@mynameisanakin {{xx}}
He could have been entombed in the dankest sewer of Nar Shaddaa, perfectly enveloped by the darkness there in, packed in carbonite inside of a metal cargo container and she would still have been able to read his expression and all the questions that came from hers, whispered like dry autumn leaves over a duracrete walkway. A voice as dead as they both must feel inside, of this she is sure, because even she can hear it. And could she have told him in the small, clipped words available to her at the moment? Likely. Did she want to explain what made it past her lips when she should have killed it the moment it was a mere thought in her head? Not exactly. It hadn’t exactly slipped out as most of her rather personal questions often did, a vibrant curiosity to see into his mind while still maintaining respect for him, for his small but hard-won sense of privacy. Beyond basic human decency, she was perhaps one of the only people who did not think that she had any right to treat Anakin like some half-forgotten droid, to tinker as she pleased with his thoughts simply because she was entitled with the ability to do so through the Force, because even if he didn’t want her to, he also wouldn’t really give more than a vague attempt to stop her. No, this time she’d been deliberate.
For all that he’d told her how it had happened, and perhaps even why, in that sickened knot of words that he’d sobbed into the folds of her robes, one they couldn’t even think about untangling on the ship’s plating, she still... isn’t handling it well. It was easier for her to understand why he’d done...what he’d done at the Temple. How he was only an instrument of the Force, which to her mind absolved him of the murder. Not the Masters who had always been cruel, that was almost laudable in her mind. Who had wantonly destroyed the child Anakin had been and systematically continued to do so at their every opportunity. Who shouted from the rooftops that they wanted nothing more than peace and compassion but turned blind eyes to the suffering, the slavery, the injustice of every planet not covered in resources. And she knows, beyond doubt, that of all the masters he’d not been the one who had killed Kit Fisto, her friend and a truly decent soul, one of handful of people who had ever treated him with kindness and cordiality if not affection. She is so very careful not to think of the children though. She can’t. Especially when they are barely not children themselves, and the grief will drown her for the loss of that innocence.
Going with him to Mustafar had been an exercise in holding him together with her bare hands and teeth and any other part she could get on him, and that is still to raw inside of her to even think about. And in the silence that follows, this heavy and fragmented connection through the Force...she has to wonder if he didn’t survive. If these hours of nothingness means he hasn’t realised it and thus hasn’t stopped. Keeled over and become a rusted bit of flotsam inside his own skin. So the question. To see if it will jolt him out of his near-catatonia. To get an answer that is the most personal thing of all, and admittedly self-absorbed, but... she can’t help it. Perhaps this is her way of lashing out. To pull out one of the venomous snakes writhing inside her chest, each with a different name on it. Why didn’t you trust me enough to come to me in the first place? Why did you feel you had to hide it until it couldn’t be? I’ve always been on your side, regardless of anything. I’d have kept your secrets as I always have. Why her? Of all the people in the fucking galaxy...why Amidala? Why couldn’t you...have chosen me. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I would have done anything you asked of me. I still will. You know this, Anakin. You. Know. This.
And perhaps the most vicious and tenacious of them all... Why couldn’t I have been enough?
Her eyes slash away to cut their way to his face the second he stirs. Catches the turn of his mouth and her nails bite deep and bloody half-moons into her palms. She almost flinches from his question.
“That you enjoyed it. That you didn’t imagine squeezing the life out of her for every time she’s cast you aside, lied to you, used you. Like she’s always done since she came back into your life. That I... I don’t know. Anything but...” But don’t say you love her. Don’t say you need her. Don’t....don’t say... She closes her eyes, unable to maintain what is at the moment passing for eye-contact. Hoping that doing so both lets her not look at him and hold back the sudden sting of tears threatening to spill over her lashes.
But he answers her.
And she takes it at face value even if it seems to ring a little hollow.
She takes a sobering breath, uses every bit of training in her skill-set to gain some kind of mastery over herself. “You...ah. You should go get some rest. You look like shit and I think I can handle this bit of empty space for a while.” He might have thought about the war then, but there isn’t one now. Not the kind that can be fought with Clones and droids and blasters and lightsabres, anyway.
