Sol hoped that the next time she would be in Padme's penthouse apartment, it would be to have tea and giggle about the newest gossip they had been itching to talk about. Padme would rush to embrace her with a wide smile on her face and they would sit on the sofas for hours. Sol would use it as an opportunity to ask about venturing to Naboo again and see if Padme would allow Sol and Anakin to stay in her parents' holiday home.
But Padme's apartment was dull. Sol and Anakin were greeted by C3-PO outside the elevator, and the droid politely led them to the living area where the senator was seated. The moving joints of C3-PO were all that sounded throughout the apartment, and when he stepped aside to reveal Padme's visitors, she stood up and walked to meet them halfway.
'How are you?' Padme asked, pulling Sol into an embrace. Sol felt how smooth the velvet of her dark green dress was underneath her fingers, and Padme's hair was held in a low ponytail down her back.
'I'm okay. Better than Ani is, anyway,' Sol mentioned and gave the smallest of smiles when she pulled away to face her friend. Padme gave her a nod as she gripped her bare arms, before looking over Sol's shoulder to Anakin with a frown.
Anakin stood with his over robe on his shoulders and his eyes low. He stayed behind Sol as if he was her shadow with his dark robes and sheer presence in the room. He barely made a noise as they moved to sit on the sofas. Padme sat opposite the two Jedi and noticed how their thighs sat against each other. It was more physical contact than the senator had ever seen the two make and she was glad to see that they weren't holding back their relationship in her presence. She was happy to know they trusted her to keep the secret, and she would give her space as a refuge to the two on any day.
'I... um,' Padme went to start, but was unsure on how to. 'I represented Ahsoka in her trial. I saw how unfair it all was. If it wasn't for Anakin's investigation into Barriss Offee, she would have never had her name cleared.'
'I see,' Sol replied. She knew that Padme was just filling her in, as Anakin had been present during the bombing, the accusations against his Padawan, and was the one to see her leave the Order altogether.
'It's so unfortunate,' Padme said with a sad tone and with her face pulled into a look of distaste. 'To let your own friend be accused of your crime is the ultimate betrayal. That Offee deserves everything she gets, and I hope the Order stand behind their Jedi in the future, because the way they accused her was ridiculous.'
C3-PO could be heard heading for the elevator to leave the trio to talk. Sol glanced at the gold droid and saw the way he stiffly pressed the button. She watched the doors close in front of him and hoped that he would be back soon to add an extra body to the room's person count. Without C3-PO, Padme and Sol were left to wallow in Anakin's stench of unhappiness.
At his exit, Sol's gaze shifted to Anakin beside her, who had kept his quiet throughout the women's conversation. She could feel the deep emotions through the Force from the Skywalker, and she knew that if she looked at his Force signature, the warm orange would have darkened to a dangerous colour. She knew that Anakin shouldn't be feeling these emotions, but she understood, and didn't want to patronize him when he was so vulnerable.
'Anakin?' Padme spoke to the man that Sol had been staring at. She turned to see Padme eyeing him and Sol hoped that Anakin would hold back his aggression that she knew was brewing.
'How are you feeling?'
'I'm angry,' he said bluntly. 'I don't understand it.'
'What don't you understand?'
'Why she would leave, why the Order did nothing, and why they kept it from Sol,' Anakin listed off. 'It's unfair and the Order should be questioned about it.'
'They didn't tell you, Sol?' Padme gaped at the woman opposite her.
'I was on a mission on Hoth. I wasn't contacted at all.'
Padme held her mouth agape at Sol's statement while Sol looked back to Anakin. The heat that radiated off him made Sol fearful of a surprise lash-out. When Anakin's feelings got too much, Sol knew that he struggled to hold them inside. And when he did burst, it could be disastrous.
Sol had expressed her frustration about being left uninformed about the whole situation, but Anakin had been too distraught to explain why in full. He had said that the Jedi Council ordered everyone to keep the trial and the leave of Ahsoka within the temple. Obi-wan and Anakin were told specifically to not contact Sol on Hoth with the excuse of someone tapping into transmissions and hearing about classified information. Sol was doubtful of this reasoning and wanted to question it further, but she hadn't had the time in between Anakin's brewing meltdown, and from the Hoth paperwork she needed to complete to meet with the Council about this decision.
