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| - The wind was so strong that Padmé found it akin to walking through a very strong current underwater, a current that seemed to move mercilessly through her throwing grit into every opening. She closed her eyes and let Anakin lead her blindly; he seemed to know where he was going. They finally stopped, Padmé squinted and she could see a door opening and felt Qui-Gon nudge her inside. “Mom? Mom, I’m home!” Anakin called. Wiping and blinking the sand out of her eyes, Padmé studied her surroundings. The adobe walls of the dwelling were worn, but scrubbed clean. In the centre of the room was a table and behind that a small kitchen, beyond that were doors that she assumed leaded to the bedrooms. “Mm, cosy,” Danta said. Padmé agreed with him, coming into Anakin’s home stirred something inside her that she hadn’t thought of for a long time. Like all the others at the Temple, Padmé had left her home—wherever it was—at a very young age. But that had never stopped her wondering about it. Wondering if she had a brother or sister and most importantly her parents and what kind of life she could have had if she had not been selected by the Jedi. A woman aged about forty came into the room wiping grease from her hands and then set the cloth on the table. She looked at Anakin, then at the others, then back to Anakin. “Anakin, what’s all this?” she asked, looking down at her son. “Mom, this is Padmé,” Anakin said, then looked at the others and then paused. “Gee, I don’t know any of your names.” Qui-Gon stepped into the act with practised ease. “I’m Qui-Gon Jinn, and this is Danta Pela,” he nodded to the Gungan. Artoo trilled hopefully. “And our droid, R2-D2,” Padmé added. “Yes but—” Anakin’s mother looked at her son with the unspoken question But what are they doing here? “Mom, there’s a sandstorm,” Anakin protested. “Listen.” True enough, the howling wind had not abated. “Your boy was kind enough to offer us shelter,” Qui-Gon said helpfully. “We met at the shop where he works.” “I guess I’m not used to Anakin’s surprises,” the woman said with a small smile. “I’m Shmi Skywalker, it might not be much but,” she looked around at the sparse dwelling with some anxiety, “it’s what we have.” She finished with a smile. “Come on,” Anakin said, guessing the formalities were over he seized Padmé’s hand. “I'm building a droid, let me show you.” “Dinner will be soon,” Shmi said watching the two walk off. Qui-Gon handed her several small metal capsules. “It’s not much,” the Jedi Master said with some regret. “I hope it will help. I know this is very sudden.” “Thank you, we are pleased to have you as our guests” Shmi said, inviting Qui-Gon to sit down. It was not mock civility, but genuine sincerity, something that was unfortunately hard to find in the galaxy. After a cursory glance at Danta, Qui-Gon sat at the table. Shmi started the preparations for dinner. From where they were they could hear Anakin’s animated voice from his room. She seemed to glow with a quiet pride, as if there was some secret that she gloried in. Qui-Gon had his own suspicions and he voiced them. “He’s a special boy, isn’t he?” Shmi turned and they looked at each other for a moment, now they shared the secret. “Yes,” she said softly, “I know.” “Isn’t he great?” Anakin said. Opposite Anakin’s roughly-made bed was a workbench that took up an entire wall. On the workbench amidst tools and other items was the body of a droid. Almost complete but for the outer coverings and left eye. Yet Padmé was impressed, she could see the effort Anakin had painstakingly put into him. And she knew well that making a droid, even from standardised components, was quite an involved job when one was doing it by hand. Had he scrounged parts from Watto’s shop when the Toydarian’s back was turned? “He’s amazing,” she said with conviction. “You really like him?” Anakin said, brightening. “He’s a protocol droid, to help Mom around the house. Watch this.” He reached around the back of the droid’s head and activated a switch. The droid jolted on the bench, moving his head jerkily about. “Where did everybody go?” the droid asked in a high, toffy-sounding voice that came standard with most protocol droids. “Oh,” Anakin said quickly, picking up the left eye from where he had been fine-tuning it last night. He snapped it into place and used a tool at the side of the droid’s head. The photoreceptors lit up. “He should be fine now.” Anakin said, more to himself than to Padmé. “That’s better,” the droid said, shifting rather nervously on the bench. “I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations.” “I named him the other day,” Anakin told Padmé, “the three makes him the third member of our family. Threepio,” the droid looked at him. “This is Padmé.” “Hello,” Padmé said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Padmé,” Threepio said rather gallantly. T hreepio got shakily to his feet and took a few careful steps as R2-D2, who had been watching all this unobserved, trundled forward and beeped his own comment. “Artoo-Detoo,” C-3PO said to the astromech, “a pleasure to meet you.” “You can understand him?” Padmé asked. “Of course, Miss Padmé,” Threepio said rather pompously, “I am fluent in six million forms of communication.” Padmé couldn’t help but giggle, he was definitely a protocol droid. Artoo made a noise that sounded rather rude. Threepio reacted with slight surprise—if a droid was capable of that at all. “What do you mean, I’m naked?” Threepio asked. Artoo beeped rather slyly back. “My parts are showing?” Threepio said incredulously. “My goodness! How embarrassing!” “Sort of,” Anakin said with a shrug and turned to Padmé. “It took me three tries to try and get his arms working right, at first they had a life of their own and started throwing things everywhere.” Padmé laughed and even Artoo’s tones had some humour at their edges. Anakin smiled slightly then deactivated Threepio and moved him back onto the workbench. “When the storm is over,” he told Padmé, “I’ll show you something else. I’m building a racer, the fastest ever!” While in thought Padmé was quick to discount his boasts, she had a sneaking suspicion that she could trust him, and whatever he said.
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