Chapter Text
"Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I do it? And if you go and get him, I promise you I'll be dead by the time he gets here. You don't get to pawn me off on somebody else, not this time— I'm sick of being everyone's biggest problem."
You stood, frozen, in the doorway leading to your own modest sleeping quarters. You were at the Temple right now, taking what you'd expected to be a reprieve from your too-frequent Jedi missions and training endeavours. You were tired; you'd been tired for a while, and you had thought that spending a bit of time here (and a bit of time with Anakin, too) might alleviate some of your stress. Being with him typically had that much-desired effect on you; however, right now...
"Put that down, Anakin," you said assertively, trying your best not to sound altogether too brash. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"I'm trying to make a point," he answered, both sounding and looking as though he might be on the verge of tears.
What that point was, you couldn't have guessed. He was standing at the end of your bed right now, entirely unclothed and with the business end of his lightsaber's hilt pressed into the sinewy musculature of the left side of his chest. It was a chest over which you'd run your hands many times before; a chest you'd kissed and touched and been held tightly against, most often on days when Anakin had needed his arms to feel full— on days he'd been unable to ward off his perpetual, all-encompassing loneliness.
Now, he was threatening to lance it— stab it right through in the interest of communicating to you something for which he apparently didn't have the words.
"Whatever point it is you're trying to make," you told him, "you can make it without hurting yourself. Give me your lightsaber, and we can sit down and talk."
He scowled at that, and let his thumb hover over the button that would activate the device, if he were to press down on it. You were scared, but you were also frustrated: You'd known for a long time that Anakin had been struggling. You couldn't help but wonder why it so often fell to you to help him with his thoughts, when the elders of the Council would have been better-equipped to do so.
"There's nothing to talk about," he said. "What's the point of talking when talking isn't going to change anything? Do you have any idea how often I feel like this? Every time it goes away and I think everything might start to feel okay, it comes back again! Every single time!"
He growled that last part of what he said, almost seeming to gnash his teeth at you. His eyes told you he was sad, but everything else about his disposition betrayed pure, unfettered rage. What were you supposed to do for him? You were only a Padawan, just like he was. There was nothing you could do to help except tell him that everything was going to be alright... and things for Anakin had been the opposite of 'alright' for long enough that those sorts of assurances were beginning to lose their effect.
"Usually I'm not with you when you feel like this," you pointed out, keeping a sharp eye trained on the hilt of his blade. You considered trying to pull the weapon toward you with the Force; if you could take him by surprise, you might be able to get it away from him safely. He was incredibly powerful, though, and you knew it; you weren't confident enough in your own abilities to want to take that chance. "I'm here right now, though— so why not tell me what's going on?" You hesitated before adding, "...I don't want to watch you die, Anakin. You know I love you, don't you?"
His lip trembled, and his eyes softened, but he didn't relax his body or take his sabre away from his chest. "You're the only one who cares," he said, and at that point you ventured to take a couple of steps in his direction. "You're the only one, and it's not enough."
"I'm not the only one, Ani— Master Obi-wan cares, too; so do the rest of the Jedi. They just don't understand." Understanding was not a tenet of the Order; by design, its solution to problems like the one Anakin had was to ignore them. External threats were one thing; Jedi were very good at eliminating those... however, attacks originating from within one's own head were far outside of their scope.
"How is it going to get better, then?" he asked. Before you could even try to answer, he went on, "I feel like I'm rotting inside; like I'm about to crawl out of my skin— every time I do something, I get told I'm doing it wrong, and if I stop doing anything at all, they hate that, too. If I'm sad I'm wrong, if I'm mad I'm wrong, if I miss my mom I'm wrong! I'm even wrong for being cold!" He finally took his blade away from his chest; however, it seemed he'd only done it so that he could wave his arms around as he started to pace about the foot of your bed. "No matter what I do, it's either too much or not enough. Do you have any idea how often I feel like I can't get anything right? Even when I do exactly what they tell me to do, they find something wrong with it!"
