sith_happened | Emo Beach [midday]

The room had been empty when she got back, and she wasn't going to admit how relieved she was about that. So she should have sat down and figured out who to contact and waited for Hermione to get back. That lasted all of thirty seconds before she'd taken off again.

Rikku hadn't even realized she was headed for the beach until she got there. The beach was good. She could sit and listen to the spray and nuzzle her Judekitty and ... you know. Completely avoid all of the stuff she needed to do.

Great.

She wiped her eyes again and tried to figure out how to start telling people, completely oblivious to the fact that there was someone else on the beach.

Anakin was pretty self-absorbed, but that much pain coming from another person pulled him away from his own thoughts.

He flipped his hood back away from his face. "Rikku?" he called quietly. "What happened?"

Rikku jumped a little at hearing his voice. "Oh! S-s-sorry, I didn't ... I didn't r-realize you ... I'll ... I'm sorry."

She should leave, she was bothering him, she ... oh. He'd been at Hamlet's birthday party (no thinking about that no thinking about that no thinking about that) so they were friends and ... oh.

She took a deep breath and tried very, very hard to pull herself together. "Professor Skywalker? I n-n-need to talk to you."

Anakin had a very, very bad feeling about this.

He stood up from the rock he'd been sitting on, walked over to Rikku and reached for her hands. "What happened?" he repeated.

Rikku took another deep breath, because she needed to tell him and it wasn't fair to cry over him and why was her Judekitty trying to jump down? She let him down carefully and he twined around her ankles. Okay. Not going anywhere. That was good.

She looked up and ... Professor Skywalker was being so ... dammit, Rikku, stop it.

She reached out to take his hands, swallowing past another sob. "It's H-Ha- ..." She squeezed her eyes shut fiercely and forced the words out. "Hamlet."

Why did it sound so loud?

And Anakin knew -- and it hit him like a punch to the stomach.

His hands tightened almost painfully around hers. "How?" he asked.

Because if that bastard of an uncle of Hamlet's was still alive, there weren't enough dimensions between him and Anakin to save him. Not by a lot.

"P-poison," she managed, almost choking on it. "I c-could have made him armor, I didn't even think, I'm so ... this is ..."

Her shoulders were shaking and she couldn't stop herself from letting out a sob, stupid, stupid, stupid ...

Anakin pulled her close and held on tightly, rubbing small circles against her back and murmuring useless nothings.

They both knew it wouldn't be all right, but it had to be said anyway.

Rikku wrapped her arms around him and stopped fighting the stupid tears that were coming anyway so she might as well just ... oh, Hamlet. "I'm s-sorry," she hiccuped. "I'm so, so, sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" Anakin asked softly, still holding on. "There's no shame in tears."

Not that he was crying. He was a little too numb for that yet.

"They don't help anything," she said softly. "All I've done for two days is cry and I sh-should have been ... telling people and ... and I d-didn't go. He wouldn't let me and I should've ... yelled or ..."

She pulled away abruptly, wiping at her eyes. "Sorry, sorry, I ... I'm not being f-fair to you, I ..."

"You can't change someone else's destiny," Anakin told her quietly, pulling back to look into her eyes. "Being there might have made it worse. Put the blame where it belongs--on the person who poisoned Hamlet."

His eyes flashed. "Are they still alive?"

Rikku shook her head quickly. "His uncle," she said darkly. "The one that ... all the rest of it. Horatio said ... poisoned foils, and that Hamlet g-got his revenge, and he ... he was K-king of Denmark when he ..." Died.

That probably should have made Anakin feel a little better, that Hamlet had gotten his revenge.

It didn't. He just wanted his friend back.

"Horatio?" he asked instead.

Rikku swallowed, nodding. "A f-friend of his. He called on F-Friday, saying he had a message, and I should meet him at a coffeeshop. I ... I th-thought it was gonna be 'hey, Hamlet's sorry he didn't call yet.'"

"I'm so sorry," Anakin said quietly, giving her hand another squeeze. "You've dealt with this kind of thing entirely too often."

Rikku bit her lip. "I used to be better at it. I used to ... I could ... you close your eyes and take a breath and you bury the dead and that's what you do because ... because you have to, and I don't know why I can't any more."

The Judekitty who had been mellowly nuzzling her ankles stopped short and headbutted her with an insistant "mrowl."

"Because you lowered your defenses," Anakin said, eyes haunted. "Death happens somewhere else. It doesn't effect people here. And it hurts so much more when that's not true."

"Yeah," she said quietly. "It's ... it's everyone in Spira and no one here and it shouldn't ..."

She shook her head quickly. "So what do you do? I can't ... I can't go back to that. Looking at my friends. W-wondering ... who's next. I might as well just ..."

"...give up entirely?" Anakin finished for her, then shook his head. "Hamlet would hate for that to happen. I've lost..." he stared out at the water for a moment. "...more people than I want to remember," he said finally. "And their faces will follow me for the rest of my life. But you can't just stop. You have to continue living for those who...can't any more."

"I can't do this," she repeated softly. "I thought I was strong and I'm not. I'm supposed to be telling you and everyone else and all I've done is lay in bed and cry like I'm some little girl whose boyfriend just dumped her and ..."

"You're not being like that," Anakin said, voice a little sharper than he'd meant. "You've lost a friend. Don't judge yourself because it hits you in a way you weren't expecting." He bit his lip. "My wife died years and years ago, and it can still sneak up on me and cut like a vibroblade."

He shook his head. "You've told me. Who else needs to know? How can I help?"

His voice softened. "Share the burden, Rikku, or it'll crush you."

"Your wife?" Rikku looked at him with concern. "That's ... Luke's mom, right? I'm ... I'm sorry. And I know you were a friend of H-... his, too. I don't mean to ..." She swallowed quickly.

"I don't know. I th-think I'm the only one who knows. I don't know who Hamlet knew, I was going to ... try to find everyone from his party, but some of them graduated, and ..." She looked down for a moment, biting her lip again. "Every time I thought about ... sitting down to look it up and finding people and breaking it to them, I just ... I got so tired, you know? Just like I couldn't picture ... going through all of that and so I just holed up for a little while longer."

Anakin brushed off her concern with a wave of his hand. He'd deal with his own pain later.

"I can talk with Zoe," he said quietly. "She'll need to know anyway. And send me the list, too. The time thing--Hamlet and I were close last year, Fandom time. I know some of his friends still."

For some ridiculous reason, the vision of a sad pink bunny flitted through Anakin's mind and it was almost enough to break him entirely.

"You don't have to bear the brunt of everyone's heartache," he continued.

"I didn't even think," she said, turning slightly to stare out over the water. "The Principal and all. And ... everyone else. All I have are e-mail addresses and most of them graduated, I think, and I didn't know how to ..."

Rikku turned back to him, quickly shaking her head. "I don't ... you don't have to, either. I can't ask you to just ... I can talk to people. I didn't mean to ... dump all of this on you."

Emo Beach [midday]

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