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"Exiting Hyperspace-" You announced and could hear your master's grin widening next to you. "In three - two - one -"
The golden circles of Coruscant spread out before you. The sun vanished behind the planet's edge.
"Home sweet home." Anakin commented and held out his mechanical hand. You bumped your first against his. "Good job flying us back - even if we're late."
You wrinkled your nose and leaned forward, hand curling around the accelerator. "With all due respect, Master, I was not planning on crashing on our way back from our very successful mission."
"Now you sound like Obi-Wan." He groaned and transferred the landing calculations to your display.
You smiled without looking at him. "High praise from the chosen one himself!"
"Ah kriff off." He grumbled and you laughed.
There was a tug on your training bond. You rolled on your stomach and buried your face in the standard issue pillow. The tugging came again.
I'm asleep, you thought and nudged that thought along the bond.
But I'm not, came the answer, and it curled into your chest just like Anakin's voice did. He was pouting.
You rolled back on your back and stared at the ceiling above.
Aren't you too old for bedtime stories? You asked, eyes going towards the shared 'fresher on whichs other side your master was lying in bed - hopefully. Much more likely he was still sitting bend low over his desk, either tinkering away on his hand or on a droid, or Maker knew what else.
Who said I needed a bedtime story?
You frowned. What else would you ask me at this forsaken hour for?
A bit of your attention?
Well you have that!
The door to the 'fresher opened and you sat up.
Something came flying into the room - something small and metallic, with tiny accelerators glowing on its backside.
It did a lap through the room, circled you, and you held up a hand in wonder. The miniature spaceship hovered over your palm and began to lower. When it made contact with your skin, you flinched. But the metal wasn't hot and it didn't zap you either, just sat in your hand, humming softly before seemingly shutting down.
You looked up.
Anakin leaned in the door. He'd pushed his inner robe up to his elbows, and with the missing obi no longer holding it close at the front the fabric now revealed more of his skin than it covered. He'd tied his hair back in a horribly messy ponytail.
There was no denying where this mini ship had come from.
You knelt closer to the bed's edge, still balancing the craft in your palm.
"It's beautiful," You said. "How long did you spend on this?"
Anakin's smile brightened and he came over, sitting at the foot of your bed. He plucked the thing from your hand and turned it this- and that way.
"About a month or so. Any time we're back here, really." He smiled at you and you leaned forward to take the ship from him again.
"It's fully functional?"
"Yep! Also runs on solar power. I wasn't going to implement proper fuel, you know."
You nodded. Paused. Looked at your master from your eyes' corners. "Does it have weapons? Can we fly it around the temple and disrupt the council meetings?"
Anakin grinned. "Dangerous thoughts, padawan."
You innocently blinked up at him. "I learned from the best."
He laughed and reached up to ruffle your hair.
He plucked the tiny thing from your hand and threw the ship up. Its tiny thrusters ignited, allowing it to shoot up to the ceiling where it completed another circle. You watched it zip from the 'fresher to the door and back.
Anakin had flopped back against your bed and together you looked up at the small thing, not larger than a fist.
When your gaze lowered again, the bright smile was gone from Anakin's face. Something akin to melancholy had replaced it. You reached out, feeling along both the bond and the Force, but he was as tightly shielded as ever.
"Can't sleep, huh." You mumbled eventually.
He ran his flesh hand over his face and sighed.
"That easy to read me."
"Lucky guess." You spread out beside him. Above, the ship continued to fly.
He turned his head and you turned yours so you were looking at each other. His lips pursed and he clearly was debating wether or not to say something.
"You want me to sing you to sleep?" You offered. He looked away, like he was a crecheling caught doing something forbidden, and not a man older than you, your master, jedi knight , general and son of the Force. You rolled to your side, propped an arm up and leaned your head on it. "All you have to do is ask, Master."
His eyes found yours, resignation on his features. "Please." He whispered.
You knelt with your back against the headboard of your bed, his head on a pillow in your lap. His eyes were heavy lidded but still open, the fingers of his right hand toying with the padawan braid that fell way past your shoulder.
"What did I do to deserve a padawan like you?" He asked. You smiled. Brushed the stray hairs from his face.
"One of us has to be responsible and stick to bedtime." You mumbled.
One of his brows quirked upwards. "And I'm not?"
You wisely kept quiet. He closed his eyes, dropped his hand to his chest, and grumbled something under his breath you couldn't catch. But his lips betrayed him, showing his smile and the delight at your retorts. You, too, closed your eyes. Placed two fingertips per hand on his temples, needing a moment to find the right spot.
The soft delight inside you gave way easily to the living Force. You slipped into its embrace like coming home.
It took a little longer to sift through it and find the words.
But then you quietly began to sing.
The melody was never the same, and the words weren't either. Some were Basic, most were not, but you let them roll of your tongue as they appeared in your mind. The peace that came with them you didn't hold on to but gave over to your master, let it flow through your hands and into him.
Nothing was quite as good as this in getting him to sleep, nothing else that could calm the raging tempest that filled his head so often.
You opened your eyes. Half unseeing of the body before you, near blinded by the lights surrounding you. Coruscant was a glowing, pulsing thing, the Force shining in every living being here. Thickly corded energy lines ran far below, coalescing beneath where the temple was embedded into the planet.
You sang and sang and brushed out the waves inside your master's head, settled them, stirred and unravelled the tight knots that had built since the last evening you'd done this for him.
You tiptoed a careful dance through his Force Signature, through his consciousness. Thoughts and memories flickered around you from time to time but you never looked, never stayed.
Anakin dropped into slumber.
You leaned down low, not sure if following intuition or being guided by the Force itself.
Two words came past your lips as you stared at your sleeping Master's face, deeply relaxed now.
They didn't originate from you.
The song had lulled you in, too; but whatever guided your actions now was inconceivably large, incomprehensibly ancient, and conveyed nothing but benevolence. Something that impressed itself on you, funneled a tiny string of itself through you into Anakin. The ebb and flow you could see that pulsed through your hands was in synch with him.
Beloved.
The emotion welled inside you unbidden. It wasn't yours. Not entirely.
The sensation vanished. The room darkened. You sagged back against the headrest, hands falling from his temples. A great exhaustion spread through you. And yet something cared enough to surround you with warmth. You fell asleep.
A heavy arm over your back. Uncomfortably hard - metal. You knew its feel.
Didn't need to turn your head to know your master was still sharing your bed, likely hadn't even stirred since you'd finished your song. At some point you must have laid down properly for him to have been able to throw his arm over you - and roll up against you, his head just off your pillow.
You sighed and tugged your arm underneath yourself to not accidentally brush anything you didn't want to. The sky outside the window was not yet sunrise bright - you were allowed precious few more moments asleep.
You adjusted and nuzzled into your pillow. Anakin's arm tightened around your middle, and he pulled you back against him. Force knew why he was still clinging to everything within reach like a youngling in the creche. But you didn't fight it. Tried to ignore how he was breathing down your neck now, forehead pressed into the dip there.
He was unlike the other jedi knights in this, you thought quietly. Seeking companionship that exceeded simple coexistance, physical touches that were far more numerous than anything your fellow padawans ever talked about. But then again, you didn't think any of the padawans you had classes with and sparred against sang their masters to sleep by letting the Force whisper through them.
The Force around you now was settled and calm. A pond, with its surface not yet rippled, undisturbed. Allowing you to drift off into sleep again, held securely. The safest place in the universe.