Masters of the Game

Chapter 10: Good People Do Bad Things, Too

They breakfasted in the hotel restaurant off to themselves, apart from everyone else. She caught Tomal looking at them with a barely-suppressed simper. Of course, if he had caught Pestage and whoever Palpatine had seen prior, he would have seen that she didn't emerge from Palpatine's room last night.

En route to the Senator's first engagement that day, Tomal stole up beside her. "Interesting ... management technique, ma'am."

Sereine held back her own smile. "Palpatine and I have a relationship."

Tomal looked aside at her with alarm. "But, Sereine ... he ... what was ...?"

She whispered, "It's all right. We've discussed it. However, we don't need anyone else discussing it."

"Of course not," said Tomal. "But if you should need to be apprised of something in the middle of the night ..."

"The Senatorial Guard is requesting secretly adjoining rooms from now on," she said. "And I have my datapad."

She thought over what Palpatine had said the night previously and tried pulling him aside when he started to look stressed. "I'm sorry, Senate business, I have to steal him away for a minute." He had three engagements that day; she tried talking him down, she tried encouraging him, she tried a moment of silence to let him collect himself.

Over the next weeks, the combination of these tactics and those after hours started to show. His tolerance for large crowds and people tapping him and touching him grew; he even began asking them if they had relatives in the quake and stopping to listen to their stories himself. At night, his manner with her was easier and less driven.

His polling rose within striking distance of Sio Bibble's, and she began to breathe easier. She only hoped nothing happened to Bibble as a consequence of trying to match Palpatine's schedule, because that, apparently, was what Tappan was trying to do. He no longer spoke to her when they encountered each other, casting her angry looks instead. And that made her angry.

One morning she stepped over to him and took him aside. "How can you do what you're doing?" she hissed. "If you press on, and something happens to him—how can you live with yourself?"

Broi Tappan gave her a look she couldn't fathom, and then he said something that made even less sense. "How can you live with yourself?"

Sereine blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You don't even know what you're doing."

Sereine drew herself up to her full height. "I most certainly do know what I'm doing!" She turned to stalk off, shaking her hair behind her as she stared back at him over her shoulder. "You're going to find out, Broi Tappan: I'm the best that's ever been."

***

Bibble's problems grew worse and became a major news topic. It was only a matter of time now before Palpatine found out, no matter what she did. It was highly possible he would be very angry once the truth was clear. She thought hard about how to present it to him: Why she had carried on the deception for as long as she did; what she thought he needed to win this election.

Their next stop was, finally, Theed. Their final home base while they made last campaign stops all over Naboo.

Home. This was their  home planet, not Tappan's. If she couldn't pull it out here, she would consider it a major failure, especially after all the improvements of the last weeks. The last ten days of the campaign would take place here.

Palpatine drew her into his arms and they made love again, that last night on the cruiser on their way to Theed. As she lay beside him after, luxuriating in the feel of his warmth on her skin, she wondered if it was the last time for this campaign. She had long since given up her apartment on their home world, since she never spent time there, but she knew Palpatine still kept an apartment there and wondered if he wouldn't prefer the comforts of home to the confines of the campaign cruiser. If he did, it would be impossible for her to join him there all night without the entire staff knowing, and probably the press, as well.