The metallic tinge of burnt ozone stung Anakin's throat as he slumped down on a supply crate, the telltale smell slithering through him like a sickly-sweet whisper. It was supposed to be droids. A remote forest-moon, an isolated listening post.
It should have been droids.
He rubbed his face, ignoring the fiery sting in his forearm as the skin stretched and pulled. The painful reminder of his split-second of hesitation when the door had opened, and rather than the cold eyes of a battle droid, the fear-filled gaze of a human face had greeted him.
The flash of a blaster-barrel had followed.
He had killed living beings before. Once. The sound of their screams echoing across the desert was why he preferred stims rather than sleep. Wired, but tunnel-visioned.
Maybe if he slept more often, had a clearer head, he could have deduced this outpost wasn't run by droids. That there would be more screams. More reasons to dread the silence of the night cycle.
He dropped his head into his hand, and roughed his fingers through his sweat-matted locks.
"Looks like it's almost time to trim it again." A quiet voice floated through the fog of after-battle.
He didn't have the energy to change his expression into anything more than a blood-shot stare as he looked up.
Barriss held steady in the haze, violet eyes piercing impossibly gently from beneath a shroud of onyx. Impossibly bright. Impossible to look at.
He stared at her a moment longer. And then he couldn't anymore. One of the advantages of tunnel-vision—it made it easy to not see someone if you didn't want to.
"Your arm is burned."
A brief lance of pain flared as if responding to her voice, and he flexed his fingers before relaxing them again. "It's nothing."
And it was nothing. Pleasant, even. A stinging anchor against the black swirling at the edges of his mind.
Onyx fabric swished at the edge of his vision, and Barriss slowly closed the distance between them. Her footsteps were probably making sound, but he didn't hear them.
Diamond-inked hands gently took his arm, and eased the fire-curled threads of his sleeve away from the wound.
He kept his gaze on the ground.
With one hand, she cradled his forearm from beneath, warmth settling where her skin touched his. Her other hand covered the wound. Slowly, the lances of pain grew softer and softer, and finally extinguished altogether.
He didn't know how long the process had taken.
"I've never seen you move so quickly in my life, you know."
He blinked out of the stupor the lack of pain had allowed him to fall into, and he forced himself to meet her eyes again. "What?"
She cast her violet gaze across the remains of battle around them, looking sadly but significantly at the golden-charred slashes and punctures that removed any doubt what type of weapon had inflicted the blows. "Each man here was felled by the stroke of a saber. Yet I can't remember landing a single blow the entire battle. Just the swirl of your blade always a step ahead of mine."
A short silence settled into the space she left for him to respond, and when he didn't, she turned back to him, her eyes unreadable. "If I didn't know better, I might think you hadn't wanted me to land any."
The old hollow inside him began aching as he stared back at her, and before long, the gentle pierce of violet became too much again.
He looked down at his forearm, and smoothed his hand over the healed skin, only slightly pink where the worst of the burn was. "You find peace in the silence, don't you, Barriss?"
He felt more than saw her pause. And the silence before her answer was a long one. "Yes. I suppose I do."
He nodded, not looking away from the freshly-knit wound. "Good." With a final brush of his palm over raw skin, he pushed himself to his feet and started toward the transport.
"Anakin."
Everything in him wanted to just keep walking. To run. To disappear. But nothing had been what he wanted today, and he found his steps slowing to a stop without his permission.
He braved her violet once more.
She hadn't moved from where she stood in the haze, but everything else seemed like it had moved far away, leaving the two of them standing alone in a misty void. And this time, he found he couldn't look away.
"I also enjoy sound," she said, and the pierce of her gaze was softer than he remembered. "Especially the sound of a friend's voice. I would welcome the sound of your voice anytime. No matter what you wish to talk about."
He swallowed and shook his head. "Some sounds shouldn't be heard."
She considered that, considered him. But he still couldn't break away from her gaze, no matter how much he wanted to close his eyes and fade away.
"Then maybe," she said finally. "The next time you hear a sound you don't want to, you'll come find me, and we can talk about it."
If only. "It's not a burn, Barriss. You can't heal this with a kind touch and a gentle look."
"Maybe not." She slowly closed the distance, and reached out her hand, the same hand that had covered his burn, and she placed it against the side of his face, that familiar warmth spreading. "That doesn't mean I won't try. If you'll let me."
He hesitated, the warmth more comfortable than he had been in a long time. But ultimately, his fingers wrapped around her hand, and he eased it away from his face until their hands hung latched between them at the waist, fingers laced. "I can't."
The pierce softened further. "Then why are you still holding my hand?"
And he was. She hadn't exactly pulled her hand away, but he hadn't exactly released it, either.
He stared at their entwined digits, and slowly let his fingers slacken until their hands slid apart, hers returning to her side gently, his slapping against his thigh limply. "I'm tired." His mouth was dry and sticky, but he swallowed anyway. "I'm gonna go lie down. Sleep."
