A/N: Buckle up, buttercups! This ride is about to get a little bumpy. ;p An alternate chapter title could easily have been Anakin Skywalker and the No Good, Very Bad Day. You've been warned... tissues optional.
Reviews always appreciated! *zips off to work through the final edits on Chapter 6*
Chapter 5
ANAKIN SKYWALKER
Anakin had only thought the clone medic's debridement on the gunship had been painful. But when Padawan Reesa walks in, a tray of foreboding surgical instruments in hand, and murmurs a forewarning apology for "any unintended discomfort" before beginning a much more thorough cleaning of his saber wound, Anakin realizes just how mistaken he had been. He'd gladly relive that hellish experience on the gunship over this.
Twice Padawan Reesa pauses her peeling and poking to ask if he would like a sedative, blocker, or regional anesthesia to alleviate his said discomfort. Shaking his head, Anakin closes his eyes, setting his jaw stubbornly in preparation for more torture. He knows exactly what pain relief he wants – no, needs – and it's not of the medicinal or chemical persuasion. Though he would much rather sink himself into her comforting embrace, Anakin sinks himself further into the Force, reaching for Padmé's singular, soothing presence. Her by-now all too familiar ultraviolet signature envelops him immediately, as if she really had been waiting for him with open arms.
Padmé's anodyne effect, while potent, still can't entirely numb the unpleasantness of the procedure. Several severe snips pull Anakin close enough back to the surface that he peeks a watchful eye open, trying to gauge whether Padawan Reesa's roughness stems more from legitimate medical necessity or residual animosity at his earlier outburst. Her bulbous eyes are soft and determined, her Force profile focused and steadfastly neutral.
Gritting his teeth, Anakin prepares to dive beneath to solace's still waters when Obi-Wan returns from his promised check in with the Senator from Naboo. It takes everything in Anakin not to sit bolt upright in anticipation of his Master's report, an action that would likely earn him reproachful remarks and disapproving stares along with additional agony.
For a moment, Anakin thinks he may chance it anyway. In the end, he stays put, watching Obi-Wan's approach with blatant expectation plastered all over his face.
Wearily, Obi-Wan meets his stare.
"She's doing just fine, Anakin," he says with a resigned sigh.
Tremendous tension uncoils itself finally allowing Anakin to breathe a little easier. Obi-Wan doesn't comment on the visible relief rippling through his apprentice. His blue eyes focus on Padawan Reesa as she continues to trim burned tissue and battered skin. A staccato dripping provides an ominous percussion rhythm to the metal melody of snipping scissors and scraping blades. Anakin starts to consider the source, sees Obi-Wan's face turn ashen gray as his eyes track something to the floor, and decides against further contemplation, forcing his gaze back up towards the ceiling. Thankfully, his Master chooses to elaborate on his excursion, a distraction they both sorely need.
"In fact, she seems quite back to her usual fire and brimstone. She was none too thrilled with something she and her captain were discussing when I stopped by."
A knowing smirk sneaks its way across Anakin's face before he manages to contain its fullness. Padmé was, first and foremost, always the consummate professional. Her fierce loyalty to her staff was eclipsed only by her unwavering dedication to serving her constituents, and even then, marginally at that. But the relaxed environs of Varykino aided by his interest and charm had coaxed a few interesting anecdotes out of the normally reserved Senator; she had let slip how she wished Captain Typho's commitment to her security aligned more with her less rigorous opinion from time to time. Anakin hadn't been able to resist pointing out the ironic observation that Captain Typho, on occasion, likely entertained that same want regarding Padmé's own reckless penchant for professional perseverance in the face of all else. Though she had hummed a noncommittal acknowledgement in response, her eyes had weighed him, intrigued perhaps a bit longer than required by polite conversation.
"That sounds like Padmé," he murmurs, the smirk returning. Her silhouette shines energetically, the shimmering spectrum of blue and purple mesmerizing in its always shifting dance. He wishes he could see her in person – for oh so many reasons – yet if only to know what emotions to assign to the specific hues. While he successfully categorized quite a few of her colors, there were still several hundred shades more he had yet to learn. And Anakin was determined to learn them all.
"Indeed," Obi-Wan agrees. Something in his tone causes Anakin to search the bearded face. Whatever he detected in the single word is hidden behind a stoicism afforded by the epitome of a Jedi Knight. The smirk falters into a scowl.
As Padawan Reesa digs and scrapes away, a particularly jolting spasm rockets through him without mercy. Flinching violently in the aftershocks, Anakin doesn't need to see the sudden concern emerge on Obi-Wan's face to know it's there. He practically dives past his Master's rising distress on his way back under to hide from his own.
"I'm sorry, Anakin," the Mon Cal says sympathetically, "but I can't let you put yourself into a trance just yet." Patting a final bandage into place, she strips the gloves from her webbed hands. "I'm all finished here, and we need to get you into the bacta tank. Can you sit up?"
Begrudgingly, Anakin resurfaces to reality, bending forward to comply with Reesa's request. Pain starts a portentous pounding in the back of his skull. He mentally wraps his hold on Padmé's ethereal presence as tightly as he can manage while staying conscious. Even as his grasp tautens desperately, the edges of her specter flicker, the support he needs wavering elusively just out of reach. Somehow, despite all odds, Anakin manages to swing his legs over the edge of the mattress and slides to a precarious swaying stand. The effort he expends to keep himself upright draws his energy reserves down considerably.
Wordlessly, Obi-Wan moves closer to assist.
Warningly, Anakin shakes him off.
The walk to the bacta tanks is only several meters down the hall from his room, though for the speed Anakin can afford makes the distance into parsecs. With an undercurrent of agitation that belies her outwardly patient appearance, Master Che waits for them at the designated bath. As their trio slowly approaches, she immediately launches into what Anakin presumes is a detailed explanation of his medical orders and future treatment plan.
He hears none of it.
The dull roaring between his ears suddenly rages into an obliterating cacophony, ricocheting around his skull so loudly it renders Anakin completely deaf to his surroundings. He almost misses the warning tingle the Force whispers along the back of his neck just before all hell breaks loose.
Almost.
His palliative pool evaporating without a trace, Anakin knows the instant Padmé leaves the Temple. On pure reflexive instinct, he folds in on himself and braces for the oncoming tide, knowing with excruciating certainty his attempt to stay afloat with be pathetically hopeless. Reliant on her and immersed in Padmé with every fiber of his being, he stands no chance against the resulting flood of pain that hits with the incapacitating force of a tsunami.
His tether snaps.
The dam breaks.
He goes down hard.
Unlike Padmé's substantial efforts in the hangar on Geonosis, his fellow Jedi are able stop his fall before his body crashes bonelessly to the floor. Someone calls for Vokara Che, and he thinks he may even hear a Twi'leki curse, but it's hard to make out anything with his whole being ablaze. Wildfire sears along every inch of his skin. Ice bolts vicious shocks through nerves and bone. As if to outrun the carnage coursing through his body, his heart races, but trapped within the confines of his ribcage, it suffocates on invisible smoke. Chest constricting, the agonizing onslaught makes breathing an impossible feat, and the only thing he knows is that absolutely everything hurts.
