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

Anakin thought he'd been prepared to watch the Games, to help his students through such...blatent savagry...but he was fearing that he was getting close to the end of his endurance. Mags, Cecelia at the very beginning (she'd had three children, just like him...), it was all impressed in Anakin's mind, along with the faces of the other tributes as they'd been projected into the sky.

In the fifteen minutes he'd stolen to sleep in his office chair, he'd been haunted by seeing his own dead projected in the same way: Obi-Wan, Padme, Ahsoka, a slew of generals and admirals he'd killed in a rage...the faces had seemed to go on forever and he'd woken in a cold sweat completely unrefreshed.

He took a moment to step out of the room, carefully navigating through sleeping students, and called his wife, his never-fail cure for feeling a little more balanced. Then he ran through a quick Jedi meditation, took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and went back into his office.

Day two was about to begin.

[OOC: For the Hunger Games crew. NFB due to watching violence, death, and extremely icky canon.]

Like Anakin had really needed another reason to hate August. He hadn't done much more than stare into space since the call from Jaina had ended yesterday--even making baby toys for little Ben had lost its appeal.

Padmé, Obi-Wan, Alderaan...now Anakin and Jacen? All in the same month? Life wasn't supposed to be fair, but would it be too much to ask that it occasionally break towards being unfair in his direction?

As for what Jaina had told him about her descent to the dark side, he still wasn't exactly sure why he was still in his apartment and not tearing across the causeway and to hell with what she wanted. He sighed and stared at his hands some more. It probably had a lot to do with him not being able to move--as if he stayed in one place, maybe she'd call back and tell him it was all a huge mistake.

Anakin didn't have enough optimism to really believe that. With another sigh, he pushed himself off of the sofa and went to find Rory. He'd give just about anything not to have to tell her that two of their grandsons were dead.

[mostly 'stablishy!]

As Anakin flew closer, he could feel no sign that Yoda was even in the Dagobah system. He pressed his lips together as he began to approach the planet Luke had told him about.

( It wasn't like Yoda didn't have his reasons for hiding in the Force. And it wasn't like Anakin hadn't been responsible for most of them. )

Anakin had gotten up, gone through his normal morning routine and was heading towards the shuttle to meet Rory before it hit him: she wasn’t coming.

The realization was almost enough to send him back to bed under the guise of recovering from his wounds for the rest of the day.

But the next thought he’d had, he was beginning to realize, was probably even dumber. A flying Papillion puppy zipping around the cockpit of the shuttle, as Vladdie was doing now, was a recipe for flying straight into an asteroid at the worst possible moment. Not that, Anakin reflected, there was ever a particularly great moment to fly into an asteroid.

Anakin reminded himself that he’d had stupider plans that had worked…it was just a matter of training.

“Come on, Vladdie,” he said for the seventh time, “it’s just like being in the car.”

Vladdie, flitting through the air hyperactively to sniff at Shiny, Very Shiny, OMG SHINY, and Another Vladdie, Maybe?, was paying no attention at all to what Mommy Rory’s Friend was saying.

Anakin sighed and walked over to pluck the dog out of the air. “She’s not here to talk to,” he said softly, “so you’re going to have to do, okay?”

He paused, listened to what he just said, and sighed again. “This is beyond pathetic,” he groaned, walking over to his chair and flopping into it, then scratching behind Vladdie’s ears. “She hasn’t been gone more than a day, Skywalker. Snap out of it.”

Vladdie whined and rested his head on Anakin’s arm for a split second before struggling to get away again. Anakin released his hold on the puppy and stared out the viewport for a long moment before letting him loose in the rec room while Anakin took off.

And if Anakin’s approach to the atmosphere happened to swing a bit over Stars Hollow, well, these things happen.

How Strong Do You Think I Am - Alexz Johnson

After coming back from settling some details with Zoe about Hamlet, Anakin should have been preparing for his flight out with Rory.

Instead he was sitting on the shuttle ramp and staring off into nothingness, lost in his own thoughts.

[SP for great justice, huzzah!]

Elsewhere - Sarah Mclachlan