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“I think I know why she ran away.”
Breha had manually adjusted her replacement heart and lungs to slow down, against the automatic cues given by the rate of her stress neurotransmitters and muscles. This meant her terror was in her mind, not her chest, but it also meant she’d put herself on bedrest, because if she stood up without letting her pulmonodes self-regulate she could collapse. She was unnaturally calm, the machine-controlled low that came from setting her chest cavity organs against her formidable brain. She wasn’t meant to do it, and she did very rarely, but she thought the abduction of her daughter was cause enough to strain her fragile body. (What mother wouldn’t, after all? Who wouldn’t run, and wail, and scream, and – Breha was a queen. She could do none of those things. But everything within her was aching to, which was why she’d had to adjust the pulmonodes so those urges were possible to hold down.) After all, it meant she was holding together when she looked up at her husband, standing over her, shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been a day ago, and responded “I love you, but if you say it was because of me, I –”
Bail interrupted, not willing to let her think that for a moment. “No! No. I… think her cousin told her she wasn’t a ‘real Organa’.”
Breha put her datapad down. She picked up the remote from its temporary place by her pillow and let it toggle up her rate of bloodflow and oxygenation. She sat up.
She’d told her to apologise.
“I’m going to kill my sister,” she said.
“Breha, no,” said Bail.
His parents told him she wasn’t my daughter and I told her to apologise.
She gathered her hands together in her lap, then stood up. She swayed a little bit, then caught herself on the wall. She began to walk towards the door, the white archway with its privacy screen lowered, beyond it the hall with guarded double-doors that kept the way to the Queen’s chambers. “I am. I’m going to kill her.”
“Breha… darling. Think about this,” he begged.
She put one hand on the button that would lift the screen. “I’ve thought. I’m going to get my sword.”
Bail’s voice rose to a muffled shout; “Breha – they can’t find out!”
She turned to him, and she knew that fury and fear were crossing their own blades on her face until she covered it with both hands and sank down onto her knees. Bail hurried over to crouch with her, his footfalls swift, his clothes pressing against her with the almost-static of restrained wool against rich cloth. Both of his arms wrapped around her protectively. Her hands were shaking. “Our little girl…” she said, her voice strangled.
“I know,” he said, rocking them both. His voice was hoarse, as well. “I know. She’ll come back.”
“You don’t know that,” said Breha.
“I believe it,” said Bail, even as his voice betrayed him. A tear dropped from his cheek onto her neck; she felt it slip under her dress. He wrinkled his nose up – she felt that, too – and got to his feet, still crouching. He put his arms under hers and tugged. “Come on… up, now. There’s no use sitting on the floor.”
“It’s comfortable,” said Breha, but she let him half-pick her up, let her husband take them to bed.
“No, it isn’t,” he said. He wanted her to argue back, but she saw no point to this false normality. Nothing was normal, and pretending wouldn’t mean they fooled themselves. They sat back down on the bed, and she buried her face against his chest. He stroked her hair at the back of her head, below her crown-braid.
“I told her to apologise,” she whispered.
“We told her,” said Bail, touching her ear. His hand was cold; he must have been outside right before he’d come to their bedroom.
If they never saw her again, their very last exchanges would be ones of unsatisfied injustice. The last look Breha gave her would be one of anger. She couldn’t bear it. It was her sister’s fault… husband or not, she thought, Empire or not, if Leia didn’t come back she would kill her and her disgusting husband. Peaceful world be damned. She’d use a sword, not a blaster. It would count.
She’d hadn’t known she’d fallen asleep until TooVee woke her with a whirr, and then an “Excuse me, your majesties”. Bail’s coat was creased. He sat up, and she opened her eyes; he shuffled his butt back, so she could see the droid past him.
“What is it, TooVee?” she asked, knowing how sleepy her voice sounded. Part of her hoped wildly that she’d just had an awful dream, that she’d had some illness and Bail had come home from the Senate to tend to her, and Leia was safe and in the palace.
“Your royal guests want to know if you will be hosting them today, or if they should leave for their own home again.”
Breha finished waking quickly. “They should leave,” she said.
Bail looked between her and TooVee for a few seconds, then said “TooVee, please tell our guests that we are sorry we’ve not been attending to them, but Her Majesty has taken ill.”
TooVee bowed a few times in place a nod, and promised to do so.
Breha raised her eyebrows at him; his crumpled clothes, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the face tight with anxiety. She didn’t say ‘only ‘Her Majesty’?’ but that was because she knew he could read it on her own face. Then she closed her eyes, sighing, and he put his arms around her. “I want her back,” she whispered. Bail kissed her cheek. They’d had six miscarriages, two attempted adoptions, then they’d had a child for ten years and now…
That was why she hated it when Leia ran away.
“So do I,” said Bail. He sounded far away, like when he remembered Christophsis or the sacked Jedi Temple. He sounded like if he were nearer, he wouldn’t be able to cope. Breha envied that he was coping. She put one hand on her chest, and felt the pulsing of her pulmonodes. Leia called them candlewick.
“Still beating,” Bail told her.
She opened her eyes again. “If they’re not offworld in three hours, I get my sword.”
They relied on each other to keep themselves in check, but there was raw anger to Bail now, and it was a perfect mirror of her own fury and hopelessness and desperation. “If they’re not offworld in three hours, I won’t stop you.”