sith_happened | Ye olde shuttle parking [early afternoon]

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Ye olde shuttle parking [early afternoon]

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.

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She shook her head. "He was fine. I don't know how many different ways I can tell you that I wasn't over you, though. It was a mistake."

But you're over me now... a tiny little part of him wailed.

He ignored it.

"I just don't like seeing you unhappy," he said softly. "And if he made you happy...I'd be all right with that."

No, not really, but he was trying.

She shrugged. "We weren't right for each other. He's a good friend."

Anakin had his own opinion on that, too, but he kept it to himself.

"I believe you," he said neutrally.

"And he never -- we never...it didn't get that serious," she said quietly, dancing around implications. "I was never in love with him."

It took a moment for the pieces to click together, but when they did, Anakin's cheeks flushed red.

"Oh," he said just as quietly.

Luke and Leia were proof that he hadn't exactly done the same, and that was just a tangle of emotions he wasn't close to prepared to dealing with yet.

"I don't do casual very well," she said, turning red.

His hand tangled in his curls as he focused on the view of the nebulae outside. "Me either," he admitted. "I don't know how to just go halfway."

"I just can't pretend something I don't feel, hoping it'll get better," she said quietly, looking out the window. "I guess it goes along with being a bad liar."

"Yes," Anakin said sadly, "I know. Sometimes you just have to let it go."

...he'd heard. He hadn't had much luck doing that in his own life, um, ever.

...well. She hadn't meant forever.

But he seemed like he did.

"Might be safer for everyone."

Only they could manage to break up so many times without ever being together again, Anakin reflected a little sourly.

"If you want," he replied. "I've never really been one to live life if a bubble, though."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one who was left here grieving last time, were you?"

That was a little harsher than she'd meant to be.

Anakin gaped at her. "No, I was grieving alone," he shot back, "and for years. You were as forever lost to me as my mother...and more impossible to talk about."

"You died and your killer was my Ethics teacher," she said, shaking her head and trying not to cry. It still hurt. All of it. "And Luke was here and it was so much and -- I know you were alone, and it was hard on everyone but I can't get hurt that bad ever, ever again."

And Anakin still hurt when she hurt. He wouldn't change that if if he knew how to.

He crouched down in front of her chair and covered her hands with his, then looked straight into her eyes, every emotion he was feeling plain to see on his face: pain and guilt and that deeply familiar expression he always had--and never realized--when he looked at her.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice a lot hoarser than he would prefer.

"It's nothing you have to be sorry for. I already forgave it. I just can't do it. I can't get hurt that badly again. And that means I can't invite the opportunity," she said softly, turning her hands over in his.

"Don't close yourself off forever, my --" he caught himself, and squeezed her hands instead. "They're'll be other people in other places," he said softly instead. "Things'll look different in a couple of months."

"It's almost been a year," she said quietly. "Time's not helping."

"I know it's ridiculous coming from me, but have patience, Rory," he said, standing up and leaning in, intending to kiss her forehead.

Rory snorted, but held still. "Pot, kettle."

Anakin lingered for a moment too long after he kissed here, then pulled back.

"No one said I have to be consistent."

"It would help," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Not enough," he said, suddenly serious.

"Don't worry about me," she said immediately.

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