"Blockers…" Anakin chokes out. "Blockers!" He gulps and wheezes from lack of air, begging just one more desperate word to exist. "Please."
"Yes, Anakin. We're getting them," he hears Obi-Wan say, a placating hand resting on his shaking shoulder. "Hang on."
Vision blurring, his mind begs for him to focus, his eyes flicking every which way, seeking anything or anyone to land on. From this angle – Anakin can't be certain where he is laying, he just knows that he is – the lights glare brightly over him, obliterating his foggy gaze.
Someone screams repeatedly at the top of their lungs. It takes him several minutes to realize it's him.
"Please hurry."
Anakin thinks Obi-Wan says the words aloud, though his fritzing mind might be manifesting delirious commands just for the sake of appeasing agony's insatiable demands.
The catheter in his only arm bites angrily into his skin. Anakin huffs at its pathetic attempt to add to his pain, then welcoming warmth rushes from the crook of his left elbow outward, mapping the highways of his vasculature with salient relief. Within moments, angry, spasming muscles are brought to heel under the sedative's potent, relaxing power. No longer choking for every atom of oxygen, his chest heaves once, gratefully replete with air drawn in by far less strangled effort.
I can breathe.
Another heavy rush of warmth saturates his system, its pierce of deliverance through skin relegated to an unpleasant afterthought.
Another breath flows easily into his taxed lungs. Concurrently exhausted and liberated, his heart surrenders its precipitous pace.
I can breathe!
A muffled voice tries to penetrate the thickening fog in his head. Somebody else must nod in agreement with the phantom speaker because Anakin can't make heads or tails of anything being said above him and he would never just blindly agree to conditions without voicing his own opinion on his own dire situation.
Unless she was the one dictating the terms. Then, he'd blindly agree to pretty much anything.
Even as Jedi toil at the edges of his perception, Anakin wants to laugh at his own private joke, but before his mouth can crook up a smile, the tidal wave of darkness bears down on him.
And then all thought simply vanishes.
It's far too bright.
He squints against a glare that refuses to let up. The stark white is irritatingly unwelcome after so many moments in the quiet dark.
He would like to go back there.
The darkness is kind.
The darkness is safe.
"Come on, Anakin."
He flinches away from the unfamiliar voice. The abrupt movement makes his head pound in protest.
"Stay with us," the voice begs. He thinks he should listen to it.
But it's not her voice.
An alarm begins a long, unending whine. Somebody yells out in panic as the black ether rushes up to greet him. Anakin smiles at his old friend.
"No, no! Anakin!"
It could be the same being pleading with him only a moment before. But Anakin can't bring himself to care. Why would he?
The darkness is safe.
The darkness is kind.
And it's not her voice.
Across the room, the chrono blinks a rather unsavory hour of the morning. Blearily, Anakin stares at the flashing numbers as they record each slowly passing minute, wondering why he feels like he's still dreaming, and if he is dreaming, why he's dreaming of all things about the time.
I'd much rather dream about Padmé.
The look of exasperation Obi-Wan had given him is still funny even now. Despite the serious nature of their assignment and the grave events of that day, Anakin hadn't been able to resist the opportunity to nettle his Master with such an insufferable comment. And wasn't honesty always the best policy, anyway? Plus, it had successfully routed their exchange on the terrace away from yet another unendurable lecture on letting go – of dreams, of the past, of attachments.
Anakin really had tried to discuss the recurring visions with his Master, but the more he brought them up, the quicker Obi-Wan had been to dismiss them. The biggest irony of the whole debacle?
Padmé. The other problematic attachment in Anakin's life.
While Obi-Wan had expounded on the dogmatic views of the Jedi over and over, Padmé – kind, intuitive, beautiful Padmé – overheard one of his worst nightmares and had, immediately and without question, believed him. She had recognized the raw fear in his eyes and off they went to Tatooine. Together. Yet, even with her rapid validation of his angst and unease, they had been too late. His visions were not in fact just dreams that would pass in time, and now Anakin had been made to bear the disastrous result of Obi-Wan's overconfidence and oversight. His mother, permanently so.
On its slow march forward hand in hand with Time, the chrono changes its digits, uncaring of Anakin's shaky exhalations as he waits for rising grief to rip him apart from the inside out. No one is here to ward off his demons this time. Padmé is gone and unable to pull him back from the brink the way she had when the last vestiges of his soul were disintegrating before her on a dusty garage floor. He can sense Obi-Wan somewhere nearby, but his Master is seemingly oblivious to his growing gloom, unaware of or perhaps even unwilling to answer Anakin's mounting distress.
And besides Padmé and Obi-Wan, there's really no one else to reach out to.
His room is empty. Quiet. Even emotion seems to forsake him at this ungodly hour.
Glancing down, Anakin takes stock of his current predicament. Under the sheet tucked about him, his toes and legs still wiggle at his command. Check. Slow to respond, his body is still capable of movement despite the numbness that deadens all sensation. Check. His left fingers twitch to life, rousing themselves enough to obey their order to shift him further up the reclined cot. Check. His right fingers refuse…
Wait a hot Corellian second… I don't have right fingers anymore.
But when he glares down at his side where his right hand and forearm used to be, fully expecting to see empty sheets, Anakin sees the blue canvas and gray straps of a sling and just a hint of golden metal?
Startled, his eyes shoot sideways, searching for the droid that had escaped his slowly returning awareness. Certain that his mind is still grappling with the dregs of anesthesia, Anakin blinks rapidly, as if a fluttering of eyelashes and willpower will summon the inorganic orderly to his bedside and to his field of vision. He must have just happened to look down at the same time the droid had been reaching across him to administer a medication, or adjust a monitor's placement, or maybe verify its patient was still breathing.
It's the only possible explanation.
Except it isn't.
Anakin blinks again.
Gradually, the fog of anesthesia recedes, lifting its numbing powers with it. In its absence, cold prickles over him like a million tiny icicles stinging over exposed skin. He surveys the room, the chrono, the bed, his three limbs now tingling with reawakening sensation and something that feels a lot like dread, before finally letting his eyes settle over his right side once more.
Nausea cartwheeling in his stomach, Anakin steels himself to order the droid-less fingers to move. When they defy his command yet again, he wrenches open the top of the sling to confirm what his mind refuses to believe.
It looks like a human arm…
Except for all the ways that it doesn't.
Molded metal fingers consisting of too many knuckled joints greet a rotary wrist more suitable to a speeder's engine than a human hand. A rainbow of wiring emerges from each golden fingertip to travel crudely across the back of the non-existent palm only to bury themselves under the tubular casing of what amounts to a right forearm. The elbow itself is bandaged heavily, leaving Anakin's imagination up to the task of constructing that joint from his mind's eye. It doesn't conjure a very pretty picture.
What sort of abominable apparatus is this?! He's a man, not a machine!
Disgustedly, Anakin eyes the twisted wires and metal frame that glints up at him. Whatever nonsense this contraption is surely must be incomplete. Even Threepio in his nascent beginnings looked more finished than this!
An incessant beeping sounds over his right shoulder but as Anakin cranes his neck to determine the annoying source, the door to his room slides up with an audible hiss, drawing his attention to the newcomer.
