“This is Anakin. Anakin, this is Ryoo and Pooja!”
The blush on the pair as they shyly said hello brought a burst of laughter from Padmé and a smile to Anakin’s face, though he was equally ill at ease as the two children.
The girls’ shyness lasted only as long as it took for them to notice the little droid rolling behind Anakin, trying to catch up.
“Artoo!” they shouted in unison. Breaking away from Padmé, they rushed to the droid, leaping upon him, hugging him cheek to dome.
And R2-D2 seemed equally thrilled, beeping and whistling as happily as Anakin had ever heard.
Anakin couldn’t help but be touched by the scene, a view of innocence that he had never known.
Well, not never, he had to admit. There were times when Shmi had found some way to produce such moments of joy amid the drudgery that was life as a slave on Tatooine. In their own way, in that dusty, dirty, hot, and smelly place, Anakin and his mother had carved out a few instants of innocent beauty.
Here, though, such moments seemed so much more the norm than the memorable exception.
Anakin turned back to Padmé, to see that she was no longer looking his way, but had turned toward the house, where another woman, who looked very much like Padmé, was approaching.
Not exactly like Padmé, Anakin noted. She was a little older, a little heavier, and a little more … worn, was the only word he could think of. But not in a bad way. Yes, he could see it now, he thought, watching as she and Padmé hugged tightly. This was whom Padmé could become—more settled, more content, perhaps. Considering the amazing resemblance, Anakin was hardly surprised when Padmé introduced the woman as her sister, Sola.
“Mom and Dad will be so happy to see you,” Sola said to Padmé. “It’s been a difficult few weeks.”
Padmé frowned. She knew that word of the attempts on her life would have reached her parents’ ears, and that was possibly the most disturbing thing of all to her.
Anakin saw it all on her face, and he understood it well, and he loved her all the more for that generosity. Padmé wasn’t really afraid of anything—she could handle the reality of her current situation, the reality of the fact that someone was trying to kill her, with determination and courage. But the one thing about it all that troubled her, aside from the political ramifications of such distractions, the ways they might weaken her position in the Senate, was the effect of such danger upon those she loved. He knew that she didn’t want to bring pain to her family.
Anakin, who had left his mother as a slave on Tatooine, could appreciate that.
“Mom’s making dinner,” Sola explained, noting Padmé’s discomfort and generously changing the subject. “As usual, your timing is perfect.” She started toward the house. Padmé waited for Anakin to move beside her, then took his hand, looked up, smiled at him, and led him toward the door. R2-D2 rolled along right behind, with Ryoo and Pooja bouncing all about him.
The interior of the house was just as simply wonderful and just as full of life and soft color as was the yard. There were no glaring lights, no beeping consoles or flickering computer screens. The furniture was plush and comfortable; the floors were made of cool stone or covered in soft carpeting.
This was not a building as Anakin had known on Coruscant, and not a hovel, as he had known all too well on Tatooine. No, seeing this place, this street, this yard, this home, made the young Padawan even more convinced of what he had declared to Padmé not so long before: that if he had grown up on Naboo, he would never leave.
The next introductions were a bit more uncomfortable, but only for a moment, as Padmé showed Anakin to Ruwee, her father, a strong-shouldered man with a face that was plain and strong and compassionate all at once. He wore his brown hair short, but still it was a bit out of place, a bit … comfortable. Padmé introduced Jobal next, and Anakin knew that the woman was her mother without being told. The moment he met her, he understood where Padmé had gotten her innocent and sincere smile, a look that could disarm a mob of bloodthirsty Gamorrean raiders. Jobal’s face had that same comforting quality, that same obvious generosity.
Soon after, Anakin, Padmé, and Ruwee were sitting at the dinner table, comfortably quiet and listening to the bustle in the next room, which included the clanking of stoneware plates and mugs, and Sola repeatedly saying, “Too much, Mom.” And every time she said that, Ruwee and Padmé smiled knowingly.
