “Whatever your opinions of him, or of Anakin and me, please don’t share them with the First Lady.”
Finis and Padme looked at one another. Finally Padme said, “I know she’s right.”
“Yes,” said Finis.
Anakin leaned down and kissed his wife. “Thank you, Padme.”
“I’m going to go and check on Luke and Leia for a minute,” said Padme.
Sereine took the opportunity to slide her arms around Finis. “Thank you,” she said. “I know this has been a lot of strain on you, Kinschem. I’m so sorry about all of it.” He looked down at her, and she raised her chin and stretched up to kiss him. “I love you,” she said. He turned in her arms to hold her.
After a moment he leaned down to kiss her again. “I can stay tonight,” Sereine whispered. “Do you want me to?”
He whispered, “I thought you might never ask.” He gripped her harder and swayed her gently from side to side, and guilt gripped Sereine nearly as tightly as he did. How could she hurt as wonderful a husband as Finis? It certainly wasn’t that she didn’t love him. Somehow, she had simply expanded her heart to hold both.
Sereine turned to find Anakin gazing out of the window on the far side of the room, affording them some privacy. Padme walked back into the room as they unclasped each other and gave Sereine a quick smile. She walked over to Anakin and slipped her arm around him, and they talked quietly in whispers.
Then Anakin turned and said, “She’s looking for us.”
They filed out into the living room again. Amne Selrieen Palpatine lingered near the hallway and retreated to her chair as they approached.
Everyone sat and Amne met Anakin’s eyes. Then her amber gaze turned to Padme.
“In memory of the love I’ve held for him, you have my silence,” she said.
Sereine had to look away from her. Anger boiled within her; anger, and sorrow for he who was once again and always had been, her Palpatine, mingled with a deep, deep gratitude that, on that one and fateful night, Anakin had not done this to him.
Oh, thank all that was that Anakin had loved Palpatine enough to think of him, to want to know his mind, to come closer instead of running, to ask to understand. That took love, and thank all that was, that night.the two of them had had it.
Because the wife to whom Palpatine had given the words, “I love you,” had just abandoned him.
And Sereine couldn’t even look at her for that.
And Palpatine thought Sereine had betrayed him from time to time. Do you ever notice? The reliability you realize from being brutal to people is much more trustworthy than when you simply rely on them to love you.
Sheev had said that the night Sereine first said “I love you” to him, and no wonder. Could this woman who had received those words from him offer him no better than that?
Just then, she pictured Sheev’s face in her mind, and she told him, I will always love you. I will never leave you. And she had to lower her head to hide the two tears that ran down her face.
If everyone who really knew Lord Sidious turned away in bitterness … what chance did he have?
“We’re most grateful for your silence, Amne,” said Padme. “I want to say to you, as one whose husband has been chosen to become the next Sith, I know how hard this is. If there’s anything I or any of us can do to help you, please. I sincerely do want to help in any way that I can.”
“Are you all right going home tonight, my lady?” said Anakin. His eyes rested briefly on Sereine’s face, noticing her tears, then tracked to the First Lady.
Sereine thought, Thank all that is, two of us are able to do this. I pray that’s all it will take. Two more tears coursed down her face, and she saw that the First Lady observed.
It would have been very difficult to step aside if Amne could have stepped in, but preferable for Sheev, Sereine thought. She had even steeled herself for that. As it was …
Amne said, “I was to go home to him tonight. He had promised me a quiet dinner together. I do not believe–” she said, and stopped. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I don’t believe I can.”
Sereine lifted her chin. “Not to worry, my lady. Anakin and I will detain him. You can have a bit of time alone to assimilate this tonight.” Finis stirred beside her, and she felt a pang of regret. But Finis, Finis had family, three sons, an ex-wife, cousins, Bail, Padme. Daughters-in-law. Grandchildren.
Who did Palpatine have? Anakin. Sereine. That was it.
Once again, Sereine would keep the faith with him. She wondered how he would react when Amne left him, if it were her he truly loved.
Whatever happened, she and Anakin would be right by his side.
----
I’m in every kind of trouble
Can’t you tell, just look at me
Half ecstatic, half dejected
All in all I’m all at sea
Easy terms I thought I wanted
Fill me now with chilling dread
You could never know the chaos
Of a life turned on its head
Of a life turned on its head
----
The eighteenth hour. Anakin and Sereine rode up in the Chancellor’s private lift to take their places across from him for one of their long nightly discussions.
Sereine touched Anakin’s arm. “Give me a few minutes alone with him, before you come in?”
Anakin gave her a puzzled look. “All right.”
“Just to go the fresher, or something.”
Anakin excused himself once they were in the office with Palpatine, and Sereine came around his desk. “Get up,” she said. “Come here.”
Palpatine gave her a quizzical arch of his brows, but he got up.
Sereine drew close and slipped her arms around him. Palpatine started in surprise.
“What–?” he said, and she looked at him, deeply into his eyes.
He didn’t take the hint. “Kiss me,” she whispered. The master gave her another questioning look and a soft peck. She reached behind his head, her fingers in his thick hair, and pulled him to her again for a long, heartfelt kiss that said everything she could not say to his wife today. She felt his arms tighten around her.
He gave her a searching look. “Madiya,” he said, in the tone in which he would have said, What do you want? She recalled this word from long ago, but she had no idea what it meant. He would never tell her.
“Zoragarria,” she said. “Zora.” The Naboo word for magnificent, the name she gave him during their time together years ago. “You told me once never to say this to you again, but I’m saying it tonight, and you will hear it,” said Sereine.
“I love you,” she said. “Zora, I love you.”
The sides of his mouth pulled back and he frowned at her.
“Stop it,” she said, and kissed him once more.
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