This time, the Jedi that enters the room is a human male, and not Mon Cal. Anakin doesn't know whether to be grateful or wary of that observation just yet. He's too busy studying another unfamiliar face, especially one that seems close to his own age, if maybe just a tad older. Giving away his status as apprentice healer, the orderly twisted braid of dark hair lying over his right shoulder is at odds with the unkempt dark curls atop his head that toe the line for what is considered appropriate length for a Padawan.
As he approaches, he smiles broadly at Anakin, seemingly unaware of the gods-forsaken hour the chrono continues to flash or Anakin's caginess.
"That's better," his fellow Padawan says, reaching up to silence the monitor that had started its betraying whine of Anakin's growing alarm. He turns his friendly mien back to Anakin, his dark eyes cheerily bright along with his demeanor. "I'm sorry you woke up to find yourself all alone. Master Che was certain you would be out for several hours more. How are you feeling?"
At Anakin's silence, Padawan Cheerful seems to remember himself. "Oh, I'm Thalo, by the way," he says. "Thalo Cren."
Even though Thalo conscientiously offers his left hand to shake Anakin's non-injured arm, Anakin doesn't take the proffered greeting. Instead, his distrustful stare narrows further at the revelation of his caretaker's name.
His name was Palo. We were both in the Legislative Youth Program. Very cute. Dark curly hair… Dreamy eyes…
"Are you uncomfortable?" Thalo asks, shifting a bit uncomfortably himself under Anakin's cold glower.
"Not in the way that you might think," Anakin snarks. It's not Thalo Cren's fault that his dark features and rhyming moniker summons a picnic meadow's phantom rival to mind, but Anakin basks in the general unease emanating off him nonetheless. "I can't really feel anything. Or do anything."
Anakin shrugs his right shoulder for effect, his slinged arm only slightly jostled by the demonstration.
Thalo's disquiet disappears despite Anakin thinking what he just said was a most concerning deliverance of information.
"Well, it's good you're not experiencing any, and it's not surprising that you don't have any control over the attachment yet," Thalo explains. His effervescence ripples in the Force with such vengeance that Anakin feels queasy bobbing in its bubbly wake.
"Not surprising?!" Anakin's voice ratchets up in register, his throat scratchy and dry with analgesics and anxiety. "This is my arm we are talking about!" Anakin wishes he could hold it up to illustrate the point further for Padawan Delusional. "Is this thing even complete yet?!"
Thalo doesn't even flinch at Anakin's outburst, which only grinds Anakin's gears to no end. He settles his hand over Anakin's right shoulder, but the touch of Thalo's hand feels oddly distant through the thinness of his hospital tunic, wreaking havoc on Anakin's simmering discomfiture even more. If Thalo senses the wildly flaring agitation of his patient, he doesn't comment on it. With an irritating purveyance of calm, he looks away to check over several other monitors at Anakin's bedside, explaining while he works.
"It seems the Force lightning Count Dooku struck you with left enough residual electricity so as to interfere with the integration of your prosthetic with your own nervous system. We believe that, combined with the regional limb blockers used to assist with painless attachment and the higher level of anesthesia needed by most Jedi surgery patients such as yourself, prohibited a seamless connection from being established."
The glower Anakin had been nurturing fades into a look of perplexed astonishment. Thalo misinterprets the change in expression as a welcome one.
"You also didn't help matters by arresting twice on the table." Thalo smiles conspiratorially and leans closer, cinching sling straps tighter that Anakin hadn't asked him to adjust. "Not to worry, though. We wouldn't let you go that easily, Padawan Skywalker."
Anakin thinks it's the worst joke he's probably ever heard. Unless, of course, they really don't plan to cover this prosthetic with a more natural looking synth-skin… He knew such coverings were possible. Coruscant's surgical facilities often worked in collaboration with the Jedi's Medical Corps, and while he hadn't focused too closely on the number of high-profile and challenging cases that sometimes came through the Temple's doors, he was aware enough to know of them.
Before he can question Padawan Cren further, Master Vokara Che sweeps into the room with her ever-present aplomb. Without prompting, Thalo spouts a bevy of medical stats at her. As she listens attentively, neither her face nor her Force presence reveals anything indicative of her opinion. She is about as apathetic a being Anakin has ever seen.
"Very good," Vokara Che says, with a curt nod. All business, she turns to Anakin, clasping her green hands behind her, and matches Anakin's frown with one of her own. "Your Master should be almost finished with his submersion therapy and I imagine will be checking in on you as soon as he is able. He is aware that we will be attempting your integration again this afternoon. In the meantime, there is little more to do but try to rest."
Anakin knows better than to try to sass her with any sort of witty remark. Vokara Che was not one to indulge in humor, even if her disciples occasionally tried (and failed) to engage in less serious conversation. "Yes, Master," he sighs with just enough dramatic flair as to seem subservient. His stomach offers no such consideration for its audience and growls out a loud protest.
Just barely, Vokara Che's mouth quirks up at the corners. Just barely, her Force signature brightens to a lighter shade of green.
"Padawan Cren," she says. "Please bring Padawan Skywalker whatever his appetite requires. He'll need to get his strength back up for later on."
Before Anakin can be sure he sees a most uncharacteristic wink from her piercing blue eyes, the Twi'lek spins on her heel, her umber robe waving a billowy farewell on her behalf.
"Well," Thalo says, withdrawing a datapad from his inner tunic pocket. "What sounds good you to you, Anakin?"
The bombastic beam is back on his face, and Anakin wonders if Palo was equally this annoying. He must have been, Anakin decides after a moment, watching Thalo's smile wane again a little under his returned scowl. Then, with a smirk of superiority, Anakin asks for the most obnoxiously specific thing he can think of.
"You know what I could really go for right now is some shuura."
The first slice of shuura tastes like heaven on Coruscant. It doesn't hurt that the associated memory is just as sweet as the fruit itself. The second and third are almost also delectable as that initial bite, the honeyed flavor spellbinding and redolent on his tongue until his reminiscing of her radiant smile and amused giggles makes him ache for the real Padmé and not the one he just remembers. He leaves the half-eaten fruit discarded on his tray when the subsequent bites trade saccharine recollections for sour longing.
Over the past ten days, Anakin had become so accustomed to Padmé's presence that he feels her absence so poignantly, he physically hurts. The more he thinks about her, the worse it gets. The more he tries not to, the more the memories spring to mind. The good with the bad.
Anakin knows how far he's spiralled when he starts wishing for Obi-Wan to walk through his door and berate him for his treacherous thoughts. No one hears is self-derisive snicker.
"Ah, there you are Master," Anakin drawls. "I was beginning to wonder if…"
He trails off when he sees the short, hooded figure that follows Obi-Wan into the room. Though the beautiful indigo-violet announces her with blinding brilliance, Anakin still waits for his eyes to catch up to what his ethereal vision already knows. As small delicate hands pull back the dark green hood of her cloak, he rearranges his face into one reflective only of polite interest. Albeit too late. Bracing himself, Anakin waits for the reprimand that inevitably accompanies Obi-Wan's reproving stare, but none is forthcoming. Instead, his Master's face shifts to weary grimness before he turns his attention from his Padawan to the Senator from Naboo.
