Office hours [all day]

[sith_happened]

Anakin arrived a little late to work today: traffic coming through town had been a mess, and he'd almost had to start fights with three different little old ladies aggravating shoppers.

He put down his bag of decorations--lights and tinsel (stupid tinsel), bows and greenery--and began decorating his office.

And then taking pictures to send to Rory's phone. He had a promise to keep, after all.

The door was open. Holiday music was definitely not playing.

Comments

[sith_happened]

"It depends on how big the box of chocolate I'm hiding behind is," he said, grinning. "How was your week?"

[solo_sword]

"Very quiet," she said. "Working, mostly. Filled with cocoa and tinsel. Yours?"

[sith_happened]

"Tinsel, yes, cocoa no," Anakin said. "I got to spar Ben yesterday before he exploded from something that he won't talk to me about."

[solo_sword]

"I think he generally just has stuff going on," she said slowly.

[sith_happened]

"He's angry and looking for a target," Anakin said. "That's not good for anyone."

[solo_sword]

"Let him work through it," Jaina said. "Just don't mark him off as a threat automatically and let him deal."

[sith_happened]

Anakin gripped his desk hard. "You know why I don't like to do that."

[solo_sword]

"And that helped me so much," she said dryly. "Don't push, let him handle it. He's a smart kid, he'll do the right thing, whatever it is."

[sith_happened]

Anakin bit back a reply about Jacen. Jaina didn't need to hear it.

"It's very, very hard to sit back and wonder if your family is going to continue to make the same stupid mistakes you did," he said to the top of his desk.

[solo_sword]

"Your family's got one thing going for it, which is that we're not you," Jaina said bluntly. "You're a great big warning sign we grew up hearing about. If anyone went that way anyway, you getting overprotective isn't likely to change that."

[sith_happened]

"You all head that way anyway!" Anakin roared. "It's like I'm a great big neon sign calling you to greater stupidity!"

[solo_sword]

"Everything's not about you," Jaina snapped back. "Accept that already."

[sith_happened]

"In this particular aspect of your lives? I absolutely will not," Anakin retorted.

[solo_sword]

She sort of thought he tended that way about all aspects of her life, but that was another argument. "Well, you need to. No one needs that extra pressure on them when they're already under it."

[sith_happened]

Anakin ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "I won't have this be my legacy," he said. "I will not spend the rest of my life wondering when the baby who hasn't been born yet will decide to join the rest of you in experimenting with the incredibly stupid side of the Force. Deal with the kriffing pressure."

[solo_sword]

Jaina stared. "Are you serious? First, good things came of some of the things I did, and I learned from the good and the bad. I wouldn't take it back." She would, but not right now. "And second, what I needed was time to figure things out myself without everyone telling me what I was doing wrong. That didn't help, you made it worse for me."

[sith_happened]

Anakin stared at her stubbornly. "What you needed was someone watching out for you before you tipped over that edge to begin with. There are healthy ways to deal with grief and anger. Obi-Wan found them. If it's the last thing I do, this family will learn them, too."

[solo_sword]

"Oh, yeah, you're a shining example of what to do. Break some furniture instead of crushing someone's throat, you obviously have your rage under control enough to teach someone else."

[sith_happened]

"I had a lot practice crushing people's throats," Anakin said. "It's a habit I'm working to break. Furniture can be replaced."

How terribly Zen of you, Anakin. Really.

[solo_sword]

Jaina wasn't buying it. "That makes it better then, right? You don't have any better of a handle on it than any of us, but because you haven't killed anyone lately, you can judge."

[sith_happened]

"Absolutely," Anakin said firmly.

[solo_sword]

"Sithspit," she said. "And this is coming from Kyp Durron's temporary apprentice."

[sith_happened]

"I go to sleep every night remembering the exact number of lives I destroyed," Anakin hissed, "and it's in the trillions. That is what stops me from taking another life. I didn't pick up a lightsaber for months after coming back. I work every single day to make up, even a little bit, for what I did. And so yes, I get to worry about you and Ben, and judge when I think you are getting too close to a terrible line, because no one else here has been where I have. And I will absolutely stand in front of a lightsaber to prevent it from happening to either of you."

[solo_sword]

"But you don't give anyone the option to make their own mistakes. You decide where the line is, like it's that simple. No matter how bad you want it to be that simple, it's not," Jaina told him. "You decide what's too much and what's too far and don't take into consideration that you might not know all the facts, or be completely wrong."

[sith_happened]

Anakin's lips settled into a stubborn line. "So you're going to tell me that you didn't go too far?"