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The night the Empire rises, it's pouring torrents of rain in Theed's streets.
Sola's first thought is for Padmé. It always is, these days. How is she? Is she alright? What will happen to all the Senators now? To Padmé, who had been the now-Emperor's protégé, so many years ago?
They had dined with the man, Sola thinks bitterly. Mom had made him her infamous fruitcake. Sola had served him tea.
She should have poisoned it.
She sends Ryoo and Pooja up to bed before they can catch another second of the broadcast. They don't need to be hearing this, at their age. Sola will explain it to them in the morning, after she's had the chance to organize her thoughts.
She's fingering her comm at the table, debating whether to call her parents and see if they've heard, when a frantic, pounding knock sounds at the door. It's almost unintelligible against the pounding of the rain.
She gets up cautiously. Few people have cause to visit this late at night, in the middle of a devastating storm. Even fewer with good intentions.
She'd never had a blaster in her home, but it's times like this that she wishes she had reconsidered. Its weight would feel comforting by her side even if she's never used one before in her life.
Sola peers out the window, trying to see who it might be. She can only make out a hazy figure through the rivulets of rain running down the window, small and petite, two bundles— babies?—in their arms.
She pulls away.
The knocking starts up again, stronger than before. Curiosity gets the better of her. She'll open the door.
She pushes it open—
"Padmé." Sola's hands fly forward, guiding her sister and the crying infants in her arms inside and out of the pouring rain. "Padmé, what is happening, who are—Shiraya, is that a blaster burn? Are you alright?"
It takes a few seconds for her words to register. When they do, Padmé's gaze flutters down to the scorch mark on her cloak then back up again to Sola's face. "I'm fine," she says grimly. "They missed."
"Who missed?" Assassination attempts? Again? Was tonight really so cursed?
"Clones," Padmé says, scarcely able to be heard against the shrieks of the infants—were those Padmé's children? Since when? "Our new Emperor's doing, I'm sure."
Shiraya save us, Shiraya save us— " What is happening?"
Padmé twitches. "I couldn't even begin to explain."
"Then start with them."
"Ah," Padmé says, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Sola, meet Luke and Leia. Your new niece and nephew."
*
It takes them hours to calm Luke and Leia down. Ryoo and Pooja, mercifully, either are sleeping like the dead or pretending to, and don't clamber downstairs at the ruckus.
In the end, Sola manages to drag an old wooden crib out from storage, and a cocoon of blankets from under a shelf somewhere. They'd put the two to sleep, and now Padmé is slumped against the couch, hand braced against her face and increasingly avoidant of Sola's questions.
Sola, for her part, is standing, trying to will herself not to pace the length of the room. It'll only drive Padmé up the wall.
"Is the father…" she says hesitantly, "is he on Coruscant? Does he know?"
"Sola," Padmé snaps.
Sola lifts her hands in surrender. "I'm not attacking you, Padmé. I'm worried, that's all. I want to help you. And if he doesn't know—"
"If you want to help me," Padmé says, leaning her head back against the cushions of the couch and closing her eyes, "then stop interrogating me about my dead husband."
Sola freezes. "Your what?"
Dead? Husband? Since when?
Padmé's eyes snap open, then she deflates. She stays silent.
"Padmé. Padmé."
She doesn't answer.
"It was Anakin, wasn't it?" Sola rubs the heel of her hand against her eyelids. "That Jedi you brought home a few years ago?"
Her silence is all the confirmation Sola needs.
He's just a friend, Sola. But Padmé hadn't looked at him like he was just a friend. And Anakin certainly hadn't.
"Heavens, Padmé, why wouldn't you tell us?" But even as she speaks the words, Sola knows why. Padmé has always held Sola and their parents at arm's length—ever since the Invasion of Naboo, ever since she had gotten a taste of the danger that would follow her every day for the rest of her life. To keep them from worrying about her and to keep them out of danger, Sola guesses. But the end result is that they've drifted apart. She loves Padmé to death, can still read her microexpressions like an open book—but she doesn't know the first thing about her life. Padmé is a mother now, and Sola hadn't even known that she was married.
She's a terrible sister.
"How could I have told you?" Padmé says heavily. "How could I even have begun to explain? I can't even explain it to myself. It was the stupidest decision I'd ever made in my life."
Sola looks at her sister. Really looks at her. Padmé's the least put together she's ever been; dark circles etched under her eyes, hair a rat's nest, gaze miserable and unfocused. Grief radiates off of her in waves; but not regret. Not a single drop of regret.
"Did you love him?" she asks quietly.
"Of course I did." Padmé drags a hand over her hair. "And look how much good it did him. Murdered in cold blood and now he'll never even get to meet his children."
Right. Anakin had been a Jedi. And they'd all been executed for treason.
Or maybe—
"Could he have survived? He's a Jedi, they're known for—"
"No," Padmé says shortly. "He didn't."
Sola looks down. "I'm sorry."
"...So am I."
Another silence stretches between them. They were inseparable as kids; always chattering about one thing or another. Now Sola is at a complete loss for words.
Her little sister, dealing with things Sola couldn't even begin to imagine. With the galaxy's burdens on her shoulders. Dead husbands, newborn children, traitorous mentors, assassination attempts left and right—
She jolts up, the thought only just occurring to her. "Will you be safe here, Padmé? The Chancellor—Emperor doesn't know my residence, but Naboo would be the first place he'd look for you, wouldn't it? If he wants you dead—"
"I am dead," Padmé interrupts, something ugly twisting in her expression. "To him, at least. He never did learn to tell me and my handmaidens apart."
She looks up then, locking eyes with Sola. "You have to go to the funeral. Mom and Dad too. If he's watching—"
Sola clasps Padmé's hands in hers. "We will. Whatever you need."
Padmé closes her eyes again, exhaling. "Thank you."
Sola watches her a moment longer, then settles in by her side, pulling her little sister into an embrace. Padmé stiffens at first, then leans into it.
"Rest, now," Sola says. "We'll figure things out in the morning."
Padmé thankfully doesn't protest.
The downpour continues outside. Sola listens to its rhythm with an idle ear, wondering at everything that Padmé's lost. Everything that she's lost of her sister.
She settles into a seat by the window and waits for morning to come.