"I'll give you what time I can," Obi-Wan says evenly.
"Thank you, Master Kenobi," she replies, just as evenly.
While his ears rejoice at the sound of Padmé's voice, Anakin's eyes dart warily between his mentor and his love, watching their terse exchange with bewilderment. Uneasiness creeps in the corners of his mind, the residual blockers coursing through his system doing little to dull his rising discomfort.
With more than just a look, Anakin reaches for Padmé. Her signature is shrouded, as if her cloak wraps around her not only in the physical realm, but the metaphysical plane as well. Through its protective fibers, Anakin watches the veiled hues, momentarily mesmerized by the stormy swirl but ultimately unable to decipher the muted tones. As if to further thwart his examination, Padmé purposefully keeps her eyes anywhere but him.
Anakin suffers from no such compunction.
Hope and wariness battle for the right to reign his features. His heart bangs nonsensically around his chest on the off chance she can hear its dramatic beg for her attention. Just when Anakin thinks she'll never turn her beautiful face his direction again, Padmé collects herself and calmly meets his gaze.
His heart stops dead in its rumbustious track.
Whatever she sees reflected at her makes Padmé drop the nebulous connection just as quickly as she had indulged it. Her attempt at blithe appearances fools no one. The veil surrounding her cannot hide the amorous amethyst that springs into vivid existence from their fleeting fixation.
Though he doesn't comment, Obi-Wan peels away his scrutiny far too slowly for Anakin to believe his Master hadn't also felt Padmé's impassioned flare. An uncomfortable silence settles over the room, each member of the trio all too aware of the intimate subtext gathering around them. Then, as if some only he can hear the unspoken request, Obi-Wan nods to himself, inclines his head to both of them and departs without another word.
In an instant, Anakin and Padmé are completely alone.
After a moment's poignant pause, she cautiously ventures further into his room as if finally remembering their sanctioned solitude. Her eyes remained trained on the tiled floor she navigates, still refusing to fully meet his again.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, if only to break the deafening silence between them.
"I'll be fine, Ani," she says dismissively. She keeps her eyes on her toes as she continues her slow trek towards him. When she is only a meter or so from his bed, she brings her gaze back up to his, her brown eyes flitting away and back like a skittish bird unsure whether or not to land. "How are you feeling?"
Betraying her façade of indifference, a welter of emotions bursts forth from Padmé's carefully constructed surface, engulfing him like a rogue wave as she drops her mental dam. The riotous riptide reflects his chaotic currents almost perfectly, hers the turbulent melody to his tumultuous harmony. Yet again, they exist on such similar frequencies. Anakin thinks the observation should bring him some small comfort.
It doesn't.
"I think that may depend on why you are here," he counters.
Without seeking his permission – though Anakin would have gladly given it– Padmé forgoes the chair at his bedside and eases herself onto his cot, her thigh pressing unashamedly through the thin sheet to greet his own. The bold contact speaks volumes to him as she struggles to maintain some semblance of professional distance with her words. Unbeknownst to her, the vein of conversation she chooses to tap is already fraught with sclerosis.
"Obi-Wan tells me your surgery went well," she tries again. Following the hopeful rise in her voice, brown eyes fully lock into blue for the first time since Padmé entered the room. Baleful banality falls away with the unveiled intensity she lets him see there.
"That's one way to put it," he replies sullenly, rolling his right shoulder.
Curiously, her eyes slide sideways trying to reconcile his apparent disagreement with the available evidence before her. As she takes in the sling supporting his right arm, he dissects every nuance in her expression. Her eyes reveal nothing, only darting away uncomfortably when they glimpse the golden tips of his prosthetic peeking back at her. After his surgery, Anakin had been none too pleased either to see the abominable artificial digits gleaming at him like some fancy protocol droid. Before the unpleasant comparison sends his blood to a boil, Padmé abruptly dowses him a direct question.
"Are you hurting?"
Her own query seeming to startle her, she drops her suddenly seeking gaze along with the hand tentatively journeying towards his wounded arm. Restlessly, she shifts her weight on the mattress, her Force signature tremoring with unease.
If you are suffering as much as I am…
Is that what you really are asking of me?
Anakin doesn't know how many more times he can bare his soul if that's the answer she truly seeks.
"Wouldn't know," he says, a bit abrasively. "I can't even feel it."
Padmé flinches at the sardonic reply, studying him suspiciously. It's not like him to throw brazen causticity in her face. Not when he knows her concern for him to be genuine and real. After all, it's not her fault her unexpected visitation and yet very much needed presence has him on edge. It's not her fault he needs to know that nothing between them has changed when everything else around them already has.
Anakin sighs, and attempts to rein in his emotional tempest.
"The attachment went well," Anakin explains. "The integration not so much."
"Integration?" Padmé's brow knits worriedly. "I'm sorry, Ani, I don't fully understand."
"Integrating the arm's sensors with my nerves," Anakin continues. "I wasn't awake for it but apparently…" He falters suddenly unsure if filling her on the gory details of the failed procedure is prudent, especially when he is vague on those details at best.
She looks at him expectantly and he supposes there is no rewinding this thread of conversation now that he's unwound it. He imagines she may hear through the gossip chains in the Senate anyway; word about him somehow always made its way to the Chancellor's office eventually. Now more than ever their circles were bound to continue overlapping with the outbreak of galactic war.
"Apparently, I arrested once or twice…" Anakin says, trying to relay the information as nonchalantly as possible. His cavalier deliverance can't curtail the morbid curiosity that makes him stretch out to gauge her unfiltered reaction in the Force. Padmé still had a knack for hiding her emotions from him in the physical sense – though he was learning to read those nanoseconds quickly before she slid her Senator mask into place – but she had no hope of hiding from him in the realm where masks and façades did not exist. Not fully anyway. He mistakes her precipitously rising concern for lack of understanding. "Something about electrical anomalies lingering from the duel with Dooku…"
With unadulterated fear, Padmé's eye widen, stealing any further explanations of Force lightning and cardiac side effects from his lips.
"It's not important," Anakin says in vain. "They want to try again this afternoon so it really can't have been all that serious."
Padmé doesn't even try to conceal her contempt at his attempt to downplay the damage he has already delivered.
"Not that serious?" Her pitch squeaks with barely contained hysteria. Narrowing her eyes, she stares him down hard. "Anakin, arrested means you died!"
Not ignorant to her distress, Anakin can't help the resentment that snakes its way through him at her severe look. He hates the way it makes him feel like a wayward child with her the precocious and all-knowing adult, reminding him of a time when the disparity in their ages laughed at his youthful crush and how their societal stations enforced insurmountable boundaries between them. As far as Anakin is concerned, that was eons ago. He would like to think that recent events had moved them beyond such silly restrictions.
"Yeah, but like only for a minute…"
She makes an indignant noise, crammed so full of discomfort and dismay, it effectively stuns his inappropriate clarification to a more appropriate silence. But only for a minute, until his own anger begins a slow, righteous simmer in his blood.
