sith_happened | Office hours [all day]

Sam studied him. "I still don't see the real problem, Anakin. A few detentions, some of which were admittedly deserved, aren't enough for you to react like this." Or for him to fear her reaction, which he seemed to be doing.

"Here I was reined in," Anakin explained. "At home...I was a monster. I exterminated the entire Jedi Order." He swallowed hard. "Including Obi-Wan. And that barely scratches the surface of the atrocities I'm directly responsible for."

Sam was glad she was already sitting. The entire Order? Obi-Wan? She didn't take the word extermination lightly. If that was what Anakin said he did, he annihilated them. "Are you here to hide from what you did? Because I won't let you not be held accountable for your actions."

Anakin shook his head. "I'm here because I need to be held accountable by people who knew me," he said quietly. "Everyone at home thinks that Darth Vader is dead, and it's true. They're trying to put together a new government--I would just be a distraction."

His eyes were incredibly painful to look at. "Telling you what I did --and I was trained to have perfect recall, so it will never become easier for me to remember it--could that be punishment enough? Maybe?"

For as revolted as she was by Anakin's actions, at base, Sam was having a hard time hating him. She'd blown up a sun, without regard for what it would do to the surrounding planets. She'd killed hundreds of thousands of Jaffa, without considering whether they could be converted into useful allies. She was no better.

She sighed. "I can't punish you, Anakin; that's not my place. I'm your friend, not your jury. Ask me something else."

"It's too early to ask for your forgiveness, right?" Anakin asked quietly. "I should give you time to think."

"You didn't do anything to me," Sam disagreed. "I have nothing to forgive you for, other than letting me think you were dead for six months."

"And I'm sorry about that," Anakin said. "I wasn't...particularly happy with what I had become. I preferred to leave you with your memories."

"And I understand that," Sam said with a nod, then added hesitantly, "Do you remember Dr. Carter?"

"The droid?" Anakin replied, forehead furrowing.

"She's what's called a human-form replicator," Sam said, as always taking refuge in technobabble when there was something she wasn't ready to deal with, "but what makes her different is that her human form is mine. My old one, I mean. She is in a position to destroy this galaxy and hundreds of others, because I was sympathetic and didn't stop her. So when I tell you that I'm not happy with everything I've done and can see your point of view, you now know my frame of reference. And my memories are good ones, but you wouldn't have changed them."

Anakin looked momentarily surprised. "I suppose we all have our secrets," he said. "I'm sorry that anything even remotely similar has happened to you, though."

"Yeah, that makes two of us," Sam said, "and it also means that...when you have nightmares, I'll probably be awake with my own, if you need to not talk about anything. There's also the swoop bike stable in the garage."

"But," she took a deep breath, "I can't ask for your promise not to do what you did again. That's up to you. I will tell you that if you want to make good, you need to take positive action and not just wallow in your own guilt. If you feel yourself slipping, I expect you to get help before it's too late. And if you go all the way back to where you were, understand that I will do everything in my power to stop you."

Anakin nodded slowly. "I wouldn't expect anything less of you," he said.

He ran a hand through his hair, then finished the rest of his coffee. "And nightmares would mean falling asleep for more than a few minutes...and that hasn't happened yet."

"How long has it been since you had a good workout?" She asked. "A good long run along the beach? Or worked with your light saber? Maybe just building something?"

"I'm kind of swearing off lightsabers right now," Anakin said with a wince. "It's a Jedi's weapon, and I don't think I'm a Jedi right now."

He waved his hands at the giant stack of papers. "But I am thinking of making something."

"Fair enough," she decided, then the rest of what Anakin said was enough to divert Sam's attention. "Oooh, what?"

"Did you ever happen to see the map of the galaxy in the Jedi Temple?" Anakin asked, pushing the plans towards her. "I want to recreate it."

"I think I might have?" Sam frowned and looked at the plans, but only partially understood what she was looking at. "Where do you want to do this?"

That she was offering to help should have been evident when she grabbed a pencil and started making little notes on the plans in a shorthand only she understood.

"It projected every star in the galaxy three dimensionally and could be programmed to change colors based on different criteria," Anakin said, then went into even more technical specifics on how the mechanics worked. "I was thinking of using it as decoration in here."

"We might be able to base it on the holographic imaging equipment in the Danger Shop," Sam mused, adapting Anakin's specifics to what she knew of Earth's existing power supply, "and I like that idea. Be both a sense of home and a reminder what else is out there."

Or what used to be out there, not that Sam was going to beat Anakin over the head more than he seemed to be doing already.

Anakin was already planning out a coding system that would make sense only to him to commemorate that, yes.

"That could work," Anakin said with a businesslike nod.

She flashed a grin at him. "You doubted? You have been away too long."

"Forgive me," Anakin deadpanned. "You know how it is...the brain just starts to go."

"Then it's a good thing you've got new knees now, so you can run away faster."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject