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It burned at the edges of his mind. Something.
Something always just out of reach, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it. Something choked in thick smoke and unyielding heat. Sometimes it was a backfiring speeder that caused it, sometimes it was a pan left too long on the stove—the smell would hit him, and it would make him stop, caught in an almost-memory. Sometimes it was—
“Ani, you’re awake?” A coppery hand cradled his cheek, turned his face toward its owner. She must have read his expression, asked, “Where did you go?”
Ahsoka, his wife, blue eyes fixed on him with such concern. It was an expression she wore too often. “Nowhere. It’s nothing.” He twitched a weak smile, rolled onto his side to talk to her. “Just a dream.” Sometimes it was a dream that caused it.
She ran her fingers through his hair, stroked his cheek. “That’s not nothing,” she tutted sympathetically, “Come on. You know how this goes.”
He did. For the past five years, whenever he’d had any kind of unsettling dream, he would run it down for Ahsoka afterward; she insisted it would help. And it did, to a point—it helped him get back to sleep, anyway. Sometimes he wondered if that was what they’d always done, or if it had only been for the last five years. Since the day he had woken up with no memory other than ‘My name is Anakin.’
But the details were already slipping away. There’d been someone curled on the ground; he couldn’t tell if they were hurt. Flashing lights, almost too fast to follow. And, of course, the two things he could never seem to forget: the oppressive heat and— “Smoke. Like something burning.”
Ahsoka worried at her lower lip, like she always did. “The red world again?” He nodded. “What else?”
His eyes pressed closed as he reached for the evaporating dream; she began to stroke his hair again, and he let out a sigh. “I think you might have been there,” he said finally.
“Oh, yeah?” Ahsoka asked, “What was I up to?”
Anakin huffed a laugh, eyes opening to half-mast. “Looking pretty fierce actually,” he murmured, tracing the long line of her lek, “Reaching out for me.” It was the only sense he could make of what he remembered: Ahsoka standing below him on black sands, arm outstretched. “I think I might have been flying?”
“Flying sounds nice,” she told him, burrowing a little deeper into her pillow. There was the faintest hint of strain in her voice; he imagined these midnight chats took their toll on her too, even if she’d never say it. “Anything else?”
“It gets,” his brow furrowed in thought, “disjointed…”
“Dreams are tricky,” Ahsoka consoled him, wriggling a little closer, “Take your time, Ani, I’m here.”
It felt like there was a piece missing from the dream; one minute all he could see was Ahsoka, the next there was a man...at least he thought it was a man. Things had been going dark. “I might’ve been drowning, after that.”
“Drowning?”
“I think,” he tried to order his thoughts, “I couldn’t breathe.” He didn’t remember seeing water but there had been sand, so it was probably a beach. Drowning made the most sense.
The words, though. The words made no sense at all to him.
In the dream, Ahsoka’s voice had come from behind him, shouting, “This can’t be what you want!”
And from in front of him, that maybe-man, came a voice—he couldn’t explain why, but the sound of it brought comfort and pain in equal measure. “What I want doesn’t matter,” the words were like a dagger wrapped in velvet, “he’s too dangerous!”
In the here and now Ahsoka shook his shoulder, clapped her hands to his face to bring him back to her. “Hey, hey—it’s okay!” she leaned forward, pressed her forehead to his, “That’s enough now.”
His mind quieted; slowly he became aware of how hard he was breathing, of the wetness on his cheeks. “Sorry, I—” he sniffled, and she kissed him softly. “I’m sorry you have to take care of me like this.”
Another kiss before she leaned back. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” Her thumbs dragged through his tear-tracks, wiping them away. “We take care of each other.”
He gave a watery laugh, half-snort, “Feels like more taking than giving, on my end.” And at times like this he couldn’t help thinking, ‘Maybe too much.’
Ahsoka pushed at his shoulder until it pressed against the mattress and followed after him. “Ani,” leaning on his chest to catch his gaze and hold it, “I’ve told you before, haven’t I? Nothing is too much, as long as we stay together.”
She had; this was far from the first time one of these conversations had gone in this direction. Anakin swallowed, eyes dropping as he nodded; she feathered a kiss to his forehead, his lips, and he couldn’t help the small smile that it drew. Ahsoka could always seem to do that for him, lift the nagging darkness and bring calm back to his heart with just a few touches, the right words. “How did I get so lucky,” he murmured, hands settling at her waist, “ending up with you?”
“The how isn’t important,” her smile was bright, reassuring, “just that you did, and that we’re here, now. So stop worrying, you’re stuck with—” Ahsoka faltered, almost like the words had come without her meaning for them to. Her voice was softer as she closed the gap between them, “You’re stuck with me, Ani.”
Still, as he lost himself in the gentle embrace of her body, that feeling flickered again at the edge of his mind. An itch that he couldn’t explain, or get rid of; a memory that he couldn’t catch.
He had a feeling it was better that way.