Office hours

[sith_happened]

Anakin was back to working on his Ethics class project: a dozen droid babies.

Who now cried on command.

Anakin was an evil, evil teacher.

He was a little late getting there (traffic from Connecticut had been a mess), but the door was open and he was available to be talked to.



Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch

Comments

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

River stopped in the doorway, looking at the project with curiosity. Then she grinned. "Want assistance?" she asked.

[sith_happened]

Anakin grinned back. "Sure," he said. "These are your final exams."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"Disassembling them is cheating?" River tilted her head. At least they didn't create emotional noise.

[sith_happened]

"Very much so," Anakin said with a nod. "So's tossing it into your closet for two weeks."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"The bathroom is bigger." River had been known to make her daughter from an alternate universe sleep on the common room couch after all, as the mental noise was too much to handle.

[sith_happened]

Anakin arched up an eyebrow, then tapped his forehead. "Did it get a little noisy?"

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

She nodded. "Those are quiet in comparison," she said, glancing at the droid babies.

[sith_happened]

Anakin smiled. "I'm not going to give you actual children," he said. "I used to avoid the nursery wing of the Temple when I was younger. They were just so loud."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

He got a wide smile in reply. It was good to feel understood. "They're not just running around physically."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

A little while after her conversation with River, Lieutenant Kerrigan finally convinced herself to go talk to Skywalker. So she took a walk.

Still, she couldn't help but hesitate in the doorway for another fraction of a minute.

[sith_happened]

Anakin looked up from where he was tinkering with a droid's insides. "I don't bite."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"I need to talk to you about River." Gone was the hesistancy, buried beneath a cool mask of soldier. "Something she asked me to do."

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded, waved her inside and closed the door behind her with a thought. "Go ahead."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"She says there's a word she wants me to know. Something that shuts her off." Kerrigan moved into the room, but stayed at a distance. A little bit wary about it, still. Okay, a lot. But hiding it. "And that you might know it."

[sith_happened]

Guilt flashed in Anakin's eyes. "I haven't had a chance to get to the library to ask Bridge," he said. "The last few weeks have been trying."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Kerrigan nodded, letting a little tension seep out. "That's one way of putting it," she said, expelling a sigh.

[sith_happened]

"Hellish?" he tried.

[solo_sword]

After class, Jaina headed down to the office, cap and mask in place, knocking on the doorframe.

[sith_happened]

Anakin looked up and his eyes widened just for a second. He immediately put down what he was working on to move closer.

"I suppose it's too much to hope that there's someone I can kill that would fix this," he said softly, reaching out to touch her cheek.

[solo_sword]

She frowned and waved a hand as if shooing off the words, not quite liking how this new look made people go all soft around her. "I did it to myself. I'm fine. Like brand new in a couple weeks," she told him.

[sith_happened]

"So what happened?" Anakin asked, recognizing the look on her face. It had been on his after far too many trips to the medclinic.

[solo_sword]

"We lost one of our ships, I was too close to it when it went up," Jaina answered. "Temporary partial blindness, it's already mostly better."

[sith_happened]

Anakin didn't look entirely convinced. "And when you're not relying on the Force to not walk into walls?" he asked with his customary tact.

[solo_sword]

"I used my hands for that to begin with," she said. "Honestly, I'm okay. Things are just blurry, that's all."

[sith_happened]

Anakin finally relaxed. "Our family has a habit of being 'fine' when limbs are cut off," he said. "It's hard to get an accurate reading."