Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Obi-Wan's first warning, as he tried futilely to get the dorsal turret working again, was Anakin's curse, spat at the viewscreen in lurid Huttese.
Obi-Wan squinted, did a double-take, jabbed at the dorsal controls as Anakin jinked the ship wildly on its two-meter lead. "What does she think she's doing?"
"Buying us time?" Anakin gritted. "Master, I can't -"
"I know." And he did. He knew that it was impossible for them to last the minutes it would take to complete a refuel while they were under fire; the hull was barely spaceworthy now. But he couldn't think of any way - watching Ryn sail gracefully through the air and fire that perfect stream of shots - to account for the third pilot without a functioning dorsal turret.
He seized Ryn with the Force by reflex, because he never let anyone die unless he had to.
The third pilot, apparently, was sufficiently startled by the sight of a girl hanging suspended in mid-air - probably not a common sight on any planet large enough to hold an atmosphere - that he actually swerved his course to take a closer look. Pirates were notorious for their lack of discipline, and also he had to know they were out of guns.
Except for Ryn.
In swerving, he made a critical mistake. He turned his cockpit temporarily dead-on to face Ryn.
Her blaster bolts splashed against the transparisteel directly before his face; Obi-Wan doubted whether the pilot himself had been hurt, at that range and angle, but he must certainly have been distracted.
His fighter crumpled as it hit the ground, perhaps the only instance in history of a single girl taking out three starfighters with two blasters.
Obi-Wan wrapped the Force around Ryn like a blanket and drew her down to rest on the cockpit canopy.
She looked ghastly, white-faced under scalded skin and spattered with blood, gouged with vibroknife wounds, but she gave him a shaky smile and a thumbs-up anyway.
Anakin yelled at her through the transparisteel. "What were you thinking? You could have been killed! Idiot!"
Ryn's smile dimmed; the brief lightness that had sweetened her tight face vanished. She shook her head at him without making eye contact and backflipped to the ground, a perfect execution of Form IV.
Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Anakin made a futile attempt to avoid his master's disappointed eyes. "You look as though I had hit a puppy."
"No," Obi-Wan said. "Ryn is a sentient being. Does that make it better?"
Anakin clung to the puppy argument as a diversionary tactic, to keep him from himself. "Puppies are helpless."
"And Ryn is not helpless, when it comes to you?"
Anakin, startled, jerked his eyes to his master's face; but he found nothing there that could help him, no trace of unruly feeling. He shifted again. "I didn't ask her to be."
"Perhaps not. But you have the power to hurt her, just the same."
Anakin flinched from that thought; it had been proven true in too many ways lately. "Well, she was being idiotic," he said instead. "She could have been killed!"
"Yes," Obi-Wan said. "She did a brave and reckless thing. She acted impulsively, to save others, without a thought for herself." He gave his Padawan a pointed look. "How fortunate that I do not know anyone else like that."
Anakin was too distressed - and, yes, resentful - to take the implied compliment. "Master," he began miserably, "you know that stunt was crazy ..."
"Yes, it was," Obi-Wan said, uncompromising. "But she would not be Ryn if she had not done it."
Anakin slumped, giving in. "I know, Master."
"And?"
"And I want her to be herself," Anakin said. "But I want her to be herself for a long time."
"Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice was unexpectedly gentle. "This is the danger of attachment. You are afraid of losing Ryn, and that fear leads you to anger. And in that anger, you have hurt your friend. This is why a Jedi must train himself not to harbor attachments." He laid a hand on Anakin's knee. "It is not easy, but it is wise."
Anakin opened his mouth, fumbling his way toward an answer.
He was interrupted by Makesh, who appeared suddenly. "We have the fuel," he said. "Evinne is concluding the sale."
"Ryn?" Anakin asked quickly.
"On lookout."
There did not seem to be anything to say, but Obi-Wan surprised him.
"Go," his master said.
"Ryn?" She turned her head just enough to acknowledge him with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sorry for what I said, before." She turned back to her survey of the surrounding area. "I didn't mean it."
"'S all right."
"I was afraid, and - would you just look at me, when I'm talking to you?"
"Not while I'm on lookout." Ryn shot him one quick glance. "I'm listening."
Right. Okay. "I was afraid," Anakin began again, "and I let that fear make me angry."
"Fear leads to anger," Ryn said. "I remember."
He was never going to get a better chance than this. "Yeah," he said slowly, feeling his way. "Or sometimes it just leads to stupidity."
Ryn said, "Huh?"
Which was fair, because at this rate the only diplomacy he'd ever master would be the kind that involved a lightsaber.
"Look," Anakin said, desperately, "I keep trying to apologize, and somehow I'm just making it worse. But I'm going to try one more time, because I can't - I can't just leave it like this. That morning, in your bedroom -"
"Anakin, stop." It wasn't so much the words as the tone that brought him up short. "You have nothing to apologize for." Ryn dragged in a rough breath. "But even if you did, you already said you were sorry, before we ever left Coruscant." She took her eyes off the perimeter long enough to send him a quick, wry grin. "Remember?"
