The Senate building was different to the temple, and Sol wasn't sure if she liked it. The temple was well lit throughout its halls with sconces, and had the tall windows that allowed sunlight to stream in at will. She appreciated the warmth the sun brought into the temple and rarely needed her over robe. But as soon as she stepped into the Senate building, she was glad that she had brought it out of coincidence. The Coruscant weather was warming up, but it still had a chill, so her robe had made its way into her speeder, which was parked out the front.
'It's so dark in here,' Sol mumbled to Anakin as they made their way to the Chancellor's office. The security dotted around the building had been informed of the Jedis' arrival, but Sol couldn't help but feel uneasy with eyes watching on every corner.
'Padme always said it was because it kept the furniture safe from sun damage,' Anakin replied and Sol sent him a 'are you serious' look, making him shrug and say, 'I never understood it myself.'
They headed down the dark halls, their shoulders occasionally bumping as they walked. Sol wanted to reach out and link her pinkie with Anakin's, but the Senate was still too close to the temple for the affection. If a government official saw two Jedi holding hands, they could rush to the temple to tell the Jedi Council, and Sol and Anakin would be finished. So, Sol sufficed with the light brushes of their arms and kept her stare straight.
'You don't need to be nervous,' Anakin said as they turned down the final corridor.
'I'm not nervous?'
'I can feel it in the Force. The Chancellor is very understanding, and he isn't the Order. You'll actually have a normal conversation with him.'
'Tell me, Ani, what have you actually told him?'
Anakin looked at the small window that they passed to avoid her eye. Sol noticed this and reached out to grab the sleeve of his over robe. With a small tug, she pulled him to a stop and made him turn to face her. His lips were tight and his eyes told Sol that he had told the Chancellor more than he would care to admit. With a drop of her hand, Sol held an exasperated expression and went to put her face into her hands to rub it red raw. But before she could, Anakin took her forearms and held them down as he turned to her.
'Solaris, he could help us,' his voice dropped low to prevent an echo. 'He could find us a planet and he could let us have a ceremony. I trust the Chancellor.'
'How do you know he won't tell the Order?!' Sol said in a hush.
'Because the only people that care about Jedi rules, are Jedi.'
Sol wanted to sigh loudly and continue to question Anakin's decisions but was distracted by the sound of a closing door. The two Jedi looked down the hall and saw Chancellor Palpatine was heading their way. Anakin dropped his grip from Sol's arms and turned to appear as if they were just discussing Jedi business. This made Sol do the same, but made one last glance towards Anakin before looking at the Chancellor that she was still unsure about meeting.
'Ah, Anakin, my boy,' the older man greeted as he reached the two. 'I heard that you had arrived so I thought we would go to the gardens again.'
'That would be nice, sir.'
'And this must be Jed Knight Sol?'
Sol didn't like the way Chancellor Palpatine looked down at her. It was kind and one of an old soul and if it had been from anyone else, Sol was sure that she would feel comfortable and welcomed under his gaze. But because it was the Chancellor, she felt imprisoned in his presence. His Force signature was nothing suspicious with its simmering blue, so Sol couldn't pinpoint why she felt so uneasy. But none the less, Sol remembered her manners and stuck her hand out for a welcoming shake.
'Yes, Chancellor. It's nice to meet you,' she said, and the grey-haired man enclosed her hand in his. With a light shake, Sol couldn't wait to pull her hand away. Palpatine held his kind smile, and his angled nose was the only point on the man's face that Sol could focus on. She tried not to recoil away when their hands loosened, and her arm fell by her side with its palm tingling.
'I've heard much about you, my dear. Anakin has spoken very fondly of you,' the Chancellor said, and he exchanged a look with Anakin at his mention. Anakin smiled genuinely and knew that Sol was throwing uneasy glances to his side. He resisted looking at the woman and let himself relax in the presence of the Chancellor.
