A Love That Turned Evil
Chapter Two
Coruscant
"Padme! PADME!" Anakin ran through the house looking for his wife.
"I'm right here, Ani!" Padme stood in her bedroom in a loose dressing gown, examining herself in the mirror.
"Ani, do I look any different to you then I did before we got married?"
Anakin studied her, a smile playing around the corner of his lips. Padme wrinkled her nose in an attempt not to laugh. Then Anakin swooped her off her feet and into his arms.
Anakin leaned close so that his lips brushed her ear and whispered, "You're more beautiful, if that is possible."
Padme grabbed his head and turned it around, and then she kissed him sweetly and softly. "Remember the day that we were out in the field, right over there?" she asked him.
"How could I forget?"
Padme sighed and leaned against Anakin, who sat next to her on the bed, and they stayed like that for a few minutes, just happy to be there with each other.
"You know what?" Anakin stood up abruptly.
"What, Ani? What's wrong?"
"I'm going to take you on a trip! To Coruscant. I've heard of it before, after people get married they take a trip, just the two of them."
"That sounds like fun."
Padme stood before her dresser, looking inside for things to pack. She couldn't help but feel excited, like a little girl. Just her and Ani…
Anakin had rented a ship. It was a small ship, but it would do. He could pilot it, too. No different from a pod racer, he figured.
He had finished loading Padme's bags, but he stood looking at them shaking his head. Women pack way too much, he thought. It looks like we're moving to Coruscant instead of just taking a vacation.
Anakin looked around and picked a rose off a bush near him. It was almost crushed in his droid hand.
He stood glowering at the gold metal, the powerful fingers, more machine than man. No feeling.
The gold fingers crushed the delicate rose and dropped them. The petals scattered in the dust.
The sleek silver ship glinted in the sun as it took off from the landing platform. The trip would be quick, Anakin figured. Coruscant was practically next door to Naboo.
Padme sat next to one of the windows of the ship and watched her home planet grow smaller and smaller. Patches of forest and city merged together, becoming a blotch of green on the backdrop of a starry space. Coruscant loomed ahead. It twinkled against the stars.
Coruscant was one big city. It consisted of metal and bleakness. Padme failed to find Coruscant beautiful; it was so different from Naboo, which was green where Coruscant was metal. She didn't know how two worlds could stand side by side, much less in the same galaxy.
As they entered the atmosphere, ships swirled dangerously close to their silver craft. Padme was a bit nervous- Coruscant didn't seem to have a ground. It looked like the bottoms of the buildings disappeared into a black hole, unable to be escaped.
In the cockpit, Anakin was having a bit of trouble controlling himself. He longed to dip the silver craft towards the ground, weaving in between speeding craft and industrial bridges, but having his wife on board made him careful- he would sooner kill himself then harm Padme.
"Aha!" He murmured to himself. Up ahead was their hotel- with a bar right across the way! It was perfect.
Padme entered the cockpit, her dress swishing around Anakin's chair. She kissed him on the cheek and said, "Is that where we're staying?"
"Yes." Anakin replied. "It's very nice."
He steered the ship into the landing dock and unloaded the baggage, which he placed on the arms of a droid that came to help him.
"Hello, I am C-"
"3PO?" Anakin whirled around to face the gold droid.
"No sir. I am C-O12, human relations."
"Oh." Anakin said, disappointed in not being able to see his childhood 'friend' again. He remembered building C-3PO out of scratch. His friends had laughed at him, just like they had laughed at him when he had entered the pod race.
C-O12 took them to the room in which they were staying, and left with an "If you need anything, sir, anything at all, press the button over there and we will be up promptly."
"Thank you."
The droid left and Padme went to look out the window. The black hole hadn't gotten any smaller, and craft whizzed by their window at speeds that Padme did not care to imagine.
Anakin stood next to her, and he realized that the last time that Padme was here, she had almost died.
Padme played around with her hair in her room. They were leaving in a little while to go to dinner. Padme smiled as she braided her hair into the same style she had worn on Tatooine- where she had first met Anakin.
"I carved it. It will bring you good fortune."
"It's beautiful."
"You can keep it to remember me by."
"I don't need this to remember you."