Star Wares Episode 2 Attack of the Clones Read online

  Anakin looked up just in time to see the intense, disapproving glare that Padm 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!" Padm 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, Padm, they didn't tell us it was that serious!"

  Padm'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 Padm 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," Padm insisted, taking Anakin's hand in her own.

  "Is she?" Ruwee asked Anakin.

  The Padawan stared hard at Padm'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 Padm'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 Padm'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 Padm 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."

  "Padm 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 Padm 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 Padm would be hurt.

  He was glad, then, that he had come to this place, not only as Padm's companion, but also as her protector.

  * * *

  Back in the house, Padm, Sola, and Jobal were working together to clear the dishes and the remaining food. Padm 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?" Padm 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," Padm 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?" Padm 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 Padm. "Sola's just concerned, dear," she said. But her words sounded to Padm 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, Padm," Jobal answered. "It's time you had a life of your own. You're missing so much!"

  Padm 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, Padm 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 Padm'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 Padm'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.

  * * *

  Padm 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 obv
ious," Sola replied. "You see it--you can't deny it to yourself."

  Padm 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 Padm's gaze up to meet hers. "You know I'm right."

  Padm shook her head helplessly, and Sola laughed.

  "You think more like a Jedi than he does," she said. "And you shouldn't."

  "What do you mean?" Padm 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, Padm, 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," Padm 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 Padm 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."

  Padm 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, Padm 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 Padm'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."

  Padm said nothing, but she knew that disagreement would not be honest.

  * * *

  "They're a lot to digest, all at once," Padm said to Anakin later on, when the two were alone in her room. She had barely unpacked her things, and was now throwing clothes into her bag once more. Different clothes this time, though. Less formal than the outfits she had to wear as a representative of Naboo.

  "Your mother is a fine cook," Anakin replied, drawing a curious stare from Padm, until she realized that he was joking and had understood her point perfectly well.

  "You're lucky to have such a wonderful family," Anakin said more seriously, and then, with a teasing grin, he added, "Maybe you should give your sister some of your clothes."

  Padm smirked right back at him, but then looked about at the mess and couldn't really disagree. "Don't worry," she assured him. "This won't take long."

  "I just want to get there before dark. Wherever _there_ is, I mean." Anakin continued to scan the room, surprised at the number of closets, all of them full. "You still live at home," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't expect that."

  "I move around so much," Padm replied. "I've never had the time to even begin to find a place of my own, and I'm not sure I want to. Official residences have no warmth. Not like here. I feel good here. I feel at home."

  The simple beauty of her statement gave Anakin pause. "I've never had a real home," he said, speaking more to himself than to Padm. "Home was always where my mom was." He looked up at her then, and took comfort in her sympathetic smile.

  Padm went back to her packing. "The Lake Country is beautiful," she started to explain, but she stopped when she glanced back at Anakin, to see him holding a holograph and grinning.

  "Is this you?" he asked, pointing to the young girl, seven or eight at the most, in the holo, surrounded by dozens of little green smiling creatures, and holding one in her arms.

  Padm laughed, and seemed embarrassed. "That was when I went with a relief group to Shadda-Bi-Boran. Their sun was imploding and the planet was dying. I was helping to relocate the children." She walked over to stand beside Anakin and placed one hand on his shoulder, pointing to the holograph with the other. "See that little one I'm holding? His name was N'a-kee-tula, which means 'sweetheart.' He was so full of life--all those kids were."

  "Were?"

  "They were never able to adapt," she explained somberly. "They were never able to live off their native planet."

  Anakin winced, then quickly picked up another holograph, this one showing Padm a couple of years later, wearing official robes and standing between two older and similarly robed Legislators. He looked back at the first holo, then to this one, noting that Padm's expression seemed much more severe here. "My first day as an Apprentice Legislator," Padm explained. Then, as if she was reading his mind, she added, "See the difference?"

  Anakin studied the holograph a moment longer, then looked up and laughed, seeing Padm wearing that same long and stern expression. She laughed as well, then squeezed his shoulder and went back to her packing.

  Anakin put the holographs down side by side and looked at them for a long, long time. Two sides of the woman he loved.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The water speeder zoomed above the lake, the downthrusters churning only a slight, almost indistinguishable, wake. Every so often, a wave clipped in, and a fine spray broke over the bow. Anakin and Padm reveled in the cool water and the wind, eyes half closed, Padm's rich brown hair flying out behind her.

  Beside them at the wheel, Paddy Accu gave a laugh at every spray, his graying hair spreading out widely. "Always better over the water!" he shouted in his gruff voice, against the wind and the noise of the speeder. "Are you liking it?"

  Padm turned a sincere smile upon him, and the grizzled man leaned in close and backed off the accelerator. "She's even more fun if I put her down," he explained. "You think you'll like that, Senator?"

  Both Padm and Anakin looked at him curiously, neither quite understanding.

  "We were going out to the island," Anakin remarked, a note of concern in his voice.

  "Oh, I'll get you there!" Paddy Accu said with a wheezing laugh. He pushed forward a lever--and the speeder dropped into the water.

  "Paddy?" Padm asked.

  The man laughed all the harder. "Don't tell me you've forgotten!" he roared, kicking in the accelerator. The speeder jetted off across the water, no longer smooth in flight, but bouncing across the rippling surface.

  "Oh, yes!" Padm said to him. "I do remember!"

  After a moment of initial shock, looking from Padm to Paddy, wondering if the man was up to some dark deception, Anakin caught on, and was also swept away by the bouncing ride.

  The spray was nearly continuous, thrown up by the prow and washing over them.

  "It's wonderful!" Padm exclaimed.

  Anakin couldn't disagree. "We spend so much time in control," he replied. His mind went back to his younger days, on Tatooine, Podracing along wild courses, skirting disaster. This was somewhat like that, especially when Paddy, in no apparent hurry to reach the island dock, flipped the speeder up and down from one edge to the other, zigzagging his way. It amazed Anakin how this little adjustment, dropping into the water instead of smoothly skimming above it, had changed the perspective of this journey. It was true, he knew, that technology had tamed the galaxy, and while that seemed a good thing in terms of efficiency and comfort, he had to believe that something, too, had been lost the excitement of living on the edge of disaster. Or the simple tactile feeling of a ride like this, bouncing across the waves, feeling the wind and the cold spray.

  At one point, Padd
y put the speeder so far up on edge that both Anakin and Padm thought they would tip over. Anakin almost reached into the Force to secure the craft, but stopped himself in order to enjoy the thrill.

  They didn't tip. Paddy was an expert driver who knew how to take his speeder to the very limits without crashing over. It was some time later that he slowed the craft and allowed it to drift in against the island dock.

  Padm grabbed the older man's hand and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Thank you!"

  Anakin was surprised that he could see Paddy's blush through the man's ruddy skin. "It was... fun," he admitted.