He didn't wait for her to respond before he turned and started for the transport again. He needed sleep. The silence didn't matter tonight. The stench of burnt ozone and flesh clinging to him would ensure the screams were going to be keeping him company anyway. What difference did it make if he was awake or not?
"I hear you."
He froze mid-step, the toe of his boot scraping the layer of ash coating the ground like grey snow. Maybe she was talking about something else. Maybe if he didn't respond, she'd give up and it wouldn't matter. It needed to not matter. At least for tonight.
His heart thumped his sternum as the seconds passed. But with each beat, his stomach churned more and more, and he felt the gentle pierce in the back of his head. Watching. Waiting. Silent. Steady.
Blast it...
He gave up a sigh that swirled the haze, and half-turned. "You hear me, huh?" He managed to not make it sound like a question. There was still a chance she meant something else. "And what exactly do you hear?"
Her response was as simple and steadfast as her gaze. "You."
His stomach dropped. "Me." Another non-question.
"At night," she said. "The nights when you reach for a blanket, rather than a needle."
He looked away.
"Your voice is always hoarse the next morning."
"It's nothing."
Another swish of onyx, and violet filled his vision once more. "It's not nothing." She pronounced each word deliberately.
He curled the fingers of one hand and glared at the ash-coated ground, but didn't say say anything. What could he say?
A breath escaped her, and she softened her voice again. "There are sounds I don't want to hear either, Anakin. Let me help you."
"You can't." No one could.
"Then you surrender, do you?"
That got his attention. He snapped his head up with a flash of the eyes, and locked onto hers with more focus than he had felt all day. "What?" Now it was his turn to pronounce a word deliberately.
She held steady under his gaze in that way she had perfected long ago. Nothing aggressive in her presence, but nothing yielding either. "You're so quick to leap into action against enemies you can see... Why are you so quick to do nothing about this?"
"There's nothing that can be done."
"Yes, there is." She stepped closer. "There's something that can be done right now, and you know it. Why are you so afraid? What's so horrible that you can't let anyone see?"
A night-darkened desert stretching before him, the jagged shard of bone in the ink above painting pale rivulets across the dunes. A flash of azure from his saber clenched so tightly in his shaking hands, lighting the shadows as he cut down with all his strength. The first scream.
He blinked hard, and sucked in a mouthful of burnt ozone. No. Not now. Not in front of her. He coughed slightly at the burning in his throat, and ran the back of his hand across his chin. "Like I said, Barriss. I'm tired. I need to go lie down. We can talk later." He spun and took a step, the transport locked in the center of his tunnel-vision.
"Good. Because I'll be waiting right there for you to wake up."
It was like a blaster bolt punching through his gut. His step faltered, and the edges of the tunnel constricted until the transport stood alone in a hazy swirl. "What?"
"You lie down, and you rest, Anakin. And when you wake up screaming, you look me in the eye and tell me once-and-for-all that you don't have something inside you. Something that can't be seen."
A sour twinge sprouted inside him. She didn't understand. She couldn't. She couldn't because he couldn't explain it to her. To anyone. He had gone back to that blasted desert. And he had never truly returned.
Anakin Skywalker had died and was buried right along with his mother beneath those sands. All that remained now was an empty shell. It could walk and talk and feel pain, but he knew the truth.
His soul had left his body the moment his mother's had left hers.
"You're a good healer, Barriss." He sniffed and blinked away the blur, and finally shook his head. "But you can't raise the dead."
"If you're already dead, why are you so afraid?"
"I'm not afraid."
"Prove it."
He looked at her, and she looked right back, that calm strength that could face down armies tempering the pierce of her gaze.
Silence. A strange one. One that didn't have something lurking in it, waiting for him to let his guard down. One that was almost... comforting.
The sort of silence Barriss must experience.
Despite himself, he couldn't stop the faint curl that forced its way onto his lips through his tightened throat. "You really think you can fix this?" He gestured down his body.
"I know with certainty that no one can without your permission." This time, her footstep made a clear sound, and he committed it to memory. "Are you willing to at least try?"
Her voice wasn't pleading, or pitying, or hopeful, or expectant. It was simple. Honest.
It was her.
She stretched an arm toward him.
He stared at her offered hand, and sniffed. If he was already dead, what did he have to lose by trying?
He huffed. "You're really annoying, you know that?"
Her lip tilted faintly, but she didn't pull her hand back.
He sniffed again, and shook his head, roughing his fingers through his hair. "I can't... tell you everything." He spoke slowly.
"You don't have to." She meant it. She left herself open to make sure he knew it. "Only what you're comfortable with."
He nodded, equally slowly, and let his hand fall back to his side, not quite as limply as before.
Her hand still held waiting between them.
He drummed his fingers against his thigh. "Will you walk back to the ship with me?"
She tilted her head just the slightest bit, but nodded gently as she withdrew her unaccepted hand. "I'd like that."
He managed an almost-smile, and began shuffling toward the transport, listening to the fading ash crunch under their steps. And as she fell into step beside him, that strange silence settled between them once more.
A silence he found he didn't mind hearing.
A silence that was quiet.
THE END