'If you don't mind, we'll move to a place where we won't be overheard,' the man looked mostly at Sol as he talked. 'If you would follow me, Sol, we can all have a little chat.'
As the Chancellor moved to head the way the Jedi had come from, Sol and Anakin looked to each other before they followed. Anakin couldn't ignore the lack of smiles on Sol's face. There was no sparkle in her eyes that he always loved to see, and there was no pink on her cheeks that came when Sol smiled or laughed in Anakin's presence. She wasn't for the idea of letting the Chancellor in on their relationship, and Anakin understood that, but to be cold towards the man was unlike her.
Despite this, Anakin and Sol stayed silent as they trailed behind Chancellor Palpatine. When they arrived at the gardens, Anakin hoped that Sol would find the small collection of flowers a sign of peace with the Chancellor. When he sat down in the area for the first time, he found himself unravelling his feelings about Sol to the politician. Anakin put it down to the fact that he felt peaceful, like he was deep in meditation. So, when the Chancellor took a seat on the bench, Anakin stepped to the side to allow Sol to slip past first.
Sol barely looked at the orange petals and green shrubs that decorated the outdoor balcony. She was too busy concentrating on her steps and her movements past Anakin to the bench. When Anakin would perform such gentlemanly act, Sol would usually swoon and grab his hand to hold in hers. But she only dropped down onto the bench with a safe distance from the Chancellor and looked out to the city with her back painfully straight. Her knees were stuck together and when the bench lightly shook from Anakin's added weight, she shuffled closer to him while hoping it wasn't obvious that they were millimeters from touching.
'Now, please don't think I am being intrusive here, but Anakin has informed me about some things,' Chancellor Palpatine began as he looked at the female Jedi beside him. 'Things that I know are not accepted in the Jedi Order.'
'I don't know what you're referring to, Chancellor,' Sol said, her voice one note and uninterested. But Sol was interested; in fact, she was riddled with fear.
'My dear, I know that you want to keep this between yourselves,' he took a hold of her hand that was balled in her lap. 'But I want you to know that I will not tell a single soul about your feelings for each other. I support it, as I think it is unjust to forbid such a passionate bond.'
Sol felt like beetles were crawling under her skin. The Chancellor held her hand in his wrinkled ones, and she did everything in her power to not rip it away in disgust. She wasn't sure if the Force was flaring with her unease, but Sol could not suppress her thoughts of leaping away from the Chancellor and never looking at him again. She looked through the gentle eyes and harmless smile and saw the rising stinger of a desert scorpion. But with Anakin beside her and her deeply rooted manners sacred to her character, Sol let her arm play dead in Chancellor Palpatine's hold and nodded her head stifly.
'Thank you, sir. Your silence means a great deal,' was all she could muster. It was enough for the Chancellor to pat her hand encouragingly before letting her take it back. She itched to pull her lightsaber off of her belt and slice her wrist, ridding her body of the tingles and rash that she felt crawling along her skin.
'Young love is something so precious. You two should cherish each other, and while in the Order, protect each other,' the Chancellor said. 'But I don't think I need to tell you that, do I, Anakin?'
'Of course not, sir. We're working hard to still be the best Jedi we can be, but I would drop everything if it meant we could be together.'
'That's quite the statement. You have yourself a very loyal boy here, Sol.'
'Yes... I do.'
As Anakin and the Chancellor began to talk about the recent events of the clone wars, Sol sat in complete discomfort. Although Anakin's proximity was something to focus on, Sol couldn't ignore the Chancellor's presence beside her. He was well-spoken, intelligent, and a person of the people in his political views, yet Sol felt the unease in her grow with every word he said. She sat and said nothing unless spoken to and prayed that their departure from the Senate building would be soon.
---
'I just have a bad feeling about this, Ani.'
'Why? Who better to have on our side than the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic?'
'It's not about having him on our side. It's just... he rubs me the wrong way.'