'I cannot believe this,' Padme shook her head. 'I understand that the Order wanted to keep the trial confidential, but to-'
'Why did the Order do any of it?' Anakin cut off the senator. 'Why did they even accuse Ahsoka in the first place? They didn't trust her from the start because of her association with me. Master Windu was just dying for a piece of evidence to accuse her. It was unjust!'
Sol and Padme jumped when Anakin stood up from the sofa at his last exclamation. Sol put her hands down on the cushion underneath her to push off the sofa, but stopped when Anakin whipped around. The end of his dark brown robe flew at the quickness of his movements and his eyes were focused on the coffee table below. Sol and Padme saw the fierce arch in his eyebrows and the tight line that his lips formed from the clenching of his jaw. His shoulders were squared, and Sol noticed how the singular glass on the coffee table trembled underneath his gaze. Anakin's anger was breaking through the Force and if he didn't calm down, he could cause some physical damage in the senator's apartment.
'I said that Snips was innocent! No one listened! The Council were set before they even charged her! It's their fault! It's not the Jedi way to accuse their own kind without even investigating!' Anakin cried and his flaring eyes eventually met Sol's. 'Now she's gone, and the Order don't even care! She left the whole faith behind because of them!'
'Ani,' Sol stood from her seat. 'The Order know they did wrong, and they offered her to stay-'
'Why would anyone stay?! If they didn't trust me, I wouldn't stay, either! I don't know if I even want to be with the Order anymore-'
'Anakin, that is a very serious statement.'
Sol didn't want to sound so stern, but she couldn't help it. She didn't know who was listening even if Padme was the only one in the room. Sol and Anakin had both confessed that they had their suspicions about the Jedi way, but for Anakin to say that he wasn't sure about continuing with the Order was a new progression in their thoughts. Sol had only been gone for nearly three weeks, but so much had changed within the Jedi Order, and with Anakin.
Anakin looked down at Sol whose face was an inch away. His nostrils flared at the exhaling of heavy breaths, but Sol didn't falter at his intense stare. In fact, her hand raised to rest on the handle of her lightsaber. Anakin didn't see this because of his focus on the closeness of her face, but Padme noticed it from her position on the sofa. The senator sucked in a sharp breath, hoping that Sol wouldn't have to use her weapon against her own kind.
'If you're concerned, you should talk to the Council,' Sol said slowly and with care. 'I know I will be. Perhaps we could go together.'
Anakin 'tsk'ed and looked down at Padme. She raised her eyebrows in question before he turned away from her and Sol. Sol was forced to stare at the back of Anakin's head as he headed for the elevator with a stomp in his step. He mumbled about waiting in the speeder before he shoved his way into the elevator that arrived with C3-PO inside.
'Oh, excuse me, sir. Shall I accompany you to-' C3-PO's suggestion was cut short when the doors slid closed with Anakin inside; unresponsive and barely listening.
'Oh. Have I interrupted something, Senator Padme?' the droid turned to the two women in the living space. With Anakin's heavy anger gone from the apartment, Sol fell onto the sofa with a loud sigh while massaging her temples.
'No, Threepio, you're fine,' Padme said. C3-PO rambled about his old master's lack of manners before heading towards the living space to stand by Padme's side.
'You wouldn't have actually used your lightsaber against him, would you?' Padme asked and Sol looked to her friend with a grimace.
'Of course not. But at the same time, he's becoming more and more unpredictable.'
---
Sol couldn't get Anakin to accompany her to the Jedi Council, but that wasn't a surprise. She made sure to plan to see him later that evening to talk more about how he felt about the Order, before setting off to the conference room. She hoped that Obi-wan would be present at the time of the discussion, and Sol even hoped that Master Yoda would be there, too. The sight of Obi-wan would give her the confidence to talk to the Order, and more directly, to Master Yoda. Maybe she could finally get to the bottom of why he abandoned her during her Padawan days and find out why Master Yoda became even more distant as of recent.
Before Sol turned down the corridor to head to the conference room, she had planned to meet someone else near the entrance to the temple. Where the high ceilings were held up by thick columns, there were places that were hidden from Jedi and Clones that walked about their day. With the city just outside the large double doors, Sol slipped behind the columns to where the plan had been to meet. She could see the orange sky and sunlight shining onto the tiled floors, and she was grateful to not to be consumed in a large coat like in the freezing temperatures of Hoth. Coruscant's weather was far more pleasant, and Sol could now appreciate it more than ever.
