He was back to wearing his Jedi robes, the peasant garb discarded. Padm walked alongside him in a simple blue dress that only seemed to enhance her beauty. Anakin kept glancing her way, stealing images of her to burn into his mind, to hold forever in a special place. She could be wearing anything, he realized, and still be beautiful.
Anakin smiled as he recalled the ornate outfits Padme had often worn as Queen of Naboo, huge gowns with intricate embroidery and studded with gemstones, tremendous headpieces of plumes and swirls and curves and twists.
He liked her better like this, he decided. All of the decorations of her Queenly outfits had been beautifully designed, but still could only detract from the more beautifully designed Padme. Wearing a great headpiece only hid her silken brown hair. Painting her face in whites and bright red only hid her beautiful skin. The embroidery on the great gowns only blurred the perfection of her form.
This was the way Anakin wanted to see her, where her clothing was just a finishing touch.
'There's my house!' Padme cried suddenly, startling Anakin from his pleasant daydreams.
He followed her gaze to see a simple but tasteful structure, surrounded, like everything on Naboo, by flowers and vines and hedges. Padme started off immediately for the door, but Anakin didn't follow right away. He studied the house, every line, every detail, trying to see in it the environment that had produced her. She had told him many stories of her childhood in this house during their trip from Coruscant, and he was replaying those tales, seeing them in context now that the yard was in view.
'What?' Padme asked him from some distance ahead, when she noticed that he was not following. 'Don't tell me you're shy!'
'No, but I-' the distracted Anakin started to answer, but he was interrupted by the squeals of two little girls, running out from the yard toward his companion.
'Aunt Padme! Aunt Padme!'
Padme's smile went as wide as Anakin had ever seen it and she rushed ahead, bending low to scoop the pair, who looked to be no more than a few years old, one a bit taller than the other, into her arms. One had hair short and blond and curly, the other, the older of the two, had hair that resembled Padme's.
'Ryoo! Pooja!' Padme cried, hugging them and twirling them about. 'I'm so happy to see you!' She kissed them both and set them down, then took them by the hand and led them toward Anakin.
'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 Padme 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 Padme, 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 Padme, to see that she was no longer looking his way, but had turned toward the house, where another woman, who looked very much like Padme, was approaching.
Not exactly like Padme, 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 Padme hugged tightly. This was whom Padme could become-more settled, more content, perhaps. Considering the amazing resemblance, Anakin was hardly surprised when Padme introduced the woman as her sister, Sola.
'Mom and Dad will be so happy to see you,' Sola said to Padme. 'It's been a difficult few weeks.'
Padme 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. Padme 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 Padme's discomfort and generously changing the subject. 'As usual, your timing is perfect.' She started toward the house. Padme 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 Padme 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 Padme 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. Padme introduced Jobal next, and Anakin knew that the woman was her mother without being told. The moment he met her, he understood where Padme 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.
