(no subject)
Part 1 - Distracted
Part 2 - Desperate
Part 3 - Proud
Part 4 - Devoted
Part 5 - Impatience
Part 6 - Contact
Part 7(a) - Curious
Part 7(b) - Curious
Part 8(a) - Heroes
Part 8(b) - Heroes(2)
Part 8(c) - Heroes(3)
“Enough.” Padmé spun around and waived her hands in the direction of her handmaidens. “I told you I am fine and to leave me alone.” She looked at each of her handmaidens with a telling scowl. “I will not tell you again.”
Her voice was stronger than her body, for her body betrayed her words. The dull headache from this morning hadn’t faded nor had the slight dizziness she’d felt all day.
“Senator, please, just sit down and rest. You haven’t looked good all day. Your cheeks are so pale and --”
Padmé sighed. “-- Cordé, please, I’m fine.” Her tone of voice betrayed her because it was far weaker than she had intended.
“Padmé, I’m worried about you.” She looked to Dormé who nodded and added, “We’re all worried about you. It’s getting late and you’ve been working so hard.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, it is for nothing.” Padmé rushed into her office and didn’t turn around again. She heard Dormé and Cordé whispering behind her, but she was in no mood to yell at them again.
Padmé heaved a dramatic sigh and slammed her datapad onto the desk, hoping the handmaidens would get her message. In case they didn’t, she said, “I have much work to do, but I appreciate your diligence.”
“Please, Senator, we should go home. There is nothing more we can do here today. Everyone’s gone for the day. The Senate has been recessed for hours. Plus, it’s already dark outside.”
Dormé added, “We think you are overworking yourself.” After a short pause, she said. “You’re making yourself sick.”
Padmé groaned. “Leave me alone. I have work to do here.” She slammed her hands on her desk and opened one of the many datapads that were scattered all over her desk and pretended to be in deep concentration.
She couldn’t help but notice the sweat that had beaded on her forehead. She didn’t want to think about the way her breathing rate had increased. She wouldn’t watch her hands as they shook. She struggled to pull herself out of the chair, stumbling against the desk. “I guess . . .”
“Padmé?”
“Senator? You don’t look . . . ”
Dormé’s voice faded in Padmé’s mind as her whole world turned to black. She felt herself fall, and wondered if she had hit her head on the desk.
“Anakin!” She felt her mind scream, not sure if she was awake or asleep. “Help!” After a moment without a response, she began to doubt he sanity.
Her head spun and her stomach lurched. The world was black and as hard as she tried to scream, she couldn’t form the words.
For a moment, she caught herself thinking that Dormé and Cordé might have had a point. Perhaps she did overwork herself, but she worked for a good cause. Keeping her planet safe. Protecting her planet’s interests. And keeping Anakin safe.
But she had to concede that she might be sicker than she had realized. And that ignoring her telltale signs of illness probably wasn’t her smartest idea ever. She should have known that illness didn’t just go away if you worked through it.
Through the darkness in her befuddled mind, an image materialized. It was a familiar picture of a handsome, young Jedi padawan with piercing blue eyes. He stared into her soul, and she felt his love wrap around her.
“You came for me,” she whispered.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just stood there in her thoughts, staring at her with that piercing gaze she had fallen in love with.
Just as she reached out to touch him, his image faded away. But she heard a familiar voice in her head yelling, “No, Padmé. I can’t lose you. Please, Padmé.”
And then he was gone.
“Anakin?”
In the depths of her mind, she heard his pleading cry, “I can’t lose you.”
Something in his voice tugged at her heart. She found herself struggling to open her eyes. Her eyelids were heavy, but she forced herself to blink.
“An . . . a . . . kin?” Her eyes darted around the room looking for her lover. She soon realized that she was in her office, and Anakin was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t even on planet. She let out a long sigh. It had been nothing more than a delirious fantasy.
“Padmé?” Dormé’s concerned voice burst into her consciousness.
“What happened?” Padmé’s voice came out horse and whisper thin. She felt someone ease her into her desk chair and then saw Cordé out of the corner of her eye.
“You passed out, and Cordé caught you, thank goodness.”