"Don't worry," he snips a little. "The Jedi wouldn't let me just die."
Something inexplicable passes over Padmé's face at those words. Her Force signature bristles, flaring obtrusively red before resuming its usual tranquil blue-violet hue. Startled by such a violent and uncharacteristic emotional display from her, he almost misses her follow-up question.
"Because you're the Chosen One?"
Anakin stills.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Never mind," Padmé backpedals quickly, leaning back a little and shaking her head dismissively. "That's not why I'm here…"
Loathe to let her retreat from him, Anakin snaps forward at the waist. Padmé's breath hitches audibly, her body subtly all a tremor. A small part of him relishes in her reaction to his bold invasion of her personal space. The larger part of him screams for him to sit back and get a grip before he spooks her into frenzied flight. Shoving aside uncomfortable memories of black leather and firelight, Anakin leans even closer, his voice just above a whisper. "Who told you that?"
"Anakin, please," she protests. Oblivious to its tense owner, a loose curl spiraling by her cheek dances carefreely on her exhaled plea. It distracts more than gentles his penetrating stare, but when his eyes snap back to hers, their blue intensity uncompromising, she sighs heavily.
"Obi-Wan," Padmé admits. "When he came to speak with me last night."
And now Anakin really doesn't like that. The idea of Padmé and Obi-Wan and evening chats makes bile rise in the back of his throat. He can't stop the sour disbelief from dripping out of his words like fresh-pressed boaboo juice.
"He stopped over to tell you about the prophecy?"
"No," she says slowly. "But it did come up in our conversation."
"Conversation about…?" he prompts, leading her to elaborate even when his instincts warn him to leave well enough alone.
Reflexively, Padmé's lips part to respond but emit only silence. He can feel the effort she makes to retrieve enough air to try again. When her words fail her for the second time, she seems to fold in on herself, shifting uncomfortably away from him. For once in his life, Anakin waits, not exactly with patience but a placidity borne from extreme tension. Her mind spins like a whirlpool, thoughts and considerations existing and then disappearing altogether into the central void. Padmé spirals silently before him, and Anakin watches fascinated, hypnotized by the deadly swirl.
When her fingers find his, the room stops its chaotic rotating around them. The roaring in his ears quiets. He releases an angry breath he hadn't realized he had even been holding.
"Why didn't you tell me, Ani?"
Momentarily confused by her unexpected question when he was anticipating an answer, Anakin blinks at her. Then, understanding dawns on him and he recognizes her evasive action.
"Really? When would you have liked me to enlighten you?" he sneers. To her credit, Padmé doesn't flinch this time at the sarcastic road blocks he slams in place to reroute her attempted detour. He pulls his hand away, but her grip tightens and he is helpless to fight the fold of his fingers with her own. Scowling, he continues his rant to cover his body's weakness.
"Just casually work it into one of our dinner conversations?" He shrugs, a petulant frown adorning his face to continue the caustic charade. "Drop it on you out of the blue during our picnic? 'Hey, Padmé, I know your life is in danger and all, but have no fear, the 'Chosen One' is at your service." He snorts with displeased mirth. "As if you would have even believed me."
"I would have, Ani," she replies softly, holding her gaze so steadily, so earnestly, that he can almost see the plausible moments when such a crazy conversation might have been had. Though every fiber of his being begs him to believe her, he eyes her skeptically.
"I was ruler of a planet when I was barely a teenager," Padmé says. "I understand what it's like to be saddled with immense responsibility and expectation. The difference is I volunteered for that mantle. You didn't."
Moved by her clear acceptance of his outrageous reputation, Anakin bites his lip, his bluster all blown out. Downcast eyes watch her small thumb rub soothingly across his knuckles, patiently awaiting his response.
"I did, though. Volunteer in a way," Anakin argues, his voice low. Padmé tilts her head, not quite following but recognizing his reach for her. Her expression is attentive and soft; he dives into it willingly. "I left my mother behind and now…" His voice cracks.
"That's not the same thing, Ani." Padmé squeezes his fingers as he fights to not drown in grief's overwhelming flood. "Your mother wanted a better life for you. You were following your dream…"
"Does this look like a dream to you?"
His outburst of anger stuns her. Desperately, Padmé searches his face for what she should say, what he needs to hear.
"I've lost everything. My arm. My mother." Lowering his eyes, he sighs heavily. "If it weren't for you, I'd have nothing left."
Wincing, Padmé looks away, severing their tenuously rebuilt bridge as effectively as saber severs bone.
"Do you believe in it?"
Her distress surging about him, Anakin ducks his head, trying to catch her errant eyes.
"What?" he asks.
"The prophecy?" she stammers. "That you're the Chosen One?"
Anakin doesn't understand the desperation in her brown eyes, doesn't understand the water and panic rising in them. He answers the only way he knows how to.
With honesty.
"I have to, otherwise my mother died for nothing."
Padmé's face crumples.
"What? What is it? Why…" he presses, leaning closer to her.
Only then does Anakin see the ambient light of the room reflecting off her cheeks, wet from her rapidly falling tears. With ominous foreboding, the hairs rise warningly along the back of his neck. All of the puzzle pieces suddenly click into place. Padmé's inexplicable visitation. Obi-Wan's abrupt departure. Her normally steadfast nature shifting and tumbling with turmoil. Dread runs coldly over his skin like a blast from Hoth's icy winds.
"What did Obi-Wan say to you?"
Hearing the tremor in his voice, Padmé looks up at him, equally chilled.
"Everything we already knew, Ani," she answers miserably, then, almost angrily, "Everything we already know."
At the formal clipped accent that coats her last word, Anakin scowls openly as nausea begins a slow, sickening roiling in the pit of his stomach. He clamps down on the fear threatening to freeze his pounding heart. Feigning ignorance and a stoicism stacked on unstable supports, Anakin picks absently at the sheet in his lap, purposefully avoiding her eyes.
"And what is it exactly that we are supposed to know?"
Eventually her stunned silence draws furious blue up to see incredulous brown. His jaw clenches angrily though his ire does nothing to stop her silent rebuke for his audacious pretense at incomprehension. Under her disbelieving stare, Anakin's bravado wilts a bit. His lower lip disappears between his upper teeth before he firms his mouth together and hardens his gaze back up to her to continue their defiant stare down.
That little moment, that tiny acknowledgement, infuriates Padmé beyond belief. Red poisons the air between them, and he drops her hand more from the reprehensible flavor to her presence than the way her nails bite into his palm with increasing frustration.
"This can't…" Suddenly untethered fingers flutter wildly about between them. "We can't…" Padmé's voice falters. Shoulders sagging, her normally sure and unflappable demeanor collapses with visible exhaustion. Anakin curls his flesh hand into a fist to prevent himself from reflexively offering her comfort he doesn't have it in him to give.
Then, as Padmé Amidala had already done once before, she pulls herself together and guts him.
"We can't do this, Anakin."
Anakin's eyes flash, his face darkens considerably at her hard tone.
"Why?"
She looks at him, anger now coloring her wet cheeks.
"You know why," Padmé grits out. She reaches for his hand again. "Anakin, please don't…"
"No!"