“I doubt they’ve been starving all the way from Coruscant,” an exasperated Sola said as she exited the kitchen, glancing back over her shoulder as she spoke. She returned carrying a bowl full of food.
“Enough to feed the town?” Padmé asked Sola quietly as her older sister put the bowl on the table.
“You know Mom,” came the answer, and the tone told Anakin that this was not an isolated incident, that Jobal was quite the hostess. Despite the fact that he had eaten recently, the bowl of food looked and smelled temptingly good.
“No one has ever left this house hungry,” Sola explained.
“Well, one person did once,” Padmé corrected. “But Mom chased him down and dragged him back in.”
“To feed him or cook him?” the quick-witted Padawan retorted, and the other three stared at him for just a moment before catching on and bursting out in laughter.
They were still chuckling when Jobal entered the room, holding an even larger bowl of steaming food, which of course only made them laugh all the louder. But then Jobal fixed an imposing stare over her family and the chuckling quieted.
“They arrived just in time for dinner,” Jobal said. “I know what that means.” She set the plate down near Anakin and put her hand on his shoulder. “I hope you’re hungry, Anakin.”
“A little.” He looked up and gave her a warm smile.
The look of gratitude was not lost on Padmé. She tossed a little wink his way when he looked back at her. “He’s being polite, Mom,” she said. “We’re starving.”
Jobal grinned widely and nodded, offering superior glances at Sola and Ruwee, who just laughed again. It was all so comfortable to Anakin, so natural and so … so much like what he had always been wanting in his life, though perhaps he had not known it. This would be perfect, absolutely perfect, except that his mother wasn’t there.
A brief cloud passed over his face as he thought of his mother on Tatooine, and considered the disturbing dreams that had been finding their way into his sleep of late. He pushed the thoughts away quickly and glanced around, glad that no one seemed to have noticed.
“If you’re starving, then you came to the right place at the right time,” Ruwee said, looking at Anakin as he finished. “Eat up, son!”
Jobal and Sola took their seats and began passing the food bowls all around. Anakin took a good helping of several different dishes. The food was all unfamiliar, but the smells told him that he wouldn’t be disappointed. He sat quietly as he ate, listening with half an ear to the chatter all about him. He was thinking of his mom again, of how he wished he could bring her here, a free woman, to live the life she so deserved.
Some time passed before Anakin tuned back in, cued by the sudden seriousness in Jobal’s voice as she said to Padmé, “Honey, it’s so good to see you safe. We were so worried.”
Anakin looked up just in time to see the intense, disapproving glare that Padmé answered with. Ruwee, obviously trying to dispel the tension before it could really begin, put his hand on Jobal’s arm and quietly said, “Dear—”
“I know, I know!” said the suddenly animated Jobal. “But I had to say it. Now it’s done.”
Sola cleared her throat. “Well, this is exciting,” she said, and everyone looked at her. “Do you know, Anakin, you’re the first boyfriend my sister ever brought home?”
“Sola!” Padmé exclaimed. She rolled her eyes. “He isn’t my boyfriend! He’s a Jedi assigned by the Senate to protect me.”
“A bodyguard?” Jobal asked with great concern. “Oh, Padmé, they didn’t tell us it was that serious!”
Padmé’s sigh was intermixed with a groan. “It’s not, Mom,” she said. “I promise. Anyway, Anakin’s a friend. I’ve known him for years. Remember that little boy who was with the Jedi during the blockade crisis?”
A couple of “ahs” of recognition came back in response, along with nodding heads. Then Padmé smiled at Anakin and said, with just enough weight to make him recognize that her previous claims about his place here weren’t entirely true, “He’s grown up.”
Anakin glanced at Sola and saw that she was staring at him, scrutinizing him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Honey, when are you going to settle down?” Jobal went on. “Haven’t you had enough of that life? I certainly have!”
“Mom, I’m not in any danger,” Padmé insisted, taking Anakin’s hand in her own.
“Is she?” Ruwee asked Anakin.
