POV: Ahsoka Tano

Luminara dismissed us from her quarters about twenty five minutes later due to the fact that she and Barriss had a mission they were scheduled to depart for. Anakin and I stepped out of the room and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I think that went quite well."

I rolled my eyes and walked away from him, heading back to our dorm. "Are you seriously going to ignore me?"

"You're an idiot."

"Oh? So now I'm the idiot? You cut yourself for two years before I found you!"

"Do you really want to do this right now, Master?"

"Let's go."

I spun around and charged him, knocking him into the wall. He retaliated and slammed me to the floor with his mechanical fingers around my neck. "How much of a chance do you think you actually stand against me, Ahsoka?"

I gasped as my air supply began to fade. He pulled his hand away and I threw my legs out, kicking him where he'd been wounded. He cried out in agony, clutching his side before he collapsed onto the floor. "I'm just getting started," I replied, pushing myself off of the floor.

I heard a growl building up inside of him and then he jumped at me. I heard the wall crack a bit behind my head as he slammed me once again. He grabbed my wrists and held them up against the wall. His mechanical fingers were beginning to crush my wrist and he must have known that because he just kept going.

"Show me what you've got," he challenged. He pulled my arm forward with his mechanical hand and shoved his flesh one into my stomach.

Tears built up in my eyes as I fell to the floor. My hand landed on his boot.

"Get up and fight me. I know you want to."

I wound my fingers around his ankle and built up all the Force energy within myself. I pulled his ankle forward and he crashed down onto his back. I threw him against the wall and got up.

I started running as he attempted to push himself up. My boots connected with his shoulders as I bounced back off of him. "Damn it!" he screamed. He got up and pulled his hands back to his chest quickly before throwing them at me.

I flew back several doorways until I crashed against the wall at the very end of the hall. I slid down the wall and hit the floor.

He charged down the hall, stopping a few feet in front of me. "Master, please, stop…" I whispered, barely able to lift my head. My body was aching. I didn't understand why he was acting like this or why he was putting so much force into his actions.

"Why? You seem to be enjoying yourself."

"I don't want to fight you."

"You didn't think that way during the conversation with Luminara. All you wanted to do was fight me."

"Not like this, Anakin. I don't want to hurt you and I don't want you to hurt me. Can we just stop? Everything hurts…" I said, my voice pleading with him. I pushed myself up onto my knees and rubbed my left shoulder.

He turned on his heel and began to walk away from me. "Aren't you going to talk to me?"

"You were the one ignoring me," he said angrily over his shoulder. "I was trying to talk to you during the conversation with Luminara, but you shut me out! How else am I supposed to get your attention? The first thing I wanted to do was beat the hell out of you because you wouldn't let me explain myself to you, but no. You thought 'he's such a kriffing bastard' and didn't allow me the chance to tell you that I was sorry."

"Are you sorry?" I spat at him.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you! I'm sorry for being such a terrible person! I'm sorry that we can't accept each other!" He paused and whispered, "All I'm good for is frakking you. Other than those moments, I can't make you happy."

I hated the transition from his angry look to his sad look. His eyes were too beautiful to hold such an immense amount of these emotions.

"Anakin, you're good for a lot of things."

He pulled his hair for a moment before coming over to me. He helped me up and held me against his side. "That's a lie and I'm still resigning as your Master regardless."

"We're better than this," I whispered. "I love you with all of my heart, Anakin. You gave me another chance and then you gave up on me. "

"I gave up on myself, Ahsoka. Once I give up on me, it's pretty much over."

"Then try again."

"Try what?"

"To believe in yourself and in me."

I started to walk with his help and I almost fell over. He caught me and balanced me beside him. "I'll help you back to your dorm."

"My dorm? Anakin, it's our dorm."

"I'm not going to be sleeping in it for a while."

I sighed and cleared my thoughts. He relaxed beside me until we got to the dorm. I pulled him inside and pressed his back against the door. I grabbed his hands and held them by his face, intertwining our fingers.

"No more fighting tonight. What we need is some downtime. You need to lie down and relax. Go to sleep, Anakin."

His lips trembled and his eyes dulled. "Ahsoka –"

"I'm not going to listen to a word you say unless you lie down and hold me."

I slowly pulled my hands away from his, giving him his moment to decide. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arm around my waist. He led me to his bed and lay down on his side. He cringed a bit, but decided he didn't care about the pain.

He patted the space beside him, wanting me to lay there. I slid onto the bed and cuddled with him. He slid his arm beneath me and pulled me closer. His mechanical fingers rubbed my back.