She jumps, yanking her hand back, shocked at his volume. He hates the flecks of fear he sees in her chocolate stare. Shame seeps in, staining his edges like spilled ink, and Anakin tries not to hear anger's seductive whispers to carry on. He mentally kicks back at the déjà vu wrenching barely scabbed over wounds back open. He has to make her understand.
"What I mean is, why won't you even try?"
"Try? Anakin," she gapes at him like a fish out of water. The Chosen One has rendered the eloquent Senator from Naboo speechless. It's not an achievement Anakin wants bestowed on him. At least, not in this unfortunate way.
"We can keep it a secret, Padmé. I know we can." He hates the way it sounds like begging.
Already shaking her head in protest, Padmé summons air to her lungs with a deep inhalation. Anakin can practically hear her scrounging arguments from their collective memory bank.
They've had this conversation.
They've entertained the impossible.
The outcome is the same.
"We aren't fooling anyone, Anakin," Padmé cries, her arms rising and falling with an audible thud back to his open palm. Unbecomingly, a disgusted laugh erupts from her. "We haven't even begun a relationship and they can already see right through us!"
Anakin's not having this conversation again.
He can't survive this heartbreak a second time.
Anything is possible. Padmé, listen to me.
"Then we lie low, let the dust settle a bit, and…" he tries to reason with her.
"It won't work. They'll never believe it. They…"
"They'll never have to know..."
"But they do!"
"Who does?"
"Obi-Wan. Yoda. The Council," Padmé lists. She shakes her head woefully again. "Obi-Wan came to tell me that the Council forbids us from any further contact other than what is professionally necessary."
Unamused, Anakin snorts, eyeing the empty room around them for effect, before settling his skeptical gaze on her again.
"So this why you're here with me now… alone?" The simper is all too evident in his abrasive tone. "I have a hard time believing the Council would find this…" He gestures between them. "'Professionally necessary'."
Unexpectedly, Padmé's face crumples. Anakin really doesn't know what to make of the shame and regret now flavoring her misery when he had been banking on resilience and defiance. It's enough to dull his sharp edges.
"Padmé?"
She looks up at him, miserable and desperate and pleading.
"I… I tried to act like nothing happened, Ani." The swirling emotion distressing her stokes a fiery panic in him. The Force sings warningly in his head, but he blocks it out, refusing to believe what he fears she is about to confess. "I thought I could convince Obi-Wan that I didn't feel this way about you, but… I… had to tell him."
He stares at her like she isn't speaking Basic anymore. It's absolutely absurd what he is hearing.
"What? I don't… understand."
Convince Obi-Wan?! Had to tell him?! It's completely illogical. Her downward cast eyes and mortification agree with his assessment.
"Why would you tell him?!" he cries.
"Because it was the only way he would let me see you again!" she blurts out. The bewildered burning in his blues eyes shades to distraught dismay.
This isn't Padmé.
This isn't happening.
It's just… not possible.
Then a dark thought crosses his mind.
"What did he do to you?"
"No, no, it wasn't like that," Padmé rushes to soothe. "He didn't do anything, Ani." Her small hands capture his face, the pads of her fingers tracing gently over his cheeks, his lips. Pulling away from her distracting touch, Anakin eyes her darkly, caught somewhere between stubborn anger, dangerous doubt, and debilitating fear.
"He only agreed, because I told him I had to be the one to stop this. That if he told you, you weren't likely to believe it, and… " Padmé's chest heaves, her voice breaking. "I had to see you again."
Even as her heart disintegrates before him, Anakin latches onto something he's not even sure Padmé is aware she has admitted. Disbelief cowers in the face of a building darker emotion. He reaches down deep to welcome the familiar rage, accepting its offer to push out panic's chokehold on his heart.
"You don't really want to do this," Anakin growls angrily, his tone bordering on threatening. "Do you, Padmé?"
Obi-Wan put her up to this ridiculousness. That was the only reasonable explanation for re-hashing this all over again. Once to no avail in the forbidden firelight, and once to complete surrender in the open shadowed catacombs is quite enough of this damned discussion for him.
He watches as she tries to slide the mask across her features that he knows no longer desires to air aloofness and wants to fight these feelings. Watches as she thinks about denying the tangible truth dangling between them, and then thinks better of trying to deny him.
"I don't," she concedes. Anakin huffs with victory. She ignores him, giving him a vexed look that doesn't corral his premature pride in the slightest. "But I, we have no choice, Anakin," Padme continues sternly. "No matter how many times I've thought it through, sought another solution, or looked for a loophole, there's no way around it. There are rules, and I can't change them."
Anakin tries not to roll his eyes at her shield of decorum. There is one painfully obvious way around rules and regulations; he finds it difficult to believe Padmé's clever mind had let her down so magnificently.
"Then break them," Anakin says through clenched teeth. Fully unamused now, rage ripples in his veins, granting him more control against the smothering terror that saps him of the necessary strength to fight her feeble protests. He will not lose her again. Not when he's already lost so much.
"I. Can't."
He glares at her, unimpressed.
"You can't?" he snarls. "Or you won't?"
"We can't do this. We knew this," Padmé cuts back, her voice rising with desperation. She swallows hard, and Anakin can practically see the knife she unsheathes and holds high, ready to deliver a permanent severance. "We discussed this. To live this lie would destroy us."
Somehow even as their words tear them further and further apart, Anakin realizes how much closer they've come together. Her slim shoulders rise and fall in the same incensed pattern his chest heaves as they simultaneously gulp oxygen to fuel their dueling infernos. He searches her, the same indiscreet way she had searched him earlier. Under his scrutiny, color blooms in her cheeks, giving her away just as the shiver of arousal dances down her spine. Her traitorous reaction emboldens him.
"So, you'll lie to yourself?" Anakin asks. "For the rest of your life, you'll just lie to yourself?"
"There are rules, Anakin," Padmé repeats crisply. The accented stilt to her words lets Anakin know she is drawing on Amidala to hide from him. Her stubbornness will be their undoing. A vengeful voice within whispers for him to proceed at all costs, singing praises as his anger snaps. He hesitates only a moment before he lets the darkness take over.
"There are also universal truths that demand higher respect than the laws you make within your precious Senate," Anakin says with a scornful smirk. "To deny them is foolish. I didn't take you for a foolish woman."
She winces noticeably, and the resultant swirling in the Force resonates with wounded feeling. At his impromptu lecture, Padmé's outrage practically seers him with its brilliant reverberating heat. He should stop his offensive, but it feels better to continue to throw insults rather than recognize his own injury. This far in to the madness, Anakin welcomes the burn.
"To deny that you are a Jedi and I am a Senator is to deny the real world we live in…"
"And I need to come back to it?" Anakin smiles dangerously as she walks right into his trap. Darkness squeals in delight at the love hemorrhaging from two hearts all over the tiled floor. It hisses loudly, seductively, craving more of Padmé's blood, fatally miscalculating that its weapon in Anakin is bleeding out just as rapidly.
"I was living a very real momentin that Geonosian cart. Were you? Was that real enough for you, Senator?"
As if physically struck by his words and vicious use of her title, Padmé recoils, rising from the cot and backing away him.
