The Rocker Chair
Chapter 3
They lay together, after love, blissfully content in each other's arms. Anakin, despite his initial bravado had been as gentle and considerate to her as on their wedding night and Padmé, who was perhaps not as fully recovered as she thought, had fallen deeply asleep. Anakin tenderly stroked the side of her head, thinking to himself. His mind kept drifting back to one thing in particular, the loving, comforting, feeling he had shared rocking with Padmé. It seemed so natural, so... right. He had vague memories of his mother on Tatooien, a Rocker Chair made of wood and fragments of the lullaby he had shared with Padmé earlier but the majority of which were just feelings of comfort and belonging. Even as an older child, mom and the Rocker Chair... the WOODEN Rocker Chair. Wood was almost as rare on Tatooien as it was on Coruscant but some how, somewhere, she had found it. Perhaps she had traded for it in the limit side markets of Mos Espa, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that it had been a permanent fixture in their sparse lives, and a comforting one at that. A place where he could just 'be'... sometimes with mom, sometimes just himself... It was something that seemed to be sorely lacking in this Senatorial apartment. A touch of 'home' so to speak... the flat was comfortable enough Anakin supposed. Far more luxurious than the quarters he would have shared with Master Obi-wan in the Jedi temple and it compared to the slave quarters, it was a virtual palace, but still...
He reluctantly tried to push the thought aside. Of course one could find furniture almost anywhere, even wooden chairs. Indeed, in the small anti-chamber that served as the bedroom, Padmé had managed to bring a pair from Naboo but they seemed to serve more as a reminder of her duty as a Senator as apposed to her home world. It seemed that other than a couple of very small tokens of endearment that they had given each other, their 'home' was still just a place like any other. They had their 'Secret Place' which had served as their safe house on those rare occasions when they could be together but again; it was just a 'place'. Everywhere was just a place, what he wanted was a home.
Again his mind drifted back to the Rocker Chair, it seemed to sum up so many feelings, all good and warm. He suddenly had a vision of Padmé, sitting and rocking back and forth with (the first) of their children in her arms. His heart ached at the thought, what a lovely gift that would make. She had given him a family of his own, he could give her...
(How are you going to get it Skywalker? Not only are possessions forbidden, but Credits and Jedi Padawans seem to be mutually exclusive and I really don't see Master Kenobi opening his pocket book for such a thing...) Anakin grimaced. No, that wouldn't work...
(Think Skywalker...)
Unless...
(Droid parts)
It might work...
(The parts dumps, he'd visited as a teenager sneaking away from the Jedi Temple)
Trade for the wood...
(Trade small working droids in the markets of lower Coruscant)
He could build it himself...
(Padmé said he needed something else to do to keep himself occupied)
It could work...
"Padmé...?" he whispered softly and she sighed in response. "I'll make us something to eat OK?"
She rolled over, still fast asleep, and he kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
"Angel..." he said quietly, and slowly made his way out of the bed and into the kitchenette.
"Tomorrow," he thought to himself. He would start putting this idea into action then. For now, it was time to feed his wife and child...