Episode III: Attack of the Clones

Chapter 4: Twisting of the Jedi Code

Upon arriving in the mess hall, Anakin and Padme got in line and received the food that was being served: Nutmeat soup, crackers, and a cup of steamed water.

"This is peasant food," she complained as soon as they seated themselves at a vacant table.

"Well it's better than nothing, I suppose," Anakin said, trying to make heart of the situation and dipped his spoon into the soup. As soon as the spoon reached his lips, however, he dropped it with a yelp and spit out the soup he'd had in his mouth.

"God, that's hot!" he exclaimed.

Padme merely laughed. "You know most people usually blow on hot soup or food before they eat it."

"True, true." He did this before eating his next spoonful of soup.

After two more spoonfuls, though, he gave the bowl's contents a strange look. "Is it just me, or does this soup taste like," he screwed up his face, "blah. Plain hot water mixed with plain nutmeat. No seasonings at all."

"Yeah, and they don't even have any seasonings up there," she agreed. "At least the crackers have seasoning."

"Yeah, I forgot about that."

Opening the cracker packets they had, Anakin broke his over his soup while Padme popped one into her mouth. As soon as she began to chew, however, she spit it out.

"These crackers are stale!"

"Stale?!" Anakin looked horrified as he gazed down at the insides of his soup bowl. It was filled entirely with crackers. Giving the bowl and its contents a look of disgust, he pushed it away from himself and said, "I'm going to get myself another. You want anything?"

"You can throw these crackers in the garbage," she replied, thrusting the packet into his hands. "But besides that no, I don't want anything."

"Right, well I'll be back. R2 can protect you while I'm gone," he quipped.

She laughed and R2 beeped his approval. As Anakin proceeded towards the counter, and Padme patted the little droid on its dome before turning back to her meal.

Her Jedi companion arrived back a few minutes later. "Well they have salt up there..." he began.

"Excellent," she said getting up. "I want some."

She then sat back down and gave Anakin a playful glare, crossing her arms. "You go up and get me some!" Her tone as playful as her glare.

"Well all right," he said getting up. "The only thing is there were maggots crawling around in the salt bowl, but if you're sure you want some…"

"That's disgusting! You're making this trash up, aren't you?"

"Go up there and see for yourself if you don't believe me. Besides, would I lie to you?"

"Hmm," she studied him a moment. "No, I suppose not."

She had stopped eating and looked into her soup bowl, as if looking for a maggot. When she found none, she looked back up. "This whole place is disgusting."

Anakin nodded and took a sip of his water, only to spit it back out with a yelp. "There's dirt in my water!"

Padme picked up her own cup and saw dirt in hers as well. She proceeded to dump it onto a nearby table. "This whole place is sick. I can't wait to get off."

"Yeah, me too."

They then went back to their eating.

"R2, go up and get me a napkin," she playfully commanded at the droid a few minutes later.

It chirped an affirmative before going. Anakin then pushed his bowl of soup away from him on the table. "I can't eat anymore of this crap."

But before she could say anything in reply, they both heard a commotion up at the counter where the food was being served. The droid that was serving the 'sick food' was shouting at R2. "Hey you! No droids! Get out of here!"

R2 gave a few mean and cruel beeps before coming back over to the chuckling Anakin and Padme. The droid handed his mistress her napkin with one of its extended little arms.

"Thank you R2."

"Beep bop."

Wiping her mouth with it, she brought her attention back to Anakin. He was staring at her again with that same look of longing from before. She grimaced before deciding to change the subject to the matter of the Jedi.

"It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi. Not being able to visit the places you like, or do the things you like…"

"Or be with the people I love," he abruptly added.

Padme was a little taken aback by this, but tried not to show it. "Are you allowed to love? I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi."

Once again, Anakin smiled one of his signature cocky grins before answering. "Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life." He smirked. "So you might say we are encouraged to love."

Leave it to Anakin to go twist up the Jedi Code. But she thought his twisting of the code was quite humorous actually. She gave a slight smirk. "You've changed so much Anakin."

"And you haven't changed a bit. You're exactly the way I remember you in my dreams."

"Dreams, huh?" she asked. "You actually dreamed about me?"

Anakin nodded. "All the time."

She whistled. "Wow! Talk about a serious crush. Most people just forget their first crushes after a while and move on."

Anakin gave a sly smile. "Well, I wouldn't say I fall into the whole 'most people' category."

Padme smirked lightly and began idly twirling her soup around with her spoon.

The rest of the meal was uneventful to say the least. Upon finishing, they returned to their room and seated themselves on the bed, still conversing in disgust about the distasteful food.

"That soup was just plain nasty," Padme said. "I prefer the soups of elegance they serve at Biscuit Baron. I know the CEO of the restaurant chain so every time I go into any of their franchises I simply request whatever flavor I want of that or any kind of food and they give it to me."

"That much be nice," Anakin commented. "Did that come in part with the sponsorship they did with you during your Senatorial election?"

"In a way I suppose, but I'd known the CEO long before that. Met him at a charity event."

A moment of silence went by before Padme asked Anakin what exactly it was that happened after Obi-Wan went crashing out her bedroom window and he went running out of her room. The Jedi apprentice happily obliged and began to explain.