The Padawan stared hard at Padmé’s father, recognizing the honest concern. This man, who obviously loved his daughter so much, deserved to know the truth. “Yes, I’m afraid she is.”
Even as the words left his mouth, Anakin felt Padmé’s grip tighten. “But not much,” she added quickly, and she turned to Anakin, smiling, but in a you’ll-pay-for-that-later kind of way. “Anakin,” she said quietly, her teeth gritted, locked into that threatening smile.
“The Senate thought it prudent to give her some time away, and under the protection of the Jedi,” he said, his tone casual, showing no reflections of the pain he was feeling as Padmé’s fingernails dug into his hand. “My Master, Obi-Wan, is even now seeing to the matter. All should be well soon enough.”
His breath came easier as Padmé loosened her grip, and Ruwee, and even Jobal, seemed to relax. Anakin knew that he had done well, but he was surprised to see that Sola was still staring at him, still smiling as if she knew a secret.
He gave her a quizzical look, but she only smiled all the wider.
“Sometimes I wish I’d traveled more,” Ruwee admitted to Anakin as the two walked in the garden after dinner. “But I must say, I’m happy here.”
“Padmé tells me you teach at the university.”
“Yes, and before that I was a builder,” Ruwee answered with a nod. “I also worked for the Refugee Relief Movement, when I was very young.”
Anakin looked at him curiously, not really surprised. “You seem quite interested in public service,” he remarked.
“Naboo is generous,” Ruwee explained. “The planet itself, I mean. We have all that we want, all that we could want. Food is plentiful, the climate is comfortable, the surroundings are—”
“Beautiful,” Anakin put in.
“Quite so,” said Ruwee. “We are a very fortunate people, and we know it. That good fortune should not be taken for granted, and so we try to share and try to help. It is our way of saying that we welcome the friendship of those less fortunate, that we do not think ourselves entitled to that which we have, but rather, that we feel blessed beyond what we deserve. And so we share, and so we work, and in doing so, we become something larger than ourselves, and more fulfilled than one can become from idly enjoying good fortune!”
Anakin considered Ruwee’s words for a few moments. “It is the same with the Jedi, I suppose,” he said. “We have been given great gifts, and we train hard to make the most of those. And then we use our given powers to try to help the galaxy, to try to make everything a little bit better.”
“And to make the things we love a little bit safer?”
Anakin looked at him, catching the meaning, and he smiled and nodded. He saw respect in Ruwee’s eyes, and gratitude, and he was glad for both. He could not deny the way Padmé looked at her family, the love that seemed to flow from her whenever any of them entered the room, and he knew that if Ruwee or Jobal or Sola didn’t like him, his relationship with Padmé would be hurt.
He was glad, then, that he had come to this place, not only as Padmé’s companion, but also as her protector.
Back in the house, Padmé, Sola, and Jobal were working together to clear the dishes and the remaining food. Padmé noted the tension in her mother’s movements, and she knew that these latest events—the assassination attempts, the fights in the Senate over an issue that could well lead to war—were weighing heavily on her.
She looked to Sola, too, to see if she might find some clue as to how to help alleviate the tension, but all she found there was an obvious curiosity that set her off her balance more than had her mother’s concerned expression.
“Why haven’t you told us about him?” Sola asked with a sly grin.
“What’s there to talk about?” Padmé replied as casually as she could. “He’s just a boy.”
“A boy?” Sola repeated with a laugh. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”
“Sola! Stop it!”
“It’s obvious he has feelings for you,” Sola went on. “Are you saying, little baby sister, that you haven’t noticed?”
“I’m not your baby sister, Sola,” Padmé said flatly, her tone turning to true consternation. “Anakin and I are friends. Our relationship is strictly professional.”
Sola grinned again.
“Mom, would you tell her to stop it?” Padmé burst out in embarrassed frustration.
Now Sola began laughing out loud. “Well, maybe you haven’t noticed the way he looks at you. I think you’re afraid to.”
“Cut it out!”