You couldn't exactly argue with that. Most of the time, you and Anakin weren't anywhere near each other; as a result, you couldn't presume to confirm or deny the veracity of his accounts. You did, however, know how the elder Jedi operated, and it wouldn't have surprised you for even a minute if you were to witness them treating Anakin precisely the way he'd described. Their dogma was harsh, and even to you seemed disinclined toward yielding to much of anything.
Besides that, you'd seen Anakin like this before— maybe not to quite this extent, but really, his behaviour right now almost seemed reasonable when you thought about all of the times his feelings had been ignored. Anakin was smart, perceptive, and very sensitive; not just to the Force or his own emotions, but to the energy of others as well. Given the way he was, you thought, he had a rather heavy burden to carry... particularly considering the fact that his immense power made him a target of both his own Master's highest expectations, and those of the Council, too.
A Jedi's box was too small for Anakin; there was no way he could ever have fit all of himself into one of their tiny moulds. You wondered why no one but you had ever noticed it.
Since he seemed to be somewhat stuck on the nature of the Order, you tried, "Tell me what you miss about your mom. When was the last time you saw her?" which at the very least seemed to catch him off-guard.
"...What?" he asked, and although he didn't let go of his weapon, he also didn't put it back to his chest. He stopped pacing, and he looked at you. You hated the pain you saw in his eyes.
"Your mother," you reiterated. "Tell me something about her."
Frustration overtook his features again, but only briefly. "What for?"
"I'm curious," you said, which was truthful— for all the times you'd talked Anakin through his feelings, you'd never really talked about his mom. All Jedi Padawans left their families at a very early age; you knew Anakin had come into the Order later than most. You supposed that if he could remember his mother with more clarity than any of the rest of you, then it meant he missed her more than the rest of you missed your parents, too. You'd never thought about how hard that might have been for him.
Standing stalk-still, he let his arms fall to his sides. He still didn't drop his lightsaber, but he also no longer seemed to be on the verge of using it to impale himself. He breathed deeply, and looked you up-and-down as if deciding whether or not to trust you. Finally, "...She hated it when I'd podrace."
"Why did she hate it?"
"Because she was afraid I'd get hurt."
That made you smile; you couldn't help it. "She must have loved you a lot."
Now he looked uncomfortable, but uncomfortable was better than upset or furious. "...I guess so."
"I bet she still does, you know," you pointed out. Mothers never stopped loving their children, even children they weren't likely to see again.
His hand trembled, along with the rest of him. You still weren't quite sure why he was naked, but that had stopped mattering to you very soon after entering the room in the first place. "I still love her, too," he said.
"That's beautiful, Anakin." It was. You loved how strongly Anakin felt things; it was part of why you loved him.
His voice broke as he answered that with, "The Jedi don't think so."
You hesitated for a moment out of sheer habit (it was really more like obedience) before telling him, "The Jedi are wrong."
He started to breathe a bit harder at that; you could see his chest rise and fall as his respiration picked up its speed. You must have struck a chord with what you'd said, because you saw his grip on his lightsaber loosen, if only marginally. That was a good sign, you thought.
"You do understand that, don't you?" you asked, when he didn't say anything to what you'd observed. "They're here to teach us, but that doesn't mean they're infallible. Master Yoda; Master Obi-wan. Master Windu, too, and the whole rest of the Council— they aren't always right. No one is."
Anakin didn't look like he knew what to say to that. The tears that had been in his eyes since you'd first walked in on him finally began to spill over his bottom lids and trickle down his face; they came slowly, but they came nonetheless. His hands shook, and whether you should have or not, you used that opportunity: You lifted your arm, and willed the Force to draw his weapon to you. Part of you expected him to protest, but he didn't— all he did was look between you and his empty hand, before hurting his foot by kicking one of the legs of your bed. He didn't react to the pain except to wince, and curse under his breath.
You put the sabre down behind you, near the door. You had a feeling that he might be done with it, at least for today. Hesitantly, you took a few steps toward him. He stopped paying attention to his hand and fixed his gaze on you; as he did, he told you, "I was trying to sleep."
