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[sith_happened]

Anakin was staring intently into space, lost in the memories of the weekend.

Not that he'd tell you that.

Nope.

The door was cracked open.

Delicate - Damien Rice

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[solo_sword]

"Because he did nothing wrong," Jaina said evenly. "And he spent the weekend freaking out over something he didn't even do, and because I'm telling you not to."

[sith_happened]

"Serves him right," Anakin said uncharitably. "Can I scare him a little?"

[solo_sword]

"No," she said immediately. "Not even a little."

[sith_happened]

He ran his hands through his hair. "I missed you this weekend," he said softly.

[solo_sword]

"I'm sorry," she said, and that was another of her apologies she'd been meaning to make. "What happpened?"

[sith_happened]

"Padmé was here."

It was a testament to how much that had rattled him that Jaina would be able to feel how much that had rattled him.

[solo_sword]

She hadn't heard the radio yet, so she was nice and surprised to hear that. She hated this town sometimes. "You okay?" she asked, mainly as a courtesy because she knew he wasn't.

[sith_happened]

There was hardly a point in hiding it.

"No."

[solo_sword]

She walked over to him, not sure exactly how to handle this. Anyone else, maybe she would. "You know, I don't think it was actually her," she said. If Brooke didn't remember the things Jaina had done as her, then...

[sith_happened]

"Do you remember what you did as Brooke?" Anakin asked.

[solo_sword]

"Unfortunately," said Jaina, who'd spent a large portion of the last 24 hours taking hot showers because of it. "But she didn't realize I'd been her."

[sith_happened]

"So someone else here realizes how I felt about Padmé," Anakin said very softly. "That was mine."

[solo_sword]

Oh. "It doesn't feel better at all to share that with someone, rather than keeping it to yourself?" she wondered. Because she could talk.

[sith_happened]

Anakin wrapped his arms around himself. "Not when chances are good it's a student in my class."

[solo_sword]

"Well," she said slowly, trying to apply logic because she wouldn't want to be in his position, "what are you going to do about it?"

[sith_happened]

"Hope that she doesn't ask me too many questions," the reigning king of Don't Wanna Talk About It replied.

[solo_sword]

"You are allowed to deny them, you know," Jaina pointed out. "It's one thing for her to know one side of it. She doesn't have to know yours."

[sith_happened]

"And this Padmé was before I'd grown up," Anakin said, grasping at straws. "She was wondering why I wasn't 12."

[solo_sword]

"Does that make it better or worse?" she wondered, not wanting to press with too many questions about the real relationship.

[sith_happened]

"She didn't know we would get married," Anakin replied. "She was still asking about the Temple. Maybe she didn't know how I felt."

Anakin wasn't that subtle.

[solo_sword]

"If she's still thinking of you as a twelve-year-old, maybe not," she tried. What a strange sentence.

[sith_happened]

"That version of her was, but I couldn't exactly see her as a kid," Anakin admitted. "It was beyond complicated."

[solo_sword]

"I can imagine," Jaina said, still frowning. "She's gone now, though. It's the past again." Sometimes it struck her as really strange to be able to talk about her own grandmother this way, all detached.

[sith_happened]

"I prefer my past twenty years in the past," Anakin sighed.

[solo_sword]

"Then moving on's the best way to leave it there," Jaina said quietly. "It's bad now, but it'll get better."