Jobal stepped between the two and gave Sola a stern look. Then she turned back to Padmé. “Sola’s just concerned, dear,” she said. But her words sounded to Padmé like condescension, as if her mother was still trying to protect a helpless little girl.
“Oh, Mom, you’re impossible,” she said with a sigh of surrender. “What I’m doing is important.”
“You’ve done your service, Padmé,” Jobal answered. “It’s time you had a life of your own. You’re missing so much!”
Padmé tilted her head back and closed her eyes, trying to accept the words in the spirit with which they were offered. For a moment, she regretted coming back here, to see the same old sights and hear the same old advice.
For just a moment, though. Truthfully, when she considered it all, Padmé had to admit she was glad to have people who loved her and cared about her so much.
She offered her mother an appeasing smile, and Jobal nodded and gently tapped Padmé’s arm. She turned to Sola next, and saw her sister still grinning.
What did Sola see?
“Now tell me, son, how serious is this thing?” Ruwee asked bluntly as the two neared the door that would take them back into the house. “How much danger is my daughter really in?”
Anakin didn’t hesitate, realizing, as he had at dinner, that Padmé’s father deserved nothing but honesty from him. “There have been two attempts on her life. Chances are, there’ll be more. But I wasn’t lying to you and wasn’t trying to minimize anything. My Master is tracking down the assassins. I’m sure he’ll find out who they are and take care of them. This situation won’t last long.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to her,” Ruwee said, with the gravity of a parent concerned over a beloved child.
“I don’t either,” Anakin assured him, with almost equal weight.
Padmé stared at her older sister until, at last, Sola broke down and asked, “What?”
The two of them were alone together, while Jobal and Ruwee entertained Anakin out in the sitting room.
“Why do you keep saying such things about me and Anakin?”
“Because it’s obvious,” Sola replied. “You see it—you can’t deny it to yourself.”
Padmé sighed and sat down on the bed, her posture and expression giving all the confirmation that Sola needed.
“I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to think such things,” Sola remarked.
“They’re not.”
“But Anakin does.” Sola’s words brought Padmé’s gaze up to meet hers. “You know I’m right.”
Padmé shook her head helplessly, and Sola laughed.
<
br /> “You think more like a Jedi than he does,” she said. “And you shouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Padmé didn’t know whether to take offense, having no idea of where her sister was heading with this.
“You’re so tied up in your responsibilities that you don’t give any weight to your desires,” Sola explained. “Even with your own feelings toward Anakin.”
“You don’t know how I feel about Anakin.”
“You probably don’t either,” Sola said. “Because you won’t allow yourself to even think about it. Being a Senator and being a girlfriend aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”
“My work is important!”
“Who said it wasn’t?” Sola asked, holding her hands up in a gesture of peace. “It’s funny, Padmé, because you act as if you’re prohibited, and you’re not, while Anakin acts as if he’s under no such prohibitions, and he is!”
“You’re way ahead of everything here,” Padmé said. “Anakin and I have only been together for a few days—before that, I hadn’t seen him in a decade!”
Sola shrugged. Her look went from that sly grin she had been sporting since dinner to one of more genuine concern for her sister. She sat down on the bed beside Padmé and draped an arm across her shoulders. “I don’t know any of the details, and you’re right, I don’t know how you feel—about any of this. But I know how he feels, and so do you.”
Padmé didn’t disagree. She just sat there, comfortable in Sola’s hug, gazing down at the floor, trying not to think.
“It frightens you,” Sola remarked. Surprised, Padmé looked back up.
“What are you afraid of, Sis?” Sola asked sincerely. “Are you afraid of Anakin’s feelings and the responsibilities that he cannot dismiss? Or are you afraid of your own feelings?”
She lifted Padmé’s chin, so that they were looking at each other directly, their faces only a breath apart. “I don’t know how you feel,” she admitted again. “But I suspect that it’s something new to you. Something scary, but something wonderful.”
Padmé said nothing, but she knew that disagreement would not be honest.
Attack of the Clones Page 15
