Ye olde shuttle parking [early afternoon]

[sith_happened]

After hours of sweaty work, Anakin had finally gotten the hyperdrive working again.

He's slept through most of Sunday--he'd needed the rest--and was looking almost like himself again.

Except for the nervous twitch he was developing as the time Rory normally showed up got closer.

Blurry - Puddle of Mudd

Comments

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I have no idea what that was," she said, shaking her head. "Aside from exhausting."

[sith_happened]

"You're okay, though?" he asked, snapping instantly into Overprotective Anakin mode. "I'll take him if you need to catch up on sleep..."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"No, no, seriously, I'm fine," she protested, turning shy again. "He's much quieter as a puppy, you know."

[sith_happened]

He gave her a soft smile. "I remember," he said, holding eye contact for a heartbeat too long. "The hyperdrive's fixed again."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Good," she said softly. "Did you break it again?"

[sith_happened]

"I broke it pretty throughly last week," Anakin said, cheeks going red. "It took a while to fix it."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"You shouldn't break your toys," she said lightly. "Where are we headed this week?"

[sith_happened]

"There's a pair of nebulae over in Cassiopeia I wanted to check out," Anakin said, cheeks flushing, "but if you don't want to go that far, that's fine too."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"That sounds fine," Rory said, hopping aboard the shuttle and moving to her usual seat.

[sith_happened]

Anakin took a moment to smile about how comfortable Rory looked in that chair before strapped into the pilot's seat himself. "You know how this works," he said. "Fire it up."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

Rory smiled and started the sequence. "I think I'm going to ask Grandma and Grandpa for one of these as a graduation present when I'm done with college," she said, nodding solemnly.

[sith_happened]

"Only if I'm there to see the look on your grandmother's face when you do it," Anakin insisted with a smile as he punched the coordinates into the navicomputer.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Of course you'll be there," Rory said without thinking.

[sith_happened]

Anakin's entire face lit up. "Good," he said softly.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I mean...." Rory colored as she realized what she'd said. "I mean, you wouldn't miss my graduation, right?"

[sith_happened]

"Of course not!" Anakin said quickly, hiding his disappointment in her reply by fiddling with a dial that didn't need fiddling. "I think we're far enough away from Earth now," he said after an uncomfortable pause. "You can put us into lightspeed now."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Wheeeee," Rory said, trying for enthusiasm as she shifted into lightspeed.

[sith_happened]

Anakin raised an eyebrow. "You getting blasé about space travel?" he asked. "I don't want you to be bored."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Not blasé about space travel," she said, biting her lip. "Far from it. But I don't want to get twitchiness all over the shuttle."

[sith_happened]

"You're doing fine," he soothed, reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder. "But there's never been anything you haven't been able to do once you decided you wanted to."

Which, as she'd made clear on Saturday, didn't include him.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"There've been a few things," she said quietly, thinking of him.

[sith_happened]

"They can't have been that important," Anakin decided. "We should be there soon. I'll go get caf. Just pull the ship out of hyperspace when it pings."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

She nodded. "Yay, caf," she said. "Hey, do you ever put stuff in caf like we do in coffee?"

[sith_happened]

"I don't, but others do. Sugar, milks, creams, honey...I didn't like honey at all." Anakin gave her a shy smile. "I'll be right back."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Ew, honey," Rory muttered to herself, and pulled out of hyperdrive as soon as the annoying noise she hated sounded.

The sight (http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~apod/apod/ap031022.html) that met them made her audibly gasp. "....Anakin. Anakin, look."