"Yeah." Actually, his enduring memory of that conversation had more to do with what she hadn't been wearing at the time. "But I know you're still upset. I can feel it."
"I'm not upset, I'm guilty," Ryn said. "That's not your fault."
"Yeah," Anakin said. "Except it is. Ryn, what could you possibly have to feel guilty about?"
"You don't think sexually molesting your best friend is enough to give a decent person nightmares for years?" Ryn dropped her face into her hands and laughed harshly. "Of course, that assumes that I am a decent person, which at this point ..."
Oh. Oh.
The shift in perspective left Anakin dizzy and disoriented. Sick with Ryn's pain.
He grabbed her by the arm and turned her to face him, but she kept her head down, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Ryn, please. Listen to me. It wasn't like that at all. How could you think it was?"
"Well ... you did run away. Literally." Ryn swallowed convulsively. "And ... you were afraid. I could feel it."
Of course you could. Anakin closed his eyes. "Ryn, I wasn't afraid of you. I was afraid of myself. Of what I might do if I stayed." He tore himself away from the memory of Ryn's hot eagerness, the way she'd gasped and clutched him tighter, the temptation to forget everything else and just bury himself in her. "I didn't want to hurt you."
Her silence made him open his eyes. Her own were huge and uncertain in the dusk. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "What was it that you were afraid of doing?"
Anakin looked around, everywhere but at her. "Can't you just accept that I was afraid?"
"Okay," Ryn said, undemanding as ever, and turned back to her survey of the terrain.
Letting it go.
Letting him go.
And Anakin found himself suddenly sick with the realization that nothing Ryn could ever say to him would be as bad as knowing that she had given up on him.
This is Anakin Skywalker, right now:
He is terrified. The fear of losing the one person in the universe who still tries, at least, to understand him - the only person in the galaxy who still believes in him, no matter what - is like a knife in his throat, and he can't breathe. It is worse than all the nameless things he hasn't let himself remember in the years since he and Mom were sold to Watto and his mother cried because it was such a relief ...
He reaches out, grabs Ryn by the shoulders and turns her back to face him. He sees the quick flash of anger in her green eyes, but he can't let go. Not yet.
The words spill out so fast he nearly chokes on them.
"It's not fair!"
"Not fair?" Ryn spits, her voice suddenly low and dangerous, shaking his hand loose, and the menace, the sheer power, behind it, is so unlike the Ryn he knows that Anakin is stunned, half-afraid he's lost her already. "Since when is life fair?"
Her bitterness leaves him bewildered. He hangs on anyway, because it is desperately important for him to make her understand. "It isn't," he gasps. "But I want to be. Fair. To you."
Ryn stares. "Is this a joke?"
"No! Ryn, I -" This is the problem with words, and he knows he's doing it all wrong: even the best words are only distractions, not even proper reflections of the real things, and he can't reach inside her any more and just make her see, and at best he can only give her a slivered and dilute residue of his feelings.
He tries anyway. "You'd be taking all the risks. I couldn't take care of you, if - if something happened." He takes her by the hands, willing her to understand that he can't be the one who asks her to risk bloody, screaming pain and a new life to care for just so he can get his rocks off. There's no family there, nowhere for them to run, and that's not love.
He can't.
It takes Ryn a minute to get there, but she isn't stupid and even without their bond she knows him.
"You're afraid of getting me pregnant."
She didn't seem to find it as difficult to say that out loud as he did, and why was it that Ryn could always find the courage to say things when Anakin couldn't even figure out where to start?
"Yeah," he says, now that it's out there anyway. "Among ... other things. Love should be something you do together, not something you do to each other. Ryn, we're not ready. Either of us. Can't you feel it?"
She tenses, and he knows he's hurt her all over again, in spite of everything. But then she sighs, a tightly controlled exhale of resignation.
"Yeah. I do." She looks down at their joined hands. "I mean, it's basically the reason we had to sever the bond. Two broke people can't make a whole." She squeezes his hands and gently disentangles her fingers. "Losing ourselves in each other was the easy way out. This is harder, but ... right."
She's right on all counts, and he hates it. "So where does that leave us?"
"Right now? On Garis Orbai." She half-laughs at his grimace, and the sound is wry but there's some relief in it, too. "I don't know. I think we just try to land on our feet."
Easier said than done. Anakin takes a deep breath, about to tell her yes, okay, whatever you want, just don't leave me, but then Evinne comes out of the dingy little payment center (now liberally decorated with the burn-rings of blaster fire) and the moment is broken.
Somehow, when he climbs up to the hatch and turns to help Ryn in and finds her already reaching for him - because she never expected him to do anything else - it's almost okay.