When it ended, Shmi began the cleanup, the other three helping for a bit. 'You two go and spend some time together without your troublemaking father,' Shmi told Owen and Bern. 'Cliegg started it, so Cliegg will help clean it up. Go on, now. I'll call you back when dinner's on the table.' Cliegg gave a little laugh.
'And if you mess up the next one, you're going to be hungry,' Shmi told him, threateningly waving a spoon his way. 'And lonely!'
'Whoa! Never that!' Cliegg said, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender.
With a wave of the spoon, Shmi further dismissed Owen and Beru, and the two went off happily.
'She'll make him a fine wife,' Shmi said to Cliegg.
He walked up beside her and grabbed her about the waist, pulling her tight.
'We Lars men fall in love with the best women.'
Shmi looked back to see his warm and sincere smile, and she returned it in kind. This was the way it was supposed to be. Good honest work, a sense of true accomplishment, and enough free time for some fun, at least. This was the life Shmi had always wanted. This was perfect, almost.
A wistful look came over her face.
'Thinking of your boy again,' Cliegg Lars stated, instead of asked. Shmi looked at him, her expression a mixture of joy and sadness, a single dark cloud crossing a sunny blue sky. 'Yes, but it's okay this time,' she said. 'He's safe, I know, and doing great things.' 'But when we have such fun, you wish he could be here.'
Shmi smiled again. 'I do, and in all other times, as well. I wish Anakin had been here from the beginning, since you and I first met.'
'Five years ago,' Cliegg remarked.
'He would love you as I do, and he and Owen…' Her voice weakened and trailed away.
'You think that Anakin and Owen would be friends?' Cliegg asked. 'Bah! Of course they would!'
'You've never even met my Annie!' Shmi scolded.
'They'd be the best of friends,' Cliegg assured her, tightening his hug once again. 'How could they not be, with you as that one's mother?' Shmi accepted the compliment gracefully, looked back and gave Cliegg a deep and appreciative kiss. She was thinking of Owen, of the young man's flowering romance with the lovely Beru. How Shmi loved them both!
But that thought brought with it some level of discomfort. Shmi had often wondered if Owen had been part of the reason she had so readily agreed to marry Cliegg. She looked back at her husband, rubbing her hand over his broad shoulder. Yes, she loved him, and deeply, and she certainly couldn't deny her joy at finally being relieved of her slave bonds. But despite all of that, what part had the presence of Owen played in her decisions? It had been a question that had stayed with her all these years. Had there been a need in her heart that Owen had filled? A mother's need to cover the hole left by Anakin's departure?
In truth, the two boys were very different in temperament. Owen was solid and staid, the rock who would gladly take over the farm from Cliegg when the time came, as this moisture farm had been passed down in the Lars family from generation to generation. Owen was ready, and even thrilled, to be the logical and rightful heir to the place, more than able to accept the often difficult lifestyle in exchange for the pride and sense of honest accomplishment that came with running the place correctly.
But Annie…
Shmi nearly laughed aloud as she considered her impetuous and wanderlust- filled son put in a similar situation. She had no doubts that Anakin would give Cliegg the same fits he had always given Watto. Anakin's adventurous spirit would not be tamed by any sense of generational responsibility, Shmi knew. His need to leap out for adventure, to race the Pods, to fly among the stars, would not have been diminished, and it surely would have driven Cliegg crazy.
Now Shmi did giggle, picturing Cliegg turning red-faced with exasperation when Anakin had let his duties slide once again.
Cliegg hugged her all the tighter at the sound, obviously having no clue of the mental images fluttering through her brain.
Shmi melted into that hug, knowing that she was where she belonged, and taking comfort in the hope that Anakin, too, was where he truly belonged.
She wasn't wearing one of the grand gowns that had marked the station of her life for the last decade and more. Her hair was not done up in wondrous fashion, with some glittering accessory woven into the thick brown strands. And in that plainness, Padme Amidala only appeared more beautiful and more shining.
The woman sitting beside her on the bench swing, so obviously a relation, was a bit older, a bit more matronly, perhaps, clothes even more plain than Padme's and with her hair a bit more out of place. But she was no less beautiful, shining with an inner glow equally strong.
'Did you finish your meetings with Queen Jamillia?' Sola asked. It was obvious from her tone that the meetings to which she had referred were not high on her personal wish list.
Padme looked over at her, then looked back to the playhouse where Sola's daughters, Ryoo and Pooja, were in the midst of a wild game of tag.
'It was one meeting,' Padme explained. 'The Queen had some information to pass along.'
'About the Military Creation Act,' Sola stated.
Padme didn't bother to confirm the obvious. The Military Creation Act now before the Senate was the most important piece of business in many years, one that held implications for the Republic even beyond those during the dark time when Padme had been Queen and the Trade Federation had tried to conquer Naboo.
'The Republic is all in a tumult, but not to fear, for Senator Amidala will put it all aright,' Sola said.
Padme turned to her, somewhat surprised by the level of sarcasm in Sola's tone.