"Anakin," she whispers. The softness of her voice could easily be mistaken for a caress, though the wounded way she says his name cuts right through to his very soul.
The chasm between them in the Force yawns widely until all he can see is her indigo spirit wavering forlornly from the other side. Rising from the impossible void, fear blackens everything around them, driving back the wraith threatening to consume him. There's no way across the expanse. There's no way to soothe the pain he's inflicted on Padmé with his unchecked emotion. It had bolstered him when he needed to dowse his own hurts, but he can't continue with this brutality. Not at her expense. Disgusted with his weakness, anger that had propelled Anakin to this impasse abandons him to his misery.
He's left deflated. Exhausted. Spent.
Unbidden, a question rises within him. If anger had stood by his side, it may have come out barbed and spiteful. Instead, he barely gets the words out as fear holds him hostage to her answer. Anakin is more terrified of her response than anything that came before.
"Was any of it real?"
For an agonizing moment, neither of them moves.
He sees the tears still cascading down her face, sees the way her lips close and part only to come up empty-handed with each subsequent try, sees the shocked rawness in her fervent stare. Despite all the evidence to the contrary in front of him, the only thing Anakin cannot unsee is Padmé's sideways glance to the door.
To her escape.
This is the end then. This is how love dies. With deafening silence.
He's not even worthy of a response, let alone her love. And why would he be after the way he attacked her like that?
Shamed at his abysmal behavior, Anakin lowers his gaze. His flesh fingers are white from the clench of his fist. The loose golden artificial digits glint oblivious to emotional turmoil of their owner. With self-loathing resignation, he makes the skin and bone match the unfeeling counterparts before lifting his gaze, steeling himself to watch her walk out of his life for forever.
Except, Padmé's looking at him like he, too, is all that she can see. Dumbfounded, he watches her glance to the door again, frown harshly at its solid face, before turning back to him. Then, instead of walking out of his life, she's closing the gap between them with short, determined strides. Her momentum propels her past her previous seat on the edge of the cot. Realizing her intent just before her palms recapture his face, Anakin's eyes widen in startled amazement when she grips the angle of his jaw and presses her to mouth to his.
Kissing him desperately, almost angrily, Padmé fiercely slants her soft lips over his again and again, blending each fading end into a fresh beginning, as if demanding he hear her wailing heart's every ardent entreaty. Over and over, Anakin yields, accepting each new scar she brands on his own heart without protest or complaint. She tastes like salt and heat and surrender. Acknowledging his capitulating groan with a satisfied hum, she slows their frenzy down to one last lingering touch, pulling away only when the need for air becomes inescapable. Even then, she can't bring herself to sit back from him, foreheads resting together, their pants for oxygen shared.
When she looks up, fresh tears pool in her eyes, spilling over cheeks finally flushed not from frustration but desire. Utterly defenseless in his embrace, Padmé hides nothing from him.
"It will always be real to me," she whispers against his mouth.
"Padmé."
She ducks her eyes away from him, as she can't bear to hear her name spoken in the pleading way he says it. Her fingers encircle his wrist to tug away his ensnaring hand, pausing when Anakin's grip tightens in the base of her braid, holding her closer to him even if for only one more stolen moment. Gently, he presses a kiss to her forehead and tilts her chin up. As he smears tears out of existence, her cheek quivers under the pad of his thumb.
"Please don't do this," he begs.
Anakin sees the depth of her despair in her wet gaze as she looks mournfully up at him.
"I don't have a choice," she whispers.
With immense effort, she brings her hands to his chest and pushes him away. Reluctantly, he lets her, his hand falling as if it was the paralyzed appendage to her vacated spot. She flinches at the audible thud it makes against the mattress, but doesn't turn around for one last glance.
Anakin tries to ignore the ache that settles over him at the sudden loss of her warmth. Her Force presence hovers near him, though with each step she makes towards the door, he can feel their entangled ethereal selves being ripped apart at the seams. It feels like someone is tearing his soul from every individual cell in his body.
Still making her escape, Padmé staggers sideways once, as if hit by the crushing wave of pain that's dragging him under, and Anakin wonders if she can feel it too. The unmooring from the breaking tether leaving each of them helplessly adrift.
Somehow her stumble brings her closer to the door, and Anakin can't make himself watch as her hand lifts to the access panel. Cold creeps along his skin. The blood circulating in his veins stagnates as his heart splinters along the scar lines she just etched. His chest refuses to expand leaving his lungs burning in choked agony.
He's never going to survive this. He needs her.
When his ears don't hear the hiss that should signal her freedom from his room, a detrimental hope rises within him, lifting his eyes back to his whole reason for existence.
Padmé hesitates, her palm open and inches away from the button that will mark the end of everything. The darkness stirs from its place of desertion and sidles back to his side with a smile.
Don't let her walk away from you. Use your anger, it soothes. You've seen the fire it lights in her. You know the power it stirs in you.
Abhorring its offer, Anakin mentally kicks back at the void, but the twisted satisfaction feels like a balm after such torturous surrender.
"I really thought we were past pretending we could just wish away our feelings."
Padmé goes rigid the instant the words leave his lips. Indigo blue pales to colorless frost.
Afraid to see the aftermath of his anger distorting her delicate features, Anakin wrests back control from the beast that had lashes out irrationally. He would have given anything for her to turn around just one more time, to share one last aching moment with her. But not if the ache is his doing. How ironic that rather than his broken feelings, he wishes he could wish away his barbed words.
Instead of facing him again, Padmé stiffly pulls up the hood of her cloak, all but disappearing completely from his view.
The darkness laughs with glee at Anakin's panic when her hovering palm mashes the door's panel and she leaves the room.
For the second time that day, Anakin finds himself wondering where his Master is. He would have bet good credits at the sabacc table that Obi-Wan would have returned with earnest to have his moment to shape the aftermath of Padmé's disastrous departure. It was not unlike him to miss out on an opportunity to add lecture to real life experience, just to ensure the lesson stuck.
When Obi-Wan finally returns, the chrono tells Anakin that what felt like eons was really only twenty standard minutes. Unlike Padmé's cautious and tentative approach, his Master falls into the seat by Anakin's cot with gracelessness and exhausted relief.
The strident smell of bacta punctures the awkward still air, its pungency nauseatingly drowning out the faintly lingering floral scent of Padmé's shampoo. Secretly, Anakin hopes Obi-Wan can sense this as well. Not just the perfume, but how her presence is stamped all over him. Twenty standard minutes is barely enough time to bring Anakin's blood back from the boil.
Despite his dramatic entrance and slump to the chair, Obi-Wan does eventually find some cautious camaraderie. With reluctance, he leans forward onto his elbows, clasps his hands and waits for Anakin's attention.
Tracking his Master's movement, Anakin's eyes slide sideways before he wrenches them angrily back to the opposite side of the room. A long tense moment passes between teacher and student. It's not the first obstinate impasse they have weathered, and both know with absolute certainty, it is a far cry from ever being the last. But there's an added undercurrent this time that neither have had to wade through before.