'Revan,' Sol said when the man slipped behind the same column as her. 'How are you?'
'I'm... here. That's all that matters, right?'
Sol bit her lip at the young man's answer. When she asked to meet him in private, she knew that he would be different from his usual self. While Ahsoka was accused of murdering the wife of Jackar Bowmani, a worker who had been in the hanger at the time of the bombing, Revan had been cleared of any suspicions relating to the incident. Ahsoka was accused of the whole attack and Revan had done what he could to vouch for her, but the Council had made their decision. Revan was forced to watch his friend suffer the trial and then watch her leave the Order while knowing that Ahsoka wouldn't have been near the hanger if it weren't for him. Searching the Jedi Records was his idea, and Ahsoka was set up and framed all on her own.
'What matters is that she was innocent, and everyone knows it. Even if you guys weren't down there, Offee would have still framed Ahsoka regardless,' Sol made sure Revan knew this. Revan blinked at the woman and lowered his head into a small nod. He would soon believe her words, but with Ahsoka's departure so fresh, Revan would feel the guilt every minute of the day.
'So... what is it you found?'
At the mention of their original meeting topic, Revan's back straightened and his eyes brightened in the slightest. Sol had been eager to hear about what Revan had found in the Jedi Records and had been forced to push this aside due to the bombing, the murder, and the trial. Now, she could appropriately ask Revan about the records and find out what was kept away from the public eye. Maybe after this, Sol could ask the Council about their reasoning for keeping Satele Shan out of their teachings.
'Well, if I'm not mistaken, Satele's ancestors were Revan Shan and Bastila Shan. They were Jedi, but Revan turned to the dark side. His apprentice was Darth Malak, and I'm sure you know who that is,' Revan started and Sol's eyes widened.
'The one from the book? He was killed by Satele in the Battle of Alderaan,' Sol exclaimed in surprise, and Revan nodded.
'Revan and Bastila's marriage wasn't approved by the Jedi Council, but they agreed to let it happen as long as Revan didn't talk about his disbelief in the rules of the Jedi. They had a child together, and this could be why the Order don't like to mention Satele.'
'Was their child a Jedi?'
'No. He wasn't Force sensitive, like Theron wasn't.'
Sol put a hand to her cheek as she thought about what Satele had told her in the ancient temple on Ahch-To. There seemed to be a mixture in the Shan family of Force sensitive, and non-Force sensitive generations. She had never thought about whether being entuned with the Force was a genetic ability, or just on an individual basis, but considering Satele's ancestors, Satele herself and Revan were all Force-sensitive. This could mean that there was a form of genetic heritage when it came to being Force-sensitive.
'Did you work out how you made it to Concordia?' Sol decided to ask and was surprised to see Revan shake his head.
'No. They didn't have much information about me besides who my ancestors were. I also didn't have much time to look, but my father was a Shan. I know that much.'
This made Sol deflate. If Revan didn't know about his lineage to Satele, he wouldn't know how she ended up on Coruscant if she was also a Shan descendant. She thought that Revan would be jumping up and down about his family's relations to the ancient heroes in the Jedi Order. Even though there was a possible reasoning as to why the Order were reluctant to tell Revan about his family, there were still blanks to fill in.
'But-,' Revan spoke again. 'I did see that Satele did fall pregnant and hid it from the Order for as long as she could. They eventually found out when she disappeared to an unknown planet for a few months, but I can see why the Order wouldn't like to talk about that too much to the new generation of Jedi.'
'Right...'
'And...' Sol looked up from her feet to Revan. 'Don't you want to hear on whether you now have a last name or not?'
'You... you know?'
Revan's raised his eyebrows and a close-lipped grin formed on his face. Sol didn't want to jump ahead, but she couldn't think of what else his expression could mean. She jumped onto the tips of her toes and her hands clapped together in overwhelming glee. Her chest filled with the excitement she only ever felt in her happiest of moments, and Sol's cheeks turned a rosy pink. Revan saw for the first time how Sol's purple eyes twinkled like the stars in space and was happy to be able to deliver the news she had waited so long for.
'My father had a brother who was said to live here on Coruscant. It's the only linkage the records had, and from what I read, he wasn't Force-sensitive. There was no mention of him still being alive, but Sol, you're a Shan.'