Padmé felt herself nodding, but the words didn’t make much sense. Her head felt like it was floating several feet above her body, and she couldn’t form her thoughts into coherent speech. “Thank you,” she managed to croak.
“We should get her to a Med-Center, no matter what she says. We should call the emergency transport.”
Padmé wanted to tell them that she heard every word they were saying, and that they couldn’t talk about her like that, but she couldn’t find her voice.
Dormé nodded. “I agree that we have to get her out of here and to a Med-Center, but we have to be quiet about it. She wouldn’t want us to call the emergency transport.”
“Do we really care what she wants? It is our duty to protect her health and well being.”
Dormé folded her arms across her chest. “We must respect her wishes, even if we do not agree. We are just wasting time. Let’s call Captain Typho and get her to a speeder as quickly as possible.”
Padmé took a deep breath. “Dormé’s right.” Her voice was shaky and weak, but it held the authority of her position.
“What?” Cordé spun around and looked at her like she had grown horns on her head.
“We cannot call a medical transport.” Padmé tried to stand, but found her body a little too heavy to lift. She sighed and said, “It will cause too many rumors to fly. Think about it for a minute. What will the holo-net say if someone sees medical transport at the senatorial office building?”
Cordé sighed with resignation. “You’re right. It would be a media event. They would know it was you fairly quickly. And then our people would know.”
“And perhaps lose faith in their leadership.”
Dormé interjected, “But, Senator, they would never lose faith in you.”
Padmé snorted. “I’m just their senator. And when I appear weak, they will assume my mind is weak as well. You know that as well as I do.” She wanted to add more, but a sudden wave of nausea washed over her. She closed her eyes and said, “I don’t know if I can walk, but we have to get to a Med-Center.” Her voice was weak, but at least she could put her thoughts into words once again.
“We’ll help you.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Padmé’s hand came up to her mouth and she gagged. “Oh no. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Do you need a . . . trash receptacle?”
Padmé closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her composure. “No, let’s just get out of here. Quickly.”
“All right.” Dormé looked to Cordé and they both nodded. “Let’s go.”
“How is this going to work? We have to be discrete.”
“M’lady, discretion is our speciality.”
As Dormé and Cordé helped Padmé to her feet, Padmé signed and said, “Where have I heard that before?”
*~~*~~*~~*
Padmé rolled onto her side and buried her head in the pillow. She let out a muffled moan of agony as the pain shot from her stomach and down to the tips of her toes. She brought her legs up to her chest and writhed in pain.
“What’s wrong with me?” She sobbed into her hands, so her words were muffled.
With tears streaming down her face, she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, no matter how fitful it would be.
No sooner had she closed her eyes than she heard a tinny voice say, “Padmé Nabarrie?”
Padmé shifted her head toward the voice and opened her eyes to see her med-droid standing at the side of her bed. She had to remember to thank Cordé and Dormé for having the foresight to use her birth name rather than her ceremonial name. Maybe discretion was there speciality after all.
Her voice was soft and weak when she said, “Yes, I’m Padmé.”
The droid rolled to check the monitors next to the bed, and even though he was expressionless, there was something about his motions that led Padmé to picture his face in a frown.
Her heart raced and her stomach dropped. “What’s wrong?”
It took a moment for the droid to respond. In that short time period, Padmé’s mind traveled to all of the possible bad news scenarios.
“Poison,” the droid chirped.
She nodded. That was one obvious solution. And she knew that the obvious, simple solution was most often the answer. “What type of poison?”
“Food-borne. Let’la-rac. Origin, Corellia.”
“Corellia? Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
“Is there an antidote?”
“Yes, antidote 5624 administered via intravenous flow at 06 hundred hours and will run for three hours.”
Padmé let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. She realized that not listening to her handmaidens had been a very stupid decision. Her mind raced thinking of how exactly she could have been poisoned. She voiced her immediate concern “Will there be side effects?”
“Minor side effects may include headache, nausea, and loss of appetite.”
Padmé took a deep breath and nodded. She already had all of those three symptoms. “Anything else?”
“Yes, madam. Especially in your situation.”
“My situation?”
“The poison does not seem to have affected your child.”
She took a moment to process the droid’s words. “My what?”
To be Continued
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