A scoff left the Skywalker from underneath his starfighter. Inside the newly renovated hanger, the two Jedi were alone as Anakin tinkered with his ship. New maintenance droids rolled around and made checks on new and returning ships of Jedi and clones. While a lot were destroyed in the explosion, the Jedi Order still had clone legions to transport and missions to attend to. This meant that the repairs of the Jedi Temple hanger were one of the upmost priorities, and it was completed within weeks.
'He shouldn't be rubbing you in any way...' Anakin mumbled to himself.
'What was that?'
'Nothing.'
Sol rolled her eyes from on top of the starfighter's wing. It was her favourite place to sit when Anakin worked on his ship, and considering his main interest was fixing and advancing machinery, Sol sat there often. R2 was down near the toolbox with his small hand out of its panel to hand wrenches and screwdrivers to his master. With Anakin's black boots and legs being the only thing poking out from underneath the ship, Sol didn't have the option of admiring his face, so she looked around the hanger for any incoming eavesdroppers.
With the palms of her hands against the wing, Sol thought about her interaction with Chancellor Palpatine. Anakin insisted that the man liked Sol and would keep their secret to his grave. Sol wasn't sure about the word of a politician, but then again, she was still good friends with Padme, so perhaps he could keep Sol and Anakin's relationship with himself. But it still didn't ease Sol's nerves about Chancellor Palpatine, and she couldn't forget the feeling she had when he held her hand in the gardens of the Senate building.
'I spoke to Revan this morning,' Sol decided to say.
'Revan?' Anakin's confused face appeared on his mechanic's creeper. 'Revan Shan?'
'He was a good friend of Ahsoka's. I thought I would see if he was okay-'
'I know he was a friend of Snips, hence I'm asking why you're talking to him.'
R2 made a few beeps and Anakin was momentarily distracted. He turned to the droid and Sol took the time to bite her lip in uncertainty. She still hadn't spoken to Anakin about her talk with Master Yoda and how he said he would put Sol's promotion to the Council, and how the Grand Master was reluctant to talk about the possibility of Anakin being the Chosen One. The first thought excited her; becoming a Master was the ultimate privilege. But then she and Anakin had their conversation about marriage and leaving the Order when the war was over, and the privilege didn't seem so relevant anymore. At the same time, Sol wanted to feed the information she had found from Revan about her heritage sparingly, but she was still unsure about how Anakin would react.
'You be careful with that Shan. I always thought he was getting too close to Snips,' Anakin said pointedly before he disappeared underneath the ship again. Sol sighed and looked to R2, knowing that the droid was confused at the conversation between the two Jedi. His red light flashed on his front panel and Sol gave him a dismissive wave, saying that it wasn't worth getting into the topic at that moment.
'I heard that Count Dooku has advanced his troops,' Sol decided to change the subject as the previous one had ended abruptly. 'The Chancellor sounded quite concerned.'
'Yes, he's worried. The separatists have gained some powerful allies. I bet Padme is swamped.'
'We should go see her some time. She could use some support, I think-'
'Anakin! Come in, Anakin!'
Obi-wan's voice sounded and Sol and R2 looked to the underside of the ship. Anakin rolled back out and sat up to look at the commlink on his wrist. As his sleeve fell back, the wristlet that lit up was flashing with the incoming call from his ex-Master. It sounded urgent and Sol wasted no time in sliding off the wing and hitting the concrete floor with a soft tap. The Force cushioned her fall, and she joined Anakin in standing and staring at the commlink with Obi-wan's voice.
'What's wrong, Obi-wan?' Anakin said.
'I know you and Sol are in the hanger, so make sure your ship is ready to go. We have an emergency mission,' the Kenobi rushed, and Sol raised her eyebrows at the mention of her name.
'Emergency? What's happened?'
'The Chancellor has been captured and all three of us have been assigned. The Council want as many lightsabers as they can get for this, because he's been captured by General Grievous.'