"What?" you asked him, as gently as you could. You didn't understand.
After standing for a few moments seeming as though he didn't know quite what to do with himself, he sat down on the bed with a distinct air of defeat. He glanced at you, and then pulled part of your blanket over his lap as he looked down at his hands. "I couldn't sleep in my own bed, so I thought I'd try yours." You supposed that was his roundabout way of telling you why, exactly, he happened not to be wearing any clothes.
"Oh," you said. You certainly didn't mind him trying to get some rest. "I guess it didn't work, did it?"
He shook his head. "Not really."
You sat down, too— next to him, but not too close. You eyed his lightsaber on the floor by the door, but thankfully, it didn't move. "It's going to be okay," you said, maybe uselessly. You didn't actually know whether things would be 'okay' for him or not.
"I'm sick of being told to 'breathe'," he sighed. "I'm sick of being told to 'focus'." He clenched and unclenched his fist as he went on, "I hate being told not to be scared when I'm scared, or mad when I'm mad."
"Me too," you told him. The Jedi way wasn't the only way; might not even have been the right way, especially for someone like Anakin. The older you got, the more acutely you felt it, and you imagined it was even worse for him.
"I used to think they were... I don't know. Otherworldly," he lamented.
"You mean the Jedi?" you asked, moving a bit closer to him— maybe without either of you noticing.
"Yeah. I thought nothing could hurt them. That they couldn't even die."
It made you smile to think of him as a little boy— children were naive by their very nature, but it was part of what made them sweet; charming. "Everyone dies," you said. "Even Jedi."
To your immense relief, he smiled too. "I know that now," he said, peering over at you.
"They're just people," you continued. "Like everyone else— they bleed, they die, and they can get things wrong." That last point was the most important one of all.
"I feel stuck," he admitted. "Like I can't do this; like I'm not enough."
"You're enough," you assured him, venturing to place your own hand atop his on the bed. Laughing softly, "I actually think the problem might be that you're too much— too much for them; too much for this." You motioned all around yourself; at the walls, at the ceiling. You made sure to catch his eye with yours before adding, "You don't have to stay here forever, you know. You'll grow up— we all will— and then we can do whatever we want." It wasn't as though you were physically chained to the Temple or to the Order, no matter how much the Council wanted you to feel that way. Anakin could do whatever he pleased with his life, and so could you.
"It doesn't feel that way," he whispered, looking back down at the blanket on his lap.
You were quiet for a few long moments after that, because he was right— it didn't; not all the time, anyway. "You still tired?" you asked, both because he looked it, and because you didn't want him to go about in a circle which might lead to him trying to retrieve his weapon before he was fit to possess it again.
He blinked a few residual tears out of his eyes, swallowed hard at an apparent lump in his throat, and nodded. "I am," he answered. "I've been tired for days."
"So have I," you told him. Then, after another extended pause, "...Do you want to try again?"
"Huh?"
"Sleeping," you clarified. "Do you want to try to sleep?"
He looked like he wasn't sure. "...Will you stay?" he asked, glancing at you again.
"Of course I will," you promised... and not just because it was your room. After that you laid back on the bed yourself; extended one of your arms, as if to invite him to join you.
He did, and as soon as he did, you embraced him; held him tightly to your chest, just as he'd held you so many times before. "I love you, Anakin," you reminded him, kissing the top of his head and giving him a squeeze.
"I love you, too," he murmured, eyes already starting to close. He didn't sound happy; didn't sound relaxed, exactly... but he did sound exhausted. Maybe a bit relieved, too, although you might have been imagining that.
At the end of the day, it didn't matter, as long as he got some rest. You knew he'd feel better (if only for a little while) after he slept, and you were determined to help him do just that... even if all you could do was hold him, and stroke his hair. You loved to hold Anakin, and you knew that whether he said so or not, he loved to be held.
Anakin and everything that made him who he was might have been too much for the Jedi Order to contain, but despite that fact, he fit perfectly in your arms.
You could only hope that he always would.