Chapter Text
Something about Senator Mandai's words and the emergency session at the Senate has bothered Padmé for days.
No matter how hard she tries to think of why, tries to understand what exactly it is, it seems to slip out of her fingers.
Former Chancellor Valorum. Padmé having been under Palpatine's influence since she was very young...
Something about the two topics are supposed to... connect, somehow. She knows it. But they don't, and it's making her more and more frustrated. Senator Mandai would not have brought up both of those things if she did not see them as inexplicably linked.
Padmé just needs to find the connection.
She lounges on her sofa nursing a hot cup of tea, feeling out of sorts. She's had a headache ever since the emergency session, a deep pressure on the inside of her skull. It's as if she's thinking so hard it's causing her pain. Which is ridiculous, clearly, but even so she can't quite let the thought go.
Regardless, the more prominent issue is that senators who do not trust Palpatine do not trust Padmé. The reason for it goes beyond simply being because they share a home planet and she became his successor upon his ascension to Supreme Chancellor—it must.
She's looked over old reports, old legislation, old notes, all of it from when she's worked with Palpatine. But... she can't find a pattern that would discredit her. Almost everything is entirely in line with her politics—with a few outliers where she had needed to compromise for the sake of avoiding a worse outcome. She hasn't worked with him on anything that would cast doubt on her position on different topics, so why would her cooperation with Former Chancellor Palpatine cast her in a bad light?
Palpatine was respected as Chancellor for many years before the war finally took enough toll on his leadership. People have been praising him ever since he was elected after Valorum was ousted in the midst of the Battle of Naboo. Palpatine becoming chancellor helped strengthen Naboo's position in the Senate, which in turn had helped them in the aftermath of the war, which clearly Valorum couldn't... Couldn't...
Her head hurts.
She puts her cup down on the table to massage her temples, trying to stave off the headache that threatens to overtake her.
Valorum couldn't have helped Naboo once the battle was over...
Valorum... was ousted on her request... before the battle ever took place...
On Palpatine's recommendation... She called for the Vote... In hopes of a stronger Chancellor... Who could...
Who could...
Who could stop the Trade Federation and end her people's oppression.
Padmé stares at the table.
That... that doesn't make any logical sense.
Palpatine was elected, but hardly in time to do anything for Naboo. In fact, she hadn't even stayed on Coruscant for the outcome of the election at all… She had left, with nothing but the promise that a new Chancellor would be elected and absolutely no guarantees that they would be any more sympathetic to her cause than Chancellor Valorum. And certainly no guarantee that they would be willing to do something.
Ultimately, riding the sympathy of other worlds, Palpatine was elected. He was not especially prominent before that, just one of many other mid-rim senators—praised for his competence, yes, but not unusually so—just as Naboo was far from a star system of prominence.
Had she still been holding her cup of tea, she would have dropped it.
Had she been standing, she would have collapsed to the floor.
'He used me.'
The thought is so horrifying in its clarity, but she cannot deny the truth of it.
'He used me and the suffering of our people for his own political gain. I was but a puppet in his rise to power and esteem.'
Her hand shakes as she uses it to cover her mouth, choking down on the wail that wants to leave her throat.
She had been young, naive. He had been a mentor and someone far more experienced, of course she had looked to him for help. But now... looking back on it now...
He had spoken of Valorum's lack of power, lack of agency. He had spoken of the bureaucrats who held the "true" power of the Chancellor... And when Valorum had received news from his aide and Palpatine had told her that the bureaucrats were showing their power again... She had believed him.
But of course Valorum hadn't been able to act. To just... tell the Trade Federation to withdraw their fleet from Naboo... She had presented no evidence except her own testimony.
She had been young and naive enough to believe that her word as a planetary leader would be enough to sway the Senate. Palpatine had used that, had preyed on that... He didn't correct her, he threw her to the gundarks and gave her advice that was of no gain to anyone but himself. He knew the Senate would not be able to act in time, but he also knew that he could still use it to his advantage.
Padmé finds herself laughing, a breathy high pitched laugh of panic.
How foolish she had been. She'd truly believed... Oh how she suddenly understands Obi-Wan's disdain for politicians.
She laughs only so that she won't cry.
She had believed Valorum unwilling to act, unsympathetic to her cause. After all, her trusted Senator had told her as much; told her that he was bogged down in legislation and without power, that he couldn't possibly help. And perhaps he was, perhaps his power was hampered, she hasn't looked into it, she cannot know. But even so...
Even so...
It was Valorum—not Palpatine, not the Senate—who sent the Jedi to aid her.
Valorum had the Jedi come to Naboo as mediators as a personal favour.
Without the Jedi, she would not have escaped Naboo.
Without the Jedi, she would not have met Jar Jar Binks.
Without the Jedi, she would not have met Anakin on Tatooine.
Without the Jedi, she would not have made it to Coruscant.
Without the Jedi, she would not have known to ask the gungans for help.
Without the Jedi, Naboo would have either been destroyed or usurped by the Trade Federation.
Valorum had done what he could to aid her world—even gone so far as to bend the rules to call in a personal favour when he could do nothing officially—and in return she had stripped him of all credibility as a politician and thrown him out of the Senate for good.
Palpatine may have given her much good advice since, may have helped her reach her position as Senator, may have been a good mentor in many aspects... But his very first action towards her had been to take advantage of her.
Her first appearance on the galactic stage... and she had been played a fool by someone she should have been able to trust.
Palpatine had likely seen that there was no hope for help from the Senate, that there was nothing they could—would—do quickly enough. She has long since learned how slow the Senate can be to act, to no fault of the Chancellor—after all, a chancellor without emergency powers cannot act alone. Palpatine had seen it from the second she arrived at his doorstep, if not long before then, and he had seen how he could use it for his own gain.
He may not have been able to sway the Senate to help their planet, he may not have been able to do more than give her a chance to do so... And even if they had, it would have been too late. By the time they returned to Naboo it was already a full-scale invasion. If not for the gungans' presence on the planet... Would a republic fleet even have made it through? Would they even have cared to try?
After all, the Republic at the time had no standing army. They would have needed to mount a fleet of some form, using the citizens of the Republic—there were no clones for them to foist off the responsibility of fighting and dying in a war for them back then… Would they have cared to do so to help Naboo? Could they have done so, quickly enough?
Or would the Trade Federation have been able to play the Republic as fools, convincing them that there was no occupation, merely a trade dispute? They had more or less already succeeded, especially as they also have a seat in the Republic Senate—never before has Padmé cursed that fact more, she thinks—and their influence far greater than Naboos.
Or would she have been captured, forced to sign an agreement, and doom her planet? Would they have killed her, forced an election of a puppet queen or king who would sign it, and then declared the dispute ended—a happy resolution for all.
Palpatine had seen it. He'd known that there was nothing the Senate could, or would, do in time.
But he'd also seen his chance to gain power. And without hesitation he'd taken it.
Curse him.
Curse him.
She's once more grateful she does not hold her teacup in her hand or she may have thrown it at the wall in the fit of rage that overtakes her.
A frietchel bug hiding in the sand, as Anakin would say.
Oh… Oh no...
Anakin... who trusts Palpatine as much, if not more, than he does Obi-Wan.
Anakin who looks up to Palpatine, who cherishes him as a beloved mentor.
The thought sends a chill through her.
What should she do?
What can she do?