Office #1 [all day]

[sith_happened]

Another semester started, so that meant Anakin was back in his office writing down his initial impressions of his students and wondering if he would have to make some seating rearrangements.

Maybe in a few weeks--that seemed like a great deal of work right now. Instead he was laying out ideas for his first Danger Shop interactive ethical question, looking a little devious.

His door was open.

Comments

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"Hello fellow faculty member!" Jamie said from the doorway as he held a large packing box. "Isn't the world of academia grand?"

[sith_happened]

"Decidedly less so now that you are here," Anakin grumbled.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"Aw. Bad day?" Jamie asked. "This should brighten your mood. I'm just one office down from you! I'll be stopping by all the time."

[sith_happened]

Anakin was very tempted to bang his head into his desk. "Please tell me you're kidding."

[trigons_child]

Raven hadn't talked to Anakin on over a month, and since then she'd finally talked to Tahiri about Darth Vader. So she was just a little bit apprehensive as she approached Anakin's office.

"Good morning, Professor Skywalker," she said from the doorway.

[sith_happened]

Anakin glanced up and smiled. "Raven. Come in."

[trigons_child]

"How have you been?" Raven asked as she moved into the office. "You were gone for some time."

[sith_happened]

"August has never really been my favorite month," he understated. "What did I miss?"

[trigons_child]

"I spent a great deal of time in Kaeleer with Karla and Warren," Raven said, taking a seat. "And I visited Jono. And...my mother."

She wasn't going to be able to hide that flash of unhappiness from reaching her face.

[sith_happened]

"Your mother?" Anakin repeated with a frown. "How'd that go?"

[trigons_child]

"Not well," Raven said, shaking her head. Enough time had passed that she could relate what had happened without bursting into tears at least.

"I asked if we might spend more time together, particularly after I graduate. I wanted to know her better and make up for the time we could not be a family on Azarath. But she told me she does not wish to be with me at all."

[sith_happened]

"Would you like me to talk to her?" Anakin asked.

If by "talk" you really meant "yell and threaten with violence".

[trigons_child]

"I do not know if it will do much good," Raven said quietly. "And I do not know where she is now. She said she was leaving Gotham and not to try to find her."

[sith_happened]

"I could find her," Anakin said darkly.

And he knew he'd been an absolutely terrible father, but at least he'd tried to make amends. Raven's mother was just a whole new level of pissing him off.

[trigons_child]

"I cannot force a relationship up on her," Raven said. She felt warmed by Anakin's anger, though -- she knew he cared. "She does love me, I can feel that, but when she looks upon me, she sees my father, and that causes her pain."

[sith_happened]

"She can get over it," Anakin replied harshly. "Leia looks remarkably like Padme, but I don't avoid getting to know her."

[trigons_child]

Padme's fate hadn't been included in what Tahiri had shown her, but she knew enough to understand the comparison. "Looking upon her caused you memories and some pain," she agreed. "Though it is not entirely the same, is it?"

As far as she knew, Padme hadn't seduced Anakin and revealed herself as a demon. At least not until Lucas made some more "enhancements."

[sith_happened]

Or when Alderaan shoots first? Anakin paused. It would be more like Leia not being able to talk to him, really.

"And Leia named her son for me," he added, "even after I blew up her planet. There's something to be said for letting painful memories go. You are not your father."

[trigons_child]

"I am not," Raven said firmly. "I want to be nothing like him."

She hesitated a moment, then said, "I spoke to Tahiri before she left...about you. Your daughter does not know now what you have done, but she will?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "It was too soon after Alderaan to tell her before she left," he said.

And also he was a wimp.

[trigons_child]

"I am still struggling with what you have told me and Tahiri confirmed," Raven said, staring down at her lap. "I cannot believe you would have done such things. I do not want to believe it. It does not seem possible. You have taught me how to resist my father. How could you have once been like him?"

[sith_happened]

"I was young and angry," Anakin said quietly, "and convinced I knew everything. I understand the pull you feel to release that kind of anger. It's also how I know you're strong enough to resist it."

[trigons_child]

"I am getting better, I think," Raven said. "But when someone I care for is in danger, that is when it is most difficult to control myself."

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "That's when it matters the most that you remain in control."

[trigons_child]

"I am more powerful when I am angry," Raven said, looking up from her lap. "Not simply because I lose my reservations against harming another. I can do things I cannot ordinarily do, as you saw in New York." The force lighting energy blasts and telekinesis weren't in her usual repertoire. "It would be so very easy to become lost in that power, but I know I cannot allow myself to do so. But I do not know how I can allow my friends to be harmed if there is something I can do to stop it."

[sith_happened]

"Remind yourself that they wouldn't want you to take the path that would get you to help them that way," Anakin said. "I know that if I'd told Obi-Wan or Padme half of what I'd been planning, they'd have talked me out of it, or at least tried. If the hypothetical choice has me looking disapprovingly at you in your head, don't do it."

[trigons_child]

"There is usually not much time to think when danger is upon us," Raven said. "Though when there is time, I do often try to imagine what you would say."

Raven was a firm believe in WWAD. What would Anakin do?

[sith_happened]

Well, what Anakin would do was many times completely different than what he'd say he'd do...

"When you're acting on instinct, it's even more important to remember what we've spent all of these years training," Anakin replied. "That's when it really matters."

[trigons_child]

Anakin in her head was still very much idealized even after what she'd learned about him. She wasn't sure she was ever going to be able to reconcile that.

"I cannot allow my anger or fear to get the better of me," she said gravely.

[sith_happened]

"You cannot," Anakin said gravely. "Just like I can't let it happen to me again. Think of everything--everyone--you'll lose if you do: that should be enough to keep you in check."

[trigons_child]

"Is that what you do when you become angry now?" Raven asked. "I know it has helped me to recover myself in the past when Jono or Karla have talked to me."

[sith_happened]

He nodded. "Rory would leave me and not look back. She's said so straight out."

[trigons_child]

"I hope that never happens," Raven said, shaking her head. "To you or to me."

[sith_happened]

"It won't happen for me," Anakin replied. "I'm never going through that again."

[trigons_child]

"I would rather die than fall again to my father's power as I did," Raven said solemnly. "And I do not wish to disappoint you. I know I must work on my control of myself, but I am willing to do everything I must to ensure that I do."

[sith_happened]

He smiled at her. "I know you are. That's why I'm not worried."

Not that worried, anyway.