sith_happened | Anakin's office [early Monday morning, before classes]

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Anakin's office [early Monday morning, before classes]

Anakin, who had been running on the power of coffee for the last week, hadn't stopped watching the Games since the last shipment of bread had been delivered. There had been interviews with the survivors' families: Anakin was looking only to see Katniss's sister and to check that she still had all of her fingers attached.

He rubbed at his eyes blearily as the games began again, steeling himself for another day of devious, horrifying death. They were down to eight. Things were going to get even uglier.

[OOC: Up suuuuper early for the Hunger Games crew. NFB for character death.]

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For a long time, Wesley couldn't even imagine leaving. His limbs felt numb and he wanted to disappear.

No. Using his legs didn't seem possible. Not for a long time.

Anakin watched him surreptitiously, not wanting the boy to feel crowded or hovered over.

If Wesley wanted to camp out in Anakin's office for days, Anakin wouldn't mind. After all, he'd felt the uniquely horrible trauma of losing someone you loved like that.

Finally, he offered, "I was going to get something new to drink. Do you need tea?"

Wesley was British, and Anakin was kind of bad at this.

What he needed was some of that wine of Karla's, or the scotch he had buried in his trunk. But his brain was fuzzy and accessing either of those things would be difficult, so he just numbly shook his head.

Anakin wouldn't tell him trite, untrue things like it would get better, or he'd forget, or he'd move on.

Instead he knelt down and tried to look Wesley in the eyes. "I'll be gone for just a few minutes," he said softly. "Cry if you need to. If you'd rather hit something...there's nothing in this room that's irreplaceable."

Wesley blinked disoriented blue eyes up at Anakin and nodded again, mutely. He wouldn't break anything, but crying...

Before he knew it, he was already doing that. Crying. Silently and messily. This ached.

Anakin waited outside the office, his own heart aching with the loss of Katniss compounded with the hurt that reverberated through her friends, and waited until Wesley was finished.

He didn't want to interrupt grief that personal.

Karla wanted to curl up in a ball and ignore everything. She wanted to run, run fast and run long, away from here, away from the island, away from anything that reminded her of Katniss and the Games.

Instead, however, she dragged herself over to Wesley. She'd promised. Promised. An oath to a dead friend. She couldn't run, not yet.

"Wesley." She couldn't manage more, yet. Just his name. A hand, reaching up for his arm. Right then, she didn't know what else to do.

Wesley didn't even hear his name when Karla said it, at least not at first. But the fuzziness came and went, and eventually he was able to bring himself to hear her.

Desperate, he reached out and pressed one hand on top of hers, on his arm.

It helped.

Karla wanted to draw him into a hug, as much for her comfort as for his, but wasn't sure--well, wasn't sure about anything, really. Tears were threatening again; she tried to blink them away, but they were so thick, so heavy.

"I don't--I wish--wine?"

Look, it was all she really had. And fuzzy and numb sounded like a damn good idea right now.

Wesley nodded vigorously. Yes. Wine. Alcohol wasn't something he'd needed to employ much before, but it had had its moments following his firing from the Council and it just might serve a purpose now.

"Wine," he repeated. "Please."

Then --

"There's scotch," he volunteered. "In my room. We could -- ?"

Karla called in the bottle and gaged how much was left. Not enough. "Let's," she said, pushing herself to her feet. Darkness, she felt so heavy, like every part of her was made of stone.

Except it couldn't be. Stone wouldn't hurt this much.

She'd stop at her room; make sure to grab plenty of water and cash for dinner later. And they would eat, no matter how little either of them wanted to. She'd promised she'd take care of him. Letting him drink himself into a stupor counted--for today anyway--but letting him wake up with a hangover didn't.

Alex hesitated. She was terrible at this. She was convinced she was going to say something awful and dump salt in the w---

That expression brought on a fresh round of pain.

But this wasn't about her, this was about Wes, and if she could help at all, she wanted to try.

"I ... don't have words," she began, softly. "I don't think anybody does. I'm not going to imagine that I can ... know what you're going through."

She took a steadying breath before continuing. "I'm not -- I'm not going to crowd you, I swear. But ... here."

She handed him a small slip of paper. On it, he would find her cell number.

"I live alone. I hardly sleep, and when I do, it's the most insane backwards hours you can imagine. If you needed to call, or come over at 3 am -- for tea, to talk, about her," her voice had nearly wavered, on that, but it didn't, thank everything she could think of, "or to talk about absolutely anything that isn't her -- I would want you to. Even if that was every night for a month."

The words sounded like buzzing noise in Wesley's ears. But he vaguely understood that he was being offered something, something he didn't want or need. What he did need... was gone.

He reached out in a daze and caught the paper in two hands. Then he dropped it into his lap and sank his head into his hands.

Alex reached out to rest her hand on one arm, wondering if it was better to hover or better to go away.

There wasn't a manual for this. she wished she knew how to help, or ... barring that, how to hurt the least.

Of course, considering what he'd just gone through ... anything she could or couldn't do was a bit like a papercut next to a severed artery. She still had to try.

The touch helped. Infinitesimally, but still. Wesley let her rest her hand there, not moving at all. Movement seemed impossible, anyway. He didn't say a word.

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Anakin's office [early Monday morning, before classes]

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