There's only so much stubborn silence either can bear before the building pressure threatens to explode. At the same time but with very different styles, both master and apprentice attempt to diffuse the ticking time bomb.
"I'm so sorry, Anakin…"
"Why did you put her up to that?!"
Anakin's glare could burn a hole straight through the meter thick walls of a wampaa's den. Sitting back, Obi-Wan quickly recalibrates his approach, the open hostility directed his way maybe not a complete shock but still rather unexpected with all the raw emotion still swirling in the air.
As much as he can cot-ridden Anakin fumes openly, his muscles taut and wired from the brewing fight. He stokes his anger, nourishing the righteous flames that had been simmering embers in the dregs of his and Padmé's drenching dialogue. A dark thought whispers its way through Anakin's mind and he curls his lip at it on private appreciation. It's a good thing no one left a hydrospanner within his reach. Anakin would love to hear how loud it's clatter would sound against the Jedi Temple's walls.
Obi-Wan steels himself, his own reflexive anger rising to meet Anakin's. Rather than act on feelings bound to destroy, he blows out a laborious sigh and decides to confront the stormfront without reciprocity.
"Would you believe me if I told you I didn't want to?" Obi-Wan asks, letting his own pain seep across to Anakin through their bond.
Startled by the vulnerability his master is showing, Anakin sits back further into his reclined pillows, eyeing Obi-Wan as if he's a fellow card player who made either a rookie mistake or has set a dangerous trap. Either scenario fraught with calamitous outcome if not navigated exactly right.
Anakin's rage festers under his skin, rankled by the possibility of a removed target, but the vigorous power requires a tremendous amount of energy to maintain. Energy Anakin is been cashing at a rate faster than he can replenish it.
"No," Anakin replies. He manages just enough ire to make the one syllable snap despite the listlessness taking over his limbs.
"I don't blame you," Obi-Wan agrees. Sighing once again, he sits back in his chair, his head falling back to wall Anakin wished to abuse with a non-existent tool only seconds ago. Inexplicably, he closes his eyes, letting the silence diffuse the rising inferno in his Padawan.
Anakin hesitates, more acid words at the tip of his tongue but watered down without a victim to dowse. The anger spins and spins, its circles fading as excruciating exhaustion takes hold. He slumps his shoulders, an audible huff of frustration signaling his unwilling defeat.
Obi-Wan doesn't even open an eye.
"There's a debrief I have to attend with the Chancellor tomorrow regarding our involvement with what happened on Geonosis," he says without preamble. "You don't have to attend but…"
Anything would be better than further captivity in this room. And it would be good to see Palpatine, even if it would be in a public venue surrounded by other Jedi and Senators...
"I'll go!" Anakin quickly interrupts.
His brow rising, Obi-Wan peeks open an eye, scrutinizing Anakin's abruptly enthusiastic response.
Anakin expects Obi-Wan to refuse. To expound on all the reasons why Anakin's attendance wasn't necessary or wise. To exercise his authority and command him to bedrest. He doesn't expect the exact opposite response.
"Your side of events will make it easier to explain the timeline and details so I appreciate your willingness to do that," Obi-Wan allows. Then he frowns and unease momentarily singes his resolve. "But whether you make the meeting or not, I still need to know why you were on Tatooine, Anakin."
Without warning, grief passes through Anakin like a wave rushing forward to a beach's sandy shores, barreling down everything in its watery path. The tidal force drags Obi-Wan with its powerful undertow and his master unfolds himself to perch forward on his chair. The look of concern on his bearded face would almost pass for sincere, if Anakin didn't see the pity in the piercing blue.
"What happened on Tatooine, Anakin?"
The rush to Mos Espa. His reacquaintance with Watto. The journey to Mos Eisley's moisture farms. The revelation of new family built from his mother's love. The catastrophe painted with utter hopelessness in Cliegg's story. The desperate search across the depths of the night desert. His mother's broken body betraying the endless light upon seeing her son for a final time. The insurmountable fury that had found the Tusken Raiders and blunted grief's sharp edges until Padmé's comforting arms had held its poisoning residues at bay.
The chaos and pain of those remembered hours almost obliterate Anakin's ability to speak.
"My mother died."
He wants to spit the words with venom, to make Obi-Wan recall all the times Anakin had attempted to discuss his visions, to seek guidance from a mentor only to have them dismissed as dreams. But stoppered misery finally bursts forth and the words come out choked and pathetic.
"Anakin, I… I'm so sorry."
This time his Master's words sound more sincere than the first time they tried to start this pointless conversation. Pressure strangles the multiple responses that Anakin would like to wield, his throat closing with grief's unwelcome return. Adrift in his own sorrow, Anakin can't even rejoice in seeing his Master look utterly at a loss. When the shock of this news wears off, Obi-Wan leans forward with a consoling hand and stops at Anakin's pointed shift away from him.
"I didn't know."
For a moment, Obi-Wan's hand hovers awkwardly in the empty space between master and apprentice. The damage is done, lingering with the broken ropes of a bridge that may never be capable of reconstruction.
Another punctuated silence smothers the room.
Repeatedly, Anakin swallows down bile over and over until his throat feels scrubbed raw. Recently eaten and shuura makes an encore appearance to leave a lingering sickening tartness to the sour sting of choked down acid.
Of course, Obi-Wan didn't know! He didn't even listen. He didn't even entertain the notion that the recurring visions that had plagued his Padawan may have actually carried with them credible warning and threat.
His voice sounds like sandpaper and his vocal cords feel like they've coughed down clouds of a Tatooinian sandstorm.
"If it's alright with you, Master, I'd like to be left alone for a while."
Obi-Wan flinches at the dark anger simmering in Anakin's unguarded tone. He knows the glower will likely work against him, but Anakin throws the nasty look to the side just to underscore his point. Just to highlight his pain.
Then, Obi-Wan stands, vacating the seat he had so recently fallen into, watching Anakin with a perplexing combination of uncertainty and understanding. He nods, betraying his response before he can voice it.
"Alright," he says, already moving to the exit. As he passes Anakin, Obi-Wan reaches into the pocket of his fresh robes and pulls a datapad from its inner pocket, unknowingly summoning the image of Thalo doing the same thing but this time with a far more dire expression on the beholder's face. He drops it gently next to Anakin's left thigh. The datapad settles into the depression still left from Padmé's previous residence at his side.
"I'll leave this for you if you want to review my statements for tomorrow's meeting," Obi-Wan says. "Get some rest."
Wearily, Anakin nods and then dismisses his Master with a pointed look away.
As soon as Obi-Wan departs, Anakin snatches the datapad to his lap. His heart hammers away with renewed purpose as he powers on the small terminal. He has no intention of reviewing Obi-Wan's report. He's never been one to attend meetings with any specific sort of preparation and he is not about to ruin that track record now.
But, the reason for his enthusiasm that had caught Obi-Wan so off-guard earlier buoys him out of grief's overwhelming drain. Like a life raft, he had realized seconds after the revealed debrief who was also likely to be in attendance.
The datapad's screen glows warmly up at him. With more fervor than Anakin ever had before in his entire Padawan career, he clicks open the Archive database access point and keys in his search terms.
NABOOIAN COURTING CUSTOMS