"I can't believe they let you teach."

Anakin never napped. During the worst parts of the Clone Wars, he'd used healing meditation techniques to go almost a week without sleep.

Which was why he was getting more than a little annoyed by his new habit of catnapping whenever he sat down. And as for the dreams that went along with them? Well, he couldn't imagine what his mind was thinking to give him images of saving Toby of all people, or throwing kriffing Force lightning with Peter Petrelli, or, most unlikely at all, having a civil conversation with Parker.

He was on the sofa watching Juliet gurgle to herself in her swing when he'd nodded off again, waking up an hour later in a cold sweat and looking around rather desperately for his wife.

In his room, Anakin was curled around Rory, one hand on her stomach and the other under the pillow where his lightsaber had stayed for so many decades that the habit was impossible to break.

In his head, though...in his head he was trapped inside the vision he'd had of Padmé's death so many decades ago...She was screaming for him, begging as her strength began to fail, whimpering "Anakin, I'm sorry, Anakin...I love you" as her eyes closed on that cold, alien table while he had been a million miles from her, strapped to his own alien table becoming something cruel and horrifying...

He felt the mask lowering down over his face again, the nightmare that haunted him more nights than he cared to count...and then the dream shifted again to something that felt more real...

And now it was Rory he couldn't reach, Rory he couldn't find, Rory he couldn't save. Force-lightning shot from his fingers as he stalked through the halls of the school, blasting those who stood in his way without a second glance, without a twinge of remorse, because they weren't her and she was everything that would ever matter to him....

In bed Anakin's eyes shot open as he took a deep, shuddering breath to stop himself from screaming. It took him a second to realize where he was, who he was next to.

"No," Anakin whispered, voice sounding shaky to his own ears. "Not again."

[OOC: Establishy unless he's woken his lovely wife...]

He laid down on the bed, closed his eyes, and imagined himself into the Preserve. He pictured himself surrounded by trees as the summer breeze ruffled his hair and tugged at his robe. He was a galaxy away from the remains of the Temple and its memories.

( And then there's a nightmare... )