"I went down to the parking lot, and for a while couldn't find a speeder I really liked. I had to find something just right, you know, with an open cockpit, and the right speed capabilities. Eventually, I finally found one like that, and sped off into the night in search of Obi-Wan. I searched for him through the Force and finally found him falling in the air through traffic (gasp) so pulled the speeder under him and he got in asking what had taken me so long. Once I told him, naturally, he began reprimanding me about how if I spent as much time practicing my saber techniques as I did my wit I'd rival Master Yoda as a swordsmen."

Padme mentally sneered. Imagine that, a little green freak wielding a lightsaber.

"After that," he continued, "we chased the bounty hunter all around Galactic City."

At her look of confusion, he elaborated, "We'd spotted him while Obi-Wan was reprimanding me."

"Ah."

"Eventually, we lost him, and Obi-Wan, once again, began reprimanding me, saying it was my fault, and that if we'd gone the other way like he'd suggested we'd still be trailing him. Well while Obi-Wan was going on about all that, I was looking down through traffic when I suddenly spotted him. So without giving Obi-Wan another glance, I jumped out of the speeder (gasp), and timed it just right so I'd land safely onto the bounty hunter's speeder."

"Wow, I'm impressed Anakin," Padme appraised and he seemed to puff out his chest with pride before continuing.

"After that, I tried as best I could to get inside the closed cockpit speeder. But all the while the bounty hunter was shooting at me with their blaster. Finally, I got on top of it and used my lightsaber to cut through the glass roof. Once this was done, I grabbed her hand and made her fire at the speeder's control stick. The speeder went out of control. I jumped off before it crashed landed on the ground. By now, mind you, we were in the underbelly of Galactic City, where all the clubs and such are. I gave chase after she got out of the wrecked speeder, pushing random bystanders out of the way in the process so I wouldn't lose her. I saw her run into a club, and was about to follow her in when Obi-Wan stopped me by calling by name. I turned and saw him running towards me. I told him she'd gone into the club, and do you know what he had the nerve to tell me?"

Padme shook her head.

"'Patience Anakin. Use the Force. Think.'" He said this in a mocking voice which Padme assumed was supposed to sound like Obi-Wan's.

"He then told me she'd gone in there to hide, not to run. And then-" Anakin abruptly stopped himself, and cleared his throat before continuing. "And thrn we went into the club and-"

"Obi-Wan said something else, didn't he?" she asked with a sly smirk.

"No. No, he didn't say anything else. Now where was I?"

But Padme sensed that Anakin felt uneasy and that he was lying. "You know Anakin, I can always tell when I'm being lied to. Call it a gift of mine. And I know right now that you're lying to me."

Anakin simply looked at her a moment before putting his head down and muttering to the floor, "He gave me back my lightsaber and began to lecture me about how 'this weapon is your life.'"

"He gave you back your lightsaber?" she repeated. "Why? How come you didn't have it with you?"

Again, he addressed the floor. "I dropped it when I was cutting open the bounty hunter's speeder roof."

Padme raised an eyebrow. "And I notice how cleverly you forgot to mention that earlier."

Anakin once again cleared his throat and looked up. "Yes, well, moving on. We went into the club and Obi-Wan told me to go and find her while he had a drink."

"Obi-Wan drinks?!" she asked in mild humor.

Anakin gave an amused smile. "Occasionally." After a brief pause he continued. "Anyway I went around the club looking for her, however, I never found her."

He addressed the floor again. "It turns out Obi-Wan found her first. You see I didn't sense her sneak up behind me. She would've shoot me in the back too had Obi-Wan not sensed her in time and sliced off the arm which was holding the blaster with his lightsaber."

Anakin again faced her. "We took her outside and asked her if she knew who it was she was trying to kill. She said it was a Senator from Naboo. Obi-Wan then asked who had hired her. She said it was just a job. I tried asking her gently who'd hired her. But when she didn't respond, I then demanded for her to tell us now."

Padme smirked.

"She said it was a bounty hunter called- but she was never able to finish because right at that moment she was suddenly shot by a toxic dart from, we're guessing, the bounty hunter that'd hired her. We weren't able to get a good look at him before he flew off with a jetpack, but from what we could tell in the lightened night, he wore silver armor. The dart killed the bounty hunter almost instantly. Before she died, though, she did say she was sorry.

"We returned to your apartment and told Captain Typho of what had happened, and after checking to see you were safe, returned to the temple to have a meeting with the Council scheduled. Early the next morning we gave our report, and it was from there that it was decided you should go in hiding on Naboo. I didn't think you'd want to leave the capital because of your leading of the opposition against the Republic's Grand Army, and voiced this to the Council. It was because of that that Master Windu asked me to go to the Chancellor to speak with you about the matter."

"Hmm." Padme thought over all the information Anakin had just told her. "Well I still don't like the idea of hiding, but I suppose it's for the best."

He nodded and she smiled. "Thank you for telling me that Anakin. Maybe you can tell me another one of your Jedi adventures sometime."

"Sure I'd love too," he started.

"But not now," she added, for it looked like Anakin was about to launch into another tale, right then and there.

Shrugging, he admitted a tired yawn, and Padme sensed that he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

"You should get some rest," she suggested. "You had a busy night last night."

"I'm not tired," he protested.

"Really? Remember Anakin, I know when I'm being lied to."

Anakin gave out a loud sigh. "Well, maybe a little."

She raised an eyebrow and he sighed again. "Maybe a lot."

"Go on. Get some rest." She gestured towards the bed.

"You don't mind?" he asked uncertainly.

"Of course not. Go on."

Anakin climbed onto the bed and after a few minutes she heard him begin to snore, letting her know he was asleep.