A single tear trailed down the left side of his face, falling onto his nose. "Say anything you want to," I whispered.

He closed his eyes and more tears formed. "I'm so sorry," he said painfully. "For everything."

With my right hand, I stroked his hair and his face. "I can see past the problems. I can see that you're still a sweetheart," I whispered. I leaned forward and kissed his jaw. "I don't care about what we've done in the past. I want us to move forward together."

"How can you put up with me?" he whispered.

"Because I love you," I said, laughing lightly. His eyes opened and he raised his left hand to grab my hand that was still on his face. "If I didn't love you, I wouldn't go through this with you. I want to help you out of the darkness. I want you to come back into the light and be happy."

"Every time you tell me that you love me, I feel happy," he whispered, smiling weakly.

"You can't leave."

"No, I can't…" he sighed. He closed his eyes and scooted closer to me. I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck.

"I love you, Anakin."

He wrapped his arms around me tightly. "I love you."

The next morning.

I woke up to loud crashing noise. I opened my eyes to the darkness and saw a light shining out from the refresher. I got off of the bed and knocked on the door. "Anakin?"

"Come in," he whispered, his voice strained. The door slid open and he was holding himself over the sink with his mechanical hand on his wound.

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly.

"It hurts."

"Anakin, come with me to the medbay."

"Can you just help me sit down really quick?"

He leaned back and I put my arm around him, placing my left hand on his chest. I helped him lower himself to the floor and stared at his face.

I stood up and grabbed a rag, soaking it with cool water. I knelt down beside him and dabbed at his face, wiping the sweat away. "The pain isn't all that's got you in here."

He leaned his head back against the cupboard beneath the sink. "I wanted to take a shower," he whispered. "I tried to unwrap my wrist and once I did, I felt really sick. I didn't want to look at it and I ended up knocking a bunch of stuff down. I don't even know where the hell most of this stuff came from."

I glanced around at the things he'd knocked over. It was mostly the kits I used to clean my cuts or wounds and such. "I could help you clean up your wrist if you want me to."

I gently took his left hand in my right one. It did look really bad…

"You don't have to," he sighed.

"Get up. Let's take a shower."

He stared at me, his eyes widened a little. "Just a shower," I said. "That's all I want."

We got up and undressed ourselves. I turned the water on and let it heat up a little before I got in. He came in after me and held me against his chest. "I'm still sorry."

"Don't be anymore. We're starting over. Everything's going to work out better."

He lifted his mechanical hand to my montrals and I flinched. "Ow…"

"You've got a few bruises forming…"

"Don't upset yourself."

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the center of my montrals. "I'm done hurting you. Do you think this… starting over thing will work for us?"

"I think it will if we make it work. Anakin, the bruises will go away in a few days. It's nothing I'm –" I stopped once I realized that I was going to say something that would hurt him in the end. "Never mind…"

He sighed and kissed my forehead. "This time I want to love you the right way. I don't want to emotionally or physically hurt you."

"Just be yourself and that's all it'll take. Anakin, our love won't always be wonderful and amazing. We're going to have those days where we just want to kill each other, but we need to pull through and realize that we love each other more than that. We can make it through this if we trust each other and ourselves."

"I had a nightmare," he whispered while rubbing my rear lek.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Maybe in a little bit, if that's okay with you…"

"Of course," I laughed.

"Right now, I just want to shower with you and enjoy your presence. It's not every day that I'm given this opportunity."

He pulled back to smile at me. I smiled up at him and ran my fingers through his hair. He kissed me every now and then, especially during his turn to wash me. He kissed my left leg, licking one of the white markings that ran across it.

After about thirty minutes, we stepped out of the shower. He handed me a towel and I wrapped it around myself as he wrapped his around his waist. "Ahsoka, you're beautiful on the inside and the outside…"

I smiled as he lightly put his hands on my face and lifted my lips for another kiss. "So are you, Ani."

He pulled back and stared at me. "What?" I asked quickly.

"Why did you call me Ani?"

"It was just the first thing that came to mind when I thought about shortening your name. I wasn't sure if that would work for you. You always call me Ahsoka, so I thought that maybe I should just stick with Anakin, but I wanted to see what you thought…"

"My mother used to call me that…"

"If it hurts you, I won't –"

"No," he laughed. "I love it. I love you. I love you, Soka."

I smiled and stepped forward to hug him. His strong arms wrapped around me tightly and I felt his love. The feeling was extremely strong and I was happy. He was happy.