Skywalker Apartment [afternoon]

[sith_happened]

He'd arrived home very late the night before, still half-expecting to find Rory dead. At the time, all he'd been up to doing was holding his daughter and his wife and trying not to fall asleep.

Since it had been a really, really long week, that plan didn't last, and Anakin had fallen into a deep, troubled sleep, full of horrible memories--parts of the Clone War mixing with life as Darth Vader merging with time in a Fandom full of death and pain.

He woke up late in the afternoon, screaming.

[OOC: For the wife, great SP justice and a time where we pretend that my computer didn't die during a BDE...]

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[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

And cue the sound of a baby crying in the other room, followed by a hurried hushing and soothing before a tired-looking Rory came hurrying in. "Anakin?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin had aleady clapped both hands over his mouth and was breathing heavily, looking frantic.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Anakin?" She knelt on the edge of his bed, gingerly reaching out to him. "I'm right here. Okay? Right here."

[sith_happened]

Anakin reached out to hold her tightly. "It was so, so bad," he whispered.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I know." She curled up against him. She actually didn't know, beyond what she'd gotten from radio podcasts and what her voicemails from Anakin and that nice Rachel girl had told her. (That nice Rachel girl was totally getting a muffin basket or something for doing that. She made a mental note.) "But it's okay now."

[sith_happened]

He tucked his head against her shoulder. "I had to kill Aeryn. Some version of her."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

She cuddled close to him, holding tighter. "Oh, Anakin."

[sith_happened]

He nuzzled her neck. "Because she'd killed you."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

Rory froze, pressing her face against his shoulder. "Oh."

[sith_happened]

He leaned in to kiss her. "So I need to know you're real, and that world was the nightmare."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I'm right here," she said softly, nudging her nose against his. "I'm not going anywhere."

[sith_happened]

He took a deep, shaky breath. "I didn't like who I was without you," he said.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"But that's not real," she reminded him quietly. "It's not."

[sith_happened]

"It was real for that version of me," he said, leaning in to kiss the scar on her neck. "It's what happened in a world where Logan staked Angelus."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

She shivered, and not for the usual pleasant reason. "But you aren't that version of you. It's okay."

[sith_happened]

His hands began roaming, sliding up her legs. "I killed a lot of people there," he said. "And that was me."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"But you had to," she said quietly. "I got a call from a girl who knows you, who said you were doing good things."

[sith_happened]

Anakin paused. "Who?" he asked softly.

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Rachel," she told him, looking for clues in his face. "She's getting a muffin basket or something."

[sith_happened]

Naked relief shone in his eyes. "She's alive here. Thank the Force." He snuggled closer. "She's an empath I've been training, and the amount of pain and death in the other world...it was too much for her. I had to kill her."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"...like, seven muffin baskets, then," was all Rory could really manage. "Oh, god."

[sith_happened]

He nodded and tried to move closer, physical impossibility of that be damned. "And Angela was a vampire," he said, not able to stop talking, "and Peter died and all I wanted to was come home."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I don't blame you," she mumbled, snagging her arms around him and holding on tightly. "Oh my god."

[sith_happened]

He pressed a series of kisses along her neck. "It was a world spun upside down," he said, "or seen through a broken mirror or something. Students were fighting for their lives."

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Which happens a lot anyway," she reminded him. "Just...not all the time."